Philosophy
If you were Sarah Palin, and you were confronted with the fact that the one-sided, delusional, bigoted and inflammatory rhetoric of your speeches (as well as your overt political tactics) may have influenced a deranged lunatic to go on a shooting spree (that left many dead and wounded as he tried to off Arizona's first Jewish congresswoman), and you wanted to wash your hands from the affair instead of taking some responsibility for your role (after all, didn't she once urge liberals to 'man up'?), what would you do?
I'm pretty sure I know what you wouldn't do: you wouldn't use anti-semitic expressions to describe how the media is portraying your role in this fiasco that resulted in the near-death of... drum-roll please... a Jew. Oy vey...
Then again, you are not Sarah Palin, so you wouldn't make that kind of dumbass mistake. Sadly, Sarah Palin is Sarah Palin (oh, curse of curses), and when you're that stupid, you're probably too stupid to hire ghost writers who are smart enough to write your stupid speeches for you... just look at your twitter account for lots of examples, Ms. Refudiate Blood Libel...
But here is the weird thing: ignoring all the false claims, bad logic, distorted history and politicized rhetoric in her address, she does manage to make a number of sensible points...
I know! I fell off my chair too!
But here's the thing: it's not enough to say reasonable things only when you're pressed against the wall and you have to face the consequences of your own actions. It's true we shouldn't vilify our opponents simply because we disagree with them, but that also means that you don't get to do it either! If you want everyone to abide by the rules of reasonable discourse, you gotta play by the same rules as well. You can't expect everyone to play by the rules while you get to do whatever the hell you want.
So, when some liberal wants to guarantee access to medical healthcare for all Americans, don't go spouting incendiary claims about 'death panels.'
When your opponent has briefly found himself in the same committee as someone with a shady past, you don't get to call him a terrorist.
When someone wants to give the poor some relief by taxing the rich a little more, you don't get to call that person a socialist, as if socialism were even a bad thing...
When someone argues that maybe semi-automatic weapons are not exactly what the Founding Fathers had in mind when they wrote the Second Amendment, you don't get to call them unpatriotic traitors who hate America and who want to take our guns.
When someone in the media asks you a question you can't answer because you haven't done your homework, you don't get to dismiss them by calling them the lame stream media conspiracy, especially when you get your paychecks from the mainstream media!
And when you want to eliminate your political competition, either don't target them with sniper rifle crosshairs and incite lunatics to violence, or if you do, don't be bitching when someone does your bidding and the country expects you to take some fucking responsibility!
- Palin, Sex, And Women
A couple of thoughts on Sarah Palin now that several weeks have past. The first comes from a piece by Tom Perrotta in Slate called "The Sexy Puritan" in which he discusses an archetype of political talking head, the sexy puritan of which Palin is only...
- The Mother Of All Gimmicks
Guest-post today from YKW: Not being a reporter, I have no personal knowledge of any of the following, but my own cynical view of the McCain Bailout stunt is a bit more conspiratorial than I've seen reported so far. Here are the facts: 1. McCain's...
- Sarah Palin: Being President Would Diminish My Power
I don't know too much about what Sarah Palin was like before she became known outside of Alaska, but I do know that she's become one of the biggest attention whores of our time, all while curiously decrying how the 'lame-stream media'...
- Naked Self Advertising: The Onion And Philosophy
Ok, so today's entry is a bit different from usual: it's all about me :) A while ago I was commissioned to write a chapter for a book on The Onion and Philosophy (basically, what you can learn about philosophy by laughing your ass off). Anyway,...
- "the Undefeated"...bo Flop
Trying to compete with the latest Harry Potter film? It probably just needed more sex and violence or maybe a wizard or two. "Sarah Palin documentary The Undefeated opens to poor reviews" Critics unimpressed, but distributor undeterred as film rolls...
Philosophy
Sarah Palin's Blood Libel
If you were Sarah Palin, and you were confronted with the fact that the one-sided, delusional, bigoted and inflammatory rhetoric of your speeches (as well as your overt political tactics) may have influenced a deranged lunatic to go on a shooting spree (that left many dead and wounded as he tried to off Arizona's first Jewish congresswoman), and you wanted to wash your hands from the affair instead of taking some responsibility for your role (after all, didn't she once urge liberals to 'man up'?), what would you do?I'm pretty sure I know what you wouldn't do: you wouldn't use anti-semitic expressions to describe how the media is portraying your role in this fiasco that resulted in the near-death of... drum-roll please... a Jew. Oy vey...
Then again, you are not Sarah Palin, so you wouldn't make that kind of dumbass mistake. Sadly, Sarah Palin is Sarah Palin (oh, curse of curses), and when you're that stupid, you're probably too stupid to hire ghost writers who are smart enough to write your stupid speeches for you... just look at your twitter account for lots of examples, Ms. Refudiate Blood Libel...
But here is the weird thing: ignoring all the false claims, bad logic, distorted history and politicized rhetoric in her address, she does manage to make a number of sensible points...
I know! I fell off my chair too!
But here's the thing: it's not enough to say reasonable things only when you're pressed against the wall and you have to face the consequences of your own actions. It's true we shouldn't vilify our opponents simply because we disagree with them, but that also means that you don't get to do it either! If you want everyone to abide by the rules of reasonable discourse, you gotta play by the same rules as well. You can't expect everyone to play by the rules while you get to do whatever the hell you want.So, when some liberal wants to guarantee access to medical healthcare for all Americans, don't go spouting incendiary claims about 'death panels.'
When your opponent has briefly found himself in the same committee as someone with a shady past, you don't get to call him a terrorist.
When someone wants to give the poor some relief by taxing the rich a little more, you don't get to call that person a socialist, as if socialism were even a bad thing...When someone argues that maybe semi-automatic weapons are not exactly what the Founding Fathers had in mind when they wrote the Second Amendment, you don't get to call them unpatriotic traitors who hate America and who want to take our guns.
When someone in the media asks you a question you can't answer because you haven't done your homework, you don't get to dismiss them by calling them the lame stream media conspiracy, especially when you get your paychecks from the mainstream media!
And when you want to eliminate your political competition, either don't target them with sniper rifle crosshairs and incite lunatics to violence, or if you do, don't be bitching when someone does your bidding and the country expects you to take some fucking responsibility!
.
- Palin, Sex, And Women
A couple of thoughts on Sarah Palin now that several weeks have past. The first comes from a piece by Tom Perrotta in Slate called "The Sexy Puritan" in which he discusses an archetype of political talking head, the sexy puritan of which Palin is only...
- The Mother Of All Gimmicks
Guest-post today from YKW: Not being a reporter, I have no personal knowledge of any of the following, but my own cynical view of the McCain Bailout stunt is a bit more conspiratorial than I've seen reported so far. Here are the facts: 1. McCain's...
- Sarah Palin: Being President Would Diminish My Power
I don't know too much about what Sarah Palin was like before she became known outside of Alaska, but I do know that she's become one of the biggest attention whores of our time, all while curiously decrying how the 'lame-stream media'...
- Naked Self Advertising: The Onion And Philosophy
Ok, so today's entry is a bit different from usual: it's all about me :) A while ago I was commissioned to write a chapter for a book on The Onion and Philosophy (basically, what you can learn about philosophy by laughing your ass off). Anyway,...
- "the Undefeated"...bo Flop
Trying to compete with the latest Harry Potter film? It probably just needed more sex and violence or maybe a wizard or two. "Sarah Palin documentary The Undefeated opens to poor reviews" Critics unimpressed, but distributor undeterred as film rolls...