Remember: It's The Left That's Angry...

by hilzoy

If we keep on repeating the phrase "the angry left, the angry left", maybe we won't notice things like this:

"On his radio show, Savage told listeners that "intelligent people, wealthy people ... are very depressed by the weakness that America is showing to these psychotics in the Muslim world. They say, 'Oh, there's a billion of them.' " Savage continued: "I said, 'So, kill 100 million of them, then there'd be 900 million of them.' I mean ... would you rather us die than them?" Savage added: "Would you rather we disappear or we die? Or would you rather they disappear and they die? Because you're going to have to make that choice sooner rather than later.""

The point of this is not to pull one nutcase out of some dark corner and proclaim: "Lo! It's conservatism!" Michael Savage is one of the most popular talk radio hosts in the US. His program is syndicated on 350 radio stations, reaching over eight million listeners. He's not, in other words, the right's answer to Ward Churchill: someone no one had ever heard of until liberals started inveighing against him. If 'mainstream conservatism' means 'popular with enough conservatives that you can't call him a member of a 'fringe' with a straight face', then he, Ann Coulter, and Rush Limbaugh are mainstream conservatives.

Just remember, though: it's liberals who have problems with anger these days.

Comments

[Sebastian Holsclaw]

" I really don't think there were broad calls for actual laws banning depictions of (insert diety here), were there?"

In fact there were calls for increasing the breadth of anti-blasphemy laws in Europe.

[Sebastian Holsclaw]

"You know, links to specific comments or points are possible and it would be nice to address the actual people who write things rather than try and tar everyone with everyone else's opinions."

Who is trying to tar everyone with everyone else's opinions here? Have I accused liberals in general of anything in these comments? I'm not the one constantly finding Nazis under every conservative label.

[Jackmormon]

You know, Sebastian, pretty much the sole survivor of the original Yale deconstructivist group is Harold Bloom. Go ahead and insult him: he's making millions, and his books have sucked for the last ten years.

[spartikus]

A strong multicultural view would be that you can't judge the post-Dutch imperial culture which thought it was ok.

Not any "strong multicultural view" I'm aware of. Quite the opposite in fact.

In fact there were calls for increasing the breadth of anti-blasphemy laws in Europe.

Hmm...true. But was that sourced in "multiculturalism" or something else? ie. It's labelled "anti-blasphemy" for a reason.

[Sebastian Holsclaw]

LiberalJaponicus, I honestly cannot believe that I'm being asked to provide cites for the "who's to judge" garbage. Have you truly not come in to contact with the argument? Do you live in some sheltered world where that argument never or almost never comes up?

And what precisely do you think the Neiwart quote you bring is supposed to prove that requires this: "But I guess since you know what Neiwert thinks, him sticking this comment in the second paragraph of the cited piece doesn't really matter, does it." The part you cite supports my argument that he isn't doing a particularly good job of distinguishing between the attacks on Flavor 1 and Flavor 2 multiculturalism. And which conservatives do you think he is EXCLUDING from his description? It isn't very clear at all is it?

Spartikus, "And don't you think you're doing precisely what you're condemning Neiwert for? ie. the lack of citations from mainstream liberals, and so on."

No. I'm not accusing 'obstensibly' mainstream liberals of secretly holding repellant views.

[cleek]

Bin Laden’s proclamation of jihad was no novelty in and of itself; declaring a holy war against the infidel has been a standard practice of countless imperial rulers and aspirants since the rise of Islam.

you don't have to look hard to find plenty of examples of holy wars started by western countries. declaring a "holy war" is a basic human activity.

[spartikus]

While perhaps not based on "white" nationalism (even though the culture he advocates is the culture of white Americans), when, say, a Bob Ehrlich says he "rejects the idea of multiculturalism", is that not a call for one culture to dominate, and is that not an implicit judgement on the worth of other cultures?

[Anarch]

Not all ideological stances (even if false) are equally destructive. Strong multiculturalism and post-modern 'analysis' run amok attack the entire moral framework of society. Having an ideological stance on the minimum wage in an econ class isn't the same.

You think that an ideological stance on the minimum wage isn't potentially an attack on the moral framework of society? That... surprises me, quite frankly. Though it does explain a lot about society at large, I suppose.

Anyway, let me point out other concomitant attacks on society in the vein of which I spoke: Enron. WorldCom. Since you brought them up elsewhere, S&L and the Keating Five. For that matter, Halliburton's no-bid contracts, and that egregious fiasco with the hospital contractor whose name I'm forgetting. And myriad others too numerous to mention. Obviously corruption's been around for a long time, but there's a specifically corrosive variant of executive/corporate malfeasance that erupted into the mainstream in the 1980s that has both contaminated universities (specifically business schools, at least IME) and has done orders of magnitude more damage to society -- and I mean that quite literally, under any number of metrics -- than "strong multiculturalism" and "post-modernism" (except insofar as the latter is being employed by the Bush Administration and its reality-challenged defenders).

And no offense, but while I'll certainly grant you that your experience with this brand of multiculturalism was horrific, I've had an inordinate amount of university experience myself, I've talked with people of similar (or greater) levels of experience, and no one -- no-one -- has ever experienced anything like that. [Which isn't to say that no-one's tried to make me uncomfortable in a classroom setting for being a straight white male, and those who set out to do so deserve to be castigated, but nothing like the horrors you've described.] This suggests to me rather strongly that your experiences are precisely the kind of local ones that you said weren't news (at least at the national level) and therefore don't really merit attention in this kind of debate.

IOW, I'd be totally fine with you campaigning to oust that professor, or remove that course, from the university. I don't believe for a moment that that particular kind of lunacy is a) commonplace, b) endemic or c) dangerous across a non-negligible sampling of universities, and certainly not to the level of "run[ning] amok [and] attack[ing] the entire moral framework of society".

[Sebastian Holsclaw]

"And no offense, but while I'll certainly grant you that your experience with this brand of multiculturalism was horrific, I've had an inordinate amount of university experience myself, I've talked with people of similar (or greater) levels of experience, and no one -- no-one -- has ever experienced anything like that."

But you are rather liberal. Are you asking conservatives? Because among conservatives that I know the experience is at somewhere less than ubiquitous but way more than the unheard of you suggest. Also what disciplines are you talking about. Math? Economics? Try talking people in one of the Literature departments or in Anthropology. Try various social sciences disciplines.

[CharleyCarp]

Sebastian, you need to make allowances for some of us old people. A lot of the kind of stuff you've experienced, and can point to, became more prevalent in the last 2 decades.

[cirdan]

[Wrong. A strong multicultural view would be that you can't judge the post-Dutch imperial culture which thought it was ok.]

But Boers were attempting to impose their culture on everyone else. Can't the strong multiculturalist maintain that Boers are welcome to all the apartheid they want, and that they ought not to impose apartheid on anyone else (who's unwilling to join in)?

[Sebastian Holsclaw]

"Can't the strong multiculturalist maintain that Boers are welcome to all the apartheid they want, and that they ought not to impose apartheid on anyone else (who's unwilling to join in)?"

On what basis would they say that Boers ought not impose apartheid? "Ought not" in this case implies a moral value of left-aloneness which transcends cultures.

[Katherine]

I wonder if that stuff Sebastian talks about has also, thankfully, become a bit less prevalent recently. Because I DON'T hear a lot of "who are we to judge". And I am sort of immersed in hotbeds of liberalism and all the places where supposedly you hear those things.

(Well, not California, I haven't been there since I was about 8. I'd be willing to entertain the idea that liberals from New York, New Haven, Cambridge and Chicago are simply smarter than our Californian brethren, but that's because I'm a complete northeast-plus-Chicago chauvinist).

Now, I am also increasingly immersed in fields like human rights and asylum law, which are all about the univeralistic moral judgments. So I may not be a fair person to ask; someone in anthropology or lit might have a very different experience.

Speaking of asylum law, this ought to be blatantly obvious but what the hell: John, a lot of the Muslim immigrants in the United States fled here to escape honor killings, murders of gays and heretics, being forced to wear a burqa, FGM, forced marriage and spousal abuse, and the rest of that litany of horrors you attribute to all Muslims above. So for you to use those things to justify whatever it is you are proposing that we do to Muslim immigrants, makes me kind of ill. And, of course, our laws forbid those things; they are grounds for long jail sentences and for deportation, and I am aware of almost zero reports of those crimes being committed in the U.S.

[Sebastian Holsclaw]

I would hope that people in human rights law wouldn't say "Who's to judge?" That would sort of defeat the purpose.

And that reinforces my point. Fighting against that foolish kind of multiculturalism is not a fight with everyone on the liberal side of the spectrum. And disliking it doesn't make me a NAZI.

[hilzoy]

Sebastian: "But you are rather liberal. Are you asking conservatives? Because among conservatives that I know the experience is at somewhere less than ubiquitous but way more than the unheard of you suggest."

Speaking from what I'm sure is the wildly unrepresentative sample of people I've talked to, including students (but note here that I went through a phase of being the campus conservatives' favorite liberal for a few years, when one of them became my advisee): I'm sure this is right, but while I'm also sure, in whatever way one can be sure in the absence of empirical evidence, that a lot of the fault lies with the professors, I also know that back in the days when the PC stuff was at its worst, there was also, at least in the circles I ran in, a perfectly understandable, yet nonetheless unproductive, reaction among the students: sticking up for their right to say wildly politically incorrect things by saying things that were wildly politically incorrect as a sort of challenge. And while some things are wildly politically incorrect for no good reason, some -- like my all time favorite, "I support our policy towards American Indians in the late 19th century!", are politically incorrect for very good reasons.

As I said, I found the business of having students who didn't know me come up to me, somewhat belligerently, and ask why suppressing unruly colonized peoples was supposed to be a bad thing, or whether there wasn't something to be said for slavery, perfectly understandable. Adolescence is about saying silly things, partly (at any rate, that's the only explanation I can give for mine), and I have never noticed that saying, essentially, "shut up", in horrified tones, is a particularly constructive way of dealing with it. (Especially not when there are the wicked pleasures of the Socratic approach on offer.) But I also suspect that it gave rise to its own equally counterproductive reaction on the part of some professors.

They're older, though, and should know better.

[Jackmormon]

Marshall's "Dimensions of Culture" class seems to have been pretty poorly designed; more than a few UCSD undergrads, of various ethnicities, complained about incidents like the one SH describes.

It seems to me that a lot of the complaints people have about freshman and intro-level classes demonstrate inexperience on the part of the teachers. Which makes sense when you remember how many of these required core curriculum classes are taught by grad students.

[liberaljaponicus]

LiberalJaponicus, I honestly cannot believe that I'm being asked to provide cites for the "who's to judge" garbage. Have you truly not come in to contact with the argument? Do you live in some sheltered world where that argument never or almost never comes up?

No, I'm asking you to stop saying 'here's what happens on this board' and then not actually address what people are saying here. Hilzoy and Jackmormon suggests that there's more at work here than simply the idea of multiculturalism, and until you can separate the issues from the 'humiliation' you received, I don't think we can meaningfully discuss it.

The type of strong multiculturalism that you seem intent on tarring everyone on this board with is, I would suggest, itself a reaction to multiculturalism rather than a representative. This is because multiculturalism is not an unalloyed good. Multiculturalism is a form of assimilation, and for a family or group that is powerless, the idea that one's children get to pick and choose what aspects of their own culture are worthwhile and which are to be discarded is frightening. It is not so much an issue for majority culture parents because some people would pick it up and it wouldn't really be lost. But for a group that speaks an endangered language, some things, once discarded are lost forever.

Of course, you may point out that your humilator was white, but honestly, there are a constellation of reasons why he may have picked on you that have nothing to do with debating the idea. Until you accept that possibility, everything will seem as if 'liberal multiculturalism' is this malign influence on society that has to be stopped. You are right to dislike it, but you are wrong to ascribe it to other people based on a single college course and wrong to suggest that it is somehow more representative of multiculturalism than the first flavor.

[CaseyL]

It's 30 years since I took PoliSci and history courses in college, so I can't speak from personal experience about whether professors now are more or less likely to harrass students who challenge their orthodoxy.

From my own experience, my take is that some professors have personality traits that make them ill-suited to teaching, particularly at university level. They don't like being questioned by "mere" undergrads; they certainly don't like their basic assumptions questioned by people they've already decided are their intellectual inferiors. I have no statistics to back me up on this, but my anecdotal evidence indicates those tend to be professors who think their purpose is to do research and write papers; teaching is a regrettable, necessary evil they have to endure in order to get what they really want.

That attitude comes irrespective of ideology or ideological affinity. I had lefty profs and righty profs. The ones I got along with best were the ones who enjoyed teaching, enjoyed the give and take of (informed) opinion, and knew how to keep even the most heated discussions from getting personally nasty. The ones I got along with least were the ones who didn't like students, didn't like teaching and had no aptitude for it, and let heated discussions devolve into personal attacks.

[gwangung]

Um. Yes.

This takes me back many, many years when I had the experience of white progressives trying to explain what we Third World types meant and were thinking.

Charming when we were abset, quite irritating when we were right there in front of them.

[Sebastian Holsclaw]

"The type of strong multiculturalism that you seem intent on tarring everyone on this board with is, I would suggest, itself a reaction to multiculturalism rather than a representative."

I'm not intent on tarring anyone here with strong multiculturalism. I think very few people are real moral relativists. I do point out that sometimes people use or allude to strong multiculturalist arguments even here on this board. That isn't tarring, that is pointing out that the ideas are common enough that they float in to otherwise good disagreements from time to time. Nearly everyone makes a bad argument from time to time so that isn't shocking. But it does tend to show that the arguments are a lot more around than people like you or Anarch seem to want to admit. You want to make it a single isolated instance that only happened to me in just one class a decade ago. That just isn't the case. People I have never met, who never went to school at UCSD have similar complaints. Moral relativist arguments get thrown around by people who on serious evaluation aren't relativist because "Who's to judge" is a popular way to shut up someone who has a different (and often more conservative) idea of morality than you. These things actually happen on a semi-regular basis.

"You are right to dislike it, but you are wrong to ascribe it to other people based on a single college course and wrong to suggest that it is."

It wasn't just a single college course. I am talking about the most gross example I have personally experienced but certainly not the only one. Of all the literature classes I took (that being my major) at least a quarter of them tended to that type of garbage--often in a confusingly self-righteous way. The "Critical Theory" movement was (and is) full of that type of thing.

"and until you can separate the issues from the 'humiliation' you received, I don't think we can meaningfully discuss it."

I think you are in such deep denial about the prevalance of such strong multiculturalist arguments that you are unconciously forced to blame the victim. "No I'm not" you say? There you go again, sadly still in denial.

I probably don't really believe that....

But wow it is kinda of an obnoxious showstopper to play that game isn't it?

[Jackmormon]

You were a lit major at UCSD and entered college in 1993? Wow, we must have ended up in the same classes at some point.

Look, when I entered UCSD, I was culturally Mormon: conservative and skeptical, but interested in education.

I distinctly remember challenging an American-lit professor there with "If this writer weren't a Mexican Catholic female, would we even been talking about her?" The professor hemmed and hawed, and I went home feeling important.

Now, looking back on it, I realize that the the American-lit professor was just presenting a single example of non-canonical writing within a syllabus of mostly accepted historical work. I was the smart skeptical kid in the class behaving brattily, and for all I know, the professor may have revised her syllabus the next year.

As for literary theory (I've never known anyone to insist on the capitalization), it's been mightily restricted in the past few years. Literary scholars issue titles like "What's Left After Theory" or "Consequences of Theory"--and those are the few who are bothering to address the theory wars directly.

UCSD's literature department is unusual in that a) it was originally headed by Marcuse and b) "literature" is a single department. Its practices are not representative of the discipline or of leftists.

[liberaljaponicus]

I think you are in such deep denial about the prevalance of such strong multiculturalist arguments that you are unconciously forced to blame the victim. "No I'm not" you say? There you go again, sadly still in denial.

I probably don't really believe that....

But wow it is kinda of an obnoxious showstopper to play that game isn't it?

Yes, it is, but just as obnoxious and a lot more covert is invoking personal experiences in order to get everyone to apologize for the way you were treated so as to give you some moral standing. Like the person who gets knocked down accidentally and staggers around, but when asked if they were hurt, they say 'no, no, I'm fine'. You are on record as feeling that this board is basically overrun with the left side of the spectrum, so this may be a compensating mechanism, but I probably don't believe that.

Ironically, if you would have said 'the problem I see is that there are two flavors and I think the second one is extremely problematic', you probably would have gotten a lot of people to agree with you and perhaps solidify the notion that extreme relativism is a bad thing, thus helping people like Anarch and I have the scales fall from our eyes. However, you want to claim that you are the one victimized by it and that we, by virtue of our political persuasion, are untouched. This allows you to question our observatory powers and our viewpoints. Nice work if one can get it.

If you would like to separate your personal experiences from the questions being discussed, I think there would be something to discuss. But by invoking your personal experiences, no one can say 'no, that's not true'. It's a nice little rhetorical gambit, but it is less than helpful in illuminating any aspect of the actual debate. For the record, I've had bad experiences too, from both sides, but I tend to ascribe them to the weaknesses of the individual rather than the argument, because no one can be a perfect representative of a particular view. Several people have pointed to other factors that may have contributed to your experience (teacher a jerk, poorly designed syllabus, the zeitgeist of the campus and the time), yet you refuse to acknowledge any of them. So if invoking denial is an obnoxious showstopper, it's only because there is no place else to take the discussion.

I'm heading out for the weekend to indoctrinate my students at a freshman camp, so by your metric, I will be convincing them that there are no rules of grammar and that anything they say is fine because they are not native speakers. I leave the field to you.

[spartikus]

Okay, confused again. How is any of this multiculturalism?

Man alive (an expression of my French teacher...who was Italian!!!) it really seems multiculturalism is being used, and I'm looking at you Sebastian, as a euphemism for something else entirely.

I'm tempted to say white guilt. I'm not sure though.

[KCinDC]

SH and LJ, did you just recently adopt the habit of calling ObWi a board, rather than a site or a blog? It's freaking me out.

[Anarch]

But you are rather liberal. Are you asking conservatives? Because among conservatives that I know the experience is at somewhere less than ubiquitous but way more than the unheard of you suggest. Also what disciplines are you talking about. Math? Economics? Try talking people in one of the Literature departments or in Anthropology. Try various social sciences disciplines.

In brief: yes, I'm liberal. Yes, I've asked conservatives. I'm talking about the usual disciplines: history, anthro, sociology, economics, and a smattering of English/English lit types, though most of the latter weren't conservative so it probably doesn't count. And none of them have recounted anything like what you've said.

Insert the usual disclaimers here, the ones I put in every time we rehash this, since I'm too tired to do so now.

But it does tend to show that the arguments are a lot more around than people like you or Anarch seem to want to admit.

I can't "admit" to something I don't believe in and that I haven't seen any evidence for, at least on the scale of which you're speaking. I suspect that during the height of the PC craze it might well have been rampant... but when we were in college (I think I'm a year younger than you? frosh in '94) I never saw it -- where I definitely did see, and experienced first-hand, various conservative tropes that I'd argue are far more destructive than any gooshy multiculturalism -- and furthermore I've asked most of my conservative friends whether they had experienced such things and their answers all came back negative.

Mind you, at this point I'm no longer sure what it is I'm supposed to not be admitting, so it's entirely possible that you're talking about something I'd regard as completely different and there's no real disagreement between us... but it's late, and I have a racquetball tournament tomorrow and a concert the day after, so hopefully the topic will have cleared by the time I can make it back here. Sayang.

[Sebastian Holsclaw]

"Ironically, if you would have said 'the problem I see is that there are two flavors and I think the second one is extremely problematic', you probably would have gotten a lot of people to agree with you and perhaps solidify the notion that extreme relativism is a bad thing"

Isn't that what I said? Or do you think I was arguing that flavor 1 was a bad thing?

Did you take "The problem with analyzing it as Neiwert does (for instance) is that those who oppose flavor 1 are probably racist but those who oppose flavor 2 aren't." as me advocating opposition to flavor 1? I'm sorry if I wasn't clear. For the record, when I say that those who oppose flavor 1 are probably racist I'm not paying them a compliment. I thought that would be obvious to people who don't think that conservatives are automatically closet racists. I'll try to be clearer for you in the future.

"Yes, it is, but just as obnoxious and a lot more covert is invoking personal experiences in order to get everyone to apologize for the way you were treated so as to give you some moral standing. "

Who asked for an apology about that? Neiwert's piece pretty much accuses everyone who doesn't like multiculturalism of being a closet Nazi. I suggested that he might be conflating opposition to two different types of multiculturalism. I provided a quickie sketch of the two types. It was suggested that the second type of multi-culturalism was a myth or fabricated strawman. I suggested that I had experienced it first hand and gave an example of the many I have available. At no point did I ask you to feel sorry for me, the point was brought up only to show that the second type of multiculturalism is something that at least in some circumstances one could oppose without being a racist. I specifically used an example in which I was inappropriately called a racist. And that only came up in response to Neiwert's over-wrought accusation that those who oppose multi-culturalism are 'really' closet Nazis interested in white power. If I am not permitted by you to introduce instances where fighting multi-culturalism might not be the province of closet Nazis than I can't ever defend against the charge.

[Assistant Village Idiot]

liberal japonicus, your comment rises well above mere insult and deserves a better response.

For a quick glimpse of my reasoning, my post “Always and Never” at my own site should be a good introduction. http://assistantvillageidiot.blogspot.com/2006/04/always-and-never.html. In brief summary, any statements such as “Democrats always…” or “Republicans never…” usually fall apart pretty quickly.

Cleek, I have a whole series on Faux Logic that should be helpful.

Back to lj…
I am no longer surprised when liberals are unaware of the violence of their allies. The template conservative mobs are dangerous, liberal protesters are basically peaceful is so ingrained that no amount of contrary information seems to dent it. The evidence cited for this is usually of the nature described here. Lone nutcases. To reverse the case for purpose of illustration, I don’t count the Unabomber and Mumia as examples of liberal violence, however similar their rhetoric might be to more legitimate allies. Wolves don’t hide in wolves’ clothing, they hide in sheep’s clothing.

Also, I work at a psychiatric hospital and have encountered many dangerous individuals with a bewildering array of political, religious, and social ideas fused into worldviews that bear no relation to usual political discourse. The idea that such folk are representative of larger movements is usually a politically convenient one, rather than a clear understanding of their motives. The very fact that they are acting alone or with only one other is significant. They know at some level that they couldn’t persuade others who agree with them to join them in violence.

The inclusion of the killers of James Byrd and Matthew Shepard, or of Rudolph and Kopp are a more emotive connection than a logical one to politically-motivated violence. Well, everyone knows that conservatives don’t like black people/gays/whatever, so when one gets killed, it must be by a conservative. Huh? So if a cop gets killed it must be by a liberal? If a black guy kills a white guy it must be political because 90% of blacks vote Democrat? People quickly make the political connections you made, but I don't think they can be sustained logically.

For coordinated group violence, there is no consistent counterpart on the right for the long list on the left.

Environmentalist violence:

http://www.zianet.com/wblase/endtimes/terror.htm

http://www.globalterrorism101.com/UTEnvironmentalTerrorism.html

http://prfamerica.org/EarthLiberationFrontNo1onFBIList.html

Antiglobalization violence

http://www.seattleweekly.com/news/9948/features-anderson3.php

http://archives.cnn.com/2000/US/11/30/starbucks.vandals/index.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-globalization_movement

Union Violence

http://www.nilrr.org/9903a.htm

http://www.nationalreview.com/murdock/murdock060903.asp

http://www.npri.org/issues/issues04/i_b092004.htm

I would add to that my own anecdote of having been threatened outside my place of employment by a union metalworker protester brought up from NY just before the 2004 election. He didn’t think it appropriate that someone publicly disagreed with him.

Election Violence

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Vote2004/story?id=201736

http://www.jmac.net/politics/RIP2004Election.htm

The last category is particularly ironic, as the Democrats have been making accusations of intimidating voters for the last decade. Rumors abound, speeches are made, but when the investigations are over, the physical intimidation is far more often from the Dem side. If you don’t believe that, you should try and make your own collection of accusations that have held up after being looked into. You will find it difficult. Nationwide, I know of one, and I’m not going to help you with that.

I left out coordinated racial violence as too easy to find examples of.

The immediate counter is usually that this violence from the left is mostly vandalism, not so dangerous. The easy answers to that are A) Not always, see above, and B) Vandalism turns into violence against humans far more rapidly than statements do. Violence against objects is in fact a usual step along the way of a threatening person becoming an assaultive person.

The violence against abortion doctors and clinics and the clandestine networks that encourage it are criminal, and those people should be prosecuted fully. I think your information on those networks is well over a decade old at this point. I don’t think you can find much of that that’s recent. Personal information on corporate executives, particularly in the chemical, pharmaceutical, and gentech industries, however, are widely circulated among environmental and animal-rights groups, with clear encouragement to teach them a lesson.

[Donald Johnson]

Sebastian wrote--

" You don't hear explicit dismissal of professions to commit genocide as mere "playing to domestic audiences"? I've heard that on this very board. (And if some one could explain to me why I should feel better that politicians in Iran can get lots of hitherto unavailable support by boosting for genocide it would be greatly appreciated because I'm not feeling comforted.)"

I think you might be referring to me. Which is sort of funny, for a number of reasons. First, I was explicitly comparing the Iranian nuclear saber-rattlers to Michael Savage and wondering whether they were genuinely serious or just engaging in very ugly rhetoric. I also wondered whether the Bush Administration was seriously considering the use of nukes. You might just as easily have picked out my multicultural postmodern relativist attitude toward Michael Savage (is he a real genocide supporter or mere windbag who likes to appeal to the pro-genocide supporters in the Bush constituency?), but you focused on the Iranian part of the question. That was very morally relativistic of you.

Second, I suggested that anyone in power who advocates nuclear genocide be declared an outlaw, whether or not they really mean it--presumably yet another example of how postmodern relativism is corrupting the thought of people in this very thread.

Third, the irony of all this is that I agree with you about moral relativism and the idiocy of those leftwing multiculturalists who might actually support it. In my case because I'm a Christian lefty. Incidentally, Chomsky the corrupter of campus youth is in your corner too. He's always expressed either bewilderment or contempt (actually, contempt thinly disguised as bewilderment) with postmodern rhetoric and moral relativism. There's a story in a biography of Michael Foucault ("The Passion of Michael Foucault", I think) about a televised debate Foucault had with Chomsky on exactly this point, with Foucault expressing some really repulsive views in favor of violent revolution and Chomsky looking rather shocked and later saying that he thought Foucault sounded like someone from another planet.

In my own personal experience (I have no objection to SH bringing in his personal experiences with idiot professors), the biggest moral relativists are conservatives, often conservative Christians, and they don't even know it. I could bore people with several anecdotes of this type--people who rail away against "terrorism" and talk about good vs. evil and when I mention some atrocities the US has supported or committed, they either defend them, deny them, or start talking about mitigating circumstances.

[hilzoy]

If anyone wants to learn more about undergrad education and its failings, I just learned, to my surprise, that Dadzoy is about to be on CSPAN 2, talking about that very subject...

[Sebastian Holsclaw]

Actually the the statement I was thinking of when I wrote was dutchmarbel's

"Ahmadinejad is playing his own domestic political game with lots of chestbeating rhetoric. Do people really believe that he would start firing nucleair weapons (magically appearing a decade before they could make them themselves) at Israel?"

and

"Well I guess if you're convinced that the official doctrine of the Iranian government is to Nuke Israel At Any Cost Whatsoever then there's not much to argue about. At least not any more than there's anything to argue about with Iranians who are convinced that the official doctrine of the US is to Wipe Out Islam At Any Cost Whatsoever."

by radish.

The second I wasn't sure of until I try to point out that the evidence for "Nuke Israel" consists of statements from Iranian presidents of Iran while the evidence of "Wipe out Islam" consists of no comparable people (and to further clarify no one in government at all so far as I know). That didn't go over so well to say the least.

I'm not sure where I might have been thinking of you Donald (my recollection of the last discussion is that your points were mostly confined to thinking that a counter-genocidal MAD wasn't a fun idea).

[Assistant Village Idiot]

Donald Johnson

What you are calling moral relativism is a simple understanding that not all shades of gray are the same. Are you seriously comparing our actions to those of our enemies?

[ral]

hilzoy, drat -- just missed it. Rebroadcast due tomorrow at 8:00p EDT. Thanks for the tip.

[hilzoy]

ral -- I was just thinking of having lunch, and thought: I wonder what's on CSPAN; maybe some interesting wonky thing about some hitherto unknown subject to watch while I eat my sandwich. Imagine my surprise.

[cleek]

Cleek, I have a whole series on Faux Logic that should be helpful.

fantastic. what ?

[radish]

Sebastian, since you've offered my comment as an example of 'explicit dismissal of professions to commit genocide as mere "playing to domestic audiences"' I'd like to clarify the point that I was trying to make.

We agree -- I think -- that the risk which Iran poses to Israel is significant, that it has increased substantially in recent years, and that it is potentially but not currently existential in nature. Your position seems to be that Ahemdinejad's rhetoric is a major, rather than minor, indicator for assessing that risk. My position is that it is no such thing.

In fact, with all due respect, I submit that you are being deliberately presented with a red herring which is strategically calculated to make it seem as though the risk is much higher than what it really is. I submit that the rhetoric in question is in fact a very poor and inaccurate indicator of the actual risk, and that by accepting the emphasis that others (including but not limited to Ahmedinejad himself) are placing on it you have been misled into assessing that risk incorrectly.

This strikes me as an error roughly similar to the one made by Iranians who conclude that the official doctrine of the US is to Wipe Out Islam At Any Cost Whatsoever.

[dutchmarbel]

"Ahmadinejad is playing his own domestic political game with lots of chestbeating rhetoric. Do people really believe that he would start firing nucleair weapons (magically appearing a decade before they could make them themselves) at Israel?"

It has nothing to do with multiculteralism to be honest, and it most definately does not mean that I think his statements are ok. At that thread we were talking about how real the threat of Iran was. I do not like your implying that I condone these thoughts or these kind of actions, just because I think they are no indication of an imminent threat.

Elsewhere you asked if someone could explain why calling for genocide would benefit him. It is more about being a strong man when outside threats are developping (imho of course).

Back to multiculturism: I like flavor 1, I do not like flavor 2. Honor killings for example should be radically fought - but in all forms (there are a lot of women in both our countries that do not dare to leave abusive husbands for fear of being murdered).

In the Netherlands however public opinion these days dictates that not shaking hands with someone of the opposite gender for religious reasons should be condemned or even punished. That for me is ridiculous and farfetched.

Female circusmcision is horrible and the practise should be forbidden en punishable, but for me mutilating your childs genitals should be forbidden and punishable no matter what gender the child is. In my moral universe that is much worse than greeting the opposite sex with a respectfull nod or bow instead of with a handshake. The majority of people here disagree though and feel that male circumcision should be seen as a cultural acceptable habit.

[Donald Johnson]

AVI wrote--

"Donald Johnson

What you are calling moral relativism is a simple understanding that not all shades of gray are the same. Are you seriously comparing our actions to those of our enemies?"

Yes.

This doesn't mean that living in a democracy isn't far superior to living under a dictatorship or sharia law. We aren't as consistently bad as (some) of our enemies. But it's just a fact that democracies can be and often are every bit as brutal to non-citizens as dictatorships are. You don't get a pass to murder someone on the other side of town because you're a nice guy to your family and friends.

[Assistant Village Idiot]

Democracies, meaning the Anglosphere, Japan, and Continental Europe?

I don't see that any of those nations are comparable to the brutality of the governments of Asian, African, and South American governments. Even at their worst, such as France's recent brutality in Africa, the quantitative difference is so great as to be a qualitative difference. If you are merely saying that even "kindly" nations sometimes do barbaric things, I will reluctantly agree, wondering what conclusion you wish to draw from that.

I have two children from Romania, and many friends there. More than my own pride of country, it was their scoffing at any suggestion that "oppression" in the West comes remotely close to what they lived, sealed the deal for me. American liberals who sound off there are regarded as persons with sprained ankles lecturing paraplegiacs about disability. The sprained ankle may be real, and it may hurt, but so what?

[cleek]

You don't get a pass to murder someone on the other side of town because you're a nice guy to your family and friends.

apparently, you can. i guess it just depends on who you ask.

wasn't it Jesus who said "The greater wrong palliates the lesser" ?

[Anarch]

America: Better Than Ceaucescu.

Well, I suppose that's an improvement.

[liberal japonicus]

Well, back from a weekend of indoctrination fun, made more interesting through the language barrier.

Sebastian,
"Ironically, if you would have said 'the problem I see is that there are two flavors and I think the second one is extremely problematic', you probably would have gotten a lot of people to agree with you and perhaps solidify the notion that extreme relativism is a bad thing"

Isn't that what I said? Or do you think I was arguing that flavor 1 was a bad thing?

When you make statements like this

In my experience very few people adopt strong multiculturalism as a consistent world view. (See my apartheid example above). That doesn't stop it from being used as a club on other issues
Am I to assume that you are not talking about it being used on the left?

Neiwert's piece pretty much accuses everyone who doesn't like multiculturalism of being a closet Nazi. I suggested that he might be conflating opposition to two different types of multiculturalism. I provided a quickie sketch of the two types. It was suggested that the second type of multi-culturalism was a myth or fabricated strawman. I suggested that I had experienced it first hand and gave an example of the many I have available.

And I suggested that you were misreading Niewert and you said that was my point, but not his. If you have such mindreading skills, why do you even bother putting up your opinion, since you seem to know all? Just because you don't know the word 'obstensible' is no reason to take it out on me.

Then you brought up your experience at university. A number of people noted that rather than a true statement about what multiculturalism is, there might have been a number of other reasons behind that. You don't need to concede anything, but if you simply said 'I hadn't considered that as a possiblity, but that's a fair point', we might have moved on to something interesting.

If I am not permitted by you to introduce instances where fighting multi-culturalism might not be the province of closet Nazis than I can't ever defend against the charge.

You know, no one here has claimed that multi-culturalism opposition is solely the province of closet Nazis, except within your tortured reading of Neiwert. But if it is a 'charge', it was leveled by someone else at a different blog, so lashing out at us again suggests a level of personal animosity that is unhelpful. In fact, I pointed out that

The type of strong multiculturalism that you seem intent on tarring everyone on this board with is, I would suggest, itself a reaction to multiculturalism rather than a representative. This is because multiculturalism is not an unalloyed good.

When viewed in this way, flavor 2 multiculturalism can be seen in the strong insistence that black children be adopted by black families, the desire to see children marry within their culture (often by arranged marriages) and a wide range of other reactions. If it isn't apparent to you, I don't think the people above are 'closet Nazis', so what is this 'defending against a charge' about?

AVI wrote
your comment rises well above mere insult and deserves a better response.

which I hope is a good thing and not a bad thing. I haven't had a chance to look at your series, but I will give it some attention when I get home this pm. I take your point that lone nutcases should not be taken as exemplars. However, the topic of this post is someone who I think is should be a lone nutcase, commands an audience of 8 million. How many of those are liberals who are simply listening to get angry at the right, I cannot say, but the fact that we have publishing houses like Regnery and RW talk radio is indicative of something deeper.

There was a similar pattern of incidents as you describe in the last paroxysm of left wing energy, which was the anarchist movement. When viewed historically, people and groups who want to change society have always attracted those more enamored of the aspect of tearing down rather than of building up. The state's reaction to this is to try and demonize those asking for change, which is why anarchist is now a term of disapprobation. However, the 'conservative' movement has also made a mission of 'changing' society, which is why there has been a strain of libertarianism to much conservative action. And to that call of changing society (be it by changing it or trying to forcibly make it remain in the status quo) there are people who are answering that call. The question is who has more power, the people fighting against the system or the people who are subtly supported by the system?

[Donald Johnson]

AVI, maybe you misunderstand me. I'm not claiming that Western democracies are as brutal as dictatorships to their own citizens and I thought I was clear about that, but maybe not. But democracies do target civilians in war and sometimes peace, they launch wars preemptively, they support terrorism of both the state and nonstate variety, up to and including genocide, and they support torturers and sometimes practice it. I don't think your Romanian friends would be quite so sure of themselves if they faced someone who had been in one of America's torture centers. and Romania itself, horrific as it was under communism, was no worse than some of the governments that were enthusiastically supported by the US. The external behavior of the US in the Cold War was often (not always) as brutal as that of the Soviet Union and unfortunately this didn't stop with the end of the Cold War.

Regarding your Romanian friends, I get the impression that victims of any type of severe oppression sometimes regard their story as much worse than anyone else's. That is understandable, but it is still a very dangerous attitude. Many years ago I was in an Amnesty International group which had a Palestinian woman as a guest speaker. She spent her time describing the brutal oppression and atrocities of the Israelis. One member of our group asked in a very agitated voice at the end "What about Palestinian atrocities towards Israelis? You didn't say anything about that." She replied
"Oh, nobody wants to listen to those old stories." In the words of your friends, I suppose she'd regard a terrorist attack on Israelis as a sprained ankle compared to what her people had suffered.

[Sebastian Holsclaw]

"And I suggested that you were misreading Niewert and you said that was my point, but not his. If you have such mindreading skills, why do you even bother putting up your opinion, since you seem to know all? Just because you don't know the word 'obstensible' is no reason to take it out on me."

Neiwert has a line for you though.

"These remarks do not come to argue, but to silence. Their intent is not to advance the debate by considering points on their merits, but by smearing those who raise them...."

[Sebastian Holsclaw]

But in the interest of argument please reread his post.

You claim his use of obstensible is meant to limit it. I claim it is part of his project of 'revealing' that most conservatives are actually Nazis. Which fits the evidence? He chooses as his example someone who has suggested that the South should have won the civil war. He goes on and on about Lind and his beliefs (spending special time on peculiar historical inaccuracies about the early history of the word though he ignores the recent history of the word) waves his hands and reveals that other conservatives don't like multiculturalism either. (He doesn't show that they agree with Lind. He doesn't show they have the same problems with it as Lind. He doesn't examine whether or not they have other problems with it."

His rhetorical game in that post is exactly what hilzoy complained about in her "What is this Left" post--taking extreme examples like Churchill and Chomsky and pretending that they are representative of the argument.

That is post would be just like me going on and on with some of Chomsky's garbage on how markets require conquest and then saying that liberals have problems with markets too. I could then chart the 'transmission' of extremist views via Chomsky into the 'better hidden' or 'dressed up' versions that are used by obstensible liberals to hide their extremist views (note here that just as with Neiwert, 'obstensible' means "appearing to be" but with an accusation bundled along.)

[liberaljaponicus]

"These remarks do not come to argue, but to silence. Their intent is not to advance the debate by considering points on their merits, but by smearing those who raise them...."

Whose argument? Brian O'Connell's? William Lind's? Or are you suggesting that I am trying to silence you? If you feel the latter is the case, I am remarkably unsuccessful.

I acknowledge that it is unfair to demand a definition of multiculturalism from you and then pick at it without offering my own, and my apologies for not stepping back at that point and presenting it. However, I have done so over at HoCB. I promise that the first comment there is not mine.

Neiwert closes with the following (emphasis mine)

No one minds a serious critique of the errors of multiculturalism. But O'Connell's polemic was anything but -- rife with mischaracterizations of the actual tenets, as well as the history of, multiculturalism, and built around a thesis that is clear in its intent: to prove that the very nature of multiculturalism is anti-American. He wasn't pointing out an error; he was painting liberals as unpatriotic sympathizers with the enemy. Especially when delivered in the context of a critique of the antiwar movement, the effect is clearly part of a worrisome trend in the national debate.

That you are not worried about the trend is your own choice. But that is a third person singular, so do not twist Neiwert to create some sort of cult of victimization for poor conservatives like yourself.

And if you would like to discuss how the ideas of Chomsky are 'transmitted' to the left (I would particularly be interested in how Chomsky's distaste for deconstructionism and moral relativism has infected the left and 'the entire moral framework of society', as you put it) I would be interested to read it, but I hope you could refer to actual points made by Chomsky. That Chomsky doesn't think much of free markets is no surprise, but if you want to claim that he is the philosophical father for resistance to free markets and the liberals have unknowingly been taken in by this, I hope you will humor me and make it much more clear about the transmission path.

I also note with profound embarassment that I continue to spell 'ostensible' as 'obstensible', for which there is no excuse. Would that I be as successful in transmitting a more appropriate understanding of multiculturalism to you.

[CharleyCarp]

I don't think one has to call everyone a Nazi to note that the center of gravity on the Republican side has drifted towards the South and towards intolerance of various kinds, in the past several years. It's not a constant movement; one can compare, for example, Pat Buchanan's speech at the '92 convention with Bob Dole's 'there's the door' moment in '96. But the trend from 1964 to the present is fairly clear. That this is a source of considerable angst among many Republicans is not in question, what is open to debate is whether the drift is too much for people to stay in the party. Obviously everyone has their own exit point, and plenty of us have been wrong for a decade and more about where the exit point would end up being for a whole lot of Republicans we thought we knew.

Is there a corresponding trend towards anger in the Dem side? I'm not seeing it. One can go on at length about Moore being a guest in '04, but the fact is that Dems deliberately chose a nominee who didn't make anger the centerpiece over the one who seemingly would have. (A source of some anger amongst some Dems and amongst a great many to the left of Dems).

There's plenty of alarm on the Dem side, but that's pretty different from anger.

[Katherine]

I'd say that Democrats have become more angry, but they've had more to be angry about. I don't see evidence that it's become a habit of mind that's broken free of whatever provocation that inspired it. For the Republican figures I can't stand, I can tell you specific actions of theirs that led to my not being able to stand him. On the other side, there seems to be a hatred of liberals because we're liberals, nothing more.

These are overgeneralizations, obviously--you could certainly find counter-examples.

I'm more alarmed than angry these days. (Not that I can't still summon a giant chip on my shoulder at times, but I used to be worse--I think I don't feel quite as powerless to do anything as I used to).
The recent "throw Dana Priest in jail" meme, combined with the espionage act prosecutions, is freaking me out. (I don't think the administration would actually risk prosecuting Priest, I think it would blow up in their face if they tried--but the question is always: if this is what they're like now, what will they do if there's another attack?)

[John Thullen]

"I'm more alarmed than angry."

It's not the anger of the far Right that bothers me, it is the inexorably organized and demagogic transmission of it into the bloodstream of the body politic that makes me .....

.....alarmingly angry.... says my wife.

It is true that much of the world has it worse than we do. As Mel Brooks pointed out:
A stranger walking down the street minding his own business falls down a manhole .. that's hilarious. I get home and discover I have a hangnail .. that's a tragedy.

[Assistant Village Idiot]

Donald Johnson

...one of America's torture centers...

I think you gave away the game right there. I am guessing you mean, what, Guantanamo? If you are making that as a serious comparison, I fear we cannot have a discussion. That's simple madness. If you are referencing Abu Ghraib, I will describe it as a one-off event, with 50% of the incidents confined to a single 24 hour period, duly investigated and punished by the military (I admit, not entirely satisfactorily). There is simply no sense of proportion in your comments. What governments were you thinking of that were equivalent to the Soviet circle, that we "supported?" Somoza? The Shah? Brutal, but not remotely comparable. You are setting up a standard under which any evil invalidates the entire enterprise. You protest that you are doing no such thing, then draw equivalences that say precisely that. Your passing references to preemptive war, terrorism against civilians, etc. suggest the same. Evil acts are evil acts, and deserve punishment. But to suggest that there is an equivalence can only come from focussing on our own ills and downplaying that of our enemies. It is a brutal world, and always has been. Even in the West we are barely escaping from it.

It is an imperfect world, and will always be so. In most countries, our alliances with one faction or another will be temporary, for the good reason that there are no excellent choices. But to make no choices, to refrain from dirtying our hands by association with Bad People, is often to invite worse evils.

There is always a moral danger in this, for when we ally with the Russians against the Nazis, or Chiang against Mao, we participate in some way in their evil. But those are the choices of reality. It would be nice if battles were always against Sauron or the Empire, but we are seldom so fortunate.

I was a 60's and 70's socialist, and understand the desire for a kind of purity from one's own people. We should certainly press for this, and clean our own house. But if the WOT is one balance a good thing, it remains a good thing even if we do it badly.

lj - thank you for your reply.

I think we come in for sliding definitions of hate and anger. Perhaps that is inevitable in humankind. I haven't listened to Savage, but taking the statement above as representative, I would submit that it is angry, and warlike, and unwise, but still draw a large distinction between anger against enemies and anger against each other. The bumper sticker of one of my co-workers state "Support Bush" with a noose beside it. Is that not hate speech of a frightening order? Clinton expressly accused talk radio of creating a climate of hatred that lead to Oklahoma City. Isn't this deeply irresponsible? (I know several people here will say "No, because it's TRUE!" but I'm trying to address the rational people here.) The murder fantasies of the left keep rising to the fore. Democrats in FL declare Rumsfeld should be shot. Baldwin (?) suggests we should kill Henry Hyde and his family with bats. Moveon expressly compares Bush to Hitler, Gore calls the Republicans brownshirts. Bill Moyers thinks the GOP would stage a coup if Kerry had won. His guest believes we should move preemptively against that.

Alexander Cockburn thinks we should drop a tactical nuke on the Cuban section of Miami. Craig Kilborn puts a clip of Bush on CBS with the caption "snipers wanted." Totenberg wants Jesse Helms or his grandchildren to get AIDS. I can multiply examples almost endlessly. I really don't get how these things can go by daily without liberals perking up and thinking, "y'know, this has gotten out of hand."

An interesting set of anecdotes. I work in a psychiatric hospital, and the clinical staff tend to be very liberal. When Hinckley shot Reagan, jokes abounded, and people openly said it would be a good idea. When we had a patient in the 90's who had made threatening statements about Clinton (for personal and delusional, not political reasons), everyone was very serious and spoke in hushed tones, and wondered if the Radical Right had brought us to such a pass. But when a woman mistakenly ran her car onto the runway at Bush's plane a few years ago, it was all laughs and smiles again, with people chuckling that it was too bad she hadn't succeeded.

There is no equivalent of that on Limbaugh. There is no equal to that at National Review, or the New Criterion, or the Washington Times. Sean Hannity is an angry guy, and I can't listen to him for more than 30 seconds, but he never says anything remotely like this. The accusations of domestic hate speech by the Right most frequently turn out to be accusations that the Left is Unamerican or hates America. People hated Clinton, but no one laughed about killing him. No one is writing how funny it would be if Barbara Boxer got raped, or Michael Moore got beat up.

Tad Rall issued the challenge for the Right to prove there was more hate speech from the Left. He concluded there was, er, probably more from the Right, but, maybe not.

Most of the sense of dangerousness that the left picks up from conservatives comes from dark interpretations that they just know are true. Maybe they're projections.

[CharleyCarp]

AVI:

If you are saying that there's no torture in Guantanamo, I have to ask: how do you know?

I don't think anyone (other than the cartoon left) is saying that we shouldn't have a military response, of some kind, to AQ, or that our own flaws prevent us from having the moral standing to defend ourselves. What I hear over and over from folks on the right is that our flaws are excused because the other guys are worse. Sure they're worse. What of it? Are we meeting our own standards the best we can? I don't think so, and I don't think that makes me a raving lunatic.

Tim McVeigh may have been a lunatic, but you shouldn't ignore the effect that the social climate on the right had on him and the people he was hanging with. He deliberately misconstrued what happened at Waco -- on whose anniversary he attacked -- and he was far from alone in that.

I think your Moveon/Hitler thing might be a mischaracterization -- if you're referring to the ad that was entered in a contest, and not created by anyone at Moveon.

I'd like to see the context for your claim about Gore.

I don't care at all about Cockburn or Baldwin. They are not representative of anything, and in the latter case, no one is paying any attention to the guy because of his politics. His 'talent' lies in a completely different field.

Lastly, about Abu Ghraib: you say that 50% of the incidents were confined to a single day. I'll agree (though I don't know, actually) that 50% of the acts charged happened on a single day. There's a huge space between conduct that happens, and what gets prosecuted. I very rarely see speeders pulled over on the interstate nearest my house, although the flow of traffic is always well above the speed limit. Sometimes, though, people do get tickets. It would be ridiculous to claim that if only 1% of people driving on I-270 on any given day get tickets that 99% of drivers must be complying with the law.

[ral]

CharleyCarp, I think Assistant Village Idiot is referring to one line in this speech by Al Gore, delivered June 24, 2004 at Georgetown University Law Center.

(I'm trusting truthout.org on the transcript.)

[liberal japonicus]

AVI,
thanks for your reply and your time. You give a lot of examples, but I could give a lot of examples from the period that I mentioned. We have a president assassinated (by a man with the finger busting name of Leon Czolgosz), accusations of bombs being planted, events such as the Haymarket 'riot'. The Economist give a list that similarly assumes that an organized movement was responsible for all of the violence, which I don't think was necessarily the case. But my point is not that these acts do not exist, but that they tend to arise when passions flair. Yet, in regards to the current situation, the party in power is arguably appealing to a sense of outrage within its own base. That is, from my perspective, new and frightening. I don't see how you can view the attack on illegal immigrants in any other way. Some have argued that it is protection of our borders, which conflates illegal immigrants who come to work in the US with terrorists who come to try and disrupt the US. Similarly with abortion or the Schiavo mess. The war in Iraq seems to meld a 'liberal' (in the sense of attacking the status quo) rationale to this, but does so not in a way that now argues that we have to somehow suppress Islam because it is an inevitable enemy to our way of life, which may come as news to countries like Turkey.

I don't want to dismiss your personal anecdotes, but do you seriously think a lunatic asylum is a fair mirror of current society? If you seriously say yes, then you can't tell me that somehow, one wing of the electorate is somehow more responsible for this than the other. And I would argue that given the asymmetry of power and position, it is the party in power that holds the responsibility for keeping things off the boil. That is, I think, good governance. However, you have a very dangerous situation where the party in power is, if polls are to be believed, in the minority in terms of approval rating, so I think you see this urge to view themselves as an embattled minority. This is why you see DeLay being referred to as some sort of Christ like figure, doing his best work after being crucified and how liberal ideas (a word which used to me the ne plus ultra of Western values and norms) now claimed to be destroying 'the entire moral framework of society'.

Hilzoy once pointed out something to the effect that the 'liberals' she knows tend to be more 'conservative' in that they often engage in activities that are past looking. I would argue that you are going to meet more liberals at a whole range of activities designed to preserve ideas and cultural traditions. People working on public libraries, symphonies, taking part in various 'heritage' activities, are, in my experience, more likely to have liberal tendencies rather than conservative ones. That is, at least in my opinion, because the true heart of a conservative agenda should be to preserve what is best and convince others that it should be preserved rather than try and impose a rigidity on what should be preserved.

I certainly admit that these are all opinions and I understand if you don't share them, but providing a grocery list of incidents 'from the left', especially after noting earlier that

The idea that such folk are representative of larger movements is usually a politically convenient one, rather than a clear understanding of their motives. The very fact that they are acting alone or with only one other is significant. They know at some level that they couldn’t persuade others who agree with them to join them in violence.

seems to be contradictory. Also, if we accept that when people are placed in a mob/mass demonstration situation, restraints also disappear, then the whole level of 'street' incidents doesn't really illuminate what is going on here, so you are right to object to Shepard and Byrd. However, it makes it more imperative to analyse the rhetoric being used and identify what is happening on that level. I would suggest that much effort is being placed in arguing that the left is 'angry', so that when acts do take place, they can be highlighted as the natural progression when it is, as you suggest, misleading to do so.

Apologies for the length and thank you again for taking the time to participate.

[Bernard Yomtov]

I would submit that it is angry, and warlike, and unwise, but still draw a large distinction between anger against enemies and anger against each other.

Are you suggesting that the anger of people like Limbaugh and Coulter is not directed against Americans who disagree with them politically? That is absurd.

[CharleyCarp]

Oh, and not to speak for anyone else, but it seems to me that 'torture centers' most likely is meant to refer to whatever hellhole KSM is currently in. And to the "Salt Pit," near the Kabul airport.

[CharleyCarp]

If this is it

The Administration works closely with a network of "rapid response" digital Brown Shirts who work to pressure reporters and their editors for "undermining support for our troops."

you have some reading comprehension issues, AVI. He's not calling "the Republicans" brownshirts, but using the term to describe a particular group of people based on specific conduct. As to which I'm happy to say 'if the shoe fits . . ."

[Jackmormon]

OT to site admins:
Lily has for the past few days been getting a error message when attempting to post, worries she may have been banned, and has emailed the kitty for clarification or help to no response. Could the kitty help her out?

[hilzoy]

Jackmormon: thanks.

Lily: can you post now? (If this happens again, you can email me directly; my email is real.)

[Donald Johnson]

AVI, there are others here who know much more about the details of what our government has done lately on the torture front, so I'll let them take you on if any of them wants to bother. I in turn can't take you seriously if you don't see the moral equivalence of some American allies with those in the Soviet bloc. El Salvador--75,000 dead, the vast majority murdered in sadistic fashion by the security forces. Guatemala--genocide committed by the army against the Mayans, with Reagan defending the very man (Rios Montt) most responsible for the killing. Somoza killed tens of thousands of his own people trying to stay in power in the final years. Indonesia--genocide in East Timor and an earlier, larger mass scale killing in Indonesia proper, both with American support. Angola--the US supported Savimbi and UNITA. Unita killed untold hundreds of thousands and according to the NYT, Savimbi personally beat children to death on one occasion. Mozambique--here the Reagan Administration showed uncharacteristic good sense in not supporting Renamo, but a great many mainstream Republicans wanted him to do so. When you hear "Renamo", you should think "African Khmer Rouge" and you won't be far off. Mobutu--one of the most corrupt worthless tyrants of the 20th century and yes, our ally.

I didn't even mention Vietnam or some of what the US and its ally did in Korea in what I agree was a just war. (Just wars can be fought unjustly.) It's sheer nonsense statistically and morally to claim that there weren't massive atrocities committed on both sides during the Cold War and it's also wrong to say that our atrocities were necessary to win the Cold War. If anything, they probably dragged it out longer, as communist ideology seems more plausible to people when they are being murdered or oppressed in the name of anticommunism.

I've ranted in some earlier comment section about the use of our alliance with Stalin against Hitler as a standard analogy justifying the support of some bad guy because he's the lesser of two evils and we live in a dangerous world and so forth. There really wasn't a choice in WWII. We couldn't have defeated Hitler without the help of the USSR. That doesn't mean we should have gven diplomatic support and supplied weapons to any monster when it seems convenient. The burden of proof should fall entirely on the shoulders of the those who say we should ally ourselves with some given mass murderer and you can't meet that burden by trotting out the Hitler vs. Stalin analogy. Every case has to be argued separately. Who knows? If Reagan hadn't warmly embraced Rios Montt after his army had burned 400 Mayan villages and crucified Indian babies on stakes, the Soviet Empire might not have collapsed. But I'd like proof. I have to say it seems sort of implausible to me that the murder of tens of thousands of Mayans in 1982 is what made the difference, but I guess I'm just too caught up in my simple-minded notions of moral equivalence to understand the deeper needs of statecraft.

On the hate speech issue, I think there's a difference between calling your political opponents bad names and wishing for a group of foreigners to be slaughtered. Both lefties and righties have been calling each other scum for several years now and whatever one might think about this , it's not likely to lead to violence unless someone is mentally unstable. I assume most of us have friends and family or at least acquaintances with very different political views--when I'm frothing at the mouth over some issue I often have a friend in mind who said something on that issue that I thought was really stupid. This keeps me from wanting to send all my opponents to the gulag forthwith. It's a little different when people talk about killing the foreign devils, because I think it's psychologically a lot easier to go from talk to supporting action in that case, foreign devils, being, well, foreign and devilish and therefore more deserving of anything we might care to drop on them.

[dr ngo]

One obvious parallel to the "multiculturalism" debate here ought to be raised, even though I'm not sure where (or how far) it leads.

There are certainly respectable intellectual (philosophical, historical) arguments for the doctrine of "states' rights" in the USA. As I recall the 1950s and 1960s, however, one could reasonably conclude that anyone who was publicly arguing for states' rights was either a segregationist or carrying water for segregationists. That was the political point of the whole discourse; to pretend otherwise at the time was to be faux naif.

Multiculturalism, ill-defined as it is, might equally well, in some of its forms, be a target for principled, apolitical opposition. Why is therefore, that I have the suspicion that the majority of people who publicly denounce multiculturalism do so because they oppose minorities - or don't mind helping out those who do oppose minorities? When public officials lash out at "multiculturalism," is it because they fear that it is philosophically equivalent to moral relativism, as suggested upstream? Or is it because they think everyone ought to speak English - not quite the same philosophical position?

I don't know whether this is Dave Neiwert's point of comparison, so take it as mine. When I hear people trashing "multiculturalism," I thank my stars that I am a US-born white male heterosexual. And I pity everyone who is not: they're in for a bumpy ride.

[radish]

The Shah? Brutal, but not remotely comparable.

Fair enough. So because you aren't actually acquainted with anyone who was tortured, or who had family members tortured or murdered by Savak or the contras or any other US clients, whereas you are acquainted with people who suffered (in what way, one wonders) under Ceauşescu, it stands to reason that the former atrocities must have been trivial compared to the latter? Duly noted.

This reminds me a little bit of your hilariously clueless comment about "continental europe" a little earlier. If you stop and think very very hard you'll realize that you yourself occasionally use one particular Continental European democratic government as a symbolic reference standard for 20th century atrocity. I'm assuming here that you deliberately excluded Eastern Europe and therefore overlooked only one example.

I was a 60's and 70's socialist, and understand the desire for a kind of purity from one's own people. We should certainly press for this, and clean our own house.

Perfectly reasonable. So when left wing culture was authoritarian you favored that, and now that right wing culture is authoritarian you support it in turn? Duly noted. BTW how do your Romanian friends feel about your history as a commie symp?

But if the WOT is one balance a good thing, it remains a good thing even if we do it badly.

Got it. So not only do the ends justify the means, but the ends which were originally sought don't even have to be acheived in order to justify the means? Duly noted.

The bumper sticker of one of my co-workers state "Support Bush" with a noose beside it.

Now wait a minute. You're claiming that a coworker of yours has a bumper sticker on their car which threatens the President? Absent some supporting evidence beside your say-so I am forced to conclude that you're just flat out embellishing fabricating lying, because the chances of that being the case without an almost-immediate visit from the Secret Service strike me as near zero.

Post a picture or provide some additional detail or at absolute minimum a link to a place where one can purchase such bumper stickers. In fact, since your colleague is driving around in public with this thing anyway I'm sure they won't mind if you explain where people can go to get a look at it and verify it for themselves.

I can multiply examples almost endlessly.

Indeed, and no doubt you can call on spirits from the vasty deep as well. But can you provide them with the citations they demand when they do come? Having raised the devil can you shame him?

No one is writing how funny it would be if Barbara Boxer got raped, or Michael Moore got beat up.

If I thought it would do any good to come up with examples (with citations, in case any spirits from the vasty deep show up) I would spend the time necessary to do so, but being familiar with the work of Leon Festinger I know better than to bother. You should read him, AVI. "Projection" is so yesterday. "Cognitive dissonance" is the Next Big Thing.

Most of the sense of dangerousness that the left picks up from conservatives comes from dark interpretations that they just know are true. Maybe they're projections.

Maybe so, AVI, maybe so. Hey, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean everybody isn't out to get you ;-)

[liberal japonicus]

folks,
with all due respect, I think you are jumping on AVI a bit much, especially since he's new round here. Not simply for the conservative voice, but the life history (working in a psychiatric hospital is something that it would be nice to know about from a distance) involved has me suggest that y'all chill just a bit.

[Gromit]

radish: Now wait a minute. You're claiming that a coworker of yours has a bumper sticker on their car which threatens the President? Absent some supporting evidence beside your say-so I am forced to conclude that you're just flat out embellishing fabricating lying, because the chances of that being the case without an almost-immediate visit from the Secret Service strike me as near zero.

I think it's a bit early to be leveling accusations of lying. That said, the only other mention I've found of this bumper sticker so far (in an admittedly quick search) is AVI telling the same story in a comment on Jane Galt's blog.

[Bernard Yomtov]

I can multiply examples almost endlessly.

Indeed, and no doubt you can call on spirits from the vasty deep as well. But can you provide them with the citations they demand when they do come?

Well done, radish.

[lily]

AVI is providing lots of examples of individuals in his vicinity doing hateful things. This is not compelling evidence that the left or liberals are fanning hatefulness into our civic discourse. After all, in a different neighborhood or job setting, a liberal could just as easily come up with as many examples of conservatives saying awful things. The original post was about the use of the mass media by some conservative pundits or spokespeople, with the appearent support of many conservatives in their huge audiences, to say things which promoted violence. That point stands unrefuted; there is no liberal equivalent of Coutler, Malkin, or Limbaugh either in audience size, consistant pattern of threatening talk, or support from party leadership as evidenced by invitations to seak at party events.
I think the case has been made on this thread that , while Savage has lots of listeners, no direct connection exists between him and Republican party as does between Coulter and the party.
Lastly, AVI is mistaken about the Hitler ad. Moveon solicited ads for a contest. The Hitler ad was submitted and posted along with every other entry, prior to any kind of evaluation or endorsement by Moveon. When the ad was brought to the managers' attention, it was removed. It was never part of the actual contest.

[Uncle Kvetch]

People hated Clinton, but no one laughed about killing him.

"Mr. Clinton better watch out if he comes down here. He’d better have a bodyguard."

-Jesse Helms, 11/23/94

" Chelsea is a Clinton. She bears the taint; and though not prosecutable in law, in custom and nature the taint cannot be ignored. All the great despotisms of the past — I'm not arguing for despotism as a principle, but they sure knew how to deal with potential trouble — recognized that the families of objectionable citizens were a continuing threat. In Stalin's penal code it was a crime to be the wife or child of an "enemy of the people". The Nazis used the same principle, which they called Sippenhaft, "clan liability"."

-John Derbyshire, National Review Online, 2/15/01

[lily]

Glenn Greenwald's current post is on this subject and quite good.

[Assistant Village Idiot]

Wow and double wow. Where to start?

The social worker with the bumper sticker in question lives in Bedford NH and works in Concord, NH, NHH-APS grounds. I'm not allowed to bring cameras on grounds because of confidentiality, but I may sneak one. So someone seriously thinks I'mn lying about that?

The information about the "lunatic asylum" was about what the staff - the people with the advanced degrees - found humorous. Read louder, okay? And find a better term than lunatic asylum.

Charley, you wonder why I claim there is no torture at Guantanamo, but offer that there is torture at two locales you know nothing about. I would submit the independent observers and the opposition party that visited Guantanamo as my witnesses. Who are yours, who know that torture is happening wherever KSM is?

I notice that my links to actual violence -- such as shooting up a Republican headquarters, remain unaddressed. There is also a sliding scale for "anger." I am not criticising anger, which can have many causes and expressions, I am criticising violence and incitement to violence. Limbaugh keeps coming up. Because he is angry at liberals, you make the leap that he encourages violence. Yet examples of actual violence I reference are not taken as incitements to further violence. Lily uses the word "threatening." Give examples of Rush being threatening. My examples of being not only threatening, but destructive, remain above.

The Central American nations mentioned - a collection of arguments.
1. Precisely why George Bush has said we will no longer promote stability at the expense of freedom. Supporting the lesser of two evils has partly worked, but brings long term difficulties.

2. The actions of the opposition against the people - the Mosquito Indians, for a particularly brutal example - is left out in the tally. The death figures sometimes includes death from all sides. I agree that the choice between supporting Somoza and Sandinistas is a miserable choice. The argument given then was that we had to, because the Soviets were arming one side. After the fall of the USSR, it looks like that proved true, didn't it? We are little involved there now that there is not another superpower destabilizing the area.

3. In numbers, there is no comparison in Cold War misery. Communist nations killed 100 - 200,000,000 in the 20th C, half of which were their own, and 90% of the rest lived in poverty. If you want to make some comparison on a more theoretical basis, then make a more sophisticated argument. With numbers, more than two orders of magnitude should be sufficient to cease discussion.

4. Where the US has been involved, those countries go on to make their own decisions, including electing governments we don't like, if they choose. Despite claims of American imperialism, those nations vote against us at the UN, make trade agreements we don't like, and have foreign policies that are sometimes at odds with ours. Funny.

The Hitler and moveon video. It was on the site. Someone had to load it on there. It was when the blogosphere complained (including, thank you, the left blogosphere) that it was removed.

As to Gore and the brownshirts comments -- Yeah, that's a huge difference. He didn't call the Republicans that, he called their supporters that.

Uncle Kvetch -- perfect. You left out the very next sentence of Derbyshire's quote. I recommend the entire article to the readers, to see if it suggests violence. And Helm's quote was not a threat of violence, but an admonition that there were people who might do it. How does that differ from the comments of Sens. Kennedy and Boxer about Bush?

I point out an irony here. Irony is seldom proof of anything, but it is always interesting. The accusation has been repeatedly made here that conservatives do not acknowledge any evils done by America, but rather make excuses or dismiss them. Tangentially, I think that is a myth - I think conservatives make the acknowledgement often, but keep a sense of proportion.

But if people here are so offended by that supposed lack of acknowledgement, why are you finding it so difficult to acknowledge my examples here of you doing the same thing? Rigid black-and-white thinking is usually the mark of the person scoring low on the Aware-o-meter.

[CharleyCarp]

I would submit the independent observers and the opposition party that visited Guantanamo as my witnesses.

To whom are you referring? The ICRC which has an explicit agreement with the government not to reveal publicly anything it sees at Guantanamo (and a longstanding policy of confidentiality to governments)? Or someone else who went (eg Sen Kennedy)and was not allowed to speak to the prisoners?

The best way to find that no crimes are committed is to make sure the victims can't be heard. You can send prisoners to solitary for trying to communicate with Kennedy. You can classify everything that goes on and prosecute anyone who leaks it. You can control access so that no journalist ever sees a prisoner (like, say, closing off all movement in the prison camp for 3 hours while journalists are shown the 'show cell' at Camp Echo, even if this means that lawyers with an appointment to visit a client have to wait that long -- see, they have to make very sure that no journalist catches a glimpse of a prisoner, so any time a camera is in the area, no prisoners can be moved from one cell/camp to another).

If you don't know about the Salt Pit it's because you don't want to know. When you say that I'm talking about something I don't know about -- well, I guess you wouldn't have any basis for that claim either. As for KSM, I don't know what you think has happened to him: I think the various reports are pretty reliable on this point.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that the US is uniquely evil, that rightwingers are slime, that AQ deserves to win, or anything remotely like any of that. I am saying that some very serious mistakes have been made with respect to prisoner treatment, that they are continuing to be made (in some senses getting worse), and that the long term harm from these mistakes vastly outweighs whatever short-term gain, if any, the treatment might have provided.

All the facts about this stuff are going to come out. It's going to turn out to have been a lot worse than you think. I kind of feel sorry for all the people that have put their trust in the government with respect to this policy -- many just can't believe that the bad stuff could be true. You'll find out.

[Donald Johnson]

I thought you'd trot out the 100 million figure, AVI. I accept it, give or take a factor of two. A very large number of those deaths were deaths from horrific communist economic policies (most notably, the Great Leap Forward). And if you count those, then one could make a strong case that economic policies pushed by the US have also caused countless millions or tens of millions of deaths. There's a double standard here. How many people died in Zaire under Mobutu from malnutrition? God knows, but Jonathan Kwitney provided an estimate in "Endless Enemies"--over one third of the population. Peter Berger made this point in his book "Pyramids of Sacrifice" many years ago--economic policies which hurt the poorest people kill in numbers that dwarf the ones taken by violence. BTW, I don't give all the blame for these deaths on the US, of course. Just some of them. But then, it's sort of silly to look at the entire history of communism and use its total death toll as an excuse for US policies, as though deaths under Stalin and Mao (the overwhelming majority of those 100 million) are somehow supposed to balance off against the millions of people killed directly by US foreign policy.

If one restricts the death toll to those killed by violence, the numbers on both sides go down and again, but again they are comparable. The US killed 2-4 million in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, and at least hundreds of thousands and perhaps as many as 2 million civilians in Korea and if I went around totalling violent deaths in various countries from the Cold War that occurred with our blessing, you are safely in Black Book of Communism territory. Your two orders of magnitude difference is a fantasy, though having read Commentary in my misspent youth, I'm aware of that sort of argument.

Incidentally, the Sandinistas were brutal to the Miskito Indians in Nicaragua, but nowhere near as brutal in terms of numbers killed as America's allies in that region. But anyway, I'm not disputing the overall brutality of communism.

As for what we do now in the post Cold War era, as it happens we continue to intervene in Colombia in ways that probably aren't helpful and it's probably the Mideast problems that keep us from being more intrusive in Venezuela, apart from the possible support for the failed coup a few years ago. Stephen Kinzer has just come out with a book on the history of US overthrows of various governments over the past century. It's a pattern that predates and postdates the Soviet era. We always seem to come up with some reason for doing it. Clinton continued to supply weapons to Turkey in the mid 90's, knowing they would be used to kill Kurds, so there was apparently a felt need to continue that particular pattern of behavior even after the collapse of the USSR.

BTW, I for one have no problem accepting that both sides of the domestic political debate use hate-filled rhetoric from time to time. I could give examples I've heard from friends and acquaintances on both sides. I think on the national level Limbaugh and company far outweigh whoever their leftwing equivalents might be. I couldn't care less about most of this, except for advocacy of genocide (which I've heard personally, from the right of course). That's worrisome because it suggests the sort of support Bush might get if he does decide to use nukes. But it doesn't matter to me that lefties are called traitors or nitwits by people like Coulter and Limbaugh. What annoys me is that we hear so much about the "angry left", with no acknowledgement of the perfectly legitimate reasons for the outrage. It's a way of dismissing the issues.

[hilzoy]

AVI: I would pay attention to this statement by CharleyCarp: "When you say that I'm talking about something I don't know about -- well, I guess you wouldn't have any basis for that claim either."

Personally, I don't doubt that there are idiots on all sides of any political spectrum. For that reason, I don't doubt your claim about the bumper sticker, or about your conversations. That's one reason I stick to people who have some sort of following: because I assume that for any reasonably large group of people ("liberals", "conservatives") there will be some number of bozos among them.

I also have no real desire to get into comparative badness. I take it for granted that we are better than lots of people; I'm interested not in showing that we are e.g. better than Saddam, Or Osama bin Laden, or Pol Pot or Mao, which I have never doubted, but that we live up to the ideals of our nation. Here's the best explanation I can give of why.

[Assistant Village Idiot]

Let me first express gratitude that some are acknowledging that this is a discussion of degree and net good, rather than a black/white discussion. That is not always the case.

Charley, I know you expect to be believed on the basis of your experience, but that is precisely why I don't. I have spent years listening to patient advocate attorneys making things sound like something they are not, and accepting the testimony of personality disordered people with considerable agenda over the explanations of staff.

That is not to say that there are never abuses - of course there are - but I also know how things can be made to look when an attorney can choose carefully what he wants to reveal, having been in conference or on the stand numerous times for exactly that. Your assessment may indeed prove out to be true. But an advocate attorney is simply the least unbiased person in the picture.

Some of them are friends of mine, and you may be a fine fellow, with whom I would agree on many things. But what to you is pulling rank is in my mind a serious undermining of your case. Not because you (singular) would be dishonest, but because every paranoid interpretation would appeal to you (plural) as plausible. If I seem heated on this point, it is because I find that advocate attorneys investigating the hospital create policies that kill people, but congratulate themselves on the results. This is not to say that they have done no good or do not mean well. But their idea of the holiness of their cause is just flippin' dangerous. I don't see a compelling reason why Gitmo counselors would be cut from different cloth. I wish there were some way I could make that non-personal, but as I don't know you I can't move it either way.

At a minimum, are the conditions at Gitmo worse than in an average American prison? I would doubt that. If that is so, then why the attention on the one if not for political reasons, rather than social justice?

All that said, yes, it may well be that we are doing terrible things. But I have had a wait-and-see attitude on a number of things about the Bush administration, from Joe Wilson to WMD, and the track record when the information trickles out has been exceptionally good. I'll risk it.

Donald Johnson

I think equating forced starvation, as in the Ukraine, with economic policies is a stretch. The lot of nearly all mankind until 1700 was starvation at some part of the year. What you are seeing as the cause, I am contending is the only known escape. Economic policy is complicated, with mixed results and unexpected results, and it is usually impossible to trace back even horrible results to a policy, independent of the corrupt administrators, underminings, and information dispersal. Forced starvation is pretty straightforward, and the attribution is usually clear. Bringing in the example of Zaire, I wish anyone knew what to do with sub-saharan Africa. God, I wish I knew what would work. Allowing GM foods and eliminating tariffs to the EU and the US is said to have potential for a huge difference, and I suspect it's true. It is a tragedy that we will not do it.

Interesting fact. Famine does not occur in places with a free press. Some pretty severe hardship has occurred when naturaol disaster strikes an already impovershed area. But not famine. Those have to be directed by governments.

[Bernard Yomtov]

I am criticising violence and incitement to violence.

Funny you don't mention Ann ("My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building") Coulter, who seems to enjoy a status just short of a rock star at conservative gatherings.

Strange omission for an opponent of violence.

[Bernard Yomtov]

I know you expect to be believed on the basis of your experience, but that is precisely why I don't.

This is ridiculous. The statements of a person with direct knowledge must be false because of that knowledge.

Yeah. You're a whiz at logic.

[liberaljaponicus]

It is not simply the question of what prison conditions are at Gitmo. It is a question of whether those imprisoned are guilty of any crime. In the case of the Chinese Uighurs, they have been found innocent, but because of fears that accepting that because the US utilized a procedure (bounty hunting) that could call into question all of the other cases, it continues to hold them. Perhaps you feel that a few broken Uighurs are the cost of making the omelette of a terrorist free world, or at least a terror safe US. However, in order to accept such a formulation, one would have to show that it is neccessary to imprison innocents in order to achieve this goal.

Bernard's point about your logic also should be noted, because it would conveniently rule out any direct observations made by people here because of their personal political persuasions. If that is the case, there's not really much point in discussing any of this and we are wasting each other's time.

[CharleyCarp]

AVI, it's all a matter of what 'worse' means. My last trip to GTMO was with a federal public defender, who was visiting his clients. He spends a lot of time in various federal prisons, and it was interesting to hear his comparisons: some aspects are better, some worse. (And of course no matter where one is in life, it depends a whole lot on the people around. No one I work with, of whatever political persuasion, laughs about political assassination, or has bumper stickers directly or indirectly advocating death of the President.)

One huge difference between GTMO and a federal prison is having had a trial. Another is knowing what the sentence is. Having a system that would allow one to complain about mistreatment. (I worked for a federal judge when I was in law school, and was quite impressed with how many federal prisoners have pro se lawsuits. Sure most of them are crap, but the few that have a kernel of truth make a difference, and I think one shouldn't discount the deterent effect the right to sue has).

Of course I have also met lawyers who seemed to be willing to stretch the truth whenever they could get away with it. It's not how I like to think of myself, you'll not be surprised to learn. I work at a place where that kind of thing gets you fired, and either I'm reasonably honest, or a master deceiver.

To get back to the actual point, I don't think it's a mystery that KSM was tortured, and that this is one of the main reasons why Padilla (and the federal defender tells me it's pronounced puh-DILL-uh) was moved from military to civilian custody, and only charged with crimes far removed from anything KSM and his cohorts told the interrogators. I don't have any inside knowledge on this, btw.

[CharleyCarp]

I didn't mean to 'pull rank.' I would never presume to lecture you on conditions in psychiatric institutions, and am not, in my view, in any position whatever to doubt your statements about co-workers' remarks or bumper stickers. I think it's laughable to get into an argument with you about what you had for breakfast yesterday. Unless you tell it was dinosaur eggs, over easy, there's no way I'm going to come out ahead on that. I would only distinguish between statement (a) 'you don't know anything about the Salt Pit'; and statement (b) 'I don't believe what I've heard about the Salt Pit.' Obviously, your foundation for (b) is way different from your foundation for statement (a).

[Assistant Village Idiot]

Bernard, see my first comment. I mentioned Coulter right up front. She got fired from National Review for outrageous, inciting comments.

lj - I do not rule out any direct evidence, nor do I consider Charleycarp's evidence by definiton false because he has first-hand experience. I may be bold, but not suicidal. In this instance, it is because of the specific type of first-hand evidence that I hold it in reserve. I would also hold in reserve as suspect the testimony of a Gitmo guard for the same reason.

CC - I am gratified to know that such violent humor as I experience would be unacceptable in your circle. Unfortunately, it is encountered in public fora (I think that should be forums, actually, having come into English in singular form) as well, as I note above. The Kos kids are the most egregious, of course, and as they are seldom disowned by other Dems, I have trouble discerning how central they are to the discussion. The new Euston Manifesto suggests to me that liberals are now taking more pains to dissociate themselves from leftists. But maybe not.

http://powerlineblog.com/archives/010150.php

http://michellemalkin.com/archives/002059.htm

[Jackmormon]

The more I see people write things along the lines of Guantamano or Abu Ghraib are no worse than our domestic prisons, the more outraged I get about our complacency about conditions in our domestic prisons.

That said, the extralegal nature of GTMO should provide an added worry.

Charley, you might be able to answer a question that's been niggling at me for a couple of years and that I've been unable to google effectively. I remember hearing on the radio that the "terror cell" from Lackawanna, NY had been persuaded to plead guilty to "material support for terrorism" in large part because they'd been threatened with being shipped to GTMO, effectively outside any jurisdiction. My understanding from reporting at the time was that the guilty pleas provided an important legal precedent for the "material support" charge. The case has really disappeared from view (the Wikipedia article, for example, is very sparse), and I'd be interested to hear how it's aged.

[liberal japonicus]

Well, AVI, you are being Shakespearean in rejecting anything that lawyers have to say, but beyond that, I think it is a bit much to reject Charley, given that you are a newbie around here. It's not wishing that someone drove a truck bomb made with ammonium nitrate fertilizer into the NYTimes office, but it's a rather black and white sort of metric.

I would really hesitate citing Malkin for anything at all, given that her book about the internment of Japanese-Americans is a tour-de-farce and she has recently had her own problems with dealing with norms of blog communication.

As for Powerline, one of the conservatives occasionally posting here doesn't think much of the cited Powerline pundit. That doesn't necessarily make them wrong (just because an absolute fool says the sun will come up tomorrow doesn't mean that it won't), but in cases where objective reasoning might be called for, they aren't your first string.

[radish]

So someone seriously thinks I'mn lying about that?

Yep. Nothing personal, mind, more of a guilt by association thing which I wouldn't have engaged in just a few short years ago. That said, the fact that you're talking about New England (San Francisco and parts of New Mexico would also work for me) makes it slightly less implausible. I don't know anyone offhand that I can ask to verify it in person, and I'm not sure I care enough to actually put any real effort into it, but I'm willing to leave it in the "unlikely but possible" category for now. Please for pete's sake don't post her name or plates or anything like that though.

Precisely why George Bush has said we will no longer promote stability at the expense of freedom.

Well if Iraq doesn't persuade people that our new policy is to prefer freedom over stability I can't imagine what would. Haiti too -- that must have been a very difficult decision to make. Oh and Afghanistan. Of course there are those who argue that this new policy is in place simply because freedom is easy to talk about and impossible to measure whereas stability is easy to measure and hard to fake. And there are others who say that it's all well and good to sacrifice other peoples' stability but that once that policy arrives on our doorstep we won't be quite so enthusiastic about it. Buncha naysayers I guess.

We are little involved there now that there is not another superpower destabilizing the area.

Quite a bit less than the eighties, certainly, though I reckon some Colombians (to say nothing of Hugo Chavez) might quibble with you over what qualifies as "little." In fact I suspect that a lot of people think that the commies weren't destabilizing the area all by themselves, but those people are just blame-america-firsters. OTOH I'm sure Evo Morales would concede that US influence isn't all bad...

At a minimum, are the conditions at Gitmo worse than in an average American prison? I would doubt that.

Aside from the especially dubious value of this particular relative-badness defense, are you asking us to regard this as a falsifiable proposition? I mean you doubt it, sure, and lord knows there are some hella bad prisons in this country, but who is it exactly who can verify the comparison? Or is it not important that it be verified? Are we to accept your doubt, and the ICRC's silence, as definitive, because we are at war and this is no time to make trouble?

Alternatively, given that you reject the legitimacy of strictly political opposition to gitmo, can we assume that you accept as fully legitimate opposition by people who also work for social justice in the context of the (increasingly ugly as it becomes increasingly privatized) US prison industry? I don't suppose you know anybody like that, but they're out there. Some people work, day in, day out, on one thing or another, because they can't work on all of them. Some people see the economic and educational and thousand other interlocked elements that make a polity, and pick one, while others don't. I wonder, AVI, if years from now when yet more chickens come home to roost you will even remember this conversation?

All in all, I doubt that we have any substantive disagreements about how to describe The Way Things Really Ought To Be. And I don't doubt your (singular) intentions. I just think that your idea of the holiness of your (plural) cause (let's call that cause freedom, for lack of a better word) is just, well, flippin' dangerous.

[David Neiwert]

I think Paul Weyrich very easily qualifies as a mainstream conservative, and that post was built around his commentary.

Or are you unfamiliar with Weyrich's role in the "Reagan revolution" and the founding of the Heritage Foundation?

I think japnoicus apprehends my argument very well, thank you.

[Sebastian Holsclaw]

That's rather misleading.

First, your quotes all appear to be from Lind, not Weyrich.

Second, you confuse a strict Boas multi-culturalism with how multi-culturalism actually plays out in less rigorous settings.

Third, you employ bad logic in suggesting that since the more limited multi-culturalism of Boas was a reaction to racism that resistance to a much broader definition of multiculturalism must come from racsim. That wouldn't even follow if modern pop-multiculturalism was exactly the same as that of Boas. It is perfectly normal for a theory to be a reaction to one set of ideas while being open to critique from another.

Fifth, you compound these errors by utilizing totalizing language which you find abhorrent in those you study--you are adopting the tactics of those you dislike. You set the stage with: "Both progressives and centrists need to understand what the increasing attacks on multiculturalism from ostensibly mainstream conservatives are really all about: namely, the return of white nationalism."

Attacks on the multi-culturalism are not inevitabely, and rarely in practice, about the return of white nationalism. Attacks on market failures are not "really all about" Communism. Attacks on religious excess are not "really all about" atheism. Questioning the moral implications of technologies is not "really all about" being a Luddite. You try to sweep up all of your enemies in a broad brush--erasing individuality in the condemnation of the other.

[Sebastian Holsclaw]

Heh, and sixth I don't know how to count to four!

[Bernard Yomtov]

I mentioned Coulter right up front. She got fired from National Review for outrageous, inciting comments.

No. She didn't get fired for her comments. Read what Jonah Goldberg had to say:

So let me be clear: We did not "fire" Ann for what she wrote, even though it was poorly written and sloppy. We ended the relationship because she behaved with a total lack of professionalism, friendship, and loyalty.

The bolding is mine.

In other words, NR was happy to give Coulter'sa forum for her "ourageous, inciting" ideas. It's just that she was disrespectful to Goldberg and Lowry. (Not that they deserve any respect, but never mind that).

And of course, she is no fringe character on the right. She is enormously popular - a mainstream consevative. So there are many who have no problem with her ideas at all.

Meanwhile, I suggest you read Glenn Greenwald's post on this topic. Perhaps you think calling for political opponents to be jailed, hanged, or charged with treason is acceptable, doesn't meet your definition of calling for violence. What's the punishment for treason? Follow the Malkin links. You may find them interesting.

[Slartibartfast]

I have to disagree with you, Bernard. Greenwald's conflating (in my opinion, justified) outrage at the lack of (in my opinion, justified) legal consequences for Berger and (anticipated) same for McCarthy with other, less savory things. Appropriate consequences and a treason conviction are not the same thing at all.

I've also cried out loudly for Berger's consignment to an appropriate federal penitentiary; I suppose that makes me enraged, in addition to being a puppet to racist overlords.

Shorter: like Hitler, only more angry.

[cleek]

Aside from the especially dubious value of this particular relative-badness defense...

... and the giggly irony of the fact that the 'conservative' here is the one playing the relativism game with questions of morality...

[Bernard Yomtov]

Slarti,

I think you skipped a lot of what Greenwald cited:

Here is Powerline on the reporters who broke the NSA story: "Throw 'em in the slammer." Townhall columnist Ben Shapiro: Howard Dean, John Kerry and Al Gore all belong in prison for "sedition." Powerline: Jimmy Carter is "on the other side." Karl Rove says Dick Durbin is on the side of terrorists. Michael Reagan thinks Howard Dean should be hanged. Charles Johnson of LGF said this weekend: the media is helping Iran get the bomb by weakening our country (by reporting on what is going on in Iraq), and are therefore "becoming a major liability in the clash of civilizations," a post which led his readers, needless to say, to spew sentiments about McCarthy and the media such as this:

Law-and order, red-state, non-nuanced, thinking Americans would expect the law to be enforced, the sentence to reflect the treasonous actions of the convicted, and the execution to be public.

This is a lot more than calls for criminal penalties for Berger and (possibly) McCarthy.

And if you're so hot on imprisoning people, what about some other folks? From an earlier Grennwald post

Recently, close Bush ally, Republican Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama, was found by investigators to have leaked highly sensitive, classified information to Fox News' Carl Cameron and CNN's Dana Bash while Shelby served on the Senate Intelligence Committee -- an unauthorized and serious leak which, for some odd reason, the Bush Justice Department refused to prosecute. No Bush followers, at least that I know of, objected to the decision to allow Sen. Shelby to leak with impunity.

Equally close Bush ally, Republican Senator Orrin Hatch, leaked some of the most classified information our government had in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks

...

For some weird reason, the Justice Department did not prosecute Hatch's leak either, and Bush followers did not express any objections to that decision.

there is a slew of leaks of classified information from the Bush White House -- not decisions by the President to declassify information and then release it to the public, but anonymous pro-Bush disclosures by executive branch officials of information which is still classified, and which is released selectively and for plainly political ends. Leaking classified information is one of the principal tactics of the Bush White House and -- as demonstrated -- its closets political allies.

So let's send Shelby and Hatch to join Berger in the penitentiary, shall we, and let's send a few White House officials as well. Or is it only anti-Bush leaks that should be prosecuted?

[David Neiwert]

Lind and Weyrich work largely hand in glove these days, and I've written on several other occasions about Weyrich's hostility to multiculturalism.

Having studied Boas fairly extensively, your characterization of his view as promoting a "limited" multiculturalism is pure bosh. Agreed, the way it plays out in pop culture often approaches travesty -- but that should be grounds to critique the individual actors, not the undergirding philosophy.

And I'm not making a logical error -- I'm reaching a logical conclusion based on the words of the writers. I think Weyrich's predilection for white nationalism is fairly clear when he says things http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?aid=53&printable=1>like this:

"Surely [Cohen] must recognize that Political Correctness is an ideology ... that ... demands we all accede to many lies: that men and women are interchangeable, that there are no differences among races or ethnic groups within races (when those groups are taken as wholes, as PC demands), that homosexuality is normal," he wrote. "This is, in fact, the unholy trinity that Political Correctness requires we all bow down and worship: 'racism, sexism, and homophobia.'

Likewise with http://www.freecongress.org/centers/cc/history.asp>Lind:

Cultural conservatism is the belief that there is a necessary, unbreakable, and causal relationship between traditional Western, Judeo-Christian values, definitions of right and wrong, ways of thinking and ways of living -- the parameters of Western culture -- and the secular success of Western societies: their prosperity, their liberties, and the opportunities they offer their citizens to lead fulfilling, rewarding lives.

Whenever I encounter a critique of multiculturalism, I try to drill down into the argument to see what they're proposing as an alternative. Most of them don't; like Mickey Kaus, they're content to simply bash away without offering anything in the way of a constructive counter-approach. But for those who do -- and Lind and Weyrich are prominent among them -- it's fairly clear that what they are promoting is not an alternative but rather a return to the old system of hierarchical racial supremacism. Because that is precisely what those "traditional ways of thinking" entailed.

So let me ask: What do you propose as an alternative to multiculturalism?

[Slartibartfast]

Here is Powerline on the reporters who broke the NSA story: "Throw 'em in the slammer."

Which somehow fails to translate to "off with their heads", or anything like that.

And if you're so hot on imprisoning people, what about some other folks?

Fine by me. But I believe the law tends to look on deliberate leaks a little differently than the accidental kind. I think, for example, that for Berger to accidentally place classified documents in his pants pocket, and then later accidentally destroy some of them, and accidentally try to replace others; that sort of beggars belief. Especially considering his former position as one of the people who surely do know the rules. Similarly, for CIA personnel to accidentally leak anything classified also beggars belief. Congresscritters, though, are mostly devoid of clue. Which is why they don't get read into absolutely everything.

But, sure, bring them to justice.

In Berger's case, was there anything anti-Bush involved? I can't recall anything like that.

As for Shelby:

The panels' chairmen, Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.) and Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.), responded immediately by requesting a Justice Department investigation into the disclosure, an unusual move that brought criticism from other members of Congress.

Interesting. I thought Republicans got a pass from other Republicans.

[cleek]

But, sure, bring them to justice.

7 more months and maybe we will.

[john miller]

Slarti, just to get timeline correct, Shelby's leak and the subsequent request for a Justice Department investigation was in 2002. It was not discovered that it was Shelby until 2004, when suddenly the Justice departmentd ropped its investigation. At least that is what the article appears to say.
It was referred to the Ethics Committee, and AFAIK, has since disappeared form view.

[Bernard Yomtov]

But, sure, bring them to justice.

So I take it you think Bush should ask Justice to investigate and prosecute all leaks from White House personnel, and that he should start it by telling all he knows about the leaks?

[Slartibartfast]

It was referred to the Ethics Committee, and AFAIK, has since disappeared form view.

Surprise, surprise.

So I take it you think Bush should ask Justice to investigate and prosecute all leaks from White House personnel, and that he should start it by telling all he knows about the leaks?

Far afield from the point, but: sure, for what "should" is worth. Apples and oranges, though: Berger definitely committed a crime; McCarthy certainly broke CIA rules and probably broke some laws. As regards Berger, I can point to specific things that he did that were absolutely illegal.

[Donald Johnson]

AVI, I don't think there's a moral distinction between Stalin's famine policies and the economic "policies" of Mobutu (i.e., mass looting of an entire nation). In cases like Mobutu (or under Chiang or under Marcos etc...) the power of government is used in the service of outright looting. In the case of Stalin, it was used to enforce an unworkable economic policy (and if people didn't cooperate, they'd be killed). The end result is the same and the moral responsibilities of those in power is the same.

As for famine and free press and so forth, that's Amartya Sen you're indirectly quoting, I think. But maybe misquoting slightly. His argument is that democratic governments can't starve their people in famines because the press will raise a stink, and voters will rebel. (The voters have to be starving, btw--British India presumably had a free press, but starving Indians couldn't vote.) But he also goes on to say that malnutrition leading to death can be extremely high in democracies, and in his comparison of Maoist China to postcolonial India, China has the enormous famines, but overall, Maoist China actually had the better record in increasing life expectancy and cutting down on death from malnutrition. It sounds paradoxical, but it's not.

But that's tangential to our argument, since the governments allied to the US that I'm criticizing were authoritarian in nature and therefore free to let their people starve as they saw fit.

Our argument, in turn, is tangential to this thread (my fault, I think). I'll sit back now and watch you and Charley fight. One thing about that Euston manifesto though--I don't think you'll find too many lefty supporters of it around here. I could be wrong. But I don't want to get into another tangential argument.

[radish]

I suppose that makes me enraged, in addition to being a puppet to racist overlords.

I'd certainly be enraged if I were you. Carefully composing a reasonable, fact-based, argument only to be greeted with accusations of irrationality and racism... Oh wait, that's me. That's why I'm enraged. But really I'm just angry at myself because this is all my fault for ignoring the writing on the wall when I first read it.

You want both Berger and McCarthy to go to jail, right? Me too, sort of, except that I don't care about the going to jail part so much as the trial-by-jury and rule-of-law part. In fact, just to give you a little perspective, I got on this train during the Reagan era. I am the exact opposite of a Reagan liberal -- I'm a Carter conservative.

Just to offer one example (since racism has been mentioned) remember when Saint Ronald drove the welfare queens out of Americaland? I rolled my eyes, but I didn't speak out because I wasn't a welfare queen. In fact it turned out there were no actual welfare queens, didn't it? Does that mean that the Reaganites were delusional? That "welfare queen" was a code word?

Which is better, Slart? Were they staggeringly incompetent or were they using racism as a political tool? Or do you have some other explanation that I haven't heard yet?

Or, to get back to the subject at hand, if hearings and trials are such great things then why don't we know who was responsible for Iran-Contra? You think North and Poindexter did it all on their own say-so? If so, whey are they GOP heroes instead of outcasts?

Or 9/11 for that matter. Or Iraq. Or why W wasn't thrown in the brig or sent to nam when he was supposed to be. The milk you're concerned about got spilt a long long time ago and the reason I'm mad is that the national discourse has turned into a hairsplitting argument about how many teaspoons are still in the carton rather than how to clean up the most-of-a-gallon that's all over the floor.

And now you're trying to tell me that a couple of sentences of bloviation by Graham and Goss, followed by an aborted investigation disproves IOKIYAR? What about Katie Leung? What about Larry Franklin having lunch at Stetson's whenever he feels like it, because of Rosen and Weissman's trial, which is now pending Condi's testimony, which will quite possibly never happen? (And if it does happen then anybody who questions her integrity will be accused of racism or partisanship or both.)

Suppose, hypothetically, that Rosen and Weissman are found not guilty or there's a mistrial and the Feds decide not to try again? Once again, the press lose interest and nobody goes to jail. Franklin loses his right to own a handgun in certain states and to vote in others. Business as usual.

Yeah, I'm angry. Appropriate consequences my [deleted] [deleted]. </rant>

[Uncle Kvetch]

Uncle Kvetch -- perfect. You left out the very next sentence of Derbyshire's quote. I recommend the entire article to the readers, to see if it suggests violence.

I never said it did, AVI--I'm fully aware that Derbyshire was not literally calling for Chelsea Clinton's head. You contended that no one "laughed" about killing Clinton, and I provided an example of someone making a joke about having his daughter executed--to paraphrase, "Hitler and Stalin knew what to do with people like her"--which I think is roughly in the same ballpark...don't you?

Ann Coulter was "joking" when she regretted that McVeigh didn't blow up the New York Times building. Likewise, she was "joking" when she expressed her hope that someone would poison Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens. In the exact same manner, Derbyshire "joked" about putting Chelsea Clinton to death. So why is Coulter outrageous while Derbyshire needs to be taken in context?

[Sebastian Holsclaw]

Whenever I encounter a critique of multiculturalism, I try to drill down into the argument to see what they're proposing as an alternative. Most of them don't; like Mickey Kaus, they're content to simply bash away without offering anything in the way of a constructive counter-approach. But for those who do -- and Lind and Weyrich are prominent among them -- it's fairly clear that what they are promoting is not an alternative but rather a return to the old system of hierarchical racial supremacism. Because that is precisely what those "traditional ways of thinking" entailed.

So let me ask: What do you propose as an alternative to multiculturalism?

You slip back and forth between types of multiculturalism. You focus on the narrow anthropological category without seeing how much broader the multicultural arguments has gotten when it has escaped those bounds. This is ironic coming from someone whose life work appears to include a focus on tenuous "transmission" arguments. When someone says "Who are we to judge? They are from another culture." they are expressing the popular multiculturalism that the conservatives you want to tar find disturbing.

What do I propose as an alternative? I propose that we reject the moral relativist position that multiculturalism so easily slides into while embracing an evolutionary understanding of cultural practices. A great many Western cultural practices are better than many cultural practices of other cultures. It isn't a racial issue--black, white and presumabely purple people are perfectly capable of striving to have equal rights for women and are all perfectly capable of avoiding locking them up inside or covering them with veils.

I'm a conservative, but I'm market-informed so I am not at all for cultural stasis. It is inevitable that other cultures will be better at certain other things than we are. We should strive to identify those practices and integrate them into our society. One of the great attributes of Western culture is its willingness to adopt successful strategies from other cultures while discarding most (though not all) of the unsuccessful ones. This process--a direct mirror of the scientific method and market survival mechanisms--fuels success.

There are also taste issues--things which have little to do with cultural success (at least in a material welfare sense) but lots to do with cultural variety. There is no reason to resist those.

The key problem is determining which things are successes and which ones aren't or figuring out which ones are taste issues and which ones are materially important. This is a difficult task (full of close calls), but its difficulty shouldn't cause it to be abandoned. Just because I can't draw a perfectly obvious line about morality in every situation doesn't mean that I can't say "That is just wrong" to female genital mutilation.

Multiculturalism as commonly practiced is a shortcut to avoid these questions. "Who's to judge" just avoids the issue. "Celebrate Diversity" just avoids the issue. It is understandable that people like to avoid dealing with hard issues. That doesn't mean we should enable it with our rhetoric.

Your equation of anti-multiculturalism = Nazi racism isn't helping things.

[David Neiwert]

Well, my perspective is no doubt tainted by the fact that I first started hearing rants against multiculturalism in the early 1980s while dealing with white supremacists. Then I saw virtually the same arguments, stripped of overt racism, being floated by mainstream conservatives like Weyrich. Then I heard it being carried further by folks like Limbaugh and O'Reilly. So perhaps there are reasons I tend to see this thread.

I actually think your critique of multiculturalism is about right, at least in several key regards (especially the matter of moral relativism). I wish you could, however, point me to other conservatives whose take is equally nuanced. I'm afraid voices like yours tend to be washed out by people like Weyrich and Jared Taylor, whose approaches to multiculturalism are clearly white nationalist, and who both enjoy far more influence in conservative circles than you or anyone as thoughtful as you.

[Slartibartfast]

And now you're trying to tell me that a couple of sentences of bloviation by Graham and Goss, followed by an aborted investigation disproves IOKIYAR?

Translation to English, please?

Or, to get back to the subject at hand, if hearings and trials are such great things then why don't we know who was responsible for Iran-Contra? You think North and Poindexter did it all on their own say-so? If so, whey are they GOP heroes instead of outcasts?

Hey, someone points me to an article, I say something relevant to that article, and all of a sudden radish is pissed off about a whole bunch of other things that, well, aren't. Why I should care about this is anyone's guess.

[Slartibartfast]

Well, my perspective is no doubt tainted by the fact that I first started hearing rants against multiculturalism in the early 1980s while dealing with white supremacists. Then I saw virtually the same arguments, stripped of overt racism, being floated by mainstream conservatives like Weyrich. Then I heard it being carried further by folks like Limbaugh and O'Reilly. So perhaps there are reasons I tend to see this thread.

Similarly, I had noticed that Nazis have been doing this thing called breathing. Then I noticed, that, shockingly, so were Republicans! Breathing, to be sure, stripped of the overtly Nazi racist overtones.