Ann Coulter (Is she hateful?)

Meh{abe} To elaborate, I posted a longer reply but then decided to take the "teaching a pig to sing" stance and deleted it.Edited by Panda, : No reason given.Edited by Panda, : No reason given.

I got kicked out of EvC for a lesser offense than your one-word reply.And I don't understand what you guys are objecting to. Are you just disagreeing with my conservative views without bothering to make a case, or disagreeing with my characterization of liberalism or what? It's a complete enigma to me.

No you didn't.

My goal was not to embarrass him - though if he feels embarrassed by his own words, perhaps next time he should not send messages he would find embarrassing.My intent was to show foreveryoung that, whatever he wants to say to me, he can say it as a public reply for all to see. By simply posting his PM in public, I discourage him from sending future "Fuck you" PMs.

In the OP foreveryoung posted some assertions and asked a question.The topic title asks "Ann Coulter (Is she hateful?)".He said " It isn't any wonder then when colleges like Fordham University ban Coulter from speaking at their campuses. "In Message 36 he provided his source for the assertion that Fordham banned Ann Coulter but the very quote HE provided says otherwise.

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I happen to love Fordham University. My daughter got a great education there. As president of the College Democrats, she worked well with College Republicans. I met a whole lot of them when they politely turned out the night she helped bring Howard Dean to campus; the next year, she got to moderate a question-and-answer session — to ensure fairness — when the College Republicans hosted Karl Rove. It felt to me like a lost era of civility and reason as I watched young people from the two parties get along up in the Bronx.

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But now the Fordham College Republicans have invited Ann Coulter, who outdoes Karl Rove (barely, these days) in the department of divisiveness and meanness. I had a moment of regretting the mega-dollars I spent on Fordham — even though I know the clubs are free to invite whomever they like, within reason (although this tests reason). Then I saw Fordham President Father Joseph McShane’s terrific reply, which I’m printing in full.

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Given the dramatic rightward shift of the Republican Party, I happen to believe that the path back to civility involves civil people not merely smiling and being civil but forcefully calling extremist Republicans out on their cruelty and extremism. Father McShane shows the way. He blasts Coulter’s message as hateful and needlessly provocative more heat than light and says her message is aimed squarely at the darker side of our nature.

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McShane notes that Fordham has been blighted by ugly racial and homophobic incidents in the last few years, and he laments the lack of maturity shown by his young campus Republicans in inviting the provocateur Coulter. But he says he trusts the Fordham community to model the power of decency and reason to overcome hatred and prejudice. Let’s hope that happens. Personally, I hope Coulter reads McShane’s statement, withdraws from the engagement and spends some time reflecting on why she’s filled with so much hate. But I’m a dreamer.

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Update: Tonight, the Fordham College Republicans have cancelled Coulter’s appearance.

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So the very quote that foreveryoung used as evidence refutes his assertion that Fordham banned Ann Coulter.But the question remains, is Ann Coulter hateful?As I said in my reply to him, "It's true that Ann Coulter is not fit to be in polite company, but she is not significant enough to be considered hateful. She's not significant enough to be considered much of anything for that matter; maybe about like the sophomoric loudmouth that tries to get a reaction by being vulgar but certainly no more significant than that.But she's smart enough to know where the money is and there's gold to be mined in them their Christian Fundamentalist."Ann Coulter is simply not important enough for anyone to really worry about. She has found a profitable niche and is very successful at marketing her shpeil and shtick. Within that market she is a groyser tzuleyger.

Hi jar, Hateful Definition & Meaning | Dictionary.com

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hate•ful
adjective

1. arousing hate or deserving to be hated: the hateful oppression of dictators.
2. unpleasant; dislikable; distasteful: She found her domestic chores hateful.
3. full of or expressing hate; malignant; malevolent: a hateful denunciatory speech.

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She is on the "hate radio" circuit and uses terminology that encourages hate among followers and anger in targets. She is certainly a provacateur in that regard. That certainly is a possibility, and fits with the behavior observed the limited times I have watched/listened to her. She was essentially asked this question while promoting her lates diatribe on "the View" and dodged the question rather than refuted or denied it.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxLIPLU1yM8Enjoy.

OK, let's concede your definition. From here on in, on this thread, the word "liberal" is to mean people who are, in your words, "not hateful, reactionary, homophobic right wingers". Now while Fordham College may include some people who are "hateful, reactionary, homophobic right wingers", they are not like that collectively and as an institution, and so the college may be considered liberal.Carry on.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

I suppose this is just one of your typical rhetorical put downs that you don't expect an answer to but those are not my words that you impute to me. I don't recognize such terms at all. "Hateful, reactionary and homophobic" are all liberal flag words that pack a liberal agenda, starting with slandering and discrediting conservatives, which is how you are using them too.Second, this isn't about "people" as in "some people who are..." it's about university POLICY, their idea of what should be addressed in their extracurricular forums or however they structure those things. It's an institutional position, and as described, using all those terms I called "liberal flag words" it's a fine definition of a liberal institutional position.Again what ARE you guys objecting to in my characterization? It IS a liberal institutional position, those ARE "liberal flag words," a conservative institutional agenda would not have any of that in it. In today's political environment they no doubt have to address some of those questions from a conservative perspective, but otherwise, as I said, in the place of such an agenda I would expect them to have more academic and practical community focused extracurriculars.Again, what on earth ARE you guys objecting to in all this? It looks to me like a simple factual matter.And third, why are you attributing this to ME personally, as if I invented these concepts? You can find this point of view expressed throughout conservative discussions anywhere, I simply put it into the context of this discussion of the political position of Fordham Univerity.Is there a liberal policy at Fordham that explains why Ann Coulter was ultimately rejected? I think the evidence of this thread has added up to "Yes." The characterization of her as a provocateur spreading hate is pure liberalism. This ought to be indisputable.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Hi Faith, I think I understand what you are saying, so please correct me if I'm wrong. You think that words like "hateful, reactionary, and homophobic" aren't used to convey actual arguments, but are instead simply used to cause an emotional reaction and vilify conservatives. Essentially you view those words as ad hominem attacks on the person that typically mean that the person using them has no real argument. Is that about correct?I can understand that. I've had people attach emotionally charged labels to me so as to completely dismiss my arguments, and I've found it frustrating. I imagine that, in your case as an example, someone just replied to one of your posts saying that you were a "reactionary" (I'm just picking the least offensive of the words above) and didn't address a single point you made, that this would be frustrating, even infuriating if it happened with regularity.I'm honestly trying to see this from your perspective, Faith, so I'd appreciate an honest attempt to see things from mine as well.What I'm seeing here is more soccer hooliganry. It's like one side is just screaming "Commie!" and the other side is screaming "Corporate pig!" and nobody is actually listening to each other or addressing each others' points. It just boils down to each side screaming "you're on the other side!" and that's it. Not very productive or even very interesting.What I think you aren't understanding is that you're throwing the word "liberal" around as if it's some sort of insult - basically you seem to be using the term as an emotionally charged label that allows you to dismiss your opponent without addressing any actual points. This may not, however, be how you're intending to use the word - it's just the way it's coming across.I think that's part of why you see such opposition - intentionally or otherwise, you're conveying that you thing "liberalism" is a bad thing in its entirety, and many here are self-identified liberals. We're all just drawing a nice big line for our sides so we can disapprove of each other while never actually talking about anything of substance. It's a microcosm of what some of us feel that Ann Coulter and those like her do (and there are examples on the "left" as well) - rile up the "sides" against each other, get everybody screaming "liberal!" and "conservative" as if they're insults, and the whole thing turns into a nice big soccer hooligan riot where we all trample each other, not for actually being bad people, but for having the temerity to have a difference of opinion. I think here you're just running into the complexity of assigning a binary label (liberal vs not-liberal) when political leanings are a much larger spectrum. For example, you and many others will identify Obama as a "liberal," and compared to you or Mitt Romney or George W Bush, he certainly is. But compared to me, he leans pretty far to the right, and I have trouble calling him a "liberal" because I view him as far more moderate...from my perspective.Personally, I think that political discourse cannot be improved by continuing to identify each other with such simple labels as "liberal" and "conservative." Those labels certainly don;t encompass all of our views - I know there are conservatives who would disagree with you just as there are liberals who would disagree with me - I'm a huge supporter of nuclear power, for example, and a lot of Earth-conscious people oppose me even as I self-identify as more on "their side."I think that the "liberal" vs "conservative" shouting matches get us nowhere, and I'd rather have real discussions about actual policies and societal issues. Instead of just lining up according to who's a hippie and who's a Captain Planet villain, I'd like to actually discuss the environmental and economic situation of the world and explore solutions that address both jobs and cleaner air.I think that "homophobia" is more than just a "liberal flag word," and that hatred of homosexuals is a real societal problem just like racism, as we still occasionally read in the news about some poor kid who was bullied to the point of suicide for being gay, and I think that's a real problem that needs to be addressed.I think that "hateful" rhetoric is a real problem...and I think the solution is to stop shouting labels at each other and to start talking with each other to find new solutions from our shared perspectives. You and I are never going to agree on some things, but I bet you'd agree that it'd sure be nice if we could lower the unemployment rate.What do you think?

Well, then I've done a poor job of expressing my impression of you. I mean, don't get me wrong - I don't think you're hardly ever right, but it's clear that you put a lot of thought into your posts, and unlike the rest of your fellow travelers I get the impression from your replies that the information is sinking in, not simply being chucked out by Morton's Demon.That's all to your credit, which is why I was excited to see that you and Percy had opened the "Intro to Genetics" thread. I hope you'll continue to ask questions in that thread. What? Like, constantly. I know you don't follow our "house organs" - the Daily Show, the New York Times - and you said you don't follow politics, but maybe you heard about Obama's performance in the first debate? I'm sure you heard conservatives and Republicans crowing about how terrible the President had been.Well, that's what we were saying, too. Obama was savaged in the NYT. The Daily Show had a whole thing about it. Bill Maher riffed that kids were putting on blackface and popping a Valium for Halloween - so they could go as "Obama from the first debate."Don't you remember the old joke? "No, I'm not a member of an organized political party - I'm a Democrat." The fact that liberals constantly organize in a circular firing squad is part of the charm, I guess. Well, let me give you some examples of what I'm talking about. These are actual Coulter remarks from different media:

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In contemplating college liberals, you really regret, once again, that John Walker is not getting the death penalty. We need to execute people like John Walker in order to physically intimidate liberals by making them realize that they could be killed, too. Otherwise they will turn out into outright traitors.

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I think there should be a literacy test and a poll tax for people to vote.

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God says, "Earth is yours. Take it. Rape it. It's yours."

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If we take away women's right to vote, we'd never have to worry about another Democrat President.

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Apparently you have to go to rehab if you use the word 'faggot,' so I'm kind of at an impasse, can't talk about Edwards.

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These self-obsessed women seem genuinely unaware that 9-11 was an attack on our nation and acted as if the terrorist attacks happened only to them. I've never seen people enjoying their husbands' deaths so much.

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That last was about the widows of a number of 9/11 heroes. I dunno. Maybe you think all of that is just rabble-rousing and bomb-tossing. But I've never seen Ann Coulter talk about people like that to their faces, with them in the room, and if you'll pardon the language I don't think it takes much in the way of balls to slag someone where they won't have the opportunity to respond. I gotta say - what? No look, I get it that it would be terrible if the Catholic Church returned to the apex of its temporal power. No doubt it would be awful.But, like, in what timestream is that even possible? Sure, there was a time when the Popes gave orders to armies. But I've seen the Vatican's mercenaries, Faith - they're guys with polearms who dress in clown suits. There's like 20 of them. In what possible world could the Catholic Church wield any power but the power of the pulpit? And given the fact that 90-some percent of even practicing Catholic women are ignoring the Church's teaching on birth control - i.e. they're using it - the power of the pulpit doesn't seem to go very far. 50 cents and the entire Catholic Church's moral authority, these days, will only buy you a really terrible cup of coffee.I really think you can set your mind at ease about the danger of a resurgent Catholic Church and the safety of the Protestant Reformation. Some bells you can't un-ring. I get that. Believe it or not it's something we've noticed around here - creationists can't seem to home in on a consistent, consensus version of creationism, in the same way that us evolutionists largely articulate the same notion of evolution despite whatever other agreements we have with each other. That's not to say we're in lock-step; it's a reflection of the knowledge and research pointing towards an evolutionary consensus even if you don't know about the consensus. I dunno, how come I know that Jesuits are conservative Catholics and you don't? There's a lot of variance in individual perspective. And you'll not find a lot of liberals who see multiculturalism, especially at a college, as anything too "liberal", when it's really just the recognition that you can't bring a lot of people together in one place without necessarily bringing together a lot of cultures and races. Your reaction, to me, sounds a lot like those guys who used to say "homosexuality? I don't believe in that." Believe in it? What's to believe? It happens, you either recognize reality or you don't. Recognizing that your college has a diversity of cultures and races and we shouldn't be dicks about it? I don't see that as "liberal" so much as "not being stuck in an imaginary world where only white people attend your college." I dunno, different strokes I guess.Edited by crashfrog, : No reason given.

Well said. Thank you. Quite. And it DOES happen with regularity. There is no OTHER kind of argument I've ever encountered when I'm in a liberal camp though much of the time, as on this thread, I fail to anticipate it since I think I'm simply speaking factually. I appreciate your effort very much and hope it might be possible to pull this discussion up out of the emotional quagmire which seems to be your aim. Fair enough. This would take some very careful reconsideration of what has been said on this thread all the way back. I can accept that you are describing how I am READ but I'm not ready to accept that it's what I've been DOING. "Liberal" CAN be used that way and I probably use it that way sometimes, but it's ALSO a simple factual label, like "conservative." You may want to dispense with these labels but I don't think they can be dispensed with, we simply have to aim to rigorously exclude the emotional baggage if we're serious about what you seem to be aiming for here.This would probably require a new thread. Well, how are we going to deal with this then? I do think liberalism is a bad thing just about in its entirety just as the liberals think the same of conservativism. But I don't think I'm using the term as merely a put down and I'm not attributing false emotional content to it as Dr. A has done in characterizing my position. I really do not think I have done so. The terms listed at Fordham are public terms, I merely identified them as liberal. Yes, I object to them, but they are simply liberal terms for liberal concepts and a liberal agenda, that's a fact. Again, I have not imputed any emotional content to them as the opposition has done in replying to me, or simply in describing Ann Coulter and the subject of this thread. That happens but I'd really LIKE to talk about the issues behind the flag words. Unfortunately I'm not all that politically focused these days but I think I have a basic grasp of the issues. OK, we can try to unpack this if you like. Um, maybe. Unfortunately I think these days the issues are so polarized there really is a gathering of extremes on both sides that more or less characterizes all of us who accept either of these labels as a self-description. But again, if you'd like, maybe it would be possible to try to unpack all this on another thread. Again, I'm not really up on the political issues, I got disgusted with the whole thing a while back and pretty much just stopped reading much more than the daily headlines on the internet and occasionally a conservative blog post on a big headline issue, but I'm willing to see what might come of the effort. This one is probably way too big and deep and incendiary to discuss to much productive outcome, but give it a try if you like. For me the issues revolve more around what has been called The Culture War and nuclear power is decidedly a secondary concern. Well, those are issues that are described in liberal versus conservative terms but they aren't issues that grab my attention much personally. My concerns are more about the deterioration of culture as I see it from a Christian and conservative point of view, that got its big kickoff in the sixties although of course the issues have been around for much longer than that. This includes the growth of socialist ideas and to some extent their REAL history in REAL Communism, which isn't just namecalling but REAL history.Is it possible to discuss THESE things without the emotional baggage? All I did was call a list of terms at Fordham "liberal" and everybody was up in arms at that simple description, which to me is STILL merely a factual description, so I've got my doubts a simple factual collegial type discussion is possible, but it would be nice to see an attempt. It's a complex subject but the push for Gay Rights is a political agenda that has philosophical roots that have nothing to do with protecting a gay kid from harm. Can THAT be discussed or is it always going to come back to the suffering gay kid?The vast majority of conservative thought is compassionate toward the gay kid and has nothing whatever to do with "homophobia." Does anybody even know the root of that concept and how it's been twisted to become an anti-conservative put down? It originated in Freud's psychoanalysis to describe a certain personality constellation that was fighting against real homosexual impulses. Perhaps The Schreber Case is online somewhere. I think that was Freud's big case on the concept. Making a political epithet out of that was a political move to destroy conservatism and really, Western Civilization. I hear groans from the Left here already. So pile on the Jeers. I know it had Marxist-Communist roots among other things but if you demand evidence for that from me you'd be requiring time for research I doubt I'm ready to put in right now. Anyway, there is a Gay Agenda that is part of a much bigger political agenda. Is it possible to even CONSIDER that from the liberal side? Well, I agree, and I HAVE seen that from the conservative side as well, but honestly, I don't think I have indulged in it here and that if I say for instance that there is a Gay Agenda and it does have Communist roots, that those on the other side are going to call that "hate speech" although it's merely a factual statement that can be investigated as to its historical reality. It may be too big for a thread on a forum of course, probably is, but nevertheless it's a simple factual idea and not just namecalling. I'm focused on a bigger historical trend than today's unemployment and fiscal problems, all of which I see as a practical outcome of a lot of historical trends and not something I'd be capable of analyzing in terms of current political policies. So if you were to start a thread along those lines I probably wouldn't participate just because I'm not capable of focusing down on the practical issues that concern you.Much as I appreciate your attempt here and wish/hope it might be possible and would love to see it tried, I'm ending here on a note of pessimism that it's possible.But I look forward to your response to all this.

I was going to say this in the Buzzsaw memorial thread, but it would be disrespectful to him. I was going to say that I have been told I have a high risk of suicide and I must agree that it has crossed my mind several times. When I found about how easy it was to poison yourself with carbon monoxide, I gave it serious consideration. I am in severe depression when I am not busy and have time to think. When I have some spare time, I will see a school counselor but they are only available 3 days a week and about 9 hours total a week. I need lexapro and lithium.

Not when you have spare time, get help now.Seriously, now!

You are the last person I would take advice from.

I'm sorry to hear that.