Critique of Ann Coulter's The Church of Liberalism: Godless

You know, that's what everybody says - "Farenheight 9/11 was full of Moore's lies" - but they never seem to have any examples. Like, the worst the can come up with is that Moore uses the "spinning newspaper" visual gag on a headline that wasn't actually a headline - it was just the title of a story that did actually appear in a newspaper.Oh, yeah, Moore's a liar! It's pretty obvious when you see it, of course, that you're looking at a visual effect, not a real copy of a newspaper. And I've never seen Ann Coulter or any other liar actually release an annotated bibliography for their media appearance that provides sources for their assertions - but Moore did that with Farenheight 9/11.I'm still waiting for someone to tell me exactly what Moore lied about. I've been waiting since the movie came to video. Does he use humor, parody, and special effect to get his point across? Does he impugn motives to people that he couldn't possibly know about? Absolutely. Ken Burns did all that in "Civil War" and nobody jumps up his ass. Since when couldn't you do those things in a documentary?Edited by crashfrog, : No reason given.

I guess I don't agree. It's showmanship, not dishonesty. And it's abundantly clear in the movie that we're not looking at a real newspaper. I don't remember Moore saying that he was talking about facts when he was really talking about opinions; moreover, factual information is often relayed through editorials. Editorials may be more commentary on the facts than they are facts, but editorials aren't lies, either. They're not fiction; they're conclusion. Sure, for the stuff she puts in print. Maybe. Never read one of her books, I guess.For the stuff she shoots her mouth off about on TV or in movies? Not a chance. You can be damn sure that Faren-hype 9/11 (or whatever it was called) or any of the other rightwing political slanderfests took the trouble to source their statements.

I'm still waiting for an example where Moore did that. You're wasting your time explaining what a "lie" is, without defending the assertion that Moore did lie. Oh, you think Peter Jackson is a liar, too? Because he made a movie about stuff that didn't happen, called "Lord of the Rings"?Seems to me that "it's obviously fake" is a pretty good defense against charges of dishonesty. Lies require the intent to deceive.Did Moore say "as reported by the Miami Herald..." (or whatever paper it was)? Or not? As I recall, Moore didn't publish the letter. He uses a two-second graphic of the title of the letter.The people who write the letters, though, don't title them. The editors of the newspaper do. So, the only copy that Moore presented in his two-second graphic bumper as being the words of the newspaper in question actually were the words of the newspaper in question. They came up with that stuff, not the author of the letter. Again, how is that a lie? Never seen it, but that's the first I've heard of her involvment.Edited by crashfrog, : No reason given.

That would be helpful, I think. At that time why don't we move it to one of the threads MM mentioned.

Yeah, look. I don't see the lie there. What he's saying is true. And he's cramming some "visual aids" into a talky part of the movie. I don't see where he's portraying a letter to the editor as actual fact. You haven't told me what letter he's showing, or even proved that it actually is a letter to the editor. And if the letter is factual, doesn't that render it moot?Newspapers do print letters. The idea that something appearing in a newspaper - even on the front page - is an article and not a letter from someone is just your assumption. Since he's not making an argument that relies on a letter being mistaken for an article, we know his intent is not to confuse.So, yeah, we're gonna need to take it to the thread. This is what I'm going to need from you:1) The specific disputed "newspaper" you're referring to
2) Proof that what the "headline" actually refers to is nothing more than a letter to the editor
3) Something better than "yeah I just watched the movie and now I know you're wrong." Not, to my knowledge, in the apportionment of the electoral college, which is done by the statewide totals. If Gore got the most votes in all of Florida, which he did, then he properly one Florida and Florida's electoral votes, and the 2000 elections.But the Florida elections authority was barred from certifying the correct vote count by the SCOTUS. That's not Moore's point. It's not that Gore got the most votes nationwide - which he did and no one disputes - it's that Gore got the most votes in Florida, and thus he should have won that state's electoral votes. But because the Supreme Court stopped a full recount, the son of the man who appointed a fair number of those judges was elected President of the United States.Again that claim is factual. It's not a lie. And districting has nothing to do with that in the American electoral process.

I think we're all wondering if you even know what pregnancy actually entails. You don't seem to give that impression in your posts.

Really? Worldwide, where does it rank as a cause of death among women? Particularly women in their early teens and twenties?Edited by AdminAsgara, : No reason given.

Well, yeah. Who wants a broken kid? Kids are hard as hell to raise in the first place. Who would want to add all the hassle of dealing with mental retardation, autism, physical disability, what have you?If you're going to pick a kid, instead of sticking with what fate would provide you with, why would you pick a broken one?Edited by AdminAsgara, : No reason given.

Oh, I think we've all read quite enough of Ann Coulter.I don't have to eat a whole turd to know that I'm not going to like it. The aroma - similar to the aroma that wafts off her "literature" - is all the evidence I need.Edited by crashfrog, : No reason given.

No, I don't. She consistently misrepresents her opponents, misrepresents the facts, misrepresents logic. The things she says are often literally untrue. Why would I think those are good arguments?What she's good at is playing to her audience. Legitimising their desire to delegitimise their opponents. Let's be honest - sometimes it seems like a major drag to engage your opponents in civil, polite discussion. It's hard. It's much easier and a lot more satisfying to sling mud, sometimes. All Coulter does is make it seem like it's ok to do that.

Don't you get it? She's totally serious. How do I know? Because when people ask her if she's totally serious when she says things like that, she replies that she's totally serious, and she means every word. Interview after interview, she reiterates how serious she is.She's totally serious, NJ. It isn't "satire", it's her honest, unvarnished position. I realize the thought that she's just a joker saves you from having to face the fact that conservatisim is a movement largely built on these ridiculous positions, but you need to face the facts - she's totally serious.

Why? Conservatives won't check her references, because they agree with her; liberals won't read her books in the first place. Exactly what do you think she has to lose in a lie?

Team of editors, huh? Scouring a legal database for empirical verification? Must be why they didn't catch Ann's years of plagarism. Nonetheless a number of media-watchdog websites chronicle her swath of twisted facts. A lot of her Tv interviews don't have transcripts up, and I don't remember specifically which program it was, but I did see the interview, and she was directly asked if she was serious about the things she said, and she was absolutely affirmative.Look. There are people who mock conservative pundits by taking on the role of one. Steven Colbert is one such example. Do you watch his show, at all? That's satire.Coulter? She's serious. She's earnest. There's absolutely no satire there. It isn't. She's a reckless, bigmouth ideologue who absolutely refuses to apologize for anything that she says, absolutely refuses to claim she was joking. When she calls for the assassination of President Clinton, or calls for the terrorist bombing of the New York Times, she's absolutely serious. Aside from her crackhead giggling, what evidence do you have that she isn't?

Lol, right. 5 books at #1 on the NYT Bestseller list, and "no one cares."Like I said, conservatives don't check references.

The classic example of political satire is usually Johnathan Swift's A Modest Proposal. Are you familiar with it? Swift proposed that the problems facing Ireland in the 1720's could be easily remedied by exporting the children of Ireland to England for consumption. Top to bottom, of course, he's kidding, but in a totally deadpan way.But if Swift had been interviewed on national TV, and asked if he was serious that the English should eat Irish children, he would have laughed. Of course he wasn't serious, he would say. And he would properly lambast people who didn't get the joke.Coulter never does that. She never "breaks character", if you will; she never lets on that it's a joke. That's how we know she's not joking. She really does believe that the nation's fortunes would be improved if every man and woman who worked for the New York Times was murdered, all at once. I've read her work, so you can dispense with the fiction that any wit is found within. Well, of course, the difference is that liberal pundits are good at it. That can certainly happen. To wit: Area man mistakes Onion story for reality | Salon.com

quote:

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It's the stuff of webby fantasy and urban legend: a reader who takes an Onion story seriously. Last week, a speedy and vicious blogosphere watched its collective wet dream made real when "Pete," proprietor of antiabortion blog March Together for Life, posted "Murder Without Conscience," a furious excoriation of a 7-year-old fake column in the Onion titled "I'm Totally Psyched About This Abortion!"

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The Onion is a satirical newspaper founded in 1988 by University of Wisconsin students and is these days published weekly from New York.

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I'm thinking that you're not too familiar with satire in a political context. Political satire is when you mock a position by appearing to advance and promote it by ironic arguments. Like The Onion; like Stephen Colbert on his Colbert Report. That's satire.Coulter? The thing about Coulter is - she actually, honestly holds those positions, and her arguments for them are not ironic; they're just wrong. She's not a satirist; she's an inept, coarse pundit. If she were a liberal in "deep cover", as it were, it would be satire. But as an actual conservative, it's not satire of anything - it's just offensive bloviation.