Culture War? Bring it on, Newt!

Media Matters:

Gingrich: "[T]here is a gay and secular fascism in this country that wants to impose its will on the rest of us"

Summary: Discussing actions by individual protesters of Proposition 8, Newt Gingrich stated: "I think there is a gay and secular fascism in this country that wants to impose its will on the rest of us, is prepared to use violence, to use harassment. I think it is prepared to use the government if it can get control of it. I think that it is a very dangerous threat to anybody who believes in traditional religion."

ECHIDNE OF THE SNAKES:

"So the hordes of darkness want to impose their values on all right-thinking religous people? Like the value of letting those hordes of darkness get married? How is that imposing on some totally separate people?

In Newt Gingrich's world nothing distinguishes 'you telling me how I should live' from 'me telling you that you shouldn't determine how I live'. They are symmetrical values. And anyone telling him that he shouldn't butt into other people's private lives is a fascist.

Of course Newt Gingrich preaching people on morals is always good for laughs."

ME; writing at Zazzle.com for a new product section. Sometimes I blog there first. There are two reasons for that; first, this is how I support my blog.

Second - it's a way of reaching people that would never, ever read my blog, by catching their eye with a compelling graphic. The more popular my designs become, the more exposure they get, the more people see them and the more impact I make.

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Culture War

We are currently experiencing a vicious cultural war. You can see it here on Zazzle in graphic terms. In personal terms you lived through a major battle between the forces of the Religious and Cultural right versus ... well, versus everyone else. It's a fight to the last ditch to impose a narrow, superstitious, Wasillian, Christofishian, moralistic worldview on everyone, for no particularly good reason, other than to validate that worldview. After all, if nobody is permitted to dissent, or even learn that there are gigantic gaping moral, ethical, religious, spiritual, economic and humane exceptions to the rules they wish to make YOU live by. As for them? "They" consider the rules to exist to control the behavior of OTHER people.

People like "them" have the informal but very real view that if a crime is not prosecuted, it never happened. People like "them" are not "criminals," so therefore, people that know "them" - like the mayor, the sheriff, the town council, the local prosecutor - will know that the "R" after their name and the chrome fish on their SUV means that they are different, exceptional and special; to be rewarded for their good work on the front lines with a free pass when they venture into the gray areas in the dead of night. "Oh, ye hypocrites!"

For myself, I believe that we should eliminate inappropriate shame and guilt. I absolutely abhor those who secretly indulge it while publicly exploiting and condemning others for advantage. By their fruits, ye shall know them. Economically, socially, politically, ethically and practically speaking - how do you like THESE rotten apples?

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The friend of my enemy is my... friend?

There's a famous unattributed quotation from WWII, alleged to be uttered by a Peer of the Realm: "This Hitler fellow makes it impossible for a gentleman to be an Anti-Semite."

That quotation leaped to mind as I read the reactions of socially-conservative voters to the news of San Diego's Mayor Jerry Sanders' tearful reversal of his stance on Gay Marriage.

He began by explaining his refusal to veto the council's decision, saying his beliefs had “evolved significantly” since 2005, when he established his stance on civil unions during his first mayoral campaign.

In the time since, he said he realized he could not accept “the concept of a separate-but-equal institution.” Because of that, he continued, he was unwilling to send the message to anyone that “they were less important, less worthy or less deserving of the rights and responsibilities of marriage.”

The mayor, now crying openly, noted that he has close family members and friends in the gay and lesbian community, including staff members and “my daughter Lisa.”

“In the end, I couldn't look any of them in the face and tell them that their relationships, their very lives, were any less meaningful than the marriage I share with my wife, Rana,” said Sanders, who quickly thanked reporters and dashed from the room.

Now, as an Aspie/autistic, I have the unusual tendancy to take statements such as this at face value. I even take the emotional context at face value. If an issue causes a bluff old conservative police chief to break down in tears over what he plainly states to be a crisis of concience, I'm inclined to take him at his word, and indulge in the delusional procedure of supposed mind-reading about his "real" motivations.

But the comments on this article reveal that that is one of the most common - and possibly least offensive - assumptions made about him and the "gay agenda" he has "betrayed" the people in "condoning."



But the overwhelming majority of the outrage reveals a depth of hatred, bigotry and ignorance about law, constitution, spelling, grammar, logical construction, evidence, rational argument, ethics, reason and most especially the Bible that I suspect that the supporters for his former stance were as persuasive to him as those he'd been arguing against.

Here is one such argument, actually, one of the more articulate ones; penned by one "Faithful on 09/20/2007 at 8:51 a.m.

"I don't know where, in our constitution, it says marriage is a "right".

The fact that you do not know something does not mean that that which you are ignorant of does not therefore exist.

US Constitution, Bill of Rights:

Amendment IX

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Amendment X

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people."

Faithful continues:

I highly doubt that the Founding Fathers were thinking about queer relationships when they penned it. That said, the same argument goes for heterosexual marriage. It is a privilege granted by the State.

More precisely, it is a right arrogated by the states; originally to deal with the "Plague" of interracial marriage. That's why "marriage licenses" were first issued by various States.

Then, of course, the advantage of it from revenue and record-keeping standpoints became obvious to cash-strapped states. But Constitutionally speaking, there's no argument that any form of permission for civil marriage is or should be required. Whether or not there is a compelling state interest in regulating marriage, much less giving substantial advantages to married people is a separate argument, but if such advantages do exist than the equal protection clause states that it should be given and withheld without arbitrary distinctions between persons over matters irrelevant to the goals of the state, or for goals that would be unconstitutional if they were admitted aloud.

In fact, the "granting of privilege" was one of the great issues for our founders and one thing they did their best to eradicate from and forbid to government. One expression of said intent was the so called "Equal Protection Clause -" which to paraphrase, states that all laws must apply equally to all, or be judged unconstitutional.

The term "marriage" is derived from the scramental institutution promoted by Judeo/Christian (and others) religion. I suppose one way to resolve the whole thing is for the State to quit calling it "marriage" and calling it "civil union" available to both heteros and homos, with only the individual religions permitting (or not) the sacramental term, marriage.

Putting the hilarity of an argument based on the authoritative nature of English word derivation aside, so what? If anything, that is a persuasive argument, given the Constitutional protection of religious practices, to stay out of the matter entirely. In fact, legal recognition for marriage comes out of English Common Law, which addressed the rights and responsibilities of those who chose to live together "without benefit of clergy."

This is a simple issue of citizenship, inheritances and transmission of rights, privileges and duties, when said matters had not already been defined by church records.

Would this make gays happy? Probably not, because it is the word "marriage" that they want applied to them. They also want to force religion to accept their unions as godly and "normal". They want homosexuality promoted in the schools as "normal" and "healthy" and have succeeded to a great degree in the public school system. They have plans to extend this "education" to the private education system. This is what I object to.

As the Mayor stated, any "separate but equal" solution has a particular stench of inequality to it in our culture.
By contrast, you want their relationships portrayed as "abnormal" and "unhealthy," and have up until now succeeded in that goal to a great degree in the public school system.

Personally, having for no other reason other than my appearance and personality been identified by my peers as "gay" in grade school, I think teaching acceptance of differences to be a good thing, and the rejection of persecution of others for transparently false religious rationalizations to be also a good thing.

So yes, there is a gay lobby. And no, one isn't a bigot because one doesn't accept homosexuality as "normal" and "healthy".

No, one could merely be totally ignorant and willfully misinformed. But the venom in your tone strongly suggests bigotry, as well as a suspicious fixation upon the sexual practices of others that could be reasonably presumed to represent either repression or envy of the "sexual license" and "immoral lifestyle" you clearly presume all homosexual people practice. I presume neither, since I care nothing about why you would choose to act so intolerably toward others. I don't need to hear your excuses for evil thoughts and evil deeds, whatever they are, they will be neither original nor enlightening.

I've known a lot of Gay people - because gay people do accept differences, and so it's always been my practice to hang with the lesbigay crowd even though I prefer sex heterosexual style from an aesthetic perspective and in the "missionary position" for the sake of my dignity and my sadly defective joints.

To quote one strong advocate of what you would call the "gay agenda," "Don't call me a gay activist. I don't get laid that often." This is not a "gay" issue. It's a human rights issue on the most basic level - and you are presuming the "majority right" to decide who gets to be "human."

I assert the first and second amendment rights to contest the idiocies of the majority, with as much force as is needed to penetrate their skulls with a useful degree of enlightenment.

The fact is, the majority of gay people have as good moral character as any heterosexual; actually, they tend to have a better grasp of right and wrong. Being exposed on a regular basis to the evil of stark, evident hatred and persecution will tend to clarify your values big time.

"That which is hateful to you, do not do unto others."

Clearly, you find the "homosexual agenda" hateful... but yet you are perfectly comfortable forcing the "Right Wing Socially-Conservative Cultural Christian" agenda upon everyone. Furthermore, you claim a religious right to express this through force - state violence and even occasionally the justification of individual violence against gays and all sorts of other people you find "freaky" and "abnormal."

Me, for example. There are entire institutions devoted to eradicating the entire autistic spectrum, pre-birth, with no other justification than a parent's "right" to have a "normal" child. But we shall save the rest of this related rant about xenophobia for another day. Today, we are speaking of specific sins, not the more mental, moral and social failures our currently dominant social class are beset with.

In order to say that a certain behavior or attraction is "unnatural," you are absolutely stating that it doesn't occur outside of an artificial context, never occurs in nature, only occurs within the human species and as a result of deliberate, willful choice AFTER exposure to the behavior.

Provably and totally, the above assumptions are false. Homosexual preference occurs in many species, does occur outside of our society, in all cultures everywhere, regardless of social approval or moral stricture. It's recorded in history as far back as history occurs, both with and without exposure to "influence." And as far as we can tell, it was no MORE prevalent in societies that held it to be a virtue than in cultures that held it to be a vice. All it did was change who got to strut publicly.

Frankly, we are born attached to the parts that primarily influence us. All sexual morality and most reasoning is rationalization and regulation after the fact, in order to keep those parts from leading to do foolish, dangerous and evil things. I don't know about you, but in my experience, it is far, far more dangerous to pretend to be what I am not and try to apply moral standards which have no direct application to me or my needs, than to admit what I am and then try to act ethically towards others based in a sound and honest appreciation of what moral and ethical pitfalls exist for me.

I've found it quite dangerous to my safety, my mental health and my good self-opinion to pay much attention to what others think of as the "most important sins." I'm not particularly vulnerable to sexual temptation - I can wade through porn for days on end, with the greatest risk being either nausea or uncontrollable laughter. But I am daily beset by the temptation of arrogance. While self-righteousness is not my particular pitfall, it's a related failing, and clearly, that's your issue. It is also a sin your religious faith directly encourages you to indulge in the face of everything Jesus had to say about that particular vexation.

The bottom line is this: "Sin" is not about what other people do. It's about what YOU do to other people. By the tenants of your OWN faith, you will not be judged on what you prevented others from doing, or what you forced them to do, you will be judged on that which you did to others, and your rationalizations will not matter. For emphasis on the futility of human rationalizations, consult any dour Presbyterian you know.

As your religion clearly has not helped you identify and cope with your particular tendency toward the evil of self-righteousness, may I suggest your efforts might be better employed in finding a religion that emphasizes personal humility a bit more?

I'd also gently suggest that the besetting sin of Self-Righteousness is an even greater threat to Christianity itself, but that, my dear Faithful, is YOUR problem.

I've always felt that the question of what faith I have should come up in the context of "what is it you believe, to lead you to act as you do?"

Now, in your case, Faithful, that answer does not reflect well upon either Christianity - or your discernment of it's essential teachings.

Selah.

tag: constitution, San Diego, Mayor, Mayor Jerry Sanders, Family Values, patriarchy, evolutionary biology, Religious Fundimentalism, Clash of Cultures, Conservatism, Christianists, religious persecution, defamation, liberty, California, critical thinking, ignorance, evil, Bizarre Sex Habits, Sexual Sins, Sublimation, Right-Wing Hypocrites, Individual Rights, Individual Liberty, Freedom of Choice, church-state, moralism, abuse of power, bullying, prejudice, christian fanatics, dominionists, theocracy, sexuality, public policy, Religious Ethics, Social Obligations, Smear Tactics, Right-Wing Propaganda, Religious Intolerance, Hate Speech., fundimendalism, oppression, Freudian References, Paranoid Fantasies, Right Wing Talk, blogmockery, Ridicule, ethics of government, Gay Marriage, gay agenda, gay rights

Are we ruled by the Pod People?

Naomi Klein's book The Shock Doctrine speaks the unspeakable, that unregulated Capitalism demonstrably does not produce the results it promises.

AlterNet: WorkPlace: Can Radical Capitalism Survive the Disasters It Creates?: "As Klein sees it, free market shock therapy may actually have succeeded in achieving its true objectives. Post-invasion Iraq may be 'a ghoulish dystopia where going to a simple business meeting could get you lynched, burned alive or beheaded.' Even so, Klein points out, Halliburton is making handsome profits -- it has built the green zone as a corporate city-state, and taken on many of the traditional functions of the armed forces in Iraq. An entire society has been destroyed, but the corporations that operate in the ruins are doing rather well. Klein's message, then, seems to be that -- at least in its own, profit-centred terms -- disaster capitalism works."

I'm a Libertarian and my faith in any particular socio-economic system is tied directly to my own Libertarian litmus test. "What's in it for me?"

This undoubtedly sounds selfish and anti-social, but both ethically and economically, if I do not first consider my own interests, any concern I have about the interests of others will be purely theoretical. I will have no money and no power and therefore my concerns about others will be utterly irrelevant.

Furthermore, any rational system of economics or government first presumes that whatever you do, people will act according to their own perceived self-interest, whether or not you think they should from ANY given social, moral, economic or philosophical viewpoint. You may persuade a great many, perhaps, you can coerce many more, but the proportion that cannot be so influenced will rise with the degree of restriction and the amount of force expended until at some point it all ends with a whimper or a bang.

This is why "The government that governs least, governs best." That government generally avoids setting up positive feedback loops that destroy the whole system in the name of maintaining it.

But it's a publish or perish world and there is no idea so obviously and inherently stupid that you cannot find some very well-credentialed idiot proclaiming it as the new gospel.

Economic and social policies that are presented as "Free Market Capitalism," that have the obviously predictable effect of restricting market access to the powerful, the well-connected and the heavily armed is anything but a Free Market, and perhaps something other than Capitalism.

After all, the objective of Capitalism is to make money by addressing problems to the benefit of all concerned. While there are great sums (and great power) for a few in dealing with disasters in the manner discussed by Klien, the net result is always a measurable loss for most and a severe reduction on the total possible amount of profit - as well as a sharp restriction on the total number of profitable enterprises. The Capitalism she speaks of is the "Capitalism" of vultures and junk-bond financiers.

Now, when the response of our government to a nationwide credit crisis is to facilitate publicity for government auctions, it's time for the great majority of people to realize that we are governed by those with the same ethics and economic foresight as "Make Money Fast" spammers.

It's clear to me - even if it's an observation that seems obscure to most other Libertarians - that whether it's a Government or a "Military-Industrial Complex" that sees my petty concerns about life and liberty as irrelevant in The Greater Scheme Of Things - I have no obligation to respect, much less comply with their idiot diktats.

This is especially true when said idiot diktats are so very obviously stupid with a long track-record of unintended consequences. I merely need to add the risk of being caught to the rest of my risk/reward calculation and compare that to the cost of compliance. If the metrics of the first are more attractive than those of the second - I know what I will do. And, whatever you may protest, I know, in a statistical sense, what YOU will do, too.

The NeoCons have made it clear that their vision does not include any common interests - public infrastructure - like, say, levees, earthquake-upgrades for interstate overpasses and aging bridges - are "a problem for the free market." But of course, a free market that is underwater is not a market at all nor is a market you cannot get to because the roads are impassible. Perhaps mentioning a market that has just been truck bombed or smart-bombed would be bloody redundant, but it's also bloody common in our foreign bastion of the "unfettered free market."

Likewise, any common concern about public health is dismissed as being "inappropriate," a sort of Socially Darwinistic view that if you get sick and cannot afford health care, your fate is of no concern to society - as if that lack of concern forestalled any individual, entrepreneurial efforts founded upon the realization that the constitution and social contract had been "retasked" to toilet paper.

Well, my dear plutocrat, there are a lot of folks who, faced with the dilemma of paying their bills or taking care of themselves, will have no ethical concerns about the impropriety of sneezing into your Cobb Salad, or for that matter, robbing your house. Perhaps that's a fate you seek to forestall by living in gated communities with high overheads for security - which leads to fairly much the same economic outcome as having been mugged repeatedly.

I am, myself, an absolute supporter of the RIGHT to bear arms. I have very, very different feelings about a society where there is an obvious NEED to bear arms. Indeed, that's one aspect the establishment of the right was intended to forestall - the rise of lawless powers that, by dint of force would naturally arise if the people themselves did not have the inherent right to answer force with force.

Which they do. And are doing. It's an inalienable right, after all. Whether or not you define the exercise of that right as a "crime," it is the right of all people to survive, to make a living, to feed their families and to move about freely, whatever your objections to the consequences of their actions may be. Any law that has the direct and predictable effect of interfering with that is unethical. (Never mind whether or not it's immoral - ethics are not so much about right and wrong as they are about cause and effect.)

This is the direct consequence of the manifest contempt with which "the people who matter" treat "the people who don't matter," the people who, having gained power and influence, see no obligation to do more with it than gain more money and power at the expense of those not YET willing to shoot them down like dogs.

The obvious "whatcha gonna do about it" attitude of the wealthy - is tellingly and naively portrayed by our dear Blonde, Paris Hilton. Hilton's obvious contempt for expectations of some minimum level of social accountability - or indeed, some evidence of consciousness that there are standards being violated - is an illustration of a very real mindset that most of the very rich are a little more careful about keeping within their own circles, lest those not so privileged realize that in a very large number of cases those "rules" were put in palace to enforce behavior that people like the Hiltons found profitable and to punish behavior they did not find profitable. From their viewpoint, there's no earthly reason why they should have to comply with them and broadly, they do not comply when there are no cameras around.

So we can thank Paris for being so very "blonde" about the fact that her "privilege" is not based in right, but in fact based upon not being caught in such a way that bribery and influence cannot alter the outcome.

(And frankly, despite her flaws which are the result of growing up in a community and context as isolated from normal society as a "holler" in Appalachia with no road leading to it, she does seem determined to make an effort to become a useful and creative human being, beset with the usual deficits and handicaps those who are destined to become useful and creative look back to in regretful thanksgiving for the wisdom provided by mistakes well made.)

So, as she painfully learns her lessons, let us at least not ignore the implication that she has lessons to learn, realities that she doesn't understand. This is true of the majority of her social class, people who have become so alienated from our culture that they may as well be pod people from Mars, as this now-classic AlterNet article about a cruise sponsored by The National Review so wittily demonstrates.

"I lie on the beach with Hillary-Ann, a chatty, scatty 35-year-old Californian designer. As she explains the perils of Republican dating, my mind drifts, watching the gentle tide. When I hear her say, " Of course, we need to execute some of these people," I wake up. Who do we need to execute? She runs her fingers through the sand lazily. "A few of these prominent liberals who are trying to demoralise the country," she says. "Just take a couple of these anti-war people off to the gas chamber for treason to show, if you try to bring down America at a time of war, that's what you'll get." She squints at the sun and smiles. " Then things'll change."

Oh, indeed they would, my dear. But possibly not in ways the National Review is likely to advise you of beforehand.

By the way, I happen to be a fan of the National Review - I grew up reading it, along with The New Republic. An informed citizen cannot ignore viewpoints they disagree with. Indeed, they need to seek them out and challenge their own preconceptions on a daily basis. I've gotten to the point when, if someone seems to be reinforcing my world view far too consistently, I start to wonder if they are simply appealing to my prejudices instead of my intellect. But when I find myself in agreement on an issue with ... picking at random - Lenin, Milton Friedman, the Holy Bible and Whoopi Goldberg, I start to think I might be on to something.

I have arrived at my own worldview by that process, by virtue of being largely unprotected from the consequences of my own actions, and with the blessing of being kept outside of a social circle that may otherwise have maintained my innocence of certain unpalatable, but very consequential realities.

One of these things that is true - and unpalatable - is that the "side" you are on by virtue of birth, social class, race, national origin or religion is not correct by definition, nor is it's world-view the only valid one. Even more importantly, the fact that you are on a "side" does not mean that the side is on YOURS. Indeed, that is almost never the case, and inevitably the case if you do not understand that all such social circles and arrangements involve an exchange of power for protection and security - and that unless you demand a due return, it's not at all predictable that you will get anything in return but smoke blown up your butt.

It's apparently also quite unpalatable, frightening and incomprehensible to most people that rights of people OUTSIDE of their circle matter, if for no other reason than the fact that they will defend them against your trespasses, evade your attempted restrictions or, if left no other resort, piss in your coffee as you discuss the difficulty of "finding good help these days."

People who wish to have Authority without any understanding of the need to be an actual, informed, competent authority on the domain they have authority over and are accountable for are really quite pathetic poseurs, and history will be filled with snide footnotes regarding their amazing capacity for arrogance and self-delusion in the face of utter catastrophe if the grownups do not do something.

tag: cultural warfare, oligarchy, tyrrany, opression, Neocons, xenophobia, Stupidity, Greed, Scams

Spoko observes:

Spocko is a stumbleupon buddy o' mine; it's a great way for bloggers to inflict - I mean share stories and links with a bit of explanation. I had to laugh out loud at this - and I'm far from being an athiest! But it does help to be able to think outside of the "big box church!"

StumbleUpon » Spocko's web site reviews and blog:

"Top Ten Signs You're a Fundamentalist Christian

10 - You vigorously deny the existence of thousands of gods claimed by other religions, but feel outraged when someone denies the existence of yours.

9 - You feel insulted and 'dehumanized' when scientists say that people evolved from other life forms, but you have no problem with the Biblical claim that we were created from dirt.

8 - You laugh at polytheists, but you have no problem believing in a Triune God.

7 - Your face turns purple when you hear of the 'atrocities' attributed to Allah, but you don't even flinch when hearing about how God/Jehovah slaughtered all the babies of Egypt in 'Exodus' and ordered the elimination of entire ethnic groups in 'Joshua' including women, children, and trees!

6 - You laugh at Hindu beliefs that deify humans, and Greek claims about gods sleeping with women, but you have no problem believing that the Holy Spirit impregnated Mary, who then gave birth to a man-god who got killed, came back to life and then ascended into the sky.

5 - You are willing to spend your life looking for little loopholes in the scientifically established age of Earth (few billion years), but you find nothing wrong with believing dates recorded by Bronze Age tribesmen sitting in their tents and guessing that Earth is a few generations old.

4 - You believe that the entire population of this planet with the exception of those who share your beliefs -- though excluding those in all rival sects - will spend Eternity in an infinite Hell of Suffering. And yet consider your religion the most "tolerant" and "loving."

3 - While modern science, history, geology, biology, and physics have failed to convince you otherwise, some idiot rolling around on the floor speaking in "tongues" may be all the evidence you need to "prove" Christianity.

2 - You define 0.01% as a "high success rate" when it comes to answered prayers. You consider that to be evidence that prayer works. And you think that the remaining 99.99% FAILURE was simply the will of God.

1 - You actually know a lot less than many atheists and agnostics do about the Bible, Christianity, and church history - but still call yourself a Christian.

Oh, I have a couple-three nits to pick, here and there. I believe in prayer (theurgy) as well as magic, (thaumaturgy) and I do not think 0.001% is a plausible success rate. Regarding both phenomonae; aboriginal people did not have food to waste on useless individuals - and a shaman can be pretty damn useless in any respect other than shamanism. Same for Priests and Magicians. Now, all sorts are notorious for putting a thumb on the scale of public opinion - but you just can't fool all of the people, all of the time.

But none of the intuitive arts - and in "intuitive arts" I also include such disciplines as "teacher" and "psycologist" - can ever aspire to truly reproducable results, actually falsifiable theories or indeed, immunity from skeptical derision.

I should also note that while this is a fairly accurate assessment of a certain sort of mean-spirited, judgemental, self-rightious idiot, that all the hallmarks of it are actually mocked and derided IN the Bible, by Jesus. Make of that what you will - and I notice there seems to be a similar dissonance between what the Koran says and what certain folk who call themselvs Islamic (or even Imam) would like to tell you it says.

SSDR.

Speaking of Potty-Mouths.

Here's a rhetorical question for you: Which is worse, using the "seven words you can't use on Television" - as defined by George Carlin, or committing the "seven deadly social sins", as defined by Gandhi?"

Coulter: I Would Talk About Edwards But “You Have To Go Into Rehab If You Use The Word ‘Faggot’”

Speaking today at the Conservative Political Action Conference, right-wing pundit Ann Coulter said: “I was going to have a few comments on the other Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, but it turns out you have to go into rehab if you use the word ‘faggot,’ so I — so kind of an impasse, can’t really talk about Edwards.” Audience members said “ohhh” and then cheered. (Video on site)

Seeing this blonde turd in the soup of our great political discourse, I find it increasingly difficult to take the posturing of certain pearl-clutching hypocrites at all seriously. However, I'm willing to observe a potential compromise - they don't have to take as credible anything that contains one of the seven deadly words, and we don't have to take anyone who links to Coulter, laughs at Colter or buys Coulter's books serously. You are what you eat, folks - and in this case, politically speaking, I believe this boils down to "eat shit and die."

Not as a curse - as a matter-of-fact observation of fact; if you persist in eating shit, you will die. In this case, it's a viscerally disgusting metaphor for an even less appetizing reality.

tag: ann coulter, homophobia, seven deadly words, hate speech, potty mouths