Wasn't Bobby great in "Slumdog Millionaire"?I'm sure someone will pop up and claim that Coulter was making a joke. But it's an awful joke. There's no punchline. There's nothing, except, all Indians look alike to me. This isn't Jeff Ross telling black jokes, at the Emmitt Smith Roast in front of a bunch of black people. This is Coulter slurring one of about five visible minorities in her party, to an audience filled with people who probably have never had dinner with an Indian-American.
I understand that many conservatives hate Coulter. I also think that there's nothing particularly conservative about that slur. But sometimes you see this shit, and when partnered with Michael Steele's crack, you have to believe that a significant portion of the GOP enjoys being the Party Of Macacca. How else can we read this? It's like these guys are stuck on Dice Clay in 86. And every year, fewer and fewer people are laughing. But they keep making the same old cracks.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
there are conservatives who dislike coulter?
really? like who? i haven't heard many of them denounce her statements.
I don't think anybody is going to defend it because no one on the right is going to be critical of it. The years of calling women and people of color "sensitive to imagined sexisms/racisms" now walls them in. Moreover too many examples and incidents suggest unashamed racists are who they truly are. They have become the old Democratic Party. Which makes a Michael Steele or a Bobby Jindal pathetic, stupidly ambitious and a little f***** up. You don't have to be a Democrat, liberal or progressive if you are a person of color but you should at least be a member of a party that has some respect for and recognition of your humanity.
Is there any group of people Ann Coulter hasn't offended?
Wait, I'm confused - aren't jokes supposed to be funny?
I heard a rumor that Ann Coulter is a very, very committed performance artist.
The most plausible explanation yet.
I'm a conservative geo and I abhor the whole talk radio/"party of macacca"/religious right/sarah palin/everything George Bush stood for/all the other sideshow garbage...
There are a lot of conservatives who don't traffic in that garbage... we have just been alienated from the party of stupid.
Anymore
republican ≠ conservative
What's that nitwit Althouse have to say? She claimed that everyone who thought "Kenneth the Page" is racist because . . . fuck, I can't figure that one out.
You can't be surprised by this. What I want to know is who will defend Jindal? Who will speak up for him in the GOP and tell this woman that it's not ok. Yeah, this was racist. Nobody has ' misinterpreted' a thing.
DB: "Because Kenneth the Page is so very, very white. Case closed."
AJ: Does conservative = democrat, then? Or at least = right-wing-of-the-Democratic-Party?
If not, I'd be interested in hearing why. Seems to me that one problem the Republican Party has is that the Democrats' tent now spreads over the vast majority of rational conservatives.
Anne Coulter's whole game is being a shock jock. Republicans should name it, refuse to participate in it, and move the argument into adult-land. But they're too timid. She sells books! She gets on TV! Rush loves her! Ergo, she must be smart, full of good ideas, worth listening to...something.
When a majority of Republicans put their collective feet down and say, "Enough!" to crap like this, the Republican party will finally be engaging in 21st century politics. Until then, they will continue to become more and more marginal.
I think things are going to get a LOT worse (in terms of dumb crap being said on the right).
Here's my theory - as long as strident PC-ness seemed to reign on the left, loud angry people on the right could just loudly decry that. Mostly that meant a lot of strawmen were beat up, but so be it. So the loud people on the right would mostly gripe about THAT, while insinuating stuff about race.
I was just commenting the other day to my significant other, however, that something tectonic seems to have shifted, media-wise. From that Jeffrey Ross clip, to Louis C.K. here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TG4f9zR5yzY - to South Park with their "naggers" episode to Robert Downey Junior in blackface in Tropic Thunder... something seems to have happened where a lot more talented white comedians are no longer afraid to prod the hornets nest of race for their comedy, often in some pretty interesting ways. Which makes sense - we have enough discomfort and tension about race that it's totally ripe for humor... if people do it right. BUT. That's a big if. It takes a certain amount of nuance - I almost want to call it a type of post-PC worldview, where you've got white people who largely believe the things that PC and multiculturalism were critiquing, but are maybe not on board with the stridency and sanctimony and humorlessness that can come along with it.
IF you are an unrepentant race-baiter, however, I imagine it can be pretty hard to tell the difference between this kind of humor and just being a racist asshole, and I could see certain people reading this as permission to trot back out all the dumbass obvious racist jokes they've been making this entire time.
I think this is gonna get a lot worse. Make some popcorn.
Well to answer your question gussieB... I guess in my case conservative = democrat as I voted for Obama over McCain... it was a very easy decision
That being said I don't really have much faith in politicians of any party. Im not some wild eyed idealist who thinks the government has no place... I just think they have overgrown their usefullness by about 10 fold.
No matter what Rush and Ann and Hannity say they don't want to see smaller goverment cause that would mean drastic cuts to the military budget and that isn't "Amurcan!!!1".
Very sensible post, TNC. The fact is, you can't profit from white resentment for a generation or two and then suddenly change your spots. Put another way, there was a time when the GOP had the white vote locked up, and looked to include black voters too. It turns out that attracting blacks would actually threaten the core logic of the party, like being for labor and management at the same time. Now the shoe's on the other foot, the party of inclusion might well find a way to peel off exclusionary voters from the GOP, although that might not work for the same reason.
Ann Coulter usually knows what she's doing--like when she called John Edwards a fag last time she was allowed into one of these things. But it seems like she's losing it. Why say something like this about someone on your side? I wouldn't say it about anyone, but why hurt someone's feelings on your side of the fence?
I wonder if this got a huge laugh. I know that CPAC has workshops on minority outreach. That just bespeaks a severe detachment from reality.
Thanks, AJ. I always wonder that.
I think we could really use a strong, intelligent conservative party. And being somewhat left myself, I often catch myself thinking that the Democrats are that party ... and what we -really- really need is a strong, intelligent liberal party!
Dice Clay! Isn't he dead?
It would be nice to hear Clint Eastwood's take on It--and by It, I don't mean Madonna the way Guy Ritchie refers to her, but It, as in, "Looking at It reminds me of Oogie Boogie, without the Barry White funk but all the bugsh-t."
Maybe she wants to show she's an equal opportunity insulter. That way she can argue immunity when she does it to those on the left side of the political spectrum - "Hey, I say it to everyone. Remember when I said Jindal was in 'Slumdog'?"
She's a sly one. This is probably just a cover so she can slam anyone who isn't on the far right even harder.
Dice Clay is showing up on that Donald Trump show - Celebrity Apprentice. Scraping the barrel.
I love the Dice Clay comparison, but...
Coulter is a soldier. And she mouths off like a soldier. Jindal on the other hand is a commissioned officer who would deny unemployed Americans unemployment insurance. They belong to the same army of hyper conservative evangelicals.
I'm glad guys like Larisson see through her, but in fact, Coulter does the grunt work for the intellectual elite of conservatism. They won't go after her on ideas, because they agree with her on ideas, but they're embarrased that she doesn't acknowledge that far from being an untouchable, Jindahl is a Brahmin. They're embarrased by the coarse stretch marks of their own underbellies.
The breech among conservatives isn't so much on ideology as class, and it is beginning to dawn on them that Ms. Coulter, despite her own educational bonafides, doesn't have much. But a woman who once implied that Joe McCarthy was a groovy guy or called for the assasination of former President Jimmy Carter, or famously asked, "Where are the Aryan Nation, when you really need them" could have never gotten traction unless she put people in the cheap seats of the Conservative Bait and Switch Ponzi Scheme Ballpark.
No way, Mark, he's on Celebrity Apprentice with several other people who deserve each other.
And really, two years ago Ann Coulter calls John Edwards a faggot and this year she decides the only way to one up herself is to make an all-you-people-look-alike joke. I guess she's saving calling Obama the n-word for his second term.
Now, I was in college from 99 to 03, so maybe my memory of that time is a little fuzzy. But wasn't this woman supposed to be some titan of the Republican party? Some goddess of the Right from whom all us week kneed liberals would shrink, cowed by her superior invective? Now I don't know what to think. It's like watching Tiger Woods hit his ball right into the blade of the windmill on a putt-putt course. THIS is your A game?
Maybe she was something back in '02, when Republicans rode into power on a wave of fear and paranoia. Back then, the democrats were deep in the wilderness, and listening to her was like rubbing salt in an open wound.
But that was then. Barack Obama is the president of the United States and everything's in beautiful technicolor. You have no power here, Ann, so scamper off before someone drops a house on you too.
"less and less"? fewer and fewer
it's very simple
bobby jindal is not white
Honestly, I'm a little surprised that it was Michael Steele, rather than Coulter, who resorted to ebonics first. How on earth could she pass up the opportunity to call Obama a nigga on Inauguration Day?
"Stuck on Dice Clay in 86"
That is just beautiful, TNC. Says it all. You should get a raise.
Seriously, this whole CPAC has been like watching Dick Cheney shoot his friends in the face non-stop for a week, only to turn around and pretend nothing happened. Do these people not see the damage that they are doing to themselves?
Ann Coulter usually knows what she's doing--like when she called John Edwards a fag last time she was allowed into one of these things. But it seems like she's losing it. Why say something like this about someone on your side? I wouldn't say it about anyone, but why hurt someone's feelings on your side of the fence?
Except that the Edwards thing sort of backfired on her, or at least it didn't get her the kind of play that she was hoping for. The longer I watch Coulter, the more convinced I am that she's really not very bright, that she lucked into this schtick but never really understood how it worked, and now that it's old, thinks that the only way to keep it fresh is to go more extreme, never realizing that she's getting more and more dated every time she does it.
The comparison to Dice is an apt one, because he's a great example of a comic who never evolved and so got left behind.
I would watch Andrew Dice Clay if his performance involved being on the receiving end of hard projectiles.
CitizenE, your last parafraph was just on the money.
Fortunately, Coulter's comment on Jindal was sufficiently off-key that I wouldn't be surprised to see some of the right-wing commetariat take her on , for a change.
As I said in the comments of this blog some 6 months ago, having worked their way through everyone else, the GOP is now running against itself.
Nathan -- I think you're on to something. IIRC, Dave Chappelle described his humor as making fun of racial stereotypes, as opposed to using racial stereotypes to make fun of people ... and there came a point when he realized some people in the audience didn't get the difference and it freaked him out.
@Nathan. I think I love you....
This is the way she gets attention. As fewer and fewer people want to hear her, she will become even more offensive in order to get any attention.
If I recall correctly, I think she was the one that said the U.S. should christianize Iraq. I always wondered why enemies on the ground in Iraq never used her for their own propoganda purposes. An outspoken infidel female supporting the christianizing of the middle east. There could have been some nasty spin put to that.
"you have to believe that a significant portion of the GOP enjoys being the Party Of Macacca. How else can we read this? It's like these guys are stuck on Dice Clay in 86."
This pretty well describes some conservatives I've known, especially older ones. They're still repeating Clay jokes.
A weird thing I've noticed in more conservative semi-defenses of Jindal's speech (IIRC Juan Williams, David Brooks, but I'm probably mixing up Brooks with a few other conservatives here) is to call his speaking style "sing-song." I've often heard Hindi referred to as having a sing-song cadence, but I've never heard that really about Southern accents. Jindal has a thick Southern accent. There's a reason why people immediately thought of Kenneth the Page. I'm not saying this is necessarily racist - I don't think it's meant as an insult and think Biden's cracks about 7-11s were a lot more offensive, considering how often when I've been in a 7-11 and have been asked if I work there - but it is weird how it pops up like this.
It actually goes back a long way. Norman Lear was freaked out when he realized that many of his viewers sincerely admired and agreed with Archie Bunker, and in the sequel series Archie had to become enlightened.
@ Texas Girl
Why do you assume that the majority of the GOP doesn't like what Ann said? Why do you assume that they do't think it's funny too? This chick is one of the leading voices in conservative punditry. She's on every tv show, every radio show and she speaks at colleges and conservative think tank meetings, conventions, etc. She is not the fringe she of the GOP, she is right smack in the middle. She is the mainstream of the GOP. They will not say "enough" because they like it. They won't say "enough" to her because they are the party of the Southern Strategy.
Now that Jindall has bombed and proven to not be the "Great Brown Hope" he's just like that kid that George Allen called a "macaca". When Michael Steele, the GOP's "magic negro" fails to bring them victory in the 2010 elections, they will kick him to the curb and stop pretending like they care about people of color at all.
If there was anyone left in the GOP to speak out against this crap because they knew it was wrong, they still wouldn't because they would be ostracized. Either that or they already left when they realized the truth about the GOP, who runs it and who they are appealing to. Those who don't want to be the party of Ann and Rush have left. Those who have stayed agree with Rush and Ann. It's that simple so don't expect th "majority" of the GOP to put an end to this crap. Ann, Rush, Hannity, Bachmann and that fool Mayor Watermelon are the majority of the GOP.
If you live in the very red state of Texas like me, you know this already.
At this point I'm honestly hoping that enough sane, non-racist Republicans leave their party and join the Democrats, if only to hopefully sway the Democratic party towards less insane spending policies.
"Is there any group of people Ann Coulter hasn't offended?"
I'm a blonde, white female, and I've been offended by Coulter for years, starting when she told a disabled, anti-war Vietnam veteran that it was people like him who made us lose.
Texas girl has it right, and if those not part of the conservative insanity ignored her she'd go away even quicker.
She is a performance artist, she gives good theater and makes the Republican wacko's orgasm, because of this she makes money. In the meantime assholes like Maher debate her, giving her more stage time, that imbecile Joy whatever her name is interviews her on Larry King and gets eaten alive and so on and so forth.
So, the Republican should end it? I say everyone should end it.
Meh, this kind of stuff was shocking back in the day when she first started peddling it. Now she's like the Republican Howard Stern... it's shocking if you want it to be shocking. Otherwise, it's tripe. You know what you're going to get and you know it doesn't matter in the long run and the more you focus on it, the more you're giving her the attention she wants.
Which is not to say racism is fine and proper. Only that Coulter is irrelevant.
I always loved Andrew Dice Clay because I assumed that he was making fun of the character he was playing, not that he really was that guy. Like Sarah Silverman or Stephen Colbert. Is it possible that I was wrong?
Aw man, I thought I understood racial humor, and now I'm confused again. So, when Ann Coulter makes that joke, it's racist. But when John Oliver makes that joke about Aasif Maandvi on The Daily Show ( http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=218390&title=81st-Academy-Awards ), it's funny? Help me out, Ta-Nehisi!
Oh come on...this is too easy...
She's going after swarthy-Mc jindal because she want's to prove she doesn't just go after the dark lefties...she's racist against ALL people of colour...hellz yaaah!
That's all they've got. As an added bonus, when people don't laugh (or even boo), they can indulge in a little pearl clutching.
"Elitists! P.C.! Free Speech! I'm a victim! I'm a victiiiiim!!"
People who don't care for this crap will walk away, while those who do will form a tighter, stupider group. (I know there's a sociological term for this - not folie a deux, but something like that - but I haven't had coffee.) At any rate we're talking about a party that shot sparkles in its collective pants over Sarah Palin, made Not Joe the Plunger Jockey a leading light and looks to Rush Limbaugh for guidance. They seem to have forgotten John McCain, a man who can occasionally utter a sentence that isn't 110% bullshit. What else do you expect?
Let's just be grateful that modern technology allows us to watch every single second of the train wreck.
I notice that Ann Althouse thinks Kenneth the Page is a racial slur but Slumdog is A-OK. No words.
texascowgirl,
I do not assume that "the majority of the GOP doesn't like what Ann said" or that "they don't think it's funny." Perhaps I wasn't clear enough in what I wrote. I skipped right over "where the GOP is now" and went straight to "where they need to be." As in, "Republicans should name it, refuse to participate in it, and move the argument into adult-land." Key word: "should."
I do know Republicans who don't like Ann Coulter's shock jock type of "punditry". They're embarrassed by it and don't know why the Republican party seems to encourage people like her as their standard bearers. Yes, they're out there. Some of them ascribe to the "change the party from within" ideal. Some have temporarily, or permanently, abandoned the party and voted for Obama or sat out the election.
The Republican party will have to change or it won't survive. Perhaps it'll be like the Whig party and only show up in history books. Or perhaps they'll evolve and reject these kinds of views. I don't know. But I do know if they continue to base their party on this kind of rhetoric and elevate such people, they won't survive.
If I had a high-visibility blog, I'd find it very, very difficult to never mention the stupid shit Ann Coulter does. But, in truth, I don't think her schtick has anything to do with anything than generating outrage - and thus growing her fan base of angry idiots. Her entire public persona is a lucrative publicity stunt. Once you pay attention to her, you've already lost that round.
Ann(dy) Coulter, the drag queen of Republican histrionics. She used to get press for vigorously defending Republican talking points as a hot blonde (see: Ainsley Hayes character on "The West Wing") now that she is getting old and haggard she's off the main stage and is stuck in the vaudeville tents.
I expect to see self-fisting introduced soon to try and keep book sales up.
And this is the inevitable point where I need to point out that calling Ann Coulter a man, a transexual, etc. is just as stupid as the shit she pulls, and incredibly insulting to real transgendered people.
Guy Yedwab -- I think you're right, that's the same joke, but I think it has a different valence coming from different people. The folks at the Daily Show, like Dave Chappelle, are known for doing "post-PC" racial humor, in which the thing that's being laughed at is the racial stereotype itself. (Nathan and farmgirl above touched on this issue). So in the Daily Show skit, what's funny is the sheer ridiculousness of saying that all Indians appeared in Slumdog Millionaire. In theory, Ann Coulter could have meant her joke in the same way...but I doubt it. Neither her humor nor the contexts in which she delivers it are known for the kind of social commentary that makes fun of racial stereotypes.
Cry all you want about Republican race baiting. This is the GOP we're talking about. Compared to where this party was at even ten years ago, this is the golden age of enlightenment and racial sensitivity for the party of Jesse Helms.
The key to Republican success going back to the 60's is the backlash. Getting offended at Ann Coulter only plays into their hands. Just ignore the bitch. That's the worst thing you could possibly do to her.
I'm not inclined to give Ann Coulter any benefits of the doubt regarding her shtick, which is why this comment won the thread for me:
You have no power here, Ann, so scamper off before someone drops a house on you too.
Thank you, Belinda, for putting it into the proper perspective.
As Jon Stewart has said, The Daily Show comes on after muppets making fart jokes. They aren't a serious news show. The racist jokes are funny in the same way Archie Bunker is funny. It's making fun of the person who would say such a thing (stupid reporter), not the people the joke is directed towards (Indians).
For things you can count, "fewer."
For abstractions and masses you measure out, "less."
Fewer people. Less water. Fewer marbles. Less sand. Fewer stars. Less love.
Fewer errors. Less foolishness.
I have to eat three meals a day with people who would probably think Coulter's joke was kind of funny. It gets tiresome. I really can't wait to move elsewhere.
Anyhow, I think her game has played itself out. The Ann Coulter view of the world (or the Rush Limbaugh or Sarah Palin view of the world) is centered around hating liberals. Liberals are a bunch of hypersensitive, effeminate, foreign, sexually deviant weirdos, and they're not part of the real America. Except that now the Democrats run the country. They are a majority. They're not scolds or radicals any more -- they're authorities.
It's kind of hard to make someone the "other" when he's the commander in chief. And most liberals seem to have less interest in culture wars anyhow. I can't remember the last time I met a radical feminist. (I'm not certain that's an unqualified good thing.)
So I think Ann Coulter's usual tactic is going to be unsuccessful these days. If I were a conservative pundit, I would quit ridiculing liberal freaks and start railing against liberal tyrants.
Re: But it's an awful joke.
Does Ann Coulter make any other kind of joke?
Hey, lay off Coulter, she's making a Joke!
Get it, slumdog millionaire...............
She speaks the magick Joke-tongue!
Beware! Beware!
Her flashing eyes, her floating hair!
Weave a circle round her thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For she on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise,
Or some other seriously fucked-up shit.
Concerning less/fewer:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/004005.html
Concerning the Daily Show:
Their joke is "John Oliver is too dumb to tell apart Indians." Coulter's joke is "Indians are difficult to tell apart." Unless she's a performance artist. In which case, her joke is "Republicans believe that Indians are difficult to tell apart."
To be pedantic, it is "fewer and fewer people", not "less and less people."
shorter Adam K:
fewer assholes; less bullshit.
anybody need a slogan?
If you have a grammatical note, please send an e-mail. I've said this many times over. I will gladly make the correction. If you want to read a grammar blog, please start one. Otherwise, I'd ask that you refrain from hijacking, and send an email.
As an individual Ann is not really hard at all to explain. She just has no sense of empathy. Shot off in some war or another, I suppose. You know how she says something really tone deaf or crazy and you think to yourself, "Wow, just what is going on in that head of hers?" and can't imagine how somebody could think that was logical or socially appropriate. The thing is she can't figure out what you are thinking either. I'm sure she looks at us and can't believe that we don't see the invasion of Muslim Communist Mole People coming. It really is impossible to argue with someone who can't see anybody elses point of view especially when that person is also clearly frackin nuts herself.
Although performance art is also a pretty good explantation as well.
ur republican party: ann coulter and rush limbaugh
perfect together
also: for the nonwhite people who believed in "conservative" ideology for the past few election cycles, and really did want to be republicans, well, it would be interesting to ask them now, uh, so, do u still feel welcome in the republican party, or is it starting to become as apparent to nonwhite people as it should be to poor people that the republican party really doesn't like them
Eh, as an Indian-American, I don't really find this that offensive. She could have said much worse. It just was out of place and not very funny at all. That is because she is dumb.
Besides, she is irrelevant and only does this to get a rise out of people and then claim that they are being too "politically correct".
For as much as I hate Limbaugh, he was kind of funny when he mentioned the Biden slip up about Indians. Of course, I actually think Coulter is just a callous bigot where I don't think Biden is.
BUT...most Americans of any race, Republican or Democrat, don't really know any Indian people or see them in any cultural settings. They know the Indian restaurant they may go to, or maybe one or two Indian actors. And there are all the regular stereotypes, positive and negative. I'd like to think that even amidst the "go back to Iraq" comments (can non college educated Americans find Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan or India on a map?) most of the stuff I hear about Indians is harmless ignorance. We all fall into that at times.
This is what happens when the first Indian dude makes it in politics here. I cannot stand most of his positions, (and I will wear my "Indians for Obama" button proudly if he is the nominee in 2012) but I was hoping for a better showing. Bobby you got to come with more swagger! That was hard to watch for me haha.
"Anne Coulter's whole game is being a shock jock. Republicans should name it, refuse to participate in it, and move the argument into adult-land. But they're too timid." Texas Girl
TR: I know. Although sadly I think they have reason to be timid. That side of things represents a bigger chunk of Republicans than I like. I don't know if they represent more than 20%, but 20% can be a big group to alienate when you can't count on gaining enough elsewhere to compensate. Maybe more important than sheer number is that the Limbaugh/Coulter wing is highly motivated yet volatile. It seems likely that they donate more, it seems certain they more loudly denounce the party if it veers against them.
I'm not real happy with the GOP right now and in general I never considered myself one. However the Democrats need a viable opposition party and I agree with Republicans much more than I do Democrats. So I'm still willing to defend them, but I wish they didn't make it so difficult to do so.
As for Coulter's remarks on Jindal they actually seem pretty tame for her. Basically it's just "Hey an Indian movie is in the news, isn't it funny to link him to it as he's Indian?" It was stupid more than anything. Plus of all her bigotries I've never seen Coulter have much problem with Indian-Americans provided they're Christian. She dated Dinesh D'Souza for a time. Plus India is a potential bulwark against the Mooslims and is more pro-Bush/pro-US than most of the world.
Well Ann Coulter's an asshole, how surprised are you really?
But OK, I'm going to say something that might get me flamed. Can you explain why it's so bad? I used to live in the UK, and people would make jokes like this all the time. Whenever a TV show would come on with an American, four instance, they would shout, "Hey, it's you!" I never thought it was particularly offensive, just kind of dumb humor. Should I have been offended?
Just curious, everyone responds to these things differently, I suppose.
Whenever a TV show would come on with an American, four instance, they would shout, "Hey, it's you!" I never thought it was particularly offensive, just kind of dumb humor.
There's a big difference between making jokes with friends, and on TV to a broad audience. In fact, when they say those things (much like The Daily Show) they are poking fun at their supposed ignorance. Half the joke is "I'm so stupid, I think all Americans are a like"
I can poke fun at my friend for being a "cheap Jew" because we're friends. He takes no offense, because I'm making fun of myself as much as I'm making fun of him. However, I would expect random people I meet on the street to be highly offended by that comment. They wouldn't understand the context in which I meant the comment, and I wouldn't expect them to. Can we just agree that context matters? Can we also agree, that the the correct context is pretty easy to spot?
Anyone who pays attention to the news knows she was taking a jab at Helen Thomas. Pay attention people. And thinks again for illustrating her points.
http://michellemalkin.com/2009/02/25/helen-thomas-said-what-about-bobby-jindal/
Two words for y'all (the always interesting posters): Don Rickles ( D'Ric.) First, he was/is funny; really, really funny. Taking shots at all groups he gets us laughing at each other and soon enough at ourselves when he starts talking about your sorry ass. When the Ann Coulters of the world start making jokes about errant hedge fund managers because they are White and/or men then I'll listen to her schtick.
D'Ric is a comic's comic (no surprise) so its not hard to understand why his lessors would appropriate and then mangle his genius. But they invariably ignore the most important part: laughing at ourselves. Comics (and politicians) who do this well get the most love.
AJ writes: "There are a lot of conservatives who don't traffic in that garbage... we have just been alienated from the party of stupid.
Anymore
republican ≠ conservative"
Fair enough, being a Republican doesn't automatically mean one is a conservative. But what passes as a 'conservative' in the United States today? Is it simply small government, low taxes, Darwinian capitalism, and when my neighbor needs help, people do the right thing? Being a conservative is an intellectual parlor debate. Do you really think that in a country as complex and large as ours can survive as hundreds of thousands of little city-states?
Every Republican or conservative I ask, 'what exactly is the government they are railing against'? sorta scratch their heads in disbelief at my question. Is the government the pointy headed bureaucrats in Washington, or is it the soldiers, the police, the firemen, the teachers, public colleges, NASA, the NIH, the CIA, the interstate highway system, the courts, the prisons, Social Security, the diplomats, the FDA, the National Weather Service?
There is a complete and total disconnect between conservatives and reality. You might as well call yourself a Marxist. It's the same game, the same pathological reductionism that is looking for the silver bullet, the formulaic antidote to whatever it is you don't like about the chaotic and evolving events around you.
Life isn't like that. That's why people turn to religion: it's a lot simpler when you just believe.
On "the government" I believe their idea is that the individual should be as self-reliant as possible and that the federal government is often too distant to be responsive to local situations.
On the first American conservatives are often more like classical liberals. American conservatives or more likely than Europeans, or American believes, to believe the individual decides/should-decide his/her own fate. (Pew Research Center) External forces, like the state, are seen as hampering that.
On the other the notion is that people closer to a situation will understand it better. The federal government is distant, although this is perhaps more true the further West you go. Therefore government interference will likely do more harm than good to local communities.
And as a conservative-type person I agree to some of this while recognizing it may go overboard. The only thing I find perplexing about it is this emphasis on "small and individual" would not seem to fit with American conservativism love of big-business and the military. The military and big business, to varying degrees, subsume the individual into a larger collective. The military maybe more than business, but American conservatives often defend the rights of business to interfere with the individual. The argument from their side is that these are all voluntary associations. However taking government assistance is just as voluntary as joining the military, well more or less, so I don't find this argument entirely convincing. (Granted you could say the military provides a service, but if welfare required you do some community service I'm uncertain how American conservatives would see it.)
To me it would be logical, perhaps, for the American conservative to favor small business over large business and to give no particular reverence to the military. Or I'm just saying that because that's closer to where I'm at.
"American conservatives Are more likely than Europeans, or American Liberals, to believe the individual decides/should-decide his/her own fate. (Pew Research Center)"
Corrected from above.
thanks for explaining it to me, AJ.
American conservatives or more likely than Europeans, or American [Liberals] believes, to believe the individual decides/should-decide his/her own fate.
I don't see American conservatives like this at all. They seem more to think that we should give more power over to the powerful and they'll make the right decisions for all of us. This is the basis behind their trickle down economics. Combine that with a state that wants to control many of individuals private morals and you have American conservatism. Conservatives are for big government controlling individuals, but not controlling corporations.
"I don't see American conservatives like this at all." Byrk
TR: I'm speaking more about American conservatives rather than just Republican politicians. In addition it's plausible that, like most here, you have a basically jaundiced/hostile view of American conservatism.
That said I should've mentioned that an additional idea in conservatism, not specifically American-style, is that there is an "aristocracy of talent." Some of what you're saying is about that idea. By allowing individuals to "decide their fate" some will get way ahead because some are simply more talented. And maybe some American conservatives are simply about making the powerful more powerful, but I think only the most hardened Right-winger really sees it that way.
Anyway it does not change that the State, in the real world and in the case of large nations anyway, is still much more powerful than any corporation. If Dow Pharmaceutical decided Aspirin will be banned, this wouldn't/couldn't happen. If the state decided to recall a drug it most likely would happen. If Henry Ford had decided to intern all Japanese it's doubtful that would have amounted to much. FDR and the government could. Governments may do things at the behest of corporations, but they're clearly the stronger party. (At least since WWI, in the "Gilded Age" it was a bit different) Unlike in JP Morgan's era the government is bailing out businesses not the other way round. The "other way round", although I believe it happened in the nineteenth century, seems almost absurd now.
I'm of the "Ann Coulter as performance artist" camp. I saw her "show" live at Syracuse when she came to campus once, and it was a total spectacle. If it wasn't for the bullhorns, people shouting her down, and people arguing with her, I think that we all would've been bored, because at the very few times it was quiet enough to hear her talk, she wasn't saying much. She is an act, like a conservative version of a stand up comic. I've never really taken her seriously after that.
Oh by the way guys do you know miss coulter once dated an indian American!!
To add to Thomas R.'s comments, I've always viewed American conservatives in two camps: what I would call Intellectual conservatives and Social conservatives. Intellectual conservatives are mostly fiscal conservatives with libertarian social views. The idea of limited government and personal responsibility appeals to them greatly. Social conservatives don't usually have well formed fiscal views (although they often blindly support trickle down theories even though it is contrary to their personal interests -- I think it's a Veblen thing), but have strong social values that they believe are "cultural" and, thus, appopriate to force on others. The latter obvsiously form the Southern Strategy.
Describing American conservatism doesn't mean I entirely agree with it. I agree with it, to an extent, but not altogether. American conservativism tends to be too individualist or, frankly, too Protestant for me. (Anglican conservatives are a bit more amenable to me as CoE is a bit of a "Middle Path")
I was born in the US, never lived anywhere else, but in most ways I consider myself a non-nationalist Catholic or Christian conservative. I recently read something by a Jamaican conservative and related to it better than to many American ones. I'm largely sympathetic to the Kirkian/Burkean notions of a transcendent moral order, an "aristocracy of talent", gradualism, prudence, and "the democracy of the dead."
I'm largely a social conservative, but I hope for a form of it that is as non-sectarian as possible. Same-sex marriage being the same as opposite-sex marriage is therefore unnerving because it has few to no cultural precedents. Same-sex unions less so as there is cultural precedent in certain Medieval bonding rites or other cultures rituals. Precedent is not important in liberalism, or libertarianism, but it's pretty important to anything I'd consider conservative. This doesn't mean unprecedented things must never happen, but that it's wise to be cautious of them.
On abortion there's the obvious link to infanticide. What hurts universality on this is that opposition to infanticide largely does originate in Christianity. In the pre-Christian West abandoning a disabled child to the mountains, or just throwing them off mountains, was acceptable. The Japanese were likewise and among many African societies twins were left in the forest to "meet their fate." (Sometimes they apparently lived as certain other outcasts would be sent there) The idea newborn infants are more than property is maybe a Christian notion, but even those most willing to scream about "Christianists" are probably not willing to legalize infanticide. If human life, when it has independent organs and some kind of brain, has rights than abortion should be restricted much more and much earlier than it is now. If everything is "personhood" than we should abandon the idea "Christian" idea that infanticide is in anyway wrong.
And so forth.
Not that I'm a very good Catholic. For Lent I intended to give up the Internet and yet here I am.