Thursday, March 28, AD 2024 4:20pm

Teaching Hate

Fifth rate comedienne grabs some cheap publicity by holding up a mock bloody head of Donald Trump.  Ho Hum, the deranged left always acts this way, and that is precisely the problem.

 

Mark Shea is his born again leftist mode had this post on his blog today:

So good white Christian Greg Gianforte assaulted a reporter (a fact confirmed by dangerous Marxist network FOX)…

and the Party of Brownshirt Lovers of Threats and Violence loved it, which is why Mona Charen had the unenviable task of trying to tell this party of neutronium-skulled thugs that they must stop denying, excusing and defending it.  They are not listening, of course, because they are violent thugs and enemies of America.  But worst of all, it is Christian thought leaders who are now orgasmic for this crude thuggery and Steven Greydanus calls them out:

I write today neither to accuse Greg Gianforte nor the voters of Montanta, neither of whom I have much to do with.

I write to accuse those who excuse, dismiss or enable intolerable behavior like Gianforte’s, or who give ear and support to those who do.

I’m talking to you, Dinesh D’Souza. I’m talking to you, Laura Ingraham.

Most of all, I’m talking to you, all my friends who still regard D’Souza and Ingraham as voices worth listening to.

It pains me to say this, because the fact is that I not only liked Ingraham and D’Souza, I *respected* them. I feel betrayed by what the American Christian conservatism I once identified with has become. I feel like a fool for not having seen it sooner.

In this words of this article, “None of this is a gray area. You either uphold certain basic standards of decency or you don’t.”

And the answer is: We don’t. Obviously. Read what Ingraham and D’Souza had to say about a now-elected official body-slamming a journalist, and realize the truth of the world we live in: The Tribe Right or Wrong; The Tribe Über Alles.

With the appropriate incantatory words (depending on your sub-tribe and the situation, they may be “But Hillary,” “The Babies,” “Obamacare,” “Immigration,” etc.), people who pride themselves on decency and traditional values will not only look the other way, but actively *defend* bad behavior and harm as long as the right people are being defended or harmed.

That’s what most horrifies me: not simply that someone might say “Unprovoked assault is obviously terrible and unacceptable but what’s on offer on the other side is even worse,” but that people will say “It was our guy hitting their guy? Eh. He had it coming. He’s a crybaby. He’s a sissy for not hitting back.” (This is paraphrase but scarcely exaggeration. Read the piece.)

I shouldn’t have to say this, but experience shows that I do: If your first reaction to this scolding is to bring up punching Nazis or what happened to Charles Murray at Middlebury, YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG.

Tu quoque won’t help you here. First of all, because *I’m* making the accusation, and *I* neither punched Richard Spencer, nor joined in the Middlebury mob, nor have I defended those who did.

I’m against punching Nazis and mobbing out-of-favor academics on college campuses, and *I’m* telling you that if you listen to people like Ingraham and D’Souza who defend blatant thuggishness as long as the violence goes the right way, *you’re* the one being harmed. Tu quoque is no defense when both sides are sipping arsenic.

Some might be tempted to modify the tu quoque and ask me why I’m actively calling out defenders of Gianforte when I haven’t gone out of my way to call out defenders left-wing violence. There are many answers to that, but the simplest is that I USED TO LIKE AND RESPECT INGRAHAM AND D’SOUZA.

The people I’m talking to are still, in spite of my alienation from the conservative machine, very much my peeps. We agree on many of the things that matter most.

What it seems to me we haven’t yet managed to agree on is the spiritual danger of embracing The Tribe Über Alles.

To be sure, not all Republicans endorse this filth.  Some of them, known by the goons and thugs who now constitute the bulk of the Party of Trump as “fake conservative” and “wusses” still speak out on behalf of civilization and are shouted down by Real Christians and Real Conservatives:

 

Go here to read the rest.  In regard to Gianforte he is new to the political game and he hasn’t yet learned one fact of life for Republicans and conservatives:  almost all the media hate and despise you.  They might as well be press agents for your opponent.  Any fault of yours they will scream to the rafters while they will underplay or spike any story that paints a liberal or a Democrat in a bad light.  You have to treat these adversaries as if they were what they purport to be:  seekers after the facts.  I doubt if Gianforte will repeat his assault on another reporter, and if the does it will get national coverage again as only Democrats can engage in such conduct, and much, much worse, and receive a yawn from the media.  Mary Jo Kopechne was unavailable for comment.

In regard to the larger question of violence, Mr. Greydanus says that bringing up Democrat and leftist violence is tu quoque.  This is correct if one is using it to justify violence.  It is another matter if it is brought up to explain violence.  For half a century the Democrats and leftists have felt free to engage in violence to obtain their political ends.  Conservative speakers cannot be heard at almost all campuses without being, at best, shouted down, and at worst, being physically assaulted.  Street violence by leftist thugs is not an uncommon occurrence.  Last year we saw on video Democrat operatives boasting of sending people to spark violence at Trump rallies.  What the Democrats and the leftists don’t understand is that, in their own thuggish way, they have been teaching conservatives and Republicans.  Kurt Schlichter, a conservative commentator and retired Army Colonel, nails it:

We all know it was wrong for Greg Gianforte to beat up Ben Jacobs. But we also know the general attitude of the media is that when we conservatives get beat-up by leftists it’s perfectly excusable – even laudable – and thanks to the fact that Twitter is forever, we now know that Ben Jacobs himself specifically thinks it’s A-OK to slug conservative kids. So can someone tell me why anyone should be shocked that we conservatives refuse to devote one iota of caring to poor Ben’s wedgie?

This isn’t a good thing. This is nothing to be proud of. We should not be happy that our society is heading toward the lowest common denominator, which itself is in freefall. But the alternative is worse. Should we allow ourselves to continue to be figuratively and literally beaten up while smiling at our own purity, secure in the knowledge that even though our dignity and freedom are stripped from us, we have not fought back? Not happening. Letting these bastards play by their own rules, and thereby crush us, seems a pretty high price to pay just to gain the approval of the smug and sanctimonious David Frums and John Kasichs of the world.

We conservatives have been warning for a long time that liberals are not going to like it when everyone plays by the new rules, and – surprise! – they don’t. But guess what? Most of us don’t like the new rules either. Yet it’s ridiculous to expect human beings to remain in perpetual denial about the situation they face, and to forever live under a double standard that results in their faces getting pressed into the dirt.

The hypocrisy has become intolerable, and we have stopped tolerating it. This is just the beginning of the reaction, and – make no mistake – this entire situation is a bad thing. Our society is making choices that can lead only to ruin (and my new novel describing the consequences just dropped).

Lincoln mentioned “the better angels of our nature” – also at a time when Democrats were rejecting the rule of law in order to promote their subjugation of those they considered lesser beings – and the important thing to note is that “angels” is plural. You need two angels, not one angel and one demon. But that’s what we have, and if it doesn’t change we’ll have two demons, and everyone should care about that.

 

Go here to read the rest.  The calendar may read 2017, but sometimes when I see it, it seems to read 1858 or 1859.  May God help us all.

 

 

 

 

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Penguins Fan
Penguins Fan
Tuesday, May 30, AD 2017 5:40pm

Mark Shea is a complete waste of time. More bloggers ought to come out after him and point out what a hypocrite he is.

Art Deco
Art Deco
Tuesday, May 30, AD 2017 6:26pm

This fellow Gianforte appears to have had a minor altercation with a member of the political opposition. It doesn’t seem to have occurred to Shea why people might find it at least vaguely amusing that a member of one of the grossest and unethical occupational groups in America was issued a penalty by a fed-up member of the public.

The irony of Mark Shea offering a vitriolic denunciation of someone else’s bad temper is lost on….Mark Shea.

CAM
CAM
Tuesday, May 30, AD 2017 9:24pm

Regarding “hate” in Lt Gov. Ralph Northam’s ad for the Democratic primary which aired today Northam said, “”Donald Trump is a narcissistic maniac and I will do all I can to keep his hate out of Virginia”.
Predict that the word “hate” referring to President Trump and conservative values will be the liberal, progressive and Democrat buzz word for this election.

Nate Winchester
Wednesday, May 31, AD 2017 5:45am
Nate Winchester
Wednesday, May 31, AD 2017 6:44am

Some days I’m tempted to start a website that will just be quotes from old Mark Shea posted against the new Mark Shea. And of course he’s become a left-partisan. He’s become increasingly lazy intellectually and leftist politics excel at providing policies and narratives that hit you in the gut and don’t require any thinking (indeed thinking usually causes it all to fall apart so you’re discouraged from that). Now that he’s cocooned himself in an echo chamber, he needn’t worry about ever having to bother thinking or checking facts again.

And what’s up with his new race obsession. It’s like reading one of those alt sites that insist on pointing out everybody’s jewishness – only it’s everybody’s whiteness.

Foxfier
Admin
Wednesday, May 31, AD 2017 8:32am

I’m still not sure Gianforte actually assaulted the guy. Not as in, “I don’t think he hit him,” as in “I think the guy was doing the usual pushy reporter violating personal space and came against a NORMAL FREAKING HUMAN BEING.”

Has anybody actually seen a quote from the Fox lady about what she saw? I’ve only seen things where it says “the fox reporter said she didn’t see an act of open aggression” which, given the media, makes me suspect she actually said “I didn’t see what happened” or something.
******
We’ve had people poisoned, folks run off the road, ROUTINE acts of violence against conservatives… maybe the English reporting style I’ve read about in all the old books is, ah, not the wisest option?

Nate Winchester
Wednesday, May 31, AD 2017 11:14am

Foxfier what gets me (and you can try this on some of Dave G’s commentors if you want it demonstrated) is that numerous, repeated actions by the Left are always excused as “outliers” and “proof of nothing” while the much rarer action by the Right proves everything. Or they’ll use this to end that argument in a kind of “if you want to associate those dozen with the Left, then you have to associate this one with the right.”

Oh hey, Mark went and provided an example! Let’s see… in the article he wrote:


Christian was much like [these racists] that take their inspiration from our white racist president and his white racist attorney general.

Then in the comments…

And he [Jeremy Christian]also supported Sanders for a while, which proves… something or other.

So supporting Trump proves something, but supporting Sanders proves nothing? Ladies & Gentlemen of the Jury, I present exhibit C in political hackery.

Art Deco
Art Deco
Wednesday, May 31, AD 2017 4:00pm

The audiofile and one witness account indicate the reporter fell over backwards. The witness just says she saw his feet in the air, not the point of contact between the reporter and anyone else. The conversation between the two is tense but civil until there’s a sudden crash and an enraged person (Gianforte) is rebuking the reporter at a high pitch and orders him to leave. The reporter is complaining of being ‘body slammed’ and complains that Gianforte broke his glasses. (My guess would be his glasses are a pair of over-the-counter cheaters as I have an identical pair). A calmer voice intercedes and says ‘you need to leave’. The sudden change of mood on the part of the candidate leads me to believe something inaudible happened which changed the tenor of the discussion. It sure makes no sense unless the candidate was hopped-up on something.

Art Deco
Art Deco
Wednesday, May 31, AD 2017 4:06pm

I have a suspicion that viewing M. Shea as a purveyor of political opinion as if he were Paul Zummo is in error. His conduct over the years has grown so peculiar that I have to believe that it is some other phenomenon expressed in political code. It certainly is puzzling.

Illithid
Illithid
Wednesday, May 31, AD 2017 5:18pm

While I don’t care to comment on this issue, I will defend Mark against the characterization of his blog as an “echo chamber”. I argue with him all the time, and he’s never tried to delete comments, ban me, or even responded with anything but respect.

Nate Winchester
Wednesday, May 31, AD 2017 7:13pm

Great, Illithid, now shall we go over the much larger number of people who have been banned?

Or would you care for a scientific experiment? Say something even slightly positive about Trump. For example, I see you commented on his “2 heroes” post, be like Guest and ask him what a Trump tweet from 2015 has to do with the recent week. Or ask him why a post by the madman supporting Trump is indicative of something but posts supporting Bernie is not. Or wait, Mark is due to post the “prison pop > gulag” lie soon, correct him on that. Let’s see how long you last…

Illithid
Illithid
Thursday, June 1, AD 2017 8:25am

Okay, I’ll expand. Many commenters argue with Mark, at length, about every topic under discussion. They’ve been engaged with, not banned. This is not an echo chamber. It is true that some comments were deleted in that article. I don’t know what they said. But other comments by “Guest” remain, along with Mark’s replies arguing with them. Unless you’re claiming there is never a legitimate reason to delete a comment, I don’t think you’ve made your point. Have you been banned there?

P.S. This combox is annoying! Can only see the line I’m typing.

Illithid
Illithid
Thursday, June 1, AD 2017 8:32am

Oh, BTW, except that someone with color vision seems to have corrected his spraytan and hairdye, I can’t think of anything positive to say about Trump. I’d be interested to know who he’s banned if you feel like saying, but I’m not debating anything at length in this program. I can’t even go back and edit if I mess something up. This is horrid.

Nate Winchester
Thursday, June 1, AD 2017 12:02pm

P.S. This combox is annoying! Can only see the line I’m typing.

Do you see the corner where there’s a pair of slanted lines? Click on that and hold and you can adjust the combox to any size you desire.

Okay, I’ll expand. Many commenters argue with Mark, at length, about every topic under discussion. They’ve been engaged with, not banned. This is not an echo chamber.

Arguing over who hates Trump the most and why is not any kind of “disagreement” – otherwise by that logical standard there is no such thing as an echo chamber anywhere even on the internet.

It is true that some comments were deleted in that article. I don’t know what they said. But other comments by “Guest” remain, along with Mark’s replies arguing with them. Unless you’re claiming there is never a legitimate reason to delete a comment, I don’t think you’ve made your point. Have you been banned there?

Yes I have been (more than once, actually), as well as Dave G., TM Lutas, PetetheGreek… those guys I knew personally. There was a whole “banned by Mark Shea” facebook group but since I’m not on facebook I’ll let those who are find that one. I’m sure some others around here have (like Art Deco) but I’ll let them confirm. You can have fun just googling banned by Mark Shea and finding accounts like here.

I can’t think of anything positive to say about Trump.

You don’t have to think of anything positive, just correct a dishonesty. For example, in the original post by Shea Don linked to, there is this bit from Mark:
“And the anonymous bullies, KKK, and thugs of the Party of Trump have heard the clarion call to threaten a free press with violence too.”
That line links to…
http://www.kentucky.com/news/local/counties/fayette-county/article153236479.html

So, be honest, what does some broken windows in Lexington, KY have to do with Trump? No really, go read the article and ask Mark that. No word on this suspect’s identification. And as the investigating officer notes: “there have been incidents in the last month of windows being shot out with pellet or BB guns on a school bus, a transit bus and at an elementary school in Lexington. It was too early to say whether those might be related to the damage at the Herald-Leader.” Now, it seems pretty clear to me that there is as much connecting those bus and school “shootings” to this incident as there is Trump. (indeed I’d wager money this whole thing is just some kids horseplaying with an air rifle) So go on. You don’t have to say something positive about Trump, just demand a fair trial. Even guilty men get that much.

Illithid
Illithid
Thursday, June 1, AD 2017 7:03pm

Thanks for the tip, but it apparently doesn’t work on my tablet.

As to the main topic: okay, I’m somewhat persuaded. I actually remember Dave G. (on whose blog I also comment regularly) saying he had been banned. I shall consider your points and pay more attention. I did read your links.

Nate Winchester
Friday, June 2, AD 2017 11:16am

Oh. Yeah, sorry Illithid, I don’t know about tablets much. The combox isn’t great for them. (I do miss some of Don’s old site design, I’ll admit that.)

And hey, you can make a fun drinking game of it. 😉 Every time the link Mark posts doesn’t quite match what he said about it, take a drink! (note I take no responsibly for any liver failure you experience)

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