Snapping at the soccer game *UPDATED*
Bookworm on Oct 19 2008 at 8:11 pm | Filed under: Uncategorized
When the parental crowd at the soccer game goes anti-Palin, I tend to keep my mouth shut. As I blogged yesterday, I can take on one person at a time, but I can’t take on a crowd.
I did speak up, however, when someone gloated about the fact that Sarah Palin, in an SNL sketch, stood there was Alec Baldwin insulted her. He thought it was brilliant.
“Yes,” I said, “it’s always brilliant to see someone who is a rather unintelligent alcoholic known for violent outbursts insulting a sitting governor.”
I thought I was being sarcastic. This guy didn’t, though, thinking that I’d made an insightful anti-Palin comment: “Yeah, he really humiliated her. It was great.”
People like this are apparently intelligent enough to make lots of money, but they’re incapable of rational analysis or common humanity.
UPDATE: Apparently Baldwin was a lot more gracious than the soccer fans.
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Welcome to my world. Every day I have to listen to my university colleagues pick apart Sarah Palin. Last Friday, one of them was crowing about Palin being an inexperienced airhead. Since he’s from Minnesota, I turned to him and asked if he was voting for Al Franken. He puffed out his chest and said proudly, “Yes, I voted for him twice.” Talk about inexperienced airheads! But, my buddy has a PhD and a JD so that makes him smarter than me and Sarah.
“But, my buddy has a PhD and a JD so that makes him smarter than me and Sarah.”
Funny how many people with advanced degrees are utterly clueless outside their specialities–including the most important skill of all: how to behave like a decent human being.
Bookworm, You dish it out but don’t seem able to take it. You have bashed Obama for months. After a while, everyone “snaps.”
Consider this: http://twitter.com/macewan/statuses/966398654 Do you even know why I suggested it?
People like this are apparently intelligent enough to make lots of money, but they’re incapable of rational analysis or common humanity.
Going by their standards, Book, you don’t need a lot of respect for humanity to be able to exploit the poor for personal wealth, right?
You dish it out but don’t seem able to take it. You have bashed Obama for months. After a while, everyone “snaps.”
So sayeth the pseudo-pacifist.
was Alec Baldwin
Think that is “while”.
Y., “After a while, everyone “snaps.” Read, we’re all human and get annoyed with each other at some point. Then, we yell
“So sayeth the pseudo-pacifist.” Whatever, dude.
No real pacifist ever makes excuses for people’s violent snappish reactions. No matter the provocation. Yet you call yourself a pacifist, Helen?
C S Lewis had some interesting thoughts about what he called “the Inner Ring.” The characteristic of the Inner Ring–an exclusive social or professional circle–is that membership is sought *specifically because* it is excusive; a big part of the enjoyment of membership is the smirky pleasure at the thought of all those who did *not* get to be members.
The nature of the attacks on Palin suggest that many self-designated intellectuals are driven more by motives of the Inner Ring type than by any genuine love of knowledge.
“Yes,” I said, “it’s always brilliant to see someone who is a rather unintelligent alcoholic known for violent outbursts insulting a sitting governor.”
I thought I was being sarcastic. This guy didn’t, though, thinking that I’d made an insightful anti-Palin comment: “Yeah, he really humiliated her. It was great.”
Gee, Book, couldn’t you have grabbed the nearest “Vote Obama” sign and pounded him over the head with it until it fell apart? Now *that* would count as snapping!
( http://thesilentmajority.wordpress.com/2008/10/16/up-date-on-the-assault-against-a-mccain-manhattan-volunteer/ )
Or you could grab your best friend, and the two of you put on T-Shirts that say, “Barack Obama Is A ****”, posing for the camera with smirky, superior smiles. Yeah, baby! Speakin’ Truth To Power!
( http://hillbuzz.wordpress.com/2008/10/12/obama-supporters-wearing-sarah-palin-is-a-c-tee-shirts/ )
Cheer up!
If Obama wins, after four years of accelerating misery, in 2012, that same fellow will be telling you, “It’s the Republicans that are causing all this economic mess, all these troubles. The Democrats keep trying to fix things, but the fat cat Republicans are still in control behind the scenes, still running us all into the ground!”
http://jimtreacher.com/archives/001688.html
Aren’t they just adorable? I’m reminded of a little puppy that doesn’t know any better when it messes on the rug.
Have you all noticed the tone that the “humor” and attacks against Sarah Palin have taken?
They are all violent or violence-based.
Last night, I saw the You Tube video of that football player who slams into Palin and keeps screaming at her while she is lying on the floor crying in pain.
Then there is that drawing that was circulating around the web of a man’s fist punching Gov. Palin in the mouth.
Madonna tells her concert-goers she would kick Palin in the ass.
There are signs that say, “Abort” and then have Gov. Palin’s image right underneath it.
And then Sandra Bernhard threatens that her “big black brothers” will gang-rape Gov. Palin if she comes to Manhattan.
Previous candidates were smeared as being “stupid,” “ignorant,” and so forth. But this is different. So many of the remarks made by liberals against Palin seem to focus on violence, on physically harming her.
And this from a group of Americans who swears they are against violence!
Deana
Shorter Helen: “How dare you criticize the Leader!”
Helen, my blog is a political forum. I was hearing this at a kids’ soccer game. Also, I criticize Obama substantively, because I deeply distrust his politics and his history. This was just stupid meanness and, even when I pointed it out, they didn’t get it.
Y.,
(#8) Pacifists are not responsible for the behavior of others. How could they be? Becoming a pacifist is a personal choice, a way to live, not a failure to see that others don’t accept your views and do snap. Not only that, becoming a pacifist does not negate human nature. It is not a way to become God.
Bookworm,
(#14) People are talking politics everywhere these days. The election is two weeks away and both sides see this as a very important election.
The Tina Fey skits impersonating Sarah Palin have been all over the web. Tina Fey would have been the better choice for McCain.
>>Pacifists are not responsible for the behavior of others.>>
No, but your response was “see…now you know how _I_ feel”
>>The election is two weeks away and both sides see this as a very important election.>>
And this justifies the viciousness of the personal attacks on Palin? Absolutely nothing about her record…just verbal attacks describing sexual and physical attacks on her person??? You can _justify_ this with the “importance” of the election?
Ok…suppose we start talking about lynching Obama?
My apologies to everyone – I realize that this is off-topic.
Helen, what did you mean when you said, “Not only that, becoming a pacifist does not negate human nature. It is not a way to become God.”
What do you mean by “become God?”
Deana
suek –
Exactly. Can you imagine what would happen if major comedians and TV personalities or ads started discussing or portraying the lynching of Obama?
The outrage would be thunderous. As it should be. That would be utterly disgusting and wrong-headed. Just cold evil.
But why aren’t we hearing the same outrage from the left when this type of thing is said and portrayed about Gov. Palin?
Deana
Deana (#17)
When Helen said,
Becoming a pacifist is a personal choice, a way to live, not a failure to see that others don’t accept your views and do snap. Not only that, becoming a pacifist does not negate human nature. It is not a way to become God.
I think the phrase “It is not a way to become God” is an interesting, evocative use of poetic imagery… but doing that *does* leave one open to interpretation. Mine is that Helen is expressing the view that human nature keeps us imperfect, and she recognizes that pacifism doesn’t make one as morally superior as God.
In reading and debating Helen, I’m struck by the similarities to arguing with my liberal friend. In his case, at least, he always moves to an idealistic meta-narrative, whereas I keep descending into concrete, nuts-and-bolts details. Specifically on issues of government, he moves immediately to the Declaration of Independence, and cannot ever be bothered with the Constitution. (Never mind the fact that there is nothing about limited government, checks and balances, etc, in the Declaration. But there I go being nuts-and-bolts again.) I argue that the Declaration led to the Articles of Confederacy, which just about destroyed the new, struggling nation; and that as a statement of general principles it is fantastic, but you’re not guaranteed anything workable by relying solely on it. But I never get anywhere with that argument.
RE: “I think the phrase “It is not a way to become God” is an interesting, evocative use of poetic imagery… but doing that *does* leave one open to interpretation. Mine is that Helen is expressing the view that human nature keeps us imperfect, and she recognizes that pacifism doesn’t make one as morally superior as God.”
Mike (#19) has said exactly what I meant. I mean the people at the soccer game have as much right to “blow smoke” there as Bookworm does here.
It seems they were talking about a television show – one Bookworm had not seen. Okay. Nobody can see everything. But this seems kind of like reviewing a book you haven’t read, because it too awful to read.
Here’s the dialog (and videos) from Saturday Night Live (with Sarah Palin):
http://blogs.usatoday.com/onpolitics/2008/10/if-its-palin-an.html
Well,
Two new developments that could help McCain,
1- The “Spanish Version” of Joe The Plumber, http://bloggersforjohnmccain08.blogspot.com/2008/10/q-joe-plumber-in-spanish-tito-munoz.html
2- The “I’m Joe The Plumber” iniciative by McCain, http://www.johnmccain.com/joe/
Mrs. Bookworm,
Check out this website.
http://www.palinaspresident.com
I have never seen this level of hatred before in politics, and that’s including the liberal foaming at the mouth at GW Bush. I keep feeling like the liberals have gone through the looking glass.
How do you explain the absolute transference of their actions to the Republicans? I’m no fan of the Republicans, and I would dearly love to vote their sorry butts out of office, but this is insanity. The Dems are forcing me to vote the other way BECAUSE I have to vote against fascism.
To the Dems reading this comment. C’mon! Give me a viable alternative, please.
I think it’s sad that the first major black candidate for President is an extreme leftist in the mould of Jimmy Carter. You cannot say you love this country so much that you’re going to change every last thing about it. That is not love. That is something else.
Funny how pacifists never seem to get angry at commies, islamo-fascists, afro-fascists, etc. A Che shirt never seems to arouse their ire, nor does someone praising Mao or advocating for islamo-fascism. But dare to support a Republican and suddenly the pacifist becomes rather less peaceful. You’d almost think there was some sort of hidden agenda.
I am wondering, though, if Helen thinks that we can BECOME God here on earth. As a Christian, I believe that we should follow Jesus but something about the phrase “becoming God” strikes me as dangerous. We are never God nor should we strive to become God.
But then again, like Mike, I tend to assume that people mean what they say. Nuts and bolts are, in my world, important.
Helen, where did Bookworm say she didn’t see the skit? I must have missed that.
Regardless, you equate this man saying what he said at a soccer game with the discussions we have here on Bookworm’s blog. Bookworm goes to the soccer games because her children play soccer and she needs to be there for them. Day in and day out, she hears these nonsensical statements about Palin. Finally, on one day, she responds to one man’s comment about how “great” it is to humiliate a woman.
Meanwhile, Bookworm has a blog where she writes her thoughts and then INVITES others to discuss. She doesn’t assume everyone agrees with her and instead welcomes other points of view.
How are these two scenarios remotely similar? I’d bet you a steak dinner that 95% of the parents she encounters at those soccer games assume EVERYONE there thinks just like they do.
Deana
Thomas –
“You cannot say you love this country so much that you’re going to change every last thing about it. That is not love. That is something else.”
Well said.
We have watched liberals swear over and over that they just love America, even though it appears to pain them to say one good thing about this beautiful country. They can never say a positive thing about America without the inevitable “but.”
There is nothing wrong with criticizing America – I do it all the time. I get frustrated and concerned, wishing that we would do things differently. But I talk about America like I would talk about a loved one, someone about whom I care deeply, who is doing something that concerns me. I would never want my loved one to fail or be humiliated. I would never highlight my loved one’s sins and problems in front of others. I would just support my friend in changing whatever is the problem.
But this is not how the left discusses America’s problems. It’s almost as if they experience glee or satisfaction in pointing out all of America’s faults. They talk about them endlessly, with no effort to talk about any of what is good.
It’s a strange “love.”
Deana
I do not think people can “become God on earth.”
Mike Devx
leftists operate under an ideology. Which means that when they view things about actions they view it in terms of their ideology. An ideology is a system of beliefs that claims to be able to bring to earth concrete results from an abstract origin. Thomas Jefferson believed he could bring concrete results to Earth through the abstract principle of the First Amendment, for example. That is an ideology or forming an idea and trying to make it work on earth.
This, of course, naturally requires you to use your own imagination because the origin of any ideology would not necessarily already exist on this planet.
What this also means is that when people use their ideology in relation to actual reality, they can use their imagination to totally ignore reality at the same time. That is why your friend prefers to talk about the abstract when people mention the concrete. The concrete is inconsistent with the ideology and if the ideology has no way to deal with that, then an ideologue simply goes back into his imagination and creates a new reality to fit.
I mean the people at the soccer game have as much right to “blow smoke” there as Bookworm does here.
That, of course, has nothing to do with the truth. WIthout the truth, no philosophy, pacifism included, can ever be justified.
I do not think people can “become God on earth.”
That’s like people thinking America can never become like the ideal so that is why they keep nagging about how America has failed that idea through the saying “this isn’t the way to improve America”.
RE: “That’s like people thinking America can never become like the ideal so that is why they keep nagging about how America has failed that idea through the saying “this isn’t the way to improve America”.”
Huh???
Have you all noticed the tone that the “humor” and attacks against Sarah Palin have taken?
They are all violent or violence-based.
One reason why you and everyone else interested in civic duties should learn how to defend themselves against violence by learning how to use violence.
And this from a group of Americans who swears they are against violence!
Have not people like us always said that there would be those who would use force to try to get what they want and that this meant peaceful and lawabiding folks like us must be ready to meet their force with the same kind of force?
Well, it just so happens that this applies to the Left, now doesn’t it, Deana.
So many of the remarks made by liberals against Palin seem to focus on violence, on physically harming her.
Why do the Arab worlds abuse, torture, execute, and rape their women and their women children? Cause they can’t fight back. Why did the Founding Fathers provide a Second Amendment for all Americans? Because they knew that if you can’t fight back you won’t have enough time to make any free speech.
These people with the threats know that contrary to their views of Bushitler, there won’t be the sound of a door busting in at 3 am from people like me in the secret police gear. That is what gives them license to do what they do. Cause they can.
The 2nd Amendment gave us license to defend against such things and to defend our rights and liberties. That means the use of violence with firearms, knives, bats, or even empty handed. No civilian or even military member can survive violence without the training in how to kill outside of social and chain of command limitations. Some or most people in America prefer firearms training since it provides the most ease of use, Deana, and the least down time. It is also far less expensive and time consuming than hand to hand.
This is a double comment…
From many posts above:
> So many of the remarks made by liberals against Palin seem to focus on violence, on physically harming her.
I don’t know that anyone has explained this to my ease of mind yet. There’s something very *unusual* about the level of verbal and physical violence directed at Sarah Palin. Not even “Bush Derangement Syndrome” comes close. It’s a nuclear firestorm across so many of the young, the feminist movement, doctrinaire liberals, the elites of Washington D.C. and New York City… and on and on. There have been anti-abortion women before. There have been populist politicians before. There have been beautiful female politicians before. Yet never this level of outrage. It *can’t* simply be the fact of her VP pick that loosed the slavering, insane beast from so many souls. I truly can’t explain it.
In earlier discussion/debate with 11B40 on the “Up Your Alley” fair, I made the point that every year, the fair will do something more outrageous, more sickening, more confrontational, than the year before. There are many on the far-left that can only find meaning in *more* excess.
Last year’s wretched excess is now passe, and if simply repeated, would be completely meaningless. You can’t shock people with the same game. Therefore this year’s wretched excess must be deliberately worse than last year’s. Every passing year: worse and worse and worse.
I’m wondering if that kind of need for *more intense* excess is driving the “Destroy Sarah Palin” effect, explaining why the level of intense hatred shown during eight years of “Bush Derangement Syndrome” would no longer suffice.
That is a very interesting comment, Mike. This is especially true given the fact that, as Dennis Prager pointed out, the hatred for Palin was instantaneous. One of the complaints on the Left was that Palin was an unknown, but the fact that they knew nothing about her didn’t stop them from going into orgies of verbal violence. I too have never seen anything like it. I think I analogized it earlier to Orwell’s two minutes of hate and, if I didn’t, I should have.
Excess has become its own goal. Certainly one sees that in Hollywood movies that become ever bigger and louder and more violent or more gross or more anti-American or more everything. It’s a weird, ugly, Leftist inversion of the “bigger” attitude that’s always characterized America (and that, in the past, irked the Left).
Sorry, the second part was for Thomas.
I actually enjoyed the creativity demonstrated at the link:
http://www.palinaspresident.com
It was definitely offensive, of course, but should I have found it beyond the bounds of hardball politics? Instead I thought it was one of the few attack sites that I’ve run across that *did not* violate my political bounds of acceptability.
I wonder what others here think of that site: acceptable if totally disagreeable; or out of bounds?
I may have missed some of the *tricks* at that page that were really offensive, I don’t know. I actually expected X-rated levels of violence or porn or gore to be thrown in my face as they savaged Palin in every way possible.
I’d love to see Barack receive exactly the same level of treatment as she got at that web site. But of course, THAT would be racism.
Mike, I thought the site was very funny. THe explanation is very simple. Even though it had various things that could be taken as a joke by the Leftist and Republican elites, the format was subtle enough that I could come to my own impressions as to what the “truth” is. This makes it funny on my terms. Playing with the various gizmos was also fun.
Open the door to the left, that’s the funny part. The Oil Rigs in the background was a nice atmospheric touch. If you click on the red phone then if you are like me, you would be saying “Hell Yeah she’d do that to our enemies”.
It was definitely offensive, of course
It is only offensive if you choose to assume that the assumptions behind the comedians are true or even present as an assumption. But of course, my tolerance for such things are much higher than what it once was.
This is especially true given the fact that, as Dennis Prager pointed out, the hatred for Palin was instantaneous.
Like the Cartoon Jihad riots were instantaneous. The time between event and counter-event was very small because the community organizing had already been done. Feminists had already been organized by Bush’s War in Afghanistan to liberate women; they were organized against it if you recall. Sarah Palin just activated all the little boobytraps the Left had in place just in case women’s issues were raised in a way they could not adequately respond to. It was their emergency plan. Just like when the Islamic Jihad couldn’t deal with the cartoons of Mohammed, they went to their emergency plan of riots.
Excess has become its own goal.
Disorder and destruction were always the Left’s goals. They just tried very hard to hide it. Disorder for disorder’s sake, revolutionary destabilization for destabilization’s sake, were all really goals in themselves. They weren’t just “methods” used to “create a better world” like most of them would claim. THey are de facto goals in themselves. Creating disorder can have no other purpose than creating disorder and the Left would be fully satisfied.
Entropy the watch word of the day here.
There’s something very *unusual* about the level of verbal and physical violence directed at Sarah Palin.
I have heard it said that women have a nasty attitude towards successful, beautiful women that attract men. Could be a gene competition thing. Or it could be feminism’s organized policies of apostasy for women who succeed without the shackles of feminism on them.
>>I have heard it said that women have a nasty attitude towards successful, beautiful women that attract men. >>
Heh. It’s that old male female thing again. Males compete for females with direct physical competition (or bright colored plumes, if they have them!) and females compete with females with their own physical appearance, and by minimizing other females. It takes less of a toll on their appearance. Scars from dominance fights are attractive on males, less so on females…!
We won’t discuss the internal scars….
Y #33,
My favorite was the rifle that dropped out of the right-most curtains.
My least favorite was the third-fifth opening of the left-door. Sarah would put a bullet through the brains, skin em and cook em! She wouldn’t blow em away with the effect of a fragmentation grenade. Overkill in every sense.
Another blogger has had to shut down comments due to “snapping”.
From:
http://betsyspage.blogspot.com/
I have removed the comment box for now. It was just getting very ugly going back and forth. I don’t like the ad hominem attacks. I don’t appreciate people borrowing other people’s names to post insults about someone’s supposed sexuality. And I see no reason why I should provide space for people to insult me and my family. I don’t have time to patrol through many comments and delete such comments so, as Barack Obama would say, I’m taking a hatchet to the problem instead of a scalpel.
When I get time, I will look for another commenting mechanism that will allow more control, preferably one that has commenters register.
That’s not “snapping”, Mike. She’s had troublesome trolls who have pretty much destroyed her comment section for the last 2-3 years – or longer. She’s tried to ban them through various methods, but has been unable to. She even used a domain ban, because apparently the worst of the trolls has access to multiple computers.
Her blog is one of the reasons I commented on appreciating Book’s ability to control trolling. I don’t know if she’s drawn the trolls as a result of being a frequently listed blog on blog rolls (I usually check who’s on the blog roll when I go to a new site) or if someone just has it in for her personally, but it _has_ been an ongoing problem. When her most prolific resident troll started taking to broadcasting private information publically about another commenter who – I believe – is a fellow teacher, I think it went over the top for her.
>>she’s>>
Sorry…indefinite pronoun. “she” meaning Betsy.
Hi Suek,
When I mentioned “snapping” above, I meant that the commenters have too often begun to snap. More and more, bloggers are shutting down their comments sections.
But I think you’re right. Trolling and abuse have been long-standing features of comments sections. It’s just that the political-based comments are getting worse and worse. When Book unmoderates another comment of mine later, you’ll see some “Terry Tate” videos that contain “hits” on Sarah Palin that are *still* causing me deep upset. It’s been at least an hour, maybe more, and I’m still upset.
My solution to trolls on my blog is to edit their comments and write whatever I want in them. That was the final solution I settled on. Banning and then unbanning them in order to suck them into an ambush is nice.
Interrogations won’t work on them if they refuse to stay on the subject, so you just ensure that their comments stay on the subject: your subject.
Given that I can criticize conservatives better than all the Leftist agent provocateurs combined, I feel no lack in quality in writing their own positions for them. Especially if they think they are getting to me.
Like with bullies, if you just ignore them or try to ban them, they sense this as weakness and they’ll keep coming back. Play with them and start making them into helpless punching bags, however, and they start to feel uncomfortable all of a sudden.
They, as is true of criminals, count on our social restrictions to protect them. They get to operate under one set of rules while holding us to a higher set of rules. Just like terrorists, just like Democrats, and I’ve already tolerated far too much of such things already.
It’s been years since my favorite agent provocateurs came to visit my blog. I feel sad and lonely now with nobody to play with.