A World Without Liberals
Posted on February 19, 2007
| buzz-it! | Huff it!
The site noted in Paly’s post, quoted below, has additional nasty stuff on it. Paly notes irony in the text of a t-shirt sold on the site. I might congratulate right-wingers for discovering irony, finally, even when it’s turned against people like me. Unfortunately, much of their stuff seems to like to dance on the edge of hate speech—clearly crossing that line at times. In total, I find the whole enterprise hateful or when not promoting hate, promoting ignorance. I’m a free speech kinda guy, and yet this clearly is speech that’s problematic. Any thoughts?
The Paly Voice discusses a twisted t-shirt on a right-wing site that begins:
Sphere ItImagine a world without liberals. Imagine a world without diversity training, gay marriage, abortion on demand, gun control, environmentalists, anti-American war protesters, The United Nations, France, Illegal Aliens, The National Education Association, multiculturalism, National Organization for Women, the New Age Movement, Hippies…
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5 Responses to “A World Without Liberals”
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I don’t follow your argument — maybe you should read more closely.
1. The site you quoted is Paly (not Paley) Voice, the home of the Palo Alto High School (nickname “PALY”) journalism class.
2. The paragraph you quoted was itself a quote, and the point of the article was to criticise the divisiveness of the views expressed in that quote, not to advance those views.
3. If you had read to the third paragraph, you would have seen that the views you find “hateful” and “ignorant” actually appeared on a T-shirt that is “a hot seller on Rightwingstuff.com”. That was what the writer was pointing out.
So, since you clearly AGREE with the writer of the piece, why are you complaining about the site?
Or did your comment mean that Rightwingstuff.com was promoting hate and ignorance? Your post wasn’t entirely clear on this point. If so, then we are all in complete agreement.
My bad. I hate my misspellings, especially in attributions. Must have been a late night post. I’m sure I have a peculiar way of expressing myself, but I don’t think I was all that unclear. I am agreeing with Paly Voice, and was calling attention to their writing for my own very small circle of readers. Thanks for the comment and I’ll attempt to be more clear.
If I had a few other posts, I probably would have inferred your meaning correctly. But having just arrived here (via Digg), the title of the post caught my eye and I had no other context. When I started writing my comment, I actually did think you were referring to Paly Voice, but then I decided to give you the benefit of the doubt. Your rewrite is a lot clearer now (or maybe it’s me who should read more closely :).
What if Mozart was a wingnut conservative, or Ben Franklin, Newton, Thomas Jefferson, Gutenberg, DaVinci or Einstein? It just wouldn’t have happened.
Rightwingers are simply jealous of people who can think for themselves. Wingnuts need to be TOLD how and what to think. That suits the Bush Agenda just fine.
Tommy, thanks for the comment. Wingnut followership is dangerous in a true democracy. Everyone gets a vote, but the votes come from the hive mind.
Thoughtful people need to come down frequently from their ivory towers and debunk the Limbaughs, Hannitys, and O’Reillys in the world.
My liberal friends often criticize Air America radio because it descends too often to the same tactics or styles of speech as right-wing broadcasters, but if you listen carefully, even when they do, there is still a qualitative difference, in a stronger appreciation for facts and more respect for the audience. Take a listen for a few days to Randy Rhodes to get my point.