Libertarian Librarian

There’s one big difference here. Ann Coulter isn’t wrong.
 

Oh please. She's wrong plenty of times, both in her content and in the way she expresses it. She's also right plenty of times. Ditto (hah!) Rush Limbaugh, Al Franken and Michael Moore.

Even the village idiot can come up with a good idea from time to time (see, Rod, there's hope!). The real test is whether we're willing to listen to him when he does, or just automatically dismiss the suggestion because it comes from an "idiot".

That's the real close-mindedness-- automatically dismissing the other guy's (or gal's) argument because your ideological viewpoints differ. And, unfortunately, nearly everyone in, or talking about, politics these days seems to suffer from said close-mindedness.
 

http://evangelicalperspective.blogspot.com/2006/06/lies-and-lying-liars-who-tell-them.html

Al Franken's material is certainly on par.
 

“Oh please. She's wrong plenty of times, both in her content and in the way she expresses it.”

Great, then is should be easy to provide chapter and verse of examples when she was wrong!

I’ll check back in an hour and see how many you got up.
 

So, let me recap-- I posted something on my blog and I'm the one that has to defend his stance? Jeez, do your own heavy lifting-- prove that she's right all the time. No?

Sigh. Okay, fine. Let's see, here's a bunch of quotes from Coulter taken from this site that are demonstrable false (you were right, John, it wasn't that hard to find):

"There are a lot of bad republicans; there are no good democrats."

Hypberole of the highest (or perhaps lowest) order. False on its face. My parents are good Democrats-- you calling my folks no good traitors?

"We should invade their countries, kill their leaders, and convert them to Christianity."

No, we shouldn't. Not only would that be completely un-American, it would also be suicidal. We simply don't have enough troops to invade that many countries, and the world really would hate us-- unlike now where only a highly vocal minority hates us.

"My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building."

Really? So, she had no problem with the 168 people killed by McVeigh? No problem with the kids in the daycare? Just picked the wrong target, did he?

And on and on. Read the O'Reilly link in the original post if you haven't already-- he's dead on balls accurate (it's an industry term). I can agree with some, maybe even most, of Coulter's sentiments-- but the way she expresses those sentiments is so extreme, so absolute, that much of what she actually says is just plain silly or factually inaccurate.
 

You make two logic errors here, Nick. First, let’s discuss your excursion into moral relevance. Just because both apples and cherries are red, it does not mean they are the same thing, not at a substantive level. Just because there are flaming commentators on both sides of an issue, it does not mean they are of equal value or worth. Such equilibrium is impossible to achieve.

Your second error is in assuming that someone’s opinion can be held to be false or true. I’m of the opinion that Bill Clinton and Janet Reno should have been sentenced to jail. That’s a statement that can be debated, but never proven true or false.

Thus, a statement such as "There are a lot of bad republicans; there are no good democrats." can never be proven true or false. There is simply too much opinion involved. So you cannot claim that Ann Coulter was ‘wrong’. It’s impossible to be accurate when you say that.

And how about that Ward Churchill: Fired! In my opinion, that’s a good thing. I’m sure TC and others will disagree.

Who is actually right?
 

Apples and cherries? Eh? The "equivalency" thing was the entire point of the post. tc says there's no one as flamingly bad on the Democratic side as Coulter on the Republican side. I refute that statement. Where exactly do I equivocate? Are you actually stating that Coulter's comments about McVeigh or the Jersey Girls were acceptable and not beyond the pale? I am not equivocating-- I find Coulter's statements equally as offensive, stupid, and counter-productive as I find Churchill's and Franken's and so on. Not accepting political ideology based simply on its political slant is not equivalency-- it's called having a brain.

And you're just wrong on the second "error." While it's true that you can not measure opinion, the absoluteness of Coulter's statements make them false on their face, logically speaking. All Democrats are bad. All being the key word.

Let's take a look at a few Democrats that I'm reasonably sure even Ann Coulter would agree weren't bad (though the word is certainly subjective): Thomas Jefferson, Woodrow Wilson, Harry Truman. Also, Eleanor Roosevelt and Martin Luther King, Jr. If you accept that even one of those individuals is not bad, her statement is false.

Realistically, we all know that people are not good or bad exclusively-- they are both at different times and under varying circumstances. That's part of being human. Adolf Hitler was one of the most evil men ever, but he had a good idea with the Autobahn. To say that there are no good Democrats is hyperbole-- it sounds nice, we all understand the implied sentiment, but it is unsubstantiated by fact, and we all know that it's over the top rhetoric.

You may agree that the basic sentiment is correct, but the actual statement is factually inaccurate using any but the most ridiculous definition of good and bad. And if you use those definitions, I would say your credibility is shot, and I have no interest in listening to you anyway.

Is it as cold and hard an error as saying 1+1=2? No, but it's still factually wrong, under the common understanding of the terms. Oh, and btw, 1+1=10 in binary, right? So, even our most basic facts are subject to definition and common understanding. Given a reasonable definition of good and bad, not all Democrats are bad, hence her statement is false.

Finally. You're the one who started all the "wrong" and "right" discussion. Tell you what-- I'd like you to list every single Democrat with proof that they are bad. Then I'll accept your statement that Ann Coulter "isn't wrong." There's only about 50 million of them in the U.S. right now, plus all of the historical ones.

If it's that easy to claim that she's not wrong, it should only take you an hour or two to check all of them out. I'll stop back in about an hour and see how you're doing.
 

Where exactly do I equivocate?

JIH: I’ve known you for years, Nick, and I can’t recall a single lie from you. I’m sure you would never knowingly lie.

Are you actually stating that Coulter's comments about McVeigh or the Jersey Girls were acceptable and not beyond the pale?

JIH: Well, they weren’t that bad. Stuff worse than that is said all the time. It’s the nature of politics. Thomas Jefferson was accused of horrible things back in his day. So was Abe Lincoln. FDR. JFK. Nixon. Politics is a dirty business, because the winner gets to make the rules, so the stakes are high. Heck, modern democrat officeholders have said things just as bad. Somehow, they’re still in office.

Besides, the Jersey Girls are fair targets. They went on national TV (all the Sunday morning shows) and blamed George Bush for 911. They all spoke the same lines; they were packaged, they were prepared and scripted like a bad TV show. They were turned into a political weapon.

I wish Ann had left them alone. Who wants them brought back into the spotlight?


And you're just wrong on the second "error." While it's true that you can not measure opinion, the absoluteness of Coulter's statements make them false on their face, logically speaking. All Democrats are bad. All being the key word.

JIH: You’re going to base your argument on the inclusion of “all”? While that would be enough for a savvy student to disregard a multiple-choice answer on an exam, it has no effect on a person’s opinion.

Let's take a look at a few Democrats that I'm reasonably sure even Ann Coulter would agree weren't bad (though the word is certainly subjective): Thomas Jefferson, Woodrow Wilson, Harry Truman. Also, Eleanor Roosevelt and Martin Luther King, Jr. If you accept that even one of those individuals is not bad, her statement is false.

JIH: She used the word “are”, “there are no good democrats”. Thus, only living democrats need apply for her statement, or she would have used the word ‘were’. We’ll come back to this argument presently.


Realistically, we all know that people are not good or bad exclusively-- they are both at different times and under varying circumstances. That's part of being human. Adolf Hitler was one of the most evil men ever, but he had a good idea with the Autobahn. To say that there are no good Democrats is hyperbole-- it sounds nice, we all understand the implied sentiment, but it is unsubstantiated by fact, and we all know that it's over the top rhetoric.

JIH: Lots of facts are unsubstantiated, but that doesn’t slow anyone down. There’s millions of people who believe existence started from a big bang, and that mankind evolved from apes. While these suppositions are stated as facts, they are not proven to any reasonable degree to be true.

But otherwise, that is hyperbole. But hyperbole can never be proven right or wrong. Its too subjective.


Finally. You're the one who started all the "wrong" and "right" discussion. Tell you what-- I'd like you to list every single Democrat with proof that they are bad. Then I'll accept your statement that Ann Coulter "isn't wrong." There's only about 50 million of them in the U.S. right now, plus all of the historical ones.

JIH: This, my friend, is the easiest thing I’ll do all day. Here we go:

The party platform of the democrat party supports abortion and homosexual rights. These two things are destructive to the country. Thus, since democrats are wedded to their platform, I will state that ALL living democrats are wrong.

That’s not the same as “bad”, but it is sweeping, and provable. And also not provable.
 

Okay, I tire of this. 'Tis silly, and getting lost in a hazy fog of definitions and parsing of words that really has no point. Agree to disagree and all that rot.

You like Ann Coulter, and I think she's an attention starved and media savvy "pundit" who does her causes more harm than good.