If you ever heard Tony Snow do a radio talk show, you know he was one of the most sweet-natured hosts ever. He never mocked or insulted anyone. You might disagree with him, but any fair person would have to judge him as a genuinely nice guy.
So let's take a look at some of reaction to his death from those paragons of morality, the reality based community, the benevolent, bleeding heart liberal-leftists.
Liquidstoke, a diarist at Daily Kos writes:
I'm sorry but it just sickens me to read diary after diary of silly, bleeding-heart little condolensces to Snow and his family.
I swear some of you weak-kneed progessive brethren of mine have no clue about the vicious nature of the ideological battle we are in. When a bad guy dies, we should rejoice, not sing his praises of wish him anything by scorn.
There is a fundamental reason why the progress/liberal movement is so often impotent in delivering effective blows to the right-wing machine-- it has to do with "toughness".
Tony Snow was a co-conspirator in probably the largest know fraud ever perpetuated and executed on the American public by it's own elected executive branch.
He was Fox news anchor in the likes of Hannity, Cavueto, & Wallace. This guy was a practiced liar and propagandist before he ever stepped foot into the White House Press briefing room. The precise reasone Bush chose him was for his ability to so effectively lie and dance around tough questions that the American people demanded answers to.
So now he's dead. I said "good riddance" and hell, some of your are falling over each other to condem me for it...
But you know what? I DON'T GIVE A FUCK what you think of my "heartless" comments, because what i see is a parade of soppy condolensces for a co-criminal that far outpaces and far outnumber any conversations about the death of our own innocent citizen soldiers nor the hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis.
Disgusting....
How do we win this generational ideological battle when we've got silly sissies on our side wailing over a another scumbag's death?
I suppose when Karl Rove kicks the bucket, i'll have to endure more of the same weepy, hysterical, gullible eulogies....
(HT: LGF)
Little of this screed has anything to do with reality, but it is interesting that Liquidstoke makes the "ideological battle" the standard for moral judgment. To the left morality is essentially collectivist and statist. It is because conservatives (supposedly) oppose socialism -- because they are not as willing as the left to use the power of the state toward altruist ends -- that they are evil.
When it comes to personal morality, leftists are relativists and generally lack passion about the matter; but get to politics and they spit fire and brimstone as well as any Baptist preacher (if in cruder language).
Patterico finds the following comments on a Los Angeles Times piece:
There is special place in hell for Mr. Snow. As a co-conspirator of the Bush administration, I have no special sympathy for him. I only wish his suffering were more prolonged.
I hope he suffered at the end. Just a terrible person.
CANCER WAS TOO GOOD FOR HIM
HOPE IT WAS PAINFUL.
NOW FOR THE REST OF THIS SCUMMY ADMINISTRATION. COME ON CANCER, DO YOUR GOOD WORK..
You might get some of this nastiness on the right from time to time, but it is much more common on the left. The people capable of writing this stuff are totalitarians in waiting. Like the Bolsheviks and the Nazis, all judgment, all morality must report to their collectivist politics. If someone can wish more suffering on a political enemy who died of cancer, do you think he would bat an eye at consigning his enemies to concentration camps?
Modern philosophy has been at war with reason for centuries, and it has won the war (for now). When reason is no longer practiced, it is replaced by force. We see in the ugly quotes above people who are ready to move on to the next stage, that of force.
16 comments:
The 90% liberal crowd over at MetaFilter went nuts with Snow's obit. I expected it when Limbaugh got busted, or when Reagan died, but I was really shocked at the vitriol the haters spewed over Snow.
http://www.metafilter.com/73250/Tony-Snow-19552008
Tony Snow blowin' flute at the Rock 'n Roll Fantasy Camp.
-- It sounds like this in Heaven.
Good post, thank you. As David Horowitz observed, the leftist method of "debate" is to obliterate the humanity of those they disagree with and turn them into unpersons. Hence, the glee with which the creatures you quote would build concentration camps.
A few additional observations:
1. I wish non-commies would get over the (now very, very old) habit of describing the plundering opposition as "liberals". They are collectivist, thieving assholes who want your wallet on a plate -- and how dare you refuse to fork it over like pronto instantly.
2. There's nothing about Snow which has raised greater vitriol in them; it's merely that (as per the Islamofascists) the technology of computer networking has permitted the more incendiary among them to grab the bullhorns more effectively in, especially, the last decade. (That, and abundant Soros'-funded platforms from which to bellow.)
==//==
These people want a socialist utopia of free health-care, free food, free jobs, free money, free fuckin' everything -- they want it yesterday; and anybody standing in their way is evil incarnate.
They're the kind of clamorous people whom shrewd emperors of antiquity periodically permitted to assemble in great numbers in stadiums, before sending in the army to slaughter them all.
I don't have a problem with feeling relief or a sense of justice at the news of the death of a political enemy. On the surface, the liberals you quoted seem to have it correct: Tony Snow played a part in the murder of "innocent" Iraqi civilians and American soliders and thus he desevered to die. However, that would be an overly simple analysis.
These liberals - unlike, say, Harry Binswanger when he bid good riddance to William Buckley in March - were not opposed to Tony Snow because he threatened their values. They have no values to threaten. Unlike Mr. Binswanger, they do not acknowledge the essential connection between morality and politics and how, frequently, that connection is a matter of life and death. They oppose morality's role in politics as a concious conviction, precarious as it may be, and allow their feelings to set the balance. They did not condemn Snow in life, or now in death, because they think that he incorrectly defended America. They do so because they could not believe that he dare America at all! They snarkingly decide that he unjustly imposed his idea of morality on another, foreign culture and completely evade the "identical" actions of, say, Osama bin Laden.
At the root of Liberalism and Progressivism is an entirely emotional need to escape the notions of indentity, responsibility, and self-esteem. Hence their uncontrollable glee at the sight of their deepest convictions brought to life; via death. The death of a sworn enemy, no less. The example was too intoxicating to turn down. Contrast this with the measured indignation of Mr. Binswanger's article and the differnce is strikingly clear. Both espoused the proper, Aristotelian position on justice, but the emotions underlying them couldn't have been further apart.
You're correct Myrhaf, the left in this country is motivated not by a love of values, but by a hatred for them. They are nihilists through and through. They feel pleasure at the news of Snow's death, not because he was a genuinely evil man who, like Buckley, capitalized on the prevailing winds of his time, but because they thought him to be the opposite. They considered Snow evil because he stood out; because he seemed, to them, to be going against the neboulous, liquid wishes of the masses and following his - and George Bush's - own, independent vision.
At root, that is what they hated about the man; and that they lack it is what they hate about themselves.
> On the surface, the liberals you quoted seem to have it correct:
> Tony Snow played a part in the murder of "innocent" Iraqi civilians
> and American soliders and thus he desevered to die.
-- That's just "talking-point" rubbish. In actuality, they couldn't give a damn about Iraqi civilians or (especially) American soldiers.
There's a ready-made excuse for every topic under the sun, but the only ones that really matter are those related to free loot for life.
Mike18xx,
Of course it's "talking point rubbish." That's why I prefaced that sentence with "on the surface." It's also why I wrote another three paragraphs.
But the real reason why I'm responding to your comment is because I think (I hope) you may have made a mistake. Don't fall into the trap of believing that the liberal's true motivation is the gaining of something as objectively valuable as "free loot for life." That's giving him too much credit, and, ironically, it also plays right into their argument that the root of all the world's problems is greed. No, the liberal's motivation is something very different.
To paraphrase Ayn Rand: "They don't want to live, they want you to die. They don't want to have your wealth, they want you to lose it."
There's a very neurotic, very evil state of mind underlying all of their actions. Any pretext at a desire for values is just that, a pretext. They have convinced themselves of it in order to hide from themselves the knowledge of who they really are (and which erupts from time to time, such as when Tony Snow dies). Don't let yourself be fooled by it too. Call it what it is. It's nihilism, not socialism.
I wish I hadn't read this. Stuff like this is why I never read leftist crap.
Grant, that may be true for a small subset (and I'd even stipulate that the small subset runs most of the organizations), but the rank-and-file schleb who's going to vote for Obama in all his millions strong -- is after "free" loot.
Mike18xx,
Right, they're after loot. They desire material wealth. They were influenced during childhood by the Aristotelian remnants of our culture and they have a deep, almost viceral comittment to being properous and happy. It's also why they hold - in a subconcious, inarticulate form - that the death of evil people should be greeted with relief instead of sorrow.
HOWEVER, they're also very much influened by the nihilistic elements of our culture. It's why they lose all sense of grounding for their desires. It's why a desire for wealth becomes a desire to steal. It's why relief at the death of someone "evil" becomes glee.
I don't see how emphasizing the good parts of the average American's character, and deriding it as bad simply because it's shallow, does anything to deal with the deeper problem - which are the nihilistic parts. Those are what make people's thinking about their legitimate desires so shallow. Like I said, by using arguments like "free loot", you play right into the hands of that "small subset."
Once you get people feeling bad about wanting material wealth - qua material wealth - their nihilistic leaders will be quick to offer an antidote for their "greed": altruism. Give up what is rightfully yours. For the sake of the nation, we must band together and suffer hardship. And then, once you (correctly) get people feeling bad for having betrayed their own insterests, the same "small subset" just flips it around. They tell everyone that wealth is good. That the solution is to "reclaim their rightful wealth" by stealing from the rich. And on and on, back and forth, into infinity...
Right, they're after loot.
Worse -- they are after power. They want what they see as the ultimate power -- to destroy everyone and everything. For those having read Atlas Shrugged, think James Taggart right at the moment when he realizes his own true motivations. Think Ivy Starnes.
I wish they were only after loot; that seems like such an innocent evil in comparison.
Look: If you guys were right, then Obama could simply assert, in his political ads, that it's all about power and bankrupting Bruce Wayne -- and cakewalk straight into the Oval Office.
But he doesn't, and for good reason: Regardless of what *he* (or George Soros, who moves his lips) wants, he has to pander to all those millions of schleb voters looking for a free-lunch.
==//==
The Mouth-Breather class doesn't have enough higher-order brain-power for the more complicated logical-fallacies; "money grows on trees" is all they can handle. For every scummy dirtball who's managed to "go viral" with his MoveON video, and for every fifty who buy a ticket to Hollywood's annual McCarthyism movie, there's a hundred thousand of them.
Altruism? You might as well be an alien landing in a saucer to discuss the physics of warped space. They wouldn't have a fucking clue what you're talking about (although they might consider you charismatic if you're handsome and don't croak-speak like a box full of rocks in the washer).
But those evil Republicans denying them Obama's promised universal health-care? *That* they can relate to.
Mike18xx,
You come off as if you hate Americans almost as much as a professor of sociology at Harvard. Or the editor of it's law review. I've never denied that people are motivated to vote for Osama because of the desire for loot; I've simply pointed out that their desire does not come from a desire to loot as much as a desire to live. To have what they need to live. Go to a baseball game. Drive through a small town. Join a PTA somewhere. They're not evil, they're just stupid. They're so (rightfully) used to convenience in every other aspect of their lives; why not ideology?
My point is that the American people are *not* the enemy; (the vast majority of) it's intellectuals are. The intelligencia's masthead of the moment is Barack Obama, and the only way to defeat him is to refuse to play his game. The American people are the pawns he's willing to expend. As a leader, you shouldn't be. In fact, it would be your sworn responsibility to protect them.
You don't need to convince the American people; they've got better things to do. You just need to defeat the ilks of Obama.
> My point is that the American people are *not* the enemy....
You're using "American people" as a collective noun, rather than examining discrete components.
> The American people are the pawns he's willing to expend.....
American voters seeking loot are perfectly willing to ignore everything else he has to say (per the dog in the Far Side cartoon hearing only its name, and "food", with the rest being "blah-blah-blah") it order to get their swag.
> The intelligencia's masthead of the moment is Barack Obama,
> and the only way to defeat him is to refuse to play his game.
His "game" is democracy -- and that's enshrined in the Constitution. No getting around it. The dependent class already outnumbers the productive class, and it's only going to get worse.
> You don't need to convince the American people; they've got better things to do.
> You just need to defeat the ilks of Obama.
Obama isn't the problem; he's the result of the problem -- which is a codified political system in which anybody being elected has placed in his hands a tool designed expressly to coerce and destroy.
Obama "ilk" politicians aren't aberrations; they're inevitabilities.
Look: If you guys were right, then Obama could simply assert, in his political ads, that it's all about power and bankrupting Bruce Wayne -- and cakewalk straight into the Oval Office.
But he doesn't, and for good reason: Regardless of what *he* (or George Soros, who moves his lips) wants, he has to pander to all those millions of schleb voters looking for a free-lunch.
The first is the GOAL (or to be more specific, the End-of-Road); the second is the MEANS, the rationalization.
Well, that's what I said....
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