You all can go screw yourselves.

Roughly a year ago, Glenn Beck complained about what he considered to be profligate spending of tax dollars by politicians, and he asked, "When do we ever run those who are bankrupting our country and literally stealing our children's future out of town? Grab a torch."

In March of 2009, Erick Erickson discussed a ban in Washington state on a certain kind of dishwasher detergent in a post entitled, "At What Point Do People Revolt?" Erickson wrote,

At what point do the people tell the politicians to go to hell? At what point do they get off the couch, march down to their state legislator’s house, pull him outside, and beat him to a bloody pulp for being an idiot? . . . Were I in Washington State, I’d be cleaning my gun right about now waiting to protect my property from the coming riots or the government apparatchiks coming to enforce nonsensical legislation.

We don't know why Jared Loughner killed six people and injured 13 others in Tuscon last Saturday. But isn't it at least possible that the aforementioned kind of rhetoric could have incited his shooting spree?

According to the Christian Science Monitor, the answer is yes:

Fox News commentator Glenn Beck, who’s honed being provocative – even outrageous at times – to a fine and lucrative art, is the focus of criticism for inciting violence.

Specifically, his dozens of comments attacking the Tides Foundation are being linked to the attempt by a heavily-armed man to assassinate employees at the San Francisco-based foundation, which funds environmental, human rights, and other progressive projects. The attack in July was thwarted in a shoot-out with police in which two officers were wounded.

Since then, alleged attacker Byron Williams has said in jailhouse interviews that he wanted to “start a revolution.” He says Beck was not the direct cause of his turning violent. But he does say: “I would have never started watching Fox News if it wasn't for the fact that Beck was on there. And it was the things that he did, it was the things he exposed that blew my mind.”

At various times, Beck has referred to Tides as “bullies” and “thugs” whose mission is to “warp your children's brains and make sure they know how evil capitalism is.” More recently, Beck (who describes himself as a “progressive hunter”) has warned the foundation “I’m coming for you.” 

Surprisingly, one politician who appears to agree that speech can incite violence is Sarah Palin.

Palin released a video statement today denying that she or any of her conservative brethren are responsible for inciting any acts of violence. Curiously, however, she suggested that those who commit the "blood libel" of claiming that she's responsible are themselves somehow responsible for inciting acts of violence.

Palin's goal in releasing the statement appears to have been to strike back at those who have taken issue with her "crosshairs" map above. Palin says:

Like many, I’ve spent the past few days reflecting on what happened and praying for guidance. After this shocking tragedy, I listened at first puzzled, then with concern, and now with sadness, to the irresponsible statements from people attempting to apportion blame for this terrible event.

President Reagan said, “We must reject the idea that every time a law’s broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions.” Acts of monstrous criminality stand on their own. They begin and end with the criminals who commit them, not collectively with all the citizens of a state, not with those who listen to talk radio, not with maps of swing districts used by both sides of the aisle, not with law-abiding citizens who respectfully exercise their First Amendment rights at campaign rallies, not with those who proudly voted in the last election (emphasis mine).

Palin appears to be saying that the responsibility for a criminal act rests on the person who commits it and no one else, not even those who create "maps of swing districts." She is denying that she is responsible in any way for any act of violence. A mere two paragraphs later, however, Palin says,

Vigorous and spirited public debates during elections are among our most cherished traditions. And after the election, we shake hands and get back to work, and often both sides find common ground back in D.C. and elsewhere. If you don’t like a person’s vision for the country, you’re free to debate that vision. If you don’t like their ideas, you’re free to propose better ideas. But, especially within hours of a tragedy unfolding, journalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence they purport to condemn. That is reprehensible. (emphasis mine).

Palin appears to be saying that journalists and pundits (on the left) are potentially responsible for acts of violence that they may incite through their speech. Sharon Angle was even more blunt:

Expanding the context of the attack to blame and to infringe upon the people's Constitutional liberties is both dangerous and ignorant. The irresponsible assignment of blame to me, Sarah Palin or the Tea Party movement by commentators and elected officials puts all who gather to redress grievances in danger.

Therefore, according to Palin,

• Those on the right could not be responsible for acts of violence incited by their own words, but 
• Those on the left are potentially responsible for acts of violence incited by their own words.

And this moron wants to be president? Did she even notice this apparent inconsistency, or did she notice and simply not care? Or is her statement simply the pure partisan stratagem I take it to be?

Notice that Palin wants to reframe this debate as a First Amendment issue. According to Palin,

No one should be deterred from speaking up and speaking out in peaceful dissent, and we certainly must not be deterred by those who embrace evil and call it good. And we will not be stopped from celebrating the greatness of our country and our foundational freedoms by those who mock its greatness by being intolerant of differing opinion and seeking to muzzle dissent with shrill cries of imagined insults.

Current calls by those on the left to take it down a notch and tone down the incendiary rhetoric are serious threats to our First Amendment freedom of speech, according to Palin. Is she serious? Think about it. Can't Erick Erickson voice his opposition to Washington's ban on certain dishwashing detergents without suggesting that beating a legislator to a bloody pulp is appropriate? If calling a Supreme Court justice a "goat-fucking child molester" is discouraged, have we really lost any important political speech?

I don't think we should be banning speech (though we should keep in mind that not all speech is Constitutionally protected and it never has been). Erickson should remain free to say all kinds of things; he and others are being asked to take it down a notch. Many of us hope that they will be decent enough to accede to the request. And by the way: if this request is a threat to our First Amendment freedoms, then isn't the demand from the right that the request not be made also a threat to our First Amendment freedoms?

Again: we don't know why Loughner went on his shooting spree. But it seems appropriate that we reflect on our political discourse in the wake of it. The response from some responsibility-free talkers on the right appears to be to deny even the possibility that their rhetoric may play a role in inciting violence. "You all can go screw yourselves; we're going to say whatever the fuck we please," seems to sum up their sentiments nicely.

And I haven't even pointed out that Palin plagiarized James Madison in her statement until now. Jesus.

I was rooting for the caribou

The TLC series Sarah Palin's Alaska features footage of Palin killing a caribou, with the help of her father and a family friend.



Palin is no sharpshooter. She fires almost half a dozen times before she finally hits the thing. She actually appears far less skilled in the nasty business of killing than I had imagined her to be. As the Gaurdian's Craig Dougherty points out, "She repeatedly missed a standing caribou; her father had to work her gun's action; and she acted like she was along for the ride." (Her incompetence may be manufactured, of course: her handlers would like to market her as an outdoorsman, but they also don't want her to seem threatening to male voters.) After every round is fired, the caribou stands motionless, trying to figure out what is happening, I suppose. As I watched this, I began to feel sorry for it. And that made me dislike Palin even more. Not that Palin cares, of course: everything she does seems to be calculated to polarize, to appeal to her base and infuriate her political opposition. She is a graduate of the Karl Rove School of Ultra-Partisan Politics.

I am not a hunter, and I never have been. I don't understand the appeal of the sport at all. And when I say that I feel something like affection for the beautiful creature felled by Palin's rifle, hunters might not understand me, either. If I saw a caribou, the last thing I would want to do is kill it. (Perhaps that makes me sound like a pansy to you, dear reader. So be it.) I have heard at least one hunter claim that hunting only increases his appreciation of his targets, but that just doesn't compute with me. One need not kill an animal to study its behavior and appreciate it.

In her own defense, Palin reminded those of us who might be disturbed by the footage that we really don't want to be hypocrites:

Tonight's hunting episode of Sarah Palin's Alaska "controversial"?
Really? Unless you've never worn leather shoes, sat upon a leather couch
or
eaten a piece of meat, save your condemnation of tonight's episode. I
remain proudly intolerant of anti-hunting hypocrisy. :)

(This is just another example of the magic of Sarah Palin, i.e., her refinement of pure snottiness into an art form, her uncanny ability to piss off those who don't see things exactly as she does.) Aaron Sorkin, of all people, recently ripped Palin for the segment anyway. In response to the aforementioned Facebook status update, Sorkin writes:

You're right, Sarah, we'll all just go fuck ourselves now.

The snotty quote was posted by Sarah Palin on (like all the great frontier women who've come before her) her Facebook page to respond to the criticism she knew and hoped would be coming after she hunted, killed and carved up a Caribou during a segment of her truly awful reality show. . . .

I eat meat, chicken and fish, have shoes and furniture made of leather, and PETA is not ever going to put me on the cover of their brochure and for these reasons Palin thinks it's hypocritical of me to find what she did heart-stoppingly disgusting. I don't think it is, and here's why.

Like 95% of the people I know, I don't have a visceral (look it up) problem eating meat or wearing a belt. But like absolutely everybody I know, I don't relish the idea of torturing animals. I don't enjoy the fact that they're dead and I certainly don't want to volunteer to be the one to kill them and if I were picked to be the one to kill them in some kind of Lottery-from-Hell, I wouldn't do a little dance of joy while I was slicing the animal apart.

I'm able to make a distinction between you and me without feeling the least bit hypocritical. I don't watch snuff films and you make them. You weren't killing that animal for food or shelter or even fashion, you were killing it for fun. You enjoy killing animals. I can make the distinction between the two of us but I've tried and tried and for the life of me, I can't make a distinction between what you get paid to do and what Michael Vick went to prison for doing. I'm able to make the distinction with no pangs of hypocrisy even though I get happy every time one of you faux-macho shitheads accidentally shoots another one of you in the face. . . .

And you didn't just do it for fun and you didn't just do it for money. That was the first moose ever murdered for political gain. You knew there'd be a protest from PETA and you knew that would be an opportunity to hate on some people, you witless bully.

I agree with Sorkin that Palin had ulterior, political motives for inserting this segment into the series. And if you still have the ability to doubt that everything Palin does is calculated to enhance her public image, consider what her father said about his daughter in the same episode: "She carries her own weight, whether it's hunting or fishing or politics. Anything Sarah Palin does, she does with all four feet, let me tell you that." (With the possible exception of working the action on her own rifle, of course: we can't expect a "feminist" to be burdened with such manly trifles.)

I doubt that someone of Palin's stature literally needs to hunt caribou to survive. Some Alaskans may, but that doesn't justify Palin's actions. But I take her at her word that they will make use of the animal, and that blunts the force of Sorkin's complaint. Another of Sorkin's objections succeeds, however. Palin sets up a false dichotomy: either you endorse the manner in which she killed and cleaned the caribou, or you are a hypocrite. Sorkin points out that there is a third possibility: recognize that we may at times be justified in killing and making use of another animal, but not take joy in the actual killing and cleaning of that animal. Palin takes too much joy in the slaughter of other sentient beings, and that is a serious character flaw.

There is, of course, another possible response. For some years, I was a vegetarian. I did, however, eat fish and animal products, such as eggs and cheese. And I was a vegetarian for moral reasons: I was unwilling to make the effort to determine whether any meat I might consume was factory-farmed, so I simply didn't eat any at all. I am no longer a vegetarian. I do buy beef sometimes from an individual I know who raises his own cattle for slaughter, so I know that his animals are treated humanely while they are alive. It's difficult to see anything morally wrong with this. And I do try to minimize the amount of meat I consume. But I cannot say for sure that I do not eat factory-farmed meat, so I recognize and admit that I am doing something morally wrong. This is how I avoid the charge of hypocrisy: if you simply acknowledge your own lack of sainthood on this matter, people like Palin cannot manipulate you with the threat of being charged with hypocrisy.

You can, of course, deprive someone like Palin of the ability to manipulate you by refusing to use or consume animal products. I have a friend who avoids consuming and using any animal products whatsoever. It can be done, and it is done, by countless people every single day.

But the most important point is this: if there really is something wrong with hunting, or Palin's attitude toward it, my being a hypocrite would not change that fact in the slightest.

At the end of the video, Palin has what will seem to many to be her Shazzang moment. (How's that for a semi-obscure pop culture reference? If I could find the video to embed in this post, I would, believe me.) Palin says, "Well, I'm always really happy when I do get an animal, because usually my Dad is by my side when I'm hunting, and it's like, see, Dad? I did it! I listened to what you said, and I learned something, and we accomplished it together."

This was surely calculated to appeal to her base, but it leaves me cold, as does virtually everything Palin does. I don't worry that the chief executive may not be interested in hunting and killing animals, and Palin's gleeful readiness to do so doesn't qualify her for the job.

Update. One of Andrew Sullivan's readers explains how Palin's appeal to those of us living in America's heartland might actually backfire, at least among hunters.

A few tweets for Sarah Palin to consider

You've probably heard of plans to build a mosque a few blocks from Ground Zero in New York City.

Palin and her cabal have decided to get involved in this controversy.  They have chosen to announce their intention in the form of tweets on Twitter, which read thus:

Peace-seeking Muslims, pls understand, Ground Zero mosque is UNNECESSARY provocation; it stabs hearts. Pls reject it in interest of healing

Peaceful New Yorkers, pls refute the Ground Zero mosque plan if you believe catastrophic pain caused @ Twin Towers site is too raw, too real

These tweets come a mere five days after the posting of Palin's Facebook note, "The Charge of Racism: It’s Time to Bury the Divisive Politics of the Past." In that note, Palin makes the following rather surprising announcement:

Like President Reagan, Tea Party Americans believe that “the glory of this land has been its capacity for transcending the moral evils of our past.” Isn’t it time we put aside the divisive politics of the past once and for all and celebrate the fact that neither race nor gender is any longer a barrier to achieving success in America – even in achieving the highest office in the land?

What would make Palin think that we have moved beyond racism and sexism? 

It seemed that with the election of our first black president, our country had become a new “post-racial” society. As one writer in the Washington Post stated: “[Barack Obama’s] election isn’t just about a black president. It’s about a new America. The days of confrontational identity politics have come to an end.”

An appeal to the authority of Ronald Reagan also helps:

President Reagan called America’s past racism “a legacy of evil” against which we have seen the long struggle of minority citizens for equal rights. He condemned any sort of racism, as all good and decent people do today. He also called it a “point of pride for all Americans” that as a nation, we have successfully struggled to overcome this evil. Reagan rightly declared that “there is no room for racism, anti-Semitism, or other forms of ethnic and racial hatred in this country,” and he warned that we must never go back to the racism of our past.

Now, how are Palin's tweets and Palin's Facebook note related? 

The citizens of New York have unfortunately been subjected to many moral tests recently, and they are being subjected to another one now. When we had an opportunity to prove that our political ideals were not mere words and try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other 9/11 plotters in New York City, we succumbed to our irrational fears. And it's happening again, right now. We have no more to fear from a mosque in New York City than we do a Christian church, for Christianity has been the cause of as much violence, suffering, and evil as any other religion has. What better symbol to the rest of the world of the moral superiority of the United States and its institutions than a thriving mosque a short walk from Ground Zero?

For whatever reason, many Americans are less interested in their ideals than they are their fear. Whether intentionally or not, Palin and others are exploiting this fear. For all I know, Palin is as afraid of Muslims as are the voters to whom she panders, and the tweets are not part of some cynical political calculation. In either case, though, Palin is appealing to the worst of our natures and thus making efforts to radicalize young Muslims that much easier.

But how could Palin even hope to capitalize on this issue politically if the United States truly were beyond the "ethnic and racial hatred" of its past? The fear behind the campaign to kill the mosque project is grounded in the worst kind of prejudice: it is grounded in the belief that the 9/11 hijackers and members of Al Qaeda are representative of Muslims everywhere, when that is simply false. (And if anyone is looking for proof of the heterogeneity of Islamic political thought, you may find it here.)

It is ironic that Palin insists on the moral uprightness of the Tea Party at a time when Mark Williams and his Tea Party Express has been expelled from The National Tea Party Federation for publishing a disgusting satirical letter from NAACP leader Ben Jealous to President Abraham Lincoln. If you're not convinced that it's disgusting, you can read more of it here; the entire letter can be read here. Whether his target was the leadership of the NAACP or African-Americans in general, it's still disgusting and perhaps even racist.

Palin and other conservatives hope to convince Americans that we are beyond racism, sexism, and other evils simply by insisting that we are. But we clearly are not, as I have argued elsewhere. Those who insist that the Tea Party movement is racist are very likely wrong (though stories like this suggest otherwise). But in defending the Tea Party against charges of racism, Palin's words sound rather dismissive of the concerns of those who struggle against racism and sexism every day. According to Palin, women and minorities who complain that they have been victims of unjust discrimination are simply engaging in the divisive, confrontational identity politics of the past. Palin's words are a big "Go fuck yourselves" to all of them. But as we all know, women and minorities who seek equality are not in Palin's target audience.

The irony of all of this is that by participating in opposition to the New York City mosque, Palin is practicing the very divisive, confrontational identity politics of the past she claims to abhor.

Even though I have no interest in having a Twitter account, I close with the following tweets, complete with Palinesque abuse of the language: 

Peace-seeking Muslims, New Yorkers refuting Ground Zero mosque plan don't understand how opposition stabs hearts; please be patient with them

Peaceful New Yorkers; do not refute the Ground Zero mosque plan; the pain you add to the catastrophic pain caused @ Twin Towers site is too raw, too real

The Fine Art of Bullshitting 4: Please don't look at my conspicuous breasts

Sarah Palin at the Belmont Stakes last Saturday (right), clearly intending that no one look at her breasts

Recently, I wrote about conservative complaints that the media is spending too much time talking about Sarah Palin's breasts and not enough time talking about women winning primaries.

Then Palin herself complained about the situation. During an interview with Greta van Susteren of Fox "News," Palin said that "boobgate" "makes me wear layers, it makes me have to waste time figuring out what am I going to wear so that nobody will look in an area that I don’t need them to look at."

Then I noticed that Andrew Sullivan posted one of his reader's opinions on the subject, "The Pernicious Lies Of Sarah Palin IV: They Victimize Me For Looking Hot":

She creates the situation she wants to gripe about. It's intentional. It's a way of appearing faux "feminist" while also displaying the wares that got every golddigger in history a sugardaddy. It's a way of controlling her product messaging.

Read the rest here. It's so worth it.

The Retard's Teleprompter

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Sarah Palin Uses a Hand-O-Prompter
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Economy

Sarah Palin and her running mate

Sarah Palin with her 2008 and 2012 running mate, Trig Palin. Source: http://www.salon.com/news/environment/feature/2008/09/05/sarah_palin_down_syndrome/story.jpg

In "Sarah Palin Is a Genius at Taking Umbrage," Emily Bazelton writes that Palin, because she is the mother of a child with Down Syndrome, can get decent political mileage out of over-the-top umbrage in certain situations. Further, Palin (or her handlers) know this and take advantage of it. "It's another genius shot from her motherhood arsenal—an arsenal she's figured out how to deploy like no other woman in politics," writes Bazelton.

Which situations? Recently, Obama said that he bowls like he's in the Special Olympics. And Rahm Emanuel recently criticized some liberals as being "fucking retarded."

What's kind of funny about all of this is that I have often thought that Palin is fucking retarded. And I have thought that she campaigns for national office as if she were in the Special Olympics.

I still find it hard to believe that she wants to be President, now that she is producing so much video for Fox News that might be used against her down the road. But, as Bazelton points out, she appears to be positioning herself to do just that.

One of the many things that bothers me about Palin is her running mate, Trig Palin. The Palins must have thought that they had hit the jackpot when she found herself pregnant with a Down Syndrome baby. Trig is now a living, breathing, token special needs child that Palin can use to appeal to voters and disarm their rational faculties. The strategy is so transparent, I don't know why more people don't complain about it. To use some Kantian language, Trig is being used as a means to Palin's political ends. And since Trig cannot consent to Palin's scheme, he is being used as a mere means. This is morally wrong. Her base—or that part of it that realizes what she is doing—is giving her a pass because it is politically expedient to do so.

Or so they think.

Last weekend, as Palin was pandering to the Tea Party in Nashville, she asked everyone, "How's that hopey-changey stuff workin' out for you?"

"Not great," I thought, "since you and the Party of No have, with your extreme partisan maneuvering and propagandizing, made change so difficult, bitch."

Obama won the last election by fifty-two percent. How does Palin expect to win an election by mocking potentially all of the people who voted for him? I don't understand the strategy. In fact, one might even call the strategy "retarded."