Earlier this week, Commentary’s Peter Wehner offered a civility test for liberals:
But if the president and his liberal allies remain silent or criticize [U.S. Rep. Steven] Cohen [D-TN] in the gentlest way possible, it’s only reasonable to conclude that their expressions of concern about incivility in public discourse are partisan rather than genuine, that what they care about isn’t public discourse but gamesmanship, not restoring civility but gaining power.
(Via Instapundit.)
Criticizing Cohen would be a first step to show that they are serious about promoting civil discourse. And to be sure, some on the left have criticized the Memphis Democrat. John Guardino reports in the Daily Caller that “the left-wing National Jewish Democratic Council has observed in its rebuke of Cohen: ‘Invoking the Holocaust to make a political point is never acceptable.'”
Another thing Democrats (and left-of-center pundits) could do would be to engage in a little introspection of their own, asking why so many on the left chose to be silent or themselves actively engaged in some very uncivil discourse when commenting on the Administration of George W. Bush or the career and candidacy of Sarah Palin.
Perhaps, we should only take seriously those Democrats and left-of-center voices in the media who can provide evidence they criticized the over-the-top rhetoric during the Bush era (and every time Sarah Palin’s name comes up), those who, to borrow an expression from an unhappy Democrat newly concerned about civility “differentiated themselves” from the extreme rhetoric of their ideological confreres.
Nope. Wrong again.
Nazis were pioneers in international and domestic propaganda. Accusing a modern political party of using Nazi-style propaganda techniques is not the same as calling someone a Nazi. It’s an abrasive statement to make, to be sure, but that is the point – the idea is that someone is supposed to be so ashamed of the association that they stop, well, propagandizing. That will never happen with the conservative movement, of course, who have gone so far beyond the line of morality that they defend an administration that lied the country into a hopeless war and eagerly support the torture of random people. Say – is that another way you guys are comparable to the Nazis? I believe it is!
The Soviets used propaganda. Orwell wrote amazing books about it. Cheney and Rumsfeld waged a propaganda campaign against the American people so they could start their war. All of these efforts are run from the same playbook, they’re all based on authoritarian, ends-justifying-the-means logic, and they have all turned out to be disastrous for the countries in which they were carried out. Running around the country pretending that the controlling party is trying to use the government to euthanize old people is exactly the kind of over-the-top lie that history’s villains have used to persecute people and wage aggressive wars.
You don’t like being compared to Nazis? Maybe you should stop doing things that the Nazis did?
An inconvenient truth for Mr. Cohen and the left:
Leftists love hyperbole, and they love accusing their ideological opponents of crimes of humanity for opposing their agenda. However, they have a particular affinity for Hitler/Nazi metaphors. This is not just because Hitler and Nazism were evil and were responsible for the deaths of millions. After all, communism and its practitioners around the globe have been responsible for far more murder, oppression, and miserable living conditions than the relatively small-fry one-off historical atrocity of Nazism.
Leftists love Hitler references because of the meme that Nazism was a “right-wing” ideology.
True, Nazism did have elements of fascism, which has been associated with the ideology of several other 20th-century dictators. But if leftists think they can get away with popularizing the notion that Nazism more closely mirrors contemporary conservatism than leftism, they’d better hope people don’t look too closely at Nazi ideology and start drawing their own conclusions.
The Nazis’ 25-point plan contained such limited-government recommendations as:
“That all unearned income, and all income that does not arise from work, be abolished”
“[A]ll personal profit arising from the war must be regarded as treason to the people. We therefore demand the total confiscation of all war profits”
“We demand the nationalization of all trusts”
“We demand profit-sharing in large industries”
“We demand a generous increase in old-age pensions”
“The State has the duty to help raise the standard of national health by providing maternity welfare centers, by prohibiting juvenile labor, by increasing physical fitness through the introduction of compulsory games and gymnastics, and by the greatest possible encouragement of associations concerned with the physical education of the young”
“We demand the abolition of the regular army and the creation of a national (folk) army”
In case it’s not obvious, these planks overlap with 90% of the platform of the modern Democratic Party.
Full article can be read at: http://www.newsrealblog.com/2011/01/21/stuff-leftist-people-like-21-30-aka-top-10-things-leftists-like-continued-1/4/
Levi, thank you for helping make my point. Maybe I should just cut and paste your comment into a post. Comparing us to Nazis. Wow. Just wow. Guess if you think we’re similar to Nazis, you’re not interested in debating our points.
My, my, my, Levi, in helping make my point, you helped make my day.
So people who do something wrong and then try and change their ways have no credibility when speaking on said topic? That makes no sense. People are able to change and just because they did wrong in the past does not mean they shouldn’t be taken seriously.
Bristol Palin made a mistake in getting pregnant but did a great thing speaking out for abstinence. Should she not have been taken seriously? Cuz I’m pretty sure it was a genuinely admirable thing she did.
yes levi, we should perhaps stop trying for gun control, nationalized health care and the gov’t trying to force companies to make what they say as opposed to what will sell, and stop trying to nationalizing companies while we are at it…oh wait. Maybe you should actually learn some fricken facts, and stop comparing Conservatives to Socialists…Nazi is the short name…National Socialist German Workers Party….correct me if I am wrong, but are there not a few organizations affiliated with y’all left leaning folk named Workers Party something or other? Where do you think they come from? Not the conservative side of the aisle.
“Civility” is a ruse and a canard. True civility is anchored in respect and a common ethic that values “manners.”
Cohen chose to go for the jugular when he selected the bloody hyperbole of the Holocaust, Goebbels, the Nazi Regime, and the KKK. When you approach the topic with a cannonade of shrapnel and napalm laced with cyanide, there is no room for a chat about “civility.”
For much of my adult life, the demagoguery of the liberals has used death, victimization, starvation, hatred and cold greed by their opponents as their staple of “debate.”
Clearly, if the left cared a whit about “civility” they would take positive action to clearly discourage the nastiness which abounds in their own posters, in speeches and even on the floor of Congress.
No President in my lifetime has been more blatant in his partisan words than Obama. He has brought the campaign rhetoric to the Oval Office and divorced himself repeatedly from being the President of all of the people. His “civility” speech contained no mea culpa or any promise to police himself and his White House.
For liberals, this call for “civility” is merely an attempt to censor Republicans and set the rules of the game according to their immediate needs.
#1: “Nazis were pioneers in international and domestic propaganda.”
Tax cuts for the rich.
War for oil.
Healthcare costs will go down.
Premium costs will go down.
You can keep your doctor.
You can keep your healthcare plan.
Unemployment will not go over 8 percent.
Obamacare is deficit neutral.
129 million Americans have preexisting conditions.
Deficit reduction has been a high priority with this Congress (“pay-as-you-go” has been our mantra).
Climate change.
…
…
AJ, if they change their ways and admit their error, then of course we should take them seriously. Are any Democrats today saying they were wrong to remain silent in the wake of all that Bush- and Palin-hatred?
That said, I understand your misunderstanding. I hoped the word “perhaps” introducing the concluding paragraph would indicate that it was a rhetorical flourish, meant to remind people of the failure of many of those now clamoring for civil discourse to have spoken out on the need for civil discourse when W was so savaged in the early 2000s–and when Palin is today.
“Another thing Democrat…could do would be to… (ask)why so many on the left chose to be silent or themselves actively engaged in some very uncivil discourse when commenting on the Administration of George W. Bush or the career and candidacy of Sarah Palin.”
Never happen and we all know it. This newfound demand for “civility” is an attempt to silence those parts of the right that have been so effective in recent years; talk radio, Fox News, the Tea Party movement, and Sarah Palin.
Haven’t heard any democrats or people in the media apologize specifically for George W or Palin, just heard some admit that they used the wrong tone in the past and wanted to change that. I do think this kneejerk reaction is a little ridiculous, though I do agree with the overall idea. I feel like it’s possible to actually debate things and compromise on policy without both sides demonizing the other. We’ll see if it actually happens though.
Did ya get that memo from Keef Olberdouche?????
Might wanna re-think that one, genius.
Sucks to be a libtard these days, don’t it, sweetie?
AJ, I do think Democrats need to directly address the Bush- and Palin-hatred given how prominent it has become on certain left-wing blogs and even on liberal editorial pages.
They only need apologize personally if they engaged in such rhetoric, but should at least acknowledge their failure to speak out when their ideological confreres were far less than civil to their ideological adversaries.
It’s an abrasive statement to make, to be sure, but that is the point – the idea is that someone is supposed to be so ashamed of the association that they stop, well, propagandizing.
Nice to see Levi admit that the whole point of this is to shut up the right.
But frankly, given how Cohen, the Obama Party, and pro-abortion “progressives” like Levi support, endorse, and demand Federal funding for delivering babies and then cutting their spinal cords with scissors, I think everyone realizes the sheer depth and volume of the hypocrisy of the “Nazis” charge.
Or, put differently, it’s interesting to watch Levi and Cohen make comparisons to Goebbels when their own medical techniques that they fund, support, and fully endorse are straight out of the pages of Mengele.
I agree Dan, that would be nice to see, it would say a lot. But it’s not going to happen because Politicians aren’t that humble.
So Levi’s on record calling a Jew “Nazi”. And, evidently, the National Jewish Democratic Council doesn’t know what the hell they’re talking about, but Verizon Boy does. Very nice.
That’s typical. Levi himself is over in the other thread blabbing how people who oppose him and his fellow leftist pigs snipping babies’ spinal cords hate women and are “puritans”.
Sick little pervert. Truly, it’s hard to believe how repulsive liberals and Obama Party members like Levi are.
Something I would add;
I’m pretty routinely called upon around here to answer for the Nazis and the Communists because I’m a liberal and those were left-wing political parties. I don’t mind that. I’m completely capable of recognizing that left-wing politics can be taken to deadly extremes, and that authoritarian regimes of any political affiliation can and will abuse their power if they can do it. This is true of any political philosophy that you can name. A political ideology is no guarantee of moral decency. Capitalism can be corrupted and perverted just as easily as socialism can if the wrong kinds of people get into power.
It’s not as if there was some fundamental feature of liberalism and socialism that drove Hitler and Stalin to be murderous lunatics – it was their hatred and their lust for power. The kind of left wing politics that I endorse has virtually nothing in common with what Hitler did to Germany – I wouldn’t abandon elections and democracy like Hitler did, I wouldn’t create a sprawling war machine as the centerpiece of the economy, and I wouldn’t try to persuade citizens to turn on one another. None of that has anything to do with American liberalism, and just because Germany had universal healthcare and I would prefer universal healthcare in this country doesn’t mean I’m trying to put us on the same path as the Nazis. If you want to compare some part of my politics to the theirs, I’m not going to be offended. I’m not going to shut down and pretend like you’ve gone out of bounds. I know what my positions are and I can defend them.
And so it stands – the conservative media apparatus in this country has been deploying Nazi-style propaganda techniques to distort government abuses of power by the Republican Party. Only a child could read that sentence and think they were being called a Nazi – that, or someone who is woefully unprepared to defend against such an argument and instead runs screaming to their TV for some more Fox News.
Hello everybody,
Although I tend to disagree with Dan and other conservatives (like NDT and AE) I do have to say that liberals are really nasty. And now they preach us about civility and toning down the rhetoric?
Take a look at this liberal and his threating tone towards me. I been having heated discussions with this liberal named Bill on the gay website
Advocate.com. (My SN there is “Pepa”):
I have already made some few police complaints about receiving threats by liberals over the internet. But then it gets worse, on a different thread a few minutes later he says the following:
First he asks me for my address, then he says he is “going to hunt me down” and “he’s not alone.” YET he has been preaching me about “right wing violent rhetoric.”
Unbelievable. I am going to start a website where I will record every threat, or threatening rhetoric that gay liberals make.
I’ve HAD ENOUGH!
The kind of left wing politics that I endorse has virtually nothing in common with what Hitler did to Germany – I wouldn’t abandon elections and democracy like Hitler did, I wouldn’t create a sprawling war machine as the centerpiece of the economy, and I wouldn’t try to persuade citizens to turn on one another.
(laughing uproariously)
I’m smarter than most conservatives, this is beyond any doubt. I’m also a better person – you guys have given up any claim to that argument with your morally decrepit positions on torture and wars. If that sounds condescending, it’s because it is. And you should probably spend more of your time teaching yourself things and thinking, rather than complain about the mean people that make fun off you for not being very smart.
People like you need people like me to drag you kicking and screaming into the future.
And as for democracy? Levi opposes it.
Yes, some parts of the document are more important than others, and yes, men in black robes get to decide. A law enacted by the legislature is more important and takes precedence over a public referendum that eliminates rights for people, yes, yes, a million times yes.
Throw in Levi’s support for infanticide and purging of people from society based on their religious beliefs, coupled with his belief in the inferiority of brown-skinned people, and who does it look like?
Actually, Levi’s compared to the Nazis and Socialists, because he’s an admitted socialist, believes that people are racially incapable of understanding democracy, does not believe in the rule of law, and believes that he has the right (he claims by intelligence, which he never demonstrates) to drag his fellow man ‘kicking and screaming into the future.
Oh, and lets not forget that he follows Goebbels big lie theory by screaming that Global Warming is ‘settled science’ (when it’s not settled, nor is it likely science) and that President Bush is a ‘War Criminal’
Racism, belief in his own superiority, constant repetition of lies, support of genocide and supression of people’ freedoms. Yup, calling Levi a National Socialist is pretty damn accurate.
Damn, didn’t see NDT post that.
But, in the interest of equal time and knowing Levi won’t reply to either my posts or NDT, because he can’t deny his own words showing the ugly racist he is… I’ll post my Levi Rebuttal
Me, ILC, Et al: Levi said this.
Levi: I didn’t say that!
Me: Sure you did (link)!
Levi: You’re taking my words out of context! I don’t care if you link to my words in context, where I said these things! You’re taking them out of context!
Me: How can I take them out of context when I link to your entire statement?
Levi: You’re a poopy head! I’m your moral and intellectual superior! You need me to think for you! Socialism works! I don’t need to provide any proof of my statements, and won’t read yours!”
Levi,
Would your socialist state have a youth corps where young minds are shaped to be good, productive citizens of the state, by the state and for the state? (Americorps, Obamacorps, Publicservicecorps, Civiliancorps, Socialistcorps, Progressivecorps, or whatevercorps.)
Would your socialist state do something about obesity? Transfats? Backwoods militia gangs? Gun ownership? Fundamentalist Christians? Excessive wealth? Radical speech? The drug trade? Illegal aliens? Borders? Energy consumption? Television content? Internet content? Radio content? Printed materials? Imperfect fetuses? Money lenders? Speculators? Risk takers? Entrepreneurs? Air polluters? Water polluters? Culture polluters? Soil polluters? Vanishing species? People who annoy you?
The socialist states of Europe are having terrible difficulty with people who come to be housed and cared for, but don’t play by the rules. In their determined anti-Nazi orientation, these states are letting large sections of cities become controlled by the ghetto rather than the state. Eventually, however, the ghetto will spill over and make the state react, or compromise or cede itself to new, fundamentalist government.
How would the kinder, gentler Levi socialist state handle the duality of socialist rules and regulations and management and sharia at the same time?
How does the utopian socialist state deal with citizens intent on dragging the state kicking and screaming back into the middle ages?
Score: Gay Patriots 10, Levi 0.
Regards,
Peter H.
See the 2006 & 2008 elections.
You mean like reporting your neighbors to Flag@WhiteHouse.gov?
And you just called a Jewish guy a Nazi. Is it that you wouldn’t try to persuade others but do it yourself?
Looks like I called it. Levi ‘redeployed’ to another thread.