The Real Radio Hatemongers

The Media Research Center has compiled a report documenting some of the most hateful things leftwing radio personalities have said about the right:

The Real Radio Hatemongers

This report includes examples of over-the-top rhetoric from left-wing hosts Mike Malloy, Stephanie Miller, Randi Rhodes, Ron Reagan, Jr., Ed Schultz and Montel Williams, all of whom currently or at one time broadcast to a national audience on either the Air America network or via XM and/or Sirius satellite radio. Among the lowlights:

■ Conservatives Want to Kill Barack Obama: “I really think there are conservative broadcasters in this country who would love to see Obama taken out.” (Ed Schultz)

■ Conservatives Are Terrorists: “Do you not understand that the people you hold up as heroes bombed your goddamn country? Do you not understand that Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly are as complicit of the September 11, 2001 terror attack as any one of the dumbass 15 who came from Saudi Arabia?” (Mike Malloy)

■ Conservatives Want You to Die: “If, in fact, the GOP doesn’t like any form of health care reform, what do we do with those 40 to 60 million uninsured?…When they show up in the emergency room, just shoot ‘em! Kill them!…Do we have enough body bags? I don’t know.” (Montel Williams)

■ Conservative Congresswoman Would Have Liked the Holocaust: “[Representative Michele Bachmann is] a hatemonger. She’s the type of person that would have gladly rounded up the Jews in Germany and shipped them off to death camps….This is an evil bitch from Hell.” (Mike Malloy)

■ Dick Cheney Eats Babies: “Cheney, by the way, looks very ruddy. I couldn’t get over that. Like, he must have feasted on a Jewish baby, or a Muslim baby. He must have sent his people out to get one and bring it back so he could drink its blood.” (Mike Malloy)

■ Dick Cheney Should Die: “He is an enemy of the country, in my opinion. Dick Cheney is an enemy of the country….Lord, take him to the Promised Land, will you? See, I don’t even wish the guy goes to Hell, I just want to get him the hell out of here.” (Ed Schultz)

■ Rush Limbaugh Should Die: “I’m waiting for the day when I pick up the newspaper or click on the Internet and find that he’s choked to death on his own throat fat, or a great big wad of saliva or something, whatever. Go away, Limbaugh, you make me sick.” (Mike Malloy)

■ Michele Bachmann Should Die: “So, Michele, slit your wrist! Go ahead! I mean, you know, why not? I mean, if you want to — or, you know, do us all a better thing. Move that knife up about two feet. I mean, start right at the collarbone.” (Montel Williams)

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure Rush has never claimed that Obama eats babies.

Challenging the Narrative

As you may have noticed, I’ve slipped into a kind of hypomania this week. Why am I so ardently battling left-wing lies about the right? Well, first of all, it is my honest belief that the left’s ghoulish behavior in the wake of the Tucson shootings is a prelude to 1) an attempt to restore the Fairness Doctrine or 2) an attempt to police political speech in some other way, and I feel it’s my duty as a liberty-loving American to stop that train of thought before it leaves the station.

Secondly, I hate bullies. For too long, the left has used its media monopoly to bully conservatives — and conservatives, who have been trained by the aforementioned media monopoly to play nice and avoid rocking the boat, have usually absorbed the blows without a fight. I’m not going to allow that anymore. We now have alternative media streams at our disposal (this blog being one example), and we should use them.

Certain individuals have scolded conservatives for defending themselves. To them, I can only say things that are unprintable. What the left has done is declare us accessories to mass murder. It is natural – nay, it is legitimate – for us to get angry and fight back. Lying down and taking it is tantamount to ceding ground to the left. The only thing that will really stop these schoolyard bullies is punching back – hard. (And of course, I use “punching” in the metaphorical sense. I wouldn’t want to be accused of using rhetoric that incites violence. And by the way, isn’t it sad that I have to insert this qualification to appease the reading impaired?)

But now to the central purpose of this post, which is to challenge the dominant narrative the left uses to “explain” the Tea Party movement.

First, let’s look at the stats. In the spring of 2010, Gallup conducted a poll which discovered the following:

• The Tea Party is more conservative than the general U.S. population. (Duh.)
• The Tea Party is slightly more male. (Other polls have come up with the opposite finding, though, so I suspect the sex ratio is very close to 50/50.)
• The Tea Party is predominantly middle class.
• Within the Tea Party, the age, education, employment, and race demographics resemble the spread for the general population.

The picture Gallup presents here certainly doesn’t suggest that the Tea Party is made up of slack-jawed hillbillies and white supremacists. But let’s tackle, one at a time, some of the specific charges the partisan left levies at the Tea Party movement:

The Tea Party is sexist.

Why? Because Tea Partiers tend to be pro-life? Not everyone agrees that anti-abortion policies are sexist. As a matter of fact, a very strong argument can be made that abortion benefits men more than it benefits women — and that rather than increasing societal sympathy for women in crisis pregnancy situations, the existence of legal abortion has curtailed that sympathy.

Moreover, during the 2010 election season, Tea Partiers supported an unprecedented number of female candidates. Here’s a story from CNN (hardly an organ of right-wing commentary) that discusses the phenomenon:

2010 is year of GOP women candidates

This article doesn’t credit the Tea Party for backing these female candidates, but it’s a stone-cold fact that some of the most visible 2010 races featured Tea Party-supported female candidates running against incumbent Democrats. If Tea Partiers were genuinely sexist, they simply would not have encouraged these women to enter the political arena – and they definitely would not love Sarah Palin, the supposed “queen bee” of the movement, as much as they do.

(Of course, Sub Spike would interject here that hardcore partisan leftists don’t recognize conservative female politicians as “real women.” My response? Oh, well. If I can get some reasonable folks thinking, that’s good enough for me.)

The Tea Party is racist.

O rly?

During the 2010 election season, dirty, filthy racist Tea Partiers supported the following candidates in their bids for elective office:

Susana Martinez (New Mexico), the nation’s first elected Latina governor

Nikki Haley (South Carolina), America’s second Indian-American governor

Tim Scott (SC-01)

Col. Allen West (FL-22), who is awesome

Marco Rubio (Florida), who came from a family of Cuban exiles

And while we’re at it, what are we to make of the individuals who represented the Tea Party Express at this press conference:

As others have pointed out, this is a form of sublimation. If we weren’t hurling invective at each other, we’d be engaged in open tribal warfare. Do I want our political process to be conducted in a more civil manner? Of course. But when you think about it, verbal invective is pretty civilized compared to the alternatives (cane fights, pistol duels at dawn, the aforementioned tribal warfare, etc.).

But I’m digressing. Bottom line, the Tea Party is no more violent than any other American political movement. As a matter of fact, its record is quite good. And that pretty much sums up the reality in general. On all of the dimensions discussed above, the Tea Party turns out not to resemble the left’s fevered nightmares.

Responding to Annoying Liberal Remarks on Facebook, V – Steph’s Rules for Net Debates

• When I ask a question, answer it. Don’t change the subject. Don’t fling yet more unsupported accusations. Don’t behave as if your position is self-evident to everyone who has a brain. It’s not.
• Cite your sources. When I was a kid, Sub Spike taught me not to take people’s claims at face value. If you refuse to provide links, I’m going to assume you can’t back up your assertions.
• No personal attacks. My biggest pet peeve is when people insinuate that I lack intelligence. I graduated summa cum laude with highest honors from a top 50 university. And by the way, I was a science major. I didn’t choose a course of study in which verbal virtuosity is valued over hard facts.
• Don’t take your personal issues out on me. If somebody has hurt you at some point in your life, I’m sorry. Still, it’s not my job to be your therapist or your personal punching bag.

Now let’s explore how LM – the individual featured in my previous post – violated my rules:

• I confronted LM and asked her to back up her assertion that the Tea Party is Racist/Sexist/Homophobic. She returned with a smart ass question that implied that I didn’t know what I was talking about. This violates the first three of my four rules. She didn’t answer my question, didn’t cite her sources, and attacked my intelligence through insinuation. I should’ve terminated the discussion here, but I simply couldn’t resist continuing. What can I say? I’m not a perfect human being.
• I then tried to inject some facts about the Tea Party movement into the discussion. I should’ve provided some links, true, but I was writing in the heat of the moment. If LM were interested in having a good faith discussion, she could’ve asked for my sources, and I would’ve gladly provided them. Instead, she continues to call Tea Partiers nutjobs and states that I support the violation of her “bodily integrity.” Whatever, LM. I personally think the right to shoot one’s “almighty gun” will do more for the preservation of a woman’s bodily integrity than either legal gay marriage or unrestricted legal abortion. The right to kill my unborn children for my own convenience certainly won’t help me if a rapist should come looming towards me in a dark alley. A gun might.

  But anyway, I’m rambling. Suffice it to say that LM violated my fourth rule by ranting at me instead of genuinely responding to what I said. Thus, at this point, I decided it was time to bow out. I’ve been in internet debates often enough to tell the difference between an open-minded individual and a hardcore partisan. I can have a fruitful discussion with the former; a productive debate is impossible with the latter.

• Unfortunately, LM came back with her whopper about the supposed intelligence deficit among conservatives. Because, as I said, that is my biggest pet peeve, I once again couldn’t stop myself from going back for another round. In response, I asked her to provide her sources. She refused to do so, thereby violating rule number two as well as rule number three. I was completely done at that point. She did demand later that I try to “convince” her that the Tea Party is not racist or sexist. I told her again that I didn’t believe she was ready to listen. Because really, what do you suppose would’ve happened if I had produced pro-right statements written by “brown” and/or gay Tea Partiers? Do you honestly think that would’ve persuaded her? I for one highly doubt it.

Failure to follow my rules for debate will ultimately result in termination of the discussion. I don’t have the time or the energy to waste on screeching harpies who refuse to argue in good faith.

Reponding to Annoying Liberal Remarks on Facebook, IV – A Current Throw-Down

LM: I saw some itchbay on CNN the other morning saying she was “deeply offended” at people calling the tea party violent. I was like you know what’s offensive? Telling women and gays and brown people that their rights should be restricted. THAT is what’s offensive.

Me: How does the Tea Party do any of the things you are claiming, L?

LM: Have you been listening?

Me: Yes. Probably more than you have.

I’m a Tea Partier, so I think I can speak about our movement with some degree of authority. First of all, it is not centralized. There are multiple groups that bear the “Tea Party” label, and their agendas are not 100% identical. Some tend towards social conservativism, but others do not. There are gay Tea Partiers, “brown” Tea Partiers, and a HELL of a lot of female Tea Partiers, and I think they would all object to the characterization of the movement as anti-woman, anti-gay, or anti-“brown.”

The one thing that ties the disparate Tea Party groups together is a frustration with wasteful spending and government over-reach. You may disagree that the spending is wasteful or that the government is over-reaching, but advocating for limited government is not in itself sinister. Do Tea Party events attract the crazies? Yes, but so do leftwing events, AS I MYSELF have witnessed several times here in Washington D.C.

LM: Well, maybe you should tell the ones ought there telling me that I don’t have the right to what i want to with my body to stfu and stop trying to take my rights away, since you seem to be so up on the subject. I’m afraid that I can’t truck with anyone telling me that their right to shoot their almighty gun is more important than my bodily integrity. And yeah, that’s what you donation towards those nutjobs is supporting, friend.

Me: Okay. Clearly you’re not up for a rational debate, so I refuse to continue this discussion.

LM: Because you will lose. Look at all the stats on right-wingers lower education and IQ levels. You can’t win, my friend. Do you really expect anyone to believe the tea party is looking out for anyone’s rights other than old rich white christian men? Srsly expect anyone with any sense to believe that?

Me: Care to provide links to your bogus stats?

At this point, LM posted a macro that did not pertain to the discussion, at which point, I replied:

Okay. Thanks for confirming that you’re not up for an honest debate. THE END.

Some Good News

Poll: Rhetoric, Arizona shooting unrelated
@ The Hill

Almost 60 percent of the public believes that heated political rhetoric has nothing to do with an Arizona shooting spree that gravely wounded Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D) and killed a federal judge.

Fifty-seven percent of respondents in a new CBS News poll said rhetoric is unrelated to the shooting, while 32 percent said they believe the two are connected.

I’d like to see some other polling agencies take the temperature of the populace, but this is a good early sign.

Responding to Annoying Liberal Remarks on Facebook, III – The Logic 101 Edition

As you know, tutoring is my day job. In 2005, I started off as an ESL tutor; these days, I teach science and math in addition to the usual ESL work.

I’m bringing this up because I have had several clients over the years who have requested help in Geometry, and Virginia’s Geometry curriculum includes a section on basic logic. In my area, syllogisms in particular are taught using examples such as these:

Valid Syllogism

• Major premise: All mammals are warm-blooded.
• Minor premise: All black dogs are mammals.
• Conclusion: Therefore, all black dogs are warm-blooded.

Invalid Syllogism

• Major premise: All mammals are warm-blooded.
• Minor premise: A robin is warm-blooded.
• Conclusion: Therefore, a robin is a mammal.

Note the pattern of the valid syllogism:

All a are b.
C is a.
Therefore, c is b.

In order for your conclusion to be valid, your minor premise has to be connected to the first half of your major premise, not the second.

In discussing the motives of the Arizona shooter, supposedly “brainy” liberals all over Facebook are employing the sort of faulty logic used in my example of an invalid syllogism. Essentially, they are arguing the following:

• The Tea Partiers have expressed anti-government sentiments.
• Loughner has expressed anti-government sentiments.
• Therefore, Loughner is a Tea Partier, and Tea Party leaders can be deemed accessories to mass murder.

Non sequitur, lefties. Non sequitur. This is what is known as the fallacy of the undistributed middle. Your conclusion rests on the implied belief that all people who express anti-government opinions must be Tea Partiers — and that is a categorically false-to-facts assumption. Anarchists are, by definition, anti-government, but anarchists and Tea Partiers have very little in common. As a matter of fact, I’m willing to wager that any anarchist would be insulted to be labeled a Tea Partier.

In any case, your major premise is false to begin with. The Tea Party is not anti-government; it’s anti-BIG-government. We Tea Partiers recognize the government’s vital role in preserving the rule of law. What we do not accept is this idea that government should be permitted to grow unchecked so that favored groups can become dependent upon it. And by the way, unlike the aforementioned anarchists, we act upon our core beliefs by gathering in peaceful rallies and exercising the power of the vote.

*****

The left’s highly orchestrated rush to use the atrocity in Arizona to slime conservatives and the Tea Party – and yes, the fact that accusations of Tea Party malfeasance started even before we knew whether Giffords had survived strongly suggests orchestration – is nothing less than an attempt to squelch legitimate dissent. Already, I am seeing calls for legislation to police political speech. That’s the left’s knee-jerk response whenever they encounter opinions they don’t like.

It’s ON, Lefties!

You want to start the “Who Is More Violent” game? Fine. Michelle Malkin is ready to hit back:

The progressive “climate of hate:” An illustrated primer, 2000-2010
By Michelle Malkin • January 10, 2011

The Tucson massacre ghouls who are now trying to criminalize conservatism have forced our hand.

They need to be reminded. You need to be reminded.

Confront them. Don’t be cowed into silence.

And don’t let the media whitewash the sins of the hypocritical Left in their naked attempt to suppress the law-abiding, constitutionally-protected, peaceful, vigorous political speech of the Right.

They want to play tu quo que in the middle of a national tragedy? They asked for it. They got it.

After which she lists every instance of violent leftwing rhetoric she can find in her archives. Go. Read. Get informed so you can metaphorically punch the left in the mouth.

An old article that seems particularly relevant at the moment:

David Freddoso: Suddenly, dissent is violence, not patriotism
@ The Washington Examiner, March 2010

Our political lexicon consists almost entirely of references to war.

We talk about “battleground states” and “attacks,” “trenches,” “blitzes,” “war rooms,” “showdowns,” “target-rich environments” and “firestorms.” Even the word “campaign” is a term of warfare.

We watch political television shows with names like “Crossfire,” “Frontline,” “Hardfire,” and “The Firing Line.” “The Situation Room” mildly implies warfare, whereas more direct references come in politics with candidates who “blast” one another, commit “political suicide,” and engage in the sort of “murder-suicide attacks” that make Kerry’s 2004 nomination possible.

Every stump speech threatens violence in some subtle way, as when President Obama promised to “fight” 19 times in one speech, and as his remark from the 2008 campaign should suggest: “If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun.”

That’s not a big deal for me. Nor was Obama’s incitement to followers to confront their McCain-supporting neighbors — “I want you to argue with them and get in their face.”

But congressional Democrats, as they cast standard political rhetoric as if it were violent in order to raise money, are not just practicing hypocrisy. They are also counting on you not to understand the difference between the rightful anger that accompanies political dissent, and the nut jobs who actually threaten their congressmen or commit violence against public officials.

Their attempt to conflate the two, and to connect the two, is really an attack on the idea of political dissent and the First Amendment to the Constitution. Kerry believes dissent is patriotic, but only when he’s the one dissenting.

Don’t let any liberal get away with claiming that conservatives are responsible for “creating an environment in which shooting a Congressman is considered okay.” If you’ll excuse my French, that is complete bullshit. As the article above notes, war-related language has been used by both political parties for as long as I can remember. As far as I can tell, such language is an inevitable feature of small-d democratic politics.

All the available evidence seems to suggest at this point that Giffords’ shooter was a deranged individual who had no coherent political philosophy. The left’s attempts to use this tragedy to smear the Tea Party movement and conservatives are absolutely disgusting and need to be fought with all the energy and rage we can muster. The left has been pulling this crap for years; they can’t be allowed to get away with it this time.

ETA: Some comments from Hillbuzz need to be shared.

• An extremely Christian statement from Kevin himself: “Pray, too, for the family of Jared Lee Loughner, especially his parents, because their lives were destroyed yesterday too, through no fault of their own. They will have to live with the grief, guilt, and shame of being related to this murderer for the rest of their time on this Earth, which is worse than any punishment the justice system will give to the shooter himself.

  Some of you have sent rather nasty emails to us at HB because we’ve asked you to pray for the family of the shooter, and if you can’t see that these people are suffering and are victims today too, then we honestly don’t want you as a reader. The person who deserves your scorn and contempt is the person who pulled the trigger yesterday, not the woman who birthed him or the father who raised him. Not the teachers, friends, and relatives who knew him but didn’t know how to help him, or keep him from becoming the monster he became.

  Praying is not easy. Especially not in a traumatic time like this. But, your prayers, mercy, wisdom, and compassion are needed today by a whole host of people you will never in your lives probably meet…so I hope you can find it in your heart to rise to the challenge and extend that love to ALL those in need.

  This is hard to accept, and even harder to do, but that also includes the shooter…who is a clearly very troubled and mentally ill man. Pray for his soul too, and ask God to judge him as He will, but without malice of heart from you. Jared Lee Loughner is an evil man who committed a horrible act and will rightfully be punished in this life and the next…but I hope you all pray he accepts the error he made and seeks forgiveness from God and finds some redemption and clarity in the end.”

• A key observation about the media coverage of the shooting from “Bev” in the comments: “Immediately yesterday when this happened I knew this would happen. In fact…I was disgusted with all the news. It was absolutely, positively irresponsible of all the news outlets to report what they did, how they did it, and in the manner it was done.

  Imagine this woman’s family. They were told almost instantly she was dead. Almost ALL of the news reports from the beginning were FALSE. I was disgusted with every single news source and I turned off the news.

  Being FIRST is the ultimately goal of all news sources. It does not matter how accurate their information is. They just want you to watch/read. It is something that truly grates my nerves.”

• And lastly, a mental health professional shoots down the idea that the “political climate” can be blamed: “Having worked in crisis mental health for years, I can tell you that delusionary belief systems can certainly be disorganized and irrational enough that they don’t have anything to do with what we normally think of as right versus left or Dem versus Repub. It’s about “them” out to get us. “Them” could mean the government, aliens, Satan, cancer, mind-controlling radio waves… The guy was obviously very, very unhinged.

  It would be absolutely, literally impossible for our public figures to own responsibility for the chance that something they say might trigger a psychotic person, because it could be ANYTHING. It’s not like the person is just doing fine until someone sets them off. They are set off by their neurochemicals and they seek out things in the world to fit into their delusional system. This guy interpreted “In God We Trust” as the government trying to force God on him. The problem is not with the words; the problem is the brain chemistry that takes things and twists them to fit the delusions.

  An example… I had a very pleasant client who was relatively able to function in the world unless you asked about her family. She firmly believed she was married to Michael Jackson, and they were estranged because “they” were keeping him from her, and he was speaking to her through the lyrics of his songs. He was telling her not to worry, he wasn’t really having an affair with Billie Jean. She was just a girl who said he was the one, but the kid was not his son. He still loved her. So should Michael Jackson have censored his music because a psychotic woman in Florida was using his words to further her delusions? If she’d hurt herself or gone and shot someone named Billie Jean, would Michael Jackson be responsible? Of course not.”

More edits may be added throughout the day if I feel inspired.

ETA, Part 2: A link to Byron York’s fantastic article on the media response to the Arizona shootings can be found under the cut.

Journalists urged caution after Ft. Hood, now race to blame Palin after Arizona shootings
by Byron York @ The Washington Examiner

On November 5, 2009, Maj. Nidal Hasan opened fire at a troop readiness center in Ft. Hood, Texas, killing 13 people. Within hours of the killings, the world knew that Hasan reportedly shouted “Allahu Akbar!” before he began shooting, visited websites associated with Islamist violence, wrote Internet postings justifying Muslim suicide bombings, considered U.S. forces his enemy, opposed American involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan as wars on Islam, and told a neighbor shortly before the shootings that he was going “to do good work for God.” There was ample evidence, in other words, that the Ft. Hood attack was an act of Islamist violence.

Nevertheless, public officials, journalists, and commentators were quick to caution that the public should not “jump to conclusions” about Hasan’s motive. CNN, in particular, became a forum for repeated warnings that the subject should be discussed with particular care.

…

Yellin continued: “And I should point out that Republican leaders in Washington have said that this is not a partisan issue, this is about violence, as have some tea party groups. But clearly this is a moment to talk about our political rhetoric.”

“It certainly is,” Blitzer agreed. “But the question is, is there any evidence that the suspected shooter in this particular case was a Sarah Palin fan, read Sarah Palin’s website, was a member on Facebook, watched her tweets, or anything like that?”

“None at all,” Yellin responded. “And there is no evidence that this was even inspired by rage over health care, broadly. So there is no overt connection between Sarah Palin, health care, and the [shootings].”

Indeed, there is no “overt” or any other sort of connection between Loughner and Palin. If such evidence came to light, it would certainly be news. But without that evidence, and after a brief caveat, the CNN group went back to discussing the theory that Loughner acted out of rage inspired by Palin and other Republicans. Conclusions were jumped to all around.

The double standards the media have employed here are outrageous.

This doesn’t mean much, but it’s a start:

GOP’s First Promise Kept: Cut Congressional Budget
by Louis Jacobson @ PolitiFact

In their Pledge to America, House Republican leaders promised to “make Congress do more with less by significantly reducing its budget.” On Jan. 6, 2011, they took action.

By an overwhelming 410-13 vote, House members approved a binding resolution that would cut the operating budget of member and committee offices by 5 percent, or about $35 million annually.

According to the office of Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, the resolution prohibits any congressional office from spending more than 95 percent of what they were allowed to spend last year. If an office requests more money than that, the House’s Chief Administrative Officer will be directed to disallow the request.

I think the Republicans should do much more than this, but this cut is a drop in the right swimming pool.

*****

In other news, please keep all the victims of the Tucson shooting – including Rep. Giffords – in your prayers.

The mainstream media coverage of this tragedy has been execrable, naturally. Fortunately, Kevin DuJan and the folks at HotAir have been busily shooting down all premature allegations that the shooter is a Tea Partier, so there’s nothing left for me to do. Read the main post at Hot Air here for details.

ETA: I also recommend Michelle Malkin’s post on the shooting.