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Me#1You#10
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Joined: 06 May 2004
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 Posted: Wed Jun 14, 2006 9:01 am Post subject: The American Spectator - LTTE: "Do Manners Matter" |
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I happened to catch this reader response to another reader's observations on Ann Coulter and her recently published book. It is so well-crafted that I thought it worthy of note...bravo Mr. Fallert.
| Quote: | Reader Mail
Targeted Responses
Published 6/14/2006
Re: "Judgments" letters in Reader Mail's Enjoying Ann Coulter and "Annie Got Her Gun" letters in Reader Mail's Fearful Liberalism:
DO MANNERS MATTER?
James Jenkins, "100% Disabled U.S. Navy Veteran," wrote that, "There are enemies of democracy-as-we-know-it out there, and they are not these four women (the Jersey Girls)."
I disagree, even at the risk of perhaps being judged by Mr. Jenkins as insensitive to his ordeal. I'm not insensitive to it; I thank him for his service and sacrifice. I just think all of that is irrelevant to his argument, in which he is mistaken.
The point that Ms. Coulter makes, at least to me, is that political discourse is perverted when objective debate is forbidden. That's the whole point of political correctness, in whatever guise it rears its ugly head. Those who lack the rational basis to carry the day on any issue seek to prevent its discussion from being encumbered by rationality. Instead, they seek to occupy a moral high ground from which they may make specious pronouncements and consider the matter closed. If anyone dare challenge the pronouncements by means of reasoned thought, the challenger is dismissed as rude or insensitive, and the rational challenge goes unaddressed, which is the goal from go.
It dismays me to see so many letter writers take Ms. Coulter to task for re-stating in her tart way this simple and obvious truth. After so many years of having the political forum in this country defined by whether or not any given argument is "insensitive" to minorities or women or whomever, it's no surprise that the intellectually bankrupt left can now set up Cindy Sheehan and the Jersey Girls as sacred cows whose pronouncements have the gravamen of revelations from Olympus. Hey, Jesse Jackson has made a great living at it for decades and all he did was be black (discounting his claimed role at the death of Martin Luther King). Hillary Clinton, who suffered so at the hands of her cad of a husband, despite herself being a vicious political in-fighter and all around meanie, still reaps the political benefits of Bill's indiscretions.
Is it any wonder that conservative principles can't seem to get any traction in Washington? Even many readers of TAS, who presumably harbor and even cultivate rational thoughts, can't seem to bear to see the delicate sensibilities of these sacred cows offended by challenges to their vacuousness. These women have no more bona fides with regard to the war on terror (of the conduct of which I am no fan, by the way) than any other soccer mom or dad (or me), but they trade on their celebrity to gain a bully pulpit, with the essential connivance of the glaringly socialist MSM. The Democrats and the MSM trot these women out like tanks ahead of infantry to effectively disarm the thoughtful but politically correct, who won't fire on them at all, even in these safe pages. Ann Coulter is vilified for bringing to bear a laser guided, hypocrisy-seeking rocket launcher against these tanks. That conservatives not only allow this travesty of debate to go on, but try to frag Ms. Coulter doesn't speak well for the future of the conservative cause.
These four women are indeed the enemies of democracy as we have known it. They and others like them daily dumb down political debate by substituting subjectivity for objectivity. This nation was not founded, nor did it rise to greatness, by elevating feelings above thinking. Feelings are capable of being addressed by the thoughtful, as thought is a synthetic process, but feelings lack this encompassing quality, being utterly personal. Now that the PC police have been allowed to stake out the moral high ground and invalidate those whose feelings purportedly fail to meet their claimed lofty standards, it's impossible to challenge anyone whose feelings have been put in play without being vilified as Ms. Coulter now is.
If someone wants to put their feelings in play, I say let them be in play for all purposes. If someone chooses to hold their grief privately and experience it according to their own lights, let them do so unmolested. As far as I can see, the thousands of people brought to grief by 9/11 and the war in Iraq who have chosen the latter course remain safe from assault by Ann Coulter.
I suggest that conservatives not surrender the moral high ground to politically correct charlatans based upon their bleatings and blusterings of hurt feelings and indignation. Don't let them define the parameters of the debate, or we'll see even more of our elected leaders tucking tail and running from principled but hard positions. The road will be smoothed for the ascendance of more John Kerrys, and John McCain will find yet more common ground with Ted Kennedy on the road to national destruction.
Demand accountability from those who enter public debates or dismiss them as frauds. All of this can be done without damage to the legitimate sensibilities of those who've endured hardship or suffering.
-- Mark Fallert
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
The American Spectator |
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shawa
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Joined: 03 Sep 2004
Posts: 2004
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| Posted: Wed Jun 14, 2006 12:51 pm Post subject: |
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I read this letter at TAS earlier this morning and I too thought it was excellent. My sentiments exactly.
Thanks, Me#1, for posting it
_________________
“I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. ‘Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.” (Thomas Paine, 1776) |
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