Submitted By Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
The wrath from the right has been scortching ever since VP Joe Biden commented that certain freshman tea party congressmen were acting “like terrorists” in negotiations to raise the debt ceiling. There was equally no love lost when John McClain commented that the tea party freshman were acting as “deceivers” and their ideas were “bizarro.”
Now Tea Party freshman Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.) (No, not the one with the Maserati that goes 185) has produced his own video decrying the incivility and telling us that “Vice President Biden, I’m not a terrorist. Terrorists target and kill people.” You can watch the lament here.
While the language employed by the VP was quite over the top, and especially so given Biden’s challenge to introduce more civility into public discourse, our freshman congressman fails to see the irony of his words. No one suggests the Tea Partiers are calling for mass extinction of liberals or undocumented aliens, or gays or the poor. But what do they want?
Here’s Nevada GOP Senate Tea Party candidate Sharon Angle on the frustration of her comrades:
“I hope that’s not where we’re going, but you know if this Congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking toward those Second Amendment remedies and saying my goodness what can we do to turn this country around? I’ll tell you the first thing we need to do is take Harry Reid out.”
Some Tea Party candidates are a tad less discrete in their call for violence. Here’s Texas Tea Party candidate Stephen Broden, “Our nation was founded on violence. The option is on the table. I don’t think that we should ever remove anything from the table as it relates to our liberties and our freedoms.”
Alaska Tea Party candidate Joe Miller found a lot to like in East Germany’s “checkpoint Charlie” system of stemming the tide of freedom-seekers “immigrating” to West Berlin during the Cold War:
“The first thing that has to be done is secure the border … East Germany was very, very able to reduce the flow. Now, obviously, other things were involved. We have the capacity to, as a great nation, secure the border. If East Germany could, we could.”
And the Tea Party has a thing or two to say to liberals about the notion of any separation between church and state:
“Do you know, where does this phrase ‘separation of church and state’ come from? It was not in Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury Baptists. … The exact phrase ‘separation of Church and State’ came out of Adolph Hitler’s mouth, that’s where it comes from. So the next time your liberal friends talk about the separation of Church and State, ask them why they’re Nazis.” —Glen Urquhart, the Tea Party-backed Republican nominee for the Delaware House seat. You can even watch him here.
And then there’s that “witchy woman,” Delaware’s own Christine O’Donnell, who, when questioned about whether the Constitution calls for separation of church and state during a debate before an audience of legal scholars and law students at Widener University Law School delightfully noted, “You’re telling me that’s in the First Amendment?” Ahems were heard around the world on that one.
New York Tea Party darling Carl Paladino had this suggestion for the poor:
“Instead of handing out the welfare checks, we’ll teach people how to earn their check. We’ll teach them personal hygiene … the personal things they don’t get when they come from dysfunctional homes. These (prisons) are beautiful properties with basketball courts, bathroom facilities, toilet facilities. Many young people would love to get the hell out of cities. You have to teach them basic things — taking care of themselves, physical fitness. In their dysfunctional environment, they never learned these things.”
Then there’s the First Lady of the Tea Party, Michele Bachmann, sharing all the inside dope on what it really means to be gay (no husband jokes, please):
“If you’re involved in the gay and lesbian lifestyle, it’s bondage. It is personal bondage, personal despair and personal enslavement.” — then Minn. state senator Michele Bachmann
There’s scores more and they deal with all manner of insensitivity to the poor, immigrants, the 45000 Americans who die every year from inadequate health care, and just about everyone else the right likes to pillory.
Now most of these quotes were from losers in their electoral races and maybe they represent only the most extreme dunces the Tea Party has produced, but that’s not really the point is it? The point is that while the far-out Right might be justly indignant for the rhetorical excesses of the Left, they can’t seem to find the words to decry the excesses of their own camp.
There’s a word for that.
Source: Huffington Post
~Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
Nal,
Disruptive behavior is when it disrupts others no matter whether it personally disrupts you or not. As a tactic, disruption only succeeds when it is allowed to continue unabated. Ignoring it only mitigates its effects on you personally, not on the forum in general. Our duty as Guest Bloggers extends beyond our duty to self. We are facilitators of conversation. If the choice is between tolerating disruptive posters or allowing them to drive off posters like Otteray Scribe with their tactics – personally impacting an editor or not – then the choice presents a question that answers itself. As I have contended both in public and private all along, in my thinking, the sole relevant issue is the systematic disruption of the forum. The form of the disruptions is irrelevant.
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NoWay,
“Did kderosa have a reasonable expectation that the unpublished information left at this blog every time he posted a comment would be limited to the eyes of JT? I think so.”
Not in the slightest a reasonable expectation. kderosa started posting well after the guest bloggers started contributing. His first post was in fact to an article posted by a guest blogger. You also seem to mistake blog policy as being in the nature of a contractual agreement when it is not. Policy is set at the owner’s discretion and subject to change at the owner’s discretion.
My 1st post, a question, was not meant to divert the conversational flow but is a serious request for info. If you have a thought or care to answer, my e-mail (and it is private and you can disguise yours however you like, that’s expected….)
Wooster[at]privacyharbor[dot]com
[…a service I support and appreciate, privacy harbor is HIPAA compliant] 🙂
/Edited e-mail address to help prevent bots from getting it – Nal.
Sounds much like the teabaggers’ “no new taxes” chant … “no more guest bloggers”.
NoWay:
That information (e-mail and IP addresses) was never published or used to obtain information. I don’t want there to be any misunderstanding of this fact.
The information Mike obtained was via Google and hence, cannot be considered “private” information. It was also information Mike “assumed” applied to kderosa. It was kdrosa that confirmed Mike’s suspicions.
“From a disruptive point of view, there is no difference between blocking someone’s comments and ignoring those comments. I choose the latter.”
Nal,
There is a big difference.Chosing the former makes the moderator the same as the entities we all oppose. No better than the censorship imposed by the Chinese government. No better than the Taliban.
“I shouldn’t have to tell a scientist that a wall will keep out any new informative ideas as well as disruptions”.
Woosty,
I so agree with you. I’d be bored stiff to be in a discussion where everybody generally agrees. It is only through divergent views that we grow intellectually, information-ally and are able to test which of our own premises are faulty.
The way I see it and this is my view…
The initial sole purpose of the attacks was Gene H being a guest blawgger….One person set off in motion various forms of generic attacks….Then they escalated to the point that anyone who posted a different point of view was taken down to the wrestling mat….and held down…..It became every thread of this blawg….I am not saying we all have to get along all of the time…but when just as a kid you were naughty….you got time out….well this looks like one of those times….Am I for a total ban? NO, NEVER….The comments were placed in “moderation” the person, (nom de plumes et al)….became more and more disruptive… I say let the Professor make the final call…..
It is still my opinion that it was aimed solely at Gene H as a guest blawgger which is not to say that if Buddha is Laughing was posting the same result would not have occurred….It was personal….Gene H posting and BIL posting are two separate posters as far as I am concerned….
Mikey, (I assume that you consider that to be the most respectful way to address you, as demonstrated by your usage of “Kenny”.
Whether or not you think a comment is “in good faith” or not is irrelevant to the discussion. It is just the tool you find to be acceptable to justify censorship. Your opponents might arrive at the same conclusion with regard to your comments. I’ve read many of your comments and found them to be shit surrounded by flowers. Above you say that you felt “violated” when someone posted something that identified you or where you lived, or had lived. Yet, you did the same thing to kderosa. (I read that thread. He told you that he could be found, just as apparently you could be found. Should he not also feel violated when you decided that him saying that he could be found turned into you posting what you found on this blog?) Can you show us where kderosa invited you to post what you found on this blog? The answer is no. You took what you found and decided that you would use it. That wasn’t nice and it was vengeful.
Did kderosa have a reasonable expectation that the unpublished information left at this blog every time he posted a comment would be limited to the eyes of JT? I think so. I think his outrage is justified, not only because of his reasonable expectation that the information would not be published, but that the information would be shared would not be shared with those who had the same expectation.
History demonstrates how those expressing opposition have been silenced because their expression of what was taking place was considered to be disruptive. Put the women in veils. The vision of their faces is disruptive. The picketers are disruptive. I could go on, but I think I have made my point.
If I have pearned anything form JT it is that he values free speech more than anything else. Maybe the guest bloggers efforts at censorship will show him how poor a decision he has made.
I believe lottakatz summed up the dangers of this situation quite well in her post at 11:59 pm last night on this thread.
Personally, I think the solution (if one wants to have a substantive discussion – which I do) is a private forum – at least until technology improves enough to weed out disruptions. I applaud JT’s stance on free speech, but sometimes (if you want to get something done) speech has to be protected by a wall – away from prying eyes and insidious words.~Slarti
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!
from you?
I shouldn’t have to tell a scientist that a wall will keep out any new informative ideas as well as disruptions. Petri dishes are made to grow things in isolation….they are sterile. They are effective in the chain of events regarding infection…politically they look like fascist machinary that exists to ‘clean up’ everything that threatens the status quo. A political petri dish is Tienenman Square. It is the statue of Saddam Hussein being pulled down in Iraq at the behest of the off camera ‘directors’. It is why we need to read this http://uclalawreview.org/?p=364 and understand that even a blog is an assembly that is guaranteed free speech rights and nastiness can and does sometimes rise to levels beyond acceptance but that teaching civility is not the same as teaching secrecy. 🙁
We are always stronger than the little gnats that bite incessently…they are not saying, they are looking for food.
“Disruptive behavior” is only disruptive if one lets it be disruptive.
From a disruptive point of view, there is no difference between blocking someone’s comments and ignoring those comments. I choose the latter.
“I have no desire to post here in the future. No doubt the regulars will be happy about that.”
NoWay,
I’m not happy about that. To me though, the persons in question were not dealing in good faith, as I think you are. The problem is with anonymous commenters, the opportunity to assume many roles and raise a cacophony of disruption is endless without some sort of moderation.
Elaine,
Mazel Tov and joy again on the impending birth. The pictures were great. As you know she, her husband and I share the same profession.
I have to agree with Nal.
After working my way through the comments, it becomes very clear that kderosa and Byron is Laughing were expressing their opposition to giving the Guest Bloggers access to information that would otherwise remain unpublished or private. Their opposition is bolstered by giving Gene H. (or Buddha is Laughing), the most consistent and worst offender of the civility policy at this blawg, that access.
The result is that the people who expressed their opposition, to what is a clearly demonstrable violation of their expected privacy, are now being censored. The excuse is that their comments are disruptive.
You might not like what they were saying, but they made a valid point. When people are placed in lock-up (real or virtual) simply because they are trying to make a point, it is always because they are being disruptive. Be it at this blog, or in Iran, or anywhere else; efforts to silence those who claim to be wronged, or say what you don’t want to hear, is always supported by the same excuse.
You may as well block/moderate me too. I have no desire to post here in the future. No doubt the regulars will be happy about that.
Mespo,
Thank you for reminding me of the whole Patty C. controversy. I was really sorry to see Patty go. I liked her thoughts and her ideas and her manner.
You an she, unlike me, were among the originals here and it was the two of you who made me feel welcome in the first place.
“Roco, in this forum “disrupting” obviously means disagreeing with the most uncivil of the regular posters. There’s no way around it. The take ofense at any disagreement and start in with personal attacks.”
Kenny,
You lie. It’s all in the definition of personal attacks. For instance calling me a socialist or communists or collectivist IS a personal attack. I know much more about them then you do. I’ve known many and we all shared a mutual dislike and I reject the philosophies as much as I reject your faulty definitions of same. Regarding me “outing” you I did so at your instigation and your request. It was your suggestion I use Google and I did. It is typical though of your dishonesty that you would turn around and imply the following:
“spinwell has already posted my personal details so you are late to the game.”
You and I know and the record of the background shows it was in response to your inviting me to Google kderosa, which I did. Not in my using any site information in my capacity of guest blogger.
“The guest posters are, for the most part, too overtly and monotonically political and partisan in their posts.
Kderosa, I completely agree. The audience for that kind of message is already well established over at ThinkProgress.”
Puzzling,
Please, really? Give me a Republican I can support in 2012 and she/he’s got my vote. I’m not the partisan you make me out to be. Neither is Mark, nor Gene, nor Elaine, nor Raff, nor Mike A. and certainly not David. You present an opposing viewpoint here that is certainly a consistent one, yet i wouldn’t call you partisan either, though we disagree on much. Nor would I ever want to see you banned because of your viewpoint. That is because you come by your opinions honestly and never try to disrupt, only to advocate for them. That is what this site is about, civil discussion
This is really the problem going on here. There are some that come here merely to disrupt any coherent discussion and that judgment is made not on the basis of one thread, but on a pattern across the board. Examine thread by thread and you will see this pattern in KD, who never directly addresses the positions of the particular posting but always tries to divert it to side issues.
Once diverted the original concept is never dealt with again. Whether you agree or disagree with my guest blogs is immaterial to me because all I’m trying to do is generate an interesting topic for discussion. That is how I see my role. That I’ve sometime been drawn into debate of my own posting is a fault I must admit to and I am really trying to hold back the impulse, but sometimes I’ve failed. Since you’ve been commenting here for some time now you must admit that when I make a mistake, or insult someone wrongly, I am the first to unequivocally apologize.
However, I would think you have the same integrity. To think of Mark for instance as a partisan Leftist is disproved by the voluminous comments he has made here, long before I began commenting. Gene is no partisan Democrat, though he is committed to democracy. To be honest I really don’t know what David’s politics are except that he strongly believes in Civil Liberties. Mike A. is hardly partisan, Raff and Elaine also shift their viewpoints based on situations, rather than party lines.
To think of this site as similar to ThinkProgress is not only contrary to the facts of the matter, but also does it a disservice. This site is about and welcomes diversity of viewpoint. However, at times lately it is also about people who are serving another agenda, working hard to disrupt the site and in the process turn off new participants. This is a disinformation attack that matches the patterns set by Lee Atwater, Karl Rove and Grover Norquist. To utilize the beliefs that generated Jonathan Turley’s career and thus this website against it, is despicable and some defense should be available.
You may notice that across the many threads on which we have disagreed on many topics, I have never commented on your anonymity. That is specifically because you have never comported yourself disruptively or dishonestly, so while we strongly disagree on much, I’ve always respected your right to your opinions.
Also, HenMan (etal…),
hahahahahahaha! thanks for that!
Congratulations, in advance, Elaine M. (Naomi Shihab Nye is a favorite author of mine.)
Can I get you to all stop pinching each other in the tits and kicking in each other in the nether-regions to see who is most un-outtable in their deceits, long enough to get an opinion of someone who may or may not be involved (legitimately) in the legal system (and not yet corrupted by same…) to a possibly very important question? [and I miss BIL, who always seemed to be posting gut honestly and not to be the initiator of nasties tho I wouldn’t care to cross him if avoidable….].
The question is, does having your brake line cut , in a long line of targeted criminal/malicious events, rise to the ‘witness intimidation’ level as defined by legal or law enforcement people? And;
If you live in Florida, and this has been going on for quite awhile, and the other parties involved in the brouhaha ARE of the legal community…what do you suggest to counter and end the terrorism?