The Rintrah Perspective

“Liberals don’t believe there is such a thing as “fact” or “truth.” Everything is a struggle for power between rival doctrines.” — Ann Coulter

I loathe politics but, as Sun Tzu said “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer,” I follow and study politics. I do not, admittedly, keep totally up to date but what I do try is to understand the opinions and ideas of those around me. I may or may not be very good at this but I do try to get into the head of the person I am talking to. That is the only way that any progress can be made in understanding real-life scenarios. It is unlikely that another Hitler will rise up, yet I understand the argument for sustaining the military. However, I whole-heartedly disagree. There are other methods.

In a conversation I had, a former soldier told me how disappointed he was to see so few poppies being worn and how disrespectful that was. I asked him what he would have thought about my grandfathers who were Conscientious Objectors during WWII. He called them “pussies.” I told him that if I wore a poppy then I would be disrespecting their memory. He maintained that they were “pussies.” To which I retorted that my grandfathers were taking a stand that they believed in (for religious reasons) and the soldiers fighting were doing the same. How can one be called a pussy and one not? The one who is fighting is, in a sense, taking the easy way out. The thing is, I understand the urge to meet deadly force with deadly force yet I do not feel that those that use this force are right. I also do not feel that those who use or advocate for the use of this force even try to understand the dynamics of their enemy outside the arena of tactical warfare. But here I will digress. The issue of war is symptom of a problem but not the cause itself. [Interestingly my friend told me that his grandfathers did everything they could to keep from going to war, including breaking one of their legs.]

Ann Coulter is the problem. Or, more correctly, Ann Coulter is the physical manifestation of the problem. While she may not be the devil herself, she very well may be the spawn. The issue with Ann is not her devilish looks (good or bad depending on your sensibilities) but rather her rhetoric. Throughout her site she spews rhetoric which neither helps prove a point or to disprove another.

Her preferred weapon is using attacking words in an attempt to prevent herself from being on the defensive. In her November 23rd post she takes on the so-called “liberal” Democrats for the disparity between their public statements and their voting habits. While this may be a meaningful exercise, her habit of using empty words like “treason” and “traitor” makes her akin to a Tony Little workout. “Technique Technique Technique.” Worthless, meaningless and futile not to mention redundant. [I hope you remember those infomercials.] Coulter and Little will not be able to shave any liberal or fat off your ass.

The problem is that Coulter continually tries to remind people that she can be a bitch. She is an angry individual who does not appear to like to stop and think out side the Pentagon-box. Coulter, on her site, calls for the infamous “liberals” to produce one person unjustly charged by Joseph McCarthy. It appears that as long as this never happens McCarthy is justified and her streak of correctness will remain unbroken. The problem with this proposal, though, is that McCarthy’s rules for charging someone were defined by McCarthy and, therefore, it would be impossible to produce such an individual. That is the same problem with Coulter. She defines her own rules (we all do to some extent) and she will not be able to be proven wrong unless she is willing to place her own ideology on the chopping block.

I am not asking her, or anyone else like her, to be fair or egalitarian. Lord knows that I am not even here on my own forum. What I am asking for is to drop the rhetoric. If you are so right in all you believe then just once be willing to admit you are wrong. Beliefs are not like a house of cards. It is possible to be wrong on the Iraq war but still right about the economy, McCarthy, religion, and GWBush. It is possible to have an America where someone can criticise the Commander in Chief but still believe in the office of the President. It is possible to make a mistake here or there and still maintain your principles.

Coulter claims McCarthy is misunderstood (not in those words but the premise is there) and that E R Murrow’s good friend was a Soviet spy. She is on the offensive trying to defend McCarthy. If she can attack the friend of someone who has grown into a sort of liberal icon then she can get the icon itself. In the same way it appears that if Bush is attacked then it is her that is being attacked. Her ideals, beliefs and understanding of the world around her. This is a huge fallacy in reason. Bush could go on TV tomorrow and state that he lied about the reasons to go into Iraq, Rove and Cheney could volunteer the information that they leaked Plame’s identity and they all step down from their positions yet Coulter would remain Coulter. And, for Coulter at least, that is a good thing. But it does not look like that is how she and other rhetoric giants see things. It is all or nothing.

But the main issue with Coulter is that she uses the words “left” and “liberal” throughout her diatribes. While I do not have an issue with these words themselves it is the tone and baggage that she attaches to them. There is no one person she is directing these words to. Simply stated, she is pointing fingers at all those who, on one point or another, is to the left of Reagan. Or the person is a democrat. But she is vague in many of her accusations. She does not engage in conversations or debates she cannot win on her own terms and she refuses to admit that there are areas in which she may be wrong.

I believe there is a truth out there that can be believed in. But the only way to discern that truth is to take time to discover it. All the hate in the world for things you disagree with will not help the truth to be distilled. It is only through the dialogue between competing doctrines that this can be discovered. My hate is not for the physical-manifestation of rhetoric that is Ann Coulter. It is for the rhetoric itself. I fear that if I killed rhetoric then Ann Coulter’s frozen heart would melt and the Bush Administration would die. Except for Cheney whose heart will beat forever because of the pace-maker. And Rove, whose darkness keeps him alive.

I have a theory about Ms Coulter. There is no way someone could have as much hate as she does for something as vague as a “liberal.” I can only speculate that she manufactured this hate but then became so wrapped up in it that there was no turning back. But now that she is such a mega-star (touring with Prussian Blue??) she and her copy-and-paste jargon and broken rhetoric are something to be dealt with. The thing is that she appears to think something similar about the “liberals.” I say she does not discuss without screaming and seething. She say the same about the liberals. I figure when she opens her mouth her brain is taking a shit.

Some Links
The Best Quotes From Ann Coulter’s ‘Slander’ – selected by Coulter (I believe)
Some Coulter Quotes
Ann Coulter voodoo Doll
A Review of Her book Slander
Coulter – Evil or Stupid (well written article)
A Conservative against Coulter
More Coulter Quotes

Unless she does or says something incredibly stupid I hope to never mention her again here.