Read this One…
Michelle Goldberg published a great piece today, one you’ve got to read. A couple of her quotable quotes:
“Naturally, all this has led to lots of pained disapproval from self-appointed guardians of civility. A Washington Post editorial urged the protesters to think about the precedent they are setting. ‘How hard is it to imagine, for example, people who strongly believe that abortion is murder deciding that judges or other officials who protect abortion rights should not be able to live peaceably with their families?’ it asked.
Of course, this is not hard to imagine at all, since abortion opponents have assassinated abortion providers in their homes and churches, firebombed their clinics and protested at their children’s schools. The Roman Catholic Church has shamed politicians who support abortion rights by denying them communion. The failure to acknowledge this history is a sign of the reflexive false balance that makes it hard for the mainstream media to grapple with the asymmetric extremism of the Republican Party.”
And…
“But unless and until that happens, millions and millions of Americans watch helplessly as the president cages children, dehumanizes immigrants, spurns other democracies, guts health care protections, uses his office to enrich himself and turns public life into a deranged phantasmagoria with his incontinent flood of lies.”
There’s a time for anger – and THIS is it.
“Those who profess to favor freedom,
And yet deprecate agitation
Are men who want crops without plowing the ground
They want rain without thunder and lightning
They want the ocean without the awful roar of its waters
Power concedes NOTHING without demand
It never did. It never will.”
– Frederick Douglass, August 4, 1857
This Administration, criticizes the handicapped, the developmentally disabled, parents of military servicemen who were killed in combat, journalists who are trying to do their jobs, the DOJ, the FBI, teachers… the list is endless. And when people speak out against the endless atrocities perpetrated by the members of this Administration against the ideals of this country enshrined in the Constitution they are called “libertards,” “snowflakes,” and all manner of insults.
If civility is dead, I think we know who broke it.
I’m coming to the conclusion that we can either have civility or civil rights – apparently in Trump’s America we can’t have both.
1I agree. I am tired of the left trying to be polite and having sand kicked in their faces time and time again. I disagree with Michelle’s “when they go low, we go high” – that stuff was seen as weakness and lost us the election. When they go low – we knee-cap them. THAT appeals to authoritarians. Whenever anyone criticizes Olbermann as a jerk – remember that he is OUR angry jerk.
2Send them all to Coventry
3I’m sorry.
But why on Earth do people view civility as a *lack* of defending oneself and/or ans inability to insult one’s opponents. Civility means not using crassness to express oneself (amongst othre things), and limiting responses to within polite speech.
I mean, it isn’t their fault that no one taught them how to best express themselves. Truly, why else would we say “Bless their hearts”?
No one said not to fight back…
4Deb and Cheryl, ladies, you have hit the head on the proverbial nail! And i definitely cannot and will not argue with Frederick Douglas, someone the Golden Gibbon had obviously never heard of.
5