Think Progress sees fit to disparage the statement: "Today we remember Rosa Parks’ bold stand and her role in ending racism."

Can you see why this is worth scoffing at, other than that it's a tweet from the Republican National Committee?

First, you have to be enough of a douchebag to act like you don't see that "ending racism" is a process and that a person might have a role in that process even though that role didn't go so far as to entirely complete the process.

And then you have to think, here on the Sunday after Thanksgiving, that it's worth exploiting Rosa Parks for one more opportunity to bray at Republicans. Over nothing!

Utterly pathetic. Show some respect. (Hey, remember "civility"?)

Can I look again?

I had my own personal shutdown for the shutdown. I was unwilling to consume the propaganda — they're losing, they're losers, they're committing suicide — and I'm still afraid to look because I don't want to read the predictable post-mortems — they died, they're dead, they killed themselves. 

I'm just going to add my "civility bullshit" tag to this post, and let it stand in for the blah blah blah I might otherwise scribble here. 

Hey, remember civility?

I remember when liberals were pushing civility in public discourse. I made the tag "civility bullshit" for this topic right away, because I knew it was bullshit, and this morning it seems that everywhere I look on the web, I'm seeing inflammatory rhetoric from liberals. Here are 3 things I happened to see first thing today:

1. "Right-wing nutjobs’ last stand: The debt limit endgame arrives/As the debt limit deadline approaches, conservatives are trotting out the real nonsense. The fantasy is almost over." That's a headline at Salon for an article by Brian Beutler. Apparently, at Salon, they think news analysis is just fine when it calls leaders in the political party they disapprove of "right-wing nutjobs." Does Beutler deserve that presentation? I don't know. Maybe Salon is just fighting for clicks in this crazy world.

2. And here's President Obama, the man who lectured us about civil discourse after the Tucson massacre, talking about the shutdown/debt ceiling problem, and he's using crime as a metaphor: "Think about it this way... The American people do not get to demand a ransom for doing their jobs." Why should we think about it that way? We're supposed to see the Republicans as kidnapping... I don't know... somebody. The Republicans are elected members of Congress, which makes the decisions about spending. They're having a hell of a time getting through this decision, but what makes it crime-like? The comments at that link, which goes to the NYT, pick up the President's cue. One comment — a NYT pick, highly rated by readers —  begins: "President Obama is right. He should not be forced to negotiate with a rope around his neck." Suddenly, the metaphor is lynching.

3. "Will the Supreme Court Allow the Richest Donors to Corrupt American Politics Even More?" That's a front-page teaser at Slate leading to "Poor Little Rich Guys/The Supreme Court clamors to protect the right of Richie Rich, Scrooge McDuck, and the Koch brothers to further corrupt American politics." The article is by Dahlia Lithwick, who's been describing Supreme Court oral arguments for years. She's reporting on yesterday's argument in McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, which is a challenge to the limit on how much a person can donate to various candidates. It's not about how much you can give to any single candidate, just the ceiling on total contributions, when you're spreading money around to many candidates. (The limit is $48,600 every 2 years.) Richie Rich? Scrooge McDuck? Will Slate allow the stupidest bullshit to erode American minds even more?

You know who's also rich? In addition to those characters from comic books that Baby Boomers read when they were children? The owners of the Washington Post and the New York Times. How about a law that puts a ceiling on how much they are allowed to spend putting out their political speech? Poor little rich guys. Boo hoo. Who cares? Fuck them, she said, sarcastically.

"Awful online comments hurt understanding of news, reports local news site filled with awful online comments."

Interview with the UW scientist whose report on the effect of nasty online comments got mocked in The A.V. Report.

I turned my conversation with [Dominique] Brossard to the digital Capital Times....

Her reaction to our plan to scrutinize comments for relevance and taste? “I’m so happy to hear you say this because I’ve been speaking with different people who (think) we should stop allowing comments. I say, look, it’s a great opportunity for us to engage, where well-meaning citizens may have something important to say and can add to the discussion.”

The trick is to figure out who is "well-meaning." Sharp criticism and biting satire should count as "well-meaning." The term we use monitoring comments on this blog — to the extent that we get into the comments, which is always an incomplete process — is "good faith." We get to apply our subjective judgment about that, but it keeps us from drawing the line over notions of "civility." A mainstream newspaper will have trouble being intuitive about the good faith of the very best creative and comical comments, and their monitoring is likely to slide into insipid enforcement of a civil tone, which makes the comments almost pointless. I say almost, because there is some point to the look and the feeling that comments are accepted.

Brossard's "well-meaning" might be the same thing as our "good faith." My commenting instructions  seen above the window where you compose your comments — say:

We value all comments made in good faith. I love different points of view and even edgy modes of expression. What we delete are bad faith comments, comments that we believe have the ulterior motive of destroying the conversation and driving people away from this forum.

Here's the post where I announced the "good faith" standard.

There might be a commenter who impresses us with a clever form of expression, even as he hurls insults. My orientation toward free speech has made me very tolerant of people like that, even when they attack me and the commenters here. I've gone very far defending edgy and harsh expression. That's part of why my new policy is about the good faith/bad faith distinction. That distinction depends on the writer's purpose, and purpose can be hard to discern, especially in clever writers.

Who's missing the point here where Sen. Durbin shouts "you missed that point" at the NRA's Wayne LaPierre?

Here's the video, featured at Talking Points Memo, under the heading, "Durbin Hits Back At NRA’s LaPierre: 'You Missed That Point Completely.'" TPM uses the words "sharply admonished" to characterize the drama in Durbin's voice and notes the "applause from some in the audience."



Full text at the link, but you have to watch the video to understand the incivility of Durbin's tone. Durbin does have a point that LaPierre missed, but why didn't he address LaPierre with respect and invite him to reflect upon the missed point or to refute it he can?

I asked that question out loud, and Meade said, "You're missing the point." 

Of course, Durbin's real point was not that background checks deter criminals from buying guns. The point was to find an opportunity for drama and to seize it. These so-called hearings have little to do with gathering information for the purpose of writing sound legislation. It's political theater to build support for... oh, what difference does it make what they really do as long as they do something?

I ask Meade if I can use his quote in this post, and he says yes, adding that I should let people know that he spoke in a completely civil tone.

Remember the great call for civility that went out — from President Obama and many others — after the Tucson shootings? I've always used the tag "civility bullshit" for that topic, because I never believed that it was intended to apply across the board. Imagine the reaction in the media if LaPierre had used the tone employed by Durbin.

"How the left-wing media lied about Newtown 'hecklers.'"

Shameful.

"Academics Struggle With Managing E-Mail."

Did you just curse out loud? Or are you actually sympathetic with the arduous life of academics?

Meanwhile, Robert Fisk is having trouble with his email. Remember when we used to "fisk" things — when the name "fisk" was a verb like "bork"? I don't see fisking anymore. Did that go out of style on the internet? Am I the first one to notice (and to miss it)? Back in the olden days of blog, we used to cut and paste a whole article and intersperse commentary to produce a long blog post alternating between indented quotes from the fisking victim and unindented attacks from the blogger. If that did indeed go out of style, I'd say it's because it's too easy to do. It's lazy. It could be done really well, but how do readers know this is going to be good? They see the tell-tale signs of fisking — that alternating indenting and unindenting — and they don't bother. The blogger is lazy and the reader is lazy, and suddenly, nothing happens.

Anyway, Fisk's problem with email is a bit more sympathetic than the plight of academics who've simply allowed too many messages to pile up in their in-boxes.

The Islamist cut-throats you sympathise with would gladly slash your pencil neck from ear to ear just because you won’t bow to their bloodthirsty pedophile [sic] prophet.

I think the "[sic]" is there because that's not how you spell "pedophile" in England. Fisk wants something to be done about the scourge of invective. Fisk isn't "sure that anonymous emails kill," but:

Just before Christmas, an Irish minister of state, Shane McEntee, committed suicide after receiving a swath of online hate-mail.

(Will suicides ever be held responsible for the murders they commit?)

Now in the old days, when someone stuffed something abusive in your letter box, you’d be round the cop-shop in no time, brandishing green-ink letters in the face of the station sergeant. Threatening behaviour, at the least. But now, merely to complain about this sort of incendiary material marks you as the oddball....

The cop-shop? Brandishing green-ink letters? I'm sorry, this is all very British. I hope Mr. Fisk survives his terrible struggle with the mail. The academics? The need to quit whining and find the delete key.

Why is it "inhumane" and "idiotic" to question the veracity of the claims that have been made about Hillary Clinton's various medical conditions?

James Carville is saying:

I have no idea what it is about the secretary of state that drives them to this kind of inhumane idiotic behaving state.

Inhumane idiotic behaving state... is an odd way to struggle to make a point. People — like me — who notice the coincidence of this string of medical crises and the interest in avoiding questions about Benghazi are not "behaving." We're speaking. We're not in a "behaving state," whatever that's supposed to mean. We're looking at the information we have, analyzing it, and asking pertinent questions. This is political speech about powerful office holders in the United States of America. I am sick and tired of people who say that if you talk about Hillary's health you are inhumane and idiotic. I feel like yelling that. I want to stand up and say we are Americans and we have a right to question and criticize any politician. I'm saying that out loud and sounding like this:



Clinton supporters are trying to shut down criticism by going hardcore on those of us who are just asking questions. We're being called inhumane on the theory that Hillary's problems are health problems. This accusation of inhumanity is — ironically, outrageously — being used to supervene any humane concerns directed at those who died in the Benghazi attack. I could just as well accuse Carville for going into a kind of inhumane idiotic behaving state whenever anyone suggests that anything other than Hillary's health deserves attention.

It's been said that those of us who ask — merely ask —whether there's some evasion going on here are asserting a conspiracy theory. First, asking is not asserting. Second, the idea that politicians are avoiding questions isn't a conspiracy theory. It's pretty much expecting the most ordinary and predictable sort of human behavior. Third, I can't think of anyone in American politics who is more famous for slapping the label "conspiracy" on something than Hillary Clinton:



And fourth, she was lying! When we're talking about Hillary Clinton, we're not talking about someone with a clean reputation for honesty. Talk about idiotic! It would be idiotic not to probe self-serving statements coming from the Clintons. The more histrionic these shut-up-she's-ill statements become the more suspicious I am. This is an immensely powerful politician who seeks even more power and has a motive to cover up what could be a terribly damaging story about an incident the American people deserve to know about. I'm sick and tired of people who say we can't talk about that, and I'm going to stand up and say we are Americans and we have a right to question and criticize and debate about Hillary Clinton.

ADDED: Wow. Look at this NYT puff piece, crediting Hillary with "indomitable stamina and work ethic" because she went back to work after breaking her elbow. It's not like she continued working without getting it treated. She just went back to work with her arm in a sling while the healing took place. Doesn't everyone do that? (Unless their work requires you to do things with that arm.) I can't imagine if a co-worker came to work during the period of recovery for a broken bone that we'd be saying this is "vivid evidence of... indomitable stamina and work ethic." That's ludicrous!

Toward the end of the article, it says that Clinton still "plans to testify, while still in office" about Benghazi.

“She would have vastly preferred to testify that original date than go through the last 27 days,” said her senior adviser, Philippe Reines. “Only an imbecile would say otherwise,” he added, referring to charges by conservatives that Mrs. Clinton faked her illness to avoid the Congressional questioning.

Only an imbecile! Okay, if that's they way we are going to talk, I'll just say Reines is a.... oh, being a civil woman, I can't say it.

"'Candyass Blogger' Update: Free Speech Absolutists Who Banned Mr. Althouse UPDATE: 'These Are Historical Dildos.'"

I wasn't going to wade into the Loomis lunacy, but that headline caught my eye. I won't even try to summarize the post, by Robert Stacy McCain, other than to say that I read it out loud to Meade and we both laughed a lot and that it contains the phrases "Everest's testicles" and "historical dildos."

As for Loomis, I lean heavily toward academic freedom, freedom of speech, and the comprehension of metaphor, but against the hypocrisy that for purposes of this blog goes under the tag "civility bullshit" and against the appropriation of a child massacre for diversion and propaganda.