quote:

I don't know what you mean by "glory",' Alice said.

Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. `Of course you don't -- till I tell you. I meant "there's a nice knock-down argument for you!"'

`But "glory" doesn't mean "a nice knock-down argument",' Alice objected.

`When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, `it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less.'

`The question is,' said Alice, `whether you can make words mean so many different things.'

`The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, `which is to be master -- that's all.'

How can you have a meaningful argument with people who simply have no respect for the meaning of words? And how can those who claim allegiance to those who so disingenuously argue not be insulted, at some point, at the obvious contempt in which they hold their listeners?

I refer to what is perhaps the most amazing stupidity I've heard, and that's saying a lot. I've not commented on the murder of the abortion doctor, the military recruiter, or the guard at the Holocaust Museum. There's nothing I can say that isn't pretty obvious. But when, in order to deny responsibility for fomenting hatred, the right-wing screaming heads argue straightfacedly that the guy who killed that guard is a product of the LEFT wing,, that his actions were facilitated by Barack Obama, it's hard to breathe.

It's an old and ever-present argument: do crazy and/or hateful screeds as emitted by such menti of the non-compis variety, like Hannity, O'Reilly, Limbaugh, et al., whip up the damaged among us and facilitate their acts of violence? On that, I won't weigh in; I think the answer is obvious. Quite aside from the blatant disrespect of their audience, when those guys try to claim the shooter is a leftie, they are implicitly acknowledging a connection between hateful hyperbole and despicable acts. They're just trying to change the subject and object, and doing so in the most Orwellian and laughable ways: up is down, they argue. Black is white. War is peace.

Conservatives: don't you feel insulted? Don't you think you deserve better? If there are arguments to be made, ought they not be offered with at least the tiniest of nods to reality? Or with a sense that their audience are not dumb as doorknobs?

I would have though the election of Obama good news for right-wing commentators; they could have settled down to four years of happily pointing out mistakes and missed opportunities. Success for McCain, on the other hand, would surely have posed them a problem; to stake their claim as the spokespeople for right-wing anti-establishment protest, they'd have had to position themselves to the right of Palin's radical fringe views.

Actually, they seem to have done the latter anyway - 'promoting conspiracy theories in what is supposed to be the mainstream media'. They don't point out Obama's actual failings (and there are surely enough worth comment already), but have dived into a fantasy world of communism, concentration camps and gun confiscation. Why on earth did they all go off the deep end?

'BECK: Yes, sir. OK. So you have seen this. Do you really, honestly believe that we have come to a place to where those very senior people in the highest offices of the land, Congress and the White House, really will not do the right thing in the end, that they won't see the error of their ways?

SCHEUER: No, sir, they will not. Not -- the only chance we have as a country right now is for Osama bin Laden to deploy and detonate a major weapon in the United States. Because it's going to take a grassroots, bottom-up pressure, because these politicians prize their office, prize the praise of the media and the Europeans.

Only -- it's an absurd situation. Again, only Osama can execute an attack which will force Americans to demand that their government protect them effectively, consistently, and with as much violence as necessary.' www.freerepublic.com

The only way the US can be protected against devastating attack is to suffer devastating attack?

Yeah, that's at the top of the list of outrages, lately. Another way of saying what he said: the longer we go without an attack the more it shows we're not being protected.

I really worry about the insanity on the far right. Dissent is one thing. Strenuous disagreement: fine and dandy. But daily, on Fox News and from the mouths of such as Limbaugh, we hear literal calls for violent uprising; unequivocal statements that Obama is committing treason. It's pretty deadly.