Brent Nyitray
Fairlington Blade
Let the mutherfuker burn!
jnc4p
Kevin S. Willis
Michigoose
lmsinca
markinaustin
Arcanaut
novahockey
quarterback
ScottC
yellojktLike the poor, put-upon Pastor Manning (follow link at your own risk, dude is one Obama-hating trip; he’s like the Rev. Wright’s Evil Twin), Fox News thinks Media Matters should be investigated regarding their tax-exempt status.
[redaction–couldn’t embed Mediaite player, go watch it over there, I guess]
And . . . Media Matters tax-exempt status may face new scrutiny from Congress.
According to Rush Limbaugh, Tucker Carlson is actually Chatsworth T.Osborne, Jr.
And is Fox News working with Tucker Carlson on this vicious smear campaign?
If Tucker Carlson is pulling this all out of his ass and their t’ain’t nuthin’ to it, why hasn’t Media Matters corrected the story?
In the meantime, The Daily Caller has launched an all out assault on MM, with such pieces as these Interesting Nuggets from Media Matters 2010 Tax Records and this bit about Media Matters taking a donation to expand monitoring and fact checking (shouldn’t that be faith checking?) of religious broadcasts.
Happy Thursday, all!
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: Media, media matters, the daily caller, tucker carlson |
All Things in Moderation 
David Brock and Media Matters have a book coming out next week highly critical of Fox News which purportedly documents how Fox News gins ups issues and makes the rest of the media follow suit.
The lightly-sourced Tucker Carlson hit pieces on Media Matters (an organization I have no love for) are practically case studies in this method.
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I think it’s pretty clear that Fox News gins up issues. As far as “making” the other media follow suit, I think that’s their choice. They are pursuing the ratings. Controversy!
The lightly-sourced Tucker Carlson hit pieces on Media Matters
Clearly, The Daily Caller is on the warpath against Media Matters. At to the light sourcing, it doesn’t seem (to me) especially lighter than much of this stuff. I doubt the sourcing will turn out to be an issue (the accusations, as to what a few people in the organization expressed an interest in doing, seem credible, to me). It’s more a matter of what does it mean? Media Matters didn’t like Fox News, and wanted to show them what-for? Color me astonished!
That a person at MM may have gone “too far” in blue-skying ideas to take down The Great Fox News satan? Well, if every organization was held accountable for what every idiot set at every committee meeting . . . 😉
Also, I would note, most material that passes for news these days is no better sourced, in fact often completely unsourced, so that modifier is like describing the pieces as “Tucker Carlson’s word-using hit pieces are being constructed with these so-called ‘letters'”. What is clear is that TheDC has declared war on Media Matters, and I’m kind of curious as to why. There are lots of left-leaning advocacy groups to go after. Who offended Tucker at a cocktail party?
Remember Journo-list? Tucker dismissed it with a pish-poss and a wave of his pinky, but Tucker had asked to be included in Ezra Klein’s Super Secret He-Man Liberal-Lovers club, and he was rejected while David Weigel, who was pretending to be right-leaning, was embraced with open arms. Tucker immediately offered good money for content from the list, and immediately tried to spin what he got in the most damaging way possible. ‘Cuz someone hurt his feelings.
Of course, it helped that a few of the folks on the Journ-o-List said some boneheaded things.
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Tucker’s beef with JournOList clearly colors his opinion. That whole incident just rang of high school petulance over being (it seems rightly) excluded from the Kool Kidz Klub because they knew he would blab to the principal on them.
The Daily Caller stories are so transparently him carrying water for Roger Ailes that it is funny to watch. Particularly ironic are the accusations of WaPo columnists and bloggers (and we know which one) being stenographers for Media Matters when that is exactly what Carlson is doing for Fox.
Again, this is all a case of Ailes using his backdoor channels to salt the earth in advance of an expose about his network. If anything, this could backfire. He should Google ‘Streisand Effect.”
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The Daily Caller stories are so transparently him carrying water for Roger Ailes that it is funny to watch. Particularly ironic are the accusations of WaPo columnists and bloggers (and we know which one) being stenographers for Media Matters when that is exactly what Carlson is doing for Fox.
Is there any evidence for either thing? I’m a long time believer in the fellow traveler theory: people do and say things that are in agreement with someone else not because they are puppets or stenographers, but because they agree with those people and think a long similar lines.
Fox apparently picked up the story from TheDC, so in this case it would be Fox being a stenographer for TheDC . . . which could be another motivation, as breaking the story gets a lot of coverage for TheDC on Fox, and both TheDC and Brand Tucker Carlson™ could use the national exposure.
I seriously doubt Ailes is worried about any sort of expose about his network. It’s going to take a lot more than David Brock to put a dent in Fox News, the ratings, or the overall Fox Money Machine.
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Although I say (about Ailes) because, if I were in his position, I wouldn’t worry. It’s always possible he’s vulnerable, but the Empire never worries about one little tiny uncovered exhaust port on the dark side of their invincible battle station.
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I’m on the Media Matters e-mail list (as well as American Spectator, Commentary, and several others) and this is an excerpt from a recent one promoting their new book:
If you buy into MM’s theory, Carlson’s Daily Caller stories are Step 1 and Fox’s picking up of the story is Step 2.
Short of a smoking gun memo, nobody can ever prove what possessed Tucker to do nearly a dozen stories on Media Matters within a week of The Fox Effect coming out, but that is the stuff that fuels conspiracy theories.
Here is one more teaser from a The Fox Effect promo e-mail:
It will be interesting to see what mainstream media coverage of the book will be like when it comes out.
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“Tucker’s beef with JournOList clearly colors his opinion. That whole incident just rang of high school petulance over being (it seems rightly) excluded from the Kool Kidz Klub because they knew he would blab to the principal on them. ”
No one in that incident came off looking good.
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No one in that incident came off looking good.
Concur. What did Benjamin Franklin say about keeping secrets? That cabal was too large to ever not be exposed. Never put in e-mail what you don’t want on the front page of the New York Times.
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Remember on the PL when a buncha commenters wrote that the media and its content should be regulated by the government? That was a hilarious thread! God does FOX drive some on the left buggy. MSNBC drives some on the right apesh#t but at least people watch FOX.
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Who will wear the fair and balanced moniker? Who indeed is the ‘truthiest’? I don’t know why but for some reason, this reminds me of the quote from the movie “The Sting” where Robert Shaw’s character has this retort after losing at a poker game where he had the game fixed:
Floyd: Doyle, I KNOW I gave him four THREES. He had to make a SWITCH. We can’t let him get away with that.
Doyle Lonnegan: What was I supposed to do – call him for cheating better than me, in front of the others?
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Mirror Mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?
Some intrepid MM employee needs to remake that Snow White scene with Roger Ailes face on the witches’ cartoon body and with the Mirror’s response as “Media Matters”.
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” Who will wear the fair and balanced moniker? Who indeed is the ‘truthiest’?”
Its a tossup between the Daily Show & Newshour.
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FYI, from Plum Line:
“jondenunzio
5:01 PM EST
@jnc4p: Thanks!! Fixed it. Ugh.
Re: “Ignore,” it won out and will be the first improvement the devs tackle. I’m not sure how long it will take, but hopefully not too long.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/is-birth-control-fight-a-terry-schiavo-moment/2012/02/16/gIQAmYbFIR_blog.html
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STEP 1: Conservative activists introduce a lie.
How to market a tell-all expose. STEP 1: Preach Exclusively to the Choir.
I mean, couldn’t it be that sometimes conservative activists are just introducing an issue? Is it always a lie?
Are there liberal activists who introduce lies, or try to follow the same pattern? Could Brock be doing it? It may not be as relevant, given there is no left-wing media organization on the scale of Fox.
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BTW, this is going to have to stand as bits & pieces tonight, unless somebody else comes up with something. Busy, busy, all the days!
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Bless my buttons, PL is going to get an “ignore” button. And Jon is excited about it after, about 6 months ago, when I provided a thoughtful explanation about the how and why of an “ignore” feature, he gave me the corporate f**k you: “thanks for your input, but we’re really smart, we’ve got this all handled.”
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Don’t push your buttons before they are coded.
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I mean, couldn’t it be that sometimes conservative activists are just introducing an issue? Is it always a lie?
To answer your questions: Yes. No. And I don’t think yelo’s post implied otherwise. If yelo had said “issue” instead of “lie” it would have applied more broadly and arguably been more objectionable.
I think those steps are very accurate and apply to media outlets from both sides of the political spectrum.
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Step One: Mischaracterize a House Oversight and Government Reform hearing on Constitutional questions as a “contraception hearing”
Step Two: Tell your media partners you will be walking out in outrage due to lack of distaff expert Constitutional witnesses discussing “the right to contraception” which does not exist in aforementioned foundational document. Media partners write story prior to actual walkout.
Step Three: Walkout, jog purposefully, strut digustingly, hit the highway, walk out twice, or in Ms. Holmes case please keep walking until you reach Toronto, and Occupy said city, please.
Step Four: Media partners flood the zone with every iteration possible to the diseased mind as to the cast of women hating women haters who are by definition male unless you are Bill Clinton or, lets say, John Conyers, or, I don’t know, Eliot Spitzer.
http://www.memeorandum.com/
Step Five: Have Ms. Pelosi, an actual Catholic-ish Nun, hit a Bishop with a used gavel. Claim she was attacked first by an albino that was wearing the same color of collar as the bishop. Discuss event on Sunday morning with Dave Gregory.
Step Six: Mr. Obama invites Ms. Pelosi and albino for a beer.
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tao9,
Bless your fancy fingers! That first step sounds like liberal activist telling a lie. Well, we know who David Brock will be going after next!
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OT (but do not find a better thread for this):
Anti-abortion personhood bill clears Oklahoma senate. It resoundingly passed the OK Sen and undoubtedly will pass OK House by a wide margin. From the article, “The bill offers no exceptions in the case of a pregnancy resulting from rape or incest and could mean some forms of contraception such as the “morning after pill” would be unavailable, [Martha Skeeters, president of the Oklahoma Coalition for Reproductive Justice] said. “Doctors who perform in vitro fertilization procedures also will be unlikely to continue for fear of prosecution, she added.”
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I’m sure a hearing that only presented the side that claims even with the compromise it’s still an infringement on religious freedom and neglected to invite other Catholic organizations or legal scholars that happen to agree with the compromise, will totally be able to reach a fair and equitable decision. And of course it has nothing to do with women’s healthcare or anything like that. And just today at a hearing in NH on the issue we discovered that birth control pills cause prostate cancer……..who knew?
Again, sorry for yet another drive by, but sometimes I can’t let this stuff just sit there without a response, no matter how crappy I feel.
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okie
OK accomplished what CO and MS couldn’t with their voters. I guess the lesson is don’t put it before the public. Wow.
Nite all.
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lms, hope you feel better soon
niters
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If yelo had said “issue” instead of “lie” it would have applied more broadly and arguably been more objectionable.
Those are Media Matters’s words, not mine. I report, you decide.
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I have a couple of things this morning. Number one I read this piece regarding Santorum, which is basically an attempt to discover where he truly fits on the conservative continuum by examining, among other things, the book he wrote a few years ago, “It Takes A Family”.
This gets close to the Santorum paradox. On one level, he is a thoughtful conservative, wearing his erudition on his sleeve, bragging in his book about working with Senate Democrats (even Ted Kennedy and Hillary Clinton) to sponsor legislation that tried to achieve liberal goals through conservative institutions like the church and traditional families. But then, a few pages later, Santorum goes all fire and brimstone as he writes: “Conservatives trust families and the ordinary Americans that are formed by them. Liberals don’t. They border on disdain for the common man.”
That is an indefensible passage, both inflammatory and untrue. No one in American politics opposes a father and a mother guiding their children through the vicissitudes of life. In similar fashion, it is ludicrous to believe that a political party can thrive for decades while disdaining the common man and average voters. By writing lines like this, Santorum was pandering to the worst excesses of the right wing’s liberals-hate-America mythology. It would have been one thing if It Takes a Family were a campaign tract designed to score cheap political points. But Santorum wants to establish his credentials as a Serious Thinker rather than to emulate the prose style of, say, Ann Coulter.
If Santorum defeats Romney on Feb. 28 in the Michigan primary, the former senator in a sweater vest will become the frontrunner for the 2012 Republican nomination. Often ignored and belittled as he persisted in his quixotic quest to appeal to social conservatives before narrowly winning the Iowa caucuses, the under-funded Santorum will have seized the lead without most national Republican voters having taken his full measure.
A careful reading of It Takes a Family compounds the puzzle. Is Santorum an underrated conservative intellectual willing to wrestle with ideas and follow them to surprising conclusions? Or is he a political arsonist who hurls anti-family invective at liberal Democrats and issues jeremiads against gay marriage? Who is Rick Santorum? That’s the biggest mystery in presidential politics.
Some of this speaks to issues I have with the stereotypical caricatures of liberals in general and liberal women in particular. None of us likes to be pigeon holed, and from my perspective I try not to do that to my conservative friends, I think it’s unfortunate when a man running for the highest office perceives either half the population that is women, or 1/3 (or whatever it is) of the population that is liberal with such disdain.
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None of us likes to be pigeon holed, and from my perspective I try not to do that to my conservative friends, I think it’s unfortunate when a man running for the highest office perceives either half the population that is women, or 1/3 (or whatever it is) of the population that is liberal with such disdain.
But you can’t deny that your candidates regularly do the same thing, can you?
Good heavens, what is all this “war on women” hullabaloo? Bitterly clinging to guns and religion?
Selfish people who got theirs and don’t care about anyone else?
Trying to impose their religion?
I’m quite certain that Obama, Reid, and Pelosi all despise me. I got that message long ago. Howard Dean made it clear by saying I am evil, and that he hates me.
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But then, a few pages later, Santorum goes all fire and brimstone as he writes: “Conservatives trust families and the ordinary Americans that are formed by them. Liberals don’t. They border on disdain for the common man.”
There’s a reason why politicians on both sides do this (which is paint a picture of their opposite number that members of that opposite number find inaccurate and foolish), and that’s because that’s how many of their constituents feel they are regarded by the other side. And the fact is, any individual can cherry pick any number of out-of-context comments from any number of pundits or politicians that justify their opinion.
Santorum may do well in many of the primaries, but he isn’t going to be the next president. Indeed, none of the Republicans are likely to beat Obama.
I think it’s unfortunate when a man running for the highest office perceives either half the population that is women, or 1/3 (or whatever it is) of the population that is liberal with such disdain.
Well, there you get to the heart of the problem. It’s one thing to say it seems Rick Santorum has disdain for liberals, or women (this may be accurate or not, but one can reasonably make a fairly accurate determination for themselves). It’s another to say conservatives want America to fail or liberals hate America. There probably is a conservative out there, by any reasonable measure, that wants America to fail. There probably is a liberal or three out there that just outright hate America. As a group, I’d say most leftists I’ve interacted with not only hate America, but just hate the West, generally—or hold it in disdain. But I’m sure there are some leftists out there that love America, just thinks we need to be electing communists. 😉
It’s those group assignations. When people say, or suggest, that a group I’m a member of is is all these bad things, you lose me, straight away. And I think you lose anybody who is a member of that group, because it’s clear, to them, that you’re wrong about the group (I should know, I’m a member!) or you just lack understanding or you simply know nothing about us so you have no grounds upon which to base your slanderous allegations . . .
Do conservatives really trust the families and ordinary Americans in Vermont? Or Berkley? I don’t think that’s a global assertion that can be made.
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And number two. My husband and I had a freak accident last weekend while working in our warehouse. He was up on a ladder and I was handing him boxes to store on the highest shelf when he came crashing down on top of me. I don’t actually remember it as I was knocked unconscious and he barely remembers it, I think because he was panic stricken that he’d finally killed me…….lol.
Long story short, he now has some hardware in his upper leg to patch a break, I have a funny little crack in my skull that will apparently heal on it’s own and quite a few stitches in my arm. Anyway, if you happen to see me in public, I’ll be the one hiding behind the really large sunglasses and baseball cap, I wouldn’t want to scare the little kiddies away. I’m downright frightening to look at, thank God it’s only temporary, haaaaahaaaaa.
I only mention this because I’m trying to figure out if I should post any comments or not as I feel a little discombobulated still. If I’m not making any sense, more so than usual Scott, let me know and I’ll try to clarify. I’ll probably be a little scarce until my husband gets back on his feet (literally), but thought I’d still try to participate occasionally. Reading back on the couple of comments I have made this week I’m not sure if I haven’t been feeling the effects of the entire episode a little more than I realized…….sorry if I came across as someone other than my usual diplomatic and charming self………. 😉
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OK accomplished what CO and MS couldn’t with their voters. I guess the lesson is don’t put it before the public. Wow.
As California learned with Prop. 8 . . . best of luck with that, Oklahoma!
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But you can’t deny that your candidates regularly do the same thing, can you?
Nope, I can’t deny that. Luckily for us, we’re not the candidates. I just think it’s important to understand that while pundits and politicians use hate speech and politically charged rhetoric to describe their opponents as the enemy, it’s not actually true for most of us.
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I just think it’s important to understand that while pundits and politicians use hate speech and politically charged rhetoric to describe their opponents as the enemy, it’s not actually true for most of us.
That should be said again, from time to time. Those of us who actually move in a work environment or a neighborhood or a religious community that includes liberals, moderates, and conservatives [all of us, I suspect] find common ground sometimes but cordial relations most of the time. The strongest words among us are more likely “how did you come up with that?” rather than “you hate America.” We all have our conversational boundaries, of course – mine have been to let acquaintances know that I did not appreciate racial jokes or ethnic slurs, although we can tolerate any abuse of Texas A&M, no matter the incivility. I will also defend the competitive mechanism against attacks from the far left. But even considering these lines, very seldom does personal interaction drop to the level of political rhetoric, or even the invective we read in some blogs.
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Bitterly clinging to guns and religion?
Indeed, qb. I cling with both good cheer and a song in my heart. Politicians and pundits try to accomplish a lot of modification of the facts with their use of questionable adjectives.
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Trying to impose their religion
Indeed. Trying to “share the good news”!
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Question: does anyone think absolutist rhetoric serves a purpose? I’m thinking for pundits and politicians, it’s kind of like bolding bits and underlining them three times and adding a bullet point. Or as a “praise Jesus and hallelujah!” to the choir—that is, a short-hand to explain to people on a certain part of the political spectrum which team they are playing for. Yet there’s something compulsive about our use of absolutist rhetoric and sweeping generalizations: switchers who go from liberal to conservative or vice-versa often go from absolutist rhetoric in one direction to absolutist rhetoric in the other, with no middle-ground (and no sense of irony).
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I’m quite certain that Obama, Reid, and Pelosi all despise me.
Well, I wouldn’t have gone that far, until they held that joint press conference and singled you out personally. 😉
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Yet there’s something compulsive about our use of absolutist rhetoric and sweeping generalizations
Compulsive is exactly the right word I think Kevin. I find is somewhat fascinating when I hear and read some of the stuff coming across podiums and keyboards that the one expressing the view seems to have no awareness or even concern that while they may be speaking to the choir, whether in some kind of code or openly, that they’re also hardening others against them. I think it’s one of the reasons the number of “Independents” keeps growing in the political spectrum.
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Exaggerated rhetoric isn’t a phenomenon solely of politics. Try litigation.
I’m often double-minded about strong rhetoric in politics, though. While I am all for decency and civility and whatnot, I do have Coulteresque views about what is really at stake. I really do believe that BO comes out of a neo-prog-Marxist world view, for example, and that he is Hell bent on pushing us in that direction. It’s not easy to say that nicely.
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Exaggerated rhetoric isn’t a phenomenon solely of politics. Try litigation.
That was my first thought, too. I was at an administrative hearing recently where an attorney told of how the accusations against his client were scaring, haunting and would follow him forever. Meanwhile his client smiled and nodded next to him. The attorney couldn’t even reference the accusations without including a series of over the top adjectives.
I am also a bit double-minded on this. I think it depends a bit on the context such as whether the statement occurs at a political rally, in front of a congressional committee, during a debate, before election, after election etc. Political rallies aren’t really for expressing informative and balanced views. Whereas a political debate or State of the Union Address should inform at least as much as it advocates.
I also think some responsibility should rest with the listeners. If someone is going to listen to Coulter and say…”hmmm…liberals really do hate America.” It is as much the listeners fault as it is the speakers. To that extent, urging civility is like the War on Drugs. End the demand and the supply will disappear.
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I do have Coulteresque views about what is really at stake.
This is the kind of statement from a conservative that I like and trust that scares me–I read this as you’re agreeing with Coulter that I’m a traitor simply because I’m a liberal. I don’t think that you, as an individual, think that I, as an individual, really am a traitor. But that’s the POV that gets propagated.
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This is the kind of statement from a conservative that I like and trust that scares me–I read this as you’re agreeing with Coulter that I’m a traitor simply because I’m a liberal. I don’t think that you, as an individual, think that I, as an individual, really am a traitor. But that’s the POV that gets propagated.
Hmm, I said I have Coulteresque views of what is at stake, but not that all liberals are traitors. You very clearly are no traitor.
But I take someone like Obama very seriously when he says that his administration will fundamentally transform the country. I do not believe that his affection for the country is entirely the same as mine, and this is an observation that can be made as a generalization about right and left. His world view is one in which the USA is very flawed, and his affection is more for a vision of what he thinks it should be than what it was or is. In that world view, the USA is too “mean,” too unequal, too free of regulation, too aggressive, arrogant, and imperialistic. It has been more of a problem in the world than a problem solver.
There is nothing new about this. Eight to ten decades ago, progressives were scorning the Constitution and the many of the same things about the country. In the 1960s, the counterculture broke out in what was often explicit anti-Americanism. Anti-war was 90% anti-America. In the 1960s, critics of America like Piven and Cloward were writing about the need and means to topple and replace the system — people who were being read in universities in the 1980s by people like Barack Obama (and me). All of that led to the rise of the original neo-conservatives: people like Jeanne Kirkpatrick, who wrote Dictatorships and Double Standards, and started calling out what they called the “blame America first crowd.” Many of them had an emphasis on foreign policy and anti-communism (many were former socialists and coummunists).
Domestically, when I listen to this 2001 radio interview with Obama, I recognize quite clearly what he is saying: his goal is to move the country away from the constitutional system of “negative liberties” toward one of positive welfare rights. His friend and advisor Cass Sunstein has been one of many proponents on the left of this goal. Their main disagreements are strategic and tactical, mainly whether the courts or legislation are the best way to achieve the goal. (Obama has now moved from using legislation toward an emphasis on using executive power.) When he describes the Constitution as limited in this way, he is not saying that he admires this about it. It is the same critical perspective that likely informed Justice Ginsburg’s recent comments that the Constitution is not a good model for the 21st Century: it does not grant social welfare rights.
Not everyone on the left is even familiar with this kind of background to what Obama and his allies say and do. But I am, and it is alarming to many of us on the right who are. I don’t call him a traitor because of it, but I also do not shrink from saying what I think is the factual truth of the matter, which is that he is an agent of a world view and agenda that is the most profound internal threat to our constitutional order since at least the New Deal. He and his allies think that it is necessary transformation toward “redistributive justice.” I think it is the silent overthrow and loss of freedom and justice.
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his goal is to move the country away from the constitutional system of “negative liberties” toward one of positive welfare rights
boo.
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While I did not hear BHO the same way you or the caption writer did, I understand the fear that you express that BHO thinks redistribution of wealth is a worthy governmental objective (instead of a merely laudable outcome of the competitive mechanism, encouraged by anti-trust policies, which was more a TR world view). To be clear, I think BHO likes the Constitution as protective of minority rights in the face of the majority. So do I; that is what separates us from mobocracy.
I strongly disagree with you about RBG, however. You wrote: It is the same critical perspective that likely informed Justice Ginsburg’s recent comments that the Constitution is not a good model for the 21st Century. As you know, she was speaking to Egyptians. Her suggestions that they look at more recent documents like South Africa’s constitution or the recent Dominion Rights Charter for Canada [considering they all incorporate our current understanding of our own Constitution, without having to deal with redacting for our Amendments] is pretty much what any lawyer might suggest. I mean, they don’t need any 2/5ths compromise, and coming from strong man rule, they might prefer a parliamentary system with a Bill of Rights, rather than a strong executive. Further, Egypt is a small country compared with the USA. It might not need a federal/state system at all. Hell, we’ve done some Constitution writing ourselves since WW2. Seven Amendments since 1951; I just looked.
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Mark,
Regarding RBG, I found her remark that she “would not look to the U.S. Constitution if I were drafting a constitution in the year 2012” arresting. Those are strong words. For a sitting Justice of SCOTUS.
Of the South African constitution, she said, specifically: “That was a deliberate attempt to have a fundamental instrument of government that embraced basic human rights, had an independent judiciary.” (Emphasis added.) She also said she would look to Canada’s charter and the EU Convention on Human Rights. These are documents that grant “rights” very different from those in the US Constitution.
The lack of the sort of positive welfare “rights” is one of the most criticized aspects of our Constitution from the left. In the 2001 radio interview, this clearly was what Obama referred to when discussing the failure of the civil rights movement to achieve “redistributive justice” through the courts. It is one of the great disappointments of the liberal activist judges of the past 30 years (I’m sure you know some of those cases like Goldberg and Deshaney).
Precisely what RBG meant in her comments can be debated, but to me it seems quite obvious that in part at least she was lauding the expansive “human rights” in these more modern constitutions and denigrating ours for lacking them.
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I see that there is this in the South African BoR:
Section 27: the rights to food, water, health care and social assistance, which the state must progressively realise within the limits of its resources.
Perhaps, then, she was referring to 27, I cannot know. The other Sections are found in American federal or state constitutions, pretty much, I think.
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I am no expert, but the SA constitution contains many of these positive rights and entitlements, as well as a right not to be discriminated against by other people. It even confers environmental rights.
RBG may also like the fact that it even includes a gender equality commission. It is a very long and detailed document. We should perhaps discuss it in more depth. I find parts of it quite problematic or worse. It is very hard for me to believe that she did not in part mean these various rights and those in the Canadian and EU documents.
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Just for fun:
“The bill of rights of the former ‘evil empire,’ the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, was much better than ours,’’ Antonin Scalia told a congressional panel last October. “I mean it literally: It was much better. We guarantee freedom of speech and of the press. Big deal. They guaranteed freedom of speech, of the press, of street demonstrations and protests, and anyone who is caught trying to suppress criticism of the government will be called to account. Whoa, that is wonderful stuff!’’
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Kevin:
Question: does anyone think absolutist rhetoric serves a purpose?
Absolutely not, under any circumstances. Ever.
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Superb, Scott.
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” I do have Coulteresque views about what is really at stake.”
I’m with QB on this (sorry Michi) but unlike QB, I’m inclined to think it’s over. We blew it. Entitlements and debt have swallowed us whole and are impossible to unravel.
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Entitlements and debt have swallowed us whole and are impossible to unravel.
If you haven’t seen it, Doomsday Preppers on National Geographic is a good place to start.
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QB: Exaggerated rhetoric isn’t a phenomenon solely of politics. Try litigation.
ashot: That was my first thought, too.
A link from VC for you.
In case you ever have to write a brief for the 4th Circuit …
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Mike-
Thanks for the link. Sadly, it seems like the most successful trial attorneys around here are the least civil.
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Overheated rhetoric is not a recipe for success in litigation. But it doesn’t stop lawyers from using it. I find that it tends to vary a lot depending on the area and “level” of practice, and geography of course. I deal with very professional opponents from large firms (and some hyperbolic and obstreporous ones), and with nationally successful plaintiffs’ lawyers who tend to be flame-tongued and prone to purple prose.
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Overheated rhetoric is not a recipe for success in litigation.
Agreed with regard to appellate work and most bench trials.
You have to know your jury to appeal to it. Some juries just eat up drama. Some hate being talked down to.
Trying a case in Austin is different than trying a case in San Saba. In front of a rural jury, the trial lawyers all push for the entertainment value of developing their narrative. In the great murder trials, the jury may leave the box truly believing that everyone involved deserved to die, if both sides have painted the other effectively as monstrous. And divorces..save us all from divorce lawyers!
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” I’m inclined to think it’s over. We blew it. Entitlements and debt have swallowed us whole and are impossible to unravel.”
Heard an interesting comment to that effect on NPR the other day; noting that such sentiments were popular back in the late 40s, I think. Then the economy picked up, the debt to GDP ratio dropped & people stopped worrying.
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Absolutely not, under any circumstances. Ever.
Heh-heh-heh!
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