Tuesday, June 26, 2018

You know what we don't need right now?


More of these bullshit calls for "civility."

We're supposed to not have noticed that this:

Tea Party Racism

never prompted a single call for "civility" or for "disagreeing respectfully."


We're supposed to have forgotten that no one was asked to tone down the rhetoric because of this:




or this




or this

charlottesville white supremacists tiki torch

So when I see these feckless conventional-wisdom beltway-insider moderate centrist idiots spewing bullshit like this:



or this



or this:



I just want to scream.
Like people are saying with a straight face that Sarah Huckabee and Stephen Miller should be allowed to eat in peace and how dare people bother them when they're just going about their daily lives, but apparently this:





is a satisfactory level of etiquette.
So if you're keeping score at home, remember: DSA activists shouting at Kirstjen Nielsen = They're the real fascists. Crowd of white trash screaming at Jim Acosta while he tries to do his job? Um. . . Inadvertent whistle, no foul on the play.


Here's the thing. It doesn't matter if we are polite to these people, if we are rude to these people, if we scream in their faces or recite love sonnets to them. They hate us. They will always hate us. There is no level of politeness that will make them behave in a civil way towards us. (And by "us," I'm speaking as a cis/het white dude. For anyone who is female, LGBT, black or brown, that goes at least double.)

No matter how many lunkheads on your Twitter feed spout the "gosh, this rudeness on the part of the left is making me want to support Trump" line, that line is bullshit. That person was always going to support Il Douche. That person was never on the fence until Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked to leave a restaurant and then thought "well, gee, if the liberals are going to be this ill-mannered, I don't see that I have any choice but to throw my support behind President Pussy Grabber, the guy who mocks handicapped people and encourages violence at his Junior Varsity Nuremburg Rallies and insults the IQs of anyone with whom he disagrees! I just have to take a stand for civility!"

Now, is making it uncomfortable for these horrid people to appear in public going to help anything? I don't know. I don't imagine they are capable of feeling shame, and if one of them was somehow shamed into quitting, there'd be a dozen other soulless ghouls lined up to interview for the vacancy. But it can't hurt. It can't get any worse. And if I remember my History classes, we didn't defeat fascism last time by being polite to it. We stormed their fucking beaches.
Fuck their "civility."


8 comments:

Infidel753 said...

I entirely agree. The call for civility to people who are doing what the Trumplings are doing is a call to normalize atrocities.

John Pavlovitz has a good post on this.

Bob said...

I am all for Free Speech, and people using it at or on any _____ supporter or co-criminal, but I don't like businesses kicking folks out because, one day, they'll be kicking us all out and then what will we do.

There's always someone to discriminate against, but let's Resist and Speak up and, most importantly, Cast A Goddamned Vote!

We're in this mess because a bunch of Dems who didn't like Hillary sat on there hands in 2016 and let this happen.

Cast.A.Goddamned.Vote!

Debra She Who Seeks said...

Bob is right.

John Going Gently said...

Debra led me here......
Sanity has to prevail

Infidel753 said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Infidel753 said...

I don't like businesses kicking folks out because, one day, they'll be kicking us all out and then what will we do

I don't see any sign of that. Most businesses have always posted warnings that they reserve the right to refuse service to anyone and it's always been legal, but how often does that happen? The alternative would be to say that they have no right to refuse service to collaborators with an illegitimate foreign-imposed regime which is carrying out gross human-rights violations. And if that's the standard, I'm not much worried about running afoul of it.

Don't forget that businesses run by the enemy have been refusing service for decades to people who weren't even accused of doing anything wrong, just because they were the "wrong" kind of people -- blacks half a century ago, gays today.

I agree 100% that we all need to make an ironclad commitment to vote, even if the Democrat running is less than perfect. We don't have the luxury of turning up our nose at an imperfect candidate when the alternative is to let a Republican win.

Grung_e_Gene said...

The cry of Incivility is a tool of fascist control. It's to make you engage in self-censorship and quietly acquiesce to authoritarian rule.

The Blog Fodder said...

No need to be civil to the right. They are not civil and wouldn't even understand it. Hand it back to them full force. If nothing else you'll feel better for it