Ann Coulter..

[Contarini]

Abu Ghraib is the new Tet offensive.

Analogy is not argument. I don’t know if she’s right about the Tet offensive. But if she’s suggesting that the media were being unpatriotic by reporting on the wicked things American soldiers did at Abu Ghraib, then yet again she is speaking falsely and immorally.

The immediate consequence of the media’s lies about the Tet offensive was a 25 percent drop in support for the war. The long-term consequence for America was twelve years in the desert until Ronald Reagan came in and saved the country… America may not be able to wait out twelve years of Democrat pusillanimity now that

Newsflash for Ann Coulter and all of you who support her: success or failure is a lot less important than acting morally. That was obvious to any moderately virtuous pagan of the ancient world. You would have us believe that a paragon of Christianity (since you claim that no true Christian would oppose her) has a lower moral standard than an ancient pagan? Let’s not even get into what it meant that Jesus saved the world by dying on a Cross instead of beating the wicked Romans and corrupt priests into the ground. We can discuss this on a purely pagan level and still show how immoral Ms. Coulter’s arguments are.

… Now we’re fighting directly with Islamic loonies crawling out of their ratholes from around the entire region - which liberals also said wouldn’t happen…

The question that she skirts (at least in the selections you’ve provided) is whether these are only “loonies” who would have attacked us anyway, or whether our actions have not in fact increased support for Islamic radicalism and caused many young Muslims to become “loonies” who would not otherwise have done so. There are good reasons to believe the latter. Has she ever refuted this argument?

There may be “liberals” who said that Muslim radicals from other parts of the region wouldn’t come to Iraq to fight us. I don’t recall this being said, but I apparently don’t listen to “liberals” as much as some folks (in spite of allegedly being one).

Edwin

 

[celticsfan1983]

I’m done with this thread. I think my past comments speak for themselves, and I think by now we can all agree that Distracted, for whatever reason, is nothing more than a political troll who replaces logic, reasoning and Christian charity with a nearly idolatrous love of extreme right-wing politics.

God bless.

 

[Contarini]

shows what you know…

i thought & felt exactly the way Coulter does long before i read Coulter Book One…

Sorry for being too charitable in my judgment (since being led into evil by another is less culpable than thinking up evil for yourself). However, as a matter of fact you have shown on another thread that you don’t think exactly the way Coulter does. So why do you continue to claim that you do? Why this commitment to defending Coulter? It seems that you believe that if you don’t defend every pro-life public figure across the board you’re letting down the prolife cause. That’s clearly not true. You’d defend the prolife cause a lot more effectively if you stopped defending the immoral stuff that some “prolife” figures also advocate.

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

it’s a free country. She can say what she wants…

So can I.

or comment on CAF about it…

See your remark above. It’s a free country. I don’t have to comment on it. But I can comment on it if I wish I think it’s funny that you are making this politically correct argument, since the idea that “freedom of speech” somehow means the freedom from being contradicted or offended (rather than the freedom to contradict and even offend) is one of the liberal follies that Coulter and her allies rightly attack.

i rarely apologize for anything i say… unless i know that i have said something out of line.

Why would you apologize unless you had said something out of line? My point is that her remark about forcibly converting Muslims is “out of line.” More than that, it’s wicked.

maybe she doesn’t feel she has said anthing out of line… If she speaks her mind, i say it is not out of line

I don’t follow this. Do you think that we should forcibly convert Muslims to Christianity or not? Do you think we should carpet-bomb Muslim countries or not? You have repeatedly backed away from saying that you do agree with her. Yet somehow you think that it wasn’t “out of line” to say these outrageous things. Don’t you see that you are defending the very silliest kind of political correctness (“as long as I’m sincere I have the right not to be contradicted”)? What Coulter said was wrong. It was so horribly wrong that if she really meant it, she is a person of deeply warped moral sensibilities, and if she didn’t mean it, then she was deeply irresponsible. Either way, until she retracts her statement she is responsible for it.

God is her judge… no one else…

I’m not judging her heart. I have repeatedly refused to do so. But of course I can judge the truth of what she says, just as I can judge Obama’s remark about the status of unborn life being “above his pay grade.” I can’t assume that Obama said this because he was a morally callous person (though many folks here have no problem doing just what–what becomes of “God being the only judge” then?). But I can say that this was a pusillanimous, incoherent, amoral thing to say. Similarly, I can say that Ms. Coulter’s remark about invading Muslim countries was wicked without judging her heart.

freedom of speech is an absolute assurance that someone is going to get his feelings hurt…

Why do you persist in thinking that I object to Ms. Coulter because what she says hurts people’s feelings? I object to what she says because it is [often] false and evil. Yes, style matters because style and substance can’t be separated. If she had said with every appearance of sincerity “I am tormented by the thought of causing Muslims any suffering, but the fact is that in order to survive as a society and prevent this evil ideology from destroying the world we are going to have to be utterly ruthless in the way we fight Islam,” I would still think that what she was proposing was evil, but I would be less condemnatory and more respectful in the way I responded. What is so evil about Coulter’s remarks is her complete lack of regard for moral considerations when they get in the way of her ideology.

Edwin

 

[distracted]

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Lack of response is due to ad hominem - for the 10th time, i don’t respond to it…

 

[Contarini]

.

Lack of response is due to ad hominem - for the 10th time, i don’t respond to it…

That’s an excuse. If you think that parts of what I’m saying are personal, ignore them, and respond to the substantive question:

Do you or do you not agree with Ms. Coulter that we should carpet-bomb Islamic countries and convert them to Christianity through military force?

If you do not agree with her, do you agree that it was a wicked thing to say?

You are claiming “ad hominem” to avoid answering these questions.

Edwin

 

[Lujack]

Coulter (How to Talk to a Liberal…), on the Iraqi War (and etc) - emphasis mine [May 25, 2004]:

Abu Ghraib is the new Tet offensive. By lying about the Tet offensive during the Vietnam War, the media managed to persuade Americans we were losing the war, which demoralized the nation and caused us to lose the war. And people say reporters are* lazy*.

The immediate consequence of the media’s lies about the Tet offensive was a 25 percent drop in support for the war. The long-term consequence for America was twelve years in the desert until Ronald Reagan came in and saved the country… America may not be able to wait out twelve years of Democrat pusillanimity now that we’re dealing with Islamic lunatics who slaughter civilians in suicide missions while chanting “Allah Akbar!”

There’s a lot of total nonsense in this article, in which Ms. Coulter does her best to create a narrative of the evil media wrecking the American glory days until Ronald Reagan rescued us from the desert, but the best part about all of it is that it doesn’t even match her view of history. I don’t believe she’s a total idiot, so surely she must remember whose Presidency was broken on the rocks of the Tet Offensive. Surely she must. But, let’s create a magic scenario in which there is no Tet Offensive, and the “light at the end of the tunnel” is not an oncoming train but an exit from the war. Let’s take a look:

Its early 1968. Lyndon Baines Johnson is moderately concerned after a vigorous challenge from Eugene McCarthy in New Hampshire, so he decides he needs a younger man as his running mate. Bobby Kennedy. Kennedy helps quiet the youth opposition to the Johnson presidency with an early endorsement for the President in return for the #2 slot, and the hypothetical LBJ-RFK ticket gains steam in the polls. After a unified Democratic Party renominates Johnson with Bobby as his running mate, the Dems begin their real challenge, against Richard Nixon-Spiro Agnew. In a tough campaign, Johnson manages to keep his 1964 coalition intact enough that he carries New Jersey, California, Illinois, and Missouri, narrowly winning re-election. With majorities in both houses of Congress, LBJ presses on with the Great Society, for another two years, possibly four.

After that, a live Bobby Kennedy takes the helm of the Democratic Party, providing a rallying point for a much stronger, more religious, and possibly pro-life New Deal-style liberalism (Bobby, after all, was the most Catholic Kennedy and very possibly the staunchest Catholic to ever seriously challenge for the presidency). A public health care system possibly emerges during the early 1970’s, as the public would probably keep the incumbent party in office during the '72 elections, which likely means at least one term, and possibly two, of a President Robert Kennedy. There is likely no President Reagan…

Wait a minute. This isn’t the kind of world Ann Coulter would want to live in…what’s going on here?

 

[Lynn-D]

But Ann Coulter is against Jesus on many grounds. It just happens that abortion is not one of them!

How do you justify reducing Christianity to opposition to abortion? I agree that this is a very important issue, but it’s not the sum and substance of the Christian faith or even just of Christian ethics.

Edwin

Maybe not of substance to Episcopalians but it is to me, a practicing Catholic.

I happen to love the satirical writing, the wit, humor and bluntness of Ann. She is a Christian by example if not perhaps to the ideal of many. And she gives support in evidence of her allegations. Perhaps a good example is a recent piece she wrote: mail.live.com/mail/InboxLight.aspx?n=810921505&wa=wsignin1.0

Understand she is a political pragmatist and not a liberal idealist who offers little but a false hope and prayer to be gained by socialism as a lead in to stated Communist beliefs…

I personally cannot understand how anyone can claim to be a Christian yet not think of abortion as one, if not the greatest, of the evil tenants to be found especially when Jesus Himself made a distinction between a child and an adult and gave precedence to the child seen often in depictions of Him.

Lynn-D

 

[Sonny1954]

No Edwin, abortion is not the sum and substance of Christianity. Or even of Catholicism as a theological framework. But the U.S. Bishops have made it a “litmus test” for who is a “real” Catholic.

Come to think of it, there’s no surviving evidence that Al Capone ever helped any procure an abortion. I never realized what a faithful obedient Catholic he was!

 

[Contarini]

Maybe not of substance to Episcopalians but it is to me, a practicing Catholic.

May I respectfully remind you that the holiness of your cause does not justify you in twisting what I say. I did not say that abortion was not “of substance.” Of course it is. What I said is that opposition to abortion is not “the sum and substance of the Christian faith.” In other words, you can oppose abortion and still be a heretic, or for that matter a non-Christian entirely. You can also oppose abortion and still hold horrifically immoral positions on other issues. That’s all I’m saying.

She is a Christian by example if not perhaps to the ideal of many.

How is advocating carpet bombing and forced conversion is a Christian example?

I personally cannot understand how anyone can claim to be a Christian yet not think of abortion as one, if not the greatest, of the evil tenants to be found especially when Jesus Himself made a distinction between a child and an adult and gave precedence to the child seen often in depictions of Him.

Obviously those who disagree with us do not think that an unborn child has quite the same status as a child who has already been born. (I myself confess to having some doubts as to whether a very early embryo is a human person in the full sense or not, though I think we should always err on the side of protecting life–but like you I find it hard to understand how someone could fail to draw the line somewhere well before birth.) Similarly, you apparently think that those children unfortunate enough to be born into a family of whose culture and religion Ms. Coulter disapproves have less claim to full humanity than other children. That is the only way I can account for your failure to find her remark about carpet bombing Muslim countries a serious moral issue.

Why can’t we protect *all *human life, born, unborn, Christian or Muslim? Why do we have to make these exceptions, and justify those who make the “right” exceptions because they don’t make the wrong ones?

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

No Edwin, abortion is not the sum and substance of Christianity. Or even of Catholicism as a theological framework. But the U.S. Bishops have made it a “litmus test” for who is a “real” Catholic.

It’s a quite legitimate litmus test. Christian tradition has always condemned abortion, and there are no sound moral grounds for questioning the full humanity of the fetus in mid to late pregnancy. One could have some legitimate arguments about very early pregnancy, but even there it’s much better to err on the side of protecting life, so I have no quarrel with the bishops’ position whatsoever. The bishops very clearly do not regard this as the *only *important moral issue. Unlike so many members of their flock, they try to defend an orthodox moral position across the board. There are many things I don’t like about the Catholic bishops as a corporate body. But their official stances on moral issues seem to me to be spot on.

Edwin

 

[Lynn-D]

That’s an excuse. If you think that parts of what I’m saying are personal, ignore them, and respond to the substantive question:

Do you or do you not agree with Ms. Coulter that we should carpet-bomb Islamic countries and convert them to Christianity through military force?

If you do not agree with her, do you agree that it was a wicked thing to say?

You are claiming “ad hominem” to avoid answering these questions.

Edwin

I would agree that if you are directing your statement to all Islamic countries then you are right in taking issue with Ann. But the way I understood her reply to a question asked of her was if Iran nuked Israel what should our response be and she replied that we should retaliate in defense of an ally.
The conversion remark was meant as a joke and most of us realized just that. She does make some off-handed quips at times and that too is what makes her so interesting and bothers to the core some who hold opposite views of her politic.

Lynn-D

 

[Sailor_Kenshin]

.

Question for all Posters:

**How many of Ann Coulter’s books have you read cover to cover?? **

Most of them, the latest being Godless.

One has to wonder at the left.

For eight tedious years, they published, produced, and fabricated the vilest anti-Bush garbage imaginable, including quite serious plays and books on how to assasinate him, and were applauded by the same cheerleaders who make excuses for this current president’s statist plans.

And yet they cry foul and flap their arms when one well-educated and witty woman (self-described as a 980pound weakling) skewers their own cherished ‘ideals.’

 

[Lujack]

Most of them, the latest being Godless.

One has to wonder at the left.

For eight tedious years, they published, produced, and fabricated the vilest anti-Bush garbage imaginable, including quite serious plays and books on how to assasinate him, and were applauded by the same cheerleaders who make excuses for this current president’s statist plans.

And yet they cry foul and flap their arms when one well-educated and witty woman (self-described as a 980pound weakling) skewers their own cherished ‘ideals.’

When, exactly, did a liberal figure with the same prominence as Ann Coulter even jokingly suggest killing anyone? Coulter’s liberal equivalents are Olbermann, Franken, and Maddow, and Olbermann went the farthest, calling for Bush’s impeachment. What you’re saying here is absolutely nonsense.

 

[scameter18]

anncoulter.com/

What do you guys think about her? Particularly, what do you think about some of the claims in her books, such as about the frauds of the london moth, the embryo drawings and the drawings of the evolution of man from ape to human? Do you think they’re valid or fundamentalist?

To me, she seems to have alot of merit and journalistic integrity, though I’m not quite as republican as she is, and I’m not very fond of her abrasiveness. Otherwise, she seems good.

 

[Georgia]

I find Ann Coulter quite entertaining. Yes, she does get abrasive and that seems to be the point. People on the left have used similar styles since it became fashionable. Coulter is the one nationally known writer who comes from the right with the style of some on the left.

 

[bpbasilphx]

I’ve found Ann Coulter and certain other conservative pundits to be rather shrill and mean-spirited.

Which disturbs me as I’m conservative on many things myself.

 

[THECRUISELADIES]

I have a very simple answer to some of these questions. If Jesus, Mary, Joseph, Mother Theresa, Padre Pio and the countless other saints were in a room with her–would they be praying for her soul?

 

[Sailor_Kenshin]

When, exactly, did a liberal figure with the same prominence as Ann Coulter even jokingly suggest killing anyone? Coulter’s liberal equivalents are Olbermann, Franken, and Maddow, and Olbermann went the farthest, calling for Bush’s impeachment. What you’re saying here is absolutely nonsense.

The truth is sometimes painful, isn’t it?

The entire media was celebrating those kill-Bush books and plays.

CBS conspired to create a false story about Bush’s service—a story that even a CHILD could penetrate as a fabrication, yet apparently the left swallowed it and bellowed it to the rafters with glee.

Would you like me to name the celebrities, such as Franken and Goldberg, who called for Bush’s death? They did it almost every day, and seemed to think that shouting, "Bush sucks and he should be assassinated’ constituted comedy.

Air America was filled with such venom, and unlike the educated and acerbic 97-pound weakling’s books, serious.

Maybe you missed it. Fair enough.

But, that’s what happens when you mainline your news sources from the statist cheerleading squad—a biased view of reality.

 

[Langdell]

Like others, I’ve never been able to get past her abrasive approach. IMO, it’s counterproductive. The reasoned approach of someone like George Will seems to me to be much more likely to win converts.

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