Civility and the Civilized Man

Our friend William Teach, over at The Pirate's Cove has penned an interesting and thought provoking piece this AM on civility. I am going to quote from it extensively, and if he doesn't like it he can just kiss my... (Take a deep breath! Civility! Ommm.) ah, then, we can simply discuss it like gentlemen! Teach writes:

Should media and other outlets avoid publishing material that upsets others? Not just Muslims, but the targeted group? We’re not talking about forced censorship, but personal censorship. Civility. Respect. Responsibility. In Starship Troopers, Robert Heinlein wrote

“A dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot.”

...that always made quite a bit of sense to me. Too often people are willing to forgo civility. With free speech comes responsibility. Much of the world has forgotten this as an attitude that makes everything not just about “me me me”, but infused with an attitude that everyone else is simply an ant. What does that mean? Do you think about all the ants and bugs you step on? No. You almost never notice them. You’re just doing your own thing without regard to the bugs. This is the way so many people think today. When they’re driving along and cut people off, it’s more than just selfishness, it’s a complete lack of regard for what can happen to other people. The fender bender behind them is of no regard as they drive off without knowing they are responsible for causing that accident.

Just because we can, doesn’t mean we should. Was it appropriate when cartoonists were penning cartoons portraying Condi Rice in a horribly racist manner, many which were published in major American newspapers, such as the Washington Post and NY Times. When we do, we should be responsible for doing, be it speech, actions, the pen. We may not be to blame, we we can bear responsibility.

I commented along the lines of: "You cite the racist portrayal of Condi Rice. Those cartoons were vicious and meant to demean her. Isn’t there therefore a difference between those who would use a drawing to ridicule Mohammed as opposed to one that simply portrays him?
(To the non-Muslim, at least.)"

Is it not civil to point out something in someone else's religion that you believe is wrong or in error, or should that topic be off limits? I disagree with Mormons on matters of theology, but I generally do not air them in public. During the 2012 election, some liberal trolls (am I being uncivil in identifying them as such?), mocked Mitt Romney for his "holy underwear", referring to a practice of Mormonism, yet they had never leveled any such criticism at Democrat Harry Reid, also a Mormon.

So, for the case of both Condi and Mitt, the incivility seems to be primarily partisan in nature. Is partisan incivility exempted from other norms of civil behavior? Is it fair game to practice incivility towards one's political opponents? I doubt that the cartoonist or editors for the Post or NYT would have been so gauche as to mock Condi to her face or Mitt to his. And the trolls hide in their mother's basement, sniping at some whose boots they are unfit to lick.

So, how or where do we draw the line? Coincidentally, I woke up this AM thinking along these same lines. Am I being too harsh on those I criticize, and sometimes mock? Michael Moore drew the ire of many on Twitter yesterday, when he tweeted that Chris Kyle, subject of the movie "American Sniper", was a coward. Michael Moore is, on his better days, a vile disgusting human being. Is it not civil to point this out, or is it merely the degree to which one goes to point it out that might violate civility?

Moore spoke about an uncle in WWII who was shot by a sniper. And while I did refrain from asking him if his uncle was also his father, I did ask him if his uncle was shot by an American sniper?

The pudgy, ubiquitous Seth Rogen and a number of other brain dead liberals* (but I repeat myself) took it upon themselves to try to stretch Godwin's Law and compare American Sniper to the ersatz Nazi propaganda film featured in the movie Inglorious Basterds (sic).

Both Moore and Rogen have tried to walk back their statements, to little success, I might add. Michael Moore (Zip Codes 48501-48507, & 48550- 48557)* tweeted:

My uncle killed by sniper in WW2. We were taught snipers were cowards. Will shoot u in the back. Snipers aren't heroes. And invaders r worse

After a little bit of blowback, he tried to claim that he never mentioned Chris Kyle by name, so, his comments were just somehow generic "snipers are cowards" remarks that had nothing to do with the fact that American Sniper is setting box office records and is very much in the forefront in the mind of the general public.

Possibly too, the fact that his fauxumentaries, lying dreck that they were, were never a fraction of the box office success of American Sniper, would never cause a noble soul like Moore to be jealous of that success.

Yeah. Right.

Rogen, whose latest movie by nearly all accounts was dreadful, but generated a great deal of support across the country nonetheless after an attempted ban by the North Koreans, gave the following excuse:

I just said something "kinda reminded" me of something else. I actually liked American Sniper. It just reminded me of the Tarantino scene.

To which I replied:

If the critics say your movies remind them of dog vomit, then, they're not actually comparing, right? Just reminded. Right.

I also posed the question over at Pirate's Cove:

Should I self censor if what I write or draw offends a certain group? Do we extend this courtesy to skinheads, 9-11 truthers and the KKK, or is it merely religion that we exempt?

Does anyone get a free ride? Liberals gave liberal Mormons a free ride, but not conservative Mormons. A commenter at PC posited out that 'Islam is not an "evolved" religion', bringing up the point are the less informed or benighted among us free from civility? May we mock headhunters, but not Presbyterians? Radical Islamists but not moderate Muslims? People who are mistaken or downright entrenched in their ignorance??

In a polite society, is it ever correct to be intentionally rude? Even if someone, in your humble opinion deserves it?

Someone once said of George Bush (and obliquely of Barack Obama), that Bush never unintentionally insulted the Europeans.

Consider too, the latest Papal dispensation to civility. Pope Francis responded to the Paris slaughter by suggesting that "if someone curses your mother, he should expect to be punched".

Well, I realize that the whole "turn the other cheek" thing is so 33 AD, still do we get a "one free punch" exception to civility, like the "one free grope" rule given to Bill Clinton to shield him from sexual harassment laws?

I realize this post raises more questions than it answers. I've got a couple of Photoshops coming up on Wednesday and Thursday AM this week. The first is rather tame, mocking the current administration (in quite a clever way, I might add!), but the second, Thursday's,  is a little more biting, directed solely at the President. Let me know if you think I'm being less than civil.

BTW, anything in my blog I am more than willing to tell to the face of subjects of these posts.

Even Thursday's...

Addendum: (Not so much an update as something I meant to reference earlier when I was rudely interrupted by work.)

Last week after Andrew Roman's excellent Before You Argue the Point, Know Your Bible First post, we had a brief discussion about how people forfeit their rights, and that capital punishment was in no way was inconsistent with a pro-life viewpoint. Just as one can love liberty and favor people forfeiting their liberty through any number of acts, one can be pro life and favor capital punishment for those who forfeit their own right to life by unjustly taking the life of another. Which got me to thinking, in this context, do people such as Moore and Rogen (And Obama, and Biden, etc. etc.) forfeit their right to civility by being less than civil? By lying or being duplicitous?/ By being snot-nosed, lying crapweasels*???



*Was that uncivil?? Yes, but pointedly so!

A Little Sprinkling of Civility Anyone?

by guest blogger Andrew Roman

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If I’m not mistaken – and I don’t think I am – wasn’t it America’s ever-caring, people-loving leftists that rebuked conservatives for their incendiary choices in violence-provoking language not too long ago? Wasn’t there a period of time following the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords when the save-the-world-from-everything libs went moonbatty over what they deemed as frighteningly provocative fighting words by the thirsting-for-violence-at-all-costs rightists - words such as “targeting”? Didn't they bust a collective pimple and demand conservatives hold themselves to a higher standard of civility over aggression-fueling images such as crosshairs on a political map? (And wasn't the lamestream media right there to help the left carry the load?)

Remember when South Carolina Congressman James Clayburn said that the "vitriol has gotten so elevated that people feel emboldened"?

I didn't understand what he meant when he originally said it, and I still don't.

"Emboldened" to do what?

Was America "emboldened" and pushed toward violent extremes when Barack Obama himself told people to go out and get in their neighbors' faces during the '08 campaign season?

Was America pushed toward upheaval and lawlessness when Republican opposition to ObamaCare was likened to that of Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels by Democrat Steve Cohen on the House Floor in January?

When Democrat Massachusetts Congressman Michael Capuano said to Wisconsin protestors that it sometimes becomes necessary to take to the streets and "get a little bloody," did anyone on the left bat a lash or denounce his incivility?

Just two nights ago, a Republican office in Washington, D.C. had its windows shot out to very little news coverage. Police are still searching for the culprits. Certainly, I am not suggesting that liberals were responsible for the act, but imagine for a moment it was a Democrat Party office, or a planned Planned Parenthood office.

By definition, conservatives want less government intrusion in American lives; yet libs love to attach the word "fascists" to us small-government/big-individual types, which is, frankly as wrong as it is dumb.

And how do lefties reconcile such inherent contradictions?

They don't.

They simply find ways of infusing an "ism" or a "phobe" into the dialogue, and the discussion ends.

After all, if they say I am a racist, or I hate gays, or I am an Islamaphobe, it must be true.

Ironically, those who have openly advocated for distributing wealth to the "underclass" (President Obama, for instance) somehow find definitional labels such as "Marxist" and "socialist" distasteful and uncivil; yet, quite literally, that is what their big-government policies are pushing toward.

Wisconsin governor Scott Walker

So where exactly is the outrage – the uproar – over Time magazine’s article this past weekend about Wisconsin’s embattled union-busting governor Scott Walker, cleverly titled: “Wisconsin's Governor Wins, but Is He Now Dead Man Walker?"

That's some title.

"Dead Man Walker"?

Not exactly a dose of fuzzy cuddles and squishy hugs, is it?

Not exactly the picture of civility and graciousness, is it?

Did the article's author forget the chords to Kumbaya?

When Giffords was shot by a scum-sucking perpetrator of evil, cries for civility rang out from America's loudest liberal mouthpieces almost instantaneously, aimed primarily at Constitution-happy, gun-loving purveyors of angry right-wing talk radio (to paraphrase the left). They want us to believe that the country is heading down a path of brutality and hostility unseen in all of human history, thanks in large part to America's class of livid white men who want their weapons left alone and the right to beat their wives preserved.

It was all to be expected.

Liberals are painfully predictable, if nothing else.

But who really are the uncivil ones?

What of the greedy, protesting Wisconsin teachers and union thugs who threatened Republicans with death for voting against the interests of the union juggernaut? Where were those headlines? And what about the self-absorbed idiots who effectively shut down state house business in Madison by setting up shop at the capital building? Is that what free speech was supposed to be about? Forcing legislators to enter the building through windows? Disrupting official state business?

Remember, because the news from Wisconsin was brought to us through the lamestream media filter, none of the actions by the spoiled-brat protesting class were ever presented as particularly provocative or controversial. None of the union-thuggery and ugliness were ever reported as being inflammatory or offensive. What happened in Wisconsin, according to the alphabets, was simply a matter of hard-working middle-class folks protecting their "rights" while exercising their constitutional freedoms.

Yet, Tea Parties rallies were almost always portrayed as hostile gatherings of angry right-wing racists and bigots, even though no evidence has ever been presented to verify these claims. Someone somewhere thought they heard a racist remark being uttered by someone at some rally somewhere .... something like that.

It's just another example of how the rules differ depending on what side of the aisle your seat is on.

For instance, when Democrats shove a massive two-thousand-plus page health-care bill through Congress on Christmas Eve that no one has been afforded the opportunity to read and scrutinize - a bill that will effectively change the nature of the greatest health care delivery system the world has ever known - it is called “doing the job they were elected to do” … but when Republicans (elected by the people) pass a budget-curtailing, state-saving bill in Wisconsin - one that doesn’t accommodate the goals of the ever-ravenous teachers unions - it all of a sudden becomes the “nuclear option.”

If Wisconsin had a dollar for every reference to Hitler, fascism and totalitarianism that had been seen at the Madison protests, the state would be so far in the black, they could actually pay the unions exactly what they are demanding and have enough left over to pay six hundred illegal aliens to cleanup the area in and around the state capital. (Liberals are extraordinarily messy when they get together to moan and groan).

(You'll recall that during the height of the Tea Party rallies, the "Obama As Hitler" signs that were showing up - reflexively blamed on bitter racist righties - were actually being supplied by lefty Lyndon LaRouche).


And why is it that the unions and teachers are not considered money-grubbing greedy bastards when they demand more of their fellow taxpayer dollars, but conservatives are labeled as greedy when they try to solicit more hard-earned dollars from citizens through competition in the marketplace?

How does that work?

In short, what the protesting teachers of Wisconsin were saying was: “To hell with my fellow citizens who pay taxes. I don’t care if the state is bankrupt, I want what I want and I’m going to make noise and disrupt things until I get it.”

How is this an inaccurate depiction?

Who exactly needs the lesson in civility?

With the abundance of hypocrisy and contradiction that underscores today's lamestream media coverage of the news, it was actually good to see that the fourth estate was all over the fact that President Bush found time to squeeze in yet another round of golf (his sixty-first golf outing since being anointed). He even worked in a few minutes to appear on ESPN for a little college basketball talk. Meanwhile, deficits continue to explode, Japan attempts to recover from a catostrophic earthquake and Libya's Muammar Gaddafi continues his brutal assault on protesters and civilians. On top of that, the country remains at war.

Surely the press has something to say about the President playing golf while Americans serve in harm's way.

Ooops... did I say Bush?

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