Comments on: Visions and the Envisioning Visionaries who Envision Them

By: praktike

praktike — Fri, 31 Oct 2003 16:06:52 +0000

BTW, Sully puts the smackdown on Derbyshire, too.

By: Keith M Ellis

Keith M Ellis — Fri, 31 Oct 2003 08:03:44 +0000

I agree with Praktike. Most of the press about the Bush girls makes me uncomfortable. To my mind, the restaurant assistant manager here in Austin that called the police when one of them tried to order a drink (calling the police wasn’t standard procedure, and additional details made it clear it was politically motivated) is an example of something about politics that brings out some of the worst in human nature. It’s closely akin to the instinct for villification; I suppose it’s the tendency to cast a very wide net, sweeping up the innocent as well as the guilty and then sarificing them as scapegoats.

By: praktike

praktike — Fri, 31 Oct 2003 05:01:18 +0000

Wow. Thanks for the reminder of how viscious the right wing is. It’s refreshing to be able to put the current “hate speech” about Bush in its proper context. Reading this Derbyshire tripe makes me want to puke. I can’t believe anyone would ever defend this money. What a fucking dickhead. I hate GWB, his policies, and his lies, but I would never bring his daughters into it. They didn’t chose their father.

By: Galois

Galois — Fri, 31 Oct 2003 00:56:08 +0000

Derbyshire never ceases to amaze me. In a column today he notes an article in the Daily Telegraph about a report showing British school children spend too much time on World War II and not enough on any other part of English history. The unescapabale conclusion by Derbyshire.... One cannot help but suspect that this has something to do with the fact that the British educational establishment, like our own, is dominated by Lefties, who all hold the peculiar conceit that Hitler was "right-wing," and therefore an ideological ancestor of, say, George W. Bush. Of course, ther article never hints that this could be the reason for the focus on Hitler. It points instead to a lack of time, a focus on testing, and lack of money for textbooks. One might also think it has something do with WWII having such an interesting and profound efect on not only Europe, but the world. No, one cannot help but think it must be a vast liberal conspiracy to compare Bush to Hitler.

By: Ophelia Benson

Ophelia Benson — Fri, 31 Oct 2003 00:49:46 +0000

Okay, now that I’ve read Derbyshire’s pissy response to the people who thought that column was a bit much, I have to ask – what is all this crap about how entitled and rich and greedy and overprivileged and entitled the Clintons are? Eh? Eh???? Does the name George W Bush mean anything to him? Is he under some delusion that George W Bush earned by the sweat of his brow every atom of money and access and influence and help and fame and name recognition and election to high office that he got, whereas Clinton just kicked back and rode on the glory that comes from being born to nobody in particular in small-town Arkansas and going to Arkansas public schools? Is that what he thinks? Because if it’s not, what in the hell is he raving about? And if it is – how can he possibly think that? Is the man clinically delusional? [Excuse me, I beg your pardon. I’m not even that fond of the Clintons, I voted for Nader in ‘96, but lies get up my nose.]

By: Ophelia Benson

Ophelia Benson — Fri, 31 Oct 2003 00:41:11 +0000

Yoo hoo. Fantasising about the murder of CC is not identical with fantasising about murdering CC. As a matter of fact, it’s quite different. Do be careful about translation. It makes a difference.

By: Captain USA

Captain USA — Fri, 31 Oct 2003 00:40:32 +0000

What a vile man Mr. Derbyshire reveals himself to be.

By: bryan

bryan — Thu, 30 Oct 2003 23:20:55 +0000

quoting Ted: But Derbyshire absolutely fantasizes about the murder of Chelsea Clinton. okay I read that part Ted, basically I feel like insulting you just as I would feel like insulting a neo-con who claimed high intelligence or truthfulness for Bush (given that those would be lies insulting to my own intellect), but I’ll forbear. There is absolutely nothing in that section you quoted which could be interpreted as absolutely fantasising about murdering Chelsea Clinton, unless absolutely fantasising with fantasising in italics is usually understood as talking about something that is pretty much unrelated. The obvious context of the part that you quote is not “oh how I wish Uncle Joe was still here so he could send out the troops to get that evil little Chelsea” but rather “Sadly living in a democracy which doesn’t allow the evil methods of nazis, communists, or imperial Chinese, we must suffer the presence of those deplorable Clintons.” from what I’ve seen of British humor I believe this might even be what is sometimes referred to as irony. or sarcasm, unsure which is which anymore. I think JB also made some succinct observations on this earlier. you’ve been willfully misreading this in order to put a negative spin on it, I hate republicans but I despise the act of misinterpreting writing, especially misinterpretations this bad. Perhaps I am mistaken in saying that you have willfully misread it, but I think not, I’ve read enough of your posts to know that you were not brought up in a house filled with Reader’s Digest and nothing else for reading purposes, and were just introduced to the interweb and all its myriad riches last week.

By: bryan

bryan — Thu, 30 Oct 2003 22:58:00 +0000

well I always liked Chelsea Clinton, I remember when Rush Limbaugh made fun of her I had some fantasies about killing him, most definitely. However I can’t help but say that this certainly shows all the signs of being meant to be funny, it is somewhat mean-spirited fun, but as he does point out she’s an adult. And in his defence of the original article (I know that it has now been described as Classy meaning absolutely not Classy) there is the following: “Lunatics might take the piece as an incitement to assassinate Chelsea. This underestimates the subtlety of the lunatic mind, which ranges much wider than this in its search for inspiration. Charlie Manson thought that the Beatles song “Helter Skelter,” which is about a fairground attraction, was telling him to murder movie stars. If we tailor our writing to the sensibilities of lunatics, nothing will get published. We don’t mock the president’s family. She’s not president’s family. She’s ex-president’s family. ” the first part seems to find laughable any suggestion that one should want to go out and kill Chelsea Clinton from reading the article. Which I have to agree that the reasoning in the first article does not really seem to be on the level required to get someone worked up enough to hunt down and exterminate another human being, I guess this is often a problem with humor. The second part struck me as funny just because of the bitchy tone. Now I have to admit that while I thought the articles were funny I also found them uncomfortable because of course I didn’t want to read about people disliking Chelsea Clinton, but that didn’t stop them being funny nonetheless. One thing I find strange here is that at least one person whose intellect I have some respect for, Ted Barlow, is so morally indignant as to resemble one of the grandiose right-wing idiots he normally is so good at puncturing. It reminds me of a shorter Lileks he posted once, something like: “people who say things I don’t like are not funny” or something like that. Perhaps now one of you will say there are just some things one doesn’t joke about. This is an excellent theory of humor; as an example I give you two words: Full House. Actually any adequate history of humor will show you that penultimate works in that field are generally on impolite subjects, this is nowhere near one of those but it’s far from the neocon 12 steps to murder that you’ve been ranting, raving and frothing over.

By: Dave Irvine

Dave Irvine — Thu, 30 Oct 2003 22:52:41 +0000

Derbyshire’s “defense” that “some unknowable number of the votes that elected Hillary were inspired by Chelsea” is particularly risible. Tricia and Julie Nixon went out to the public on their father’s behalf, and I don’t recall that they were ever mocked. No liberal expressed fears that “there was another Nixon in our future”, or in any way implied it might be a good thing if they along with their parents were liquidated as enemies of the state.

By: Conrad Barwa

Conrad Barwa — Thu, 30 Oct 2003 22:26:28 +0000

Yeah I think its was 21 when Pitt entered the House (or was it 22) but the guy was pretty precocious. As for the PM of England, it was sloppy but hardly a massive error. The best bit in Derbyshire’s ‘defence’ was where he says that Chelsea Clinton isn’t an 8 year old girl; true enough but it hardly does much to add to the sight of a mature man who feels that a 21 year-old is somehow deserving of such attention. I assume most political scion families in the US have progeny that are less than flattering to them, the Bushes’ come to my mind. Setting up a column to explore their exploits and then calling it journalism is hardly classy. The excuse that “oh I come from Britain and am bit of Bronx boy” also should be treated with the contempt it deserves.

By: Danny

Danny — Thu, 30 Oct 2003 21:55:57 +0000

Nothing like historical inaccuracies to support your position. At 21, Pitt the Younger was Prime Minister of England. Or not, seeing as Pitt the Younger took office when he was 24. Solid work, too, with managing miss the fact that there have never been prime ministers of England.

By: Barry

Barry — Thu, 30 Oct 2003 21:17:12 +0000

Perhaps one could read the article and see why – Derbyshire is some breed of fascist, and would love to use their methods. He isn’t talking about Stalin’s methods with revulsion, but rather envy.

By: Dave Irvine

Dave Irvine — Thu, 30 Oct 2003 20:53:13 +0000

Now I understand why Sullivan features a “Derbyshire Nominee” on his blog now and then. Derbyshire is one sick puppy, and I am moved once again to wonder, just what is it about conservatives that makes them attack even the children of people they don’t like?

By: Casmir Radon

Casmir Radon — Thu, 30 Oct 2003 20:48:01 +0000

The Falangists have hijacked the GOP at the same time the Spanish Inquisition has hijacked Protestantism. And is not “To stand athwart history yelling Stop…” both hubristic and quixotesque? Like standing athwart the Earth’s orbital path yelling stop.