The term “wingnut” gets thrown about rather loosely at times. But the life and work of former Representative Helen Chenoweth (R-Idaho) embodied all the richness and flavor that expression ought properly to convey. She died yesterday while bravely defying the nanny-state’s intrusive expectation that its charges wear seat belts.
Some highlights of her career are covered over at The Phil Nugent Experience:
Other Republicans had played footsie with the Turner Diaries crowd, but Chenoweth boldly remained attached to them even after the Oklahoma City bombing, an event that inspired her to the optimistic explanation, “Maybe now more people will listen!” Chenoweth married her admiration and concern for the militia groups with her other big obsession, the unspeakable horrors of eco-fascism. Having denounced environmentalism as a deranging form of religion that was at odds with the separation of church and state, she claimed that the government was using its secret black helicopters to terrorize hunters and protect endangered species…. She also, naturally, called for the impeachment of that awful Bill Clinton, but publically declared her support for her kind of world leader, Slobodan Milosovic.
Chenoweth was not simply another opportunist signing onto the “Contract with America” in 1994. “She was,” as Nugent puts it, “a 100% true believer, too radical to ever really accomplish anything and so sincere that you always knew just where you stood with her.”
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Karole 10.04.06 at 9:47 am
Do you mean that it is incorrect to describe as a “wingnut” anyone who does not hold the type of conspiracy-theory type views on environmentalism attributed to this late woman? If so, a lot of people have been wrongly described.
Call me old-fashioned, but I think name-calling does advance democratic debate one jot, and it in fact degrades and corrodes the standard debate. Would it not be better to decommission such terms of invective and simply take the issues on their merits?
tom bach 10.04.06 at 9:56 am
Maybe not a jot, but at least a tittle.
Matt 10.04.06 at 9:57 am
Having grown up in Idaho I knew Helen Chenoweth all too well. The bit above only touches on her craziness, really. My favorite bit from her was that the UN was planning to (or maybe already was) occupying our national parks. Now, the national parks are nice, so I can see why the UN might want them, but she never did come up with any evidence. Also, the man she defeated was one of the few decent politicians to come out of Idaho. She beat him largely because he’d denied having had an affair many year before (both the affair and the denail were many years old) and it was shown that he’d lied about it. This was ironic since Chenoweth eventually left in shame (not for her nuttiness) but because she’d had an affair while in office. (And Karole, since Chenoweth’s views had no merit they could not really be debated on the merits, I’d think. Really, when there is no evidence at all for a view, how can you fight it? Such things can only be rideculed.
John Emerson 10.04.06 at 10:06 am
Chenoweth is the gold standard for mainstream wingnuttery, but that doesn’t mean that the 12 carat versions aren’t wingnuts too.
I’ve been trying to document here Oklahoma City quote for years. Somehow the really disgusting things Republicans say quickly disappear, whereas stupid things Democrats didn’t say are immortal. (Another example is Newt Gingich blaming the Susan Smith murders on the Democrats (Smith was from a prominent Republican family.) Gingrich disgraced himself, but the incident has been forgotten, and he was rewarded with the Speakership shortly thereafter.
Karole, back in your bubble.
roger 10.04.06 at 10:08 am
The problem with invective is not that it degrades discourse — it is, instead, the widespread illusion that anybody can do it. Like lyric poetry, invective does take talent. Although everybody at one point or another tries his hand at it (which is also true of lyric poetry), few slurs really stick. Wingnut is a definite addition to the slur vocabulary, and it goes nicely with its counterpart, the limosine liberal (or nowadays, latte sipping liberal), since wingnuts seems so car mechanical and blue collar, while latte’s seem so symbol worker and East Coast. Of course, the reality is that wingnuts are usually not supported by blue collar workers — the further down you go on the income scale, the more likely you are to vote Dem, and the more education you have, the more likely you are to vote Republican – but since politics is played through a mirror darkly in this country, it doesn’t matter.
Hazlitt, in his essay about William Cobbett in the Spirit of the Age, has a nice line about this:
“There is not a single bon-mot, a single sentence in Cobbett that has ever been quoted again. If any thing is ever quoted from him, it is an epithet of abuse or a nickname. He is an excellent hand at invention in that way, and has ‘damnable iteration in him.’ What could be better than his pestering Erskine year after year with his second title of Baron Clackmarman?”
Damnable iteration is the life and soul of an insult. Atrios, with the wanker of the day award, is instinctively following along the same lines, and he is slowly driving certain characters – for instance, the TNR crewe — crazy with it. Hence, the mad tea party of sock puppetry and blogofascism at TNR recently.
Myself, I think there should be an insult of the year award.
Maurice Meilleur 10.04.06 at 10:23 am
My favorite Chenoweth moment was her argument against protecting the spawning grounds of Pacific Northwest salmon in the Snake River system: that the fish couldn’t be endangered, since you could buy salmon in cans at the supermarket.
nick s 10.04.06 at 10:39 am
She also had ‘endangered species banquets’. More here, from 1998, by David Niewert:
As one GOP political operative in northern Idaho once told a reporter in an unguarded moment: “Helen is living proof that you can fuck your brains out.”
alan 10.04.06 at 11:04 am
A few choice passages on Chenoweth from “High Country News”:http://hcn.org. On endangered species:
bq. The Northwest may be losing its salmon, but “Can Helen, Not Salmon” bumper stickers are proliferating in the region, even on the cars of government employees. The slogan refers to U.S. Rep. Helen Chenoweth, R-Idaho, widely known for her sponsorship of an endangered species salmon bake. “A species goes out of existence every 20 seconds,” she recently told The Nation. “Surely a species must come into existence every 20 seconds.”
I still have one of those stickers, somewhere… On race:
bq. The Forest Service is wasting time trying to recruit minority workers in her state, says Idaho Republican Rep. Helen Chenoweth in the Idaho Spokesman-Review, because “the warm-climate community just hasn’t found the colder climate that attractive.” Accused of perpetuating northern Idaho’s image as a haven for bigots and racists, Chenoweth said she “didn’t mean to offend anybody” …
And on bears:
bq. Reasoning that grizzlies are so fierce they can easily make do in crowded forests fragmented by roads, Chenoweth added tartly that any biologist who thinks roads degrade grizzly habitat “believes in Easter bunnies.” The bears are so fierce, she added, they would “fight hell with a squirt gun.”
Matt 10.04.06 at 11:22 am
Ah, those were the days… when the wackos actually believed what they said.
howardl 10.04.06 at 11:27 am
Presumably, the Washington Post obituary writer does not intend to be amusing: “Ms. Chenoweth-Hage, who was not wearing a seat belt, was thrown from the vehicle and died at the scene. The baby and his mother were not seriously hurt. Ms. Chenoweth-Hage, who served from 1995 to 2001 as an unabashed opponent of laws that limited personal freedom…” [including seat belt laws].
harry b 10.04.06 at 11:30 am
howardl — oh no, I think its supposed to be amusing. I don’t read the Wshington Post, but obituary reading is one of my favourite activities — partly for the frequent sly humour.
stuart 10.04.06 at 11:52 am
Ms. Chenoweth-Hage, who served from 1995 to 2001 as an unabashed opponent of laws that limited personal freedom
Of course now she is just a bashed ex-opponent of laws that limit personal freedom.
I don't pay 10.04.06 at 11:52 am
I never heard her voice, nor felt myself or my region embarrassed by her. To me she was a clown, somehow likable for being sincere and of course, ineffective. And that “brains out” anecdote of Nick S’s, which I’d have introduced if he hadn’t reminds me of why it was hard for me to hate her: these people should at least have fun, in a passionate, silly way.
nick s 10.04.06 at 12:01 pm
And on bears:
I hope that Stephen Colbert’s ‘Number One Threat: Bears!’ obsession is directly indebted to Chenoweth.
bi 10.04.06 at 12:02 pm
Saying that the word “wingnut” “gets thrown about rather loosely at times” just means that we need to be very careful with the application of this term. However, if after careful research it has been determined that such and such is, in fact, a wingnut, one shouldn’t hesitate to call a wingnut a wingnut.
Oh, can we include in the definition of “wingnut” those who insist on having polite, civilized debate which is unencumbered by facts?
abb1 10.04.06 at 12:15 pm
…driven by her daughter-in-law…was holding her 5-month-old grandson on her lap…
Isn’t it just criminal? And what about her daughter-in-law – sounds like is she quite an idiot too, to allow it.
Rich B. 10.04.06 at 1:22 pm
It was frequently said about Ms. Chenoweth that people felt so strongly about her that she would have gotten 48% of the vote running against the Lord, and 52% running against Satan.
Karole 10.04.06 at 1:30 pm
John Emerson, I don’t live in a bubble. My point was addressed to the value of referring to an opponent as “latte sipping liberal” or “wingnut” or whatever. Perhaps I was wrong to say it degrades debate; maybe it’s just a substitute for actual debate.
rea 10.04.06 at 1:32 pm
“The bears are so fierce, she added, they would “fight hell with a squirt gun.—
Another supporter of the right to arm bears, I see . . .
gmoke 10.04.06 at 2:00 pm
For great invective, a useful purge, I always remember Shakespeare’s _Richard III_ with fondness.
P O'Neill 10.04.06 at 2:15 pm
Unfortunately the consequences of the wave of rage that she rode are still around. Note for instance that gun control appears to be an off-limits topic regarding the recent school shootings — although the Lancaster Co. killer may have only broken a law regarding stun-guns! But the chorus of screaming from, yes, wingnuts, that greets any discussion of gun control seems to have achieved its purpose.
Slocum 10.04.06 at 2:25 pm
Yes, Chenowith was a nut, and driving without a seatbelt is dumb…but seatbelt laws really do suck.
Jim Harrison 10.04.06 at 4:32 pm
It’s often a hard call, but simply dismissing a really contemptible enemy with invective is often the only rational thing to do. The normal rules of dialogue create the impression that both sides of a debate can make a prima facie case. When one side is premoting a truly stupid position–intelligent design, for example–or a truly monstrous position–the promotion of torture–civility is objectionable. (Remember the bit in the Beatles movie where the Anglican priest, in a fit of Episcopalian moderation, tries to see the good side of human sacrifice.)
a different chris 10.04.06 at 4:39 pm
>but seatbelt laws really do suck.
Tell that to the paramedic that had to scrape Ms. Chenowith off the road, and who was somehow saved the horrifying prospect of doing the same thing with her grandchild.
Sorry, but that whole behavior: Reckless SUV driving, no seatbelts, total lack of sense where children are concerned – that is pretty much wingnut to the bone.
Idiots. A person not to be missed.
Salted Peanut Lover 10.04.06 at 5:35 pm
Good ridance!
Slocum 10.04.06 at 5:49 pm
>but seatbelt laws really do suck.
Tell that to the paramedic that had to scrape Ms. Chenowith off the road, and who was somehow saved the horrifying prospect of doing the same thing with her grandchild.
I didn’t say seatbelts suck, I said seatbelt *laws* suck — for a variety of reasons. The laws are a abuse of federalism (the states were strong-armed into passing them). And for civil liberties fans — you’ve handed police a handy pretext to pull over cars (because they “couldn’t see” the seatbelt shoulder strap–oops).
I do all kinds of things that are statistically more dangerous than driving (a modern anti-lock brake equipped, air-bag equipped car) without a seatbelt, and so do you (unless you lead a really boring life). Mountain-biking, for example. Or scuba diving. Or, hell, just riding my bike on the road with cars (even wearing helmet). And I don’t want the nannies to start bothering me about these things. Think that’s not likely? I also like to sail, and when it’s rough, I wear a PFD. But on warm, mild days, I don’t (they’re hot, uncomfortable, and unnecessary). But the govt has seriously considered mandatory PFD laws (google ‘mandatory pfd’). Personally I want to maintain the right and responsibility to determine how I want to trade fun against safety.
Don’t you? Or don’t you trust yourself?
Brett Bellmore 10.04.06 at 6:02 pm
Even wingnuts deserve a bit of accuracy in the way they’re attacked; Helen Chenoweth was more of an “Unintended Consequences” type than a “Turner Diaries” type, if I recall her right. There IS a difference.
EWI 10.04.06 at 6:41 pm
It’s often a hard call, but simply dismissing a really contemptible enemy with invective is often the only rational thing to do. The normal rules of dialogue create the impression that both sides of a debate can make a prima facie case. When one side is premoting a truly stupid position—intelligent design, for example—or a truly monstrous position—the promotion of torture—civility is objectionable.
Exactly. I strongly suspect that Karole Cuddihy’s objection here is that he actually *does* belong to such a group, in the form of a group of Young Blueshirts/McDowell Youth student types associating in a certain Irish so-called “think tank”.
John Emerson 10.04.06 at 7:50 pm
But seatbelt laws really do suck.
Many morons are actually nice people who we want to help stay alive. Of course, if they’re very determined, they’ll find other ways to off themselves, as we see, but seat belt laws sort out the wishy-washy morons from the determined ones.
ben wolfson 10.04.06 at 8:14 pm
Helen Chenoweth naked (nsfw, obviously).
John Emerson 10.04.06 at 8:23 pm
Ben, Ben. it didn’t work! Help! No link!
eweininger 10.04.06 at 9:46 pm
Personally I want to maintain the right and responsibility to determine how I want to trade fun against safety.
Chris’ (the different one’s) point holds–someone still has to clean up the mess when the fun goes splat, which of course costs. And let us note that automobiles, if not SUVs, are pretty essential to satisfying the transport needs of most in the US (you know–getting to work, the grocery store, that sort of thing), sailboats are not. Nevertheless, should the good ship Slocum, God forbid, go under one day, a bunch of folks would still have to dress up in scuba suits (or whatever) to scoop up the pieces. So unless the rest of us are indemnified, I don’t see why it’s prima facie wrong for the gov’t to consider mandating well-grounded risk reduction measures.
And, no, this doesn’t imply that the state should outlaw gratuitious driving. But seatbelts aren’t unreasonable.
Daniel 10.04.06 at 10:31 pm
Different Chris and Eweininger,
How much do you think the extra clean-up required for seat belt-less victims actually factors into the push for seat belt laws?
Comparatively, how much does the “it’s for their own safety” argument factor?
If you’re for soft paternalism, then so be it. But don’t try to mask it as public spending control.
nick s 10.04.06 at 11:25 pm
Personally I want to maintain the right and responsibility to determine how I want to trade fun against safety.
Don’t you? Or don’t you trust yourself?
Generally, the fun of seeing someone propelled through the windscreen of a vehicle diminishes significantly after said person is propelled through the windscreen of your own vehicle.
But that’s just me.
Quo Vadis 10.04.06 at 11:47 pm
eweininger:
You haven’t thought this through. People who die prematurely don’t collect their Social Security. For a typical adult, that would cover the cost of cleaning up the mess while providing jobs for paramedics and ultimately leave more money for you to spend.
How do you feel about seat belt laws now?
Tangurena 10.05.06 at 12:35 am
Back in the 1950s, the US Air Force was trying to reduce the fatalities among pilots and flight crew. They went through all sorts of statistics, and as scary as flaming crashes are, traffic accidents killed and injured more pilots than anything else. And applying their statistics to the auto crashes, they identified that seat belts would have saved many of the victims.
Seat belts aren’t the misbegotten offspring of the “nanny state,” they are the offspring of pure unadulterated statistics.
ben wolfson 10.05.06 at 12:57 am
Helen Chenoweth naked for real, honest.
bad Jim 10.05.06 at 2:38 am
Think of it as evolution in action.
Slocum 10.05.06 at 6:44 am
Chris’ (the different one’s) point holds—someone still has to clean up the mess when the fun goes splat, which of course costs.
Well, that applies equally to bike riders who are splatted by passing trucks which, sadly, is a more common occurence (on a per-mile basis) than the death of beltless drivers. By the ‘clean up the mess logic’, wouldn’t the state then be more justified in mandating bicycles stay off roads and on designated bike paths than in mandating seatbelt use?
We in sunny Victoria were the first people in the world to introduce compulsory seat belt legislation in 1970. Let me reassure Slocum it was not a slippery slope.
Yes, well, in the U.S. it does seem to be a slippery slope. We have mandatory bike helmet laws in some places, mandatory booster seat laws (despite statistical evidence that booster seats do not provide additional protection) and the aforementioned PFD laws (which exist in some states and localities).
A story which I believe is true, but cannot provide a link — it is certainly plausible, anyway. A kayaker is paddling down a river not wearing a PFD in a place where they’re required. Some people along the bank warn him that, around the bend in the river, there is an officer ticketing paddlers without PFDs. He has no PFD in the boat, so he climbs out of the boat and swims around the bend towing his kayak, since a PFD is not (yet) required when swimming (though it probably should be–swimming is quite dangerous, you know). The officer tickets him anyway, and he has to go to court to fight it…
Where does it end, really? Many people DO drown when swimming. PFDs can’t be required, but maybe swimming licenses could be mandated — nobody would be allowed in the water if they hadn’t passed an official government swim test and had a waterproof license tucked in his or her suit. It would save lives, wouldn’t it?
eweininger 10.05.06 at 8:28 am
You haven’t thought this through. People who die prematurely don’t collect their Social Security.
Um, isn’t it the case that the spouse and/or kids collect?
that applies equally to bike riders who are splatted by passing trucks which, sadly, is a more common occurence (on a per-mile basis) than the death of beltless drivers.
But as I’m sure you realize, the typical American drives many many more miles in a year than she bikes.
Sure, licensing people to swim is absurd on it’s face. But counter-examples are just as easy to think up–e.g. you’re already prohibited from riding your bike on the freeway in most places. Is that really an instance of nannyism run amok?
despite statistical evidence that booster seats do not provide additional protection…
Are you referring to the Levitt/Dubner thing on this from a couple of months ago? I don’t have time to look it up, but my recollection is that they concluded that, yes, the $200 booster seats are gratuitous, but restraints of one sort or another (i.e. seatbelts) are most certainly not. Please correct me if I’m wrong.
bi 10.05.06 at 8:42 am
Argh! I want the government to stop acting like a nanny! But I want the right to act like a baby!
Oops.
Matt 10.05.06 at 9:09 am
There’s another way to argue for seat belt laws. It’s quite obvious that wearing a seat belt greatly improves you chances of survival in a crash and that the inconvenience and/or discomfort is quite minimal. But, many people are extremely bad at thinking about probabilities and the like. This is so even when they know the math is on the other side- they just think they’ll be different or don’t think at all. If they did properly think they’d wear the belt. So, the modet fines given for not wearing a seat belt can serve as a sort of reminder, a way to help people focus on the proper statistics. In cases where people are so manifestly irrational (and the costs of a mistake are not purely internalizable) such a course of action doesn’t seem unreasonable to me. Now, sometimes this approach can be taken too far, obviously, but then it’s time for people to remember that they do still live in a democracy, especially at the local level where nearly all the bad examples (if they are real- some are urban myths I think) Slocum mentions come from.
John Emerson 10.05.06 at 9:37 am
To me indignation about seat belt laws is one of the tell-tale signs of wingnuttery. When someone asks me (rhetorically, of course) to name a single thing that any government anywhere in the whole history of the world has ever done right — believing that it will be impossible for me to do so and that they will be able to watch as my whole universe crashes around my ears — after public health the next thing I mention is traffic safety. The traffic death rate per mile has gone down enormously over the last five decades, and the main factors are government redesign of roads and highways, improvements in auto design which are mostly government-mandated, traffic safety education which is mostly governmentally organized, and seat belt laws.
Of course, I’m relatively anti-automobile and these people are just enabling environmental destruction, but if they did the traffic safety job right. And at every step of the way there were Slocums yammering about individual responsibility, freedom, jackbooted thigs, and so on.
Other wingnuts of this type are indignant at the existence of free public libraries, the National Park system, the Smithsonian Institute, all of which are unconstitutional interference in the rights of individuals to be ignorant.
Not to speak of the Holocaust that is Social Security.
John Emerson 10.05.06 at 9:39 am
And takings. Free public libraries and the Nationl Park system have destroyed the liveliehoods of thousands of people.
Slocum 10.05.06 at 10:58 am
Sure, licensing people to swim is absurd on it’s face. But counter-examples are just as easy to think up—e.g. you’re already prohibited from riding your bike on the freeway in most places. Is that really an instance of nannyism run amok?
No, it’s not nannyism — bicycles on expressways would endanger everybody (for the same reason that slow-moving vehicles are a hazard and are prohibited).
But I don’t know why you think a swimming license is absurd on the face of it. IIRC, drowning is the 2nd or 3rd most common cause of accidental death, and I could see a lot of those favoring mandatory seat-belt, helmets, PFDs & etc coming around to favor swimming licenses. Or mountain biking licenses. “The conditions on this beach today require an ‘A’ rated license”, or “You are forbidden to ride this trail unless you possess at least a ‘B’ level mountain bike certificate”, and so on.
If you favor seat-belt laws, why not? Many people are equally ill-informed about the risks of swimming — they are unaware of the frequency of drownings, despite having poor (or no) swimming skills they persist in wading out into rough surf, they don’t know what to do about rip currents, and so on. Surely the government should step in, shouldn’t it?
C. L. Ball 10.05.06 at 11:37 am
I have worn a seatbelt long before any laws were passed because my parents worked in ERs and had seen the differential effects of seatbelt and non-seatbelt use firsthnd, but do we know that seatbelt laws for adults actually reduce fatalities v. greater public awareness of seatbelt advantages (or seatbelt laws for minors) producing the moratility and morbidity reductions.
And seatbelt laws, sadly, have had rather outrageous effects — see Atwater v. Turek.
But re #4, maybe the OC quote cannot be found because it did not occur. Does anyone have a cite on it?
John Emerson 10.05.06 at 11:44 am
I clearly remember the Chenoweth quote being reported at the time. The report may have been inaccurate then, but the report itself was not imaginary.
After big disasters and crimes there’s a tendency to want to damp things down, and I think that after a certain point no one wanted to remember Chenoweth’s quote.
Slocum, please tell us how aeful seat belt laws are. Don’t try to get us mad about something that hasnn’t happened.
Bruce Baugh 10.05.06 at 11:45 am
The idea that the state ought to have no interest in the leading causes of death among its citizens strikes me as peculiar. The idea that it should have that disinterest while being very concerned about damage to their property strikes me as doubly so.
John Emerson 10.05.06 at 11:47 am
The Turek case was a case of police misconduct endorsed by the courts. A police problem and a court problem. The original arrest happened to be for a seatbelt law, but it could have been for any misdemeanor whatsoever.
Totally, totally a red herring. Unsurprisingly. As I said, seatbelt activists are wingnuts.
nick s 10.05.06 at 1:03 pm
If you favor seat-belt laws, why not?
Because apple pie tastes strange if you use oranges?
Jim Harrison 10.05.06 at 1:04 pm
Laws for seat belts and similar governmental actions have an educational effect over and beyond detering stupid behavior by overt penalties. Even the libertarians end up advertising the obvious advantages of wearing seat belts as they rage against the laws for their own hobbyhorsical reasons.
eweininger 10.05.06 at 2:00 pm
Hey Slocum–How do you feel about the traditional liberal-meets-libertarian solution to this sort of thing–you know, don’t manipulate the choice set, just the ease of “choosing” the different options. That is, if cars could be designed so that seat belts automatically fastened around passengers when the engine started, and they then had to actively opt out by un-latching them (should that be their choice, of course), would that be acceptable?
Martin James 10.05.06 at 3:25 pm
Bi, Jim Harrison, and Jim Emerson just for fun,
No one sticks to the facts in discourse; they add values and context. Everyone pretends a lot and most people pretend that their own life has a meaning.
I like to pretend that freedom, including the freedom to ignore facts, is an end not a means to an end. I also like to pretend that I would give my life for this pretense.
BTW, I’ve always loved wingnuts because you don’t needs tools to tighten them.
Nat Whilk 10.05.06 at 3:45 pm
It’s a shame that Chenoweth didn’t perish in an Egyptian ferry disaster so that her passing could have elicited a morsel of sympathy from Crooked Timberites.
derrida derider 10.05.06 at 7:56 pm
eweininger’s right. The state ought not to legally punish behaviour by legally competent adults that basically** hurts only themselves. But that doesn’t mean that it ought to do nothing at all where it has good reason to believe that the behaviour is ill-informed or otherwise irrational. There are many other methods (setting defaults, education, etc) by which the state can help citizens make rational and informed decisions.
**Note: I say “basically” because as social animals virtually everything we do affects others – if the state banned actions that mildly or rarely harmed someone somewhere there would be very little left unbanned.
Brett Bellmore 10.06.06 at 5:57 am
Part of the problem with calling Helen a “wingnut”, is that it’s a way of conflating stands she took that were justifiably nutty, (Like the “black helicopter stuff, though there’s some interesting background on how that got started in the first place.) with stands she took that liberals just happen to not like, and dismissing them as a whole.
For instance, anyone who has a first-hand aquaintance with the militia movement, rather than getting all their “knowlege” about it from the likes of Morris Dees, will know that it was a lot more complex than the left likes to admit, and had some genuinely admirable aspects. You can see that at work with the Minutemen today, who are a LOT nicer bunch in reality than their press would suggest.
ajay 10.06.06 at 6:39 am
So let me get this right: the Republican who supported an anti-internet-paedo law has now been found to be an internet paedo, and a Republican who opposed seatbelt laws has been killed because she wasn’t wearing a seatbelt.
My fellow Europeans: we can no longer in honesty say that Americans have no such thing as irony. This isn’t just irony, it’s high-tensile maraging carbon-steely.
bi 10.06.06 at 10:07 am
Martin James: But as Benjamin Franklin might have said: Those who would give up the Essential Right to be Rude for a little of the Right to be Fact-Free, deserve neither the Right to Rudeness nor the Right to Fact-Freeness. Of course, if one can be both rude and fact-free at the same time, that’ll be the best of both worlds.
Anyway, when it comes to the promotion of polite fact-free just-so discourse, Slocum, Nat Whilk, and Brett Bellmore are clearly at the forefront. (Wait, make that “Anyway, I believe that it seems to a statement of fact that when…”…)
roger 10.06.06 at 11:00 am
If I walk onto a construction site, the people who own the site can make me wear a helmet. The people who own the roads — i.e., the government – would seem to be well within their rights making me wear seat belts. I don’t see that as an encroachment upon liberty. It isn’t unusual or cruel. It might not be effective, in which case one can campaign to change it. But the state is operating well within its rights, here.
Jim Harrison 10.06.06 at 11:20 am
The problem lots of us have with libertarians is that they seem to think that real world problems can be settled in advance by appeal to general principles. In fact, there are reasons why it can be a good thing to promote safety and health by law and also reasons why we should be very cautious about impinging on individual freedom. Seems to me that what is always needed is something like judgment to strike a balance, which is always subject to amendment on the basis of on-going experience.
Hey, what a radical, relativistic position!
Martin James 10.06.06 at 11:37 am
Bi,
Let’s say three people are discussing whether waterboarding is “in fact” torture.
Person 1 says that it is a fact that there is waterboarding and that it is in fact torture.
Person 2 says that it is a fact that there is waterboarding and that it is not in fact torture.
Person 3 says that there is no such thing as a waterboard so it can’t be torture.
The promoters of “factual” and “reasonable” discourse oftern seem to me to think that excluding 3 from the discourse helps us in some way with the disagreement between 1 and 2.
I am saying that disrespecting person 3 helps us nothing towards the dispute between 1 and 2.
Almost nothing we care about is primarily a matter of “fact”.
Karole 10.06.06 at 12:03 pm
The final sentence of Matt’s comment (3. above) has merit in relation to the particular issues on which Cranworth has apparently expressed some rather strange views, to put it mildly. I didn’t mean to defend her views as expressed. To be honest I don’t know her so I couldn’t judge.
My only point was that it’s a bit of a waste of time to put people in little boxes. Sometimes these descriptions are just lazy generalisations. Such terms can be overly inclusive. You could say I’m wary of meta-narratives.
Karole 10.06.06 at 12:05 pm
Without really knowing anything about Cranworth, I suspect that Brett (comment 58.) may be correct to say that:
“Part of the problem with calling Helen a “wingnutâ€, is that it’s a way of conflating stands she took that were justifiably nutty, (Like the “black helicopter stuff, though there’s some interesting background on how that got started in the first place.) with stands she took that liberals just happen to not like, and dismissing them as a whole.”
That is the danger of using lazy descriptions; it lumps all a person (or party)’s views together.
bi 10.06.06 at 12:45 pm
Martin James says, “Let’s say …” These words say it all. Let’s say that Martin James and Nat Whilk and the “ticking bomb” types stop talking abstract hypotheticals and actually talk about things that’ve actually happened. Will that help the discussion?
And of course, apparently it’s not a waste of time for Karole to be repeatedly harping for like 4 posts on how Invective Is Bad For Discourse(tm) without even stating where she stands regarding Chenoweth’s beliefs.
Martin James 10.06.06 at 2:17 pm
Bi,
Here are some facts.
From 1956 to 1980, a Democrat, Frank Church, was a senator from Idaho. He sponsored wilderness legislation, voted against the war in Viet Nam and played a leading role in legislation restricting the power of the CIA.
Fourteen years later, in 1994, and again in 1996 and 1998, many of these same Idahoans voted for Helen Chenowith for US Representative.
Those are the facts. And honestly, after having lived through it, it blows my mind. I can’t explain it with facts.
Another Democrat from Idaho, Cecil Andrus, wrote in his book, Politics Western Style, that seeing Bill Clinton deal with the media made him realize that the Democrats were screwed in Idaho. In his opinion he wasn’t a regular guy, he was a star, and Idahoans wouldn’t put up with it.
I recognize that its not a fact, and that I may be projecting, but its as good of a theory as any that people in Idaho vote for the Helen Chenowith’s of the world because she irritated the Bi’s of the world.
bi 10.06.06 at 3:44 pm
Martin James: Interesting. Well, if your point was that “disrespect” for the Other Side is counterproductive, then how do you reconcile this with the fact that Chenoweth didn’t exactly win by showing respect for the Other Side herself?
Which leads me to my slightly better crackpot theory on How To Gain Mindshare(tm), which is this: The way to win more people to Your Side is to use more invective, not less. Perhaps, just perhaps, if you hurl lots of insults at people you disagree with, then some weird mechanism will kick in and bring more supporters to Your Side. (They’ll probably not include the people you insulted, but that doesn’t matter.)
bi 10.06.06 at 3:47 pm
… In particular, if
Your Side = people who pay attention to facts
Other Side = people who want fact-free polite discussion
then… :)
Martin James 10.06.06 at 4:15 pm
Bi:
Help you’ve mindshared me into submission. I’m so on your side! If people would only pay more attention to the facts on time use, that show that people spend more time watching TV than reading, exercising, educating children put together then this world would be a better place.
I’ve got to pay more attention to the meta-narrative of invective.
Since my side:= people who are continually perplexed
their side:= people who think they know the answer
Then, mindshare invective would say “Those stinkin’ know-it-alls that think they know everything are sure irritating to those of us that do.”
nick s 10.07.06 at 12:14 am
You can see that at work with the Minutemen today, who are a LOT nicer bunch in reality than their press would suggest.
Coming from Bellmore, that’s the kind of thing that has me reaching for the gun cabinet. But I’m sure that Brett is talking about the nice non-Nazi-flag-waving Minutemen.
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