Is that what we need? Coulter spews hate and we have to balance that off by admitting that there may be a Dem as full of hate as she is?

No. Not now. That is not what we need now. We have, for too long, allowed this sort of attack on humanity slide in the name of inclusiveness or open-mindedness.

When Dems are in power and there are columnists who write with as much vile ignorance as Coulter, then we can attack them.

But I do not think that is what we need now. Now we need to read the Rude Pundit and understand how ugly some of this stuff is.

It is not how we would conduct ourselves -- speaking as the Rude Pundit does (heck, some days I cannot read what he writes, let alone speak as he does ) -- but we cannot be so tolerant that we let the Coulters continue to have equal time, so fair that we suggest there is a place for her kind in civilized society.

I wonder how much longer even the reddest among us will tolerate her -- http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_
display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002689569

Nance

P.S. Sorry if I sound more stilted than usual -- the page will not let me use apostrophes.

Ann Coulter does not speak for all republicians, she speaks for what she beleives in, and it is her right to free speech as yours is. But to say she is full of hate and is ignorant, and a liar, is a poor choice of words on your part, or maybe she struck a chord. How many people who are close to you are fighting for our counrty, my quess is none, since this is an all voluntary armed force and they beleive for what this country stands for.

I wonder what our men and women in defense of this country would say to you if they could, is it alright for them to fight and die, so you and your loved ones are safe, and not have to fight this battle on our shores someday, and then not support these very same people. Why don't you go and talk to the parents of these brave soldiers who are there, and the ones who gave there lives for us, and how proud they are of their child, they believe in what we are fighting for, they don't believe their loved one died for nothing GOD bless them, (or do you also have a problem with bringing GOD into this)

This is not between the republicians and the democrats as you make it out to be. World War One started because of an assassination of a foreigner, I wonder what people like you would have written then, oh I forgot, you would have been UNAMERICAN!

Except we're talking past each other!

I suggest nothing of the kind, no timeout for ponderous introspection, or some silly strawwoman appeal for balance and inclusiveness. That's not what I MEANT (I'd want to tell me to butt out too, if that's what I heard me saying. . .)

I said it was poor tactics -- not EFFECTIVE -- for anyone who sees Ann Coulter and her ilk as worth fighting, to simply invite such easy return fire by ranting off with liar-liar-pants-on-fire instead of using our very best intelligence to develop the smart, technology-integrated battle plan that actually works better than the other side's, to know the enemy and then figure out how to penetrate, infiltrate and destroy the enemy's defenses.

Fighting fire with fire doesn't actually work that well even for real fires, much less allegorical ones. It certainly isn't the best weapon when you have choices. Ranting is the rock in rock-paper-scissors, and two rocks can't win against each other; they just keep clubbing each other to a draw and turning off the spectators with their brutish stubborness and lack of imagination. But Reason beats Ranting like the paper beats rock -- or if it doesn't, there's little point in living in such a world, imo.

If this is the "war" Liza declares above, then surely those who think the war on terror has been badly planned and executed, need to put our money where our mouths are and show we know how to do better, from understanding what rhetoric and tactics stiffen the other side's resolve and breed more enemies, to committing all necessary resources to finish the job.

Power of story is always a big part of war strategy, more so on this battleground than most imo. But "I HATE you!" isn't enough of a storyline to win anything, not a child's interest or a lierary award, much less a real war with humanity itself at stake. What's needed to win a war isn't mamby-pamby introspection, but focused, effective ways to see what needs doing, define our benchmarks of success, engage the support of all natural allies, and fight to WIN. Not just to whine.

Power of story could look like this news story, for example --
Take the political proposal for a southern border fence. We can just rant and ridicule pro or con about this, and many surely will.

Meanwhile, true cultural creatives examine the idea itself in progressive fashion, which to me means exploring it from all sorts of meaningful angles without knowing where you might wind up.

Political partisanship to impose one's own foregone conclusion and reject everything else isn't my idea of progressive regardless of the color it's cloaked in.

I respect Liza asking we not link here to exploiters who won't reciprocate, but check out today's NYT Week in Review on your own. It's online with photos,story and multimedia show. Here's a really good example imo, of injecting cultural creativity into public discourse toward some actual progress, rather than just political mugging of ideas from hate and fear, as in the Dark Ages.
And I love the glass rods depicted, at least as art (not saying we should go build it tomorrow, just entertaining some creative thought before putting my spear or postholedigger in the ground!)
[quote]

A meeting of two cultures creates a third, Mr. Moss says.

By WILLIAM L. HAMILTON

. . . maybe some form of backyard diplomacy is in order — Mexico is no enemy — and there are obvious suspects for the job: professional designers, whose duty it is to come up with welcome solutions that defy ugly problems; to create appeal where there might be none.

As a classic design challenge, The New York Times asked 13 architects and urban planners to devise the "fence." Several declined because they felt it was purely a political issue.

"It's a silly thing to design, a conundrum," said Ricardo Scofidio of Diller Scofidio & Renfro in New York. "You might as well leave it to security and engineers."

(But) four of the five who submitted designs proposed making the boundary a point of innovative integration, not traditional division — something that could be seen, from both sides, as a horizon of opportunity, not as a barrier.

[Paraphrasing]
Any monumental fortifications could have a second purpose, like a solar energy-collecting strip that would produce . . .a "productive, sustainable enterprise zone" that attracted industry from the north and created employment for the south — in the same no-man's median that people now cross in search of work, and/or "a border of light that could be seen from space at night."

Eric Owen Moss, an architect in Los Angeles, designed a strolling, landscaped arcade of lighted glass columns to invite a social exchange in the evening, much like the "paseo," popular in Hispanic culture.

"Make something between cultures, which leads to a third," Mr. Moss said. "Celebrate the amalgamation of the two."

Enrique Norten, an architect born in Mexico who has offices now in Mexico City and New York with his firm TEN Arquitectos, proposed using the fence budget to build infrastructures like highways instead.

"The future is about embracing the economy of Mexico," he said, of a long-term plan for the area, not a literal stopgap measure like a fence. Mr. Norten was speaking from Germany, where he was attending the World Cup. "Look at Europe, where this is happening. Spain was a border country 10 years ago. Now it's part of a greater community."

Antoine Predock, based in Albuquerque, "dematerialized" the fence, he explained, with a physical wall designed as a mirage. An earthwork of rammed, tilted dirt would be pushed into place by Mexican day laborers. Crushed rock scattered before it, and heated from below, would appear to lift it off the ground, in the way that heat in the desert appears to make objects hover, like mirages.

"There would be confusion about the materiality of the wall," Mr. Predock explained. "It would discourage you from crossing, but the message from both sides would be one of good will." [/quote]

A pure gem.