...what he said. I was going to write about how Rep. Joe Wilson, who during last night's presidential address shouted "You lie!", shouldn't be criticized for being rude or uncivil. After all, if Obama had advocated sending left-handed people to gas chambers, I hope someone would have the courage to shout him down. But then I read Thers' "I Think You're an Asshole, And I Will Defend to the Death Your Right to Act Like an Asshole, But You're Still an Asshole, Asshole" and realized he already said what needed to be said:
...I honestly do not think anyone from the Bush administration should be able to speak in public without being pelted with garbage, because I quite sincerely believe that they all told lies that ended up killing lots of people. Because, you know, they did.Truth is a higher value than civility....
Let's play Moron's Advocate. Hey, maybe you sincerely believe that a hypothetical clause in a hypothetical bill might hypothetically lead to what would even hypothetically be a functionally negligible amount of non-citizens getting healthcare on the public dime, as opposed to just dying on the public dime in the system that currently obtains. And maybe you sincerely believe this sort of paranoid race-baiting horseshit is worth not taking action to reform the worst healthcare system in the developed world. Fair enough!
So go ahead, golf clap for this Wilson fellow. He stood up for his embarrassing dickhead crazy asshole beliefs, and now is getting his Reward....
The point is, Wilson is a piece of shit; that he is a rude piece of shit, is not very important....
In my lifetime we have not had a sensible public discourse. We have however had a lot of shit about "civility." Maybe we should stop the sniveling about how something is said, and pay more attention to whether or not it's plausible in terms of reality?
I blame it on scientists with poor communications skills.
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Truth is a higher value than civility
Thanks mike :)
It does seem that lying in public has gone way mainstream. Since uncle Walter retired, I don't think I've trusted any media outside of NPR. Civility sucks when it overshadows the lying.
Isn't Joe Wilson the one with the hot wife who used to be a spy?
Fred @3
Right name, wrong person. This Joe Wilson's an idiot. Valerie Plame's husband, also named Joe Wilson, was the guy who tried to tell Bush & Cheney they were full of shit about Saddam and yellow cake uranium. Bush Co decided they didn't like that info and outed his spy wife when he went public with the contrary (and as it turns out) correct data.
No Fred, Joe Wilson is a wacko extreme right wing conservative congressman from South Carolina who has never proposed any decent bills in congress.
Joseph Wilson, diplomat and special presidential adviser is the one married to Valerie Plame Wilson.
Mike, I agree that Truth trumps civility.
Thanks very much for just now introducing me to Whiskey Fire!
Yeah, Joe Wilson would like to see all health care of immigrants, legal or otherwise, banned. He'd like to see all the commie bastard immigrants, legal or otherwise, get sick and die a miserable death. This would make his constituency very happy.