I Heart Bill Cope
And who is Bill Cope? Only the best liberal columnist out there! Bill Cope doesn’t bother to write for one of the big papers out there. He’s a man of the people. He writes for the weekly paper in Boise, man. It doesn’t get more real than that.
And Bill Cope doesn’t need to read a book in order to review it.
Admittedly, I have only read critiques of his book. I have too much respect for the organ in my skull to directly inject into it any of the sour opiates these pushers peddle. If you don’t believe a brain fried up crispy in right-wing ideology is a terrible waste of human potential, look no further than the shriveled souls of Bill O’Reilly, Kate O’Beirne and Bob Novak. Is that the sort of thing you want to see when you look in a mirror?
Still, there are reviews aplenty, and without subjecting myself to Goldberg’s own writing—which I know from his stint with BW never goes beyond what any pouty college sophomore could produce—it’s not that difficult to grasp the points he’s trying to make, just as it’s not that difficult to understand what a pedophile is after when he promises a ride home to a school kid. The most absurd claim is that the greatest American leader since Lincoln—that being indisputably (to all but the crazy Right) Franklin D. Roosevelt—was philosophically tethered to the fascism that arose in Spain, Italy and Germany. His evidence seems to be that, since Mussolini and Hitler turned the state into the ultimate arbiter of human affairs, and since Roosevelt used the power of the state to improve the lot of Depression era Americans, then FDR and the monsters of Europe were cut from the same cloth.
Only a fool could make such a claim, and only another fool could believe it.
As anybody who’s read Liberal Fascism will tell you, Bill Cope also doesn’t need “facts”, or “truth”, or “reading comprehension” in order to fill his column inches.
Another example is Cope’s column about extending the right to carry onto college campuses.
I can’t just sit here and say nothing while these loony bastards keep coming up with new ways to demonstrate how nuts they are, especially since many of them are in a position to actually turn their fantasies into reality—e.g., state legislatures, Congress, etc. For example, I have learned (thanks to a recent report by Stephen Colbert) of a state legislator from Tennessee who wants to change the law in his state so that bar patrons can carry concealed weapons when they go out drinking. And isn’t that just a marvelous idea … saloon after saloon full of juiced-up rednecks packing pistols? I’ll bet the night shift down at the Chattanooga police station can’t wait for that to happen, huh?
That item, more so than the Supreme Court hearing, convinced me it was time to take another shot at this, if you’ll pardon the expression. But it won’t be politicians I will be addressing here. No, like most politicians, gun nut politicians set their sails to catch whatever they sense is the prevailing wind. And I’m painfully aware my opinion on concealed weaponry is not a prevailing wind, especially in environs like Idaho or Tennessee, where guns are often more important than healthy children, happy wives and well-fed dogs to certain segments of the population.
Besides, when a politician comes up with something as laughable as allowing guns in bars or on campuses, we know he’s only out to establish himself as a reliable licker of the NRA’s blood-soaked hand. It’s not his convictions he’s following, but the scent of money.
Bill Cope doesn’t need to bother with the “facts” here either. He doesn’t need to report that under the proposal in Tennessee, right-to-carry holders who entered a bar or restaurant that served alcohol would be prohibited from drinking if they were, in fact, carrying a concealed firearm.
And Bill Cope doesn’t need to waste his time listening to the arguments from politicians who are also law enforcement officers who support extending the right-to-carry. Not when he can simply brush away the idea that logical and reasonable people can have a different opinion than Bill Cope.
I know how much fun it is to simply make fun of people, rather than deal with their arguments in a substantive way. I mean, heck, I’d love to just call Bill Cope a writer with the debating skills of a lobotomized tree frog, but that doesn’t actually do anything.
So instead, let me point out that I’ve read Liberal Fascism and found it to be fascinating. Yes, it’s even caused me to look at some policies of the Republican Party in a different light. And let me also point out that extending the right-to-carry doesn’t create a new class of gun owners or RTC holders. It simply extends an existing right onto an additional piece of property. The few semi-literate arguments Cope puts forth are the same false arguments that people have been making about RTC for 20 years.
But you stay classy, Bill Cope. And please, keep writing. People like you make my job a lot more fun.
UPDATE (by Marshall): Cam responds to Bill Cope’s rant here.
April 3rd, 2008 at April 3, 2008 - 10:48 am
This afternoon, with nothing else to do, I Googled myself, just to see what’s cooking on the Bill Cope burner. And how could I not enter a site labeled “I Heart Bill Cope?”
My jubilation was short-lived, of course, as anyone who’s read the article can imagine. It seems Cam Edwards doesn’t heart me anywhere near as much as he let on in the title. In fact, Mr. Edwards has used his blog to dismiss not one but two of my recent columns. Normally, I don’t respond to detractors — especially the on-line sort. If I cared that much what other people think, it’s unlikely I would be writing opinions in the first place. Secondly, of all the people I don’t take seriously, bloggers come very near the top of the list.
Still, Mr. Edwards said some things for which I need to thank him: notably, that I should “stay classy.” You can’t imagine how pleased I am to have my classiness acknowledged, especially coming from a radio talk show host. Yes, Cam, I explored your blog “manifesto,” in which you publicly admit to being a talk show host. Why, I know people who would put talk show hosts just below guys who sell night crawlers out of their kitchens, but I’m not one of them. No sir, I rank radio talk show hosts at least as high as telemarketers and bloggers. And if anyone ever doubted your personal sense of “classy,” I recommend they read the Manifesto feature of your blog — particularly that line about how you and your drinking buddies don’t want to talk about Lindsey Lohan anymore “until she eats something and gets her chest back.” Ah, now that’s class.
And how appropriate that Cam and his buds fashioned their blog after their Friday night boozing sessions. I have always felt that conservatives were at their wittiest when they had a few drinks under their belts — in their own minds if nowhere else.
But on to Cam’s opinions of my opinions. At present, I will address only his comments on the Jonah Goldberg column, as I have plans for a sequel to the “ loony bastard gun nuts” column in the near future, and I want to save my best stuff for that. Surely, as a fellow writer, Cam can understand . . . uh . . . but I forgot. Cam’s only a blogger. My mistake.
(Before we leave the gun nuts matter entirely, though, I should point out that the talk show Cam is host of runs on something called NRA News. Yes, that’s right — it’s a propaganda organ of the National Rifle Association. I thought this might help us with his perspective on the concealed weapons matter, since he neglected to include the word “stooge” in his job description.)
Now, about that Jonah Goldberg book, Liberal Fascism . No I didn’t read it. Nor am I embarrassed to admit that I criticized the dull ideas that were widely disseminated from a book I didn’t read. For Christ’s Sake, it’s not like I was doing a book report on a Dickens’ novel and slipped by on CliffsNotes. If Cam feels he has to read every mediocre word of a mediocre writer to understand the mediocre message therein, let him. It’s not his fault some of us get the picture much quicker than he seems to.
Still, I have to wonder what nuances I missed, as Cam insists. Was it Goldberg’s ridiculous “guilt by trivial coincidence” which implies that, since many Nazis were vegetarians, and many liberals are vegetarians, therefore Liberals must be Nazis?
Or did it have to do with Goldberg’s twist of both logic and history that would have us believe, since some American populist movements were liberal, and since fascism started as a populist movement (as did the KKK, Posse Comitatus and those knot-head militias that were flopping about in the woods not so long ago, pretending to be soldiers), ergo Liberals must be fascists?
Truth be told, if Cam is going to accuse someone of showing little regard for facts or truth, maybe he ought to be a bit more specific as to which facts and truths he has in mind. I mean, if he truly read the book like he says he did, and if I didn’t read it like I said I didn’t, why (both in the original column and here) have I provided more example of what’s actually in the book than Mr. “Reading Comprehension” Edwards? Surely, he remembers more than how “fascinating” he found Goldberg’s opus to be. (Incidentally, in answer to Cam’s claim that “anyone who’s read Liberal Fascism will tell you . . . ,“ go to David Neiwert’s review at www.prospect.org and get yourself a finely-detailed accounting of exactly how absurd Goldberg’s crap is. As I said in the column, the only audience for right-wing bullshit anymore is right-wingers.)
In closing, I must also thank Cam for mentioning my beloved publisher, Boise Weekly , to which I have supplied a column a week for over 13 years. (Over 200 Bill Cope columns in the archives, so if you don’t like what I’m saying here, stay away.) Yes, it’s a small paper. Yet it is a paper. People own it, people read it, people get paid to write for it, and it amounts to a great deal more solid substance than inert Internet gas. Three owners, five publishers and more editors than I can remember have deemed my “semi-literate arguments” worthy of print. And I’m confident — relatively — that if Junior works hard, learns to write without depending on links to supply 80-percent of his material, practices thinking with his own brain rather than Wayne LaPierre’s, and comes up with a more sophisticated brand of snottiness than “lobotomized tree frog,” he may yet write well enough to move out of the blog barrios and find a little paper in his own neighborhood that would publish him.
April 3rd, 2008 at April 3, 2008 - 2:18 pm
I’m sure Cam will have his own response; I just wanted to point out one mild advantage of actually reading the book one decides to review.
Bill Cope writes:
“Still, I have to wonder what nuances I missed, as Cam insists. Was it Goldberg’s ridiculous “guilt by trivial coincidence” which implies that, since many Nazis were vegetarians, and many liberals are vegetarians, therefore Liberals must be Nazis?”
Page 19 of Liberal Facism: “Are you automatically a fascist if you care about health, nutrition, and the environment? Of course not. What is fascist is the notion that in an organic national community, the individual has no right not to be healthy; and the state therefore has the obligation to force us to be healthy for our own good.”
For Christ’s sake, (to use your favorite phrase), Goldberg explicitly rejects the “guilt by trivial coincidence” argument you attribute to him. This is why book reviewers traditionally crack the spine of books they’re assigned to review.
April 3rd, 2008 at April 3, 2008 - 2:22 pm
Paraphrasing Henry Jones Sr. when dealing with some fictional fascists, “It tells me morons like yourself should try reading books instead of denouncing them.”
April 3rd, 2008 at April 3, 2008 - 3:24 pm
I’m not sure which of the following is worse, reviewing a book without reading it, attacking the logic of an argument you haven’t actually read, or a pundit that gets his news from Stephen Colbert. (“I have learned [thanks to a recent report by Stephen Colbert]“] Wow. I get all my news from Saturday Night Live and Jay Leno.
April 3rd, 2008 at April 3, 2008 - 3:32 pm
Bill Cope: For Christ’s Sake, it’s not like I was doing a book report on a Dickens’ novel and slipped by on CliffsNotes. If Cam feels he has to read every mediocre word of a mediocre writer to understand the mediocre message therein, let him. It’s not his fault some of us get the picture much quicker than he seems to.
Bill, with this you’ve marked yourself as someone who may be safely ignored: a genuine, died-in-the-wool sophist.
April 3rd, 2008 at April 3, 2008 - 3:36 pm
How much you want to bet that Bill Cope Googles himself EVERY morning…
April 3rd, 2008 at April 3, 2008 - 3:37 pm
Hey open-minded, Liberal Bill Cope,
How do you know what the book says so as to quote it?
How do you know that the message is mediocre?
Now, back to my non-blogging day job . . .
April 3rd, 2008 at April 3, 2008 - 3:43 pm
I wonder if Mr. Cope is familiar with the art of the ad hominem attack? [/sarcasm]
The funniest thing is that he insults bloggers as people that he doesn’t take seriously, presumably because we’re amateurs. I wonder if he knows how the vast majority of Americans view the credibility of the professionals such as himself, the paper’s three owners, the five publishers and more editors than he can remember?
April 3rd, 2008 at April 3, 2008 - 3:43 pm
At first I thought to read Bill Cope’s comment, in which I presume he defends himself. Then I though, “why bother?” I’ve only read critiques of Bill Cope, but why should I inflict my brain with such vile opiates?
April 3rd, 2008 at April 3, 2008 - 3:49 pm
You’ve got to laugh at anybody who claims that he doesn’t care much what other people think, one paragraph after admitting he Googled himself to “see what’s cooking on the Bill Cope burner.” Reading the comments of this self-important blowhard made me realize why I now get nearly all of my news online, where writers provide “material” which actually contains links to source documents. Perhaps Mr. Cope doesn’t like it when his readers can easily ascertain when a writer is distorting something he is reporting on, but personally I appreciate it when I can check to see if the editorial writer is accurately summarizing the issue they are discussing.
April 3rd, 2008 at April 3, 2008 - 3:49 pm
How can you criticize something you’ve never even read, Mr. Cope? That is sheer intellectual dishonesty, both to yourself and to your readers. You should most certainly be embarrassed, especially since you claimed “there are reviews aplenty” and seemed to base your opinions on your exposure to those reviews.
Let me ask you something, do you base your opinions of movies only on the reviews of Ebert and Roper? I’m fairly certain you’ve watched a few of those movies they’ve reviewed and formed your own opinion.
Also, to try to justify your critique of his book based on past experiences with Goldberg’s writings is disingenuous. That’s like saying this week’s episode of 24 will be lousy because you saw last weeks and it sucked. Does that make any logical sense? Of course it doesn’t.
Grow a pair and admit you were lazy, Bill, or actually read the book and show us how brave you are for subjecting your brain to ideas originated by a right-wing bogeyman. I’m sure there may be a few intellectuals who’ve read “Mein Kampf” whose brains didn’t disintegrate, so why would Liberal Facism be so much more toxic?
You are a joke.
April 3rd, 2008 at April 3, 2008 - 3:49 pm
“Normally, I don’t respond to detractors — especially the on-line sort. If I cared that much what other people think, it’s unlikely I would be writing opinions in the first place. Secondly, of all the people I don’t take seriously, bloggers come very near the top of the list.”
Boy, there’s a lot of stuff you say you don’t do, huh?
But here we are.
April 3rd, 2008 at April 3, 2008 - 4:05 pm
wow, this blog is hard on the eyes…
April 3rd, 2008 at April 3, 2008 - 4:17 pm
Bill Cope wrote: Or did it have to do with Goldberg’s twist of both logic and history that would have us believe, since some American populist movements were liberal, and since fascism started as a populist movement (as did the KKK, Posse Comitatus and those knot-head militias that were flopping about in the woods not so long ago, pretending to be soldiers), ergo Liberals must be fascists?
Bill, how on earth do you know what logical twists he may or may not have made if you refuse to read the book you are ostensibly criticizing? Yours is not a review at all, but perfect example of the hackery that too often masquerades as journalism - you are basically plagiarizing what other reviewers have said. That’s more like the product of a pouty college sophomore, to borrow one of your pithy phrases.
You probably don’t even realize that you’ve provided yet another data point for Goldberg’s argument. Denouncing a book you have not read is the epitome of the anti-intellectualism on which fascism thrives. Your column is the virtual e-quivalent of a book burning.
April 3rd, 2008 at April 3, 2008 - 4:32 pm
The only thing worse than not reading a book you’re criticizing, is defending the fact you never read the book by name calling.
Very classy indeed.
April 3rd, 2008 at April 3, 2008 - 4:39 pm
Admittedly, I didn’t actually read past the first sentence in Cope’s comment above. I have too much respect for my crispy-fried right wing brain (it’s !delicious! and awesome with honey mustard) to sully the “organ’ with such weapons grade douchery.
That first sentence? “This afternoon, with nothing else to do, I Googled myself…” LMFAO!
You, sir, are a jerkoff.
April 3rd, 2008 at April 3, 2008 - 4:42 pm
[…] heart’s all a-flutter today with the news that Bill Cope has paid a visit to our dusty corner of the Internet. Here’s what he has to say (I’d hate for Bill Cope to accuse me of burying his comments […]
April 3rd, 2008 at April 3, 2008 - 4:45 pm
I’m cross posting this from the front page. Hi Cornerites!
My heart’s all a-flutter today with the news that Bill Cope has paid a visit to our dusty corner of the Internet. Here’s what he has to say (I’d hate for Bill Cope to accuse me of burying his comments when they should be prominently displayed!):
This afternoon, with nothing else to do, I Googled myself, just to see what’s cooking on the Bill Cope burner. And how could I not enter a site labeled “I Heart Bill Cope?”
My jubilation was short-lived, of course, as anyone who’s read the article can imagine. It seems Cam Edwards doesn’t heart me anywhere near as much as he let on in the title. In fact, Mr. Edwards has used his blog to dismiss not one but two of my recent columns. Normally, I don’t respond to detractors — especially the on-line sort. If I cared that much what other people think, it’s unlikely I would be writing opinions in the first place. Secondly, of all the people I don’t take seriously, bloggers come very near the top of the list.
Still, Mr. Edwards said some things for which I need to thank him: notably, that I should “stay classy.” You can’t imagine how pleased I am to have my classiness acknowledged, especially coming from a radio talk show host. Yes, Cam, I explored your blog “manifesto,” in which you publicly admit to being a talk show host. Why, I know people who would put talk show hosts just below guys who sell night crawlers out of their kitchens, but I’m not one of them. No sir, I rank radio talk show hosts at least as high as telemarketers and bloggers. And if anyone ever doubted your personal sense of “classy,” I recommend they read the Manifesto feature of your blog — particularly that line about how you and your drinking buddies don’t want to talk about Lindsey Lohan anymore “until she eats something and gets her chest back.” Ah, now that’s class.
And how appropriate that Cam and his buds fashioned their blog after their Friday night boozing sessions. I have always felt that conservatives were at their wittiest when they had a few drinks under their belts — in their own minds if nowhere else.
But on to Cam’s opinions of my opinions. At present, I will address only his comments on the Jonah Goldberg column, as I have plans for a sequel to the “ loony bastard gun nuts” column in the near future, and I want to save my best stuff for that. Surely, as a fellow writer, Cam can understand . . . uh . . . but I forgot. Cam’s only a blogger. My mistake.
(Before we leave the gun nuts matter entirely, though, I should point out that the talk show Cam is host of runs on something called NRA News. Yes, that’s right — it’s a propaganda organ of the National Rifle Association. I thought this might help us with his perspective on the concealed weapons matter, since he neglected to include the word “stooge” in his job description.)
Now, about that Jonah Goldberg book, Liberal Fascism . No I didn’t read it. Nor am I embarrassed to admit that I criticized the dull ideas that were widely disseminated from a book I didn’t read. For Christ’s Sake, it’s not like I was doing a book report on a Dickens’ novel and slipped by on CliffsNotes. If Cam feels he has to read every mediocre word of a mediocre writer to understand the mediocre message therein, let him. It’s not his fault some of us get the picture much quicker than he seems to.
Still, I have to wonder what nuances I missed, as Cam insists. Was it Goldberg’s ridiculous “guilt by trivial coincidence” which implies that, since many Nazis were vegetarians, and many liberals are vegetarians, therefore Liberals must be Nazis?
Or did it have to do with Goldberg’s twist of both logic and history that would have us believe, since some American populist movements were liberal, and since fascism started as a populist movement (as did the KKK, Posse Comitatus and those knot-head militias that were flopping about in the woods not so long ago, pretending to be soldiers), ergo Liberals must be fascists?
Truth be told, if Cam is going to accuse someone of showing little regard for facts or truth, maybe he ought to be a bit more specific as to which facts and truths he has in mind. I mean, if he truly read the book like he says he did, and if I didn’t read it like I said I didn’t, why (both in the original column and here) have I provided more example of what’s actually in the book than Mr. “Reading Comprehension” Edwards? Surely, he remembers more than how “fascinating” he found Goldberg’s opus to be. (Incidentally, in answer to Cam’s claim that “anyone who’s read Liberal Fascism will tell you . . . ,“ go to David Neiwert’s review at www.prospect.org and get yourself a finely-detailed accounting of exactly how absurd Goldberg’s crap is. As I said in the column, the only audience for right-wing bullshit anymore is right-wingers.)
In closing, I must also thank Cam for mentioning my beloved publisher, Boise Weekly , to which I have supplied a column a week for over 13 years. (Over 200 Bill Cope columns in the archives, so if you don’t like what I’m saying here, stay away.) Yes, it’s a small paper. Yet it is a paper. People own it, people read it, people get paid to write for it, and it amounts to a great deal more solid substance than inert Internet gas. Three owners, five publishers and more editors than I can remember have deemed my “semi-literate arguments” worthy of print. And I’m confident — relatively — that if Junior works hard, learns to write without depending on links to supply 80-percent of his material, practices thinking with his own brain rather than Wayne LaPierre’s, and comes up with a more sophisticated brand of snottiness than “lobotomized tree frog,” he may yet write well enough to move out of the blog barrios and find a little paper in his own neighborhood that would publish him.
Where to start? Honestly, I’ll let most of the personal stuff (and even the professional attacks) go. It’s obvious Bill Cope has no more listened to the show than he’s read “Liberal Fascism”. Otherwise he would have heard our interviews with Peter Hamm of the Brady Campaign, Russ Ford from Ammunition Coding Systems, Ray Schoenke from AHSA, and the countless gun control supporters that populate our “man on the street” interviews. If propoganda consists of hearing what gun control supporters have to say and then picking their argument apart, I guess I’m guilty. It should be noted though that our nightly polls would indicate we have a small but dedicated following among some gun control supporters.
Also, if I don’t respond to every single criticism from Bill Cope, please don’t assume that I’m conceding the point. Frankly, I’m not bored enough right now to Google my own name, and I’m writing this in bits and pieces while I’m working on other things. I’d like to post this sometime this afternoon though, so I may cut short a few arguments for the sake of brevity.
As for picking on the fact that I posted this on a blog… Bill Cope has cut me to the quick. It’s true we don’t deliver 35,000 free copies of this blog on a weekly basis to the neighborhood bars and restaurants in the greater Boise area. We exist only on the Internet, a place where amateurs like a public relations exectutive, an award winning journalist and author, and a nationally broadcast talk show host can sit in their jammies and spew their venom between hours of “World of Warcraft”.
And yes, we do have a bar theme for the blog. It comes from those halcyon Friday nights in 2004 when the three of us would gather around a table to share food and drink and talk for hours. It’s called friendship, Bill. It’s not just a conservative thing. You might want to try it sometime.
A quick note about Bill’s defense of his review of Liberal Fascism, which he neglected to read. Bill says:
If Cam feels he has to read every mediocre word of a mediocre writer to understand the mediocre message therein, let him. It’s not his fault some of us get the picture much quicker than he seems to.
Well, I read every word of not one, but two of your columns. What does that say about me? As for you getting the picture much quicker… you got the picture without reading a word. You’re trying to tell me you the Literary Kreskin? Quick tell me the plot of the next J.K. Rowling novel… we’ll make a fortune!
Bill also says:
Truth be told, if Cam is going to accuse someone of showing little regard for facts or truth, maybe he ought to be a bit more specific as to which facts and truths he has in mind. I mean, if he truly read the book like he says he did, and if I didn’t read it like I said I didn’t, why (both in the original column and here) have I provided more example of what’s actually in the book than Mr. “Reading Comprehension” Edwards? Surely, he remembers more than how “fascinating” he found Goldberg’s opus to be. (Incidentally, in answer to Cam’s claim that “anyone who’s read Liberal Fascism will tell you . . . ,“ go to David Neiwert’s review at www.prospect.org and get yourself a finely-detailed accounting of exactly how absurd Goldberg’s crap is. As I said in the column, the only audience for right-wing bullshit anymore is right-wingers.)
I finally stopped walking around with my copy a couple of weeks ago (it’s currently in the back seat of my car) and didn’t feel like walking down to get it, to be honest. It’s a serious book. I don’t know that there a a great many little anecdotes that stick out, because it’s distinctly not saying that vegetarianism=fascism. It’s the sum of the whole. And I say that because I’ve read the book.
But I think the real issue here is that Bill is reacting this way because he simply can’t believe he could be a fascist, liberal or otherwise. Fascists are mean, and Bill isn’t mean (unless it’s to people who deserve it, like people who stand in the way of “progress”). But no one’s saying you’re mean, Bill Cope. We’re saying you’re a nice fascist.
Take Bill’s issue with allowing bars and restaurant owners to decide for themselves whether or not to let Right to Carry holders come into their establishments. Most of us would agree the State has a compelling public interest to prohibit drinking while carrying a firearm. But does the State’s interest really extend to prohibiting people with a Right to Carry license from even entering the establishment? There are now 40 states with shall-issue RTC, and how often do we hear of drunken RTC holders shooting up a bar or restaurant? Why? Because RTC are responsible citizens, and they obey the law (there have been plenty of studies showing RTC holders are arrested and convicted at far lower rates than the general population).
If the state’s interest extends to banning a practice that causes an infintismal amount of people harm, then what’s to stop the State from simply prohibiting driving after consuming one drink? A blood alcohol level of .01 or .02 would certainly be okay. Heck, you can’t tell me that drunk drivers kill more people each year than drunken RTC holders. Why not simply ban drinking in public? Or require that bars get rid of their parking lots?
Why not ban dancing? New York City has. Dancing makes you hot and thirsty, which makes you consume more alcohol, which results in higher drinking and driving rates.
Where does the ever loving arms of the State ever end? Where is there a place for personal responsibility in the world that Bill wants? What individual freedom do we have? Where is right to exercise our own judgement?
Fascism is militaristic, and operates in a heightened sense of emergency. For every “War on Terror” we’ve got a “gun crisis” or a “global warming emergency” or a “war on poverty”. Bill, look at what the “war on obesity” has brought us? We’ve got people suing restaurants because they ate too much fatty food for too long and got fat. What’s the answer? To ban all bad food? And just as the progessives say the “War on Terror” can never truly be over, the same is true for the liberal fascist wars.
You’re a liberal fascist Bill. It doesn’t make you a bad person. But it does mean you should read the book.
April 3rd, 2008 at April 3, 2008 - 5:37 pm
Truth be told, if Cam is going to accuse someone of showing little regard for facts or truth, maybe he ought to be a bit more specific as to which facts and truths he has in mind. I mean, if he truly read the book like he says he did, and if I didn’t read it like I said I didn’t, why (both in the original column and here) have I provided more example of what’s actually in the book than Mr. “Reading Comprehension” Edwards? Surely, he remembers more than how “fascinating” he found Goldberg’s opus to be
Let me get this straight Bill… You’re upset because, in the process of criticizing your admittedly uninformed “review” of Liberal Fascism, Mr. Edwards didn’t provide an informed review of Liberal Fascism for you?
I guess that’s why we need the liberals and intellectuals to run the country, and our lives, cuz we just dont git it!
April 3rd, 2008 at April 3, 2008 - 6:13 pm
This afternoon, with nothing else to do, I Googled myself, just to see what’s cooking on the Bill Cope burner.
HAHAHAHAHA!!!!!! I laughed so hard at this, I almost puked.
Hey, nice ad hominem attacks on bloggers and radio hosts. Guess we couldn’t expect a little bit of humbleness from a guy who writes in a free local paper. At least Cam’s articles aren’t used by homeless Idahoans as toilet paper.
April 3rd, 2008 at April 3, 2008 - 6:15 pm
Geraghty
For Christ’s sake, (to use your favorite phrase), Goldberg explicitly rejects the “guilt by trivial coincidence” argument you attribute to him. This is why book reviewers traditionally crack the spine of books they’re assigned to review.
Good Lord, that’s embarrassing. J. Goldberg on numerous well-documented instances in his book ascribes “guilt by trivial coincidence” - and drops now and then contradictory and embarrassingly dumb statements like the one you point to to claim he did not ascribe said guilt - and you back him up!
That’s a worse depth of dumb than Goldberg. Really. It is. It says that if Goldberg wrote, “All Liberals rape babies,” immediately followed by “I’m not saying that all Liberals rape babies…” and you’d be here defending him.
doink
April 3rd, 2008 at April 3, 2008 - 6:29 pm
On that subject:
Expecting an unkind reception, Goldberg has packed his book with caveats. “I do not believe liberals are evil, villainous or bigoted,” he writes. “I have not written a book about how all liberals are Nazis or fascists. … Liberals today are not responsible for what their forefathers believed.” Nevertheless, liberals must “account” for their history and “live in a house of distinctly fascist architecture.” Liberal economics are a “fascist bargain” and Hillary Clinton’s It takes a Village explicates “the liberal fascist agenda.” Liberals have “totalitarian temptations residing in their hearts.” Patient exegetes can determine for themselves which claims Goldberg is actually making and which he means to take back.
Austin W. Bramwell, The American Conservative
April 3rd, 2008 at April 3, 2008 - 6:30 pm
The American Conservative, revisited.
April 3rd, 2008 at April 3, 2008 - 7:56 pm
I’d love to see Bill come back and defend himself in a give-and-take debate rather than offering nothing more than ill-informed comments and name calling.
But frankly I just don’t think he’s up to it.
Nope, Bill is sitting in front of his computer right now reading this (anyone this self-involved always comes back to read reactions to his comments) and when Bill’s done reading he will type up a devastating column ripping us all to shreads.
And then he’ll post it in his colummn. Where he never has to bother to defend his ideas with someone who MIGHT just disagree. Someone who knows to learn the facts of what they are arguing.
Have a nice day Bill! BTW-grinding those teeth is bad for you.
ICOM
April 3rd, 2008 at April 3, 2008 - 8:11 pm
[…] Hat tips: The Corner, On Tap […]
April 3rd, 2008 at April 3, 2008 - 9:10 pm
I am constantly surprised by “liberal” inability to challenge their assumptions by considering opposing arguments. My own dear mother suffers this problem. I attempt to engage her in discussion but she wants to hear nothing other than supporting arguments. I will continue to read the New York Times and listen to NPR in order to understand their arguments but my mother will not challenge her notions with anything close to the opposite opinion. It frustrates me that most liberals refuse to entertain new ideas and, instead, engage in group think/echo chamber ideologies. The fact that this man presumes to comment on a book without actually reading it is a symptom of this problem. He will not risk puncturing his cocoon of liberal echo think by reading the thoughts of Mr. Goldberg. The fact that he hasn’t read the book in question does not prevent him from forming an opinion based on the echo think tank in which he safely resides. It’s very disturbing and not at all conducive to rational, critical thinking. It’s too bad that many “professors” suffer from the same symptoms.
April 3rd, 2008 at April 3, 2008 - 9:55 pm
So Bill Cope is not only dishonest, he’s proudly dishonest. One of the reasons I eventually dropped my dead-tree newspaper subscriptions is that I got tired of reading book reviews like his. (If you’re going to slam a book, at least read it first, and for goodness sake review the actual book and not some straw man.) I hear circulation figures continue to drop like a dead pigeon. Tough luck.
April 3rd, 2008 at April 3, 2008 - 11:20 pm
I googled MY name and oddly enough, some guy was writing 10,000 words about how he’s better than anybody who wastes their time writing for the internet there, too.
April 3rd, 2008 at April 3, 2008 - 11:24 pm
Thom might want to read Goldberg’s book a bit more closely, (or at all, perhaps, from the look of things) or maybe even the quotes he picked from Bramwell, who doesn’t seem to recognize that they aren’t exactly contradictory (except perhaps to sloppy readers with preconceptions).
The fact is that the quotes address the relationship between contemporary liberalism and fascism. “Architecture,” and “bargain,” are references to the underpinnings. In other words, liberal ideas have roots in and relationships with fascist ones. This doesn’t make them fascist, but the relationship should give one pause. This is exactly why Goldberg can write about the “totalitarian temptation” because there is a temptation inherent in the statist and anti-libertarian economics and social planning of liberalism. The temptation may arise from better motives than the traditional fascist model but the road is generally in the same controlling, anti-liberty direction. But this is very different from arguing that liberals have evil motives or are simply consciously modelling Mussolini. It doesn’t take a patient exegete to work that out, only someone patient enough to read carefully, instead of cherry-picking quotes and reviews to make their erroneous points.
The comment about Hillary’s book is a bit more complex, since Goldberg uses his own constructed term of “liberal fascist” (which few liberals have yet to see the irony of). I simply think he’s using the term to describe exactly the relationship he’s arguing for - a liberalism that relies on a progressive history that is joined at the hip with fascism in ideology. Which is to say, he’s suggesting Hillary’s book follows the pattern of assuming statist, socialistic, and paternalistic solutions that derive from progressive ideology.
This is exactly why liberals must account for their history. All too often, liberals have hurled the charge of “fascist” at the right, not caring to realize or acknowledge that their own progressive ideological roots are far more linked to fascism.
Again though, this isn’t the same as saying liberal = fascist, or liberal = evil. Tying the relationships of ideologies isn’t the same as equating them, except to the hasty judgementalist.
A little discernment when reading would help Thom spare himself the acute embarrassment of calling others “dumb” just because they were paying attention. It goes without saying then that Thom’s analogy is a false one (besides being inflammatory). A better analogy would be: Goldberg is saying that “All liberals have heroes and mentors who liked fascism.” And the qualifier is Goldberg saying, “This doesn’t make all liberals fascist but it does make their ideology suspect.” That’s far closer to the gist of the book.
(I hope Thom isn’t Thom Yorke. I really like the guy’s music and Radiohead, all politics aside.
April 4th, 2008 at April 4, 2008 - 8:45 am
…..” he may yet write well enough to move out of the blog barrios and find a little paper in his own neighborhood that would publish him.”
And, like you, he’ll still make a fraction of what I earn. Careful with the chest-thumping, bud. When you’re a nobody and brag about non-entities which you consider to be accomplishments lest you practically beg for someone else to point out that they’re really not much of anything at all. “Mommy, I got published!” “Aw, that’s nice dear. Quiet, now, Daddy’s got a presentation tomorrow and important people will make decisions based on his proposal, as it could mean jobs and a change in the local economy. But, congratulations on your letter to the editor.”
I couldn’t survive on the piss-ant salary of a columnist for a paper that no one reads or has heard of. Besides, did you not realize that more people have read you via this entry than anything written in the Boise Times-Gazette-Democrat-Daily-Journal (or whatever the name of your irrelevant employer is)?
April 4th, 2008 at April 4, 2008 - 9:06 am
I hope the editors of Cope’s paper are reading this. Were you aware this coloumnist was so shallow? I’ve never heard of Cope before, but I would think the citizens of Boise deserve better than this. To use Cope’s “argument” that one can can get a sense of a book, enough to review it even, by just a few words, I think we can safely get the gist of Cope as well. What a sad-sack loser.
April 4th, 2008 at April 4, 2008 - 2:34 pm
Isn’t it odd how it seems that those with the thinnest skin, the lamest arguments, the most insignificant of jobs… seem to have the most grossly inflated sense of self-importance? There’s no sense in trying to have an adult discussion with people such as this Bill Cope person. Pearls before swine. I have a friend with whom I tried to have a discussion on politics in general. He’s a liberal. His debating technique seems to be to simply interrupt repeatedly. Wouldn’t let me finish one sentence. I have a feeling that Bill Cope probably uses the same forensic method, such as it is.
And the guy writes for a local free broadsheet? And that’s supposed to impress - who, exactly? Himself, I guess.
April 4th, 2008 at April 4, 2008 - 3:03 pm
CB said:
blubblubblubblubblub
and concludes that I embarrassed myself when I pointed out that Jonah Goldberg did in fact assign guilt by trivial coincidence.
CB.
Jonah Goldberg, in his very serious book, used what he called the pro-gay stance of the Nazis as a link between Liberals and Fascism. Getting a bulldozer to put aside the fact of how painfully wrong it is to call the Nazis pro-gay, what possible…
No. Go ahead. I’ll be expecting ten paragraphs of you waddling around trying to do anything but appear to be as bone-crushingly dumb as one’d have to be to attempt to defend that bit alone, much less the entire book. Please - have at it.
April 4th, 2008 at April 4, 2008 - 3:57 pm
I have never heard of Bill Cope before. His attitude towards not reading a book and reviewing it, reeks of a self-important, ignorant, motley-minded, gorbellied liberal blowhard codpiece. How close am I on that one?
April 4th, 2008 at April 4, 2008 - 6:07 pm
Thom - did you actually read the book or are you just quoting lefty blogs? The book is a serious treatment of the history of modern progressivism and its fascist/socialist roots. Engage others in the actual arguments of the book and your take on them. That’s much more interesting than parroting the left’s received wisdom about the book.
Just why is the left so terrified of reading this book? They act like it’s some sort of scary rightwing kryptonite.
April 4th, 2008 at April 4, 2008 - 6:14 pm
Pretty danged close, I’d say.
April 4th, 2008 at April 4, 2008 - 6:15 pm
Where, precisely, in his book does Goldberg make reference to “the pro-gay stance of the Nazis”? I don’t recall that he made any such statement. I believe he did point out (correctly) that in the early years of the movement, Hitler was quite tolerant of the homosexuality of his followers, e.g. the SA leader Ernst Röhm. I find nothing particularly “bone-crushingly dumb” in citing a well-known historical fact. Perhaps Thom could cite the page on which Goldberg supposedly makes the statement that the Nazis were “pro-gay.”
As a general observation on Liberal Fascism, I would say that Goldberg makes a good case that contemporary progressivism and historical totalitarianism shares some ideological DNA. Whether this justifies the phrase “liberal fascism” is certainly debatable. But it does’t appear to me that progressives are much interested in debate. Ad hominem rants, infantile name-calling—that seems to be their preference. And Mr. Cope is the perfect poster boy for the arrested adolescents of the Left.
April 4th, 2008 at April 4, 2008 - 10:39 pm
It used be, when a paper had to be written that any direct quote or paraphrase included in the paper would be cited with the page number and from what book the quote was from. This was a courtesy to both the author of the material being cited and to the paper’s audience, so that they would not have to waste time in order to find the context from which the paper’s author took a particular quote. This practice could be very useful here in this particular situation in order to clarify what Mr. Goldberg was trying to convey in his book.
There are plenty of text in the book that can be used out of context to lure the reader into beliving that the argument Mr. Goldberg is for how evil liberals are. However, Liberal Fascism, not being a great work of classical fiction to be interpreted many different ways in order to find meaning and enjoyment, is rather a single argument thesis, in which Mr. Goldberg supplies ample evidence to back the book’s premise. With that, we don’t have to guess what he has concluded; he’s telling us.
“It’s cruel to call someone a Nazi because it unfairly suggests sympathy with the Holocaust. But it is no less inaccurate to assume that fascism was simply the ideology of Jewish genocide. If you need a label for that, call it Hitlerism, for Hitler would not be Hitler without genocidal racism. And while Hitler was a Fascist, fascism need not be synonymous with Hitlerism” (bottom of p. 16 to top of p. 17).
Essentially, Mr. Goldberg is concluding that liberalism and Fascism share a few common ideals such as the ideal of a state-run health care system. Mr. Goldberg also concludes that wanting such a thing as a proposed solution to health-care issues does not make a person evil or related to genocidal Hitlerism, but be aware that state-run things are rooted in a Fascist philosophy. In any case, it’s difficult to prove Mr. Goldberg’s argument in this post, seeing as it took him 405 pages to prove it himself. Leaving us with the original point by Cam Edwards: that you have to read the book to review it!
April 5th, 2008 at April 5, 2008 - 3:37 pm
When the day comes, don’t even bother wasting ammo on people like Bill Cope. That is what the rifle butt is for.
April 7th, 2008 at April 7, 2008 - 10:34 am
“CB said:
blubblubblubblubblub
and concludes that I embarrassed myself when I pointed out that Jonah Goldberg did in fact assign guilt by trivial coincidence.
CB.”
Again with the refusal to actually read. Do I see a pattern developing?
CB’s point, which is Goldberg’s, which you would know if you read the book, is that modern liberalism and fascism both share (some) goals and ideals, which is unsurprising, as each descend from late 19th-century progressive socialism. There is nothing particularly controversial about this claim, unless you’re a liberal who wants to keep his favorite rhetorical hand-grenade of calling right-wingers fascists.
Is a great big Certified Super-Genius like Tom incapable of grasping such a point? Or does he simply not have the intellectual honesty to address it?
The jury is out.
Incidentally, I like this place.
April 7th, 2008 at April 7, 2008 - 2:44 pm
No need to read Cope, of course. Beside being a perfectly predictable Leftwing pants-peer (ANYone cans see THAT) inhabiting a media space about as relevant as the MahiMahi Gazette he begins his pedantic yet proudly ignorant opus with a gutbusting anecdote of self-importance; just Googled up yerself on a sunny afternoon, didye? Hilarious! Do that much, do we? Why does it seem so likely that this is the first hit you ever got outside your own domain? But this empty garment bag presumes that his retrograde and historically demolished moronicisms carry more weight than Edwards or Goldberg obviously from the mere granduer of his contempt for his fellow citizens that have the temerity to sit to the Right of Geraldine Ferarro. Cope, learn to cope.
April 8th, 2008 at April 8, 2008 - 6:14 pm
Thom, buddy
you’re obviously another angry liberal who hasn’t bothered to read the book, then tries to insult the intelligence of people who have. You end up only insulting your own intelligence, and with friends like you, your intelligence doesn’t need any more enemies. What, precisely, did you mean when you said blubblubblubblubblub? I found that a devastating riposte indeed.
“Bone-crushingly dumb,” indeed.
April 8th, 2008 at April 8, 2008 - 11:52 pm
And I’m confident — relatively — that if Junior works hard, learns to write without depending on links to supply 80-percent of his material, practices thinking with his own brain rather than Wayne LaPierre’s, and comes up with a more sophisticated brand of snottiness than “lobotomized tree frog,” he may yet write well enough to move out of the blog barrios and find a little paper in his own neighborhood that would publish him.
Interesting point coming from a guy who wrote a review based on OTHER writers’ reviews.
June 30th, 2008 at June 30, 2008 - 8:12 am
fun stuff to do in idaho…
You must put a lot of work into blogging this much!…