Attention Hugh Hewitt Readers: The post Hugh was trying to link is here.
Let’s play a word game. We’ll call it “Word Nonsensing.” The object of the game is to make up words out of thin air and guess which ones would have the best chance of gaining wide acceptance and usage on the left.
Vagindisestablishmentarian. Noun. An anti-feminist. Or a conservative wanker.
Republifantakluxer. Noun. Someone who thinks all Republicans are racists. Or Dave Neiwert. Or, a conservative wanker.
Mascupenamourocon. Noun. Someone who is anti-gay rights. Or, a male blogger who thinks he’s a conservative. Or a conservative wanker.
Elminationist. Adjective. Describing rhetoric used by a conservative that a liberal disagrees with. Or, (n)someone in the act of peeing. Or, a conservative wanker.
Each of those words above are made up out of whole cloth. There is no English language dictionary on the planet that contains any of them. And yet, when trying to stifle debate about many of their cockamamie ideas (or simply to demonize the opposition) the left routinely invents words like “eliminationist.” This kind of disrespect toward language is par for the course as the lexicon of the New Left has been used as an effective public weapon against the right for nearly 50 years.
Certainly the English language is constantly in flux and words fall in and out of usage. Also, about 20,000 new words come into usage in any given year. But it isn’t so much the fact that the word is created but rather the reason it is used and the context in which it is applied.
This post is a perfect example. To call a liberal or liberal ideas “evil” does not in the slightest imply that the purveyor of the idea should be “eliminated.” And yet, such a construct is used routinely on the left in order to stifle debate on an issue that they do not wish to discuss or that they want to turn the tables on their conservative interlocutor in such a way as to delegitimize their critique.
Accusing a liberal of “treason” or of being a “traitor” may be hyperbole but it is not hate speech. I find it fascinating that liberals would be so touchy about being tarred with these epithets seeing that they find they words “patriotism” and “patriot” so problematic, “the last refuge of scoundrels” being a common add-on whenever the terms are used.
In short, the use of this made up word has become a convenient way for the left to ascribe almost criminal behavior to the right. It even extends to the use of humor and satire. The most recent kerfluffle involves Glenn Greenwald’s spectacularly ignorant take on “violence inciting” rhetoric used by the right.
It is perhaps de rigeur of moronic nincompoops like Glenn Greenwald that a kind of grim humorlessness permeates their writing. Portraying conservatives as homicidal racists or thuggish homophobes is serious, exhausting work. No time for laughter. No room for humor. The very concepts are alien, as if cracking a smile will cause an immediate and irreversible case of the jollies. Joking about “hanging journalists” or judges, or liberals for that matter is cause for an outpouring of the most hysterical, over the top, exaggerated, laughably overwrought spleen venting screeds imaginable. Does he really believe that conservative bloggers are serious about hanging another human being? Or that Ann Coulter (talk about over the top) is actually calling for judges to be executed? Or that any conservative polemicist, in the process of skewering liberals for one sort of idiocy or another, actually wishes physical harm to befall their target?
Perhaps when liberals talk about “feces flinging monkeys” and conservatives in the same breath we should take them to task for forcing animals to behave badly and call the ASPCA on them. Better yet, maybe the next time Mr. Hysterical uses the word “eliminationist” when talking about some right wing blogger who makes a joke about liberals, conservatives should empty their bladders on Greenwald’s book. After all, it’s not enough to use “eliminationist” rhetoric. We should practice being bladder eliminationists in real life. Besides, by peeing on his book, it will alleviate the stench of arrogant, self righteous, miasmic absolutism that wafts from its pages like a malodorous cheese.
I’m with Dan Riehl. I’ve had it with this guy. The bile he spews toward the right is beyond the normal mud wrestling and eye-gouging of political warfare. It has a special kind of frantic paranoia to it, as if he’s hiding under the bed and saving the republic from conservative perfidy at the same time. Delusional, a fantasist, and as Patterico has pointed out, an out and out liar, I am sick to death of him.
Begone and be good, Glenn. And if I were you and saw someone wearing a “Karl Rove Rocks!” T-shirt walking toward me carrying a rope, I’d shoot first and ask questions later.
10:30 pm
Hilarious and pathetic.
Of course, nowhere in this post is an explanation of the actual meaning of the term “eliminationist,” even though it has been given numerous times at my blog. (Nice spelling of my name, BTW. Guess it goes along with this.) So, by pretending that no such definition or explanation exists, you effectively create a nice little straw man that you conveniently set aflame. Impressive. Not.
Incidentally, go back to Daniel Jonah Goldhagen’s work for more on eliminationism.
11:12 pm
Just so we’re clear…
I accuse the left of making up words and skewing their context and you supply links to posts on your site in which YOU define the term and instruct the rest of us lowly cretins regarding its proper context.
Uh huh.
11:16 pm
For the sake of accuracy, tradition (conservatives like that), and the delicacy you expressed as regards the use of the “s” word in an earlier blog – might I suggest “gynodisestablishmentarian” in place of your opening word?
By the way, as I am always up at 6 am PDT, I have in fact caught several of your shows and think you’re doing a bang up job. Watch out because I may call in some time. I still disagree with enough of your positions to make it interesting. (insert smiley here)
11:24 pm
Mr. Neiwert:
Apologies for misspelling your name. I fixed it.
Jim:
I like your suggestion but still think mine is superior. The prefix “gyno” evokes a more clinical aura to the word.
I would have used the “c” word as a root but didn’t feel like having every harpy in the blogosphere (including some conservatives) on my ass.
12:57 am
O Please,
Mike Savage (the number 3 or 4 Right Wing talker) uses hate speech in each and every show. He brags about it and typically calls for the violent elimination of any and all he disagrees with. So do not say this kind of stuff is not done. It is done all the time in the Media including blogs without fear of consequences.
Thinking that your opponents don’t really mean to do you harm when they say they will is dangerous. Even if the writer is “kidding”, some deranged reader may act on what their hero has written or said. This is the reason we have laws against incitement to riot.
Btw, Ann C’s repeated suggestion that a certain Supreme Court judge should be given rat poison is not funny in the least. Rat poison causes widespread internal bleeding that is painful and deadly. If you think that poisoning jokes are funny, then please get professional help. It reflects poorly on you if you defend this type of “joke”.
Part of threat assesment involves evaluation of the general vs. the specific nature of the threat. Threating murder using a specific, nasty method is more dangerous and should be taken more seriously than some general statement.
Moving to another issue: When a bloger on the Left uses a term or says something you do not agree with, you state that is done by the LEFT. One or two blogers does not equal a movement. I read lots of blogs on both the Left and the Right and frequently I have never heard of what you are saying is a generalized problem.
Labels are lazy; try being specific and stop relying of the crutch of “the LEFT”. It’s like saying “er” over and over when giving a speech.
I enjoy your writing but the above article is long on personal attack and short on specific examples. Convince me with evidence not flowery language.
md
3:54 am
Oh please.
Since your in the business of wanting concrete examples regarding Ricks assertions that “The Left” marches in lockstep why don’t you provide some examples of Conservatives poisoning judges or committing murder because Ann Coulter asked them to or joked about it.
Its ironic that so many libs are convinced that Conservatives really wish to kill them or lock them up. When we mock their paranoia with jokes we get the “SEE! SEE!! You really do want to kill us!” or the “You shouldn’t joke about killing because somebody somewhere might take you serious and actually kill someone!” Libs are pent up, paranoid sissies. They take offense at the dumbest crap and then go on to disregard the things that actually matter.
Some general examples:
Conservative says: Abortion is the killing of an innocent human life. It is immoral. It is wrong.
Liberal responds: Are you calling me a murderer!!?? How dare you say such a thing that might inspire others to kill me!!
Conservative says: Imprisoning Al Qaeda operatives at Gitmo is important. We won’t use it to lock up liberals just yet yuk yuk!
Liberal responds: See, Conservatives want to turn America into a Gulag where they lock up all who disagree with them!!
If you think I’m kidding MD you should actually go out and communicate with some of the paranoid left, especially that which dwells in the nutosphere of liberal land. I have. And they actually believe this stuff.
6:36 am
Rick,as usual you are right. The left in this country has gone off the deep end. Just ck out what Cohen said about the Jewish people, what mama sheehan says, what howie dean says, what teddie swimmer says, I could go on but my hand would go numb since I have carpal tunnel.
8:33 am
Rick,
Post-modern, neo-nihilist liberals hijacking the English language to villify their enemies and reinforce their spurious claims to victimhood is by no stretch of the imagination a novel tactic.
Given their success playing these kind of rhetorical tricks in the course of public debate, I’m guessing they’ll manage to convince a cross-section of the American public that controls must be placed on the words and thoughts of people like us.
Should they return to power, be sure to reserve your bunk, bar code tattoo and pet wolverine in one of their “reeducation” camps in the UP.
OK, ignore the last sentence…just paranoid musings informed by my reading of what has happened elsewhere in the world at different points in time.
Regards,
-the Canine Pundit
http://caninepundit.blogspot.com/
8:59 am
Great post, with some excellent insight into the English language.
I have the OED on CD-rom, but even that exhaustive treatment of the language doesn’t include all the vocabulary words, although it’s still the best dictionary in existence.
The English language currently has over 1.2 million words and is constantly adding and inventing more every year. (The second largest language in terms of vocabulary is German, with 250,000 words.) It is true that the English vocabulary increases by about 20,000 words each year, but what is missing in that observation is the type of words added or invented.
Take a word like raupenschlepperpanzerkampfwagen. That’s German for “a caterpillarlike, self-moving, armored war wagon.” Now, that’s a great word, but there is no way it is ever going to become an English word, because it retains too much of its original tongue—agglutination (adding syllables to form a compound word that makes explicit the composite character of the construct). English does not do this. Rather, in English a construct is usually symbolized by a single word which does not make explicit the composite character of the construct. (See the definitive text on this subject, Sister Miriam Joseph’s The Trivium: The Liberal Arts of Logic, Grammar and Rhetoric.) Besides, any time an Englishman or an American sees the thing itself, he says “Looks like a ‘tank’ to me.”
Most of the words you listed—vagindisestablishmentarian, repulifantakluxer, mascupenamourocon—suffer from agglutination. What this symbolizes is an attempt by the Left to make the English language more like the German that is symptomatic of the Democrat party’s attempt over the past few decades to become more like the German National Socialist party (which was Hitler’s Nazi party, by the way). In other words, they don’t understand the English language anymore than they understand American politics.
So I wouldn’t worry too much about the Left’s use of these words, any more than I worry about the Democrats taking over Congress. They aren’t even good words to begin with—they don’t flow “trippingly on the tongue” (to borrow a phrase from the Bard). Instead, they grate on the tongue, like the Democrats grate on the mind.
English will never become an agglutinated language and America will never become a national socialist country. The word eliminationist should refer to those who intend to eliminate the attempts to make the language and the country more German, since both are doomed to failure.
9:52 am
If someone were to murder a supreme court justice or a reporter for the NYT would the right side of the blogsphere applaud or condemn it?
9:53 am
aric:
That is easily one of the top two or three most idiotic comments ever left on this site.
Congrats.
10:09 am
Shorter post: Since the word you use to describe a growing trend that conflicts with my beliefs isn’t in my dictionary, it isn’t happening.
11:41 am
Man, RM, it is truly impressive the way David Neiwert (I hope that’s spelled right) put you in your little place. That’s what’s so endearing about liberals. It doesn’t matter what your level of intelligence or how many sheepskins you have on the wall, if you dare disagree with them, that hauty condescension just comes on down in a sneering snit that only a lefist can accomplish. You’re not merely wrong, you are a stoopid drewling paste eater. Definition of “eliminationist”?—A liberal with his fingers in his ears yammering “la la la” when a rational counter to an argument is raised by a conservative.
5:05 pm
Gosh, since the Coulters, O’Reillys and too many bloggers to count are actually making these “jokes”, it is vitally important to say the linguistic identifier used by academics to name it is completely invalid.
Whew. That was a close one.
6:37 pm
http://www.religioustolerance.org/abo_viol.htm
http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_killers/notorious/mcveigh/dawning_1.html
10:13 am
hey Rick, you should check your site for Glennwald’s sockpuppets. Seems like he has been using them to bolster his arguments. He is a completely dishonest cuss.
11:17 am
“If someone were to murder a supreme court justice or a reporter for the NYT would the right side of the blogsphere applaud or condemn it?”
The commenters at Free Republic and LGF would be rejoicing and high-fiving. Ann Coulter would be in an orgasmic frenzy.
Conservative pundits would probably not come out and applaud the act in public. Many would no doubt be privately ecstatic.
They would work quickly to propogate two talking points:
1. The assassin was in no way emblematic of conservatism, and no blame can be placed on any conservative pundit or blogger for the act. Those doing so are crazy left-wingers looking to exploit this tragedy for political gain.
2. This sort of unfortunate incident wouldn’t have occurred if journalists and judges weren’t interfering with Bush’s war on terror. They should learn that their treasonous actions can have serious consequences.
In other words, deny all responsibility and blame the victim—two of the hallmarks of modern “conservatism.”
12:40 pm
Tenzil:
Sorry. I know you were shooting for making the number one most idiotic comment on this site but you have lost some points for your lack of originality. Aric still has you beat.
Although, you can certainly try again if you wish. Who knows? With half a brain like yours at work, anything is possible.
1:52 pm
“Sorry. I know you were shooting for making the number one most idiotic comment on this site but you have lost some points for your lack of originality. Aric still has you beat.
Although, you can certainly try again if you wish. Who knows? With half a brain like yours at work, anything is possible.”
I was providing an honest answer to Aric’s question based on a logical extrapolation of behavior that conservative pundits and bloggers have displayed in the past.
I did this because you seemed to be afraid to address the question. That’s not surprising, since this entire post is about your own fear of dealing with criticism of your philosophy. Dave Neiwart writes a series of intelligent, well-researched posts on the rise of eliminationist rhetoric on the right. You don’t want to deal with it, so you just pretend the word doesn’t exist.
Then you conclude the post by basically saying that since you can’t adequately address the points raised by Glenn Greenwald, you’re going to ignore him.
There’s really not much difference between your post and a petulant five year old sticking his fingers in his ears and repeating “la la la I can’t hear you” ad nauseum.
6:14 pm
Intelligent? Well-researched? Eliminationist rhetoric on the right?
Have you ever been to college? The only place you’ll find eliminationist rhetoric is in academia and the mainstream media—in other words, on the left—where they regularly censor any and all facts and ideas that disprove, disallow or disagree with the little cartoon world they’ve made up in their tiny minds. And it’s never intelligent or well-reasearched. It’s juvenille and propagandized pseudo-intellectual bovine feces, probably more responsible for global warming than all the farting cows in the world.
Eliminationist is no more a real word than any word someone just makes up that no one else uses. I can play that game.
Complexiphobia: noun, an irrational fear of the complex, a mental disease most commonly infecting progressives.
Realidisfigurementarian: noun, a disfigurer of reality, a synonym for liberal.
Phantasmagoridemoronia: noun, an optical effect by which moronic democrats appear to dwindle into the distance when confronted by facts and logic, a synonym for the plummeting ratings and subscriptions for leftist television and radio shows and news publications.
6:19 pm
Mr. Ghost:
You win the contest! Congrats.
Now all we have to do is get those words into the dictionary. You know anyone at Websters?
7:42 pm
Moran said:
“Accusing a liberal of “treason†or of being a “traitor†may be hyperbole but it is not hate speech. I find it fascinating that liberals would be so touchy about being tarred with these epithets seeing that they find they words “patriotism†and “patriot†so problematic, “the last refuge of scoundrels†being a common add-on whenever the terms are used.”
If find your reasoning ‘problematic’ (as you say). Saying those that you disagree with are traitors, I think, starts to fall under the definition of this word you don’t believe exists. Because, what is the punishment for a traitor?
I agree it’s not hate speech. I don’t really think that hate speech should be any less protected than any other speech actually. But, if I disagree with anyone on a particular issue (your GitMo example serves aptly), and you call me a traitor (and I wouldn’t be surprised if you did) you are calling for my elimination. In effect it is calling for that person who disagrees to be eliminated from political discourse, from voting, from citizenship. Because their opinion, as a traitor, should not be allowed, right?
So, I disagree. Should I not then be punished and hung by the neck until dead as traitors should?
5:54 am
“eliminationist”
I think Greenwald is confusing enema play with word play.
12:44 pm
Tom, that would be “expurgationist” rhetoric.
5:00 pm
What motivates him and his kind? Take your pick:
Defense Mechanisms
Defense mechanisms protect us from being consciously aware of a thought or feeling which we cannot tolerate. The defense only allows the unconscious thought or feeling to be expressed indirectly in a disguised form. Let’s say you are angry with a professor because he is very critical of you. Here’s how the various defenses might hide and/or transform that anger:
Denial:
You completely reject the thought or feeling.
“I’m not angry with him!”
Suppression:
You are vaguely aware of the thought or feeling, but try to hide it.
“I’m going to try to be nice to him.”
Reaction Formation:
You turn the feeling into its opposite.
“I think he’s really great!”
Projection:
You think someone else has your thought or feeling.
“That professor hates me.”
“That student hates the prof.”
Displacement:
You redirect your feelings to another target..
“I hate that secretary.”
Rationalization:
You come up with various explanations to justify the situation (while denying your feelings).
“He’s so critical because he’s trying to help us do our best.”
Intellectualization:
A type of rationalization, only more intellectualized.
“This situation reminds me of how Nietzsche said that anger is ontological despair.”
Undoing:
You try to reverse or undo your feeling by DOING something that indicates the opposite feeling. It may be an “apology” for the feeling you find unacceptable within yourself.
“I think I’ll give that professor an apple.”
Isolation of affect:
You “think” the feeling but don’t really feel it.
“I guess I’m angry with him, sort of.”
Regression:
You revert to an old, usually immature behavior to ventilate your feeling.
“Let’s shoot spitballs at people!”
Sublimation:
You redirect the feeling into a socially productive activity.
“I’m going to write a poem about anger.”
** Defenses may hide any of a variety of thoughts or feelings: anger, fear, sadness, depression, greed, envy, competitiveness, love, passion, admiration, criticalness, dependency, selfishness, grandiosity, helplessness.
http://www.rider.edu/~suler/defenses.html
4:55 pm
So much dihonesty here. Do you all deny having seen or heard of conservatives making “jokes” about the killing of Supreme Court Justices, Democratic presidents, New York Times editors and reports, or liberals in general? How about the “open season on liberals” bumper sticker? How about the calls for those who disagree with Bush to leave the country?
If referring to a whole group of people (say “liberals”) as traitors or as friends of terrorists is not akin to wanting to do away with those people then I don’t know what is. You all know what the penalty is for treason.
Some of the spokesmen of your movement have argued that roughly 1/2 of the adult population (i.e., liberals, Democrats, etc) be either 1) disenfranchised, 2) institutionalized, 3) or executed because they are enemies of the state.
You play stupid word games about the meaning of “eliminationism” yet fail to confront the very real truth that there are some outspoken and widely respected conservatives who engage in that rhetoric on a regular basis. Wake up and smell the fascism.
6:04 pm
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9:47 am
All eliminationist rhetoric is not equal
I’d like to examine what I consider to be a textbook example of genuine eliminationist rhetoric. (As opposed to the highly questionable variety discussed by Rick Moran.) I found the above picture at post by Tammy Bruce titled “Hezbollah Among…