1 Boring Old Man

Liberals can believe what they want to believe, but let us not flinch from identifying liberalism as the opposition party to God.

[from an ad for Ann Coulter’s book Godless: The Church of Liberalism]

Interesting. I think I got so into Ann Coulter’s crazy logical fallacy soup that I missed the point of her book. "liberalism as the opposition party to God." I thought she was saying something a bit more sophisticated – that liberals had replaced rigid religion with "another" pseudo-religion she was calling The Church of Liberalism. That would have been at least a partial point worth making, though more in the vein of "constructive criticism." Silly me. Ann Coulter doesn’t do "constructive criticism." Back to logical fallacies, she specializes in The Straw Man Fallacy. So in this case, she posits a number of things:

• All Liberals are Atheists
• All Liberals [Atheists] are Darwinists
• All Liberals believe [fill in the blank]

is Godless and a member of the Church of Liberalism. That’s not only incorrect, it’s actually more than her usual rhetoric, it’s pretty dumb. It hadn’t occurred to me before how her arguments aren’t just vile and theatrical logical untruths, they are unintelligent. By definition, Liberal is not a set of beliefs. It means anti-Dogma, pro-Heterogeneity. For example:

A 19th-century Protestant movement that favored free intellectual inquiry, stressed the ethical and humanitarian content of Christianity, and de-emphasized dogmatic theology.

I would argue that her "lumping" of all of us who don’t think the things on the list above is unreasonable because we are "un-lumpable." But beyond that, she’s trying to redefine us in the image that she understands – a group of people who all think the same thing – a group she knows quite well.

So when she says:

Liberals can believe what they want to believe, but let us not flinch from identifying liberalism as the opposition party to God.

she’s giving lip service to the truth, but then denying it.

Back in the days of the Civil Rights Movement, marching down the street, one was walking with ministers of many faiths, scientists, labor leaders, blacks, whites, jews, etc. – a very heterogeneous bunch. We were united by only one thing – the racist policy of segregation had to stop. That was our unity – not what Ann Coulter says. In many ways, that’s true today of the people she calls "Liberals." Most of us who support legal abortion are not for abortion. We are for the right of individuals to choose for themselves. And there are plenty of liberal leaning people who aren’t for even that.

I would even argue that she doesn’t know what a true "Conservative" is either. What she means is someone who believes in everything on her list. That’s not what it means. And, by the way, people who believe what she has on her list don’t look like her – none of them look like her. They just don’t wear black leather, skimpy cocktail dresses. Her version of Godful would be repulsive to most of them. Sounds more like the small subset of Moslems who are jihadists – xenophobic hatemongers. Her logic is in the Bush camp, "If you’re not with us, you’re against us." What baloney! Originally, I went along with the "ignore her" school, but I’ve changed my mind. She is the essence of the Republican Party. She is a loud version of how Rove got this yokel elected. We were quiet and ignored this stuff last time. Look where it got us.

I am completely sure that Ann Coulter doesn’t know what God thinks. I am also sure that Ann Coulter doesn’t know what I think. I doubt she even really knows what she thinks.