I’m a bit off the reservation on this whole controversy. On the one hand, I do not think that Hoffa was deliberately committing the crime (yes, crime) of willfully inciting murder. However, given the absolutely ludicrous standard created by the Democratic party and its media enablers after the Giffords shooting, what Hoffa said was absolutely beyond the pale. But, again, that’s only because of the idiotic, sanctimonious, and plain stupid standard created by Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Paul Krugman, et al. You can’t bleat about Republican “eliminationist rhetoric” and a “climate of hate” and then say there’s nothing wrong with what Hoffa said, never mind find it outrageous that anybody is complaining about it. This is point I made with some pique not long ago here in the Corner, in what became the most viral post of my online career.
I think it would be a shame for conservatives to adopt the same asinine standard established by the folks at Media Matters simply because it embarrasses the Democratic party. The issue here is not that Hoffa incited violence, but that Obama and all of his supporters and enablers are astoundingly hypocritical. If you could have ever believed that Sarah Palin’s Facebook map incited murder, you are forever disqualified from lecturing others from over-reading political rhetoric.
We can reject the standard while at the same time calling out the hypocrisy.
That said, I don’t want to let Hoffa completely off the hook. The man strikes me as a goon, from an organization — and family — famously and justly associated with goonishness (goonery?). When I listen to all of these liberals defending Hoffa and actually feigning indignation at the mere suggestion that Hoffa was speaking irresponsibly, I have to laugh. As the Trent Lott fiasco showed, southern Republicans — fairly or unfairly — have to be more careful about how they talk then others. Well, here’s Jimmy Hoffa — Jimmy Hoffa! — talking like a goon and they’re shocked, shocked that anyone would misconstrue what he has to say as anything but an appeal to Jeffersonian democracy. Please. Any organization that finds it necessary to tell their rank and file members:
We [the Teamsters local] will not threaten to kill or inflict bodily harm, make throat slashing motions, make gun pointing motions, challenge or threaten to fight or assault employees, threaten to sexually assault non-striking employees or their family members, threaten to follow non-striking employees to their homes, use racial epithets or obscene gestures at non-striking employees doing business with COMPANY, or on any security guard, supervisor, or manager of COMPANY or neutral employers doing business with COMPANY in the presence of employees.
is an organization that has earned its reputation for goonishness.
It's good to know our current vice president got his political career started in a Teamsters local office. Of course our president got his political career started in the home of thug of another kind, so at least the two are consistent in courting the repugnant.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseNot persuasive -- southern conservatives oppose segregation as much as any Dem. More so, in fact. Calling them Klan-like is almost always slander.
But today's Dems openly declare war on other Americans because they want to take their money... but they expect to NOT be called Bolsheviks?
Yeah, I know, they mean war figuratively. But taking other people's money -- that they mean. Literally. So what do we call that? It has to have a name. And ignoring it is not a good idea, not when they have such access to power.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"But taking other people's money -- that they mean. Literally. So what do we call that? It has to have a name."
Theft?
Stealing?
Robbery?
No, Rand had it right:
LOOTING!
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseGood enough -- Hoffa's was a call to looting. Made in the language of a call to arms.
I don't have to pretend to be offended by the hypocrisy in order to condemn the utter toxicity of the message.
Nor to be alarmed that POTUS is OK with the idea of Americans looting other Americans. (OK with it? Those are the only policy prescriptions he can ever think of.)
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIt's a bit more than looting actually. We don't have the money being looted, we have to borrow it. If you will permit me to illustrate:
My unemployed neighbor comes to me and says he needs $1000 because his unemployment benefits ran out. I tell him I don't have it, things are tight for me too. So he says, "Well, can't you go get a loan or take a cash advance on your credit card?"
While I definitely feel sorry for my neighbor I already have a home mortgage, a bunch of credit card debt and virtually no savings. It would be financial insanity to agree to his request. I have to take care of my own family. There is absolutely nothing I can do except maybe invite him to dinner once a week.
And that's where we are today, except its a bit more insane. Those asking for the taxpayers (producers) to borrow more money did not even propose a budget for the two years they controlled everything. And when they finally did propose one, it got zero votes.
It's often said the GOP controls 1/2 of 1/3 of the government. That's 1/6.
The GOP needs to refuse even to discuss any more spending and/or borrowing until there is a budget that is actually approved by the other 5/6. Then we can talk.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIn fact, the president and VP are so used to goonery (that version gets my vote!) that they can't comprehend what others find repugnant! Their reaction reminds me of Blagojevich's astonishment at his conviction for merely doing what all the other Chicago pols have done throughout the years.
Obama is the quintessential (albeit incompetent) Chicago politician. He sees no disconnect between his calls for opponents to be civil and his own overheated rhetoric against his "enemies" - and therefore, I disregard his lecturing, posturing, and pretending to be "the adult in the room" - in fact, I disregard everything he has to say, at this point. What a dreadful president he is.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe word you were looking for, Mr. Goldberg, was almost certainly "gooniquitude."
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWelcome to the Goonocracy?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseRun by the Goonocrats.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe opposition are marxists without ideals of any kind.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWas this a surprise?
Hoffa's language doesn't bother me in the least. I want him and his kind offed just as much as he does me and my kind. That said, violence is unlikely to move the ball forward. (Though, if they started it, it would only serve to reveal them even more widely as what they are: communist thugs.)
Democratic hypocrisy doesn't get me much worked up, either. It's the nature of the beast. It's impossible to be a Progressive and not be at war with reality so they must necessarily say one thing and do another.
All that aside, the real war is one of ideas. It's the only way anyone will win in the long run. There, they have no ammunition at all, hence the thuggery. The only question is whether there is still time to turn things around, to inculcate and implement the right ideas. That, at this juncture, no one can predict.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse“As the Trent Lott fiasco showed, southern Republicans — fairly or unfairly — have to be more careful about how they talk then others.”
I agree. Especially when a Southern presidential candidate, who’s governed over 200 executions says “we would treat him pretty ugly in Texas”, a state that had, in recent history, one of the ugliest hate crimes ever committed.
All of this kind of rhetoric is toxic. It's terrible to think what the general election is going to bring to this nation when we have leaders like this.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI am sorry, not sure where you're going with this comment, but it depends on who is being treated "ugly in Texas" and why....?
I don't think the battle rhetoric is toxic, but the hypocrisy certainly is.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI’ll repeat what Jonah said for your clarification:
“southern Republicans — fairly or unfairly — have to be more careful about how they talk then others.”
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseYour Mitt is showing again.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseOh, I see, so you're arguing that a Northern Union hack can therefore spew whatever vile rhetoric he pleases...
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSheryl,
Re your comment: "Especially when a Southern presidential candidate, who’s governed over 200 executions says “we would treat him pretty ugly in Texas”, a state that had, in recent history, one of the ugliest hate crimes ever committed."
I'll assume that you're not implying equivalence between "...governed over 200 executions..." and "... a state that had, in recent history, one of the ugliest hate crimes ever committed" or implying any other relationship between the two. One being a lawful process of a sovereign state, the other being a reprehensible crime.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseGet in their faces. If they bring a knife, you bring a gun. Etc.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseInsulting the mothers of those you disagree with is now socially acceptable among conservatives? If he had said that about a thug of Teamsters, he would be looking at the surface of Lake Michigan from the wrong direction.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAs a Detroit native (now long in blissful exile in rural eastern NC) and former Teamster member (active till 1978, on withdrawal since), I am not bothered overmuch by Hoffa's violent rhetoric. It is par for the course for a dying breed. Nor am I much bothered by this latest example of ethical hypocrisy from the left. It's what they do and have done for a long time. I think you thank them for the latest example, log it in the 'Examples Of' file, and move along.
My suggested term for union behavior:
GOONCRAFT
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