"News that's not known, or not known enough." Helen & Harry Highwater's cranky weblog of news and opinion.
The wit and wisdom of Ann Coulter
Ann Coulter
Ann Coulter is not an idiot. She is famous for her rude, over-the-top statements, but she's a lawyer and successful author. She edited The Michigan Law Review, and she's a legal correspondent for Human Events. Clearly, she's an intelligent woman. She's not a fool, she just plays one on TV.
Coulter has been writing a syndicated newspaper column since 1999, but she's added no serious political proposal to America's national discourse. Instead she conducts herself as a rhetorical bomb-thrower, or perhaps a comedian in the style of Andrew Dice Clay or Don Rickles, though to my ear she's not as amusing as either.
She has gained notoriety almost solely for her insults, but having read many of her columns and one of her books, what's always struck me is that Coulter's political positions are just plain ordinary on the right-wing. From GATT to NAFTA, Monica Lewinsky to nuclear power to health care reform, pick an issue and it's very difficult to separate Coulter's perspective from the perspectives of
Fred Barnes or Phyllis Schlaffley, Sean Hannity or Bill O'Reilly, Tony Blankley or Brent Bozell, Jonah Goldberg or Charles Krauthammer, etc. She's more blunt than other conservative pundits and politicians, she says in public some of the things that most right-wingers say only in private, but there's no substantial disagreement on the policies. The Republican candidate for Congress in your district almost certainly sees eye-to-eye with Ann Coulter.
Only her style sets Coulter apart. She doesn't put much effort into acting nice for the cameras. Her hatred isn't as hidden, her meanness isn't as masked, and she says things that major-league Republicans can't get away with saying.
So when Ann Coulter says something, don't tune out. Listen closely as the Republican perspective is spoken plainly.
Helen & Harry Highwater, proprietors Unknown News
"My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building."
"[Liberals] are always accusing us of repressing their speech. I say let's do it. Let's repress them. ... Frankly, I'm not a big fan of the First Amendment."
"I think we ought to nuke North Korea right now just to give the rest of the world a
warning. ... They’re a major threat. I just think it would be fun to nuke them and have it
be a warning to the rest of the world."
"[Canadians] better hope the United States doesn't roll over one night and crush them. They are lucky we allow them to exist on the same continent."
"I think the government should be spying on all Arabs, engaging in torture as a televised
spectator sport, dropping daisy cutters wantonly throughout the Middle East, and sending
liberals to Guantanamo."
"The myth of 'McCarthyism' is the greatest Orwellian fraud of our times. Liberals are
fanatical liars, then as now. The portrayal of Sen. Joe McCarthy as a wild-eyed demagogue
destroying innocent lives is sheer liberal hobgoblinism. Liberals weren't hiding under the
bed during the McCarthy era. They were systematically undermining the nation's ability to
defend itself, while waging a bellicose campaign of lies to blacken McCarthy's
name."
"There are no good Democrats."
"When contemplating college liberals, you really regret once again that John Walker
[Lindh] is not getting the death penalty. We need to execute people like John Walker in order to physically intimidate liberals, by making them realize that they can be killed,
too. Otherwise, they will turn out to be outright traitors."
"I take the Biblical idea. God gave us the earth. We have dominion over the plants, the
animals, the trees. God says, 'Earth is yours. Take it. Rape it. It's yours.'"
"Liberals love America like O.J. loved Nicole Brown Simpson."
"In this recurring nightmare of a presidency [the Clinton administration], we have a
national debate about whether he 'did it,' even though all sentient people know he did.
Otherwise there would be debates only about whether to impeach or assassinate."
"Whether they are defending the Soviet Union or bleating for Saddam Hussein, liberals are always
against America. They are either traitors or idiots, and on the matter of America's
self-preservation, the difference is irrelevant."
"Even if corners were cut, [Iran-Contra] was a brilliant scheme. There is no possibility
that anyone in any Democratic administration would have gone to such lengths to fund
anti-Communist forces. When Democrats scheme from the White House, it's to cover up the
President's affair with an intern. When Republicans scheme, it's to support embattled
anti-Communist freedom fighters sold out by the Democrats."
"A central component of liberal hate speech is to make paranoid accusations based on their
own neurotic impulses, such as calling Republicans angry, hate-filled, and mean."
Like the URL says, this website is about unknown news.
Our news comes only from mainstream, professional journalists or (rarely) other sources we trust entirely, with no nuttiness and no interest in the same news you see everywhere else.
What we believe
We believe in liberty and justice for all, so of course, we oppose many US government policies. This doesn't mean we're anti-American, redneck scum, pinko commies, militia members, or terrorist-sympathizers. It means we believe in freedom, as more than merely a cliché.
We believe you have the right to live your own life as you choose, and others have the equal right to live their lives as they choose. It's not complicated.
We believe freedom leads to peace, progress, and prosperity, while its opposite -- oppression -- leads to war, terrorism, poverty, and misery.
We believe it's preposterously stupid to hate people because of their appearance, their race or nationality, their religion or lack of religion, how they have sex with other consenting adults, etc. There are far more apropos reasons to hate most people.
We believe in questioning ourselves, our assumptions, each other -- and we especially believe in questioning authority (the more authority, the more questions). We believe obedience is a fine quality in dogs and young children, but not in adults.
Like America's right-wingers, we believe in
individual responsibility,
hard work to get ahead,
and stern punishment for serious crimes.
We believe big government should not be blindly trusted.
But unlike most right-wing leaders, we mean it.
Like America's left-wingers, we believe in
equal treatment under law,
war as a last (not first) resort,
and sensible stewardship of natural resources.
We believe big business should not be blindly trusted.
But unlike most left-wing leaders, we mean it.
Like libertarians, we believe it's wrong and reprehensible to arrest people for what they think, believe, look like, wear, eat, smoke, drink, inhale, inject, or otherwise do to themselves.
But unlike many libertarians, we're not obsessed with the gold standard, we don't believe incorporation is humanity's highest achievement, and we don't believe everything in life comes down to dollars and cents. We've read and enjoyed Ayn Rand's novels, but we understand that they're works of fiction.
We're skeptical, and we're sick of so-called 'journalists' who aren't skeptical at all.
A reader asks, what are our solutions?
We propose no solutions except common sense, which is never common. We like the principles of democracy, and the ideals broadly described as 'American'. The US Constitution is a fine and workable framework for solutions, when it's actually read and thoughtfully understood by intelligent statesmen and women. So, no manifestos from us. We don't dream that big, and if there's one thing the world doesn't need it's yet another manifesto.
Our suggestion is: think.
A fact-based instead of faith-based approach leads to solutions for most of the recurring issues of our time, from abortion to global climate change, pollution to universal health care, careful but real regulation of industry and economy, hunger, war, terror, human rights for humans not for corporations, science not religious doctrine in public schools, equal protection and prosecution under law, etc. Approach problems without glorifying stupidity, without demonizing intelligence, and answers usually come into focus.
These pages are published by Harry and Helen Highwater, happily married low-income nom de plumes and rabble-rousers from Madison, Wisconsin (with a few friends scattered around the world helping out).
We try to spotlight news that hasn't gotten enough (or appropriate) attention in American media, along with our opinions and yours.
We bang our keyboards against the wall, because it doesn't hurt as much as banging our heads.
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