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Anne Coulter's Godless

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The Wrath

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If that were the case, she would do it the Gail Wynand way and give the masses what the masses want.

I meant, and should have said, she just wants to sell her books to the conservative and beyond conservative demographic. I perceive that she needs to make herself particularly controversial so as to distinguish herself amongst the numerous other prolific conservative authors today.

This should give you a good idea of why I love and respect Ann Coulter!

I get the idea but I still disagree. However, I am not sure what else to say so I plan to end this in a respectful disagreement. :)

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  • 1 year later...

I do not approve of her. I do not approve of her chosen tactic to infuriate instead of educate. And, just like John McEnroe's tennis-tantrums, whatever points she scores gets lost because of the act. And for anyone who excuses this because her targets are liberals, whenever the same tactics are applied against rightists, what moral opposition would you offer to tactics you had elsewhere approved of?

Edited by Yitzhak Finnegan
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I do not approve of her. I do not approve of her chosen tactic to infuriate instead of educate.

Infuriate? She has never infuriated me! She's just telling the truth like it is (most of the time), and if some people have a problem with that, the fault is with them, not with her.

And, just like John McEnroe's tennis-tantrums, whatever points she scores gets lost because of the act.

Argumentum ad presentationem?

And for anyone who excuses this because her targets are liberals, whenever the same tactics are applied against rightists, what moral opposition would you offer to tactics you had elsewhere approved of?

Tactics? Like telling the truth?

There are many people on the right that would deserve to get Coultered a little. You might note that Ann has actually bashed John McCain a lot, although I'm not sure even he would describe himself as belonging to the right. But I would welcome a good dose of Coulter-style critique against people like President Bush, Newt Gingrich, et al, from an Objectivist perspective.

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Yeah, I've have to agree with Yitzak.

I think Coulter can be funny. As satire.

As presenting valid argumentation, she's 3rd rate. She uses the same style to argue against evolution for God's sake (literally B)). She is hardly persuasive, and she uses more argument from intimidation that anyone I've seen. Even the left loonies.

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Coulter reminds me of Ben Stein, who usually had a witty but sarcastic tone (not in his quiz show, but in the brief appearances he made on TV). It is funny when they're bashing the abd guys, but when their sarcasm is pointed at you, you realize that they don't make arguments, simply take them for granted and make jokes about them. Perhaps it flows form the religious notion that knowledge is intrinsic.

This is based on her TV appearances; her books might be different.

Edited by softwareNerd
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I wonder if it's possible at all to support all these things as a result of a faulty moral basis... So a conservative who truly supports the things you mentioned, must support them not as a result of, but in spite of his flawed explicit morality. And I think this is evidence that, beneath the explicit morality that he feels for some reason compelled to espouse, there are some implicit, unidentified remnants of the right morality, which form the true basis of his political ideas.

One not only can have a faulty foundation, but may also have a faulty line of reasoning. If I start with 1+1 = 3, and from that, build a proof that concludes 10+10 = 20, does it mean that I do not implicitly believe my original statement, or is it more likely that I made another mistake somewhere in the proof to lead me to the right conclusion? Just because someone states that they believe X, Y, and Z, it does not mean that deep down, they arrived at those beliefs along some ideal path of pure reason. More likely, given that she is a pundit, and all pundits are talking heads, she is simply espousing what will get her attention. There is no underlying line of reasoning - explicit or implicit - culminating in these beliefs.

Objectivists oppose Litertarians for supporting the same goals for different reasons. Doesn't this seem like the same thing? She bashes "Liberals" (a term that in this case can be used as a sweeping banner that includes anyone but the person speaking), and you support her bashing because you also dislike "Liberals" (although your use of the term likely is not as all-encompassing as hers).

Edited by brian0918
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More likely, given that she is a pundit, and all pundits are talking heads, she is simply espousing what will get her attention. There is no underlying line of reasoning - explicit or implicit - culminating in these beliefs.

She is certainly good a garnering attention for her viewpoints. However, I don't know that you can necessarily say she has no underlying reasoning behind her beliefs. From what I've seen, she holds a set of views that is quite typical among religious conservatives. Some of those views are based on errors in reasoning, but that isn't to say that all conservatives make no attempt at using reason.

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Yeah, I've have to agree with Yitzak.

I think Coulter can be funny. As satire.

As presenting valid argumentation, she's 3rd rate. She uses the same style to argue against evolution for God's sake (literally B)). She is hardly persuasive, and she uses more argument from intimidation that anyone I've seen. Even the left loonies.

Having read the book in question (indeed, having started this thread in response to it), I concur with this post. She's little more than a brainless parrot with an uncanny ability to inject hilarious amounts of sarcasm into whatever views she is parroting.

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My perception is that she worships America and the Republican Party not because she is using reason or because she values the ideals of the founding fathers of the United States but because she has some almost blind, jingoistic commitment to the United States and the Republican Party that is almost completely independent of their actual ideals. As a paragon of a Republican attack dog, Ann Coulter cheers for the Republicans as if they are her favorite football team. She even promotes views that I perceive to be far from "pro-American". Some examples being her repeated (sarcastically) insinuations that liberals should be deprived of their freedom of speech and her enthusiasm for a number of pro-religion and anti-mind views.

This is probably one of the single greatest comments made on this forum. DarkWaters, I love you. This is how I feel about Coulter exactly and how I feel about 97% of the people who vote Republican.

Ultimately, we all recognize that she is just trying to sell her books. Thus explains her willingness to go out of her way to be controversial and her shameless use of intellectually dishonest arguments that help her accomplish her goals. With her, sometimes I wonder if the Republican party were to gradually trade places with the Democratic party over the course of twenty years, then I would expect her to be writing scathing diatribes against the Democrats while extolling views that were once antipodal to her own.

I agree. I think she supports the Republicans because they are Republicans. That's about it. What they stand for and why can just be a blank filled in whenever it's time to pay lip service to principles.

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I agree. I think she supports the Republicans because they are Republicans. That's about it. What they stand for and why can just be a blank filled in whenever it's time to pay lip service to principles.

Given that she said she would support Hillary over John McCain, I think this is an unfair criticism.

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This is how I feel about Coulter exactly and how I feel about 97% of the people who vote Republican.

Is it fair to assume, then, that you will be voting for Comrade Obama this November? Or are you going to count yourself among that ignorant, unprincipled 97% that plan to vote for Mccain?

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Objectivists oppose Litertarians for supporting the same goals for different reasons.

The same goals??

Sometimes I wish that people who think anarchy and capitalism are "the same" would have to spend a year in some hellhole like Somalia, and then come back to America. Then I could tell them, "See, you did notice a difference between Somalia and the U.S., didn't you? Well, that difference is the difference between anarchy and capitalism."

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Given that she said she would support Hillary over John McCain, I think this is an unfair criticism.

If you read some of Mammon's posting history, you'll find that fairness has never been his goal. If I were to give him the maximum benefit of the doubt, I would conclude that he is trying to entertain us by providing a caricature of the most bigoted, mindless, visceral hatred of everything associated with the letter "R" that liberals have ever exhibited.

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The same goals??

Sometimes I wish that people who think anarchy and capitalism are "the same"... *snip*

I did not say "the same goals as Objectivists", I said "the same goals", meaning the same goals amongs their constituents - they all call themselves "libertarians" but they all hold different principles and may even have different ultimate goals.

Please respond to my entire reply to you above.

Edited by brian0918
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Given that she said she would support Hillary over John McCain, I think this is an unfair criticism.

The problem is that so much of what she says is sarcastic, not serious, that you don't know if she's just joking in this situation as well. You can't cite one quote as being a non-serious joke and cite another quote as being serious, without context. Most likely it was satire in opposition to McCain being the Republican candidate. But when McCain wins the nomination, I'm sure she'll fall in line, or at least stop commenting on McCain altogether, and shift to attacking the Democrats.

Edited by brian0918
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The problem is that so much of what she says is sarcastic, not serious, that you don't know if she's just joking in this situation as well. You can't cite one quote as being a non-serious joke and cite another quote as being serious, without context. Most likely it was satire in opposition to McCain being the Republican candidate.
I think this is a pretty good assessment of the problem one encounters with such a heavy use of political sarcasm and humor. I'll admit a few of her columns have made me chuckle, however there are times when Coulter is so over the top that it's difficult to tell whether she's serious or not. Her professed support of Hillary Clinton in a hypothetical contest between Hillary and McCain was one of those occasions.

But when McCain wins the nomination, I'm sure she'll fall in line, or at least stop commenting on McCain altogether, and shift to attacking the Democrats.

Now that Obama looks to be the likely Democrat nominee, she'll make a show of grudgingly supporting McCain as the preferred alternative to Obama.

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I did not say "the same goals as Objectivists", I said "the same goals", meaning the same goals amongs their constituents - they all call themselves "libertarians" but they all hold different principles and may even have different ultimate goals.

Please respond to my entire reply to you above.

Well, you very much sounded like you were saying "the same goals as Objectivists." To be honest, I don't really see what your point is (the point of your entire reply) if that is what you meant.

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The problem is that so much of what she says is sarcastic, not serious, that you don't know if she's just joking in this situation as well. You can't cite one quote as being a non-serious joke and cite another quote as being serious, without context. Most likely it was satire in opposition to McCain being the Republican candidate.

It is only the people who don't see where she's coming from that have a trouble distinguishing between her sarcasm and serious comments. If you agree with someone's ideas, or disagree but know what exactly those ideas are, you will automatically recognize a joke as a joke: it is the kind of statement that expresses something so absurd it makes you laugh. (Absurd, to someone sharing those ideas.) Knowing Ann Coulter's evaluation of John McCain (an evaluation that I mostly agree with), there is unfortunately nothing absurd about supporting Hillary as a lesser evil than him.

I'm sure she'll fall in line

Ann Coulter? Fall in line?! Now I don't know if you're joking or not! ;)

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Knowing Ann Coulter's evaluation of John McCain (an evaluation that I mostly agree with), there is unfortunately nothing absurd about supporting Hillary as a lesser evil than him.

If I remember correctly, her basic rationale for supporting Hillary was that there was essentially no difference between the two. It was better to have the country elect a Democrat and then have the Democrat move forward with a bunch of failed, leftist policies than having a Republican like McCain do it. Then when the wheels come off, as they surely will, the country would blame the Democrats and not the Republicans.

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The problem is that so much of what she says is sarcastic, not serious, that you don't know if she's just joking in this situation as well. You can't cite one quote as being a non-serious joke and cite another quote as being serious, without context. Most likely it was satire in opposition to McCain being the Republican candidate. But when McCain wins the nomination, I'm sure she'll fall in line, or at least stop commenting on McCain altogether, and shift to attacking the Democrats.

I doubt that she would seriously campaign for Hillary, but it at least shows that she isn't going to blindly support McCain just because he has an R after his name.

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I doubt that she would seriously campaign for Hillary, but it at least shows that she isn't going to blindly support McCain just because he has an R after his name.

For me it shows nothing more than that she knows what to say to falsely give people that impression. Of course she's going to support the R, even if it's only by opposing the D.

Edited by brian0918
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