Oct 31 2007
See Ann Roar
Ann Coulter versus Alan Colmes on her Comments about Jews. I post this not because Ann is a great theologian, but because Ann is a fighter.
Ann was pressed by Alan on her anti Semitic comments and he attempted to toss off a an underhanded insult about 4 minutes into this.
What I like is that Ann will have none of his condescension. About 1 minute left in the clips she reverses the attack, and pins him to the wall.
In other words, she fought back instead of accepting the insult.
Whether she is on sound doctrinal footing or not in the classic Christian v Judaism debate is not relevant, what is relevant is that she believes what she does and defends it.
In a world where many Christians defer to political correctness and soft sell, I find anyone who stands firm somewhat invigorating. I may not always agree with her, but I have to respect her passion.
And I wish more conservatives would take a page from her book (no pun intended) and stop making nice and fight for their beliefs. Too often the liberals win by default when the conservatives fall back on sensibility and politeness.
Maybe that is the path of moral authority in some cases, but in others it is surrendering without a shot being fired.
6 Responses to “See Ann Roar”
Annie rocks! I was so glad that she didn’t allow Skeletor to “move on” to Pelosi right after he insulted her. Ann was on fire!! Woohoo!! We need more of this!
Look. Anyway you slice it Ann Coulter is irrational, untruthful and attention seeking.
Why discredit conservatism and Christianity by applauding a nutcase simply because she is a nutcase on our side?
I would appreciate a reply.
Ann is not a nutcase. Her tactics and methods may be questionable, but many of her core ideas are as often as not valid and right on point.
Why she chooses to dilute her message with the sarcasm and vitriol is her business, but having read most of her stuff, she is at her core very intelligent and and politically astute.
Its just her “jokes” get in the way of it. If she ever toned down the acerbic remarks she would be amazing, but I think she figures no one would take her seriously at that point.
Everything she has said about Christianity is on target as well doctrinally, she is just lousy at explaining it.
All I do with her is filter out the unessentials to discover the ideas underlying her comments, and I have found some real gems there.
And in this case, as I said she should be the roll model of conservatives everywhere who let loud mouthed liberals roll over them. Fight back and make the points. Conservatives keep losing the debate because they let the liberals set the rules.
I agree Karl. She can put the Putz in his place. He always thinks he is the winner in these little tifs. Rusty Humphries was on a few months ago and the Putz was bragging that he had put Rusty in his place and debunked what ever the subject was. On Rusty’s show later that night he couldn’t believe that Combs thought he had put Rusty in his place. A lot of the time I have to just change the channel when the Putz has his turn. It is just that he is so stupid. Anne stood her ground and he as usual looked like the jerk he is. I think that he is so self absorbed like most libs that they have a mental picture in their minds that they think they so above everyone else that they can’t see the picture that everyone else sees. The little Putz is just to stupid to get that he is so not liked. Good for Anne.
I watched a clip of Coulter’s actual interview in which she made the quote in question, and while I can see that she may not have meant her statement that “Christians are ‘perfected’ Jews” in an offensive fashion, in context it is offensive.
The US was founded upon (and really, because of) the principle of freedom of religion. Many of the first European settlers of North America came here to escape religious persecution. That Ann Coulter believes, because of her religious dogma, that Jews have not been saved by Jesus and thus are not “perfected” is ok. Her right to believe that is given her by the first amendment of our constitution. However, that same amendment also affords legal rights to all other religious groups, saying that the federal legislature can make no laws “respecting an establishment of religion”.
The reason that Ann’s comments are offensive is that she typically speaks about public policy, not simply her personal beliefs. To be fair, she was actually asked the question, “If your dreams came true, what would America look like?” That is not asking what public policies she would like to enact. It is asking what she would like her world to look like if she could snap her fingers and make it so without hurting anyone. Technically, she’s in the clear. The fact that she is normally concerned with policy makes her comments scary, however. For the same person who makes suggestions of laws to truly believe that one religion makes a person inferior to another is frightening for those not of her religion. As long as she and her legislative brethren can ensure that their concept of religious or racial superiority does not make it into the law books, I have no problem with her saying or believing whatever she likes. My worry is that because she envisions an all-Christian dream world, she will try to push policies to promote that dream in the US. Such pseudo-theocracy is the same condition from which the founders of our country fled. It would be a shame to see all their hard work be for nought because politicians misconstrued personal freedom to practice religion as political freedom to legislate it.
On a somewhat separate point, I am confused by your profession of respect for her steadfastness. It seems to me that she falls short of your (and her) ideals. I’m sure she understands the difference between her freedom to speak her mind and Deutsch’s (or Colmes’, or America’s) obligation to accept it without offense. If she were simply trying to state her personal religious beliefs in an open forum, she would need to take responsibility for the offense it might cause. When Deutsch stated that he was offended by her comments, she needed to take responsibility for the results of her actions. Saying to a person’s face that his religious beliefs are inferior to hers is bound to offend. I’m sure Coulter would be offended if Deutsch told her that she was not one of the Chosen people, and thus God loved him more than her. After all, that is the gist of the Old Testament.
Her unwillingness to take responsibility for her views is simply another form of deference to the PC crowd. Instead of keeping her views under wraps, she states them, but then essentially apologizes in so many words. She dodges Colmes’ actual question, which is essentially: “You offended a lot of people by saying that your religion is a ‘perfected’ version of theirs. Do you care?” Coulter avoids it by talking about all the other things that she said in the Deutsch interview that were not particularly offensive, intentionally leaving out the quote about perfection. After Coulter lists all the inoffensive things she said in a ploy to skirt the issue, Colmes brings it back again, although to his discredit he uses his own admittedly embellished interpretation of what she said. Coulter asks him, “What is the classic language of an anti-Semite?”, to which he replies, “To say that your language is superior, to say that you have to be somehow perfected or of the right religion, that somehow those who do not believe what you believe are somehow lesser than you”. Coulter then yells, “No! I’m saying what anyone who actually believes a religion would say, unlike…” She then transitions into a shot at other political figures whom she belives are soft believers, again cleverly avoiding responsibility for her beliefs. She needs to own up to what she’s saying, which is clearly that she believes that her faith is a perfected version of another. That something is a perfected version of something else necessarily implies that the original version was imperfect, and thus inferior. I wouldn’t put it past Coulter to claim that her religion is superior to others, but to then pretend that’s not what she said is simply disingenuous and, worst of all, cowardly. If she’s so fearless and upright, why is she dodging responsibility for the logical implications of her beliefs?