First off, they went to another country and said, in effect, "We know you look down on Americans, but don't look down on us, because we aren't the Americans you're talking about!" Yes, yes, I know that those aren't their exact words, but that's damned sure how it sounded to a lot of us. I don't recall any conservatives doing that about Clinton. Things we say in the family are different from things we say outside. That's how it should be, anyway.
Second, there's a war on. And we've got a little less sense of humor about self-absorbed people like the Blixie Chicks right about now. If they'd done it in the 90s (America's "personal decade"), there wouldn't have been as much fuss.
But finally, when we criticized Clinton, we never said, "We can criticize anyone we like, but you can't criticize us for doing it." Because boy howdy were we called some bad names in the late 90s. Your memory is deceiving you--we Clinton-haters were vilified in pretty nasty, pretty personal terms all through the Lewinsky mess. But these chicks say, "We can say anything we like about Bush, or America, and that's free speech. But if you criticize us, or even stop buying our records, well, that's suppression of dissent! And that's un-American! The First Ammendment guarantees us the right to have our records keep selling, no matter how obnoxious we are!" And to that, we say, yeah, tell it to the Marines.
Funny I do remember the exact same arguments from Clinton Critiziers. "You're calling us names for critizing the president." I don't remember wide spread boycots or death threats.
Well, this is why tu quoque (Latin, "Yo' mama") is, to my mind, an unsatisfying way to proceed with an argument. You say you remember some anti-Clinton people saying they shouldn't be criticized for criticizing Clinton. Well, what can I say? Find me the quote and I'll probably call them wusses, too.
Doesn't change my opinion about the Dixie Chicks which is, ahem, "They're wusses."
Do you think they should be immune from consequences for whatever they say? Do you think that if someone honestly likes them less because of their statements--if someone honestly gets just a little bit sick to his stomach when he sees their smug faces, like I do--that he should ignore those feelings and buy their records anyway? Is that required by the Constitution? I can't find it in my copy, but then, I don't have one of those "living Constitutions" I keep hearing about...
(And again--death threats are different. They should call the police about death threats. But it isn't "suppression of dissent" if I call them smug self-absorbed arrogant ill-informed snobbish pseudo-country wusses. It's America. Dammit.)
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Re: Wusses.
Date: 2003-04-24 11:10 pm (UTC)First off, they went to another country and said, in effect, "We know you look down on Americans, but don't look down on us, because we aren't the Americans you're talking about!" Yes, yes, I know that those aren't their exact words, but that's damned sure how it sounded to a lot of us. I don't recall any conservatives doing that about Clinton. Things we say in the family are different from things we say outside. That's how it should be, anyway.
Second, there's a war on. And we've got a little less sense of humor about self-absorbed people like the Blixie Chicks right about now. If they'd done it in the 90s (America's "personal decade"), there wouldn't have been as much fuss.
But finally, when we criticized Clinton, we never said, "We can criticize anyone we like, but you can't criticize us for doing it." Because boy howdy were we called some bad names in the late 90s. Your memory is deceiving you--we Clinton-haters were vilified in pretty nasty, pretty personal terms all through the Lewinsky mess. But these chicks say, "We can say anything we like about Bush, or America, and that's free speech. But if you criticize us, or even stop buying our records, well, that's suppression of dissent! And that's un-American! The First Ammendment guarantees us the right to have our records keep selling, no matter how obnoxious we are!" And to that, we say, yeah, tell it to the Marines.
Re: Wusses.
Date: 2003-04-24 11:17 pm (UTC)Re: Wusses.
Date: 2003-04-24 11:46 pm (UTC)Doesn't change my opinion about the Dixie Chicks which is, ahem, "They're wusses."
Do you think they should be immune from consequences for whatever they say? Do you think that if someone honestly likes them less because of their statements--if someone honestly gets just a little bit sick to his stomach when he sees their smug faces, like I do--that he should ignore those feelings and buy their records anyway? Is that required by the Constitution? I can't find it in my copy, but then, I don't have one of those "living Constitutions" I keep hearing about...
(And again--death threats are different. They should call the police about death threats. But it isn't "suppression of dissent" if I call them smug self-absorbed arrogant ill-informed snobbish pseudo-country wusses. It's America. Dammit.)
Re: Wusses.
Date: 2003-04-24 11:41 pm (UTC)Re: Wusses.
Date: 2003-04-24 11:49 pm (UTC)Re: Wusses.
Date: 2003-04-26 11:36 am (UTC)