Ann Coulter's new book, Godless: The Church of Liberalism, was released yesterday (6/6/06), and all of the liberals must have stayed up all night reading, because already they are all over Coulter for her usual inflamatory remarks. I've read Coulter before: I read her books Slander and Treason, and enjoyed them both immensely. I enjoyed Treason in particular, because Coulter gave the other side of the story of Senator Joseph McCarthy - the side of the story that you won't hear in any of the United States' National Institutes of Brainwashing (aka. public schools).
Well, now she's making waves again, this time talking about what faith liberals have in abortion, evolution, and welfare, among other things. She criticized a group of 9/11 widows who have been very vocal in their opposition and criticism of President Bush. As someone who has read and enjoyed Coulter's work in the past, both her books and her column (linked on the right), it is plain to me that this is just Ann being Ann - she is using pointed sarcasm to make a finer point (the point being that the widows' intentions are less than pure: several were liberal activists before 9/11 took place, and, despite their tragedy, 9/11 and their subsequent victim status has benefitted their activism greatly). Hilary Clinton even took a swing at Coulter, calling her remarks a "viscious, mean-spirited attack." Now, I'm not going to excuse Coulter's remarks. They are at the extreme edge of political incorrectness. But if there is anything that Ann Coulter is known for, it's her refusal to bow to, and over-willingness to spit in the face of political correctness. And there is ample evidence out there to show that there is more than a grain of truth to what she said.
But despite all of that, Coulter has put out another book, meriting another trip to the bookstore for me. That she's made waves doesn't surprise me in the least - I believe that her reasoning is sound, though I do disagree with her methods at times. Godless promisses to be an interesting read.
5 comments:
It would seem that, not only is her book replete with pseudoscience in several chapters, but out-right plagerism as well.
It was first reported here at Rude Pundit and commented heavily at Pharyngula.
The irony is that pseudo-conservatives keep buying into her mindless rhetoric and literally pay for her undereducated opinion.
Well, I still haven't had the chance to read Godless, but I do now own a copy (right now I'm reading her previous book, which I am enjoying thoroughly). As for the 'plagiarism,' she may have lifted a passage from someone, but it's a minor offense, at best. As for "commented heavily," the day I let a bunch of user comments on a blog (especially one as seething with hatred toward Coulter as that one) sway my opinion of Ann Coulter's integrity will coincidentally be the same day that Hell freezes over.
I've found in my own debates with leftists that 'pseudoscience' is the only defense left when conservatives start talking common sense...and the only reason it's called pseudoscience is because it makes so much sense that no one has commissioned a high-dollar study to verify what should be plain to see.
the only reason it's called pseudoscience is because it makes so much sense that no one has commissioned a high-dollar study to verify what should be plain to see.
If you're referring to "intelligent" design, its referred to as pseudoscience because its proponents have consistently failed to adhere to the rigors of science in promoting it. Not one prediction or testable hypothesis has manifested itself from "intelligent" design.
Beyond that, there are pseudosciences that those who alleged themselves to be conservative adhere to. Or, probably more aptly described, they are simply bad sciences. The decisions to promote abstinence in favor of condoms to prevent infectious disease; the prevention of research in stem cell technology; the avoidance of climate change data; etc., etc.
True conservatives care about economic viability in the future and minimizing the impact our society has on the ability of our future generations to prosper. Its poor economic practice to avoid scientific data because they inconvenience a few business or political interests. The economic damage is lasting. I would think that a blog that bills itself as "True Conservatism" would consider this as well as the division that intellectually disadvantaged pundits like Coulter create rather than looking for common ground.
It is common ground, after all, that will provide us with the most opportunity for success and prosperity.
You're right - true conservatives care about economic viability. Liberals, on the other hand, prefer to tax the economy into oblivion. This is the most blatant form of liberal pseudoscience. Lower taxes have been proven to not only help the economy, but raise government revenues. This has been shown under JFK, Ronald Reagan, and now under George W. Bush, yet liberals still want to raise taxes.
You say "It's poor economic practice to avoid scientific data because they inconvenience a few business or political interests." What about the environmentalist wackos who have continually blocked drilling in ANWR because they say putting in a pipeline there will wreck the caribou population, ignoring the fact that the caribou population boomed after the trans-Alaska pipeline was put in. So here we have a project that would be a tremendous economic boon to the United States, blocked by liberals because of pseudoscience in the name of politics.
Here are my responses to the cases you name:
promoting abstinence in favor of condoms to prevent disease...this is a little thing called common sense, which, like I said, is commonly mistaken as pseudoscience. It is an incontrovertible fact that abstinence is the only sure way to avoid STDs. Yes, condoms give some meausre of security, but condoms break. That, also, is an incontrovertible fact. That liberals can't seem to accept the reality that abstaining from sex is a 100% sure way to avoid contracting a sexually transmitted disease is just more liberal pseudoscience.
the "prevention" of stem cell research is not pseudoscience, it is a lie on the part of liberals. There is no ban on embryonic stem cell research, there just isn't any federal subsidy for it. Unfortunately, though, liberals think that a refusal to subsidize an idea that cannot survive in the free market is a ban. Sorry, but that's not how the real world works.
the avoidance of climate change data...guess what? Climates change. The thing that conservatives disagree with is that man is going to cause the end of the world (as Al Gore alleges). There was a story in the news just a month or so ago saying that scientists found evidence that Antarctica was once a tropical paradise (I think it was something in the neighborhood of 4,000 years ago, but it could have been longer than that). That being the case, I want to know what SUV was around 4,000 years ago that caused Antarctica to undergo its ice age? When it comes to 'global climate change', or 'global warming', or whatever you want to call it, the simple truth of the matter is that, while surface temperatures have gone up (about 1 degree celcius), scientists are now saying that they are starting to trend back down. There is more hard evidence (as opposed to liberal environmentalist wacko pseudoscience) that 'climate change' is nothing more than natural cyclical trends than that mankind is causing the destruction of the earth.
As for the charges of plaigarism against Ann Coulter, while one of the allegations may have some merit (the one about the Furbish lousewort), the other two are patently false: one is a similarly worded sentence, but is not plaigarized, and the other is sourced within the book. Your source, the Rude Pundit, also claims that Coulter is misleading readers by not letting them know what year the incidents in the questioned passages occurred (even though the sourced passage includes the date of the source article in the citation), but, really, that has absolutely nothing to do with Coulter's arguments (which, by the way, have no time constraints for the arguments in question. The only way time could invalidate them would be if they happened during or prior to the 18th Century).
Now, if Coulter's book is as "replete with pseudoscience" as you say, why not make a thread in the Senate and bring up some specific passages (unless you haven't actually read the book and are just regurgitating what you've read on lefty attack blogs, in which case I'm not interested)? After all, a message board is much more condusive to debating than these blog replies.
Update: Ann Coulter's syndicator denies allegations of plagiarism, saying, "There are only so many ways you can rewrite a fact and minimal matching text is not plagiarism...Universal Press Syndicate is confident in the ability of Ms. Coulter, an attorney and frequent media target, to know when to make attribution and when not to."
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