LINE DANCE
Faux News, that paragon ("parody" would be more like it) of journalistic even-handedness and blubber, was not amused by Stephen Colbert's truthiness takedown of the Chimp in Chief, the Moronarch, the Man Who Couldn't Really Tell A Lie Because He'd Have To Think First, George W. "Scumbya" Bush. "It crossed the line," one of the anorexic walking brains-fucked out chicklets chirped and/or moaned, to the sounds of Sean Hannity jerking off into the bullhorn that we all pray he never uses.
What does "crossing the line" mean? Whose line? Who owns "the line?" And what is it?
To Republicans, the czars of morality (i.e. the fat degenerate gambler moral hypocrite/valuers czars such as Bill "DeGenerate" Bennett"), the answer is simple: Republicans own it, and it is what we say it is. Colbert (the real one) would no doubt recognize this answer, because of its "logic" - it brushes facts and reality aside, much as does getting spit on by John Bolton - a.k.a. getting spoken to by John Bolton.
Our country, though, has had a long and venerable tradition of fighting against this "no-fact zone" (as Colbert would put it) mentality. In other words, we've recognized that the facts of history and human development - two things which Republicans often do not either have or do not know of - make the concept of "crossing the line" a fluid one.
Remember "Anatomy of a Murder?" (1959) In this Otto Preminger classic, an army greenhorn is charged with the murder of a man on his Army Base, a man whom he claimed raped his wife (he is tried in a civilian court, no less - to Repulicans, this concept is like having a no-fact zone within a no-fact zone!). The movie - a fairly long one, is a police and trial procedural. It does not suggest whether the accused(who claims, thanks to his lawyer's unethical planting of the idea - that he had an "irresistible impulse" to commit the murd) is guilty, legally or colloquially. We simply see the police gather evidence, and the attorneys present their trial arguments. (The film, to be as dispassionate vis a vis the question of guilt or innocence as it can, does not even contain the opening or closing statements of the attorneys). The man is acquitted by the jury.
The issue of whether the man acted in self-defense is confounded by the possibility that the man himself (who has an inestimably short fuse) raped his wife in a fit of rage after he might have seen her with the deceased. The movie realizes that it is about, to a large extent, whether a rape of the wife actually occurred. It first chooses to deal with this fact by describing the rape through using the word "rape." A shocking term for an audience to hear in 1959? Possibly? Crossing the line? No, however that phrase is defined, because it is situationally relevant, and because it cuts to the chase, and is not aimed to UNFAIRLY offend anyone's sensibilities. Notice how I haven't said anything about "moral relativism" (i.e. "morals had changed by 1959 such that the term didn't cross the line"). Whether the term "crossed the line" bears upon considerations having nothing to do with that phrase, which the right has recently conspicuously embraced.
Since a rape is being tried, and since the wife's underwear was allegedly thrown into the woods by the assailant, the jury is told that her "panties" were thrown into the woods (she was wearing panties). The issue of whether the rapist could have impregnated her comes up, so the word "spermatogenesis" is used. One attorney reminds the jury that a man need not have an "emission" or a "completion" for a rape to occur. None of these terms "cross the line," however defined, for the same reasons discussed above.
"crossing the line" is, in other words, what our own sense of self-righteousness will tolerate. The less likely one wants to think and be challenged, the more likely he is to find that a line is crossed. Colbert's speech is said to have "crossed the line" by conservatives not because it UNFAIRLY criticized the President (i.e. because it said something patently untrue, or was not vaguely grounded in fact), not because it was situationally inappropriate, given the scandals adverted to, and not because certain concepts/topics of interest can best - only - be described using certain words - but rather, because he dared to make it at all. Like I always say, the ones who are the most quick to offend themselves are the first to claim that they themselves have been offended.
What does "crossing the line" mean? Whose line? Who owns "the line?" And what is it?
To Republicans, the czars of morality (i.e. the fat degenerate gambler moral hypocrite/valuers czars such as Bill "DeGenerate" Bennett"), the answer is simple: Republicans own it, and it is what we say it is. Colbert (the real one) would no doubt recognize this answer, because of its "logic" - it brushes facts and reality aside, much as does getting spit on by John Bolton - a.k.a. getting spoken to by John Bolton.
Our country, though, has had a long and venerable tradition of fighting against this "no-fact zone" (as Colbert would put it) mentality. In other words, we've recognized that the facts of history and human development - two things which Republicans often do not either have or do not know of - make the concept of "crossing the line" a fluid one.
Remember "Anatomy of a Murder?" (1959) In this Otto Preminger classic, an army greenhorn is charged with the murder of a man on his Army Base, a man whom he claimed raped his wife (he is tried in a civilian court, no less - to Repulicans, this concept is like having a no-fact zone within a no-fact zone!). The movie - a fairly long one, is a police and trial procedural. It does not suggest whether the accused(who claims, thanks to his lawyer's unethical planting of the idea - that he had an "irresistible impulse" to commit the murd) is guilty, legally or colloquially. We simply see the police gather evidence, and the attorneys present their trial arguments. (The film, to be as dispassionate vis a vis the question of guilt or innocence as it can, does not even contain the opening or closing statements of the attorneys). The man is acquitted by the jury.
The issue of whether the man acted in self-defense is confounded by the possibility that the man himself (who has an inestimably short fuse) raped his wife in a fit of rage after he might have seen her with the deceased. The movie realizes that it is about, to a large extent, whether a rape of the wife actually occurred. It first chooses to deal with this fact by describing the rape through using the word "rape." A shocking term for an audience to hear in 1959? Possibly? Crossing the line? No, however that phrase is defined, because it is situationally relevant, and because it cuts to the chase, and is not aimed to UNFAIRLY offend anyone's sensibilities. Notice how I haven't said anything about "moral relativism" (i.e. "morals had changed by 1959 such that the term didn't cross the line"). Whether the term "crossed the line" bears upon considerations having nothing to do with that phrase, which the right has recently conspicuously embraced.
Since a rape is being tried, and since the wife's underwear was allegedly thrown into the woods by the assailant, the jury is told that her "panties" were thrown into the woods (she was wearing panties). The issue of whether the rapist could have impregnated her comes up, so the word "spermatogenesis" is used. One attorney reminds the jury that a man need not have an "emission" or a "completion" for a rape to occur. None of these terms "cross the line," however defined, for the same reasons discussed above.
"crossing the line" is, in other words, what our own sense of self-righteousness will tolerate. The less likely one wants to think and be challenged, the more likely he is to find that a line is crossed. Colbert's speech is said to have "crossed the line" by conservatives not because it UNFAIRLY criticized the President (i.e. because it said something patently untrue, or was not vaguely grounded in fact), not because it was situationally inappropriate, given the scandals adverted to, and not because certain concepts/topics of interest can best - only - be described using certain words - but rather, because he dared to make it at all. Like I always say, the ones who are the most quick to offend themselves are the first to claim that they themselves have been offended.
posted by EnterCenter at 5:15 PM
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