I am hardly one to complain about incivility, since I don't believe in civility, at least in the fatuous sense in which the term is commonly understood by pea-brained, pea-souled pundits. Or to be more precise, if you like civility, practice it -- don't use it as war by other means. But we've been here before.
I'm not disgusted by this asshole because of an insult to the newly deceased -- the rule of civility, the polite rule, the "don't speak ill of the dead" rule. If the newly deceased Ted Kennedy really were a "traitor," someone who had tangibly & willfully harmed Americans, I would not especially mourn his passing. When Strom Thurmond died, we here at Whiskey Fire shed no tears (to say the least). No; the reason I'm disgusted by this post by noted imbecile Bob Owens is that he's full of shit, as Dave MC (Mysterious Consonant) Noon points out. See, Thurmond really was a racist homophobe, and Ted Kennedy really wasn't in league with Soviet Russia.
If the dead spoke ill, speak ill of the dead. Truth is a higher value than civility, and when civility gets in the way of truth, well, sometimes that's OK -- don't be rude at your horrible uncle's funeral it it makes grandma cry, now -- but when it comes to stuff like, oh, denying rights to certain classes of American citizens, or, like, not getting better healthcare for all Americans... fuck civility, go with truth.
And the truth is, in the next few weeks, we're going to see a lot of assholes try to whistle some sort of "civility" penalty in regards to anyone who says we should honor Ted Kennedy's memory by making sure we obtain some sort of sane healthcare system for all Americans. Well, fuck that. Because the truth is, these people have the political, self-interested goal of denying a sane healthcare system to all Americans.
When "civility" means censorship, it's a perversion. When "healthcare reform" means "making insurance companies richer," it's a perversion. When "being polite" means "pissing on a newly dead man's life's work," it is beyond revolting.
It is, however, the "conservative" ideal of reasoned public discourse.
And, as ever, to that, we at Whiskey Fire say, "fuck that noise."
(And it isn't even like I was ever the biggest Kennedy fan; I've lots of problems with that clan. But Teddy was worth at least 50 Joe Liebermans, even if you trimmed the jowls and added a conscience, you know?)
(HT to our old friend EGN for the proper video tip.)
(Yecccch.)