BY WILLIAM C. HENRY Recently I’ve been adding a “comment” or two to some of Ann Coulter’s bigoted articles (does she write any other kind?). I admit to it being a rather nonsensical exercise in as much as nearly all of the “replies” I get are insultingly lame retorts from one or more of her cretinous sycophants all of whom exhibit significantly less cranial content than Coulter’s, which, in and of itself, can hardly be considered of rocket scientist dimensions. But I digress.
It’s interesting to note how with all accomplished bigots — Coulter, Limbaugh and Hannity are classic examples of the genre, as are Savage and (was) Breitbart — their utterances always include: 1) a tinge of “truth” for effect, invented or contrived if need be, and always exaggerated, 2) the impression of “justified” anger (at least they’d like you to think so), and 3) the implication of deliberate intent to harm on the part of the target of the anger. All three are straw dogs, of course, but absolutely indispensable to any professional hate monger.
So, why do so many Americans fall for it? Because they’ve been programmed to believe that way since childhood (for many it no doubt started with scary 
anti-liberal bedtime stories) unless, of course, they happen to be of the Bryan Fischer species, all of whom apparently received their hatred as a gift from God. Like nearly all of her ilk, Coulter’s furnace (and those of her followers) is fueled by an all-consuming fear and loathing of anyone and anything perceived to represent a threat to their “entitled” lifestyle — which in Ann’s case happens to include a home in Palm Beach, a condominium in Manhattan, an apartment in Los Angeles, and a comfortable net worth of some $8.5 million. Just as the Nazis selected a visible scapegoat for all of Germany’s problems, today’s bigots use anything at variance from their idea of acceptable norms as the cause of all of America’s problems. It can be one’s color, ethnicity, religion (oh, boy, can it!), social/economic status, sexual orientation (including simply being a woman) or political affiliation. It can be one’s style of hair or dress, skin decor, taste in music, or simply one’s accent. For certain, if you can’t be readily identified as WASPish (as far as the “P” is concerned, it should be noted that Coulter won’t admit to membership in a particular denomination but vehemently claims adherence to “Christian” ideals and principles in literally everything she says and does, but coyly refuses to let us in on how and why God allows her to get away with such a whopper) you are automatically assumed to be dangerous, alarming, devious and/or deceitful!
Here’s a sampling from the Coulter repertoire of hostility: On the Affordable Care Act, “My friend’s sister died from Obamacare.” Well, not exactly. On gay rights, we pretty much know where Ann stands, and maybe wealth and position can, in fact, heal all wounds. On immigration reform, you needn’t go any further than the title of her latest book, “Adios, America! The Left’s Plan to Turn Our Country into a Third World Hellhole.” On minorities, “Since when have black people been able to speak foreign languages?” On the opposite sex, “If we took away women’s right to vote, we’d never have to worry about another Democrat president.” On “charity” and race, “Why are medical missionaries working in the disease-ridden cesspools of Africa?” On being poor, “It’s a cruel and Selfish thing…for the upper classes…to refuse to tell poor people ‘keep your knees together before you’re married – that would solve so many of life’s problems.’” On 9/11 widows, “These broads are millionaires, lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities.” On being a liberal, “Liberals are ‘going gay’ so they need immigrants to outbreed ‘Christian America.'” On domestic terrorism, “My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building.” On a woman’s right to choose, “I don’t really like to think of it as a murder. It was terminating Tiller in the 203rd trimester. I am personally opposed to shooting abortionists, but I don’t want to impose my moral values on others.”
You can’t make this kind of hate speech up, folks. Coulter’s mouth and pen excrete this kind of raw untreated bigotry on a daily basis. Many of her devoted swallowers chalk it up to “political humor.” Yeah, right. Believe me, the only thing humorous about Coulter is the utterly asinine twaddle she parades as fact (historical or otherwise) and the self-evident truth that her real problem is simply a nescient fear of change or anything that deviates from the status quo. In Coulter’s view, if it was good enough for the 19th and three quarters of the 20th centuries, it ought to be good enough for all time. Her latest rush to benightedness involves the Governor of South Carolina determining that in the wake of a white racist’s hate-fueled rampage that took the lives of 9 local black parishioners, it was finally time to have the Confederate flag permanently removed from the state’s capitol. Needless to say, that didn’t sit well with an intolerant like Coulter who determined that she could no longer support Governor Nikki Haley (a Republican and a woman) because she was an “‘immigrant’ (she isn’t) who doesn’t understand America’s history.” Coulter went on to state, “Anyone who knows the first thing about military history, knows that there is no greater army that ever took the field than the Confederate Army” (most of us can probably think of at least two). I’m not certain which is the more difficult, a) finding someone or something Ann doesn’t feel compelled to denigrate, or b) finding someone or something she actually approves of or encourages. And, then, all of a sudden it occurred to me that one of her favorite pastimes is reading true crime stories about serial killers.
There can be no better rationale for the stigmatization of the likes of an Ann Coulter than was put forth by Sir Karl Popper, one of the truly great liberal minds of the twentieth century: “Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. – In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law, and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal.” No one could have commented better, Karl.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Fed up early stage septuagenarian who has actually been most of there and done most of that. Born and raised in the picturesque Pocono Mountains. Quite well educated. Very lucky to have been born into a well-schooled and somewhat prosperous family. Long divorced. One beautiful, brilliant daughter. Two far above average grandsons. Semi-retired (how does anyone manage to do it completely these days?) and fully-tired of bullshit. Uncle of the Editor-In-Chief.