Ann Coulter Has a Disability?

Ann Coulter Has a Disability?

The nation hears regularly when someone makes a negative comment about
homosexuals. But at Harvard only some forms of hate speech are offensive to the
sensitive souls. (MICHAEL A. FELDSTEIN, "Coulter is Crazy," Harvard Crimson,
March 7, 2007)
In this case Harvard opinion writer Feldstein utters hate speech toward
persons with disabilities to ridicule Ann Coulter. The Crimson published this
abomination with no disclaimer. It demonstrates the hypocrisy of the limousine
liberals.
Calling a politician a faggot, is wrong. Saying that a writer is crazy and
comparing her ideas to a disease is acceptable?
Feldstein explains his reasoning saying, "why not call it like it is? Say
Coulter is crazy. Say [...] that no one takes her seriously, and, most
importantly, that we don’t take her seriously." For Feldstein and the Crimson
editors if a person is crazy he is not to be taken seriously? That attitude
allows psychiatric criminals to abuse vulnerable persons with disabilities. It
encourages students, faculty, ordinary citizens to abuse persons with
disabilities.
Is that how the Crimson and the university teaches its students to treat
persons with disabilities? This piece shows how arbitrary psychiatry is.
Feldstein shows how psychiatry is used to silence unpopular opinions, how easy
it is to use personal attacks when one has no logical arguments.
Feldstein does not explain what he means by "The complaints of an injured
minority with a reputation for hypochondria are not as effective as the
reprimand of unanimous condemnation." Is this more support for his doctrine to
ignore persons with disabilities?
--
Roy Bercaw, Editor
ENOUGH ROOM
Cambridge MA USA

Opinion
Coulter is Crazy
LGBT rights organizations need to revise their tactics
Published On 3/7/2007 12:11:26 AM
By MICHAEL A. FELDSTEIN
Harvard Crimson

Ann Coulter made the headlines Saturday when she called John Edwards a “faggot.”

Let me be the first to say that I was as shocked as anyone to find out that
people still care about what Ann Coulter has to say—and not just any people,
major players. The New York Times had a story on the event, and the Human Rights
Campaign (HRC) and the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) both
denounced Coulter. Insulting the intelligence of bullies everywhere, the HRC
pictures former NBA star John Amaechi telling us that Coulter’s use of the
“f-Word…emboldens bullies in the school yard, in the workplace, and on the
streets, and it tells them that this kind of hate speech is ok.”

Coulter, like Fred Phelps and a handful of other extremist, be-cardiganed
Evangelical ministers, has the potential to be of real use to the cause of LGBT
rights, but the HRC, GLAAD and other pro-lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender
(LGBT) rights organizations have to play their cards better. We did an
excellent job internalizing the elementary school lessons about the importance
of discourse, but we seem to have been sidetracked before we learned what to do
about it.

Edwards knew exactly how to react; his campaign had an e-mail out in no time
encouraging people to…donate money to him (surprise!): “If we can raise $100,000
in ‘Coulter Cash’ this week, we can show that bigotry will only backfire on
those who use it.” The e-mail is nothing short of farcical, and, in that
respect, is precisely what the doctor ordered. How else do you retain your
dignity while stooping to acknowledge the content of a speech by Coulter?

More importantly, however, Coulter (and her faithful minions) gave LGBT
organizations a golden opportunity, and they squandered it. There are few
occasions when homophobic speech comes from a source that is indisputably
further from the mainstream than these organizations themselves. This “incident”
(if you can even call it that) had all the makings of one of those occasions.
Yet the HRC and GLAAD, in taking Coulter seriously, only diminished their own
respectability.

Three of the Republican presidential candidates, numerous major conservative
blogs, and apparently the entirety of the vast Right Wing Conspiracy denounced
Coulter’s statements, not to mention every liberal with a microphone. Do the HRC
and GLAAD really need to tell us where they stand?

Instead of reverting back to the same, tired rhetoric that conservatives can
shove aside with the mere mention of the word “PC”—a most economical of
epithets—why not call it like it is? Say Coulter is crazy. Say that no one
thought her comments were appropriate, that no one takes her seriously, and,
most importantly, that we don’t take her seriously.

The complaints of an injured minority with a reputation for hypochondria are not
as effective as the reprimand of unanmious condemnation. In order to adopt a
more powerful rhetorical position, the HRC and its peers have to be willing to
resist the temptation for didactic speeches about the power of words and school
yard bullies.

Back when LGBT rights were on shakier ground, mainstream organizations had a
good reason for working within the discourse that homophobic conservatives
handed them.

But that is no longer the case. The playground dynamics have changed, and Ann
Coulter is about as popular as Typhoid Mary. If LGBT organizations criticize her
from the margins, it’s our own fault. Sure she has her following, and even some
clout in the fever ward, but that’s beside the point. The point is that whining
about the psychological scars that Coulter gave us from the confines of the
losers’ table is just not effective. It’s time to sit back down with the cool
kids, cross our arms, and smugly wish Ann a speedy recovery from the typhoid.


Michael A. Feldstein ’07, a Crimson editorial editor, is a social studies
concentrator in Mather Hous e. He was Co-Chair of the BGLTSA ’05-’06.

http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=517516