Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the woman of the moment, the one about whom this blog entry written and is so right wing, that if she were any more right, she would be left! The one, the only... Ann Coulter.
Two of Ann Coulter's books - Slander and Treason, both New York Times bestsellers
Ok call me late to the party, but I had not heard about this infamous Wicked Witch of the West until today when I read an article in my university's newspaper about her. I read it and at first could not believe it. I know that I am pretty naïve when it comes to worldly matters, but I thought that at least on some level I understood the basics of how the human mind worked. Oh how wrong I was! To illustrate what I am talking about to those of you who do not know about Ann Coulter, here are a few of my favourite quotes from her.
"The ethic of conservation is the explicit abnegation of man's dominion over the Earth. The lower species are here for our use. God said so: Go forth, be fruitful, multiply, and rape the planet""I think [women] should be armed but should not [be allowed to] vote."
"If those kids had been carrying guns they would have gunned down this one [child] gunman. ... Don't pray. Learn to use guns."
"We know who the homicidal maniacs are. They are the ones cheering and dancing right now. We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity.
Ok, now there are many more quotes and it would be easy for me to simply list them all and leave it at that. They make for some entertaining (if shocking at times) reading. But that's what sites like
this [wikiquote] are for! Read her quotes on Bill Clinton, they're priceless! Anyway, I want to go a bit deeper and try to figure out what makes a woman like this tick. Clearly there must be something beyond the mask that these quotes present.
Now, just for the record, I want to state that I am a liberal. Not that I really care about politics, but when talking about such an extremely conservative individual it must be stated. Also, this is not a political blog. I am simply trying to analyze the woman who can say things like the ones above with a straight face! That said, let's get on with it.
As I was reading the article about her for the first time, I was caught completely off guard. That someone had such radically different views to my own and indeed what I considered even possible was just a bit too much to take at first! Granted, I know that everyone has different opinions... I still never dreamed that they could be
that different! Just taking the comment she made about women not being allowed to vote for example. Here was a woman saying that other women should not vote. Does that not seem a bit stupid to you? Next let's consider her extremely pro-guns status. Now here she just crossed the line! She advocates giving every child in school a gun so that if any one of them decides to shoot up the school, the other kids can gun them down. Just the last five words of the previous sentence are too troubling to contemplate let alone implement!
Now after reading up on the net a bit, I gathered that Ms. Coulter has been a staunch right winger since college, so my initial thought that this must all be some kind of facade was wrong. She really does believe in the things she says. But I'm pretty sure that she exaggerates a lot of it to make her point. She is unafraid to say anything and that is a very powerful weapon in politics. The reason I refuse to believe that she is just a complete idiot is because someone who is as well read and educated as she seems to be has to have some form of logical thought behind any belief. So now after much thought and research, I have narrowed down the possibilities of what makes Ann Coulter the angry and spiteful woman she is:
- She is a brilliant satirist: This is an interesting theory, but sometimes you really get the feeling that she fully believes what she is saying. Satire must tread the fine line between making fun of something and outright advocating it and she crosses that line too often.
- She is a He: This seems to be the only plausible explanation for all the different symptoms that she is exhibiting - love of war, misogyny, gun friendliness and her anti abortion stand.
- She actually believes everything she says: As I have said before, I find this very hard to believe.
So there we have it. This woman seems to be a very interesting "flashpoint" and I'll be keeping an eye on her, just for some more of those priceless quotes!
Till next time then, keep stepping on the toes of the world!
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Having already successfully adapted Stephen King's The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile, director Frank Darabont turns to the author for inspiration a third time, turning this 1985 short story about a malevolent fog into a starring vehicle for Thomas Jane, Andre Braugher, and Marcia Gay Harden.
