Demonic_ How the Liberal Mob Is Endangering America - Ann Coulter [123]
People who think of themselves as sophisticated professionals who would never hiss “slut” at a girl for dating her friend’s boyfriend are driven by the same desperate need for social acceptance. They’re just appealing to a different in-group. As Eugene Lyons said of communist-sympathizing liberals in the 1930s, “Under the guise of a nobly selfless dedication they were, in fact, identifying themselves with Power.”3
What most people care about is their standing in their own worlds—not what people they will never meet might think of them. The Dixie Chicks insult President Bush in London, not in Lubbock, Texas. The liberal mob operates not only by terrifying nice, law-abiding Americans with bottle-throwing lunatics, but also by imposing a powerful groupthink on public discourse. Le Bon says it is the human instinct to imitate that makes fashion so powerful. “Whether in the matter of opinions, ideas, literary manifestations, or merely of dress, how many persons are bold enough to run counter to the fashion?”4
Self-styled intellectuals—virtually all residents of New York City—appeal to the imaginary New York Times editor they fantasize is listening to their every hoary declamation; lawyers take positions that will make them superstars at the next ABA convention; actors strike poses that they think will make them seem intelligent and passionate.
Who cares what people in Missouri think of them? Without a flicker of self-examination, craven suck-ups fancy themselves Thomas More standing up to King Henry VIII, when, in fact, they are Richard Rich, who testified falsely against More, resulting in More’s decapitation and Rich’s promotion.
Singer Lady Gaga has bragged that she is “mastering the art of fame,” which consists of an adolescent’s imitation of the in-crowd. The mob demands total chaos in sexual traditions, morals, and decorum—but fascistic uniformity when it comes to opinions. As Le Bon says, “It is by examples not by arguments that crowds are guided.”5
Gaga has made a name for herself beyond her music for supporting gay marriage and denouncing the Clinton-era policy of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in the military. For this, she has been hailed as a visionary in the Washington Post, which called her “smarter than the average pop star. Better read. More extensively traveled. Deeper. And she wants you to know it.”6 She was ranked No. 1 on dosomething.org’s “Top 20 Celebs Gone Good,”7 and praised on CNN as the “most socially conscious celeb of 2010,” because “she called for the repeal of ‘don’t ask/don’t tell,’ supported same-sex marriage and raised AIDS awareness.”
Never imagining the power of the mob could reach the crescendo it has in modern America, Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1774, “Let those flatter, who fear: it is not an American art.”8 By Thomas Jefferson’s lights, sixteen-year-old Canadian singer Justin Bieber is more of an American than native-born suck-up Lady Gaga.
When Bieber failed to pay obeisance to the mob’s position on premarital sex and abortion in a Rolling Stone magazine interview, he was roundly denounced as a jerk. Bieber told the interviewer he believed “you should just wait” until you’re in love to have sex. But most risky for his singing career, he said, “I really don’t believe in abortion,” because “it’s like killing a baby.”
Bieber was promptly ridiculed by the coven on The View.9 MSNBC’s Beltway blog bravely derided Bieber in an anonymous item intended to teach Justin “about keeping your mouth shut with reporters.” It wittily said, “Dear Biebs: You are simply adorable when talking about girls and music, but talking politics with Rolling Stone is not a wise move. We know you’re just a 16-year-old Canadian, but that’s all the more reason you shouldn’t be pontificating about American politics, abortion and rape.”10
And there went Bieber’s chance of ever being named the “most socially conscious celebrity.”
Liberals speak with the fatuous lunacy of people in the old Soviet Union, passing out awards to one another for imaginary