Fighting Words

Rep. Preston Brooks, painted by Adam B. Walter (1820-1875), had the same look of self-righteous stupidity as Tucker Carlson, it's very remarkable. Via Wikipedia.

I wonder how your civility hounds feel when they see stuff like this, from Question Time in Westminster, when Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (MP for Hough) asks the prime minister about a 2018 Telegraph article in which Johnson, 1950s English TV comedian that he is at heart, complained about the existence of women in burkas on the grounds that it was "absolutely ridiculous that women should go around resembling letterboxes and bank robbers":

WATCH: Astonishing scenes as MPs applaud Labour MP @TanDhesi as he tears into PM, accusing Boris Johnson of “derogatory and racist” remarks about Muslim women, declaring “open season” on minorities pic.twitter.com/3VDoTiFWiK

— Paul Brand (@PaulBrandITV) September 4, 2019

I mean, it's clear these guys are not going out for a drink afterwards to plan the generous compromises in which everybody will get a bit of what they want in an atmosphere of mutual respect and affection. Does a David Brooks look at this room where Edmund Burke, the stern prophet of good manners and the aesthetics of the sublime, spent his career and wonder what happened to the Mother of Parliaments?


Or is the US just a special case that needs the civility cult in a way other countries don't? Is it because we're exceptional America, with our Southern honor culture and everybody walking around with guns in our pockets that we need to be exceptionally civil to prevent all our politicians from killing each other?

Come to think of it, if you look at the characteristics of "unparliamentary language" in other countries, the kind of thing that is forbidden to UK legislators for instance, you find a very clear focus on things that might once have led to a duel, calling someone a bastard, a coward, a drunk, a fool, a traitor, and in particular a liar:

In a Westminster system, this is called unparliamentary language and there are similar rules in other kinds of legislative systems. This includes, but is not limited to, the suggestion of dishonesty or the use of profanity. Most unacceptable is any insinuation that another member is dishonourable. So, for example, suggesting that another member is lying is forbidden....

In the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, the following words have been deemed unparliamentary over time:

• bastard^[18]

• blackguard

• coward

• deceptive^[19]

• dodgy^[20]

• drunk

• falsehoods^[21]

• git

• guttersnipe

• hooligan

• hypocrite

• idiot

• ignoramus

• liar

• pipsqueak^[22]

• rat

• swine

• stoolpigeon

• tart

• traitor^[23]

• sod

• slimy

• wart

In American history, the worst thing you can do in the national legislature is call somebody a supporter of slavery when it's true: as in the conflict between Senators Charles Sumner (R-MA) and Andrew Butler (D-SC) around the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1856. It was OK to be a racist on the Senate floor, as when that gentlemanly moderate Stephen Douglas of Illinois called Sumner an advocate of the "cause of niggerism" or Butler wove a crazy but lascivious tapestry around Sumner's work to repeal the Massachusetts anti-miscegenation law:

Manisha Sinha, "The Caning of Charles Sumner: Slavery, Race, and Ideology in the Age of the Civil War", Journal of the Early Republic XXIII/2, 2003)

But when Sumner spoke of Butler's advocacy of chattel slavery in similarly coarse terms—

The senator from South Carolina has read many books of chivalry, and believes himself a chivalrous knight with sentiments of honor and courage. Of course he has chosen a mistress to whom he has made his vows, and who, though ugly to others, is always lovely to him; though polluted in the sight of the world, is chaste in his sight—I mean the harlot, slavery. For her his tongue is always profuse in words. Let her be impeached in character, or any proposition made to shut her out from the extension of her wantonness, and no extravagance of manner or hardihood of assertion is then too great for this senator. [He] touches nothing which he does not disfigure with error, sometimes of principle, sometimes of fact. He cannot open his mouth, but out there flies a blunder.

—Butler's cousin Representative Preston Brooks (D-SC) caned him in the Senate chamber just about to death

Sumner was knocked down and trapped under the heavy desk, which was bolted to the floor. His chair, which was pulled up to his desk, moved back and forth on a track; Sumner either could not or did not think to slide his chair back to escape, so it pinned him under his desk. Brooks continued to strike Sumner until Sumner rose to his feet and ripped the desk from the floor in an effort to get away from Brooks.^[11] By this time, Sumner was blinded by his own blood. He staggered up the aisle and, arms outstretched, vainly attempted to defend himself. But then he was an even larger and easier target for Brooks, who continued to beat him across the head, face, and shoulders "to the full extent of [my] power." Brooks didn't stop when his cane snapped; he continued thrashing Sumner with the piece which held the gold head. Sumner stumbled and reeled convulsively, "Oh Lord," he gasped "Oh! Oh!" Near the end of the attack, Sumner collapsed unconscious,

and, though he was convicted of assault ($300 fine and no jail time), the House resolution to expel him failed. He escaped a duel challenge in a somewhat less than glorious way—

Congressman Anson Burlingame publicly humiliated Brooks in retaliation by goading Brooks into challenging him to a duel, accepting, then watching Brooks back out. Brooks challenged Burlingame to duel, stating he would gladly face him "in any Yankee mudsill of his choosing". Burlingame, a well-known marksman, eagerly accepted, choosing rifles as the weapons and the Navy Yards in the border town of Niagara Falls, Canada, as the location (in order to circumvent the U.S. ban on dueling). Brooks, reportedly dismayed by both Burlingame's unexpectedly enthusiastic acceptance and his reputation as a crack shot, refused to show up, instead citing unspecified risks to his safety if he was to cross "hostile country" (the Northern states) in order to reach Canada.

—and resigned his seat, but was immediately returned to office by his constituents in a special election and might have served forever if he had not been felled by a "violent bout of croup" in early 1857, at the age of 37.

The moral being, in U.S. politics, you can get away with calling somebody a liar whether he is one or not, but don't call him a racist especially if he is one and proud of it. You can only get away with that in UK.