Everything You Need to Know about Rudy Giuliani
by Jason GodeskyWe look upon authority too often and focus over and over again, for 30 or 40 or 50 years, as if there is something wrong with authority. We see only the oppressive side of authority. Maybe it comes out of our history and our background. What we don’t see is that freedom is not a concept in which people can do anything they want, be anything they can be. Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do.
[ Interruption by someone in the audience. ]
You have free speech so I can be heard.
— Then NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani, at a forum on city crime hosted by the New York Post, 16 March 1994
It’s not that I’m surprised that Giuliani thinks that, it’s that I’m shocked he’d come right out and say it like that.
And please, remember, Giulianna != Giuliani. For all the similarity in spelling, they are, in fact, polar opposites. Seriously, if she ever shook hands with him or something, it would start a chain reaction that could take out a whole city.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 10 August 2007 @ 4:12 PM
YES, please remember this. I SO do not want to spend the next four to eight years explaining to people that my unusual Italian name is spelled like President Giuliani’s. *shudder*
Comment by Giulianna Lamanna — 10 August 2007 @ 4:37 PM
But for Giuliani, Freedom = Hierarchy
Comment by rix — 10 August 2007 @ 4:49 PM
“Everything You Need to Know about Rudy Giuliani”
That, and he banned flying kites on the Belt Parkway. Well, maybe you didn’t need to know that. I didn’t need to know these things, but I found them amusing to learn.
I doubt very much, Giulianna, that you have anything to worry about, what with the snowball’s-chance-in-hell factor.
Comment by the.thistle — 10 August 2007 @ 9:10 PM
Guiliani candidacy != viable.
Comment by the.thistle — 10 August 2007 @ 9:13 PM
I don’t know why people so often equate their own opinions with a candidate’s viability. Right now, Giuliani’s leading in the polls. I’m not sure you can really just dismiss the front runner’s campaign as not viable when he’s currently in the lead.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 10 August 2007 @ 9:19 PM
They slammed him pretty good in Rolling Stone: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/14952564/giuliani_worse_than_bush
Comment by datoo — 11 August 2007 @ 2:24 AM
He’ll have us in back in primitive conditions as soon as possible.
Comment by outtahere — 12 August 2007 @ 2:35 PM
Well, I can’t speak for “people,” but this is evidence I haven’t been paying much attention to mainstream politics of late. I’m surprised that Guiliani is the front runner. The last thing I’d read on the subject is behind the link I posted, which is already over a month old. However, if half of what is discussed in that article is true, it could be very damaging for the man. Conservative candidates can weather a lot of insinuations, but I doubt he’d be able to put a positive spin on a very public discussion of parental negligence and spousal abuse. Of course, whether or not these issues are relevant to the nomination will depend on when if ever his enemies come forward with information.
Comment by the.thistle — 12 August 2007 @ 4:19 PM
I’m rather afraid that spousal abuse and parental negligence might be assets for him. Any respect I had for the American public went down the tubes when news of torture at Abu Ghraib came out, and it gave Bush a bump in the polls.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 12 August 2007 @ 6:36 PM
There were also the veiled rape allegations against Schwarzenegger which went absolutely nowhere, although the failure of those to hold may had as much to do with the timing. Still, his supporters were able to make fun of the (alleged) victim and sexual abuse victims in general with no political consequence. I also recall (no pun intended) something about a goose-stepping incident, but that’s kind of a tangent.
I know you could be right about the abuse being an asset, though I hope you’re wrong. But, as they say, “Hope is not a plan.” I’m operating under the assumption that there is a very large number of people living in this country who are chomping at the bit for an even more openly authoritarian regime than we’ve seen for the last six years. Maybe they’re in the minority but still a large population in absolute terms and a potentially dangerous one.
Still, I have to imagine that in the public eye there will be a significant difference between spousal abuse and torture.* The people I’m referring to can write the latter off as taking place “over there” in the defense of freedom; offenses against the family are a little closer to home.
* That sentence is some kind of sign of the times.
Comment by the.thistle — 12 August 2007 @ 11:19 PM
http://www.tjcenter.org/muzzles/muzzle-archive-1999/#item12
I lived in New York during Big G’s reign. There are plenty of people I don’t want to see as president, and then there’s Giuliani, who I really, really don’t want to see as president.
And yes, he is absolutely viable as a candidate. Frighteningly so. I’m not betting on who’s going to be nominated quite yet, but I’ve had eerie visions of a Rudy presidency for a while now.
Comment by Dee Lightly — 14 August 2007 @ 12:35 PM
Is there some kind of group out there called New Yorkers Against Giuliani or something? Just a coalition of people from New York City who make it their business to beg the American public not to vote him in as president?
Comment by Giulianna Lamanna — 14 August 2007 @ 2:11 PM