It was pointed out to me yesterday by someone I respect that my last post might have unnecessarily demonized groups of people whom are otherwise acting out of honest motivations, however wrongheaded I might think those motivations to be.
Now, I admittedly was attempting to be inflammatory with my post. I don’t hide the fact that some of what I do here is done with duel purposes - I am simultaneously trying to express myself while stir up controversy for my Snarkbate forums. Setting up strawmen is generally useful when you want to push certain buttons for the sake of getting a response and I am not above doing so to stir up business.
A good point was raised, however. If I consider myself to be a rational individual, what is the point of utilizing the same rhetorical devices and attitudes I see the other side using? Sure, I might stir up a debate… but defending a position whose presentation was ultimately founded upon rhetoric most certainly limits the opportunity to actually win that debate. The worst part is when such strawmen actually offend those whom are being mischaracterized.
This made me think. I usually do not like to offend people. There are usually much more effective ways to make a point. Furthermore, reasonable points tend to draw reasoned debate as well, which is actually what I desire on Snarkbate. What, then, actually inspired me to make an over-the-top characterization of those with whom I am admittedly frustrated?
Then it struck me. I wanted to give certain Conservatives a taste of what I felt to be their own medicine. I have been tired of seeing Liberals, both prominent and ordinary, being characterized in certain ways and wanted to put Conservatives in those same shoes.
There has been an enormous amount of vitriolic rhetoric from the Right aimed at President Obama, Democrats, and the Democratic Leadership in the House and Senate. We have Randell Terry, for example, who, on Fox News, commented that allowing Obama to speak at Notre Dame is like giving Nazi leaders a podium after the war. Randell Terry, by the way, was responsible for the Terry Schiavo story being brought to the limelight and runs a website called www.stopobamanotredame.com. We have Alan Keyes, the man who ran against Obama for Illinois’s Senate Seat, being arrested during a protest he informed would violate the school’s protest policies. This is a man who, on his personal blog, has accused the president of enforcing godlessness, of wanting despotism, of being a Communist, of showing contempt for the Constitution, and of being “the living incarnation of the glamorization of evil.” It turns out that he knew full well he would be trespassing should he carry out his protest but did it anyway, obviously desiring to portray himself as a martyr on par with Martin Luther King, Jr. These are two of the loudest voices and figureheads for the protests I wrote about.
I could outline numerous other cases of vile rhetoric coming from some Conservatives, but I am sidetracking from the point I want to make.
I wanted to lash out against mischaracterizations from the Right. Yet, in making these reflections, I invariably have to ask myself how much the current antipathy I have observed in Conservative ranks has really been borne out of a desire to lash out against certain mischaracterizations they have perceived as coming from the Left over the past eight years.
I have been struggling to understand some of the actions of the Republican Party after losing the White House last year. After Rush Limbaugh tore Michael Steele a new one for calling Limbaugh an “entertainer”, Steele kowtowed in apology not wanting to insult Limbaugh’s leadership. This same Rush Limbaugh insists that Republicans ought to replace their listening tour with a teaching tour, affirming that Republicans need to stick to the same values which ended up costing them the Executive and Legislative branches of the American government. The organizers ended up changing the tone from listening to what Americans want to teaching them what conservatism is all about. Meanwhile, the GOP is calling an extrodinary special session to approve of a resolution to rebrand the Democratic Party as, “The Democrat Socialist Party.”
This all seems very self-defeating.
I also think I understand why they do it. But I will cover that in my next post. *wink*
Discuss it here or debate it at Snarkbate!
