Tuesday, June 16, 2009

If it's hate at all, it's hate when any of us do it.

In reply to: Valley of the Shadow: Advancing Towards Fort Sumter - 10:08 AM comment (#4)
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Visited (& commented on) the Two Minute Hate post from last January. As you will see when you read my thoughts, I had issues.

"If it worked for 06 and 08, why shouldn't I indulge in it too?"

I suppose that depends on which part of your thinkin' is stronger; your belief that it's wrong, or your desire to win.

One thing's for certain; you can't simultaneously call it The Two Minute Hate when (certain) Democrats do it AND justify doing it yourself, without looking like a hypocrite (& perhaps a little foolish, as well).

If I might suggest something else, I think that you're falling into the news trap (or "No Good News from Iraq" syndrome), a little...

When one reads the paper/internet news sites (or listens to, watches the news), one might get the impression that the world sucks. Virtually nothing but murder, war, & other examples of people mistreating each other in ways large & small. Of course that isn't true in real life. On any given day, most people out there are neither the victims or the perpetrators of any crime.

The problem is, not being a victim or a perp isn't newsworthy. The headline is always "2 People Die in Late Night Building Fire" not "98 People Survive Late Night Building Fire" or "Millions of People Sleep Peacefully; No Late Night Fire." The one soldier who is killed in Iraq on a Monday will always get more press than all the soldiers who didn't die that same day.

This relates as follows... It'll always be the outlandish statements (made by Democrats --or Republicans) that gets the column inches, rather than the average statements, where folks are trying to work together and play nice.

I think that you're doing what news folks do, & only focusing on the bad (& if I may, the bad of only one party, when individuals of both do bad) and ignoring the good, not to mention the average.

There are magnanimous Democrats, who don't engage in such tactics and, even if they don't go out of their way to be extra-super-sweet, treat those with whom they disagree politically with common decency--even if that means just saying nothing. Those Democrats are just less newsworthy...

["Define the verification word" meme]:
dulphteg - A children's game played in Humstai, a small town in Liechtenstein.
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Submitted for approval on 6/16/09, 5:48 AM (Valley of the Shadow blog time)

3 comments:

JSF said...

Respac,

Good post here but as I said earlier, I learned the rules of engagement from Democrats years earlier.

I cited these examples as stuff I found over the line. If you want to know the post where I felt, the scorched earth rhetric works and there is no reason to be better occured at the "LA Book festival post,"

The people around me (Liberals all, Westsiders all) tried to shout down Frum and hewitt. And these guys are nowhere near the Limbaugh's and the Coulters. if they want to shut up our civil talkers (and make a moderate like Sen. John McCain into an Emmanuel Goldstein), why should I continue playing Sisiphus?

And for me, what makes it harder for me to cool down, is no Democrat can say their language is fine against Bush, but then get all in a bunch when there is criticsm of the same type of President Obama.

Kudos for trying and kudos for understanding. But where was this discussion 2003-2007?

repsac3 said...

"Kudos for trying and kudos for understanding. But where was this discussion 2003-2007?"

We can't go back in time, and I can no more represent every liberal than you can every conservative. We can only start from where we are, here and now, and do right ourselves.

"If they want to shut up our civil talkers (and make a moderate like Sen. John McCain into an Emmanuel Goldstein), why should I continue playing Sisiphus? "

1) There is no monolithic "they." There are certain bad behaving liberals, unlike the good behaving liberals.

2) You should continue playing Sisyphus because you are not a bad behaving conservative, and because you know that the bad behaving people, whatever their political party, are hurting this country. (The fact that you and I can have this conversation is evidence that you know the difference, and are not a bad behaving political partisan by nature.)

"And for me, what makes it harder for me to cool down, is no Democrat can say their language is fine against Bush, but then get all in a bunch when there is criticsm of the same type of President Obama."

I'm with ya there... ...which is why I don't understand how you can justify doing the same thing, in reverse.

Criticism of political opponents is fine... Neither Bush nor Obama is perfect, & I bet we could each manage one good thing & one bad thing about each of 'em.

And, I'm relatively certain that you & I could discuss... well, almost any issue... and vehemently disagree, without either one of us resorting to mindless labeling or nasty remarks about the other's intelligence or the other's mother.

If ya ask me (& I know, you haven't), someone has to take the first step... As long as "we" do it to "them" because "they" did it to "us", and "they" did it to "us" because "we" did it to "them," we're never going to get anywhere...

And, like I keep saying, some of "us," and some of "them," never did nothin' to nobody, in the first place...

The only people we can ever really control is ourselves. If we do right, maybe someone else will, too.

JSF said...

Respac,

I'm actually going to be discussing your issues in more detail on a Blog post this weekend. It will also tie into my (new) Comment policy.

So, just wait -- more explanations later.