(Untitled)

[appending_doom]

I had a whole big thing about how political discourse in this country is the inverse of what any reasonable country would expect (hint: George Washington never said, "I wasn't encouraging those colonists to shoot Redcoats, I was just saying how it's clear that a lot of Americans want to"), but it really boiled down to this

Comments

"Anti-"

[alexpshenichkin]

I refuse to believe that the vast majority of these people have "anti-common sense" that causes them to say exactly the wrong thing at exactly the wrong moment to make it seem like they have the most vile intentions. It's much simpler to believe most of them are assholes.

Many of them do, however, possess anti-humor.

When you or I or any of the stand-up comics or comedic TV shows we enjoy deliver something like a racially offensive joke, it tends to be presented in a way that makes it clear that the speaker understands what about it is offensive -- it's, you know, a conscious transgression to make a point.

Right-wingers, meanwhile, make polite chit-chat jokes about the same kind of stuff. Like so.

(Yeah, yeah, because it's acceptable in their cultural context, so really it's just because they are assholes moving through a world of assholes.)

Re: "Anti-"

[appending_doom]

Your point seems a little bit of a tangent. When a congressman shouts "baby-killer" in the middle of the House, and claims that he didn't mean to imply that the guy talking is the baby-killer, it's not about a joke or chit-chat.

It's about him either so lacking common sense so as to be unable to realize that his wording outright implicates the man before him as being a baby-killer, or being such a duplicitous asshole that he's incapable of taking responsibility for his words and intentions.

It's different from right-wingers being caught on tape in an interview saying, "we ought to shoot all the Mexicans" and claiming they were "misunderstood" because they assumed the interviewer was one of them and wouldn't play it as a bad thing, because he took the initiative to call out one of his colleagues.

It's a very deliberate act, and it leads to the Catch-22 of him either lacking judgment or having no respect for his colleagues, neither or which is conducive to being a U.S. Representative.

Re: "Anti-"

[appending_doom]

Not that I don't agree with your point; it makes perfect sense.

Of course, there's problems with the whole "progressive making offensive jokes" meme, but I'd rather not get into that here, as it's more of a sidetrack than I want to get into.

[wayman]

Do you honestly think we can stop all this bickering and scary threats and actual incidents of violence and get to a place where discourse on political and social issues isn't constantly distorted into a horrible false dichotomy of "What Fox News Tells Me" and "Everything Else, Which is Necessarily Wrong"?

No. Sadly, no. Things fall apart; the center cannot hold; etc. Our only choice is between electing progressives who will hold the line as long as possible against ever-increasingly-vitriolic opposition, or electing the vitriol-spewers themselves.

[appending_doom]

I'd argue with you if I didn't see the tendency of the vitriol to hijack what should be the more moderate "libertarian" position.

The Tea Party could have awoken a slumbering giant of the middle, that would like to see honest efforts made to rein in spending, even in necessary projects, if it hadn't (almost?) immediately been hijacked (financed?) by obstructionists who believe spectacle is the best way to conduct government.

I hope otherwise, but I'm not going to too vociferously defend that hope.

[alors_indikaze]

Sometimes I just wonder if the whole country is too bored and secure to care about anything that actually *matters*. Thus people have to make up bogeymen for their own entertainment.

[appending_doom]

The issues being used as props in this game do matter -- the differences in opinion matter. The problem is that people are using lies and vitriol and spin to cloud the issue, to convince people that the opposition is out to personally destroy everything comfortable about their lives, and to make every issue into the last great battle for America.

Telling people what they should and shouldn't care about is a dangerous game, which is why I'm settling for asking if we can ever get to a point where "compromise" isn't a dirty word (compromise is never optimal, but willing to settle is the only way you can make your voice heard in an honest debate) and debating on the merits of a problem is valued above "mobilizing the base".

[alors_indikaze]

The issues at hand do matter, but they are not what the fear-mongerers are talking about. Instead they just make up non-existent problems... and people accept them instead of seeing them for the red herrings they are.

It is cynical and probably unproductive of me, but I wonder if that is because most people don't actually care about the "real issues."

[ultranurd]

I'm not sure non-existent is exactly right... maybe more like misidentified? My sense is that a lot of the people buying into the fear do have a legitimate sense that their way of life is changing (a natural progression due to among other things increased automation, internationalization, and cultural diffusion). It's not a sensation that's easy to peg; for the most part you can only directly perceive the proximate cause (change in the population of your town, change in the way people talk on TV, change in the local job market, etc.). The politicians using props see that you are in a disaffected group that will vote for them if given the right kind of direction, so they set up a nice tidy explanation for all of the changes, turning your reasonable fears of change into fear of specific people/groups blamed for forcing those changes.

[eclectic_boy]

Add my voice to those saying "no", mostly thanks to this.

[appending_doom]

I sort of figured one person wasn't going to fix this around the time the entire right wing started praying for everything Obama wanted to accomplish to fail.

[alexpshenichkin]

That strikes me as a pretty accurate description of the fascist impulse -- not just rage and hatred and cruelty, but deeply misplaced hope.