- Feb 8, 2001
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Good morning, sunshine! I just wanted to wake up aaaaaallllllllll of my friends this lovely Sunday morning with an observation echoing the below article.
If you are in school or a graduate of the last twenty or so years, you are fully aware of how stifling of true political debate academia is*. Liberal political correctness, justifiably lampooned elsewhere, is oh so serious stuff when you are in the midst of it and part of the mind meld.
But what happens when you graduate and enter the real world? What happens when you start encountering opposition and push back?
Do you brace yourself and defend with reason, logic and fact? Do you sit in a corner and cry like a little baby? Or do you engage in ad hominem attack? C'mon, be honest.
If you chose one of the last two you are apparently in good liberal company.
Now, I myself am a Classical Liberal and when I find myself at odds once in a while with my conservative friends I like to tear them into tiny little pieces with humor, logic and irrefutable fact. But when my welfare liberal friends try to do the same they revert almost immediately to name calling and cannot find their way through an argument with a recognizable logic chain. Why is that?
As Michael Barone points out, "liberals can live in a cocoon, an America in which seldom is heard a discouraging word. Conservatives, in contrast, find themselves constantly pummeled with liberal criticism, on campus, in news media, in Hollywood TV and movies. They don't like it, but they've gotten used to it. Liberals aren't used to it and increasingly try to stamp it out."
I couldn't agree more, and I offer the wealth of ad hominem attacks used in this forum as demonstration.
* This commentary does not apply to Hillsdale College or other places that value lively, open debate.
Strangers to dissent, liberals try to stifle it
Strangers to dissent, liberals try to stifle it
By: Michael Barone
Senior Political Analyst
Washington Examiner
September 20, 2009
It is an interesting phenomenon that the response of the left half of our political spectrum to criticism and argument is often to try to shut it down. Thus President Obama in his Sept. 9 speech to a joint session of Congress told us to stop "bickering," as if principled objections to major changes in public policy were just childish obstinacy, and chastised his critics for telling "lies," employing "scare tactics" and playing "games." Unlike his predecessor, he sought to use the prestige of his office to shut criticism down.
Now, no one likes criticism very much, and most politicians would prefer to have their colleagues and constituents meekly and gratefully agree with them on pretty much everything. And yes, Rep. Joe Wilson does seem to have broken the rules and standards of decorum of the House (though not of the British House of Commons) when he shouted "You lie!" in the middle of Obama's speech.
But none of this justifies the charges, passed off as cool-headed analysis, that Obama's critics are motivated by racism. There are plenty of nonracist reasons to oppose (or to support) the Democrats' health care proposals.
I would submit that the president's call for an end to "bickering" and the charges of racism by some of his supporters are the natural reflex of people who are not used to hearing people disagree with them and who are determined to shut them up.
This comes naturally to liberals educated in our great colleges and universities, so many of which have speech codes whose primary aim is to prevent the expression of certain conservative ideas and which are commonly deployed for that purpose. (For examples see the Web site of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, which defends students of all political stripes.) Once the haven of free inquiry and expression, academia has become a swamp of stifling political correctness.
Similarly, the "mainstream media" -- the old-line broadcast networks, the New York Times, etc. -- presents a politically correct picture of the world. The result is that liberals can live in a cocoon, an America in which seldom is heard a discouraging word. Conservatives, in contrast, find themselves constantly pummeled with liberal criticism, on campus, in news media, in Hollywood TV and movies. They don't like it, but they've gotten used to it. Liberals aren't used to it and increasingly try to stamp it out.
"Mainstream media" tries to help. In the past few weeks, we have seen textbook examples of how MSM has ignored news stories that reflected badly on the administration for which it has such warm feelings. It ignored the videos in which White House "green jobs czar" proclaimed himself a "communist" and the "truther" petition he signed charging that George W. Bush may have allowed the Sept. 11 attacks.
It ignored the videos released on Andrew Breitbart's biggovernment.com showing Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now employees offering to help a supposed pimp and prostitute evade taxes and employ 13- to 15-year-old prostitutes. It downplayed last spring's Tea Parties -- locally organized demonstrations against big government that attracted about a million people nationwide -- and downplayed the Tea Party throng at the Capitol and on the Mall on Sept. 12.
Actually "mainstream media" is doing its friends in the Obama administration and the Democratic party no favors, at least in the long run. Obama comes from one-party Chicago, and the House Democrats' nine top leadership members and committee chairmen come from districts that voted on average 73 percent for Obama last fall. They need help in understanding the larger country they are seeking to govern, where nearly half voted the other way. Instead they get the impression they can dismiss critics as racist or "Nazis" or as indulging in (as Sen. Harry Reid said) "evil-mongering."
Speaker Nancy Pelosi has warned us that there was a danger that intense rhetoric could provoke violence, and no decent person wants to see harm come to our president or other leaders. But it's interesting that the two most violent incidents at this summer's town hall meetings came when a union thug beat up a 65-year-old black conservative in Missouri and when a liberal protester bit off part of a man's finger in California.
These incidents don't justify a conclusion that all liberals are violent. But they are more evidence that American liberals, unused to hearing dissent, have an impulse to shut it down.
If you are in school or a graduate of the last twenty or so years, you are fully aware of how stifling of true political debate academia is*. Liberal political correctness, justifiably lampooned elsewhere, is oh so serious stuff when you are in the midst of it and part of the mind meld.
But what happens when you graduate and enter the real world? What happens when you start encountering opposition and push back?
Do you brace yourself and defend with reason, logic and fact? Do you sit in a corner and cry like a little baby? Or do you engage in ad hominem attack? C'mon, be honest.
If you chose one of the last two you are apparently in good liberal company.
Now, I myself am a Classical Liberal and when I find myself at odds once in a while with my conservative friends I like to tear them into tiny little pieces with humor, logic and irrefutable fact. But when my welfare liberal friends try to do the same they revert almost immediately to name calling and cannot find their way through an argument with a recognizable logic chain. Why is that?
As Michael Barone points out, "liberals can live in a cocoon, an America in which seldom is heard a discouraging word. Conservatives, in contrast, find themselves constantly pummeled with liberal criticism, on campus, in news media, in Hollywood TV and movies. They don't like it, but they've gotten used to it. Liberals aren't used to it and increasingly try to stamp it out."
I couldn't agree more, and I offer the wealth of ad hominem attacks used in this forum as demonstration.
* This commentary does not apply to Hillsdale College or other places that value lively, open debate.
Strangers to dissent, liberals try to stifle it
Strangers to dissent, liberals try to stifle it
By: Michael Barone
Senior Political Analyst
Washington Examiner
September 20, 2009
It is an interesting phenomenon that the response of the left half of our political spectrum to criticism and argument is often to try to shut it down. Thus President Obama in his Sept. 9 speech to a joint session of Congress told us to stop "bickering," as if principled objections to major changes in public policy were just childish obstinacy, and chastised his critics for telling "lies," employing "scare tactics" and playing "games." Unlike his predecessor, he sought to use the prestige of his office to shut criticism down.
Now, no one likes criticism very much, and most politicians would prefer to have their colleagues and constituents meekly and gratefully agree with them on pretty much everything. And yes, Rep. Joe Wilson does seem to have broken the rules and standards of decorum of the House (though not of the British House of Commons) when he shouted "You lie!" in the middle of Obama's speech.
But none of this justifies the charges, passed off as cool-headed analysis, that Obama's critics are motivated by racism. There are plenty of nonracist reasons to oppose (or to support) the Democrats' health care proposals.
I would submit that the president's call for an end to "bickering" and the charges of racism by some of his supporters are the natural reflex of people who are not used to hearing people disagree with them and who are determined to shut them up.
This comes naturally to liberals educated in our great colleges and universities, so many of which have speech codes whose primary aim is to prevent the expression of certain conservative ideas and which are commonly deployed for that purpose. (For examples see the Web site of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, which defends students of all political stripes.) Once the haven of free inquiry and expression, academia has become a swamp of stifling political correctness.
Similarly, the "mainstream media" -- the old-line broadcast networks, the New York Times, etc. -- presents a politically correct picture of the world. The result is that liberals can live in a cocoon, an America in which seldom is heard a discouraging word. Conservatives, in contrast, find themselves constantly pummeled with liberal criticism, on campus, in news media, in Hollywood TV and movies. They don't like it, but they've gotten used to it. Liberals aren't used to it and increasingly try to stamp it out.
"Mainstream media" tries to help. In the past few weeks, we have seen textbook examples of how MSM has ignored news stories that reflected badly on the administration for which it has such warm feelings. It ignored the videos in which White House "green jobs czar" proclaimed himself a "communist" and the "truther" petition he signed charging that George W. Bush may have allowed the Sept. 11 attacks.
It ignored the videos released on Andrew Breitbart's biggovernment.com showing Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now employees offering to help a supposed pimp and prostitute evade taxes and employ 13- to 15-year-old prostitutes. It downplayed last spring's Tea Parties -- locally organized demonstrations against big government that attracted about a million people nationwide -- and downplayed the Tea Party throng at the Capitol and on the Mall on Sept. 12.
Actually "mainstream media" is doing its friends in the Obama administration and the Democratic party no favors, at least in the long run. Obama comes from one-party Chicago, and the House Democrats' nine top leadership members and committee chairmen come from districts that voted on average 73 percent for Obama last fall. They need help in understanding the larger country they are seeking to govern, where nearly half voted the other way. Instead they get the impression they can dismiss critics as racist or "Nazis" or as indulging in (as Sen. Harry Reid said) "evil-mongering."
Speaker Nancy Pelosi has warned us that there was a danger that intense rhetoric could provoke violence, and no decent person wants to see harm come to our president or other leaders. But it's interesting that the two most violent incidents at this summer's town hall meetings came when a union thug beat up a 65-year-old black conservative in Missouri and when a liberal protester bit off part of a man's finger in California.
These incidents don't justify a conclusion that all liberals are violent. But they are more evidence that American liberals, unused to hearing dissent, have an impulse to shut it down.
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