Moral Illusions: The Demonization of Conservatives By Way of Reframing Policy Arguments as "Good" vs "Evil"
I denounce all public acts of violence against innocent civilians as well as calls to such violence.
OK. Now that we have that out of the way we can now concentrate on the real issue at hand: the ongoing and pervasive demonization of Republicans, conservatives, Tea Party members, and Trump supporters as "evil" rather than merely wrong, politically speaking. That kind of personal demonization has been ongoing extensively throughout American popular culture, the American education system, Hollywood films, and the vast majority of media networks for decades. Whereas Republican, conservatives, and other right-leaning individuals certainly mock and belittle leftists (of all degrees), there is no where near the same level of personal vitriol for leftists and liberals from the rights as the vitriol expressed (and increasingly acted out) towards conservatives by people on the left!
Nonetheless, through the thickest layer of irony imaginable, leftist of all sorts regularly attempt to further a narrative that conservatives are every bit as violent and advocate violence with the same frequency and fervor as leftists. That contention by leftists could not be any further from the truth!
About 30 years ago, the American political left used to be a truly liberal and basically reasonable political ideology; but over the last 20 to 25 years the Democratic Party has been taken over by the pro-socialist, pro-communist, anti-capitalist, anti-nationalist, collectivist, identitarian, extremely left wing of the Democrat Party. You can think of it as the Ted Kennedy, Barack Obama, Jeremiah Wright, Bill Ayers, Liz Warren, Louis Farrakhan, Al Sharpton wing of the Party. The old JFK, Tip O'Neil, Joe Lieberman Democrat Party is dead! With the extreme left take-over of the Democrat Party, conventional political compromise and deal-making was abolished and in it's place was adopted a classical philosophy of socialist activism: the ends justify the means, so long as leftist policies are furthered. With Obama's presidency and the respective socio-political cover of being the first black President, the Democrat Party finally underwent an immense lurched towards socialism and away from reasonable compromise with conservative opposition in an unprecedented way. Unfortunately for leftists seeking to further socialist policies, their philosophies are bound to lose in honest debate. So leftists regularly resort to obfuscation, distraction, demonization, and emotional arguments rather than arguing their ideological opponents on facts and principles. I face such ad hominem character attacks on a regular basis:
- It's not that we disagree about the best policy to decrease poverty; if I oppose expanding welfare I hate the poor and want them to suffer.
- It's not that I think that possessing guns are an individual's right which facilitates the primary, immediate personal protection of every law-abiding adult citizen and that laws to restrict gun sales are largely ineffective in regards to keeping guns out of the hands of criminals; if I oppose expanding gun laws I must want children to be killed.
- It's not that I oppose affirmative action policies because I believe them to be counter-productive, creating even more emphasis on skin color as well as an atmosphere of soft bigotry of low expectations for individuals of a minority background; if I oppose affirmative action policies I must be a racist.
- It's not that I think that a free market solution to health care and health insurance is the best way to provide the most affordable care of the highest demanded quality to the greatest number patients; if I oppose single payer healthcare then I want poor people to die.
I could go on, but I think my point is clear. It is precisely this combination of disingenuously reframing the conservative argument about policy into a moral conflict, a conflict of "good" vs "evil," that facilitates the demonization of conservatives by leftists. That kind of demonization is virtually always employed by leftists against their conservative/libertarian philosophical opposition. Now, I certainly consider such debate tactics as ignorant, dishonest, disingenuous, and even immoral (at times) but I almost never take the perspective that my ideological opponents are "evil" (with a very few specific exceptions). However, that tactic of reframing arguments about policy into moral questions (as well as the subsequent ad hominem attacks) facilitates the demonization of not just the specific debate opponent but EVERYONE who disagrees with you on a leftist ideological position. That is the world we live in!
Now, as if the dynamic which I have just described was not bad enough; to add insult to injury it is actually conservatives who are regularly accused of being violent, and seeking to violently assault their political opposition. A false moral relativism is regularly deployed in order to create the impression that conservatives are just as bad as (or worse than) leftists regarding political violence. As I said before, nothing could be farther from the truth. Just look at the AntiFa movement and the assault on (largely conservative) free speech on campuses throughout the country; that is a movement that is overtly employing violence and the threat of violence against political opponents. Compare that to the Tea Party movement of 2009-2010. Did you ever hear of the Tea Party members organizing violent protests to shut down leftist speakers or rallies? No, that didn't happen, even though the Tea Party was classified by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a domestic terrorist organization (as well as having been repeatedly slandered with that label by prominent elected Democrats; http://dailycaller.com/2010/09/10/liberals-desperate-to-connect-tea-party-with-domestic-terrorism/). Look at all of the attacks on Trump supporters (both male and female) during the Presidential campaign (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/06/03/ugly-bloody-scenes-in-san-jose-as-protesters-attack-trump-supporters-outside-rally/). Were there any attack on Bernie or Hillary supporters at their respective rallies? No, there weren't. But the prevailing common-culture narrative is that leftists are kind, peaceful, and generous... you know, #LoveTrumpsHate; but conservatives are evil, racist, homophobic, unempathetic, gun-owning, war-mongering, would-be killers. Just a few weeks ago, another psycho (who likely did happened to be a racist) berated two Muslim women on a Portland Oregon commuter train and then stabbed the men who came to the defense of the women (killing two of the men). The media knee-jerk reaction was to associate this psychotic killer with Trump, conservatives, and the alt-right even though he was actually a Bernie Sanders and Jill Stein supporter. Newsweek still hasn't corrected their reporting a month after the attack (http://www.newsweek.com/portland-oregon-jeremy-christian-616927; http://dailycaller.com/2017/05/28/portland-killer-is-an-anti-circumcision-bernie-sanders-supporter/), because correcting that error would introduce an inconvenient conflict of the desired leftist narrative constantly being shoved down our collective throats: it is conservatives who are violent and racist and leftist only want for #LoveTrumpsHate.
You could also compare the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement to the Klu Klux Klan (KKK). Rhetorically speaking, I believe the KKK (an organization often associated with the political right and used to smear conservatives by association) has a much more negative and violent reputation among the contemporary, general public than BLM (an organization that is overtly race-based and seeks to further specifically black-race-centric public policies). Yet BLM leaders were invited to the White House and even met with President Obama in 2016 (http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/287593-prominent-black-lives-matter-activist-to-attend-obama-meeting). The movement is still well respected throughout popular culture even after BLM protests throughout the country devolved into riots and BLM activists were documented to have actively participated in calls to violence against both police and white people (not to mention the BLM rhetoric which arguably played a motivational role in the shooting of Dallas police in July, 2016). And even though the KKK has occupied the extreme fringe of the culture for well over two decades without any worthwhile political or cultural power, conservative voters are regularly associated with the KKK and alleged to be racist without ANY substantiation. This is not to say that the KKK wasn't and isn't a disgusting and racist organization - it is. But the KKK is both meaningless and powerless in contemporary American culture; that is, other than to be used as a political cudgel with which leftists can rhetorically beat, intimidate, and defame their political opponents. How many actual member of the KKK are there in the USA today? According to this report there are only about 3000 KKK members in America today (http://www.vocativ.com/317802/kkk-gets-closer-to-extinction-but-violence-persists/) to even call such a national organization insignificant is an overstatement. Contemporary Klan rallies can not even garner two dozen participants. However, consider the over-representation of KKK references in common vernacular compared to the organization's actual lack of representation within modern culture. That dynamic has a specific and calculated effect of creating the impression to a largely non-racists population that it is still racist against black people. And the ubiquitous talking points of identity politics and social justice further act to substantiate such claims of pervasive racism. Whereas BLM expresses overtly racist and race-based platform demands. And yet the organization is still accepted, celebrated, and heralded by the vast majority of the contemporary culture; and the BLM platform demands are viewed not objectively but through a social justice prism in order to avoid accurately identifying the self-evidently racist perspectives being advocated.
In conclusion, I think it's rather obvious that there is an EXTREME double-standard with which we frame violence perpetrated by those who align with conservatives political causes (which is virtually non-existent) vs violence perpetrated by those who align with leftist political causes (which is covered up or somehow justified by the media). And that double standard pisses me the fuck off! So given the current political climate of demonization against conservative and in the wake of an obvious politically motivated attempt at the massacre of Republican Congressmen, I hope you can forgive my expression of frustration and emotion and my unapologetic JUDGEMENT of the circumstances as they are. And if you can't forgive me that, then you can kiss my ass!