2941

Yeah guys, it’s the demonization that’s the problem, and the left and the right are like, exactly the same on that. Rush Limbaugh calls women prostitutes for wanting access to birth control, says people should murder liberals, and–honestly can I just link to Mediamatters and say “search for Rush Limbaugh?”

Meanwhile, Rachel Maddow goes on her show and spends forty minutes doing things like showing footage of republican lawmakers talking about abortion laws, explains what those laws would do, and calls them things like “regressive” and “bad for women.” She might even have charts! And might bring on somebody else who agrees with her to discuss the issue! She says mean things about Republicans like that they are wrong about things! It’s like the same thing, only she’s not as popular as Rush, is all.

2942

I used to listen to Limbaugh a looong time ago. I usually disagreed with what he said, but it was fun to have debates in my mind with someone skilled at presenting their side of an issue. Then one day I noticed he started leaving logic further and further behind, deriving his arguments from his own version of reality and not the one the rest of us live in. I never looked back.

2943

Holy cow, I’ve never heard of half of these. What the hell?

2944

Sadly that is true. People do accept what he says at face value.

2945

Meanwhile, Rachel Maddow goes on her show and spends forty minutes doing things like showing footage of republican lawmakers talking about abortion laws, explains what those laws would do, and calls them things like “regressive” and “bad for women.” She might even have charts! And might bring on somebody else who agrees with her to discuss the issue! She says mean things about Republicans like that they are wrong about things! It’s like the same thing, only she’s not as popular as Rush, is all.

Maddow is too analytical (or tries to be) to be an effective left -wing version of Limbaugh. She will boor you with “stats” explaining why republicans are scum.

2946

They have a link for each one too. The Mars one kills me:

Obama’s adventures on Mars: As a teen, Obama participated in a CIA initiative to teleport to Mars using a top-secret “jump room.” Self-described time-travelers William Stillings and Andrew Basiago claim to have met the future POTUS at American space bases on the Red Planet. In early 2012, a spokesman for the National Security Council actually acknowledged these claims, and issued a fairly convincing denial.

NSA responds:

Officially, the White House says Obama never went to Mars. “Only if you count watching Marvin the Martian,” Tommy Vietor, the spokesman for the National Security Council, tells Danger Room. But that’s exactly what a secret chrononaut wants you to believe.

2947

One of the many Republican “rape babies are God’s will” guys this election cycle, Richard Mourdock, is down by 11. This is good news not just for Democrats, but for humanity.

2948

The science behind propaganda is actually kind of scary. If you repeat something enough times, it actually starts to create new neural pathways for the listener. These folks are literally re-wiring the brains of their listeners. I would argue that they are well aware of it.

I would also argue that the effectiveness of the Right’s propaganda machine is responsible for the increasing levels of what Julian Sanchez refers to as epistemic closure on the part of Republicans. On some levels, the party has become victim of its own propaganda machine. The party is becoming increasingly un-tethered from reality and it’s because they have created their own, alternate reality. This is why it’s so hard to have a rational conversation with someone who gets his talking points from Fox News.

Both sides use propaganda to an extent and it’s natural for people on both sides of the aisle to be somewhat blinded to realities that contradict their beliefs but the Republicans are much, much more effective at propaganda and it shows in their followers. And, as others pointed out, there is no one in the mainstream Left calling for the deaths of those on the Right.

Dehumanizing one’s political opponents by creating rationale for their deaths is a very dangerous game to play. I’m not suggesting that it will lead to genocide in the United States but this is exactly how genocide happens in less stable environments.

2949

There are two ways I can respond. Do they differ?

  1. I strongly disagree with what you’re saying here. I think violent imagery is absolutely more damaging than non-violent imagery.

  2. You’re a fucking moron. I hope someone shoots you in the head to prevent your level of stupid from spreading to any more of our population gene pool!

I can’t imagine you don’t see differing levels of damage to the political environment in the two statements. And making a statement that the difference isn’t violent imagery is completely bogus; it absolutely is! To call for someone else to die demonstrates an overwhelming contempt for them and everything they represent that is far stronger and more demonstrative than saying something like “I have an overwhelming contempt for you and everything you stand for!” You’re literally saying you value that person’s viewpoint so little that you’d prefer they die rather than continue to be able to expound their viewpoint. I literally can’t imagine a way to demonstrate more contempt for someone’s beliefs.

I have trouble finding an intellectually honest pathway whereby any rational human being couldn’t see that. (This is not intended as a sly insult!) But just in case, feel free to make a statement that to you conveys the same level of contempt for someone’s ideas and beliefs as number 2 above without involving any violent imagery of some type. I’m truly interested in how one might do it.

2950

It’s also good news for Republicans. A lot of GOP voters abandoned him when he made those comments (that swing wasn’t just independents.) There actually is a segment of Republicans who are sane people.

2951

I want a link to the “Obama is a Lizard” line of thought!

2952

I don’t care. They’re still calling for murdering people based on their beliefs, and they’re fostering an environment of fanaticism. No, there is nobody on the moderate right (not the left!) who isn’t condemned as a wingnut.

You’re rapidly heading for Two Americas.

2953

Yes I wish the crazies would all go start their own party, and allow some sanity to return to the party…don’t forget to take Bachmann and Palin while your at it…

2954

But those two statements are different, not simply in one’s use of violent rhetoric, but in that only one of them is actually attacking me as a person.

The first statement is not offensive, or damaging to public discourse, because you are engaging in a discussion. You are voicing a different position on the argument. You are not attacking me as a person, in an attempt to demonize and dehumanize me.

In the second, you are simply combining both types of demonization that I had previously described as equivalent from the perspective of damaging society. You combine non-violent demonization with violent rhetoric. So you didn’t really pick a good set of statements to illustrate your position.

A better example would be:

  1. You are a stupid, terrible person. The only reason you’re saying that is because you don’t care about the welfare of the american people, and want to mortgage the future of our children. You are guided by malevolent desires to harm our country.
  2. The world would be better off without people like you, because you are a terrible person.

From the perspective of damage to our society and our political process, both of those statements are roughly equivalent (given that the second one does not actually result in physical violence against you). Both statements demonize you, for the explicit purpose of preventing discourse. If someone believes what I’m saying, then they won’t even want to listen to your side, because they will believe that you are inherently motivated by bad goals.

You’re literally saying you value that person’s viewpoint so little that you’d prefer they die rather than continue to be able to expound their viewpoint. I literally can’t imagine a way to demonstrate more contempt for someone’s beliefs.

While I can understand what you are saying here, I think that the difference is fairly trivial. Firstly, because I think the “I hope you die” thing involves a large degree of hyperbole, and secondly, I think that even if it illustrates the maximum level of contempt for someone, it’s easy to demonstrate an ALMOST equivalent level of contempt, even if you don’t actually suggest that they die. It still achieves the destructive end of preventing actual discussion between people.

2955

I don’t listen to Limbaugh very often but when I have I have never heard him call for someone’s death or for someone to be murdered. It wouldn’t shock me if you tell me he has said something like “we would all be better off if so and so didn’t exist”.

2956

Ya, you actually had folks like McCain come out and say flat out, “You need to appologize for this, or I am not going to deal with you any more, ever.”

2957

I believe that. Years of pandering to psychopaths and extremists for their votes, though, have left the Republican party in an interesting dilemma. How do you dump those people and still win elections?

2958

That’s actually why I like Maddow’s show the most–she explains herself. Stuff like the Ed Show and Lawrence O’Donnell is totally skippable. Hardball is fun just because I like Chris Matthews.

2959

Jesus! One would hope the “I hope you die” thing involves a large degree of hyperbole. I’m sorry if I gave the impression that I think Rush (or anyone) actually hopes all liberals die. But I guess we’ll just have to disagree that there’s a difference between:

“You’re a horrible person whose ideas have no merit.”

and

“You should be shot before those ideas are allowed to spread further.”

The first is absolutely a personal attack (as is the second, obviously), but I personally think it’s easier to discount the speaker in the first than the second. Maybe it’s my squeamish liberal sensibilities (heh… referring to myself around here as a liberal amuses me!), but I think there are orders of magnitude difference in the contempt of the two.

To your point, though, I absolutely agree that both sides partake of plenty of personal demonization because they feel that someone having a contrary idea means they’re stupid, wrong, whatever instead of what it truly means: That they have differing ideas. There are times when I can’t even begin to fathom how someone could see certain things so differently, but I almost always try to ascribe it to worldview differences rather than personal malice, incompetence, etc. And our political discourse (and country as a whole) would certainly be better off if all people did that.

Nevertheless, in terms of dragging down discourse I think folks like Coulter and her continual calling out of the president as a retard, or Limbaugh’s completely over the top attacks do have an affect, and inasmuch as the conservative side seems to be more over the top than the liberal side (at least in terms of noteworthy national figures) share a bit more of the blame.

(I actually have, in the past, admired some GOP politicians despite my democratic leaning. If it was Huntsman Jr. instead of Mitt, I think I’d have a much tougher time, particularly if the rest of the GOP looked like him instead of the tea party-esque composition we currently have. Likewise, before 2008 and his hard right keel to the party line, I had fucktons of respect for McCain’s ability to look at things rationally and act accordingly.)

Ultimately, I think the current political clime is far more detrimental to the right than it is to the left. The conservative identity crisis currently playing out seems custom-designed to enfranchise the fringe at the expense of the middle, but history generally shows a constant liberal skew as generation after generation is born simply through the march of societal changes. At some point it seems like running away from demographics is going to bite the GOP in the ass.

2960

I forget which one of the fungoid political threads was discussing the Benghazi attacks and what happened when, but this one seems to be the central clearinghouse now, so…

The DNI has released a summary report of what happened when and for how long during the attack. The WaPo’s David Ignatious has a decent summary of the summary.

On a couple of the things discussed here: