by hilzoy
JP, in comments, points to this astonishing story about the person Bob Ney has asked to run for Congress in Ohio in his place:
“This year’s most extraordinary example of slimeball politics involves the former hostage Terry Anderson, who is running for state senator in a district in southern Ohio. His opponent, Joy Padgett, a longtime Republican functionary, links him and Dan Rather as two liberal journalists who don’t get their facts straight, going on to show a photo of Anderson shaking hands with a Middle Eastern–looking man and accusing him of being soft on terrorism.
Anderson, a former chief Mideast correspondent for the Associated Press, was taken hostage by Hezbollah in Lebanon in 1985 and held until 1991. Following his release, he returned to Lebanon with a CNN crew and searched out his former captors. A photo from that trip is the one now being used by Padgett. (…)
“The picture,” [Anderson] continued, referring to the photo of himself shaking hands with the Hezbollah official, “is one of the guys who kidnapped me, who held me for seven years, who chained me and blindfolded me. I went back to Lebanon with a CNN news crew and looked him up and put him on camera and asked him, Why did you do this?
“She now says I am an apologist for terrorists.That’s sheer nonsense. It’s offensive. I’ve just about had enough.””
Here’s another account of that campaign, this one by a newspaper editor from Athens, OH:
“In her campaign ads and fliers, Padgett–whose campaign received special mention in both The New York Times and Village Voice as among the dirtiest in the country–repeatedly accused Anderson of supporting gay marriage, based on his opposition to Issue 1. One infamous flier depicted a hetero married couple on the front, and the words, “One Man, One Woman.” Open the mailer, and you saw a photo of Anderson, arms up, with a rainbow flag as a backdrop. Next to it, the words: “Terry Anderson is out of the mainstream. He supports gay marriage. Anderson’s position would weaken the family and open the door to rights for same-sex couples.”
This wasn’t even Padgett’s worst–that was reserved for a flier that showed a photo of Anderson interviewing one of his Hezbollah captors years after Anderson’s hostage release. It was positioned next to an out-of-context quote from Anderson (which appeared in The Athens News in October 2001) about trying to understand the motivations of people in the Middle East, along with Padgett’s charge that Anderson is “soft on terrorism” and part of the “blame America first” crowd.
Padgett, whose whole campaign focused on depicting Anderson as an out-of-touch liberal from New York “where Hillary lives,” knew that pulling the gay card especially would resonate with the heartland voters of the 20th Senate District. She was right–she won handily with this crowd, and so did Issue 1.”
Wow.
When I try to wrap my mind around the idea of someone willing to falsely claim that a person who spent seven years being held prisoner by Hezbollah is “soft on terrorism”, and to do so while running a campaign that is supposed to have something to do with moral values, I start to feel like of of those computers, in altogether too many star Trek episodes, that try to grapple with the problem of self-reference and end up exploding. Whatever she’s preaching, it’s not any set of moral values that I recognize.
Speaking of the rainbow flag, did you see this story from Kansas?
Whatever she’s preaching, it’s not any set of moral values that I recognize.
If you were part of the mainstream, you would see the moral traditions she brings to political life.
With all due respect, Hilzoy, I sometimes wonder for just how much longer you can continue to be astonished. After Max Cleland? After the Swiftboaters? After Michelle “Maybe he shot himself to get a Purple Heart” Malkin?
This is right-wing American politics, 2006. Smear, distort, scapegoat. And then call the other side “unhinged.”
Whatever she’s preaching, it’s not any set of moral values that I recognize.
It is the same set of moral values that led Bush and Cheney – Bush, who went AWOL from his unit, Cheney, who had ‘other priorities’ – to run a campaign of lies about Kerry, a thrice-decorated Vietnam veteran.
And it’s the same set of moral values that led Republicans to applaud this campaign and regard it as just what Kerry deserved for being brave enough, after he came back from Vietnam, to speak out against the war he had fought in.
Also, basically, it’s the set of moral values that regards anyone who supports the right of same-sex couples to marry legally as fundamentally immoral.
It’s a perfectly familiar set of moral values: what Padgett said about Anderson is the same as the Bush/Cheney Swiftboating of Kerry. Why should anyone be surprised?
Disgusted, sure. Surprised, no.
Did I say I was surprised?
I do, sometimes, try to think my way into the heads of people I disagree with. But I can’t get too far with someone who uses a picture of an ex-Hezbollah hostage confronting his captor to show that the ex-captive is ‘soft on terrorism’. All I get is some sort of shallow ‘hey, I gotta win’ thing, without any depth of character or perception. I don’t think that’s right, but I don’t know what is.
Star Trek self-referencing computer analogy round-up:
Landru – “The Return of the Archons”, self-destructs upon understanding that the society he has been overseeing, “the body”, is dead and soulless, the very opposite of why the original Landru created the computer in his image.
Nomad – “The Changeling” – a collision of two space probes creates a confused probe who believes its mission is to “sterilize biological imperfections”, but Kirk gets him to destroy himself when he points out the errors Nomad committed including confusing Kirk with Nomad’s designer Jackson Roy Kirk.
Norman – “I, Mudd” – Android controller of an android civilization serving Harry Mudd. Spock and Kirk smoke his android brains with the old “Everything I say is a lie — I am lying” gambit.
M5 – “Ultimate Computer” – Computer designed to fully automate starship control has a little too much self preservation built in and kills hundreds in war games. Kirk convinces that it has betrayed the very reason it was created.
That’s all I got off the top of my head, there may be others….
Also, I’m only a geek with respect to The Original Series, so no references from the others.
But the bottom line is that the tactic worked.
We can sit here in judgment and condemn it all we like, but it makes no difference.
I don’t have a better option than democracy to suggest. All I can say is that stories like this are completely soul-draining.
No wonder many people like to believe in an afterlife where rewards and punishments are handed out by a just God, because there seems to be precious little justice here on Earth.
“That’s all I got off the top of my head, there may be others….”
Tangentially, I note that when Kirk destroyed the computers that the planet Eminiar VII and its neighbor have been using to wage simulated warfare with, and then ushering their citizens calculated dead into clearn disintegration chambers, in “A Taste of Armageddon,” so as to make the Eminiarians face the reality of how ugly war is, he’d have wound up with Iraq, or perhaps the Korean War, or full-out thermonuclear war, and it seems just as possible that they’d simply have gone ahead.
Truly an optimistic series, Star Trek was, most of the time, despite the occasional “A Balance of Terror” (the strained Vietnam analogy episode).
Interesting reading. I saw ‘A Taste of Armageddon’ as the Vietnam analogy. I thought ‘Balance of Terror’ was just a reworking of an old submarine movie.
Did I say I was surprised?
Well, you did describe the story as “astonishing,” and I guess I took it from there.
I’m not trying to be argumentative here (OK, maybe I am, a bit), but c’mon: “Republican candidate stoops to queer-bashing and accusations of treason” pretty much a dog-bites-man story at this point?
Uncle K: right you are. It wasn’t so much the depth of ickiness that astonished as the particular means used, but I can, um, see that since that fact existed only in my head, not on your screen, it would have been tough to catch 😉
Ah. Gotcha.
“But the bottom line is that the tactic worked.”
Which means the problem is not just the candidate, but the populace as well.
Shades of Walt Kelly.
“I thought ‘Balance of Terror’ was just a reworking of an old submarine movie.”
No, you’re correct. My brain futzed and tossed up the wrong episode title. I actually meant “A Private Little War.” (With the mugato!)
Digressing, last night’s Netflix movie (I only got 2/3rds into it; will finish the rest today/tonight) was “Free Enterprise.” I’ve been hearing good things about it for years, but it turns out to be much funnier than I’d anticipated, nonetheless; I can’t yet say how it works as a complete movie, but the first 2/3rds is quite good. 🙂
I think the Vietnam analogy episode was “A Private Little War” where the Klingons arm the Villagers and Kirk responds by arming the Hill people after his friend Tyree was killed. There was this line in particular (I looked it up just now):
“Bones, do you remember the 20th century brush wars …
on the Asian continent?
Two giant powers involved,
much like the Klingons and ourselves.
Neither side could pull out.
Yes. It went on bloody year after bloody year.
What would you have suggested,
that one side arm its friends with an overpowering weapon?
Mankind would never have lived to travel space if they had.
No. The only solution is what happened back then.
Balance of power.
More of a Cold War reference actually.
But to Gary’s point, it was mostly optimistic with a few notable exceptions. And “Balance of Terror” was great because it was the first sci-fi I remembered to explore the feelings/emotions of the enemy in a humanistic (err.. Romulan) way.
Aside from “Armageddon”, there were a few other machines they took out forcibly such as Val, but not really in line with Hilzoy’s original analogy.
Just because I can’t resist a chance to polish my geek cred, I’ll note that Tyree wasn’t killed in the episode; his wife was. (A Kan-u-tu woman, IIRC.)
Ah, Nona.
I was born in Ohio. All four of my grandparents are buried there, as are my father and my sister.
My dearest friend lives in Ohio. I attended college there.
All of the people I’ve mentioned were or are good Republicans.
I (the elitist) do a pretty good imitation of a femi-Nazi and cut my debating teeth in favor of the civil rights movement, much of the time arguing with some of the deceased mentioned above.
I’m gratified that we’ve reached a time in America, finally, when all individuals, regardless of race, sex, creed, or color, can be judged based on the content of their character, which is why I really like Bob McManus despite the fact that he’s a Texan. 😉
So let me say, with full confidence that I am not generalizing, that the fact that Kenneth Blackwell, Republican black stud with his demagogic anti-Islamic bigotry and his anti-American vote-rigging, and Joy Padgett with her homophobic pan-hatred of EVERYONE, including American hostages, are the meat of the Republican Party and are bankrolled by the trailer-park evangelical white trash, not to mention the scum over at Redstate, running the Ohio Republican Party, is no reflection on my birthplace, my family, or me.
And it is no reflection on Republicans in general, either, even though many Ohio Republicans will vote for these two because they want their stinking taxes cut.
But the two of them are a huge practical joke on just about everyone, if you think about it. It’s like finding out Michael Medved really believed the movie image of a horde of hook-nosed Rabbis sending Christ to his scourging was an image of ecumenical brotherhood and a compliment to his political maunderings.
Or, it’s a little like when a drug-addled Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys let Charles Manson and the Family crash at his place on their way to murdering Sharon Tate and company. You kind of knew the Sixties (whatever that means) was going down in flames. Turns out Squeaky Fromme and Joy Padgett are equally liberated.
Except that today’s equivalent of Sharon Tate is still alive … so we obviously have a ways to go before we learn the punchline to this century’s big-tent cult.
That was exceptionally psychotic, John. And I mean that in a good way.
“But the bottom line is that the tactic worked.”
Which means the problem is not just the candidate, but the populace as well.
http://tinyurl.com/jsmj5
WaPo, August 7, 2006
Half of U.S. Still Believes Iraq Had WMD
“– Do you believe in Iraqi “WMD”? Did Saddam Hussein’s government have weapons of mass destruction in 2003?
Half of America apparently still thinks so, a new poll finds, and experts see a raft of reasons why: a drumbeat of voices from talk radio to die-hard bloggers to the Oval Office, a surprise headline here or there, a rallying around a partisan flag, and a growing need for people, in their own minds, to justify the war in Iraq.”
Ah, Nona
Are you calling me out, Slart? 🙂
No, the Trek sector of my long-term memory is notoriously sticky.
I’m much better with music, but still I have three brothers that routinely thrash me at that.
Now, truly irrelevant crap? I rule.
Which means the problem is not just the candidate, but the populace as well.
Well, maybe. But let’s not be like the communists (or the conservatives!), complaining that our ideology is perfect, it’s just that it’s never really been tried properly.
I’m not aware of any democracy in history that has been “enlightened” in the sense that base political smears have been consistently rejected by the electorate. Indeed, I wouldn’t even accept it as a given that our own standards are drifting downhill. Any student of the earliest political campaigns in this country (e.g., Adams v. Jefferson) would have to admit that Swift Boating seems positively tame by comparison.
I am suggesting that the fact that smears like this tend to work is not a bug, but a feature. That’s not to say I have a better system in mind. But it’s hard not to feel some empathy for Solon, the lawgiver of ancient Athens and a famed democratizer, who said: “I gave the people as much freedom as they could handle.”
Steve raises an excellent point, and reminds us why the founders tried to give us a republic, and not a democracy. Perhaps they were on to something.
Quite correct Andrew… the Kanutu Woman. (“We won’t trust this division to Apella”)
While we are being all unproductive in fantasy land — what need are the Organians to impose peace on the Earth. But I’m sure the presence of beings such as ourselves in such numbers would disgust them.
Sorry for the unintentional thread jack. Should have known better.
Please back to the topic at hand, if possible.
“Aside from ‘Armageddon’, there were a few other machines they took out forcibly such as Val, but not really in line with Hilzoy’s original analogy.”
Thus why I said “tangentially.” 🙂
Alan: “there were a few other machines they took out forcibly such as Val,”
Andrew: “(A Kan-u-tu woman, IIRC.)”
Slarti: “Ah, Nona.”
So the first Annual ObWi Babylon 5/Star Trek Convention will be when? (Hell, maybe even Moe would come back for it.)
“Half of U.S. Still Believes Iraq Had WMD”
Well, prior to 1992, and the inspectors going in and rooting stuff out, it was true.
And, of course, people are prone to believing that which comforts them. Americans are hardly unique in this. My favorite part of that Time piece by Ghosh is this:
It’s, as I blogged, as believable as plenty of other stuff I’ve seen people believe about Israel in the last couple of weeks.
That tinyURL doesn’t go to the WaPo story, by the way. Better idea to just link to the story directly.
So the first Annual ObWi Babylon 5/Star Trek Convention will be when?
Good question. You’ve got the most experience with such things…maybe you should be put in charge of it. 😉
Posted by: John Thullen | August 07, 2006 at 04:33 PM
Damn, Thullen, that was “H. Thompson-esque” in a big way.
Damn, Thullen, that was “H. Thompson-esque” in a big way.
I had the same reaction: when and if “gonzo blog commenting” becomes a recognized literary genre, JT better get his props.
Here’s a Yikes for some of us: RightWingNews’ summary of “favorite people as voted by 51 rightwing bloggers who responded to a survey of 225 rightwing bloggers.
Anyone want to sign onto this set of favorites? (And of course, I conclude with: heh.)
“Good question. You’ve got the most experience with such things…maybe you should be put in charge of it. ;)”
Sure, I can chair it, so long as others are also willing to put in significant work (which wouldn’t involve much; it can be a “relaxacon,” i.e., no guests or programming, everyone just shows up and hangs out around the pool). 🙂
So when’s a good date for everyone to show up here in Boulder? 🙂
Woo! Made the front page! Nowhere to go from here but down…
I personally will admit to being astonished. Not because I couldn’t have predicted this, but even predictable events can be hard to accept right away when they’re as sick as this. Part of being human, maybe.
Should I have said “hat tip wikipedia and daily kos” or something? I’m just a caveman and your blog etiquette rules confuse me.
Anyone want to sign onto this set of favorites?
Depends on how you define ‘favorite.’ Favorite what? Favorite conservatives?
Here’s that WaPo piece: Half of U.S. Still Believes Iraq Had WMD.
Operative ‘graph:
Possible reaction:
More:
The folks on the right who have been pushing this bullpuckey are full of it, of course. We didn’t invade Iraq to keep them from having 500 degraded artillery shells left over from the 90s, and their existence in onesies and twosies doesn’t indicate anything more than that they exist (and doubtless there are sheer dozens of other shells to be found lying around in a few places; big whoop).
Lastly:
Sigh.
I’m going to assume there is a somewhat proportional relationship between “favorite” and “influential” at least with respect to the pundits/bloggers on the list. If my presumption holds true, that makes Malkin the number one most influential blogger. Yikes, indeed.
At least one can use this list to know whose argument needs countering the most. Interesting, but I guess that O’Reilly isn’t “right wing” enough.
I’m going to assume there is a somewhat proportional relationship between “favorite” and “influential” at least with respect to the pundits/bloggers on the list. If my presumption holds true, that makes Malkin the number one most influential blogger. Yikes, indeed.
At least one can use this list to know whose argument needs countering the most. Interesting, but I guess that O’Reilly isn’t “right wing” enough.
Also interesting: with Rice, Sowell and Malkin in the top 6 of their favorite people, you may see some right wingers pointing to this list to affirm their racial diversity.
“Which means the problem is not just the candidate, but the populace as well.”
There you have it.
I know that thoughtful conservatives like to distance themselves from the spewers of hateful gibberish among their ranks.
The problem is that spewing hateful gibberish is, to a very large degree, responsible for conservatives holding the reins of power right now.
No doubt there are sizeable pockets of hatred, bigotry, and a thousand other flavors of ill will lying just beneath the surface, anywhere you want to look. Blue state, red state, take your pick. Just peek under the nearest rock, you’ll find plenty.
Responsible people do not exploit that kind of garbage for their own advantage.
I have spent a lot of time and energy over the last five years trying to engage “thoughtful conservatives” in conversation about the fate of this country. I have, more or less, stopped.
I have stopped because I don’t see “thoughtful conservatives” stepping up to tell the hatemongers among them to STFU.
I have nothing left to say to people who think George Bush is a good President. I have nothing left to say to people who think invading Iraq is or ever was a sane or defensible response to 9/11. I have nothing left to say to people who think blowing up 34 little kids is a “birth pang” for a “new middle east”. I have nothing left to say to people who think they have any exclusive claim to patriotism, faith, or morality. Nothing, nothing, nothing. Nada. Zip.
These days I devote myself to securing the electoral defeat of conservatives. Any conservative, any place, any time. My state, your state, doesn’t matter to me. I want the whole gang of them out.
Think the government is too large? Fine. Let’s chat.
Want to run characters like Padgett for federal office? Talk to the hand. I’ll see you in November, and put your game face on, because I’ll be pleased to see your party crushed to dust.
Enough is enough.
Thanks –
“Depends on how you define ‘favorite.’ Favorite what? Favorite conservatives?”
I didn’t do the defining; John Hawkins did. You can also read the list of bloggers who replied, at the link. Sorry I didn’t complete my quotation marks; the category was “favorite people” as responded to by the selected “rightwing” bloggers.
Hey, John Hawkins’ “RightWing News” seems to be accepted as a highly popular right wing site. I don’t pick these people. This is the right wing. Is there an inaccuracy in that claim of Hawkins’?
“I have stopped because I don’t see “thoughtful conservatives” stepping up to tell the hatemongers among them to STFU.”
I don’t think that’s fair. I know it’s easy for the thoughtful ones to get lost in the crowd, if one isn’t paying attention, but they do exist. We see some here; we also see people like Gregory Djerejian, Jon Henke, and a variety of others, depending upon one’s definitions and views.
I have no idea. If I’m of the right, it’s more by default than anything else, the result of a helplessly flawed measurement.
Gary –
Thanks for your reply.
“I don’t think that’s fair”.
First, I agree that thoughtful conservatives exist. I’m just tired of trying to converse with them. Not because it’s not a good or enjoyable thing to do, but because there are more necessary things to do right now. The house is on fire, and I don’t have time to chat.
What public office are Djerejian or Henke running for? On what occasions, and in what venues, do they have the opportunity to speak for American Republicans and/or conservatives? What public policy, foreign or domestic, do they influence?
American conservative politics doesn’t really have a place for voices like theirs right now. Blogs, sure. Politics, not so much. Politics is where ideas become policy. It’s where the rubber meets the road. So, my goal is, to the extent of my extraordinarily limited abilities, to defeat, utterly, the agenda of American conservative politics.
Frankly, I’ve lost interest in being fair. Fair and a dollar will get me a cup of coffee. To paraphrase Grover, in today’s political environment, “being fair” is an invitation to date rape. My interest now is in restoring sane, responsible, constitutional governance to the United States of America.
If folks like Djerjian etc would like to join in, fine. They can begin by condemning, loudly and at length, Padgett and those like her, and by running, funding, and advocating for candidates who are not semi-fascist hatemongering screamers.
When they get that far, we can talk.
Thanks –
So is there any hope whatsoever that we’ll ever get past the demands for X group to denounce Y behavior?
Andrew,
no because it is a sign of shared values, and for many, there is no acknowledgement of shared values. The only hope is to blow past this stage and reach a point where the some statements are so odious (like Mel Gibson’s outburst) that no one would take them up.
So is there any hope whatsoever that we’ll ever get past the demands for X group to denounce Y behavior?
I think it’s OK to demand this so long as Y behavior is being done by a politician running for office in your political party, and not just some obscure blogger or professor or whatever.
For example I denounce William Jefferson. There, that wasn’t so hard.
“So when’s a good date for everyone to show up here in Boulder? :-)”
Not too difficult for me since I work in Boulder and live in next-door Lafayette.
But then again as someone here once remarked: I might feel a little weird about converting abstracted blogging/commenting personas into real people.
I think it’s OK to demand this so long as Y behavior is being done by a politician running for office in your political party, and not just some obscure blogger or professor or whatever.
Cool. I’m an independent, so I’m off the hook.
But then again as someone here once remarked: I might feel a little weird about converting abstracted blogging/commenting personas into real people.
It can be interesting. Jeff Goldstein is a lot different in person than I would have expected based on his blog.
I still don’t believe that today’s American political culture is “conservative vs. liberal.”
It’s right-wing authoritarianism vs. progressive/conservative pluralism.
Compared to Europe and most of the Western world, there is no “left” in American politics. “The Left”, because of its size, has to find common cause with liberals and conservatives to keep the authoritarians at bay.
I think it’s eminently worthwhile to engage thoughtful conservatives, for several reasons.
(1) A lot of the vitriol on the right involves impugning people’s motives. Support diplomacy? You must be an appeaser. Criticize Abu Ghraib? You’re proposing moral equivalence with terror, and hating America to boot. Say something nice about a member of any minority? Cowed by political correctness. Say anything bad about any successful person? Egalitarianism run amok, and a hatred of any actual success. Etc., etc., etc. If one has any confidence at all that one is less awful than the right-wing parody of “liberals’, it’s worth engaging, on the assumption that whatever one’s faults, one won’t be that bad.
(2) When this moment of craziness is over, we will in fact need to work together, and it will matter that there are people who know and respect people on the other side, whatever that is.
(3) You might learn something.
(4) As might they.
(5) And how else are we ever going to emerge from all this?
Cool. I’m an independent, so I’m off the hook.
You still need to denounce Perot if he ever runs again.
“Not too difficult for me since I work in Boulder and live in next-door Lafayette.”
Huh. Well, I don’t know much about you beyond that you like Star Trek, but that’s a start. 🙂 (Sure, we might turn out to find each other nothing but annoying, in person.)
Anyway, I’d be delighted to have a cup of coffee or whatever, if you’d like to sometime (I work best planning things a day or more in advance, though). My e-mail address is under the copyright notice on the sidebar of my blog, or, heck, it’s gary_farber at yahoo dot com, if you feel like seeing how gawdawfully fat and what a bad haircut I have these days, sometime.
“Jeff Goldstein is a lot different in person than I would have expected based on his blog.”
Have you met him beyond that one time we all (Rocky Mt. Blogger Bashers) met each other?
Because I don’t think I have much clue what he’s like in person, when he’s not drunk out of his mind.
You still need to denounce Perot if he ever runs again.
Noted.
Have you met him beyond that one time we all (Rocky Mt. Blogger Bashers) met each other?
I’ve seen him at two of the blogger bashes. At least one of the times, I spoke to him while he was sober.
Hey, I’ve got a capital idea! Instead of wasting time, breath, pixels, bandwidth or any other resources you want to name, how about the “thoughtful conservatives,” like, take over their own party’s nominating conventions and not nominate insane idiots for high public office? Would that work, maybe? As a start?
Phil,
At the risk of ruining a beautiful friendship, I don’t see either party nominating particularly impressive candidates, at least in recent memory.
“At least one of the times, I spoke to him while he was sober.”
Ah.
“Would that work, maybe? As a start?”
Well, I did my part in 1980 when I registered as a Republican to go to the Washington State caucuses to vote for John Anderson over Ronald Reagan. (Hilzoy did the same in her venue, as I recall.)
Beyond that, it sounds like a fine idea to me, but then, I’m more or less a liberal, so naturally it would.
There’s a nontrivial difference, Andrew, between “not impressive” or even “milquetoast” and “absolutely, categorically harmful to democracy.”
Gary,
Thanks for the offer. I shall consider it — as a bearded Spock once said to Kirk.
Truth be told though, aside from the “weirdness”, I would probably feel a bit intimidated:
You are practically a blogging legend and I don’t generally consider myself as knowledgeable or well-spoken (written) as the rest of the Obi-Wi crowd. (And with a full time office-bound software engineering job, a wife and two young kids, I’m likely to remain that way) Hence, my modis operandi of lurking and rarely commenting.
Regards,
Alan
hilzoy –
Many thanks for your thoughtful reply. The reasons you give for engaging thoughtful conservatives are all good ones. I think you should, by all means, go for it.
Maybe I should make my point of view clearer.
I think it’s great if folks want to engage their political opposites. I have, in good faith, and at some considerable effort, been doing that on a daily basis for much of the last two to three years.
I have in fact learned a lot. I can’t speak for whether conservative folks learned anything from me or not. In some circles, I have earned a modest reputation as not being an idiot or a knee jerk moonbat. I’ve considered that to be high praise.
The issue I have is this. While we thoughtful folks of all persuasions are having our civil dialog, this country is being driven straight to hell.
This “moment of craziness”, as you describe it, is the product of something like forty years of deliberate, determined effort on the part of folks who have, for starters, never gotten over the New Deal.
From their point of view, this is neither a moment, nor craziness. This is the way it ought to be, now and forever. From their point of view, the only way in which our current foreign and domestic policies are out of balance is that they do not go far enough.
I’m not sure how to have a dialog with people like that. I’ve made the effort, but I don’t see the world the way they do, and I don’t want to. More than that — I won’t.
So, I no longer look for compromise or rapprochement. Even if I did, none is on offer. Believe me, I’ve looked.
I’m happy to talk with guys like Holsclaw, Djerejian, maybe even John Cole. Adam C from RedState is a great guy, and believe it or not I’ll read anything by RedState’s streiff. All thoughtful people.
But, I don’t expect any interaction I might have with them to change the agenda of the folks that are *actually making policy*. I don’t expect any interaction I might have with them to, in any way, moderate the current slide of this country into what I see as insanity.
What is at stake at this moment is no joke. It should not be taken lightly. This is no parlor debate. What is at stake is what the US stands for — what it means to be American, and what America means in the world.
It’s lovely to debate important ideas with thoughtful people. When that debate is occurring in the back seat of a car that is being driven over the cliff, it is time for action, not words.
If conservatives want my engagement in dialog, they need to find a way to keep the Joy Padgetts of the world off the ballot. How they do that is their problem. Until they do that, I’m not really interested in making nice conversation.
As far as I’m concerned, conservatism in the US right now is a crazy drunk driving the car over a cliff. I don’t mind talking with them, but the first thing I want to do is get the damned wheel out of their hands.
Thanks
“You are practically a blogging legend and I don’t generally consider myself as knowledgeable or well-spoken (written) as the rest of the Obi-Wi crowd.”
As I said in another thread yesterday, I’m a helluva lot more prone to stammering, and mumbling, in person, as well as not having facts at my grasp re Google, and I’m entirely, um, unimposing and inglorious, in person, as Andrew could assure you. Indeed, I am but a humble wretch.
Though I can talk a lot.
Anyway, if we have coffee, or a drink, or whatever, there’s no further ob. I promise not to leave any dead rabbits in your bathtub.
Frankly, I don’t know a lot of folks around here, though, and I’m trying to do something about that. But it’s just a suggestion of coffee, not a first date. In any case, up to you, and in your hands, as you like.
russell: thanks. I just don’t see what else to do, right now. And, as I said, I have to think that some day we’ll regain our sanity, and we can get back to debating, oh, universal health care the way I was debating with Andrew and Enrak, or whether it would be a good idea to spend more fixing infrastructure, or something, instead of: accruing catastrophic levels of debt: good or bad? or: breaking the army while setting the Middle East aflame: can a really serious person support any other policy? or: the optimal level for taxation on incomes over $10 million a year: .00001% or .0000001? or: so long as Exxon’s paid scientists say there’s a shred of doubt, can any sane person support taking action to prevent global warming?
And when we get back to: more spending on infrastructure repairs: good or bad?, I just don’t see how we’ll manage if no one is speaking to anyone any more.
Still, I take your point.
“From their point of view, this is neither a moment, nor craziness. This is the way it ought to be, now and forever. From their point of view, the only way in which our current foreign and domestic policies are out of balance is that they do not go far enough.
I’m not sure how to have a dialog with people like that.”
With such people, it depends; there are still reasonable people who vaguely fit that description that one can engage with, and then there are a lot of crazies with which one mostly or entirely can’t. So when one can’t, one doesn’t, and one focuses on the others.
That’s pretty much all there is to it.
“That’s pretty much all there is to it.”
Except that the crucial thing is to not assume that people are unreachable and people with whom no agreement on any worthwhile issue can be reached, but to first spend some time investigating, rather than assuming.
That’s pretty important, and I think that extremely often people don’t bother, and thus we lose an opportunity to persuade some people of things of which they are, in fact, persuadable.
It’s the easiest thing in the world to stereotype people as wholly, as I just labeled some, “crazy,” just because of a few issues on which each person feels strongly, or because of tropes or styles or signs that we take as going in association with a particular type of people, but, in fact, people often tend to be a lot more complicated than we think.
and believe it or not I’ll read anything by RedState’s streiff. All thoughtful people.
Really? I always considered him an everlasting know-it-all. His posts/comments all exude the extreme confidence that he “knows” everything, even when one of his comments on taxes and I saw that every single one of his 6 or 7 sentences was completely wrong.
One more thing: “If conservatives want my engagement in dialog, they need to find a way to keep the Joy Padgetts of the world off the ballot.”
Last I looked, “our side” is the one in the minority in the Congress. It’s up to us to be looking for ways to make allies, to persuade people that we have good ideas, to look for grounds to meet on, to persuade people that our candidates are good people to vote for.
Standing off and saying it’s up to them to persuade us that they’re worthy to be taken on as allies and fellow voters is not, I think, a productive way to approach constructing a majority.
It’s very useful for feeling self-righteous, to be sure, but I really don’t think that should be the point or goal.
hilzoy –
Thanks again for a thoughtful reply.
I think that, at the point where the conversation returns to topics like “infrastructure repairs: good or bad?”, there will not be a problem with finding people of good faith on all sides to talk to.
Gary –
Also, thanks for a thoughtful reply.
You’re right, there are thoughtful people who fit the description in question, and it is possible to engage them in dialog.
I guess my point, here and throughout, is that I am, personally speaking, done with “engaging” in the sense of expecting to find a meeting of minds, or anything like compromise or cooperation. I say that not because I think compromise or cooperation are not achievable, but because I don’t think they are on offer.
Conservatives have the whip hand, and they will not willlingly give an inch. Not one. Do you think that is not so?
Until such time as either compromise or cooperation are, in fact, on offer, my priority is limiting the damage to whatever degree I can. Conversation is great, but unless it leads to some actual change in behavior, it’s academic.
To make a long story short — it’s time to take their toys away. Then, we can talk.
Thanks –
“Conservatives have the whip hand, and they will not willlingly give an inch. Not one. Do you think that is not so?”
I don’t think it’s very useful to speak or think of “conservatives” as if there were one homogenous bunch of people, all of like mind on every important issue, who self-identify as “conservatives.” That just doesn’t reflect reality as I know it.
No more than “liberals” are all robots with the same points of view and opinions and degrees of reasonableness or not.
People vary like crazy. Liberals and conservatives alike.
Ugh –
To be honest, I don’t read streiff for his comments on tax policy. At heart, streiff is a soldier, and a well-informed one. In the context of RS, IMO his comments on military and foreign policy are well-informed, and are far less knee-jerk in both those areas than the average RS poster. As in all things, YMMV.
Gary –
As far as I’m concerned, conservatives aren’t giving an inch, so neither am I. Conservatives demonstrate no interest in compromise, coalition building, or finding common ground, so neither do I.
If liberals/progressives/what have you — that is, people who are not conservative as that term is construed currently — want to regain anything like a majority in Congress or elsewhere, they **WILL NOT** do so by looking for “common ground” with conservatives. They will do so by stating, clearly, simply, and emphatically, what it is they stand for.
As far as I’m concerned, the best way to convince people you have good ideas is to state your ideas, directly and in simple language. If the ideas are, in fact, good, people will figure that out.
I’m more than on board with keeping eyes on the prize. Which is to say, I have no interest in “standing off” and holding some kind of moral high ground while the world goes to hell.
At the same time, I’ve lost interest in seeking to find “common ground” with modern day conservatives, because *I do not see a willingness on the other side to do so, in any way, shape, or form*. There’s nothing in it for them at the moment, so why should they bother?
If they won’t, why should I? What’s in it for me? What do I have to give up to get it? Is it worth it? If you have a good answer to that, I’m all ears. As it is, as far as I can tell, overtures of compromise are an invitation to a kick in the teeth. I’d rather go down fighting.
Want to persuade people that you have good ideas? Tell them what your good idea is, and why it’s good. Tell them over and over again until it sinks in.
Want to find grounds to meet on? Tell folks what you stand for, what you don’t stand for, and what is negotiable. If the answer you get back is “no deal”, then “no deal” it is. So be it.
Want to convince people that our candidates are good people to vote for? Nominate good people to vote for, have them state what they believe in, and why.
Lather, rinse, and repeat. You’ll win some and lose some. It won’t happen overnight. But, it will happen.
Thanks –
I agree with most of what you say, Russell; we just have certain different emphases on the margins. I’m unconvinced, for instance that it’s as useful an approach to be writing about whom I’m not going to compromise with and why I don’t want to talk to certain sorts of people and what I don’t like about them rather than, as you say, that “the best way to convince people you have good ideas is to state your ideas, directly and in simple language.”
So I think it’s most productive to do that, instead, and to talk about the positive things people can get together on.
And you’re still lumping “conservatives” as if they were a clone army. My guess is that you have no conservative friends.
Gary –
“I don’t think it’s very useful to speak or think of “conservatives” as if there were one homogenous bunch of people, all of like mind on every important issue, who self-identify as “conservatives.” That just doesn’t reflect reality as I know it.”
Well, you know, you’re right. But here’s the thing.
In the voting booth, and on the floor of the house and senate, the choice is binary. You vote for one person, or another. You vote “yea” or “nay”.
At a personal level, people are complex and interesting beings. Full of contradictions, nuance, shades of grey.
But when it comes to the actions that actually *create, define, and enforce policy*, it’s D or R. It’s “yea” or “nay”.
I know lots of conservative people. I’m more than happy to say that they are, in the overwhelming majority of cases, fine folks. But when it comes time to vote, they vote for people that IMO are leading this country to ruin.
Furthermore, I’m happy to talk with them until the cows come home, but it most likely will not change their vote.
So, my goal at this particular point in our history is not to try to find points of compromise with them. My goal is to beat them. Anyplace, anytime I can.
I think, quite honestly, that this nation may not be able to bear another three years of uninterrupted conservative Republican rule without suffering great harm. To say nothing of the world.
Beat them. Beat them in November, beat them two years from November, beat them four years from November, beat them six years from November, beat them eight years from November. Spend your money, spend your time. Vote, and make sure other folks you know vote. Beat them again and again and again. That’s what it will take.
When they’ve lost a few, they’ll be ready to make deals. Until then, you will not get an inch out of them. Think I’m wrong? Look at the voting records of the House and Senate since the Republicans got the majority.
Conversation will not change policy. Winning elections will change policy. Beat them, then beat them again. When they’re beaten, they’ll be happy to deal.
When nominating people like Joy Padgett loses them a House seat, they’ll stop nominating people like Joy Padgett. When nominating creeps like Rick Santorum loses them a Senate seat, they’ll stop nominating creeps like Rick Santorum. When nominating feckless incompetents like George Bush and power freaks like Dick Cheney loses them the White House, they’ll stop nomintating them.
Until it does, they won’t.
Beat them. At this particular point in history, it actually shouldn’t be that hard to do. Just look at what they’re doing to the country, and the world.
Beat them. If you think my use of the pronoun “them” here is unhelpful, well, so be it. That’s what they call you.
Beat them. Nothing else will do.
Enough is enough.
Thanks
Gary Farber writes: “21) Milton Friedman (6)”
I take it these voters aren’t aware that Friedman opposes the Iraq war?
Gary Farber writes: “And you’re still lumping “conservatives” as if they were a clone army. My guess is that you have no conservative friends.”
When it comes to “conservatives” with power and/or influence, they do get rather sameish.
A diary on dKos (by Jeff Seeman, who ran for Congress in Ohio last time), suggests that Padgett might not actually be able to run:
Yay! Here is the Ohio law:
And Padgett sought (and won) the Republican nomination for Lieutenant Governor.
Heh. If anyone here lives in Ohio (or: in the relevant part?), now might be a good time to talk to people about filing a formal challenge to her candidacy. At any rate, if we don’t want people who challenge ex-Hezbollah hostages’ opposition to terrorism.
hilzoy: informed opinion in the comments at dkos appears to suggest that the “sore loser” law most likely doesn’t apply here. The issue may get decided in court, though.