The Demonization of the Opposition
POSTED BY: SoupCatcher
UPDATED: Sunday, August 1, 2004 20:50
VIEWED: 35776
PAGE 2 of 20
Quote:This is partly true, but I think you miss the point. The 'scooping' up you are talking about is far from random. There is a method to their madness. Yes they desire to further themselves. But again, in order to do that, they have to have something there to offer the voters, a conhesive philosophy that the voters will think will work.
Originally posted by splibertarian:
The two major parties have no underlying philosophical purpose other than victory. They scoop up random issues and special interests in the hopes of cobbling together a successful plurality. The purpose is to further themselves, not their ideas, because their ideas are constantly changing. Demonization is an inevitability when the only consistent distinction between the two parties is 'us vs. them'.
Their ideas change as a response to the new situations we find ourselves in, and new concepts and ideas embraced by the public. Because we live in the real world instead of some idealized version we create inside our skulls. This demonization, (which I argue is almost exclusively one sided) is not a result of the two party system, nor even the binary nature of most of the choices we find ourselves confronting. It is due to the inability of the minority party to make a case for itself.
Think about it for a second. Look at the word we are using here. Demonized. Demons are terribly dangerous and destructive forces. We use the term to denote actions that characterize one party as destructive, evil, generally bad for life and happiness of human beings. It denotes power and ability to change things.
If they had no power, there would be no complaint. We might call it "pixieizing" the opposition.
{We avoided the term "bunnification" with respect to Anya's memory] So one has to ask how they got such power in a democratic society. By appealing to the voters. They appeal to the voters by agreeing with their concepts, their perceptions of reality and how reality "should" be, (however that populace as a whole defines "should" what standard they reference it to) You think anyone can do that by simply cobbling together a bunch of random platitudes?Your nick indicates that you are a libertarian. And it is evident that you are very certain of your philosophy and policies. If you can explain them in a simple and logical fashion, AND if you are right, you should have no problem convincing folks of the rightness of your beliefs. But you find it difficult and so you denigrate the two major parties as being nothing but "us versus them". You see no difference between the two, and frankly that is inconsistent with my own experiences and perceptions.
Because you are trying to make a case that is inconsistent with what I see with my own two eyes, your ability to sway me is extremely difficult. And that is why you feel the need to denigrate the other two. You are frustrated and feel nobody is listening. When the fact is, we've heard it, and have rejected it.
Quote:
I would prefer a system where, if parties exist at all, they exist solely to further specific issues and ideals. Instead of building a coalition within a party, a coalition would have to be built between parties. Once the issues and ideals the parties are formed around are realized, the party would simply fade into obsolescence. In this type of system, people would be fighting for a shared belief, rather than against a shared perceived enemy.
And I would prefer to be the king of Londidium and wear a shiny hat. But it ain't going to happen. The reason being, is that people are free to associate and form whatever political parties they want, for whatever reason they want. The only way to enforce such a system would be to use force.
The other problem is you talk about ideals but that has nothing to do with reality. Reality does not care what you think it is. It is what it is. Reality governs the consequences of your actions, and what you want, intend, mean, all that mental effort is irrelevant to those consequences. You want to advance an ideal,
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Good post. I think this may be another factor involved in the demonization. Fear. We live in scary times, in some respects far worse than the Cold war. At least then we knew who was the enemy, and we also knew that they were not suicidal nut jobs. They could be detered.
Everyone is familiar with the Ben Franklin quote. But it misses something important. Sometimes it is necessary to give up some freedom in order to not get killed. We give up the freedom to fire our guns indiscriminantly, but we all benefit by not getting shot by a stray bullet. All in all, it is a cost benefit analysis, just like everything else in life.
You ask the rhetorical question about whether it is going to be worth destroying the nation in order to save our lives. But you miss a couple of things. First off, the prison abuse scandal is just that, a scandal that is being dealt with. The soldiers involved are being court marshalled, and this was all being handled by the military courts long before we ever heard about it, or saw one picture. Rummy's famous torture memo outlined exactly what methods could be used, and they are almost all rather minor, like giving prisoners MREs instead of the regular cooked meals. Yes, handing an unlawful enemy combatant the same meals we feed our troops in the field is one of the "torture" methods approved.
Will such torture breed more enemies? I don't know that it is relavant. What we want is for them to not try to kill us. They don't have to love us, they can go ahead and hate our guts. But if they try to kill us, they have to know that it ain't a good idea.
The torture issue keeps coming up, and yet no word is mentioned about the kind of enemy we face. These are people who slaughter innocent civilians and cut their heads off for recruiting films. That is the nature of terrorism. I would find your remarks more credible if I thought for one moment that they might be directed at the enemy.
Nothing that we have done can compare to the horrors suffered by the Iraqis under Saddam. The rape rooms, the industrial plastics shredders. When we find someone abusing prisoners, we put them on trial, like has been done. Saddam promoted his torturers, paid them well for their 'service'.
They hide in mosques and shoot at our soldiers. We avoid firing back because those are holy sights to those same terrorists. They turn their mosques and sacred graveyards into armed camps, and we are demonized for breaking down a wall to stop morter attacks on our soldiers.
What are we doing? We've spent several billion dollars rebuilding Iraq, fixing up not just the bomb damage we caused in removing Saddam, but repairing decades of neglect by Saddam. We gave the country back to its people, and letting them try their former dictator for his crimes. Now if you cannot be proud of a nation that does that, I don't know what else to say.
You can try to maintain your freedoms while they are trying to kill you, but it doesn't work in the real world of suicide bombers and hijackers that crash their planes into buildings. You are gonna have to submit to that airport screening, have you luggage gone through. The potential for disaster, for death and destruction is simply too high to allow you to just hop a flight like we did in the old days. Again, cost benefit analysis. Dead people ain't free to do anything.
"Wash, where is my damn spaceship?"
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This is terrific -- we're rehashing here most of the issues. I was only able to address a few of your positions, but we can't do everything all at once, can we?
I've heard over and over again that what they do is so much worse than what our military did, and that's true, but that's just missing the point. It doesn't sit well with me when I hear anyone using such comparisons as justification for acts of evil, because then we're just talking about degrees of difference. To reiterate, it has been pretty clearly shown that we learn by doing, and that doing evil makes it a whole lot easier to do greater evil the next time. (See "Roots of Evil, Origins of Genecide and Group Violence by Irvin Staub.) Whether or not it was the worst evil ever committed on the face of the earth or not, the acts carried out in the Abu Ghraib prison were evil -- the prisoners were humiliated, dehumanized, and by the internationally-accepted definition of torture, they were tortured. Any position that makes what they did semi alright is in itself evil, because it whitewashes it. I am ashamed when I hear the argument, "But they did a whole lot worse than we did!" Sounds like a 13 year old boy trying to justify punching out his little brother for stealing his bike. We have more moral maturity than that, don't we? One evil doesn't justify another, does it?
As for the memo you referred to, it's about getting around the strictures against torture. An act doesn't need to be justified ahead of time unless the intention is to carry out the act. So, you tell my why such a memo was written in the first place? Before you answer, please refer to the Newsweek article from June 8 reprinted in it's entirety below.
In the Abu Ghraib prison we see where such intentions logically lead, as "harsh methods" were carried out. The only difference between Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo (or the many secret detention facilities for that matter) is that we actually heard about it in pretty graphic detail. The CIA operatives who were directing interrogations at Abu Ghraib were directed there by Rumsfeld from Guantanamo because, in his opinion, the interrogations at Abu Ghraib weren't producing results fast enough. It doesn't take much intelligence or imagination to connect A (the memo outlining intention and pre-justification for torture) with B (the acts committed in Abu Ghraib prison) in this case, and there is no doubt in anyone's mind that what went on there was torture. This is hardly a case of feeding prisoners MRE's!
As for "It's just a case of bad apples at the prison," please be aware the White House General Council, Gonzales wrote back in 2002, "One key advantage of declaring that Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters did not have Geneva Convention protections is that it substantially reduces the threat of domestic criminal prosecution under the War Crimes Act." Why concern yourself with the possibility of war crimes prosecution unless you are planning on commiting acts that could reasonably be construed as war crimes? (See Newsweek online article, dated May 19, entitled: "Memos Reveal War Crimes Warnings. Could Bush administration officials be prosecuted for 'war crimes' as a result of new measures used in the war on terror? The White House's top lawyer thought so.") Again, connecting A to B is simply child's play here, and it would take an act of willful blindness not to see it.
Here's a longish quote from the Gonzales memo to the President, dated January 25, 2002: (By the way, most legal experts are appalled at the legal advice given to the President by Gonzales in this memo.)
"[Denying the right of protection under the Geneva convention to al Qaeda and the Taliban,] substantially reduces the threat of domestic criminal prosecution under the War Crimes Act (18 U.S.C. 2441).
"That statute, enacted in 1996, prohibits the commission of a 'war crime' by or against a U.S. person, including U.S. officials. 'War crime' for these purposes is defined to include any grave breach of GPW or any violation of common Article 3 thereof (such as 'out
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Wow, Drakon, I can't believe some of the things you've posted here! I'm really surprised that no one has given you much of an argument yet. I guess it falls to me then.
Quote:
Originally posted by Drakon:
...in a lot of cases, it is a binary choice. Should taxes go up, or down? Should guns be banned or not? Should abortion be legal or illegal? Is this idea right or wrong? Or even is this idea more right (correct, consistent with reality, functional) than that one.
Life or death, the two positions are mutually exclusive. Happiness and misery is the same. If you are one, that automatically rules out the other. And lets face it, this is what life is all about. Life and happiness and how to increase both.
You act as if these things you say are universally acknowledged and self-evident. I know a lot of philosophers and biologists who will be glad to know that the mysteries of Life and Death have been plumbed.
Happiness and misery are mutually exclusive? So there are no happy moments in prisons and no miserable moments when you're in love? One doesn't have to take the bitter with the sweet? Anybody ever let you in on the whole "shades of gray" concept? Choices are only binary when you make them binary.You say the question is "Should taxes go up or down?" but is that the real choice? Seems to me the far more relevant question is, whose taxes go up or down? But that's not a choice we're given. Basically, the question has been reduced to "do we lower the taxes of the rich or not?" (Put a couple hundred rich people in a room and see what they agree to do.
) Even if the poor actually got a tax break (through the tireless efforts of the Poor People's Lobby, naturally), in the end, and with all the social programs that get slashed to make all these tax breaks possible, the poor in this country will always get the short end of the stick. The last two Republican administrations have merely replaced "tax and spend" with "don't tax and spend anyway." How 'bout abortion: legal in all cases? legal after the second trimester? legal in cases of rape or incest? legal for minors as well as adults? legal without parental consent?
Should guns be banned? How many people think there should be an absolute, across-the-board ban on guns? Not even Ralph Nader takes that position. As far as I've seen it's always been about what kinds of guns will be legal, to whom, and how accessible will they be. Why do you want to simplify these issues out of existence, Drakon?
If your sympathies lie with the current administration, I can see how you might consider these issues to be binary, because that faction wants to lower taxes continually as we spend in excess of 3 billion dollars a month on the war; they want abortion to be made illegal in as many cases as they can get away with; and they want guns to be legalized in as many cases as they can get away with.
But these extremist views do not define reality, Drakon.
Quote:
Demonization, I hate to say I see primarily coming from the minority party. Not exclusively, but primarily. And I have to admit that makes me all the more glad they are the minority party.
First of all, you'll remember that a majority of voters actually voted for the other guy! Bush does not represent a majority in that respect. But, of course, we don't have a pure democracy in this country. It's a little more complicated than that, as you know.
Quote:
Take one meme that is out there. Bush = Hitler.
That's a cheap, cheap shot, Drakon. For every "Bush = Hitler" you show me I've got a "Liberals = Communists" and an "All liberals hate America and support terrorism" to boot. Over in another thread (Surreal World Event Discussions) I can even show you a fellow who compares Al Gore to Hitler! It was Bush himself, who said, "If you're not for us, you're against us." What do you think that means, Drakon?
Also, that Hitler comparison comes from the radical fringe, while the idea that q
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Sorry to bump this up with an aside but:
Quote:
Politicians: they'll rape us to death, eat our flesh, and sew our skins into their
clothing - and if we're very, very lucky, they'll do it in that order.
reminds me of an old joke (those who remember it know just how old it is)
A berserker leader is exhorting his mob: How many time do I have to remind you - it's rape, pillage and THEN burn ?
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I still think the US system is an unintended consequence of the Constitution, which results in an unaccountable two-party system.
If I rummaged around enough, I could find several mathematical analyses showing a 'winner take all' vote results in the least representative outcome. Drakon's position that it's all binary and it should be all binary and that is the best system, is, well, not backed-up by anything except personal opinion. (Yet at the same time Drakon thinks the Electoral College, which specifically subverts a binary function, is real genius ...)
In addition there's a lack of ongoing accountability. So it's not a critically damped system - there's too much lag-time in the feedback. That makes for all sorts of election promises being made that will never be kept. And during a reign (term in office), things get done that probably wouldn't fly in a parliamentary system.
Both factors create a potential for an out-of-control system.
I think the framers tried to avoid these limitations by having a three-branch government. However, should one party take control of three branches at once, there is no limit left.
Because of an unintentional devolvement to a two-party system, an 'us vs them' mentality does take over. B/c the 'winning side' gets so much power, there is a severe struggle to win. People vote against as much as for. And demonization starts.
I agree that parties pick up advocacy groups solely with the intent of winning, but I also agree that each party does offer something to that group. It's just that people are schizophrenic. How else can you explain comfort with a party that embraces mutually exclusive positions: supporting Christian values, personal arms, war, and the death penalty, and opposing stem cell research and choice? (Or as I've heard, the Party where 'Life is Sacred until it's born'.)
An aside to specifically address another of Drakon's points: I was angered to repeatedly read that the minority does the demonizing. It was Bush who said "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists." http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010920-8.html. Exsqueeze me ???!! Is that not demonizing par excellence?
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Quote:
In addition there's a lack of ongoing accountability. So it's not a critically damped system - there's too much lag-time in the feedback. That makes for all sorts of election promises being made that will never be kept. And during a reign (term in office), things get done that probably wouldn't fly in a parliamentary system.
That's a really good point, Rue. I realized after reading the responses to my initial post that I should have been more clear that I was using the ideal of a two party system, rather than the current incarnation we have, to set up the demonization argument (that it is in the best interest of our country to think of those on the other side of the aisle as opponents instead of enemies because power may shift back one day; that it seems a lot of political discourse these days falls into the enemy category, rather than the opponent).
I've been holding off a few days on responding to Drakon's long post because there was just so much there. Fortunately, HKCavalier and Rue addressed many of the points that I would have. My main disagreement with Drakon is that I just don't buy his statement that demonization comes from the minority party. I could give you examples from many different sides, some currently in power some not. The cause of the demonization is not simply the absence of power and feelings of futility. One factor seems to be the belief that those who vote differently than you are morally wrong. Binary thinking could be a contributor to that. Another is just a general lack of respect.
To kind of go off on a tangent: I don't have to like someone to work with them effectively. I do need to respect that they are competent, have the same overall goals that I do, and the motivation to work to achieve those goals. Whether or not I would do the work the way that person does is immaterial. The only thing that matters is if the job gets done.
So how to bring that back to politics? I'm not sure. How do you convince people that attacking those who would do things differently, but have the same overall abstract goals as you do, is not a good thing?
I'm only talking about things on the level of the citizen, who I am convinced share the same abstract goals that I do: life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, equality, opportunity, etc. It's only in the way we would achieve those goals that there are differences.
Am I convinced that most career politicians share those abstract goals? Well, that's for another thread.
I shaved off my beard for you, devil woman!
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Quote:Completely understand. Time is short and I would assume you have an actual life, apart from the net.
Originally posted by ItsAllShiny:
This is terrific -- we're rehashing here most of the issues. I was only able to address a few of your positions, but we can't do everything all at once, can we?
Quote:It is not a justification. There are several problems as noted with the coverage of the war, and we are only getting part of the story. And that is the point.
I've heard over and over again that what they do is so much worse than what our military did, and that's true, but that's just missing the point. It doesn't sit well with me when I hear anyone using such comparisons as justification for acts of evil,
Which is most upsetting to you personally, the abuses at Abu Ghraib, which as noted was discovered, investigated, and at present being prosecuted by the military? Or beheading of civilians as an act of policy by the enemy? To me it is a mark of the differences that excesses committed by our troops, get ratted out and punished, by our troops. Yes, the enemy does far worse, AND is exempt from critism or condemnation. That is the real problem for a lot of folks, both in and out of the military.
There appears to be a willingness to see all US troops as baby killing marauding thugs, and ignore the fact that when the military discovers such incidents, it corrects them and punishes those guilty of them. Whereas the other side, its "their way" or "their culture" or "its really our fault in the first place". They get a pass for doing far worse. And that is the problem.
Quote:Again I look at it from a cost benefit analysis. Does whatever was done to those prisoners, did it result in them giving up information that would save the lives of our troops, or Iraqi civilians? You might fear what it will turn you into, and may want to compare it to some abstract intellectual standard, but sadly, we don't always have that luxury.
Any position that makes what they did semi alright is in itself evil, because it whitewashes it.
[There is an exception. In the report, one prisoner was raping another one. As punishment, he was taken out, stripped naked, and photographed with the word "Rapist" mispelled scrawled on his body. This is one of the examples of torture given. Sometimes such humiliation is required in order to keep one prisoner from raping another prisoner.]
You have to decide how much your life is worth, and how far you will go to protect and defend it. Now a lot of folks put a very high price on their own life. And will do whatever it takes to stay alive. Even if that means dressing up Arab men in women's panties to get them to talk.
Quote:You also have the worry, due to the inability of the government to come out with an open declaration of war with terrorist suspects clogging the judicial system. Not so much a concern as to the US carrying out war crimes, (Which again feeds into that whole "the military is just a bunch of kill crazy thugs" stereotype) but with terrorist attempting to use our freedoms and rights against us. Just like they used our hospititality and general welcoming nature to come over here and train as aircraft pilots.
"One key advantage of declaring that Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters did not have Geneva Convention protections is that it substantially reduces the threat of domestic criminal prosecution under the War Crimes Act." Why concern yourself with the possibility of war crimes prosecution unless you are planning on commiting acts that could reasonably be construed as war crimes?
Also in this day and age, lets face it, war is considered a crime by somebody. And to a large extent they have a good point. War sucks. People die, things get blown up and destroyed. And there are a lot of nations and ideologies that see even reacting in self defense as a crime. Someone tries to kill you, trying to kill them right back is considered a crime to many. So the fact that the White House got some legal concouncil before the war, and
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Quote:Are you surprised that I actually wrote it, or that I hold different beliefs from your own?
Originally posted by HKCavalier:
Wow, Drakon, I can't believe some of the things you've posted here! I'm really surprised that no one has given you much of an argument yet. I guess it falls to me then.
You can give it a try. If my ideas and opinions offend you so much, you are perfectly free to ignore them. But if you are going to argue, you have to present an actual argument. A connected series of statements to establish a proposition. Certain rhetorical approaches simply don't work. And that is just life.
Quote:I am sure that they will be much enlightened by the fact that if you are dead, you are not alive. And if you are alive, you ain't dead. Somehow I think most people recognize this instinctively, without being told by me, you or anyone else.Quote:
Originally posted by Drakon:
...in a lot of cases, it is a binary choice. Should taxes go up, or down? Should guns be banned or not? Should abortion be legal or illegal? Is this idea right or wrong? Or even is this idea more right (correct, consistent with reality, functional) than that one.
Life or death, the two positions are mutually exclusive. Happiness and misery is the same. If you are one, that automatically rules out the other. And lets face it, this is what life is all about. Life and happiness and how to increase both.
You act as if these things you say are universally acknowledged and self-evident. I know a lot of philosophers and biologists who will be glad to know that the mysteries of Life and Death have been plumbed.
Quote:First off, tone. You need to work on that. You are coming off smarmy which I doubt is your intention.
Happiness and misery are mutually exclusive? So there are no happy moments in prisons and no miserable moments when you're in love? One doesn't have to take the bitter with the sweet? Anybody ever let you in on the whole "shades of gray" concept? Choices are only binary when you make them binary.
Second, while I am very familiar with the concept of "shades of grey" I don't see it as generally as useful concept as some would like it to be. You are either alive or dead. You are either happy (overal and in general) or even the little upsets and disputes wreck even the happiness you feel in prison. That is my experience. If yours differ, you need to point that out.
Too often "shades of grey" is palmed off for an excuse to inaction. Unfortunately, even inaction is an action that has consequences. Those consequences are either benefitical or detrimental to you, and/or others. Usually an action will have many consequences, some good and some bad. But generally speaking, you can compare the bad with the good, and get some measure if overall the good is worth the bad.
So while I am familiar with the concept, I don't see it as being that useful, nor even that applicable. And I expand on my comments about happiness later on. Happiness is separate from life and death. (You can live regardless of whether you are happy with your life or not) and is subjective. That creates its own challenges.
Quote:Even admitting that the 'real question" is whose taxes, its still the same basic question here. Should they go up, or down. You are simply narrowing it to one subset or another.
You say the question is "Should taxes go up or down?" but is that the real choice? Seems to me the far more relevant question is, whose taxes go up or down?
Which gets into the question of why taxes exist in the first place. I agree with those who say the sole purpose of taxes is to fund the federal government. Period. That the government should not be in the business of wealth redistribution, or social engineering. Which, lets face it, is what you are talking about when you start discussing limitations on the question of who gets taxed how much.
Now, you want a completely fair system, the only way to do that is really with a poll tax. But politically a
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Quote:I would disagree with this strongly, in that both parties are trying to capture votes. Without the votes, they are out of power. And it does not matter how many parties you have, a lot of the major issues do boil down to binary choices.
Originally posted by rue:
I still think the US system is an unintended consequence of the Constitution, which results in an unaccountable two-party system.
In the recent governor's recall election in California, there were some 130 odd candidates. Yet with the exception of a very small few, most of these candidates had no hope of appealing to enough voters to actually win. And a lot of voters realized that, and did not want to 'waste their vote' on someone who would just lose anyway. So in the end, despite 130+ candidates on the ballot, it boiled down to a two party race anyway.
Quote:When you get around to actually doing the analysis, let me know. Until then this is an unfounded and irrelavant comment. As for the electoral college, yes, I do see the brillance in it. I see that straight democracy is too often "3 guys voting to pee in the corn flakes of the other 2 guys." And that is not a system that I want, nor should you.
If I rummaged around enough, I could find several mathematical analyses showing a 'winner take all' vote results in the least representative outcome. Drakon's position that it's all binary and it should be all binary and that is the best system, is, well, not backed-up by anything except personal opinion. (Yet at the same time Drakon thinks the Electoral College, which specifically subverts a binary function, is real genius ...)
[As I point out in another post on this thread, we're all minorities of one. We have just as much risk of being one of the two guys with corn flakes they can't eat as the other 3 doing the voting]
Right now, our higher population densities are consentrated in a very few states. California, New York, Texas. If you are from any of the other states, the last thing you want is Congress voting to pee in your cornflakes. Nor do you want a President of the entire United States selected by just those high populace states, especially considering the economic interdependence between city and rural dwellers.
Quote:But this ignores just how that single party CAN gain control over all three branches. And that is at the ballot box. The only way any party is going to get a majority in either house of Congress is if people elect them to that office. Its on a more individual basis, but the concept is the same.
I think the framers tried to avoid these limitations by having a three-branch government. However, should one party take control of three branches at once, there is no limit left.
And you don't get votes without appealing to the voters. It really is that simple. You don't get power unless the voters approve of you, and your policies.
Quote:Ever ask someone to explain it to you? Opposition to abortion and stem cell research are kind of linked. And while there is a general agreement that life is sacred, there is also seen that some folks are dangerous. They kill people. And either you protect and defend yourself against them, by whatever means works, or you die.
It's just that people are schizophrenic. How else can you explain comfort with a party that embraces mutually exclusive positions: supporting Christian values, personal arms, war, and the death penalty, and opposing stem cell research and choice? (Or as I've heard, the Party where 'Life is Sacred until it's born'.)
If that means killing the person who is trying to kill you, oh well, sucks to be him. He won't kill anyone ever again. And it is his actions that condemn him, not his simple unrequested presense in the womb of a woman who doesn't want it. I see a world of difference here. Again, its that context thing that keeps biting folks on the rump.
Quote:
I was angered to repeatedly read that the minority does the demonizing. It was Bush who said "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrNOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME