The Demonization of the Opposition

POSTED BY: SoupCatcher
UPDATED: Sunday, August 1, 2004 20:50
VIEWED: 35776
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RUE

Wednesday, July 28, 2004 2:48 AM

Just a quick few comments;

In my experience, temperature control is not that simple. There's rate decrease as set temperature is approached (from either side), overshoot, damping etc. Additional inputs are needed, and they have to be right. Without them at one extreme the temperature is never reached (b/c it is approached more and more and more slowly); at the other, the system goes into severe oscillations.

Or, to take a biological example where balanced opposing mechanisms are life's basis, immune systems must be kept between being unreactive and indiscriminate to be viable.

I'm not trying to draw the analogy too far, but I don't think reliance on a single simple mechanism, in this case the eventual balancing of opposed political factions, is THE answer to long-term viability of the US political system. Even supposedly simple systems with only one variable need extra inputs. And extensive systems need exquisitely complicated balancing mechanisms to adjust without self-destruction.

I do think there are other factors involved. I hate to sound like a broken record, but I think if the US had a political system that had timely feedback (ie a parliamentary system), a lot of these instabilities would be resolved, rather than go on to generate wild oscillations or bi-stable states. IMHO.

ARAWAEN

Wednesday, July 28, 2004 4:17 PM

Signym wrote

Quote:
I am fiscally conservative but socially liberal

At least you have small third parties that you could support and foster. Try being, socially conserative but fiscally liberal. It feels like political solitary confinement.

Arawaen

Um, I'm lost. Uh, I'm Angry. And I'm Armed.

SIGNYM

Wednesday, July 28, 2004 5:39 PM

Jumping around a little bit.

I think it all boils down to a problem of fear. People are not going to tolerate the presence of "opposition" if they truly believe it's a life and death matter. The mechanisms to resolve opposing viewpoints (debate, voting, compromise) aren't dramatic enough to satisfy panic. The person who believes that we have to do something extreme RIGHT NOW won't wait for discussion.

I think the media shoulders a very large portion of blame. Instead of educating viewers they push fear. Fear and horror keep people tuned in almost as much as sex and food, which make advertisers happy. ("What's Wrong With American TV?")

The Republican Party also shares a a large poriton of blame. They're running on a platform of fear.

What I see is an interesting asymmetry of fear. Bush supporters are terribly afraid of "terrorism". Without any intermediate steps, they automatically translate that to being afraid of a John Kerry win. If you were to ask them why they're so against Kerry, I'm not sure they could say explicitly... they might say something about Kerry being "soft on terrorism" but I'm not sure they could tell you what they think he might DO that is so terribly dangerous.

However, those who are against Bush are against BUSH. They are concerned about Bush's record along various lines- environmental, civil rights. unilateralism etc.

What SOME people are afraid of is that Bush will subvert the democratic resolution process itself. The fear isn't entirely unfounded. When I read posts like Drakon's, what I see (and I could be wrong) is a person who will tolerate ANYTHING (vote roll manipulation, Administration lies, secret detentions, secret policy-making, "delayed" elections) just to make the fear go away. Basically, there is a portion of our population who will tolerate fascism in order to feel safe, and the Republican Party is playing to that fear.

While we should tolerate opposition, the one thing we must NOT tolerate is people screwing with the democratic process itself, the free expression of dissenting opinions, and manipulation by the media. In order to be able to accept oppostion, we must be assured that the resolution process is unbroken.

RUE

Wednesday, July 28, 2004 8:02 PM

This will be rambling but:

There are several topics going here. A few are: the notion of politically opposed parties, the generation of 'oppostion' between opposed parties, demonization of opposition, and power balance.

I think what Soupcatcher was trying to say was 'two heads are better than one' - just b/c other others think differently doesn't mean they think wrong, and from the contest of approaches an optimum solution will be reached.

But what I think is that the system set-up determines the outcome, and the one in the US makes for an inimical situation.

Soome things I've been thinking about -

What things may happen in a non-competitive system? Under that system you can have the multiplication of ideas (or any human-based resource) this way: I have one idea, you have one idea. We exchange ideas. Now you have two and I have two. But from my idea (and background) and your idea now in my head, I come up with more ideas. You do the same. Maybe some of our ideas are similar, but ultimately the result is de novo creation of multiple new ideas; or, another way, the simple exchange of ideas is more than additive. The history of human knowledge and invention is like that (and the patent/copyright/IP system of ownership is threatening to strangle it.) A different system leads to different outcomes, such as the 'prisoner's dilemna' game. The optimum solution for that set-up is (as far as I know) still 'tit-for-tat'.

Or in this example, there is the US political system. I believe the US system inevitably leads to two opposing forces (in a zero-sum condition). What can happen? One may completely vanquish the other, then change the system so that a reversal doen't happen. The two may oscillate. Or they may come to an intermediate equilibrium. How it turns out in real life is the result of the original system set-up - the number of other inputs, the feedback etc. US politics have often been stormy and unstable, in some respects self-destructive. (Obviously not as chaotic as other countries, but not as stable or civil as most of the rest of the first world.) So this inimical relationship between parties is the natural result of the set-up. IMHO.

Now that doesn't mean there isn't real destructive intent. Demonization is only demonization if it isn't true. I think Bush & Co. are probably fascist. I don't see the Democrats as eager to secretly disappear people ad infinitum as the republicans are. In this case, I don't think it's demonization.

SPLIBERTARIAN

Wednesday, July 28, 2004 10:54 PM

Quote:
SoupCatcher wrote:
One of the points of view of the author that really resonated with me is that the amendments to our constitution outline rights, not restrictions. The right to free speech, the right to bear arms, the right to vote, the right to representation. The time that we tried to introduce restrictions into the amendments, prohibition, we failed miserably.

Small nit-pick here...

The Bill of Rights does indeed outline restrictions, however, they are all restrictions of the government. They took care to not grant those rights to the people, because that which the government could granteth, the government could taketh away...Hence the preexisting "right of the people"..."shall not be infringed."

If you look at the federalist and anti-federalist papers from the time, there was much debate over including the Bill of Rights at all for fear that if the people's rights were enumerated they would thus be limited to only those mentioned.

RUE

Thursday, July 29, 2004 1:19 AM

Not being a historian or keen observer of politics - it seems to me that by NOT enumerating those rights, the Federal government did cede them to be taken away by states or corporations. If they had been enumerated in the Constitution as being possessed by the citizens, perhaps the states and private interests would have a harder time restricting them.

SIGNYM

Thursday, July 29, 2004 4:57 AM

Arawaen: HAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!

SIGNYM

Friday, July 30, 2004 1:14 AM

SPEAKING OF FEAR:

"Fear of Death Wins Minds and Votes, Study Finds"
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent
WASHINGTON (Reuters)

In the first study...

Quote:
... students who thought about death were much more likely to choose the charismatic leader... Only four out of about 100 chose that imaginary leader when thinking about exams, but 30 did after thinking about death.

A charismatic leader is "a person who declared our country to be great and the people in it to be special". The other tested leadership styles were task-oriented (focusing on the job to be done) and relationship-oriented ("let's get it done together")

In second study...

Quote:
"... we asked half the people to think about the September 11 attacks, or to think about watching TV... What we found was staggering."

When asked to think about television, the 100 or so volunteers did not approve of Bush or his policies in Iraq. But when asked to think about Sept. 11 first and then asked about their attitudes to Bush, another 100 volunteers had very different reactions.

In a third study

Quote:
The volunteers were aged from 18 into their 50s and described themselves as ranging from liberal to deeply conservative. No matter what a person's political conviction, thinking about death made them tend to favor Bush. Otherwise, they preferred Kerry.

"I think this should concern anybody," the author said. "If I was speaking lightly, I would say that people in their, quote, right minds, unquote, don't care much for President Bush and his policies in Iraq."

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=615&ncid=696&e=3&u=/nm
/20040729/pl_nm/campaign_fear_dc

So I think I was correct in pegging the support for Bush as being rooted primarily in fear.

RUE

Friday, July 30, 2004 2:43 AM

No doubt he will amp it up every time it's useful.

RUE

Friday, July 30, 2004 2:52 AM

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/print.asp?page=story_10-7-2004_pg1_8
The magazine article claims that Pakistani security officials have been told they must produce these high-value targets (HVTs) by the election.

http://wilsonhellie.typepad.com/for_the_record/2004/07/we_interrupt_th
.html
Bush and gang are pressuring Pakistan to capture OBL, Mullah Omar, or Zawahiri preferably during the first three days of the Democratic convention; if not that, during the last ten days of July; but definitely before the election.

And ....

TA DAAAA !!!
http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/asiapcf/07/29/pakistan.alqaeda.capture/i
ndex.html
Pakistan captures high-level al Qaeda operative

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