One of the standard tropes in political commentary is that “both sides do it” false equivalency. If you don’t see it, then you’re partisan. Part of the proof of this is that you never see that “your” side is as bad as the “other” side. Of course, that’s a chicken and egg issue. One would think you’d pick the side that you perceive as behaving itself more.
A problem is that there is very little in the way of indisputable objective criteria to judge who is behaving worse. If you could just put the bullshit on a scale at the end of a political campaign and give the office to the person that comes out lightest; we wouldn’t have this problem. Journalists, who we many times want to serve as referee, are wary of serving this function. They know they are in for a world of abuse from the side that doesn’t get the call. As the Boss said, they end up cringing like a dog that’s been beat too much and spend half their life just covering up. In other words, we get “he said, she said” faux balance. “Candidate Smith says the sky is made of bees. Candidate Jones disagrees.”
False equivalency encourages abuse. If you’re going to get blamed just the same as the other guy, no matter what you do; what’s your incentive for restraint? If you’re trying to beat up the other guy, and he’s trying to kill you; you’re going to lose. With no referee to call foul, you might as well bring your AK-47 into the ring. After all, the other guy is cheating too; he’s coming at you with a folding chair.
I haven’t heard any tea partiers suggest blacks should be hanging from trees.
Lee Atwater explains:
Yes, because Atwater said it (at a time that he was dying, and was clearly remorseful about a lot of things done during a life not well lived) it must be true.
It is this utter bullshit (raising policy preferences to a litmus test for racism) that gets me really angry. There is no connection between, say, wanting the poor to earn their keep and racism, in and of itself.
Especially, Doug, when you are completely oblivious to the clearly Eugenic and racist origins of many Progressive Era organizations, like say Planned Parenthood.
I get what you’re saying, Buzz. There is a big lump of reasons voters might respond to arguments about fiscal conservatism; and it’s hard to tell who is responding for what reason. And, in truth, most people don’t analyze their position to the nth degree and, so, many might not really be able to articulate precisely why they are responding favorably to a policy argument in any event.
In the case of fiscal conservatism, there are plenty who want government not to spend money simply because they don’t want government to spend money — they think that taxation is problematic at best and think that government gets in the way of private enterprise which they think can do just about everything better.
But, there are plenty of others who do not have a problem with government spending per se, but, rather, they don’t want to see government spending money on people or organizations they regard as undeserving. And, of this group. there is a subset whose perceptions of who is deserving and who is not has a racial component.
It’s tough to talk about one segment without pissing off the others who feel, with some justification, they are being wrongfully maligned.
And that’s part of why Atwater’s strategy worked. I don’t have any indication that Atwater, himself, was a racist. But he was a pragmatic accumulater of votes; and racist votes count the same as any other (perhaps more if those votes come in places where the electoral-to-individual vote ratio is smaller). What Atwater is describing is a method by which you can: 1) appeal to the racist voter; 2) have the candidate be able to plausibly deny that’s what he or she is doing; and 3) be able to alienate non-racist segments of the population away from your candidate’s opponent if they make accusations of racism.
But, there are plenty of others who do not have a problem with government spending per se, but, rather, they don’t want to see government spending money on people or organizations they regard as undeserving. And, of this group. there is a subset whose perceptions of who is deserving and who is not has a racial component.
No doubt. Clearly, in countries that are ethnically homogenous, the converse of this drives social democracy.
I just saw something the other day about Taiwan, which is now controlled by something of a Social Democrat party that’s primary purpose seems to be combating inequality. It is kind of an interesting contrast to China, which is putting rapid economic growth ahead of inequality.
It just seems to me that the charge of racism is so odious that it should be reserved for actual instances of provable racism. You know, like if someone had actually called Carson the N-word.
You know that when hipsters say “That’s racist” as an ironic, comical retort, the side that claims to actually be concerned about racism should really do some soul searching about its past conduct.
Reminds me of when my sister and I would hear the older generation going on about “kids these days.” Typically, she’d turn to me and whisper, conspiratorially, “drugs.” To which I’d respond, “it’s that damn rock & roll music.”
one of the biggest problems with discussing race in this country is that it is so often reduced to a zero-sum game where the subject becomes whether person X “is a racist”, at which point anything less than klanlike behavior is then dismissed as “not racist”.
but prejudice is more subtle than that: it is a way of letting stereotypical thinking affect your judgment. we all have the occasional prejudiced thought — that republicans are heartless jerks, welfare recipients are lazy and worthless, liberals don’t care about our country, tea partiers are all racists, etc. the key is to recognize that these are stereotypes and not allow them to guide our actions.
to say that someone is acting in a racist (or sexist/homophobic/etc) manner is not to say that they are nazis or klansmen, nor that they want to lynch anyone. people often fall prey to stereotypes without realizing it; they may even think that they are being nice but inadvertently say or do something offensive.
unfortunately, it is virtually impossible to point out that someone’s actions are offensive without it getting translated to “person X is a racist”, at which point the conversation shuts down.
see also: http://www.notracistbut.com/
stallio, #101 on Stuff White People Like is being offended.
That’s you, my friend.
I hear one region say the Civil War was about “States’ Rights”, the main and only stated right being the right to keep blacks as slaves. Then in the 1960’s this same region was invoking “States’ Rights” to keep blacks out of their universities and keep their public schools segregated, their bus stops segregated, their lunch counters segregated. Then in 1980, Reagan, needing a place to kick off his presidential campaign, chose to go to the Neshoba County (Mississippi) Fair, just miles from where three civil rights workers had been slain for attempting to register blacks to vote. And when he got there, he announced “I believe in States’ Rights”. What is a person who goes to that state, with its history (and not just distant history, either), and says those words?
buzzcut, look in the mirror. i’m not the one who wrote (just earlier today) about how “this utter bullshit […] gets me really angry” or who stated that a sitting member of congress is such “scum” that to “defend him in any way degrades you”.