As an addendum to Dan’s post in reference to Jeff’s, I offer my analysis of the current debate.
Rush (or Bill Bennett or Sarah Palin or Rick Santelli or any non-leftist on the Moveon/White House enemies list) says something openly challenging to/about the current Leftist Administration/ideology. Some particular Leftist group/individual “interprets†the line, many times even rewriting the quote to make it more like their interpretation, and then they react to that interpretation.
Usual non-leftist response follows a pattern:
1) Astonishment (”What are you talking about?”)
2) Argument (”Come on, you know it wasn’t meant that way.”)
3) Apology (”Please, you know it isn’t about [race/sex/ism]. We reject those isms as much as you do. I’m so sorry that you are so upset about this.”)
4) Accomodation (”We really have to look to ourselves to be very, very careful about how we say stuff. When people are upset they won’t like us.”)
This is the stuff of passive-aggressive behavior cynically used as a political tool by which the accused is induced to question and beat up him/herself. This cycle is seen in the micro (personal relationships) to the macro (corporations that “apologize” for alleged grievances then send personnel to “sensitivity” classes while writing big checks to the aggrieved.)
This cycle in the political arena has gone on way too long and it won’t stop because the Left is not acting in good faith. Indeed, the use of this tactic is accelerating. This needs to be clearly understood — when you listen to Slobberman, Garofalo, Matthews, Markos, Mandy, Barney Frank, Chuckie Schumer, et al, they don’t believe the people they disagree with them are merely mistaken, they believe non-leftists are evil, vile, racist, bigotted people. Howard Dean was serious when he said Republicans want to starve children. Garofalo was serious when she said Republicans are mentally ill. Helen Thomas was serious when she said no real reporter can be anything but liberal.
More than anything else, the pattern I put forth and what Jeff is arguing against, is proof of that Left bad faith. A decent human being’s first response to someone upset at them is to try to ameliorate the situation (”whoops…what did I do?”). The Left is cynically and purposely using our own decency against us and we play right into it the moment we accept their upset as geniune.
For eight years the most vile invective has been directed at President Bush. There have been calls for his assassination - in print and on film. Never once has President Bush called anyone out. He has never singled out one screeching voice and turned his administration’s power to intimidate or silence them. Constrast that with the Obama administration, within the first 2 months, going after Rush, Santelli and Jim Kramer by name. Rush says “I want Obama to fail†and Stephanie Miller is on tv saying Rush should be executed for treason.
This is where it stops. This is where we must break the pattern and stop enabling the use of a passive-aggressive tactic by people berift of any deep ideas or honor.
Intent and interpretation of our own speech can no longer be ceded to people who have no intention of good faith interaction.
When we argue amongst ourselves how better to police our speech to please others who want us silenced in the first place, we help them not ourselves.
Comment by Joe on 3/7 @ 12:43 pm #
The elite journalists, I repeat, got Obama wrong. The troglodytes got him right. As our national drama continues to unfold, bear that in mind.
Now that Obama is in charge, it is time to speak truth to power. Isn’t that what the left always says?
Comment by N. O'Brain on 3/7 @ 12:49 pm #
Oh, I hurt your feelings?
Tough shit.
Comment by Joe on 3/7 @ 12:58 pm #
N.O’Brain: Just call them out as being liars and disingenous. Dean, Garafalo, and Helen are serious in intent, but also liars when it comes to facts. It is good to call out their kind every chance you get.
Comment by Darleen on 3/7 @ 12:58 pm #
N O’Brain
The Greatest Generation’s biggest failing was/is the Boomers. In their quest to make life easier for their children due to the horrors and deprivations of their own childhoods, they raised a generation dominated by a morality of convenience, entitlement and no gratitude.
Obama is the result … a Fan-zine’s coverboy with the soul of a looter.
Comment by Huey on 3/7 @ 1:04 pm #
a Fan-zine’s coverboy with the soul of a looter.
Oh, I like that. Our first Amateur-American President defined.
Comment by panther girl on 3/7 @ 1:12 pm #
A decent human being’s first response to someone upset at them is to try to ameliorate the situation (â€whoops…what did I do?â€).
Adding to the very real issue you and others have been talking about Darleen, is that for many folks on the Left (not all, but many), their first instinct is NOT to say, “whoops… what did I do?” when they’ve upset someone on the Right. Which can’t help but bolster their faith in their own argument. “They always seem to apologize or at least try to be conciliatory. We never do that. More proof that we are right and they are wrong.” (Thanks in part to our education system for instilling such “critical thinking” skills.)
Comment by Darleen on 3/7 @ 1:16 pm #
their first instinct is NOT to say, “whoops… what did I do?”
Yep … indecent narcissists. Look at the ‘bama’s snubs of PM Brown, wife and children.
Comment by Old Dad on 3/7 @ 1:28 pm #
What’s needed is a little more plain speaking, and a little less blogospheric navel gazing–present company excepted. Obama is full of shit. It can’t be said often enough. Rush is rich, hugely popular, and very influential, and he’s made some enemies. So what? He’s not running for office. His critics are mostly full of shit, or on the make, or both. That’s to be expected.
Jeff wants to call out the con artists. Good for him, me too. And the civility game is for suckers. The bastards in the $1000 suits might smile when they stick you, but you’re just as dead.
I’m with Rush. I hope the SOB fails, and I’m not sophisticated or nuanced.
Comment by Christopher Taylor on 3/7 @ 1:37 pm #
Back before Ace went soft out of fear of losing, the F*ck You, Next Question theme was strong. How do you deal with stupid, leading, and destructive questions? FYNQ.
Comment by rrpjr on 3/7 @ 1:38 pm #
Bravo. But now try telling this to the precatory conservative establishment.
Comment by SDN on 3/7 @ 1:48 pm #
This is the reason for my current bloody-mindedness where the Left is concerned. These people are not interested in a debate, they’re interested in destroying anyone who disagrees with them. Our refusal to recognize this and declare them “no longer our countrymen”, as Sam Adams did with the Royalists, is why we keep losing. They are the enemy, and must be treated as such.
Comment by happyfeet on 3/7 @ 1:57 pm #
Our dipshit president thinks the economic crisis is a “great opportunity.” That’s not just fatuous and stupid it’s a dirty socialist lie cause what the dipshit is trying to gloss over is that the crisis was a great opportunity but him and Timmy the Tax Cheat have already done fucked it up. Baracky came into office inheriting a great deal of goodwill and there was an enormous outpouring of sympathy but Baracky and Timmy have squandered this opportunity in pursuit of a narrow ideological agenda I think.
Comment by Bob Reed on 3/7 @ 2:09 pm #
“The Left is cynically and purposely using our own decency against us and we play right into it the moment we accept their upset as geniune.”
So true Darleen,
In the same way they shamelessly beat folks over the head with Bible passages in an attempt to set up an argument for their ideas of social justice that would be seemingly irrefutable to Christians. While, at the same time peddling social policies that are completely anathema to the same tenets of faith, blame them for eons of oppression of minorities and women, decry their absolute moral standards as “judgemental”, deny their influence in the founding of our nation and society, and belittle their beliefs and diminish their influence in our society as much as possible…
As you say, it’s all a very cold, calculating, and conniving strategem to co-opt from within and to twist your opponents beliefs and social systems against them; kind of like the Islamists are doing all across the western world…
As I mentioned in another thread, it’s either an Alinskian gambit, or a more old-school cold war communist one…
Nice Post!
Comment by Jeff G. on 3/7 @ 2:28 pm #
Good post, Darleen. I have offered yet another reply in the comments to Dan’s post. Here you go.
Comment by MikeD on 3/7 @ 2:45 pm #
I suppose many non-leftists do have responses marked by astonishment, argument, apology and accommodation. But, as you suggest, my own reaction, more and more, is to win by not playing. I have never been much inclined to explain (or apologize for) my behavior or thinking –I have always done what I personally thought was right and openly expressed that I felt others should as well. But now in almost all situations I find that I am simply keeping my mouth shut and waiting. I have become quite guarded about what I say and I usually don’t openly react to events in any manner. I hold pretty strong conservative beliefs in self-reliance and individual responsibility, have little tolerance for today’s “victims”, and have never suffered the slightest bit of white guilt or any other form of politically correct social embarrassment. But more than that, I am now working diligently on becoming not just quiet but a very self-serving SOB. In light of the country’s direction I work to maximize personal selfishness at the expense of government and allow that to rule my interaction with larger society in ways I never entertained before. I have come to realize that there is no particular need to express my thoughts; nobody is likely to much care any more than I care about those from the left–I just plot in small subtle ways. It is easy, I allow my inner disgust to grow and quietly scheme about how I can RF and cheat the system a little bit more. I’m getting good at it too, and I guess that makes me one of Jeff’s outlaws. The thing that is so marvelously satisfying about it all, however, is that my personal situation (I won’t bore you with the details) is perfectly suited to do just that. For me it is profitable, both financially and psychologically. I am Obama’s worst nightmare and I’m just not interested in playing the left’s phony game. That means they don’t realize that I am not just their opposition. I am their active enemy and in my own way I obstruct what they are trying to do day in and day out. I happily do what I can to make Obama’s socialist utopia fail. My hope is that an army of similar David’s is growing.
Comment by solitary knight on 3/7 @ 2:50 pm #
I’m open to dialogue but, if the track of conversation turns to showing me where I’m wrong and where someone else is right, my interest declines precipitously. If I express an opinion, I have already taken time to consider as many pro/con arguments as I have reason and knowledge to understand and I am not easily persuaded to move off my opinion. My interest is not in persuading someone to accept my opinion, rather I consider offering my opinion is merely informational. If someone disagrees with my opinion that’s fine and I don’t judge them defective if their opinion happens to differ from mine.
If I don’t trust my reasoning to an opinion, my opinion, than I’m sure to lose any confrontation, rhetorical or otherwise, out of cowardice.
All of that can be expressed in briefer terms, e.g. ..don’t bring a knife to a gunfight.
Comment by solitary knight on 3/7 @ 2:57 pm #
..than should be then
MikeD @15…well said.
Comment by Carin on 3/7 @ 3:01 pm #
But, but but … the POLLS SUPPORT BARACK! Funny, the trolls haven’t been around crowing about it. Could be because the polls aren’t looking so stellar anymore?
Saturday shows that 39% of the nation’s voters now Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Thirty-one percent (31%) Strongly Disapprove to give Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of +8
Comment by Joe on 3/7 @ 3:03 pm #
Obama reaches out to the Taliban
When the U.S. reached out in Anbar, it was not to al Qaeda, but Sunni tribes in the area. Reaching out to the Taliban is not the answer, reaching out to Pashtun tribes and Pashtun leaders may be. It is a subtle but important distinction that the NYTs and (more scary) the Obama Administration don’t seem to get.
Comment by rrpjr on 3/7 @ 3:05 pm #
#11. Right on, SDN. This is the way it has always been and the way it will always be, and it confounds me that more people can’t or refuse to get it.
Comment by N. O'Brain on 3/7 @ 3:17 pm #
One more thing you can do is take back the the language.
He ain’t ‘homeless’, he’s a bum.
Comment by Not Rhetorical on 3/7 @ 3:23 pm #
Darleen, this is going to sound like an unserious question, but I mean it: If those people really believe it when they say Republicans are mentally ill, want to starve children, etc., then how is that acting in bad faith?
Comment by McGehee on 3/7 @ 3:54 pm #
Because they’re pretending to want, for example, “bipartisanship,” as though everyone in the world hasn’t figured out that when they say “bipartisanship” they really mean “Republicans and Democrats together voting for Democrat legislation.”
The bad faith is at least partly in the pretense to good faith.
Comment by JD on 3/7 @ 4:15 pm #
Not Rhetorical - It is not necessarily bad faith, it is more the complete absence of good faith. Couple that with their disingenuous cries for bipartisanship, and one sees very clearly that their motives are, at the very best, highly suspect.
And Chuckles is fat.
Comment by Spies, Brigands, and Pirates on 3/7 @ 4:23 pm #
Could be because the polls aren’t looking so stellar anymore?
Yes. They fluctuate up and down, as such things do. The overall trend is clear, though, and it’s not good news for Teleprompter Jesus.
Comment by Darleen on 3/7 @ 4:26 pm #
Not Rhetorical - what McG and JD say.
The Left’s PR is that they are the “open minded” “more tolerant” “compassionate” “dedicated to social justice and fairness” people. They say that and more about their inherent goodness, but when faced with people who merely question their dogma and suddenly the dissenters MUST be bad/wicked/false. The Left’s “tolerance” is a fable that decent people fall for every time.
Comment by JD on 3/7 @ 4:35 pm #
Teleprompter Jesus is good, though I still prefer God Jr.
Darleen - As we well know, true Leftists are intolerant of intolerance.
Comment by N. O'Brain on 3/7 @ 4:39 pm #
Bipartisanship:
“A state of affairs in which Republicans betray their supporters in order to mollify their political enemies and the editorial boards of The Washington Post and New York Times. Cf., capitulation, professional suicide.”
-Tony Snow
Comment by JD on 3/7 @ 4:55 pm #
I do not think the only way to win is to not play. However, you cannot win playing the game that they want to play, with the rules, as they are, in place. As is, everytime our “team” scores, the other team gets the points. Every time their team scores, they again get the points, and they take away a point from us.
Comment by Darleen on 3/7 @ 5:02 pm #
This just occured to me and it is something DDA Patterico would understand …
How many times that an abused spouse blames him/herself for the abuse.
“He’s really a good man, I’m at fault because I just talked back to him/didn’t have his dinner on time/stayed out with my friends too late … blah blah blah ..”
What it comes down to is the abused person searches for a whole lot of “if onlys” … if only I was more respectful, if only I listened better, if only I took better care of myself and didn’t embarrass him …” of how they can change THEMSELVES to be “accepted” by the abuser and stop the abuse when the best answer is to STOP PUTTING UP WITH THE ABUSE.
Comment by Seth on 3/7 @ 5:25 pm #
Shorter Darleen (I think):
If you adversary is decent and honorable, you should confront him in a decent and honorable way. If your adversary is indecent and dishonorable, you should not be constrained by decency and honor.
I don’t disagree.
Comment by Sdferr on 3/7 @ 5:29 pm #
The rule sets have been reduced even further in game theory, as Ric Locke points out here at pw from time to time. I think the current best strategy is expressed as, tit for tat, beginning with cooperation and proceeding from there.
Comment by Seth on 3/7 @ 5:39 pm #
Quite so, Sdferr. Reciprocity.
If conservatives always respond to (faux) outrage at conservative positions with one-sided, obsequeous contriteness, the progressives will further cow us. We’re being habituated to be submissive. Our apologies and decency are taken as positive feedback.
Since it’s clear that positive feedback doesn’t work, negative feedback (reciprocity) is called for.
Comment by gebrauchshund on 3/7 @ 6:15 pm #
I remember reading some essays about “Jacksonian” attitudes toward opponents, don’t recall if it was here or somewhere else, and it could be boiled down to exactly what Seth said. If your opponent is decent and honorable you respond in kind, if not the rules go out the window and you do whatever is needed to win.
I’m on board with that, and I think a good early step would be to get familiar with Alinsky, and turn some of his “Rules for Radicals” against the left.
Comment by Joe on 3/7 @ 6:29 pm #
These were used very effectively against Bush, they can be used effectively against Obama. One caveat though–I think it is more effective if we on the right do not lie. Frankly we do not have to lie. The truth is disturbing enough.
RULE 1: “Power is not only what you have, but what the enemy thinks you have.” Power is derived from 2 main sources - money and people. “Have-Nots” must build power from flesh and blood. (These are two things of which there is a plentiful supply. Government and corporations always have a difficult time appealing to people, and usually do so almost exclusively with economic arguments.)
RULE 2: “Never go outside the expertise of your people.” It results in confusion, fear and retreat. Feeling secure adds to the backbone of anyone. (Organizations under attack wonder why radicals don’t address the “real” issues. This is why. They avoid things with which they have no knowledge.)
RULE 3: “Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy.” Look for ways to increase insecurity, anxiety and uncertainty. (This happens all the time. Watch how many organizations under attack are blind-sided by seemingly irrelevant arguments that they are then forced to address.)
RULE 4: “Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.” If the rule is that every letter gets a reply, send 30,000 letters. You can kill them with this because no one can possibly obey all of their own rules. (This is a serious rule. The besieged entity’s very credibility and reputation is at stake, because if activists catch it lying or not living up to its commitments, they can continue to chip away at the damage.)
RULE 5: “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.” There is no defense. It’s irrational. It’s infuriating. It also works as a key pressure point to force the enemy into concessions. (Pretty crude, rude and mean, huh? They want to create anger and fear.)
RULE 6: “A good tactic is one your people enjoy.” They’ll keep doing it without urging and come back to do more. They’re doing their thing, and will even suggest better ones. (Radical activists, in this sense, are no different that any other human being. We all avoid “un-fun” activities, and but we revel at and enjoy the ones that work and bring results.)
RULE 7: “A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.” Don’t become old news. (Even radical activists get bored. So to keep them excited and involved, organizers are constantly coming up with new tactics.)
RULE 8: “Keep the pressure on. Never let up.” Keep trying new things to keep the opposition off balance. As the opposition masters one approach, hit them from the flank with something new. (Attack, attack, attack from all sides, never giving the reeling organization a chance to rest, regroup, recover and re-strategize.)
RULE 9: “The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.” Imagination and ego can dream up many more consequences than any activist. (Perception is reality. Large organizations always prepare a worst-case scenario, something that may be furthest from the activists’ minds. The upshot is that the organization will expend enormous time and energy, creating in its own collective mind the direst of conclusions. The possibilities can easily poison the mind and result in demoralization.)
RULE 10: “If you push a negative hard enough, it will push through and become a positive.” Violence from the other side can win the public to your side because the public sympathizes with the underdog. (Unions used this tactic. Peaceful [albeit loud] demonstrations during the heyday of unions in the early to mid-20th Century incurred management’s wrath, often in the form of violence that eventually brought public sympathy to their side.)
RULE 11: “The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.” Never let the enemy score points because you’re caught without a solution to the problem. (Old saw: If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem. Activist organizations have an agenda, and their strategy is to hold a place at the table, to be given a forum to wield their power. So, they have to have a compromise solution.)
RULE 12: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions. (This is cruel, but very effective. Direct, personalized criticism and ridicule works.)
Comment by router on 3/7 @ 6:49 pm #
obama a progressive just like herbet hoover
Comment by meya on 3/7 @ 6:56 pm #
Just none of y’all go Galt please. You’re invaluable.
Comment by ThomasD on 3/7 @ 7:27 pm #
Ooh, who gave you that one Meya?
Comment by Kurt on 3/7 @ 8:52 pm #
Hate the sin, fuck the sinner.
Comment by Swen Swenson on 3/7 @ 9:26 pm #
Something to bear in mind: By definition, 50% of the population is below average. That 50% would appear to be the natural constituency of the left. Churchill was right: “If you are not a liberal at 20, you have no heart. If you are not Conservative by 40, you have no brain.”
It seems we’re dealing with a lot of 40-year-old liberals..
Comment by Swen Swenson on 3/7 @ 9:29 pm #
And I am so stealing that!
Comment by Sdferr on 3/7 @ 9:31 pm #
What key ingredient of Churchill’s world has changed in ours, altering the sociological landscape altogether, Swen? I’d offer, marriage, and with it, the generalized single minded focus of raising children. But that’s a guess on my part.
Comment by Seth on 3/7 @ 9:33 pm #
@35, Joe said:
“I think it is more effective if we on the right do not lie. Frankly we do not have to lie. The truth is disturbing enough.”
In one of the Army information operations manuals, I read something that struck me as fundamental:
“The complex truth is always defeated by a simple lie.”
Think about it: the right is pedalling complex truths, only to have them roundly defeated by a series of simple lies. We see it over and over, yet the right has yet to come up with an effective answer. That said, I share Joe’s distaste with lying in return.
Perhaps the answer to simple lies is to formulate even simpler truths…what is a complex truth after all, but a series of smaller truths. KISS principle.
Comment by Sdferr on 3/7 @ 9:40 pm #
I don’t think that will work Seth. The fact of the series being the obstacle. It just is complex. and we’ve got to stick to the truths we have as they are.
My sense is the way to defeat the simple lie is demonstrate that it is a lie. That at least can be done sometimes without reference to the more complex truths through reductio arguments and other demonstrations of the outright absurdities in the tales of the left.
Comment by Seth on 3/7 @ 9:42 pm #
@42: I’d say that what’s changed is the boomers. Often described as the most self-centered generation ever (even by themselves sometimes). I’d guess (and it’s only a guess) that their sense of self entitlement has lead to an extended adolesence. They’re just growing up slow.
Don’t think I’m ’splainin it well.
Comment by Stephen M on 3/7 @ 9:42 pm #
Allahpundit has now taken a position.
Still hiding from Jeff G. though.
Comment by Seth on 3/7 @ 9:43 pm #
I fear you may be right in your critique, Sdferr. I also fear that reducto arguments may be beyond the attention span of the target audience. Hope I’m wrong.
Comment by Sdferr on 3/7 @ 9:45 pm #
I think your 45 is right on point too. There’s much to be pondered there.
Comment by The Monster on 3/8 @ 12:21 am #
Comment by peter jackson on 3/8 @ 12:33 am #
Well first it’s a presumption. Certainly none of those Darleen calls out has met more than the tiniest fraction of non-leftists, making their conclusion that all non-leftists are malevolent or defective absurd.
Unfortunately the left is brought to their bad faith by their own logic, namely, their premise that people can have beneficial social outcomes merely by wanting them badly enough. But unfortunately one of the properties of equality is symmetry: if the will is the deed then the deed is the will. When your standard issue leftist sees an undesirable social outcome, their first thought it is that someone some where must have intended that outcome. The idea that social outcomes in general occur due to individual circumstance and/or chance and/or the unpredictable results of competitive actions in the marketplace—none of which is intended by anyone—is incomprehensible to them.
So how not to play their linguistically rigged game yet still engage and defend ourselves from them? All I can come up with are
1. Take every opportunity to try and convert them to the cause for freedom, even if it requires us to ignore everything they are saying.
2. Ignore them while pursuing our own well articulated reform agenda and trying to convert as many of the People as possible to the cause of freedom. When asked about them, bemoan the fact that they don’t have anything to bring to the table.
3. When necessary chastise them as children, and argue that their ideas are primitive, tribalistic, and childish.
I call this approach Optimistic Grownup-ism.
Outstanding post Darleen, You really strike at the heart of the matter.
Freedom First/
Peter.
Comment by section9 on 3/8 @ 8:46 am #
One of the interesting things about the whole Jeff G. vs. Patterico/Allahpundit debate was the inability of the latter two to get Jeff’s central point: do not let the Left control the Language.
When you cede the ground in the name of civility, you’ve let the Left use Alinsky’s Rules to Shape the Battlefield. Jeff’s whole point, which I get immensely after watching the Left take apart a hapless Bush Administration, is that Language is central to everything we do (and that’s not simply because I gave those graverobbers at Landmark Education some of my money-Language is Crucial). That’s why I am amazed that Noam Chomsky isn’t more influential than he actually is: for a man who knows linguistics like the back of his hand (and I would wonder if Jeff might not comment on this): why would a master linguist not be able to use Language to get his point across better than he does?
The point of the Left is not to have civil debate because the Left understands Lenin’s Great Question from The State and Revolution: “Who Rules over Whom”. When the Right gets this in the way the Robert Stacy McCain got it in his call to arms:
You don’t Oppose a majority by ceding the ground of Language. Not one bloody inch. Conservatives need to Get This!
Comment by meya on 3/8 @ 8:24 pm #
‘In a word: “Wolverines!‒
This is usually a joke liberals tell.