The Ownership Society

[subplotkudzu]

I'm probably going to segue this into other political natter starting tomorrow, but I do want to put forward one thing I think political parties need to do to restore some sense of trust.

They have to publically own or disown their outliers.

It's become all too easy for the wingnut right and the nutroots left to spout on about anything and everything with a total lack of decorum, civility and often evidence, and for the main body of the party to profit from the base energizing but disown it (with a wink and a nudge and a little wave to keep the hits coming) when the line is crossed and someone starts calling them on it. "It's not us, and why are you being so senstive."

Bullshit. If you're going to embrace these people as part of the party you have to own them, and you can get called out for it when they do go out of line. I'm not talking about opnions, where John Lewis points out his opinion of McCain's attacks. He's a citizen, he's not part of Obama's campaign, he's allowed to his opnion. I'm taking about this coming from the Inland Republican women's group.



But of course, they certinaly didn't think anyone would find it racist.

Before the Democrats get too holier than thou, there's always this


If we want to have a civil conversation between people on opposite sides rather than just drive each other into ideological corners we have to slap down our own extremes. This is where the party ends; I can't stand listening to you and your racist friend. 
 

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

The bikini and gun photoshop is light-years away from being the most offensive anti-Palin thing I've seen in the past couple of weeks. There's the "SARAH PALIN IS A C**T" (without asterisks) T-shirt.

And yes, this is _exactly_ the problem with politics nowadays. When someone says "I hate Obama," chances are good that what the person really means is "I hate that knowitall baristo at Starbucks with the white-boy dreadlocks and the 'Buck Fush' t-shirt" or "I hate the person who keeps stenciling 'Cheney' under the word 'Stop' on stop signs."

The magic of the internet is that we all get to see the other side at their worst -- because both sides are eagerly searching for examples. It's a perfect feedback loop.

How to break it? I don't know. Whichever party were to try it would be in the position of having to say in public "Many of our supporters are borderline psychotics with Tourette's syndrome and internet access" -- leaving the other side the almost irresistible temptation to respond "SEE? They ADMIT IT!!" So nobody's going to go first. It's also a great way to piss off the base. McCain's good manners and collegiality don't win him any prizes from the hardcore conservatives who run web logs.

Perhaps if some national crisis, foreign threat, or natural disaster -- whoops, nope. Tried all of those already.

I found this (http://www.cracked.com/article_15663_god-fuse-10-things-christians-atheists-can-agree-on.html) to be a surprisingly thoughtful essay on basically the same topic.

Cambias

[whswhs.livejournal.com]

Sad to say, I think I have lost a friendship over political differences this year.

It started out when the friend in question blogged a long rant copied from some woman, expressing hostility to Muslims, and ending up with the line about America being a Christian nation. I didn't want to get into the anti-Muslim thing, though I thought the sentiments were pretty repulsive (hint: I'm not of the school of thought that says that not being tortured is a special privilege reserved for Americans, and torturing criminals of other nationalities is acceptable). Instead, I commented briefly that the foundation of American institutions is a constitution that does not contain the word "God" and mentions religion only to restrict its involvement in public affairs, and that calling it a Christian nation was historically inaccurate. This resulted in his telling me that if I didn't support Christianity then I was on the side of the Muslims. Well, it struck me as pretty dumb to suggest that someone who objected to Christianity as an established religion would favor Islam as an established religion, but I probably should have just logged off without saying any more; that I did not makes the breakdown of the friendship partly my fault, as the discussion got heated on both sides.

More recently, he's been using most of his bandwidth on anti-Obama rants, characteristically referring to him as the "Obamassiah." I tried explaining that playing games with a candidate's name, whether it was "Obamassiah" or "Barack HUSSEIN Obama" or "McBush," while it might be gratifying to people who did it, was only going to make anyone who wasn't in their faction dismiss them as emotionally biased and by less likely to support their candidate; it didn't get through. Indeed, its only effect was to induce him to disable comments. So I think it's past time I decided just to leave him alone and not make matters worse.

But, you know, the really sad thing is that seeing him as totally preoccupied by partisan emotions as he is has diminished him in my eyes. I'm a fanatic myself, and I understand fanaticism all too well, but I've been trying to cultivate a measure of detachment from my own passions, and learn to talk with people who disagree with me. And I must say I'm glad to have the two of you setting me a good example. Well, mostly glad.