In this morning's Plain Dealer there is a letter to the editor. In the letter the writer is complaining about calling Sherrod Brown an incompetent idiot. This was from a previous letter to the editor. He goes on to cite names used against Obama and the Democrats at Tea party rallies, some of which he describes as racist, these are his examples monkey,Hitler, Nazi,fascist,communist.
I think we can agree that monkey and Hitler are out of bounds, even though these were commonly used against Bush. In fact the most derogatory of these monkey and Hitler were used far more often against Bush than Obama. Communist , Nazi ,fascist , or incompetent should never be ruled out these are words that can be used to describe the positions that politicians take. We can argue whether or not they fall into these categories but the debate should be allowed to be raised.
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Good luck reaching a consensus on what is appropriate and what is inappropriate. Often someones position on inappropriateness depends on whose ox is being gored. Most people will agree that there are lines that shouldn't be crossed. Problem is in identifying those lines. The infamous "N-----" word went from frowned upon to basically forbidden. Some have said the NAZI attrocities were so henious nothing should be compared to them. I disagree to some extent since we shouldn't ignore actions that mirror those that led to the NAZI-fication of the German government. With a minority president, we are now seeing his supporters denounce almost any criticism as a form of racism, whether there is any basis or not. Free expression is crucial to a vibrant debate. I do think that at times free expression is abused and it would be nice if people would exercise more self-censorship. However, I hope most people are able to see past the nonsense to focus on substance of a discussion.
ReplyDeleteAs to your example of Senator Brown, it means nothing to me if someone calls him incompetent without explaining what he failed to accomplish. Many politicians can be wrong on policy issues without being personally incompetent. Ted Kennedy was (in my opinion) wrong on nearly every issue. However, by all accounts he was known as one of the most competent senators and he very effective used the senate rules to advance policies with which I disagreed. That is competence.
I think that it would be fair to refer to Obama as a socialist (in the Western European sense of the term). But to call him a Nazi, Hitler, fascist, or communist is factually untrue (to put it mildly) and demeans the experiences of those who suffered under actual fascist and communist regimes.
ReplyDeleteAnd to call him a monkey is just racist.
Large Bill wrote:
Ted Kennedy was (in my opinion) wrong on nearly every issue. However, by all accounts he was known as one of the most competent senators and he very effective used the senate rules to advance policies with which I disagreed. That is competence.
Heh. Yeah, since politicians are only interested in gaining power and looting the treasury, we don't necessarily want them to be competent at their jobs.
If, for example, a thief broke into my house, I would want him to be an idiotic buffoon, rather than a master burglar.