American democracy is based upon the concept of a "civil society". That is one in which people are free to speak their mind and to argue with their neighbors with each side respecting the views of the other and the right of the opponents to state them. After all argument is completed, the decision is made. It's fair to say that no country in history has ever lived completely as a civil society. Anger and resentment are always there lurking under the surface, but the USA came pretty close to the ideal for a long time. Extreme views led to strong responses, but most other views were tolerated. Lately, however, tolerance for the opposition has broken down to a great extent. Strangely, it turns out that the people who talk most often about the need for tolerance are the most intolerant.
I was struck once again by this sad truth when I read the story of the gay oriented club and hotel in Manhattan which is being boycotted by many in the gay community because its owners had the temerity to meet with Texas senator Ted Cruz. At last count about 5000 people had signed a petition calling for a total boycott of the club/hotel, and Broadway Cares, an organization that raises money for AIDS, has cancelled an event that was to be held at the club in a few weeks. This behavior is unhinged. The owners of the club did not announce that they now oppose gay marriage or that they support Ted Cruz for president. They just met with the Texas Republican. According to the club owners they spent most of the meeting talking about foreign policy. For the angry haters at the core of this response, however, what was said does not matter. They cannot tolerate anyone who would so much as speak to Cruz. And why is that? Simple, it's because Cruz has been an opponent of gay marriage or so they say. But president Obama used to be an opponent and Hillary Clinton was until very recently, and speaking to them would never engender such a response. No, speaking to Cruz is tantamount to a crime for these people because he is clearly a proponent of Christian morality, and they cannot tolerate anyone who speaks in favor of that.
Thirty years ago, a reaction like this boycott movement would have greatly hurt those in the boycott as the average American recoiled from such an outburst. Today, however, that reaction is gone to a great extent, particularly on the left. To a great extent, this change is due to the tactics adopted by the left especially since president Obama took office, but earlier too. The Democrats have made the concept or identity politics their central organizing principle in almost every campaign. They are not the party of Americans; they are instead the party of African Americans, or Hispanics, or Asian Americans, or women or gays. And in each election, the Democrats portray their opponents not as Americans but as people who are against blacks, Hispanics, gays, etc. For the Democrats, the electoral fight is not portrayed as one party against another; rather it is the fight of the Democrat Moses against the tyrannical and oppressive Republican Pharaoh. And, as in the Bible, the forces of the Pharaoh must end up not just beaten but destroyed.
During the Clinton presidency, the Republicans took control of Congress for the first time in 40 years. The Democrats did not know how to be in the opposition, so they developed a style of personally attacking their adversaries. The mainstream media loved it because it made for good TV and was much more interesting that actually discussion of the issues. Then came Lewinsky and Bill Clinton's lying under oath and his impeachment. The response (which came straight from the lips of Hillary Clinton herself) was the claim that the stories that Bill had had sex with Monica were just evil stories generated by a "vast right-wing conspiracy". Obviously, that was a false charge, but it was a way of making the Clintons' opponents into evil individuals who would try to destroy the president with supposedly phony stories. It was, more than anything, a personal attack on the opponents.
That method of attack worked for the Clintons, so when Bush became president the Democrats stuck with it. Bush was evil and dumb and Dick Cheney was actually in charge; indeed, Cheney engineered the Iraq war as a way to make money for Halliburton and his friends in the oil industry. These were extraordinary personal attacks but anyone who lived through those years and paid attention would well remember them. Couple that with the attacks that the GOP hated gays, blacks, Hispanics, and other minorities and you have a big part of the Democrats playbook during Bush's time in office.
This all came into full bloom when Obama took office. Any opposition to the president was racist, or so we were told. Ideas were never debated; opponents were just personally attacked. That methodology was used to such a great extent that charges of racism became a punch line devoid of meaning. No matter what the opposition said, it was boiled down by the Democrats into a claim that the opposition was really just a racist personal attack on the president.
The method of personal attack on the opposition spread into other areas. Those who support the idea that Earth is experiencing human-caused global warming stopped debating those who argued to the contrary. Instead, the opponents became "deniers" (like Holocaust deniers) and they were to be hounded out of positions at universities and denied grants for their research. Science did not matter; the opponents were to be destroyed. Those who might state a position at a university which conflicted with the liberal orthodoxy were likewise to be refused the chance to speak and hounded from the campus. Free speech on college campuses was reduced to only speech approved by the liberal thought police. When a pizzeria owner in Indiana said she wouldn't want to cater a gay wedding, she and her family got multiple death threats and her business was closed due to repeated threats of violence. When a policeman in Ferguson shot a black teen, it was immediately portray as good vs. evil. The policeman shot an unarmed teen in the back despite the teen having his hands up to surrender. The policemen was a racist monster. Even though that story turned out to be completely phony, the fuse was lit. Demonstrators were in the streets and looters roamed the city. Had the police moved in to stop the crime wave of the looters, the story would most likely have been about police brutality by those evil racists who were trampling on the righteous anger of the community. Now, as the election campaign is starting for 2016 (way too early, I might add), the politics of vilification is continuing. Hillary Clinton wants to end income inequality not by bringing up those on the lower end of the economic ladder but by "toppling" (her word) those at the top. She is aiming at the evil rich, those who have to be destroyed if there is to be equality. I guess we are all to be equally poor.
America cannot continue to thrive without a civil society. In a year and a half we will get a new president, one who will hopefully be able to govern without resorting to false claims against his or her opponents. That will help, but it will not be enough. There will have to be a major re-education of the American public that we are all in this together. The people have to know that opponents are free to speak and that we cannot tolerate the fascist behavior that has manifested itself as the self appointed thought police on the left try to prevent their opponents from stating their views. The very future of the country is at stake. Patrick Henry is credited with saying ""I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." That statement must once again be accepted as the basic position of all Americans.
I was struck once again by this sad truth when I read the story of the gay oriented club and hotel in Manhattan which is being boycotted by many in the gay community because its owners had the temerity to meet with Texas senator Ted Cruz. At last count about 5000 people had signed a petition calling for a total boycott of the club/hotel, and Broadway Cares, an organization that raises money for AIDS, has cancelled an event that was to be held at the club in a few weeks. This behavior is unhinged. The owners of the club did not announce that they now oppose gay marriage or that they support Ted Cruz for president. They just met with the Texas Republican. According to the club owners they spent most of the meeting talking about foreign policy. For the angry haters at the core of this response, however, what was said does not matter. They cannot tolerate anyone who would so much as speak to Cruz. And why is that? Simple, it's because Cruz has been an opponent of gay marriage or so they say. But president Obama used to be an opponent and Hillary Clinton was until very recently, and speaking to them would never engender such a response. No, speaking to Cruz is tantamount to a crime for these people because he is clearly a proponent of Christian morality, and they cannot tolerate anyone who speaks in favor of that.
Thirty years ago, a reaction like this boycott movement would have greatly hurt those in the boycott as the average American recoiled from such an outburst. Today, however, that reaction is gone to a great extent, particularly on the left. To a great extent, this change is due to the tactics adopted by the left especially since president Obama took office, but earlier too. The Democrats have made the concept or identity politics their central organizing principle in almost every campaign. They are not the party of Americans; they are instead the party of African Americans, or Hispanics, or Asian Americans, or women or gays. And in each election, the Democrats portray their opponents not as Americans but as people who are against blacks, Hispanics, gays, etc. For the Democrats, the electoral fight is not portrayed as one party against another; rather it is the fight of the Democrat Moses against the tyrannical and oppressive Republican Pharaoh. And, as in the Bible, the forces of the Pharaoh must end up not just beaten but destroyed.
During the Clinton presidency, the Republicans took control of Congress for the first time in 40 years. The Democrats did not know how to be in the opposition, so they developed a style of personally attacking their adversaries. The mainstream media loved it because it made for good TV and was much more interesting that actually discussion of the issues. Then came Lewinsky and Bill Clinton's lying under oath and his impeachment. The response (which came straight from the lips of Hillary Clinton herself) was the claim that the stories that Bill had had sex with Monica were just evil stories generated by a "vast right-wing conspiracy". Obviously, that was a false charge, but it was a way of making the Clintons' opponents into evil individuals who would try to destroy the president with supposedly phony stories. It was, more than anything, a personal attack on the opponents.
That method of attack worked for the Clintons, so when Bush became president the Democrats stuck with it. Bush was evil and dumb and Dick Cheney was actually in charge; indeed, Cheney engineered the Iraq war as a way to make money for Halliburton and his friends in the oil industry. These were extraordinary personal attacks but anyone who lived through those years and paid attention would well remember them. Couple that with the attacks that the GOP hated gays, blacks, Hispanics, and other minorities and you have a big part of the Democrats playbook during Bush's time in office.
This all came into full bloom when Obama took office. Any opposition to the president was racist, or so we were told. Ideas were never debated; opponents were just personally attacked. That methodology was used to such a great extent that charges of racism became a punch line devoid of meaning. No matter what the opposition said, it was boiled down by the Democrats into a claim that the opposition was really just a racist personal attack on the president.
The method of personal attack on the opposition spread into other areas. Those who support the idea that Earth is experiencing human-caused global warming stopped debating those who argued to the contrary. Instead, the opponents became "deniers" (like Holocaust deniers) and they were to be hounded out of positions at universities and denied grants for their research. Science did not matter; the opponents were to be destroyed. Those who might state a position at a university which conflicted with the liberal orthodoxy were likewise to be refused the chance to speak and hounded from the campus. Free speech on college campuses was reduced to only speech approved by the liberal thought police. When a pizzeria owner in Indiana said she wouldn't want to cater a gay wedding, she and her family got multiple death threats and her business was closed due to repeated threats of violence. When a policeman in Ferguson shot a black teen, it was immediately portray as good vs. evil. The policeman shot an unarmed teen in the back despite the teen having his hands up to surrender. The policemen was a racist monster. Even though that story turned out to be completely phony, the fuse was lit. Demonstrators were in the streets and looters roamed the city. Had the police moved in to stop the crime wave of the looters, the story would most likely have been about police brutality by those evil racists who were trampling on the righteous anger of the community. Now, as the election campaign is starting for 2016 (way too early, I might add), the politics of vilification is continuing. Hillary Clinton wants to end income inequality not by bringing up those on the lower end of the economic ladder but by "toppling" (her word) those at the top. She is aiming at the evil rich, those who have to be destroyed if there is to be equality. I guess we are all to be equally poor.
America cannot continue to thrive without a civil society. In a year and a half we will get a new president, one who will hopefully be able to govern without resorting to false claims against his or her opponents. That will help, but it will not be enough. There will have to be a major re-education of the American public that we are all in this together. The people have to know that opponents are free to speak and that we cannot tolerate the fascist behavior that has manifested itself as the self appointed thought police on the left try to prevent their opponents from stating their views. The very future of the country is at stake. Patrick Henry is credited with saying ""I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." That statement must once again be accepted as the basic position of all Americans.
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