Had an interesting experience last night. A friend of mine and I were dining on sushi in one of the trendy neighborhoods of St. Louis. Traditionally, she'd voted in what you'd probably characterize as a left-center pattern; whereas I support a few good local Democrats, but tend to vote primarily conservatively.
Anyway, she's an open-minded person, and we'd been speaking a bit about politics lately. I used to believe that there were good ideas on both ends of the political spectrum, and well-meaning persons in both parties. On the former, I've moved slowly to the right; on the latter...
I'd been mentioning to her my recent observation that some/many of a liberal persuasion tend to demonize their opponents. Not merely say they're wrong about things, but actually to fail to believe their opponents are capable of any good motivation. (The old saw is that conservatives think liberals are well-intentioned, though mistaken or foolish, and liberals think conservatives are evil and full of hate.)
As we were finishing up and taking care of the bill, six or seven twenty-somethings were seated right next to us, engaged in a discussion about the Democratic primaries. I'm not a busybody, but I love to try to get into other people's shoes, and it's always educational to pay attention to what you can overhear in public.
They all were quite clearly Democrats. One girl was saying glowing things about Kerry, there was some discussion about the comparative merits of Wesley Clark. Another girl sounded like she was still making up her mind. But the pair of guys at the at far end left the strongest impression.
I wasn't listening in earnest at first, but I kept hearing the word "hate", enunciated very strongly, from the far end of the table. We both stopped to listen for a few seconds to hear what the hating was about. (They spoke fairly loudly, so it wasn't like we were going out of our way to eavesdrop.)
At first he was talking about hating some particular candidate: he was another George Bush. [Lieberman, I assume.] He loudly say: "I don't even want to hear the word 'Jew'!"
[St. Louis has a good-sized Jewish population. And draws a good number of east-coast students to Wash U. The man could have been Jewish, and could have been using the term sardonically. Or he could have been an anti-semite. Benefit of the doubt, I'd say.]
Then he mentioned how some candidate "pretended" to care about morals. He hated him more for that. Said something about his being a very shrewd politician.
[Ummm... perhaps I was born yesterday, but isn't it actually possible that a politician could actually have some kind of morals or care about them on a national level? I mean, it isn't like Joe Leiberman really sleeps around and takes drugs, after all...]
Then he talked about visiting somebody in another state. Something about someone's uncle, who "Said he supported Bush. I hated him before, but that made me really hate him."
All very edifying stuff.
You know, this objectification is bad, and I've been slipping into it myself lately. It's really hard: I want to credit liberals as being well-intented, even can no longer agree with the policies I once considered viable. But it gets difficult when you repeatedly see such a bad cluster of both behavior and policies stuck over in one end of the political spectrum, and need some kind of handle by which to refer to this ... thing.
For any liberals who might read this (hint: you probably think you're centrists), I apologize for saying "liberals this" and "liberals that" a bit much lately. I'm going to try to refocus on the ideas again and keep out of the personal-sounding stuff.
We conservatives are struggling against a system which is no longer just a set of bad though well-meaning ideas, but has metastasized into something which looks to me very much akin to mindless hatred and unpricinpled us-versus-themism. (A'la Orwell's 1984.)
It's important we not fall into the same trap: Mindless identification with team X allows the principles you allegedly stand for to be changed under your feet, without you noticing it.* And it allows you to demonize and objectivty everyone on the other side, when, in truth, some may indeed have good motives, even if confused.
The point here isn't to bash 'liberals'. Instead, my supposed goal is actually just to support what is good and oppose what is harmful, as best as I can see it, with the best evidence I can find. And hope that, in doing so, others will see and think, and a few believe, and the world will be a slightly better place.
But, that being said (outside philosophy and religion) there's no set of misinformation which is quite as damaging as that which is political. If a man is wrong about his diet, he hurts but himself. But if he's wrong about his politics, he flushes his country down the tube.
And we're in a time of political upheaval. And the stakes are high. (Perhaps they're always high, who knows?)
So I'm specificly concerned about policies being spread among liberals (both my friends and those I do not know) -- policies which ultimately make our society and people's lives worse. And even more, I'm concerned about the near-mindless hatred. Which hurts the hater as much, if not more than, any of it's intended targets.
But that being said, I see a cluster of behaviors and views which tend to group in among the same people. The mindless opposition to Bush. (Good heavens, if Bush started to claim water was important, I fear they'd recommend we start drinking kerosene!) The hating. Support for simplistic though ultimately harmful ideas. The hating. Closed-mindedness. And did I mention the hating?
And it's hard to describe this ... this mindset, this meme -- which is no longer even left-wing liberalism (since it adopts any stance which is opposed to the President, even when he's acting as a liberal) -- by any other term other than saying "liberals do X". I'd like to say "liberalism says X", and not make it sound like a slam against all those faceless "liberals", but that's hard to do, because...
This is true: Liberals oppose Bush's spending spree.
This is false: Liberalism opposes Bush's spending spree.
Who knows. Perhaps this whole exercise in blogging is pointless anyway. I'm not here to make a bunch of conservatives demonize liberals even more. (Including myself, when I slip up, for which I apologize.) I mean, what's the point of preaching to the choir?
I guess the hope is that there are still good-hearted liberals out there who really do want to make the world a better place, but just don't realize that the policies they have supported previously do the opposite, and also perhaps don't also realize that hating -- yes, even hating President Bush -- isn't the answer, and, in fact, is very dangerous and corrosive to this democratic society we all cherish.
And that perhaps, just perhaps, a few might stumble onto an article here and be challenged in some of their former assumptions. Perhaps just one or two little areas. (Or correct me, instead, with better info.)
Certainly, I'm not helping things when I come across as being condemning towards someone who falls under a specific label.
I guess it's also helpful to feed good information to those already similarly persuaded: after all, we all have friends of different political views (if we're lucky) and such information might be useful when having an earnest heart-to-heart discussion on politics.
Ah heck, I admit it: Another hope is that I hope a number of you enjoy yourselves and get a laugh or two now and then. Sadly, liberalism today provides a lot of good material (see above comments about Pat Buchannan)... but perhaps that's counter-productive to my bigger concern about rescuing people from this mind-trap I'll call "liberalism", for want of a better name.
Your thoughts, commentary or constructive criticisms are welcomed.
* Regarding having our principles changed: For example, lately I've been noticing ads and liberal blog entries criticising President Bush for (a) using our troops in Iraq in an expensive exercise in nation-building, and (b) spending us into oblivion. It's hard not to laugh: the Democratic Party apparently now sides with Pat Buchannan! I'm glad they're all "arch-conservatives" now, but if spending too much is the problem, then they're still going to have to vote for Bush: Though fiscally irresponsible, his proposals are still more frugal than those of any Democratic candidate.
Further Reading
Liberals: "We Hate Bush!"
Conservatives: "They Hate Bush and/or Us!"
Liberals: "No We Don't!"
Liberals: "We Hate Him Because You Hated Clinton First"
Conservatives: "Clinton Comparison is Weak"
Analysis