On Civility: by Fay Voshell
Apr 10th, 2010 by David Anderson
Calls for civility can be a means of silencing opposition. Although the political left has continually demeaned the Tea Party movement, it has also constantly called for civility of discourse. Those who are in the Tea Party movement need to recognize and to resist both the attempts to discredit it as well as to ignore the calls for civil dialogue as defined by the left. They must do so because the left’s strategies of vilification combined with calls for civility and peaceful bipartisanship are two tactics of a strategy meant to discredit and silence the opposition.
It is necessary to confront, challenge and diffuse the various smears directed toward conservative political groups springing up all over the United States. The charges leveled against the Tea Party have included racism, violence, hate speech, ignorance, lack of education and even a penchant for outdoor barbeques and fast cars.
But while patriotic groups must pick off such charges one by one, demanding evidence and refuting false accusations; at the same time, such charges must not succeed in their chief mission, which is to vitiate the opposition by putting it continually on the defensive.
The new patriotic movements must not lose the impetus of offensive strategies, chief among which are voting out candidates for office who do not stand for the transcendent values of the Judeo-Christian ethic, which ethic was one of the chief impetiti behind the formation of the US constitution. Of course, the flip side of that strategy is to support candidates who do adhere to the ethic behind the constitution.
But the diversionary tactics employed by the left to keep the Tea Party movement constantly on the defensive are coupled with a more subtle strategy; namely, a call to civility as defined by the left. The goal of the left, which seldom–if ever– follows its own advice, clearly is to vitiate the Tea Party’s claims to truth and its attempts to reform the US political system. Leftist calls for civility are an attempt to render opposition so meek and mild, so intimidated and soft spoken that it becomes utterly ineffective as a political reform movement. In brief, the constant calls from the left for “civility” are a thinly disguised means for silencing protestors.
It is important to make a distinction between gratuitous incivility and moral outrage. Human discourse, if it is to be meaningful, abides by generally recognized rules of civil behavior. Such rules exclude profanity, name calling, and unjustifiable personal attacks. Also excluded are slander, rumor mongering and sexually charged innuendoes.
But the left has sought to extend the rules of generally recognized civil behavior to include strong expressions of moral outrage, attempting to define genuine moral outrage as incivility; or worse, racism.
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To that end, members of the left often have sought to silence the opposition by attempts to make the Tea Party and other conservative groups speak the language of the left, to accept the left’s terms of debate, which are almost always put in the context of race, victimization, political correctness and multi-culturalism.
To put it another way, members of the left have certain politica/doctrinal assumptions as the bases of any dialogue. They often seek to rope in and corral opposition by requiring the opposition to speak the language of the left and to define moral issues according to leftist priorities.
That is one reason why the left most often resorts to the constantly repeated and, by now, the often merely rhetorical trope of “racism.” A caveat: It is important to note the left’s reduction of the term actually has been tragic for minorities, as the broadening of racism’s true meaning weakens justifiable attempts to confront and eradicate genuine cases of racist behavior.
But the point of this small essay is that it is imperative for conservatives to refuse to accept the left’s definition of racism. For the left, “racism” has become a catchall category embracing the nearly the entirety of morality and political action.
If at one time, the mere hint of sexual misconduct was enough to bring down any political leader, all it takes nowadays to destroy a reputation and to end a career is the charge of racism. It is a means of achieving–without dialogue, reasoning or factual proof–instant condemnation of conservative opposition.
In sum, being guilty of any of the multiple and increasingly arbitrary interpretations of racism by the left are, for the left’s followers, the equivalent of a Christian irrevocably breaking the Great Commandment.
The Tea Party and other conservative groups must not allow their genuine moral indignation to be redefined as incivility or racism. Moral indignation arises from recognition of evil. In turn, recognition of evil requires strong language, strong confrontation and strong action. The prophets of ancient Israel and Jesus Christ all used strong language to define and to confront the injustices and societal ills of their time. The members of the Tea Party movement should encourage one another to follow those illustrious examples. By so doing, they will avoid falling prey to scurrilous attacks which keep them always on the defensive, to attempts to silence them by hypocritical and spurious calls for “civility,” and to efforts to define opposition as automatically “racist.”
It is extremely important for member of the Tea Party and other groups to speak boldly and truthfully; to refuse to abide by the left’s terms of debate and to articulate clearly and precisely their short and long term goals. Moral truth is the first and most necessary requirement.
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I agree. Boldness and civility are not mutually exclusive, but many people try to convince us that they are.
Come to the Riverfront on 15 April and you will see a positive celebration of Freedom, Liberty and Opportunity.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-O3bPbtEP3k
Mike Protack
Screw the leftist bastards. Treat ‘em like dirt.
Fay, the fallacy of your argument is failure to recognize the reality of racism. You make it sound imaginary. To say charges of racism are a leftist plot is to deny the basics of American history. There is no doubt a racist component to the Tea Party. Being naive defensive won’t make it go away.
America was the most racist of Nations. The history of the United States indelibly stained by racism. American tradition has been one of cruel and unusual racism. Do you deny that blight? Are you saying it no longer exists? Racism has disappeared from the heart of man? The Tea Party led by Glen Beck and Rush Limbaugh is a friendly environment for racism. Tea Party advocate Governor of Virginia is still quibbling about the Civil War. Trying to resurrect the righteousness of the Confederacy. A drunken Southern Congressman yells “liar” to the black President. And you say racism is a figment of the “left”.
Play golf at some of the southern Delaware clubs. You will be amazed to hear the plain straight out racist language directed at this first black President. There are plenty of racists. The ones I know love what the Tea Party is doing to Obama. Some are driving up for your rally. They are smart enough to know you can’t yell n***Redacted
er in public. But they talk that way in private. You are living in a make believe world of polite educated people.This is not to infer Tea Party is racist altogether, rather just replying to you saying charges of racism are totally unfounded. How can anybody preach truthfulness then deny the basic facts of life? There is a racist component to the Tea Party.
Racism may be outlawed but it’s not been purged from the soul of the Nation. It goes unspoken. It’s the Law, and only the Law, preventing racists from doing evil deeds today. You are aware there is a large white supremacy movement in America? You are aware they share the sentiments of the Tea Party regarding this particular President. That Obama, by his very being, does not see America the way “we” see America, as Sarah Palin puts it.
The Tea Party is an all white movement that is vilifying the first black President. There is a nexus.
You encourage the Tea Party to speak boldly and truthfully but, as usual, there is not much to say except vague expressions of paranoia directed at an ill defined “left”.
Is it the Left manning the killer drones over Pakistan? Is it the Left extending the homebuyers tax credit? It is the Left talking up offshore drilling and nukes? Is it the Left letting individuals pool for better insurance rates. Stopping insurance company rip offs? It it the Left that forced the banks to send us clear Credit Card statements?
Exactly what “left” is it that you are waging war against? The one that did for the Nation what Mitt Romney did in Massachusetts?
Asked to define “left” all we hear is stammering and stuttering because what President Obama is doing is not much different than what any other American President has done. Huge deficits like Reagan and Bush. Same bloated defense budget as Reagan and Bush. Same bailouts as Reagan and Bush. Same foreign policy as Reagan and Bush. Same social programs as Reagan and Bush. Like every President since Washington, Obama is playing the hand his was dealt. If he was white he’d just be another “liberal” Democrat. But black, he is a leftist marxist socialist communist destroyer of America.
You may prefer the word “stereotyping” over racism. In either case if Obama was white, there would be no Tea Party. Otherwise, George W. Bush would have been the perfect target for this outrage. I have a feeling “W” would get a standing ovation at your Tea rally. George W. may have been the biggest budget buster of all time, the most reckless with entitlements and war, but at least he was white and wore cowboy boots. That’s the country the Tea Party wants back. White with cowboy boots.
Mr. Holt, I couldn’t agree with you more that racism is America’s original sin. It has cost us a tremendous amount of pain in our history. It is an evil worthy of the contempt it holds in our society. I would also grant you that some people would love to see President Obama fail because it will in their mind show that blacks and other minorities aren’t up to the job and should keep their place.
Now will you grant me that the majority of the Tea Party movement has no relationship to racism and that is certainly true in Delaware. You can’t tell me that the same people who called Congress and almost derailed the Paulson bailout were doing it then because Bush and Paulson were black. They opposed the policy. Should they all of a sudden favor doubling down on the policy when President Obama proposes it because he is? No offense but it is the policy, silly.
That is why now that the war is no longer a central issue, Ron Paul is riding high in all of the straw polls. It is the policy, silly.
In Delaware minorities are part of the leadership of the Tea Party/ Patriot movement. It is the policy, silly.
Fay’s point is valid. Racism is an evil worthy of contempt. That is why some are misusing it to smear people without any regard for the truth. That is equally wrong. It diminishes the seriousness that we should take racism by being the boy that cries wolf. You can not use the charge of racism to shut people up because you lose an argument. Anyone who does so should be called on it. That is what Fay did. I congratulate her on it.
The Delaware Tea Party certainly does not approve of slurs towards anyone. We feel these types of attacks are not only hurtful, but are made only to intimidate, silence, and discredit the people they are tossed at. We must remember that we are all Americans and people who use slurs really only belittle themselves.–Chris Shirey when asked about the alleged slurs yelled at a some Congressmen.
There you have it. Can we move forward on the issues?
Thanks all for your responses. Speak boldly and without fear!
Bill, may I say I doubt if you really read or absorbed my post. You obviously did not read the caveat.
Bill, our country has not been the most racist country on earth. I would leave that odious distinction to Germany of the 1930’3-40′s, during which time every domestic and foreign policy was defined by race.
But more importantly, I think you should know that as one who grew up as a child during the 1950′s in Sussex county, I certainly know what racism looks like: it looks like and is racial apartheid–separate fountains, motels and schools, constant denigration–among other things.
Further, though I have no need to defend myself, I participated in the 60′s civil rights movement in NC, taking it on the chin from rabid segregationists in ways you cannot imagine, only one of which was a serious threat to burn a cross on the lawn. Yes, that was me, and I was called an “N” lover among other names unmentionable here on a public forum. I stood up for black children’s right to attend Southern Wayne High School, where I taught.
And I paid for it.
Best as always,
Fay
Racism is a two-way street. Sharpton, Jackson, and Wright, for example, are racists; and two of them are the unelected media faces of the ‘African-American’ community.
Like the rest of his illiberal ilk Bill Holt’s rambling incoherent attempt to indict Tea Partiers for racism is as free of any evidence as it is of logic, reason, or facts.
He has inferred racism because the Tea Partiers rise against the socialism of the “black president”. No evidence. Just his anecdotal nonsense and some blithering scattershot.
Bill – it is you and your communist cohorts who are obsessed with race. I don’t know any Tea Partiers or people sympathetic to it who give a rip whether Obama is black, white, yellow, blue or green.
What Obama is (very clearly and with a bounty of evidence to prove it) that matters to Tea Party people is RED – as in hammer and sickle red. Your denial of the abundant evidence of this is as deceitful as your fantasy spin fabricating Tea Party racism because you can’t comprehend that more than half of grassroots working Americans aren’t comrades in your authoritarian social vision.
Your constant ploys to project your racism and your obsessively racialist viewpoints onto people who vigorously oppose your authoritarian ideology and your controlling coercive agenda are quite pathetic.
That said, they reveal much about why you and yours will be politically decimated beyond any comprehension of which you are capable. You really really really don’t get it and thus it makes you almost genetically incapable of a rational self preserving political response.
You can whistle Dixie out of your asshole till the cows come home but it will never make the reality of the Tea Parties a matter of racism.
It may allow you to dismiss and ignore the reality you can’t face – that what they are really about is the beginning of the end of your beloved unlimited unitary national socialist welfare government gone-a-wildin’ for nearly a century.
I welcome your ignorance. It only makes the revolution that much more a fait accompli. You can’t defeat what you refuse to understand.
Delusion, self inflicted or otherwise, should be a very welcome characteristic in our opponents like Bill. Just lay on those tracks Bill. That whistle in the distance is just racism’s dog whistle you’re hearing. Nothing you need to worry about.
anon, we already had the revolution in 2008. Sorry you missed it. Millions of people were in the streets celebrating the victory. You are counter-revolutionary. Anybody who wonders if the Tea Party has more than it’s share of nuts need only read your post.
Your substanceless cult of personality binge weren’t no revolution there pal. If it was the Obamabots would be out in force to match the Tea Partiers over the last 2 years.
They are in varying stages of hangover, disgust, denial, or in your case stubborn delusion.
But don’t worry there Mr. Authoritarian-Government-Is-the-Revolution. The worst that happens when the Tea Party movement advances is you will be more free.
That’s the beauty of it. What we want we don’t have to force on you, unlike your “revolution” of coercion and powermongering.
Robespierre and Rousseau would surely dig your type of “revolution”. All emotion and hysteria, no objective truth or integrity. Just force, power, distortion and manipulation.
Only in your twisted mentality could the anti statist, anti establishment, anti authoritarian government grassroots be the “counter revolutionaries”.
I dare say even Orwell could scarcely have imagined the subtleties of your ideological insanity and perversion. But he came quite close.
“The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive”
Thomas Jefferson uttered those words. They are relevant to the events our nation is enduring. The Tea Party is the grassroots equivalent to Thomas Jefferson’s words.
David is correct in that the Delaware Tea Party groups won’t tolerate any thing but civil, contructive rejection to the Statist agend currently in power. That rejection must offer alternatives to be credible.
As Mike Protack said, come out on the 15th to see the Wilmington Tea Party discuss liberty, opportunity and prosperity.
Jason, you hit the nail on the head. But I don’t see any Statist agenda. I am being told there is one. I hear about it on News Corporation and Clear Channel Corporation but I don’t see it in any actual policy. What bothers you most as far statism? (Aside from health insurance reform)
As far as alternative policy, all I have heard is more of Bush economics. Lower taxes. Less regulation. But no specifics. Nothing new. Just more of the same from the 2000 and 2004 campaigns. Times are different but the Tea Party is pitching the same old same old.
All of the Delaware Congressional candidates are promising to lower taxes AND balance the budget. How in the heck does that work?
I’m not trying to bad mouth anybody, just don’t go for that lower taxes balance the budget deregulate get the government of my back stuff as much as I used to before the collapse and bailouts.
Federal taxes are at historic lows. Deficits are at all time highs.
Hmmm….
Who says we have Stalinist policies? Socialist, Francoesque, or even Marxist tinged, but Stalinist? Where do you guys get this stuff?
Stalin no.
Socialist yes.
We see an extention of government control of the means of production and financing to 51% of the economy. Banking, Insurance, pay czars, autos, health care, green energy, nuclear plant financing, mortgage backed securities, and more. The policies look more like the Labor government of the 70′s in Britain or the Social Democrats of Germany. What part of reality are you missing? If it were not for the Blue dogs, we would look like Demark,
Let’s address the alledged racism in the poll that you cited. The poll is invalid because it does not ask a question which can determine racism, but the researcher draws that conclusion then based upon a single flawed survey applies it to a general population which is hard to identify.
First he asked people do you view blacks (then Latinos) as hardworking, intelligent, and trustworthy (as three separate questions.) The researcher did not ask do you view blacks or Latinos as less of these than whites nor did he ask a control question about whites. You would have to do one of these to draw a conclusion. It is also interesting that your link does not include the no responses or undecideds.
If you ask me if someone is intelligent, hardworking, or trustworthy by virtue of their race or ethnicity, I would hesitate and not be sure how I would answer it. I judge each person as an individual. I know people of every major racial group who have these virtues and people who lack them. The question sounds like you want me to say that because someone is of a certain group they pocess intelligence or are hardworking.
It is a bad question. It renders your conclusion meaningless. A person who rejects racism in the truest sense would be deemed racist. I think Liberal Professors are lazy, intellectually deficient, and decietful based upon this one sample. (sarcasm) He didn’t put in the effort to have a decent question which would not reflect his cultural bias, and tried to pass it off as a definitative conclusion.
I said Statist, not Stalinist.
Don – the Statist Agenda is the same as the Progressive agenda, where you have big government take over every aspect of the economy and our daily lives. The cradle-to-grave mentality.
“All of the Delaware Congressional candidates are promising to lower taxes AND balance the budget. How in the heck does that work?”
Reducing taxes encourages economic growth. Increased profits to corporations and increased salaries to workers creates more taxed to the treasury of the U.S.. This worked perfectly fine in the 1960′s when John F. Kennedy reduced corporate and individual tax rates. The economic growth and increased revenue which resulted from the economic growth would have wiped out any deficit had it not been for the subsequent Johnson follies.
Ronald Reagan imitated Kennedy with the Kemp-Roth tax cuts of the 80′s. Thanks to the Reagan policy tax receipts to the Federal Government doubled in the 80′s. Unfortunately, Congress managed to outspend the receipts.
All of the Congressional Candidates are correct. Tax cuts spur economic growth which increase tax receipts. This example goes back to Biblical times. It has worked every time it has been tried.