It’s getting ugly again

Don’t take my word for it.

The Moderate Voice (and if there were ever a time for them this is it) runs down a laundry list of reactions to President Obama’s address to schoolchildren.

The polarization is just plain silly, and downright dangerous. Quoting the post:

The present frenzy suggests that the seeds are now being sowed for a mega-polarized America that could be almost ungovernable in the 21st century if this trend continues unabated.

If Republicans and conservatives make the very legitimacy of Obama his patriotism — even the safety of allowing little kids listen to him tell them to stay in school and think about helping their community — the issue, and link his name to Hitler and/or Nazism, precisely how do they think Democrats and the left will respond next time a GOPer is in power? How will the next Republican President be treated in terms of legitimacy and doing what he/she feels is in the best interest of the country? The bar on discourse is being lowered and lower and right now it’s touching the soil.

The only problem I have with the above is the blame for conservatives and Republicans for “lowering the bar.”

The seeds were planted with eight years of complaining about “President Select” and “stolen Florida” and Lord knows how many other attacks on the process. The Left never treated Bush-the-younger with any degree of legitimacy, borne out in the way they portrayed him.

How many Bush=Hitler references can you find?

Do you think the Left – in any manner – gets a pass?

We’ve been going down this road for a long time, and we might actually get to see the flip side of John Edwards’ “Two Americas” vision. Only this time we’ll get two radically polarized factions that can look at the same set of objective facts and see two wildly different realities. They will, of course, be mutually exclusive – yet both completely consistent with the worldview and premises of the factions.

Now — my response to the people who are pulling their kids out of school today?

Why don’t you teach your kids how to think for themselves? There’s a far greater chance that your youngster will be introduced to spurious views, partisan ideology or religious rhetoric coming from the mouths of teachers and administrators. Don’t get spun up by the idea that the President will somehow hold more sway than the people who know your kid on a first-name basis.

Inoculate them with the ability and desire to think for themselves, and to ask questions about the implications of ideas. For instance, if the idea is that “no one should do without X,” then teach your kids to ask how much X-for-all would cost, and who would pay for all that X, and what kind of world we’d live in with free-X.

Quit whining — put on your big boy pants — and take responsibility for your kids.

Not Going Gently

A former speechwriter for several Democrats calls it quits.  Wendy Button caught my attention with this line:

“As the nation slouches toward disaster, the level of political discourse is unworthy of this moment in history.”

Read it, not for any partisan message you might glean, but rather for the way she describes how easy it is to control the dialogue with language designed to obfuscate the issues.  Especially this part:

“This back and forth is posturing, a charade, and a political game. These lines are what I refer to as “hooker lines”—a sure thing to get applause and the press to scribble as if they’re reporting meaningful news.”

The best way to avoid being manipulated is to learn from those who aim to steer you.

Ad Hominem

Ad hominem = attack the man.

This is a perfectly acceptable tactic in argumentation, provided the subject is indeed the man being attacked.  It is not valid, however, when used to attack the messenger or a related circumstance.

Acceptable attacks:

John McCain is too out of touch with the average American.

Barack Obama does not have enough experience.

Of course, those are extremely subjective and would not be convincing without evidence.  The fact that you’ve made an assertion about an individual is not in and of itself Ad Hominem.  It’s when you introduce ‘facts’ about a person as evidence to back up your assertion that ad hominem comes into play.  Here are unacceptable attacks that abuse the ad hominem fallacy:

John McCain is lying about drilling, because he took money from Big Oil.

Barack Obama is from Chicago, and is therefore part of a corrupt machine.

In this case, McCain’s acceptance of funding does not equate to proof that his statement is false.  Both statements could in fact be true.  The degree to which you want to believe him might be a fair question, but that is a subjective call and not an objective proof.

To another degree, it might well be that Obama is part of a corrupt machine.  But it does not follow that everyone from Chicago automatically is.

I mention this because Ad Hominem is a great ‘gateway drug’ into the world of self-induced political haze.  Every party has its shady characters, and all you have to do is tie your opponent to the worst of the other side and make political hay.  It’s a technique that shortcuts real causation and proof — it’s the slippery slope that leads to greater polarization and decreased understanding.

The classic examples come about with those who have become highly-charged and demonized.  Mention Al Gore or Michael Moore with just about anything, and watch the right go apoplectic trying to denounce it.  Likewise, see what happens with Karl Rove or Rush Limbaugh are tied into anything by the left.

It’s amusing actually.  I’d like to see them all issue individual statements about the sky being blue at noon on a cloudy day — just to see who cites it as proof you should carry your umbrella.

Facts are facts, and information is information.  Doing nothing more than attacking the source isn’t a solution, it’s a copout.  Ideas stand on their own.