Making Sense
Partially dissenting from the Paul Krugman column on right-wing hatred, Jon Henke makes some good points about guilt-by-right-or-left-association charges in general. He concludes with “two ironies” that are pretty relevant:
The Left strenuously objects to connecting President Obama to socialists and William Ayers; meanwhile, they want to lump all conservatives in with militant radicals. Meanwhile, as Doug Mataconis points out, “Conservatives who object to being tied to Von Brunn were eagerly associating Obama with Ayers and Wright.”
Yup.
Yup.Report
Then again, comparing Ayers to someone like von brunn is also a little misleading given the number of people they each killed. Just sayin’.Report
urr no. Where do lib’s want to lump all conservatives in with militant radicals? The problem is, many of the biggest tv, radio and internet conservatives are in the loony brigade. Glenn Beck, Rush, Hannity, Erick Erickson at Redstate, Ann “treason” coulter, Malkin. Those are big names in the repub world. And what about elected officials like michelle bachman, etc. The conservative media presence has gone off the deep end. Does that mean all conservatives are that way: no of course not. In fact it is a common refrain on lefty web sites, at least that i visit, that we wish the sane Righties would take back their party so that it is functional without feeling the need to accuse everybody who disagrees of treason, solialism, “goat f-ing”, supporting child molesters, etc.Report
Greginak: That’s true for the most part, but let’s just say that the charge isn’t unknown. Lots of people have been defending that DHS report’s description of right-wing extremism, which went way too far.
Henke makes clear that he agrees with Krugman on the vast majority of his points (as do I), but the big problem is with the defense of the DHS report from April, which was way too generalized.Report
There are charges that the loony right is out of control with their rhetoric, and people say — yep. There are charges that the loony left is out of control with their rhetoric, and people say — yep. And the independents grow in number.Report
I think both ironies have to do with issues of natural prejudice and ideological self-segregation. I would guess that when it comes to groups that you don’t have much exposure to, high profile members tend to become your reference point or baseline.
Incidentally, I do think it’s a somewhat amusing irony that a recognition of the broad range of diversity within groups one is a member of, doesn’t naturally extend to groups one is not a member of.
Though I will say that as a rule I’ve always found an uncomfortable presumption of universal agreement within both conservative and liberal traditions.
Certain blogs excepted, of course.Report
they are loons in every party/tradition/group. But the loons in the conservitive camp are big, big wheels. The loons in the liberal camp are lower profile, less important and less powerful. Example: Bill Ayers, who the hell is he exactly in lib politics? He is a non-entitiy in lib politics and has become mainstream in Chicago.Report
“Conservatives who object to being tied to Von Brunn were eagerly associating Obama with Ayers and Wright.” Maybe because those associations are base in fact not circuitous logic. /Gee maybe its because Ayers hosted a campaign party that kicked off Obama’s political career and contributed to his campaign, was his neighbor and he sat on a foundation board and distributed educational funding grants funds with Obama in the Chicago community. As for Wright i if you sit in a pastor’s church for twenty years and have him baptize your children i guess you could call that an association. Point out the meetings and associations von braun had with the names on the right that have been bandied about regarding this discussion.Report
“The loons in the liberal camp are lower profile, less important and less powerful”
This is getting little silly, don’t you think — why not just leave it at loons in both parties? I mean, Soros is not exactly powerless, and neither is Jon Stewart, or Keith Olberman, or Hollywood (counting Michael Moore), or Al Franken. Hollywood is full of influential loons. Then there’s Barney Frank.Report
and nancey pelosi.Report