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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
 Posted - 05/21/2007 : 12:07:13 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Mycroft
The protest zone is ineed a conservative idea, but isn't that comparing apples and oranges? |
I don't think so: the protest zones are a method of repressing opposing opinions. While they're more "polite" than shouting down one's opponents, they're no less obnoxious.
Wasn't someone arrested (or detained) a couple years ago for wearing a war protest T-shirt into the gallery of Congress?
Anyway, the point is that the right may use different tactics, they're working towards the same goals as the "angry" lefties: elimination of opposing views. Personally, I prefer the upfront and honest shout-down to subtle, quiet manipulation.| I don't think it's fair to smear anyone with association with Fred Phelps. Really, he doesn't represent anyone but himself. |
You may have a point there, but plenty of people in all positions of the political spectrum find guilt-by-association a fine argument to make, so I doubt many will grasp it. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Cuneiformist
The Imperfectionist
USA
4955 Posts |
Posted - 05/21/2007 : 12:40:58 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Mycroft
Originally posted by Cuneiformist
Well, it's a rather unfair comparison, no? I mean, ostensibly conservative universities (think Falwell's Liberty University, for example) don't invite speakers who might say something off-message. And of course, Sowell ignores any rallies against things like abortion, which happen all the time, and which are, of course, entirely populated by "conservatives"....
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You know, until this moment I hadn't thought of creating a dichotomy where the religious schools were "conservative" and other schools were liberal. If I were to guess I would have made the split among schools that focused on the hard sciences as opposed to those that focused on the humanities. |
I wouldn't push too far in arguing for such a dichotomy. There are religious schools that aren't conservative, and otherwise, most public and private universities are populated by people who span the whole spectrum of political ideologies.
My point was that there are a small group of religious schools-- like Falwell's, or Pat Robertson's for which there is no comparable institution on the left. So while there may be a protest when Cheney speaks as a "regular" university, we'd never know how kids at a conservative university might react if Liberty University invited, say, Hillary Clinton to speak.
Originally posted by beskeptigal
So abortion activists and the 'save Teri Schaivo' crowd weren't conservative enough for you? |
Good point, liberals certainly don't have a monopoly on protesting, but wouldn't you still agree that liberals are far more prone to protest than conservatives? |
Not particularly. Or at least, there's nothing in being liberal that makes one more prone to protesting.
Rather, people who protest tend to be people who are asking for certain rights-- higher pay, or racial or gender equality-- and those same groups often tend to vote Democratic, as the Democratic party often makes the support of such things a part of its platform.
People who are at the top of the social ladder (so to speak) have very little to protest and so they don't. But those people also tend to vote Republican.
That said, conservatives will protest when they think that their rights are being taken away. Hence things like protesting the faux "war on Christmas" and things like abortion.
Again, Sowell's argument is that it's liberals who protest, and he used that as a segue to talk about tax cuts. His arguments have been entirely discredited (and it is a testament to the right-wing noise machine that he can still make them and get away with it), but he basically is commenting in a snide way about this very fact: people who feel like they're being trampled on will protest. In this case, it's the poor (and middle class) who feel like the wealthy are rigging the game in their favor. But we can be sure that if the government were to raise the top tax bracket's rate to the pre-Kennedy levels of 90% or so, that you'd see some very well-dressed people get in their BMWs and head to Washington. |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 05/21/2007 : 17:09:30 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by me:
And the team that's been on the winning side for almost thirty years has what reason to demonstrate? |
Mycroft:
I disagree with your assumptions. I believe liberalism has made huge strides in the past 30 years and would not at all agree that conservatives have been winning all that time. |
A liberal win here and there, sure. But in the total scheme of things, over the last thirty years, conservatives have been much more successful at managing and popularizing their message and have even successfully demonized of the word “liberal” in that time.
Liberal consensus, 1970 to the present day:
During the Nixon years (and through the 1970s), the liberal consensus began to come apart. The alliance with white Southern Democrats had been lost in the Civil Rights era. While the steady enfranchisement of African Americans expanded the electorate to include many new voters sympathetic to liberal views, it was not quite enough to make up for the loss of some Southern Democrats. Organized labor, long a bulwark of the liberal consensus, was past the peak of its power in the U.S. and many unions had remained in favor of the Vietnam War even as liberal politicians increasingly turned against it. Within the Democratic party leadership, there was a turn of moderation after the defeat of arch-liberal George McGovern in 1972.
Meanwhile, in the Republican ranks, a new wing of the party was emerging. The libertarian Goldwater Republicans laid the groundwork for, and partially fed in to the Reagan Republicans. In 1980, Republican Ronald Reagan captured his party's nomination for the presidency. More centrist groups such as the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) would contend on an equal footing with liberals for control of the Democratic Party in this time. The centrist-liberal alliance of the federal level Democrats lasted through the 1980s, but declined in the 1990s when more conservative political figures sided with the Republican party.
In the late 1980s and 1990s, there was a reappearance of politicians who held liberal views. Bill Clinton, then state governor of Arkansas was elected to office in 1992 as the 42nd president of the United States and re-elected in 1996, was the first baby boomer to hold presidential office. He was a liberal when it came to social services and civil rights, but less focused on big business and the military. On the contrary, President Clinton worked out divisive issues with conservative colleagues and his primarily Republican administration, the two parties brought on a balanced federal budget and Clinton's legacy was an economic boom of the late 1990s referred to the United States' longest period of prosperity.
In 21st century American politics, there is considerable confusion over the meaning of the term "liberal". Beginning in the early 1990s, Republicans have made a concerted effort to change the meaning of the term through the process of framing. [6] Instead of arguing against liberal beliefs, framing changes the meaning of the word in the public consciousness, so that a belief in equal rights for all Americans is framed as "special rights for homosexuals", a belief in the rights of those accused of crimes is framed as "soft on crime", and a belief in freedom of religion is framed as "hatred of Christians". [7] The usage of the phrase Massachusetts liberal was used extensively as a political epithet by George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush against their respective Presidential opponents Michael Dukakis and John Kerry. This has been successful to such an extent that the term "liberal" has become stigmatized and is now generally avoided by those running for office; "progressive" is now often used instead of "liberal". Although the two are related, they are really distinct political ideologies. |
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Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
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Mycroft
Skeptic Friend
USA
427 Posts |
Posted - 05/22/2007 : 19:35:53 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
I don't think so: the protest zones are a method of repressing opposing opinions. While they're more "polite" than shouting down one's opponents, they're no less obnoxious. |
A fundamental difference between free speech zones and shouting down an ideological opponent is the group that sets up the free speech zones is saying they don't want to hear your speech, while the person who shouts someone down doesn't want anyone to hear that speech.
I believe the second is worse, and far more shameful in a democracy.
Originally posted by Dave W.
Wasn't someone arrested (or detained) a couple years ago for wearing a war protest T-shirt into the gallery of Congress?
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IIRC it was Cindy Sheehan, and she had been warned ahead of time to dress appropriately. That's not a suppression of speech. In fact, she got more attention to her message for having been thrown out.
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Mycroft
Skeptic Friend
USA
427 Posts |
Posted - 05/22/2007 : 19:38:22 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Kil
A liberal win here and there, sure. But in the total scheme of things, over the last thirty years, conservatives have been much more successful at managing and popularizing their message and have even successfully demonized of the word “liberal” in that time.
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Well, I think you and I will just have to disagree on that one. |
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Mycroft
Skeptic Friend
USA
427 Posts |
Posted - 05/22/2007 : 19:41:10 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Kil
Rather, people who protest tend to be people who are asking for certain rights-- higher pay, or racial or gender equality-- and those same groups often tend to vote Democratic, as the Democratic party often makes the support of such things a part of its platform.
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Maybe in other countries, but I don't see that much in the US. With some exceptions, the people I see at protests tend to be the people who have dropped out of mainstream society. |
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JEROME DA GNOME
BANNED
2418 Posts |
Posted - 05/22/2007 : 20:40:26 [Permalink]
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Two sides of the same coin moving in the same direction.
Anyone think the next Democratic president (and it will be a dem) will remove troops from the middle east?
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What a man believes upon grossly insufficient evidence is an index into his desires -- desires of which he himself is often unconscious. If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence. The origin of myths is explained in this way. - Bertrand Russell |
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perrodetokio
Skeptic Friend
275 Posts |
Posted - 05/23/2007 : 10:45:14 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by JEROME DA GNOME
Two sides of the same coin moving in the same direction.
Anyone think the next Democratic president (and it will be a dem) will remove troops from the middle east?
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Interesting question, Jerome!
Salud
perrodetokio |
"Yes I have a belief in a creator/God but do not know that he exists." Bill Scott
"They are still mosquitoes! They did not turn into whales or lizards or anything else. They are still mosquitoes!..." Bill Scott
"We should have millions of missing links or transition fossils showing a fish turning into a philosopher..." Bill Scott |
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Cuneiformist
The Imperfectionist
USA
4955 Posts |
Posted - 05/23/2007 : 11:10:59 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Mycroft
Originally posted by Kil
Rather, people who protest tend to be people who are asking for certain rights-- higher pay, or racial or gender equality-- and those same groups often tend to vote Democratic, as the Democratic party often makes the support of such things a part of its platform.
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Maybe in other countries, but I don't see that much in the US. With some exceptions, the people I see at protests tend to be the people who have dropped out of mainstream society.
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Actually, this was me. And I think you're mistaken. We might first ask how many protests you've been to, and how many protesters you talked to. But that aside, it seems clear that this isn't the case. Anecdotally, we might observe that these people:
hardly seem like they've "dropped out" of the mainstream. (They're rallying for equal pay.) And these people:
have not only not dropped out of society, they're an active (if, perhaps, illegal) part of the work-force! (And they want to be legal! Probably!)
We could go on, but the point is that people who-- in Sowell's (snide) words-- "take to the streets, shouting angry slogans" do so because of the reasons I stated (in general).
An exception might be anti-war rallies, but that's an interesting situation. Bush has really made this war political, but one could argue that even with the first Gulf War (which wasn't so political), the protests were largely on the left. Perhaps we can chalk that up to the fact that the right has largely favored a heavier military hand (perhaps because they are most closely aligned with the military-industrial complex?), while the left hasn't? I don't know... |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 05/23/2007 : 14:01:05 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Mycroft
A fundamental difference between free speech zones and shouting down an ideological opponent is the group that sets up the free speech zones is saying they don't want to hear your speech, while the person who shouts someone down doesn't want anyone to hear that speech.
I believe the second is worse, and far more shameful in a democracy. |
The zones I've read about were set far away from the main events, to ensure that none of the protest signs wound up on camera, and so the chants wouldn't be caught by microphones. Again: same effect, different tactics.| IIRC it was Cindy Sheehan, and she had been warned ahead of time to dress appropriately. That's not a suppression of speech. In fact, she got more attention to her message for having been thrown out. |
The same argument could be made for people who've been shouted down in public. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Sowell: Angry Left
