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Don’t Be Hatin’
Ross Douthat has a good read about how some in the media are depicting McCain-Palin rallies. I really just want to focus on the last paragraph:
But of course, everybody knows that conservative hate – especially when it comes from anonymous hecklers at massive rallies, or when it involves booing the press – is fascism come round again, but left-wing hate is just, well, kitschy and adorable.
Now, there is no excusing some of the vitriol that comes from conservatives. But I’ve been around enough liberals, especially in the last 8 years, to see that they can be just as hateful at their right-leaning sisters and brothers.
I know that many of my liberal friends will say their anger is justified, looking at the damage done during the Bush years. And they should be angry – but too often that anger devolves into a vile hatred of any and all things conservative.
What’s wrong with both liberal and conservatives is an appalling lack of civility towards each other- seeing the “other” as a human being and not the devil in an elephant or donkey suit.
I keep hoping one day for liberals and conservatives to learn to respectfully disagree with each other. Silly me.
4 Responses to “Don’t Be Hatin’”
“I keep hoping one day for liberals and conservatives to learn to respectfully disagree with each other.”
With all due respect, that horse has left the barn………
Good post. Too much vitriol on both sides obscures the fact that most of America really is in the middle and can find common ground.
I think one has to distinguish between the rhetoric and political imagery, and the serious hate. God, I can remember the imagery associated with Reagan and Thatcher, which was horrific (though often well done in a technical agitprop sense).
Now, however, things are different.
The glee at many sites on the Left at Tony Snow's passing was awful.
The other night, however, I came across several sites on the Right with post after post taking pleasure in the critical condition of Obama's grandmother and Obama's pain.
Something clicked in me.
Obama's grandma is, by all accounts, just a nice older lady. Not involved in politics at all. And here were all these people publicly taking pleasure in her pain and potential passing . . . just because Obama loved her.
The same day, I noticed the story at West Carolina University, where a bear cub had been shot in the head, with Obama posters stapled to its corpse.
This sort of thing goes FAR beyond posters on a Manhattan street. As most folks here know, I am conservative. But seriously . . . something is really f**ked up when there is this level of hatred out there.
I can't quite get my mind around this. The political pleasure in other's pain.
From Tony Snow . . . now to Obama's grandmother . . . things are getting worse.
Good comment, Marlowe. We just have to stand up against it and say “I draw the line here, this is despicable”- as you just did.