If the argument is whether or not Zell Miller is a seeping leprous pustule, Bricker’s character is not relevent. If Adolph Eichmann were to say “Miller sucks!”, it would be no less true, nor more so, just as it doesn’t matter if FinnAgain is asleep, or FinnAgain’s awake.
Well, the idea is of course for finnegans to wake 
And yes, as I’ve already agreed, ad hominem attacks won’t, and shouldn’t, win a debate.
But if a tangent to a debate is “the guy I’m arguing against is an asshole.”
Then, yes, ad hominem attacks are pretty much what makes up the whole ‘asshole dynamic’.
Bricker:
My answer to this question is three-fold.
- Rome wasn’t built in a day. Nor was it built in four years. Passing laws that restrict basic freedoms, like the freedom of expression, would require a pretty profound restructuring of the American psyche. That, in its turn, would require a major propaganda campaign, one working at a grassroots level, to build public support for whatever legislation might eventually be passed.
Such a campaign might start by demonizing anyone who fails to march in lockstep with the political platform of the ruling party:
It would also involve bringing to the fore discussions about the necessity of exchanging a certain amount of “freedom” for a certain amount of “security,” and making that discussion an acceptable part of the political discourse.
- Private property laws in the States, which also reflect a deeply held American value, are useful in the suppression of “incorrect” political opinions. These laws gave Bush the right to oust potential politcal opponents during his rallies. I read one example of a woman who was arrested at a Bush rally for “indecent exposure” because she was wearing a T-shirt with the logo “protect our civil liberties.”
While that particular story might be an exaggeration, there was a good deal of coverage in the media on this issue. People who showed up to Kerry campaign events with pro-Bush T-shirts were given an evil eye or two, and maybe a wide berth, but could attend the rally otherwise unaccosted. When the same individuals showed up at a Bush rally with pro-Kerry T-shirts, they were firmly shown the door by either secret-service agents or local law enforcement. The fact that rallies were “private events” allowed Bush to effectively squelch political dissent.
- Some “draconian” laws have come to pass, although I wouldn’t classify them as “draconian,” exactly. Rather, I would say that they lean dangerously towards draconian IMHO. I direct your attention to the Patriot Act for worrisome examples of the way in which American civil liberties are being nibbled away at, on the edges.
Is it?
Then it’s okay if I lie, employ innuendo and slander, rely on misleading arguments, and exploit rhetorical tricks – as long as I convince my audience in the end?
It should not be overlooked that the author of these sentiments is a known molestor of reindeer.
First off, the fact that I molest reindeer has absolutely nothing to do with the validity of my arguments, as you’ve pointed out so clearly yourself, above. These sorts of accusations are the basest form of ad hominim.
Secondly, dammit all, I did not molest that reindeer!
I was merely fondling him, I’ll have you know, and furthermore, he was a consenting adult.
Oh, right, Svin. And I suppose next thing you know, we’ll see you two moving to Massachusetts and getting married?
:eek: Will no one think of the calves? :eek:
If I had been eligible, I would have gone.
Excerpt from transcript, trial of Mr Svinletcher…
Mr. Mason: Will you state your full name for the record.
Witness: Rudolph T. Rednose, reindeer.
Mr. Mason: And you positively identify my client?
Witness: Yes, that’s him. Seated there, at the table…
A titter runs through the courtroom, seized by bailiff and expelled…
Witness: (sobbing)…He said it was only a reindeer game, I didn’t know, they never let me play any reindeer games…
Mr. Mason: And you have stated, under oath, that you were only eight…
Witness: Well, of course, those are reindeer years…
Mr. Mason: Oh, come now! A year is a year, is it not! Do you expect this Court to believe that a reindeer year is different? Have you a reindeer calender? A reindeer almanac? Can you…
Mr. Burger (rising) Your Honor! Counsel is badgering the witness!
Mr. Mason: Badgers? Badgers? We don’t need no steeenking badgers!
Witness: Badgers! Where! Where! Ohmigod, badgers!..
(Witness screams in panic and runs. After taking several Lapps around the courtroom, he exits, dashing through the snow…)
Still not at the heart of it, friends. A decision to support a war is a product of one’s character, in fact the ultimate one in public discourse, as indicated most precisely by one’s willingness to risk one’s *own * life for it. We already know by example that none of the decisionmakers who got us into this mess, and few of their cheerleaders, were willing to do so for their own generation’s foreign war of liberation against the boogeyman of the day. Yes, that assessment illuminates the decision itself, precisely as it shows how deeply thought out it was, how mature it was, how responsibly it was going to be planned and operated, how success would be defined and how attainable it was, and what the plans for afterward were.
We made our judgments about their characters and what that meant at the time, we’ve been proven right, and there simply is no fact-based way to claim otherwise. Bricker has briefly said he’d have been willing to die for it, even though he has been shown clearly and at great length the extent of the lies, fantasies, unpreparedness, and massive folly behind it that make it doomed and hugely counterproductive. What that tell us about his own character is as mexed a missage as one will find, though the character of the cheerleaders is of course irrelevant to the character of the decisionmakers.
First of all, sorry for the slow reply, I was at my parents’ house for the holidays.
Huh. Well, I still think what I said was meaty, honestly, so perhaps we’re talking past each other. I’ll attempt to respond to what you’re saying here and hopefully we can at least agree on where we disagree and actually have a meaningful conversation.
First, however, I want to respond to this:
Honestly, I wasn’t just trying to score cheap points. I’m not claiming I’ve spoken with nothing but perfectly calm rationality in this thread, because I find Miller’s speech (and your reaction to it) outrageously and infuriatingly insulting. And when I’m outraged, furious, and insulted, I’m not necessarily at my most eloquent. But I’m certainly not just sinking into the point-scoring substanceless muck. (Side question: if your political opponents’ reaction to a speech is outraged and furious insult, is that a sign of a good speech or a bad speech?)
Anyhow, before I get to the substance of what you’ve said, I want to take a moment to summarize my opinion, which is that Zell Miller really wanted to get up and say something like “Kerry and the liberals are a bunch of freedom-hating weenie traitors because they don’t support the current war”, but he realized that he couldn’t get away with that, so he made a speech to basically communicate that message to the jazzed up convention floor, and to impressionable TV audiences. Now, you might claim that doing so was a shrewd, tough but fair, political tactic. But you don’t seem to be so claiming. Rather, you seem to honestly believe that the message he was attempting to convey was nothing like that at all.
I just don’t see how that’s what Zell Miller was saying what you claim he was saying. What he seems to be saying, after reading and re-reading several times, basing my reaction solely on the text presented by you in post #25, is something like this:
(a)Democrats used to love freedom. (By implication, they no longer do, and also by implication, anyone who doesn’t support the war in Iraq doesn’t love freedom.)
(b)(This is the crucial point) If someone criticizes the way in which The American Soldier is being used, that’s tantamount to insulting The American Soldier
(c)And just in case you forgot, here are a bunch of wonderful things The American Soldier has done
(a) is yet another baseless cheap shot. Let me ask you straight up: is it possible for someone to love freedom, hate tyranny, and still oppose the war in Iraq? and is it possible for someone to love freedom, hate tyranny, and NOT believe that we should immediately overthrow the government of, say, North Korea? And while we’re at it, do you think that implying that your political opponents don’t love freedom is a Good Thing, something that raises the level of political discourse, something to be proud of?
(b) is even more troubling. The problem with (b) is that it could be used to defend any action US soldiers ever get involved in. Look, I have huge amounts of respect for US soldiers, the US military, and in particular the great sacrifices made by those who defended the free world (I say with no hyperbole) in WWII. But the US army is commanded by people, and people can make mistakes, and people can be evil. Do you agree that there can be situations in which patriotic, freedom loving Americans can honestly say “I believe that what the US military is doing in (X) is wrong”? Because Zell Miller sure doesn’t seem to think so.
If, in fact, all he’s saying is “I believe Kerry to be a freedom-loving patriotic and brave America. But I believe his position on the war to be wrong. Thus, I believe you should not vote for him”, which (I guess) you claim, then the fact that SO MANY people in this thread seemed to think he was saying something else entirely indicates that, at best, he communicated that idea rather poorly. And I hardly think that all of the republicans understood precisely what he meant, whereas its only us democrats who read such slanderous party-baiting into it.
(c) is just more of the same. Note, however, that if his position is something rational like “I believe Kerry to be a freedom-loving patriotic and brave America. But I believe his position on the war to be wrong. Thus, I believe you should not vote for him”, then listing great things done by The American Soldier in the past would be irrelevant. If, however, the message he’s trying to convey is something like “Kerry called our soldiers occupiers. That’s like insulting our soldiers. HE INSULTED OUR SOLDIERS”, which is what I believe is the message he was hoping to convey in not quite so many words, it makes perfect sense for him to list great things done by The American Soldier.
Note: Please don’t respond to this by coming up with examples where, in postings on the SDMB, various liberal posters (perhaps even including myself) committed sins similar to the ones I accuse Miller of. Such postings may well exist. In fact, I’d be surprised if none did. But the standards to which message board postings by random civilians should be held are VASTLY different than the standards to which nationally televised political speeches should be held.
He can raise the dead now? That’ll be quite a relief to the parents of those boys and girls who’ve lost their lives for nothing. Will you pass on the good news or I?
And for the slow response - I was vacationing in the Caribbean and travelling back yesterday.
[/quote]
OK, I accept that.
Wait a second. The sina qua non of a successful convention speech is that it inspires, rallies, and motivates both the faithful and the neutral. This is done executed quite than, say, an appearance on the Macneil-Lehrer News hour, even though the goals of the two events may be the same.
Now - the literal speech “Kerry and the liberals are a bunch of freedom-hating weenie traitors because they don’t support the current war,” is obviously not technically true. But as a rhetorical, persuasive device, it has value. It is recognizably hyperbole, and it makes the point that Kerry and the liberals oppose the war, which the speaker - and, by extension, the audience - favor.
That is, in other words, a tough but fair political tactic. You may quibble abut “fair” but since both sides exercise such tactics, I think it’s … er… fair to say “fair.”
Yes, and yes, and maybe.
To love freedom, in the abstract, is meaningless, in that most everyone on the American political extreme loves freedom, in a sense.
But do liberals love freedom if they want to mandate what minimum wage an employer must pay his employee? Do conservatives love freedom if they wish to criminalize what two consenting adults do sexually?
Everyone “loves freedom”. The question, as with any policy debate on any subject, is, “Does this proposal correctly balance freedom with other, competing imperatives?”
Those who oppose the Iraq war are answering that question incorrectly, in Zell’s view. But to explain all that is a nuance that does not work well for a convention speech. Thus, we get a short form version.
See A.
The emotion that Zell is drawing on is not that, after careful consideration, the consensus is that the military is acting imprudently. Rather, the feeling is that the Democratic party, especially, the lefter-leaning faction, has a certain predisposition against the military, period. And the in his early career, Kerry typified that particular leaning.
Rather than explain that nuance, and put people to sleep, Miller says, in essence, “Kerry and the Democrats are going to arm the military with spitballs!” Again, this is hyperbole… no one believes that Zell meant that Kerry would literally propose spitballs in lieu of carbines, right? But it’s a useful shorthand rhetorical device for the claim that Kerry and the Democratic party is soft on the military. Why, then, can the “spitballs” comment pass without cries that Kerry never proposed spitballs, but the “If someone criticizes the way in which The American Soldier is being used, that’s tantamount to insulting The American Soldier,” comments MUST be parsed as though literally true?
“Slanderous party baiting”? Please! Convention speeches ON BOTH SIDES are filled with this sort of rhetoric, and have been since the dawn of time.
No. You’re creating this “debate tournament” standard and applying it to a convention speech. Convention speeches have historically been firey, zesty, and full of venom for the oppositon. Why should the GOP suddenly be held to this high bar of purity and technical accuracy in this arena, when both parties have never observed such a standard before?
And the sine qua non of those of us who claim to be able to recognize bullshit, by virtue of our embrace of this board, is that we recognize bullshit.
Yet you support it as if it were true.
The point being, in short, a lie. One which you have, predictably, endorsed wholeheartedly.
You have a most unusual definition of “nuance”, then, if it’s sincere. Miller lied. He tried to make the point, hyperbolically if you insist, that Dems/libs hate freedom, and implied that they by extension that they *hate * America and Americanism. That is not a nuance, that is a slander. And, once again, you have embraced it.
And that, as you very damn well know, is also slanderous bullshit, every word.
In short, he lied.
Apparently you weren’t listening that closely. Miller phrased the spitball comment as a rhetorical question, not a statement of fact. But the bullshit meaning was clear, and you embraced it.
One might expect a lawyer to have a little more respect for evidence than that. Here goes: Find a statement from the 2004 Democratic National Convention that you consider comparable. Just one. We can wait.
More of your typical, and typically baseless, tu quoque routine.
Now, about that “Yeah, but they did it too” stuff. Go right ahead. You’ve already copped to endorsing slander and lies when it’s your own party doing it. Now go back up your further statement that the other party is equally guilty. Or we can consider this post your confession to being a lying weasel; your choice.
Just from memory, and since you’ve taken my speech about how this has gone on all the time, and limited my response to the 2004 convention…
Al Sharpton’s DNC speech suggested that the Republicans were possessed of a “vicious spirit,” if I recall his phrase, and were undermining America’s freedoms, civil rights and liberities.
Why is that not a vicious, slanderous attack?
Let me guess. Because you believe it’s true?
Miller slammed the Democrats choices, but made it clear that it was not their patriotism, but their judgement he questioned. Sharpton said the opposition was actively TRYING to undermine American freedom.
OK, here’s part of the miscommunication. At no point did I say anything like “Zell Miller’s speech opened up entirely new depths of American Political discourse” or “Zell Miller’s speech was far far worse than anything that the democrats have ever said”. Rather, I thought his speech was near the bottom of the barrel when it comes to convention speeches, for a variety of reasons, but not uniquely awful. The reason I’m posting to this thread is not to express my undying contempt for his speech, but to express my surprise that you seem to be so proud of, and happy with, his speech. Whether or not his speech was effective, politically, was it really something that you’re proud of? If someone said to you “Bricker, please put together a video tape of political speeches from the past 5 years that convince me of the good things about the Republican party”, would you include this speech?
(And for the record, I do think his speech was BAD. I think it was much worse than the average political speech, but not uniquely, freakishly so.)
I really have to take issue with this argument, as it’s basically an open invitation to any political slander.
If this argument:
[these steps are not spelled out, at least not out loud]
(1) The war might (arguably) lead to greater freedom in Iraq
(2) It does (definitely) however have lots of drawbacks
(3) Those who oppose the war find (2) to be more important than (1)
[this next step is said out loud]
(4) THEY HATE FREEDOM
is one that you find acceptable for political discussion, how about
[these steps are not spelled out]
(1) The Bush administration is arguing for tort reform
(2) This would make it harder to file frivolous lawsuits
(3) But it would also make it harder to file meaningful lawsuits
(4) The Bush administration finds (2) to be more important than (3)
(5) Some of the people filing lawsuits would be grandmothers
(6) Some of the lawsuits would concern cancer-causing products
[this next step is said out loud]
(7) THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION WANTS TO GIVE CANCER TO GRANDMOTHERS!!!
If such a speech, with such tortured logic, were given at a Democratic function, I sure as hell wouldn’t be here in the pit defending it and talking about how it “came from the heart”.
Note your use of the word “feeling”. Yes, some republicans have a “feeling” that some democrats don’t support the military. And some democrats have a “feeling” that some republicans are racists. But that doesn’t make it a Good Thing when a democrat gets up at a convention and goes into a long tear-jerking litany of the horrible racist crimes that have been committed in the past 10 years (that poor guy in texas! they dragged him behind a truck!) despite the fact that they really have nothing directly to do with the Republican party, any more than Zell’s tear-jerking litany of great things The American Soldier has done has anything to do with the democratic party.
And again, the fact that you have an opinion which is (I agree) at least vaguely responsible and plausible (even though I disagree with it), doesn’t mean that when Zell was saying something utterly indefensible and inflammatory, what he really MEANT was (your opinion).
First of all, the spitballs comment was in another speech (or context) entirely, not in the quoted text that I thought we were discussing. In any case, there’s a big difference between hyperbole like:
“Bush wants to allocate $100,000,000 for supplies for the troops, but Kerry only wants to allocate $10,000,000. What does Kerry want them to arm themselves with? Spitballs?” which is clearly hyperbole, as no thinking individual would believe that he actually expects literal spitballs to be used, and basically political fair game, and “I can remember when Democrats believed that it was the duty of America to fight for freedom over tyranny.” Now MAYBE he’s exercising hyperbole and what he means is that “I realize that Democrats, being patriotic and reasonable people, prefer freedom to tyranny, and many have and are willing to fight for that, but in the current case, they believe that other legitimate concerns outweigh the potential benefits of freedom. I believe their judgment in this case is wrong”. But that isn’t clear cut at all.
(Ignoring the idiocy of the statement in the first place… I mean, the last time a Republican president went to war in Iraq, a country led by the Brutal Horrible Non-Free Dictator Saddam with his Rape Rooms and Wood Chippers, that brave American freedom lover decided that, despite the fact that the military victory was all but won, other legitimate concerns were more important than freeing the Iraqi people from tyranny. Wow. It’s almost like that’s a legitimate position that Americans can hold without deserving insult.)
The major underlying point that I’m trying to make, which I’ve been too busy wading through rhetorical minutiae to actually spell out, is this (and I admit, this is a bit pompous and grandiose): Every time you give a speech, write a book, post on the SDMB, etc., you (generic you) make an impact. You leave the world a slightly different place than it was. You make a difference (even if a tiny one, and certainly not necessarily one that you intended) on your audience.
Now, many people agree that one of the big problems in the US right now is the huge divide between the left and right, proBush and antiBush, red state and blue state. There’s an incredibly high level of anger, distrust, derision, condescension, etc. That’s a BAD THING. And while it’s often possible to score cheap political points (in Zell’s case) or sell books (in Anne Coulter’s case) or entertain onesself on the SDMB by being an asshole (in many people’s cases) by playing up that divide, reemphasizing it, calling liberals “treasonous” and “supporters of terror” and “non-lovers of freedom”, and calling conservatives “nazis” and “racists” and “idiots” and “sheeple”, that is something which DOES HARM TO THE NATION.
Now, again, one has to balance out the benefits and drawbacks of what one does, and if Zell was so convinced that Bush would be a better president than Kerry that he was WILLING to give a divisive, dishonest speech in order to help ensure Bush’s election, well, that’s between him and his god.
But for you to PRAISE that speech…
Bump.
C’mon, Bricker, don’t leave me hanging, man.
Cite? Just so we can be reasonably sure you have a clue what you’re talking about? BTW, you tried to set the limitations here, quite loudly at that, at “they always do that and they’re just as bad”, in your totally predictable tu quoque approach that is so easy to dissect, so don’t complain about it.
That’s what the evidence points to, doesn’t it? If you’re not aware of that by now, there’s no help for you. Note, btw, that I’m indulging your version of what he said, not necessarily what he really said - you can’t be trusted to present facts accurately.
Gawdamighty. You know better than that. You know what impression he wanted his listeners to get. It even worked on you, although you’re now backtracking. Remember you’re trying to tell people who lack your charming naivete - or is it simply raw partisanism?
You’re imputing motive to one man’s words while denying it in another’s where it is much more explicit.
Aw, just try answering Max. Convince us that you believe in something more than simply gaining power for the party that will tax you the least, using and praising any technique necessary to gain that power based simply on its effectiveness.
OK, that was part of the miscommunication.
My praise of Miller’s speech was not unqualified. I said, if I recall correctly, that I thought he spoke from the heart. I suppose it’s fair to say I’m happy with it, but for limited reasons. As a debate speech, I would give it poor marks. As a cheerleader convention speech, I give it high marks. This is because I believe convention speeches serve a very traditional and valuable role in the election process, but that role has never been “the neutral dissemination of facts and an unbiased analysis of them.”
If I watch a football game, I’d very very surprised to hear the cheerleaders chant, “Go, team! We’re the best! Except if you count! All those times! We lost the lead! In the third quarter! Earlier this year! And of course! Our pass protection! Is the second-worst in the league! And don’t us started! On our secondary! Sheesh!”
Before you consign Miller’s speech to “near the bottom of the barrel,” you might to ask yourself what you believe the goals for a convention speech are. I suspect you are holding convention speeches to a standard which is not only unrealistic, but illusionary.
In your first example, each statement is well-known as a talking point. Only offering the conclusion out loud is not a shocking departure from anything, since the … (sigh - I have tried to avoid using this word, but here we are) … the meme is well-known.
Your second example lacks an established meme, and thus falls flat. But it’s really only shy on point 5. If you modified it to simply say, “Bushco takes care of its corporate buddies and doesn’t care if you get cancer,” then yes, it’s a perfectly valid example of the sort of thing I’m talking about… and, ironically, it’s exactly the sort of meme that various left-wing groups ALREADY PUT OUT.
I respect that. But Sharpton got a round of applause after his speech, which talked about the vicious spirit trying to undermining America’s freedoms, civil rights and liberities. (Cite, ElvisL1ves.) I acknowledge that YOU didn’t applaud, but the purpose of a convention speech is to sway more than just you. It would be madness to say, “The Republicans must tailor their rhetorical technique to what would convince MaxtheVool,” because you are hardly representative of the electorate as a whole.
Yes IT’S THE KIND OF THING THAT HAPPENS AT CAMPAIGN RALLIES AND CONVENTIONS. I agree in the abstract that it’s not a good thing. But we have a problem of disarmament here. Who’s going to start first?
True. But my reaction to his speech was premised on my belief that my opinion - my interpretation of it - was the corrcet one. I acknowledge that there’s a possibility I’m wrong. But if you’re questioning my reaction to the speech… well, it’s based on my view of the speech. Of course.
Again: you’re asking the team cheerleaders to dispassionately analyze the team’s foibles during a cheer. There is a place to calmly and dispassionately admit that you have a secondary problem, that your corners aren’t as fast as the opposition’s receivers, and that your tight end can’t run five steps without fumbling. But the cheerleaders aren’t the vehicle to do it.
- Rick
Stop using words you don’t understand. It makes me wince.
Tu quoque is a special case of the ad hominem fallacy - attacking the person instead of the argument.
I am not attacking the person. I am saying that because one side is doing it, it is tactically necessary for the other side to do it as well. This is not an attack, not a commentary on the rightness or wrongness of the tactic.
Example: my dry cleaner uses environmentally unfriendly chemicals because they are substantially cheaper than the more environmentally sound chemicals. You protest, urging me to change this practice. I point out that my competitors are using the unfriendly chemicals as well, and I switch but they do not, my prices will be higher than theirs and I’ll lose business to them.
“Tu quoque!” you shriek.
No. The fact that someone else is committing the same sin IN THIS CASE is directly relevant to my motive to commit it. I don’t say, “Well, they’re doing it to, so they can’t tell me not to do it; they have no moral authority.” THAT is classic tu quoque. I say, “They’re doing it, so if I change and they don’t, I’ll lose business to them.” You see? Different argument.
Maybe you should have joined the debate club instead of doing whatever you did after school. Growing your hair long, listening to rock music, and bad-mouthing your country, no doubt.
(See? THAT’S ad hominem. 
)
Well, I think there’s a bit of a potential contradiction here… you seem to be saying that there are two good things about Miller’s speech:
(1) It was “tough but fair” vicious political slander
(2) It came from the heart
In other words, you’re saying that Zell Miller is a slanderous, vile vicious little shit. No, wait, I guess I don’t see a contradiction there at all
Well, let’s look at the Al Sharpton speech that you referred to. (Note: I have no particular love for Al Sharpton.)
(This is the second half or so of his speech…)
THERE is a convention speech. If I was at the convention and heard that speech, I would have been jumping around cheering wildly, and been infused with a energy to go out there and win the election, because the speech mentioned specific things we want to do, specific ways the democrats want to make the country better. There IS such a thing as positive rhetoric. The most famous political quotes of the past 50 years or so, “I have a dream”, “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country”, etc., aren’t attacks, they’re calls to action, proclamations of ideals, etc.
Anyhow, you claim that Sharpton’s speech was a negative attack on the same level as Miller’s. Let’s look at that entire section:
So, that section contains one paragraph that you quoted (containing the word “vicious”), which I’ll get to in a moment, and then two paragraphs criticizing the Bush administration in quite non-inflammatory language, which I’d describe as basically an accurate, reasonably fair, description of the facts of the situation. For instance, it does not accuse Bush of lying, which would sure as hell have gotten a big round of applause at the democratic convention.
As for the first paragraph, there are three key differences between it and Miller’s speech:
(1) While it is certainly an attack of sorts, it’s just one clause in one sentence in a largely positive speech, not an attack followed by paragraphs of totally unrelated jingoistic rhetoric that is associated by implication
(2) The attack being made is far more relevant and direct. So the Republicans passed the patriot act, which limited civil rights and liberties to help fight terror. Now, it’s not prima facie ridiculous to view that as a good idea, but it definitely is limiting civil rights and liberties. The Zell Miller logic would be that “Republicans Hate Civil Liberties!!!”. Heck, even THAT would require fewer tortured logical steps to get to than “Democrats hate freedom”. But saying that the Republican administration is limiting civil rights and liberties is hardly arguable, even if one might argue that they have good reasons for doing so, and it’s only a very minor limitation.*
(3) “Hating Freedom” is incompatible with being a good American. Being “vicious” isn’t. Basically, you have republicans saying “liberals are traitors” and liberals saying “republicans are jerks”. I sure as hell know which of those is a more grave and slanderous insult.
*It’s actually a bit unclear to me precisely what Sharpton is claiming is vicious. The precise quote is “I am also convinced that at a time, when there is a vicious spirit in the body politic of this country that attempts to undermine America’s freedoms – our civil rights, and civil liberties – we must leave this city and go forth and organize this nation toward victory for John Kerry and John Edwards in November.” I expect he’s deliberately leaving it a little vague. Is it the Republican leadership? The party as a whole? The Patriot Act? Or is he saying two unrelated things, ie, “Republican politics are vicious, and also they want to limit civil liberties”? Whether that’s better or worse than Miller clearly and directly attacking the democratic party is debatable.
OK, I read this several times, and as far as I can tell, what you are saying is an utterly cynical defense of the Big Lie theory. In other words, as long as lies about democrats are well known and well understood, it’s OK to tell them. And if tort reform had been framed by the democrats from the beginning, perhaps by digging up an example of a granny who sued in a justified case, as “Republicans want to give cancer to grandmothers”, then it would be OK to slander them in that fashion? Or did you mean something else? And if so, what?
Overall, there’s some logic to your “everyone is that dirty” argument. Except that, at least limiting ourselves to this year’s convention speeches, everyone was NOT that dirty. Or if they were, please so demonstrate.