# No, America does not need RW civility. America needs LW vitriol. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 21, 2011, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-america-does-not-need-rw-civility-america-needs-lw-vitriol/568474 "2011-01-21T17:54:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2011, 7:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-america-does-not-need-rw-civility-america-needs-lw-vitriol/568474/181 "2011-01-25T07:32:31Z")
> [@madmonk28](#): > > I think at their core, conservatives are absolutely terrified of anything that isn’t just like them: Muslims, crime, Black presidents, weird food, cities, foreigners, long hair, the list goes on and on. How do you explain Black conservatives, Muslim’s who identify themselves with the Republican party, conservatives with long hair, and foreigners, like my neighbors who identify strongly with conservatism? ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2011, 7:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-america-does-not-need-rw-civility-america-needs-lw-vitriol/568474/182 "2011-01-25T07:37:25Z")
> [@spark240](#): > > George Will has often said just the opposite, as in his recommendation of John Derbyshire’s book _We Are Doomed_. I suppose then that George Will is a pessimist. 😃 > [@madmonk28](#): > > I think at their core, conservatives are absolutely terrified of anything that isn’t just like them: Muslims, crime, Black presidents, weird food, cities, foreigners, long hair, the list goes on and on. Oh, I don’t know. Conservatives seem comfortable enough with black Supreme Court justices and black RNC chairmen and black Secretaries of State. And they seem comfortable enough with Jews and Hindus and Buddhists. They didn’t really mind Muslims either, until…well, you know. But then that’s not just us. There are a lot of people in Moscow tonight who don’t think too highly of them either. But it’s really not “Muslims” per se that we object to, just the things that keep coming out of the camp. And I don’t know what cities conservatives are supposed to be terrified of, but I really can’t think of any offhand. Paris, maybe? You know, with all that art and stuff? And long hair? Terrified? Nah, just looks like shit usually. Crime? Yeah, those stupid conservatives and their fear of crime. They don’t embrace it and excuse it like you guys, do they? And foreigners? Shall I tell my friend Khadija and her family that all those dinnners and all those nice visits and all those efforts to get health care for her father who was visiting from Morocco were just a sham to hide this particular conservative’s “terror”? And, well, the list goes on and on… ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2011, 7:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-america-does-not-need-rw-civility-america-needs-lw-vitriol/568474/183 "2011-01-25T07:58:18Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > How do you explain Black conservatives, Muslim’s who identify themselves with the Republican party, conservatives with long hair, and foreigners, like my neighbors who identify strongly with conservatism? They are very small set of Republicans. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2011, 8:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-america-does-not-need-rw-civility-america-needs-lw-vitriol/568474/184 "2011-01-25T08:33:49Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > I read an interesting article recently on the fundamental difference between concervatives and liberals and it rang fairly true to me. The jist of it was that at their core, conservatives are optimists and liberals are pessimists. That conservatives look around at the world and see what is good and try to hold on to and make the most of them, and liberals focus on the things that are wrong in the world and agitate to change them. So on the one hand you have a group of people who fear that the other side, in its attempts to upset the apple cart, is gonna screw things up and ruin everything that is good. And on the other hand you have a group of people who don’t care about the apple cart, or what is good about it, if upsetting the apple cart will correct the things they don’t like. Surely you’ve proven exactly the opposite. When liberals set out to change things, they believe those changes will result in something even better than what we have now. What could be more optimistic than that? The attitude you attribute to conservatives, that any change will ruin everything that is good, is pessimism at its most extreme. ---
**Author:** ![Naxos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/50afbb/32.png) [@Naxos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Naxos)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2011, 8:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-america-does-not-need-rw-civility-america-needs-lw-vitriol/568474/185 "2011-01-25T08:44:04Z")
> [@madmonk28](#): > > I think at their core, conservatives are absolutely terrified of anything that isn’t just like them: Muslims, crime, Black presidents, weird food, cities, foreigners, long hair, the list goes on and on. Spot on! I’ll leave the “terrified” up to you. For me, it’s a matter of hate and identifying with a group that hates the same people who they choose to label as undesirable. It has always been the same throughout human history. Conservatives want to conserve the status quo of power of exploiting weaker groups. In the US, it’s whites against everyone else. In other countries, it’s the privileged against everyone else in their social environment. That’s why conservatism is a mental disorder. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2011, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-america-does-not-need-rw-civility-america-needs-lw-vitriol/568474/186 "2011-01-25T12:49:18Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > No, but they’ve all had large, angry crowds of lefties cheering them on.’ No. Thay have medium sized crowds of kids cheering them on. Kids tend to go Left a bit more than Right while geezers tend to go Right a bit more than Left, so there tend to be more rowdies at Left functions. > [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > And how many times have conservatives reacted angrily and concertedly to prevent liberal speakers from talking at their universities? Rather few–but then, universities are filled with kids. When the Tea Party people started showing up at town hall meetings, liberals and moderat3es were shouted down quite effectively. Kids vs Geezers, not Left vs Right. > [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Is it really your contention that every big city cop beats up liberals behind closed doors on behalf of the right? No. From where are you dragging that _non sequitur_? > [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > But still, don’t the complaints you list tend to support what I’ve said before - that conservatives tend to criticize liberals’ behavior rather than their inferior qualities as human beings? “Immoral,” “tratorious,” “engaging in deviant sexual practices,” etc. all go to liberal behavior, not to their intrinsic qualities as human beings. Piffle. I have never heard a charge against the Left that they were engaging in immoral or traitorous or dishonest behavior. I have always heard them described as immoral, traitorous or dishonest. > [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > But by all means, ramp up the insulting rhetoric. Get in people’s faces and really make them hate you. Yeah, that’s a good plan. And then when the other side starts fighting back and things get even uglier, those of you on the left, in your typical fashion, will be making posts to the Straight Dope wondering how things ever got this way. And then of course you’ll blame the other side. I’m not sure what you are on about, here. I have already noted I found the OP to be a foolish desire. ---
**Author:** ![El\_Kabong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_kabong/32/496_2.png) [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2011, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-america-does-not-need-rw-civility-america-needs-lw-vitriol/568474/187 "2011-01-25T14:05:09Z")
[Quote=Starving Artist] For whatever reason lefties are just more inclined to get hepped up and outraged over things, and so they generally think the worst of their opponents. Liberals by and large hate conservatives for opposing entitlement programs and championing free enterprise, and the base that hatred upon the supposition that conservatives are selfish, that they don’t care about anyone else, that they would be perfectly happy to see people dying in the streets and so forth. Liberals also are very much persuaded as to their intellectual superiority over conservatives and that creates even more hatred, “If it wasn’t for those stupid, backward, narrow-minded conservatives we could…(whatever, take your pick).” [/Quote] One can simply swap the cartoonish, absurdly simplistic labels you persist in slapping on others and all of the above would perfectly fit a description of the persona you present here. So, what use are you? For me you are just as much a part of the problem as the ‘liberals’ you so tediously rail against. I reject your incessant attempts to blame every single thing you don’t like about life in the USA to an arbitrary group that you believe you can describe with a single word. ---
**Author:** ![xenophon41](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xenophon41/32/253_2.png) [@xenophon41](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xenophon41)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2011, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-america-does-not-need-rw-civility-america-needs-lw-vitriol/568474/188 "2011-01-25T14:27:58Z")
I’m returning rather late to the thread, but I want to respond directly to just one more thing. This will require a quote and reply, and hopefully it includes enough of the original text to give full and fair context. > [@xtisme](#): > > At least if you are going to parse what I write, give me more than one liners to work with as counters. Or, better yet, we could both back away from the thread slowly before one of us gets a Mod warning, since, frankly, this thread isn’t worth getting warned over. If you want to believe that what America REALLY needs is (more) LW vitriol to go with the current over the top RW vitriol, then, well, that’s your prerogative. More power to you, and all that. I hope it works out for you and your brethren and sistren. Maybe if you just scream louder than the Right you will finally make us centrist ‘naive little wannabe cynics’ hear you and see the light. I didn’t think it was possible for someone to have actually read my arguments in this thread and developed the impression that I agreed with the OP. That’s astounding. I can guarantee that **BrainGlutton** is under no such misapprehension. I am pleased to see you accepting some calm counterpespective from **tomndebb**. Since he seems better able to shed light rather than add heat, I’ll take your suggestion and “back away” from the thread. As I do so, I’d like to ask that you take a breath and review the thread. There is not the overabundance of leftwing revisionism that you seem to perceive, and in fact, I’ve striven in particular to avoid this. I’ve neither denied nor justified any examples of the “LW Vitriol” the OP wants to see more of, and in fact I’ve argued that such rhetoric is ineffective in achieving the goals liberals purport to desire and has not been instrumental in any progressive successes of the past century or more. I do object to a simplistic view of political speech which equates “Left” vs. “Right” as if both ‘sides’ were equally cohesive in thought, purpose and representation. My objection is to the notion that the eliminationism that has become representative of the American right wing is somehow balanced out by vile and violent protest signs (in crowds specifically gathered to protest) and the criminal behavior of a tiny percentage of those protestors, and by the vile and stupid comments of various public figures who can be tied to any non conservative political point of view. We seem to both believe that vitriolic speech is stupid and counterproductive to political progress. But believing that we need to treat perpetrators equally and recognizing that there are no fundamental human behavioral differences attributable to political ideology does _not_ mean we must be blind to differences between political parties/ideologies and the concerted actions of their operatives. What is happening on the Right could easily happen on the Left if circumstances were different, and is why I think the OP’s argument is wrong. But circumstances are as they are, and it helps neither conservatives nor liberals nor moderates of any core belief to pretend differently. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2011, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-america-does-not-need-rw-civility-america-needs-lw-vitriol/568474/189 "2011-01-25T14:36:56Z")
> [@Naxos](#): > > Spot on! > > I’ll leave the “terrified” up to you. For me, it’s a matter of hate and identifying with a group that hates the same people who they choose to label as undesirable. > > It has always been the same throughout human history. > > Conservatives want to conserve the status quo of power of exploiting weaker groups. In the US, it’s whites against everyone else. In other countries, it’s the privileged against everyone else in their social environment. > > That’s why conservatism is a mental disorder. Don’t forget gays. They are terrified of them, they think gays will pull down civilization. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2011, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-america-does-not-need-rw-civility-america-needs-lw-vitriol/568474/190 "2011-01-26T19:50:02Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > behavior rather than their inferior qualities as human beings A distinction without a difference. Obviously, the only reason someone behaves in an inferior was is if that person is imbued with an inferior nature. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2011, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-america-does-not-need-rw-civility-america-needs-lw-vitriol/568474/191 "2011-01-26T20:16:06Z")
> [@madmonk28](#): > > Don’t forget gays. They are terrified of them, they think gays will pull down civilization. [It’s on the Agenda.](http://www.bettybowers.com/homoagenda.html) ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2011, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-america-does-not-need-rw-civility-america-needs-lw-vitriol/568474/192 "2011-01-26T20:17:39Z")
> [@Naxos](#): > > Conservatives want to conserve the status quo of power of exploiting weaker groups. In the US, it’s whites against everyone else. In other countries, it’s the privileged against everyone else in their social environment. > > That’s why conservatism is a mental disorder. Actually, that description makes it sound sane, if amoral. ---
**Author:** ![Le\_Jacquelope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Le\_Jacquelope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Le_Jacquelope)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2011, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-america-does-not-need-rw-civility-america-needs-lw-vitriol/568474/193 "2011-02-01T02:13:39Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Og, “Bob” and Allah, lefties! Quit bringing a casserole to a gunfight! “The Revolution is not a dinner party!” The only way to deal with an in-your-face evangelist is to denounce him right back, in **moralistic** terms, and to tell him the spiritual truth that he is not merely wrong but **damned!** (Well, another way is to ignore him, but that has no advisable application here.) And the only way to deal with RW [Eliminationism](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=533537) is to **raise the stakes!** Organize and turn out like the Tea Partiers only louder and fiercer! Picket the very homes of the most outrageous capitalist assholes! (Thanks to **What the … ?!** for bringing [this](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=13379348#post13379348) to my attention. We could start a list by selecting the worst offenders from [the _Buffalo Beast’s_ “50 Most Loathsome Americans of 2010.”](http://www.buffalobeast.com/?p=4182) Giving Barack Obama a pass, for the moment, for good intentions, and for that fact that picketing the WH is so old-hat anyway.) If it matters, [you probably will find there are more of us than there are of them.](http://people-press.org/report/312/trends-in-political-values-and-core-attitudes-1987-2007) But don’t let it matter, except at the polls on e-day. When they shout, shout them down twice as hard! Get up in their faces and tell them in loud and clear and unambiguous terms how idiotic and **evil** they are! > > We also need a movement **smarter** than the Tea Party, etc., but that requires no particular effort in this case. At least, not at the grassroots level. Meeting the think-tank brainpower of their MBA stringpullers definitely will take some doing. > > I was wavering on whether to post this in GD or the Pit. It really is, essentially, a GD topic, so I’ll leave it to the Mods to move it Pitward when it heats up. How did I miss this? I absolutely agree. The Left needs a pair. Cultural wars are won by those who stand up for their beliefs. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-america-does-not-need-rw-civility-america-needs-lw-vitriol/568474.md?page=9)