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Causing Offense from the High Ground
In recent passionate, well-written, and engaging posts, Susan Quinn and “Martel” (I can only assume his first name is Charles) call for a new boldness, a kind of rhetorical trench warfare that rejects the strictures of nobility, decorum, and the high ground in favor of what the left has demonstrated actually works: insults, personal exposé, and relentless attack.
There’s a lot to like in this. I agree that timidity is a signature trait of conservatism, ill-suited for engaging an opponent only too ready to abandon any pretense of reason and moderation and dive down into the muck. Calls to meet our political foes on their own level are growing more common and more strident – largely, I’d argue, because the left has sunk to such depths of discourse that effective yet principled engagement seems impossible.
Something needs to change, with that I absolutely agree. But I wonder if perhaps, by calling for a lowering of our own standards (and that is how I see it), we are taking the easy road, sparing ourselves the discomfort of doing what is consistent with the call to boldness yet also in keeping with our higher standards of reason and discourse.
Whatever happens in the political arena, we conservatives are losing the cultural battle and, with it, the war for western civilization. And we’re losing it with hardly a metaphorical shot fired, because of that very timidity that I’ll join with Susan and “Charles” in decrying.
Before I encourage any conservative to abandon reason and decorum and surrender the high ground, I’d first ask him this: Have you spoken plainly and boldly about the cultural battles we’re losing, without regard to whom you might offend? Have you really tried to engage the cultural enemy bluntly, and in a way that might risk making you unlikable?
Here are some fronts in the culture war, and the stands I think conservatives should take, loudly, plainly, and boldly:
- Men and women are different, with different strengths and interests and needs. Telling men and women otherwise is setting them up for unhappiness and failure. We’ve been misleading our kids about this for decades, and we’re paying for this in broken homes and broken lives.
- Homosexuality isn’t normal. That isn’t to say it’s evil, or wrong, or bad, but it isn’t normal human sexual conduct. Portraying it as as normal as heterosexuality is misleading and confusing. Timmy may have two mommies, but that’s the rare exception, and not how humans normally function.
- The “trans” movement is a destructive farce, and a barrier to dealing effectively with mental illness and sexual confusion. When it involves children, it’s particularly abusive and destructive.
- Global warming alarmists are being ludicrous when they pretend that their weak models can even begin to predict climate change, much less the cost of climate change, a half a century in the future. Impoverishing the world now to address this poorly supported hypothetical crisis is bad for everyone – and most particularly for the world’s poorest people.
- High minimum wages rob the weakest, least employable members of society from the necessary opportunities for advancement, while simultaneously hurting businesses, slowing the advancement of the marginally employed, and destroying jobs. No one actually benefits from high minimum wages.
- America does not a have a racism problem. America has a racism industry. Racism is being kept alive by those who profit from victimhood status, and it’s time to stop treating the race-baiting profiteers of hate as if they were on the side of the angels.
- The teachers’ unions are destroying education in urban America, particularly for our poorest and most vulnerable children. It makes no sense to be pro-choice about the life or death of an unborn child, but anti-choice when it comes to the next 18 years of that child’s life. Let parents pick their schools, and let failing schools fail.
- If requiring a photographic ID for voting is racist and discriminatory, then requiring a photographic ID for a gun purchase must also be racist and discriminatory. So why are liberals in favor of making it harder for black people to own guns? What’s with that?
- Letting boys in the girls’ locker room is ridiculous, dangerous, and a frankly stupid idea. It isn’t going to happen.
- America’s universities are afraid to let young people hear conservative ideas because the faculty know that conservative ideas are better than progressive ideas, and that the latter can’t compete on a fair playing field. Suppressing the competition of ideas keeps students ignorant.
You get the idea. There are all sorts of things that we can say that will make people uncomfortable and get us talked about, but that don’t require us to embrace anything distasteful. The left says so many stupid things, it’s easy to find ways to contradict them that are both truthful and sure to upset someone.
I think we can cause plenty of offense without surrendering the high ground. I don’t think we’re trying very hard.
Published in Culture
Yes.
When radical leftists go “too far”, the less radical leftists tsk-tsk about how of course they don’t agree with the violence, etc., committed by their fellow travelers, and then launch into discourse sympathizing with and excusing the behavior due to the inherent injustice-du-jour. They use the occasion of wrong-doing on their side to turn the argument into an attack on conservatives.
From a moderate’s point of view, the less-radical leftist appears reasonable compared to the radicals, and the leftist message gets associated with the reasonable, yet still passionate, advocate. The radicals are painted as impatient, yet well-meaning, “activists.”
When anyone vaguely on the right does something untoward, most mainstream conservatives start clawing over each other to see who can be first to disavow the “radicals”, even to the point of undermining whatever conservative agenda was involved. There’s no message beyond “I’m not one of those types of conservative.”
From a moderate’s point of view, the right is split between some moderate fuddy-duddies and a bunch of fascists that even the fuddy-duddies refuse to defend. There’s no turning of the tables, just apologies and rhetorical feet shuffling.
This needs to stop. To those without the stomach for getting down in the mud with the leftists, fine — I’m not much of a mud wrestler, either. But the enemy is to the left. Direct your fire to port and don’t worry if your compatriots track a little mud on deck.
Because we can’t win without picking on other people’s children, right?
Good; good.
I like it when you talk about sinners.
It isn’t “directing fire” to suggest that some tactics are better than others.
Free speech is a good thing. The left suppresses it when it can, shouting down speakers, rioting, sometimes getting violent. Those are the left’s tactics. They’re a betrayal of something we value, the free exchange of ideas.
We can shine light on it and demand that these people be held accountable. I think that process is actually working, albeit slowly, and that colleges, for example, are feeling the effects of public disgust with their more extreme students.
Another tactic would be to join the left down in the mud, shutting down their speakers and engaging in their style of civil disobedience. Some conservatives are in favor of that, as when protesters interrupted the park play featuring Trump as Caesar. I think that’s a mistake, both a betrayal of something we value and an error that taints the right and makes it harder for us to make a principled appeal for free speech.
We don’t all agree. But I’m expressing my support for the free speech route. And I’m advocating more free speech, more often. I think we conservatives should be pushing back against pop culture and the popular wisdom.
I also value peace and security, as I’m sure you do, also. However, if some thugs kicked in my door and started shooting, returning fire and defending my family would not constitute a betrayal of those values. Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.
They’ve been pulling this crap for decades. They won’t stop until they feel pain that exceeds the gain. The colleges may slap a few wrists and pretend to care until things cool down, then they’ll ramp it back up again because they believe the ends justify the means, and they believe (with justification) that they’ll suffer no long term consequences.
I’ll also note that there has been recent push back against the Leftist thugs, beyond “public disgust”. Do you recall the antifa thugs getting some reciprocal violence from Trump supporters a few months ago? Also the protesters at the Trump/Ceasar play you mention below. Perhaps these forays into the mud caused some of the college administrators to realize that they’d better stop turning a blind eye.
I’m an individualist, not a collectivist. The people who briefly interrupted the Trump/Ceasar play did not betray my values. Only I can betray my values. The Left loves to make conservatives answer for what other conservatives say or do. It’s a trap — don’t fall for it. As the side that celebrates the individual, we should simply say, “I had nothing to do with that protest. You should go ask the people who did.”
I agree we should be pushing back against pop culture. Why must it be either/or? The Left didn’t make the gains it has by implementing one tactic at a time. They attack on all fronts, with multiple simultaneous tactics.
There’s a pretty clear difference, isn’t there, between using violence in self-defense, on the one hand, and beating up a liberal professor because someone else beat up a conservative professor, on the other?
One is not a betrayal of what Americans have long held sacred. The other is.
Yes. I do. And I’m sick of this stuff.
After a Sanders supporter tries to decapitate the legislative branch of our govt (just last month!): “Don’t blame the Left!”
Okay, we won’t. Well just sit atound and wait for them to blame us. That took about three days.
…and what is this “we’re losing! The GOP is dying!” ? Huh? I mean, Trump was right today to say we have to replace the RINOs in Congress, but— hello! 8 months ago we had a big historic victory. Didn’t we? And our president is doing a lot of what we wanted: 93% drop in illegal immigration, f’rinstance. He’s getting that under control despite the Left’s whining–and that’s a sine qua non of any other real improvement for America.
Losing? Dying?
Projecting?
Who said anything about an unprovoked beating of a liberal professor? That’d be assault. Please don’t put words in my mouth. You were discussing freedom of speech, now you’re changing the subject to assault?
Re-reading through our recent discussion, I see a couple references to violence. I suspect you’re focusing on those, whereas I’m thinking of the play-interruption.
So to be clear, I don’t believe we should be instigating violence. However, shouting down leftist speakers, interrupting leftist plays, or fighting back when the left starts the violence, are fair game.
The story I linked to was about Tim Kaine’s 24 y/o son who was arrested for rioting and resisting arrest at an anti-Trump event. When reached for response, Sen. Kaine replied:
His adult son broke the law. Sen. Kaine responded very disengenuously to the incident. I say this incident is fair game, and I’m growing tired of your grandstanding, Mr. Racette.
Terry, we’re engaged in a process, you and I. We’re having a discussion. Work with me for a minute.
I’m glad you aren’t in favor of assault. That’s good: I now understand that you have boundaries, and that you aren’t in favor of, for example, violent assault. (You and I both approve of violence used in direct self-defense. I understand that.)
What about disrupting a speaking event and refusing to leave? We know that’s a leftist tactic. Is that something the right should embrace? Or can we agree that we oppose that as well, because taking away people’s right to free expression is simply wrong?
UPDATE:
Ah, but I read further and it looks like you’ve answered that. You write:
I agree about the responding to violence with violence part. But I don’t agree that depriving others of their right to speak, either because I disagree with their message or because I want to make an example of them, is, as you put it, “fair game.”
That’s actually the thing I want to put an end to.
But I’m content to disagree, if this is as far as we can go and we’ve both made our thoughts known.
What the Senator says is fair game. We agree about that.
But you also said:
And, sorry, I don’t think that’s right. It wasn’t right when it was Sarah Palin’s family being savaged, and it wouldn’t be right if it were a liberal’s family being savaged.
You’re probably not the only one. But this actually seems like a big deal to me, this idea that we don’t want to burn down free speech to save it, that we don’t want to surrender any credible claim that we value this stuff, that we don’t actually want to become the thing we despise, simply because it seems expedient.
I’ve never liked the saying that “if we do X, then we become as bad as them.” It’s usually wrong, a stupid application of broken logic. If we kill terrorists, that doesn’t make us as bad as the terrorists. If I shoot a violent thug, that doesn’t make me a violent thug.
But if we face a political adversary that disregards our Constitutional liberties, the right thing to do is to assert our Constitutional liberties — even if it leads to violence as we do so. That is an acceptable act. And we can pressure, loudly and strenuously, for the weight of law to come down upon them. In other words, we can defend our Constitutional rights.
But if we decide that, by golly, if you don’t respect our Constitutional rights then we’re not going to respect yours, then we end up with no one ready to stand and defend the Constitution. And we’re hoping that they’ll back down, that they’ll be the ones to exhibit good sense and decide it isn’t worth the fight. Why would we think that? What about the left has ever made us believe that they’ll back down rather than ramp up?
No. If we want to protect our Constitutional rights, including our right to free speech, then we should protect it by using it, and by demanding justice when people try to prevent us from using it.
Taken in isolation, I think it’s rude. The Left claims they’re exercising their right to free speech when they do this to us. It’s their rules, so if some conservatives want to return the favor, it gives me no heartburn.
I don’t understand why people got the vapors over a couple of people interrupting the Trump/Ceasar play for a few minutes. I can believe they were being rude without falling into a swoon about it being a threat to freedom of speech.
And maybe, just maybe, if the Leftists see a few conservatives starting to ape their tactics, they’ll stop and reconsider their next violent protest.
Maybe. But that’s a question of efficacy, not of what’s right.
I mean, maybe if we took a few of these protesters out back and beat them thoroughly, word would get around and that’d put an end to it, too. And that would probably be even more effective — but still not right. I know you aren’t advocating that. I’m suggesting that what works perhaps shouldn’t be the only standard for deciding what is moral and appropriate behavior.
This is what happens when a conservative shouts down a liberal speaker.
The last conservative senator I saw speak on a college campus was shouted down by off-campus liberals. But the crowd shouted them down. They wanted to hear what Sen. Phil Gramm had to say. If they had not outnumbered the liberal shouters, Sen. Gramm would have had to leave out the back door. Just something to think about. I don’t know what kind of utopian reality you inhabit, but this is the reality I inhabit.
It isn’t a matter of utopia’s, Bloodthirsty. It’s a matter of respect for the rule of law and the Constitution, and of not being quite so willing to toss them out the window when some other way suddenly looks more attractive. I’m just all about respecting the Constitution, I guess. I know it isn’t the fashion these days, but it was how I was raised.
Henry, the Constitution is a check on the government. An individual disrupting a speaker is rude, bad form, maybe even illegal, depending on the situation. But it doesn’t violate the Constitution.
That’s false equivalence and you know it. Palin’s family members were law-abiding and the ones most targeted were under the age of 18. Tim Kaine’s son was 24 and arrested for committing political violence. You have a talent for making reasonable arguments sound petty and ridiculous. Maybe you should run against Rand Paul the next time he’s up for re-election. You’re two peas in a pod.
I know. That’s why I try to be careful to speak of respecting the Constitution and respecting Constitutional rights. Because, even though we, as private citizens, can’t violate the Constitution, we can deprive others of the rights that the Constitution itself protects and guarantees: we can treat those rights as disposable things.
And, once we do that, it’s pretty hard to credibly stand up and be the side that believes in those rights, isn’t it? I mean, how do you say something like “I know the ideas I’m expressing offend you, but I have a right, a sacred, Constitutional right, to express them,” once you’ve demonstrated that you don’t actually respect that right, and that you’re willing to take it away from others when you see fit?
No, defending the criminal suppression of free speech isn’t compatible with respecting our Constitutional rights.
But your words, Bloodthirsty, were:
You didn’t say if they’re over the age of 18, and you did say legal and otherwise.
So I guess I don’t understand your argument here. Do you want to restrict your hounding to only those offspring who have reached the age of majority? Do you want to restrict it to only those who have committed crimes? If so, say so. But that wasn’t what you were saying earlier.
I don’t think the argument that we should condone lawbreaking if it’ll teach the left a lesson is a reasonable argument. I don’t know that it’s petty and ridiculous, exactly, but I think it’s both counter-productive and a betrayal of the good that we should represent.
We shouldn’t become the bad guys. We should be better good guys.
It was many years ago, but your appeal to principles and reason remind me of Sen. Gramm’s presentation. He talked about freedom and conservatism. The jerks didn’t care what he had to say The jerks just wanted to shout him down.
There were no police with tasers to kick out the jerks. They clearly didn’t belong there, because it was a small undergraduate only college, and they were clearly over 25.
This happens all the time to conservatives; it is not tolerated when liberals speak. You don’t address my point. You don’t acknowledge the reality I described. You don’t offer any solutions. You look down on all of us yokels from 30,000 feet where no tasers can reach you.
You have a talent for putting words into other people’s mouths too. When did I say we should break the law? Embarrassing a Senator about his acquiescence in his own son’s acts of political violence is criminal? I think not.
BTW, I liked your post.
What makes you think I have solutions? I just know that there are things I think we can’t do, not if we want to remain on the right side of civilization.
I do have suggestions. Stop sending your kids to colleges that condone this garbage. Stop sending money to colleges that condone this garbage. Provoke liberals to want to hit you, and then have them arrested when they do. (This isn’t for everyone. But if you’re up to it, go for it.)
Speak up. Say conservative things. If security is inadequate and someone gets hurt, take those responsible for security to court. Sue them. That will put an end to it faster than anything else.
Above all, don’t stop speaking out, and don’t stop calling attention to the thugs. Make videos. Write letters. Get in their face. Be offensive. Be edgy, obnoxious, and insistent. Be offended that our right to speak is being curtailed, and tell people about what’s going on. (It’s amazing how many people have no idea that this is happening.)
Do: Mock them. Call them out. Shine light on them. Offend them. Hold the authorities responsible.
Don’t: Become them. They’ve abandoned civilization in order to achieve their goals. Don’t do the same. Someone has to remain civilized, and giving up ours in hopes that they’ll see the light seems unwise to me.
Thank you. I appreciate that.
It’s funny how heated exchanges can become, isn’t it? The annonymity of blogging makes it easy to assume things about the other person.
My fear is that we will give up essential things, good things, because we are frustrated and convinced that the left is beating us. I don’t think they’re beating us because of their violence or their speech suppression. I think they’re beating us — I do believe that — because they sell a line of bologna and we sit silently, afraid to speak up for fear of appearing mean.
I have a general belief that the chronic is worse than the acute. That is, it isn’t usually the big loss that hurts us so much as the steady drip of surrender. We could fight back, literally fight back, against every outrageous leftist protest in America, secure every conservative speaking engagement, and still lose hands down, because the real battle is being fought all around us every day. It’s in the tripe that’s peddled to us on television, the stupid reality TV with its mandatory homosexual character (because, you know, about one in four Americans is homosexual — at least, according to reality TV). It’s the fact that every single Christian portrayed on television is a pervert or a hypocrite.
Andrew Klavan talked about the new Planet of the Apes movie in one of his last couple of podcasts. He points out — I haven’t seen it, but I’ll take his word for it — that it’s blatantly anti-American and anti-Christian. Surprise. But we let it go. We don’t make a stink about stuff like that.
It isn’t the student radicals who are beating us. It’s the stupid ideas we allow to take root, the Caitlyn Jenner stuff, the Bernie Sanders stuff. (Next time you meet a Bernie supporter, consider mentioning that he’s a big fan of the single most unsuccessful idea in all of human history, the one that has killed more people than all the world’s wars combined — that the little dope from Vermont is unwittingly embracing the greatest evil we’ve ever cooked up. That’s their hero.)
Anyway. Thanks for engaging, and for remaining civil. You’re a good sport.
Actually we agree very much here. I don’t think Conservatives (the professional Conservatives, at least) have truly joined the fight yet. They don’t yet acknowledge we are at war with an ideology that would destroy us.
I believe much could be accomplished by openly and publicly questioning everything that comes from the mouth of the media. Never ever let them get away with their false assertions. Correct them on the spot. Show them for the fools they are. Sarah Huckabee Sanders has shown remarkable spine in dealing with that particular enemy in the WH press room. Every Republican member of Congress could learn from her when doing the news interview shows. Never accept the premise of the questioner – because it’s always a biased set-up.
Thanks for sharing. It was interesting.
Like we have been doing since November 1955 which has yielded us only one 8 year respite from the insanity that is Progressive policies? As the good doctor said, “been there, done that.”
If we’d “been there, done that,” we wouldn’t have experienced the cultural meltdown we have over the past three decades. Conservatives surrendered, because we don’t like hurting people’s feelings and causing a scene. Most conservatives are silent in the face of radical social transformation, keeping their criticism amongst themselves where they can all agree, afraid to upset friends and family and co-workers.
No, we haven’t “done that.”