perfidy

The icon that the Ministry uses for the category Partisan Politics is a seesaw. It seems that it was a better choice than we realized when we picked it almost at random.

A couple things I have read lately have gotten me thinking. First, the court action that has - possibly - delayed the California recall election. This brings back unpleasant memories of the fubar Florida scenario back from '00, only this time, the sides are reversed. That the Democrats there are now eagerly awaiting further court intervention in the furtherance of their political goals, and Republicans are crying foul seems to cause absolutely no embarrassment. A great many of our politicians clearly (though this does not surprise us) have an expedient sort of political principle. It is easy to stand on principle when it advances your interests. Sure enough, there are cases where politicians have stood on principle even when it did not - or even at great cost to their ambitions, but these are rare.

If this legal battle heats up, we could see a small-scale replay of the ugliness that attended the aftermath of the Presidential election, and the further polarization of the political parties. Add in the coming Democratic Primary season, and '04 might turn out to be rather bloody. The rancor that will likely ensue will further alienate the two sides of American politics.

Our good friend Ross, over at Spiral Dive, recently wrote two posts that are striking in their dissimilarity. The first, graciously titled "Standard, Dumb-Ass Answers" is a list of twelve responses that Ross will no longer accept from a republican in regard to, I guess, any political or topical issue. Here's the list: 

1. If it's so bad in the US, why does everybody want to come here?
2. If you don't like it, why don't you just MOVE to another country?
3. France Sucks!
4. We'll just have to disagree, and you are too stupid to understand why you are wrong.
5. Take the average tax cut! See how the average American gets $1003 back?
6. The free market is the only thing that makes this country great.
7. By criticizing the President, you are unpatriotic. You do not support the troops. Therefore you are also guilty of treason.
8. If we DIDN'T have a tax cut, we'd have lost 1.4 million MORE jobs.
9. Halliburton is a fine company.
10. Nobody can prove global warming exists, so it doesn't.
11. Tax Cut! I don't know why!
12. Everybody knows that when you cut taxes, you can solve anything!

He goes on to castigate the attempts of many right wing and war bloggers to construct strategic explanations for the (generally necessarily) secret plans of our government and military that fit the facts as they have unfolded. 

The list is funny, especially #3. While France may suck, that fact would not be a good explanation for any American policy decision. It most certainly is not a trump card. Bumper sticker patriotism finds its natural home in Ross' list.

This exercise contrasts greatly (with one exception) to the tone and content of the next post, Mythical Leftists. It's a long one, but worth reading. Ross offers a thoughtful and reasoned explanation of liberal views on life. And Ross' views are liberal, in the old sense of that word. This article gently but persuasively argues that creating a straw man of the left is a bad thing, and that those on the right should realize that liberals like himself should not be thought of as godless commies, who hate America or the West, and really have good and ethical reasons for advancing the policy opinions that they do.

Why is Ross motivated enough to write this long post saying that the right is wrong for doing to him what he did to them in the post immediately before? Ross is center-left in politics. He responded to an article that was not aimed at him, but rather at those who live in a slightly redder political universe to his left. In the process, he constructed an admirable defense of (truly) liberal beliefs, which are commonly held on both sides of the political median. But Ross, in his defense, overlooks the fact that there is a left. That left is not that different from how Scott describes it in the selection that Ross quotes.

Ross personally knows at least one conservative (me), and we have had many an engaging and delightful argument over politics, over beer. The first thing he writes after the long quote is, "I am pleased to find a right-winger who can actually spell, can correctly construct sentences, and who actually takes the time to lay out his arguments and beliefs. Well done, sir." Well, I am pleased to find at least one leftist who doesn't want to kill millions of Ukrainians.

This sort of thinking spoils the (generally excellent) points that Ross makes in the remainder of the post. It makes this thoughtful article more like the first - contemptuous of conservatives, and subverts what I assume is the intent of the piece. Ross wants the right to extend to him consideration that he is unwilling to extend to them.

I am guilty of this myself. It used to piss off our Minister Emeritus Mike to no end. I am more partisan than I would like to be. I would like to look at someone like Tom Daschle and say, he's goodhearted - he has the best interests of the nation in mind, but we have different ideas about how to go about achieving it. Then I hear him say something that is so screamingly contrary to fact and hostile to my interests that I say things like, "Jeebus, he's an effing Commie!"

People disagree on matters of policy. That's why we have politics, and elections. That's why we have this blog. The map that Johno included in his "Glories of Centrism" post shows that in one respect we are not as divided as we think. Ross' two posts show that in another, we are polarized even when we try to be tolerant.