Tag Archives: Civility

Donald Effin’ Trump

Over at National Review Online, Dennis Prager has some important things to say about Donald Trump's choice of words.  Well, what choice of words, first:

The following comments were made in a public speech last week by a man considering running for president of the United States.

On gas prices: We have nobody in Washington that sits back and says, ‘You’re not going to raise that f***ing price.’”

On what he would say as president to China: “Listen, you mother f***ers, we’re going to tax you 25 percent.”

On Iraq: “We build a school, we build a road, they blow up the school, we build another school, we build another road, they blow them up, we build again. In the meantime we can’t get a f***ing school in Brooklyn.”

Ho hum.  The reality is that I love me some F-bomb.  I do object to Trump's sentiments, though.  But it's not the fact that Trump puts some salt on his verbiage, it's the fact that he thinks he can yell at China and say he can tax a trade partner at 25 percent.  Protectionism is great, until you pay for it with their tariffs and so on.  We're in the can with the Chinese, but I'm unsure that this is the solution. Washington doesn't set gas prices, either.  And Iraq?  Anyone who was for the war knew going in it was a 'you break it, you buy it' deal.  And Brooklyners don't need a school for f***ing.  They already know how (joke by amphiboly — like cooking school).  Regardless, Prager has other issues.  Yeah, it's with the dirty words, especially with their use in public.

But there is a world of difference between using an expletive in private and using one in a public speech. For those who do not see the difference, think of the difference between relieving oneself in private and relieving oneself in public. It usually takes a university education and a Leftist worldview not to see the enormous moral distinction between public and private cursing.

One disanalogy: nobody has to clean up a puddle when I tell a dirty joke.  Another: I'll still privately curse in front of my neighbors. One more: some cursing is artistic and is wasted unless it is shared with the world.  I can't help it: It's OK for someone to collect all the dirty language someone else has used.  Fine, fine — I do understand Prager's point, though.  It is unseemly to curse like that.  I get it, and I've even got a university education and everything (read the quote again, if you didn't get that last one).  I'm glad that Prager made sure to get in an unseemly jab at educated elites while chastising a Republican for acting indecently and uncivilly.

If we cannot count on Republicans and conservatives to maintain standards of public decency and civility, to whom shall we look?

Geez. Is this another false dilemma without the other option?

Now that gets me heated

Christopher Orlet, over at the American Spectator, has a few things to say about what gets him riled up these days.  There aren't many, but two that stand out are:

About the only thing that gets me heated these days is my Bubblespa footbath. (I recommend the model with toe touch control.) That and being told by politicians, professors and anchorwomen how to behave.

No, this is not an ad for footbaths.  At least, I don't think it is. Instead, Orlet is using his  footbath as a way of showing that he's normally calm  —  footbath-excitement is usually tepid.  But being told how to argue breaks that calm.  Even the calm that can be achieved by a footbath.  You see, it's a rhetorical device.  You cast yourself as the minding-your-own-business everyman who loves footbaths, and then you portray yourself as just not being able to stand some imposition on what kind of rhetoric you can use.  How disruptive of our calm lives to be reminded of the importance of civility. 

Again, I'm no great champion of civility.  It is possible to argue well and be mean.  In fact, some matters require that we are mean, especially when the issue is significant and our interlocutors are vicious and in need of shaming.  But there are moral reasons why we must have our defaults set on civility first.  The most important reason is to avoid making the exchange of ideas toxic to the point where even those with good ideas don't want to enter the fray.  In discourse theory we call the outcome of those circumstances "error amplifications" and "hidden profiles" — increased group confidence in erroneous commitments and social pressures against correcting them.  Since we want truth, we've got to make the discussion welcoming.  That's just how it goes, and so the duties of civility must be exercised.

Would Orlet be moved by these sorts of reasons for civiity?  Well, if you sweetened the pot a little:

But men are stubborn animals. We may pretend to be more sensitive … , if it means we might get lucky more often

I see.

Well, what does Orlet think would happen were he to enforce this rule on liberals, too?

Just this morning, I heard someone on NPR say, "We need to really tackle these issues." I was immediately overwhelmed with the desire to sprint down the aisle and clothesline the director of marketing. Unfortunately, she stiff-armed me and rolled on to paydirt, by which I mean the ladies room.

Hm. This is just weird, now.  Golly.  Editors, anyone?

Let's ignore that, for the moment, and see where Orlet sees the requirements of civility leading us:

Since Tucson, editors have been having a "conversation" about banning more words from their newspapers, which pretty soon are going to read like The Poky Little Puppy, containing all 26 politically correct words and no more. . . . [N]ow they have to adopt the language of a tea party. And not The Tea Party either, but a real, doily and lace tea party.

So civil dialogue is like children's literature and tea-party frou-frou.  False analogy, leading to false dilemma.  But given the way that Orlet argues, the alternative might be an improvement.  The Poky Little Puppy isn't on the make with the people he's arguing with, and I don't think you call going to the bathroom 'rolling to paydirt' at a tea party (or in most any company). Maybe some, just a little, civility (that is, civilizing) would be good for Orlet.  But don't tell that to him just yet.  Let him enjoy the footbath.

Tu Quoque Alert!

Alright, instead of looking at just one article, here's my running list (from 20 minutes of clicking around on the old reliable sites) of conservatives that are currently running the same argument, which proceeds along the following lines:  The liberals say that conservative rhetorical invective is wrong. That's hogwash, because they do it too.   Here's the cattle call:

The editors at NationalReviewOnline see the hypocrisy in the accusation itself:

The irony of criticizing the overheated rhetoric of your opponents at the same time you call them accomplices to murder apparently was lost on these people, most of whom have never been noted for their subtlety (or civility)

Roger Kimball sees the tendencies on both sides, but the Liberals have it worse:

At one you are likely to see signs decrying socialism, big government, Obamacare, high taxes, etc. At the other you are likely to see signs advising you that “Bush = Hitler,” proclaiming the imperative “F*** Bush,” etc. Really, it is instructive to compare the rhetorical temperature, and general drift, of the two sides. One complains about various policies.  The other complains about “a culture of hate” while at the same time wallowing in it.

David Limbaugh at TownHall.com can't help but 'put aside' noting the hypocrisy of the lefties to wag their finger about tone:

Let's put aside, for now, the unhinged left's ongoing violent rhetoric and imagery against former President George W. Bush, Palin, conservative talkers and others on the right. Let's put aside that if certain rhetoric causes violence, then liberals' false depictions of Palin as advocating violence or their fraudulently smearing Rush Limbaugh as a racist based on manufactured stories could lead to violence.

Rachel Alexander at TownHall.com finds a case where a Democrat also used actual gun-imagery for electoral purposes:

[T]he left ignores the fact that one of their own, defeated Arizona Democrat Congressman Harry Mitchell, ran a campaign ad against JD Hayworth in 2006 featuring Hayworth in the crosshairs of a rifle.

Mona Charen, also at TownHall, notes that the media failed to blame Liberal opposition to Regan for the assassination attempt on him:

Ronald Reagan was nearly killed by a similarly mentally ill gunman. Did anyone suggest that liberals or Democrats encouraged or inspired John Hinckley?

Cal Thomas totally misses the point, and he just reverts to interpreting every criticism as an expression of dictatorships:

Long before modern media, newspapers condemned politicians they didn't like, questioning their character and moral fiber. To end vibrant, even incendiary political rhetoric, would require the eradication of politics, itself. Other countries have such a system. They're called dictatorships.

Um, wait, that's not chastising someone for not toning down their rhetoric, too… that's ramping up the rhetoric when someone says you should tone it down.  Wow.  Is Thomas always more angry than sad about things?  OK, so not a tu quoque, but weird. Just weird.

Stephanie Hermann (of Right Grrrrl) has a post over at American Spectator, titled, "I've Got Your 'Inflammatory Rhetoric' Right Here…", which is composed of a long list of mean things said by people who pass for liberals.

Jeffrey Lord, also at American Spectator, quotes  "one very angry federal judge," who "declined to be cited by name:" 

[H]ow ironic that the one constitutional officer to die was a conservative, Republican-appointed federal judge. Will anyone point out the hypocrisy of liberal media on that one?

I'll end with Ross Douthat, who marks the hypocrisy, but makes what I think is a sensible distinction:

But if overheated rhetoric and martial imagery really led inexorably to murder, then both parties would belong in the dock. (It took conservative bloggers about five minutes to come up with Democratic campaign materials that employed targets and crosshairs against Republican politicians.) When our politicians and media loudmouths act like fools and zealots, they should be held responsible for being fools and zealots. They shouldn’t be held responsible for the darkness that always waits to swallow up the unstable and the lost.