Tried to post this in the comments below, but it was too long \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n
\nHmmm, I don’t edit these posts very well, and it shows…the first thing should be omniscience, not omnipotence. And I can see why liberals would feel conservatives are omnipresent & at least trying to be omnipotent.
\nKim, my take on things is pretty subjective: I find that when I tune in to liberal politicians & commentators, I’m frequently greeted with a kind of insularity which makes it clear that the person in question isn’t interested in convincing me b\/c I’m not worthy of listening or even talking to. On the other hand, if I check out conservatives, I hear stuff like the above which makes me wonder if the person in question has actually gone completely nuts. But neither side has a monopoly on those rhetorical tactics, I’ve felt the same ways about the opposite sides too.
\nPerhaps because I don’t feel like I fit neatly into either camp, so when either side starts playing the “us against them” game, I’m more often the them. Maybe because I am more conservative or because I tend to listen to and read more liberal than conservative sources, I feel like the liberal’s “them” more often than I do the conservative’s, but conservatives certainly aren’t innocent of this tactic either. And of course, liberals do create straw-icons of their own and charge cons with hypocrisy too–hypocrisy isn’t an illegitimate charge to make, either, it’s just that when it comes to politicians it’s almost too easy \ud83d\ude42
\nI couldn’t agree more with Jeff’s second paragraph, but although I like to think I’m usually the opposite of an alarmist, I also find a more upsetting reason for what I see as the recent escalation of rhetoric combined with the decline of debate. Although America is hardly in crisis yet, I think the terrorist attacks on America pushed us towards a crisis mode of thought, and our ongoing low-level war and the threat of more attacks in the future have kept it going. I think the crisis way of thinking galvanizes people into more extreme ways of thinking, into a “fundamentalist” form of what was previously merely a political preference–looking for “salvation” through correct politics as well as for “infidels” to blame problems on and declare a “holy” war against.
\nBoth sides are equally guilty of this–of course, not every member of both sides by any stretch of the imagination, but such opinions have gained a greater prominence and it’s become more socially acceptable to explicitly demonize one’s opponents in public–in ways which, I believe, in calmer times would find a forum only in street-corner rants. It’s obviously not to the point of actual “war” in the way of suppression of alternate viewpoints and so forth, although if devastating enough events occurred here, it could.
\nIn the meantime, however, I find such rhetoric both frustrating and incredibly counterproductive. If this really is a crisis moment, we need more than ever to work together and not start choosing sides for an us vs. them showdown.
\nNow that I think about it, I don’t recall anyone requesting another crazed rant from me, so guess I’ll pipe down. Thanks very much for the comments–I can’t believe my loony ravings draw such interesting & insightful responses \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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