After I put up my post last night on “the double standard of the Left,” frequent commenter and cyberfriend Doug Hagler called me out on a couple things. I posted a response to him in the comments there, but after thinking about it a bit, I decided to post an edited version of that comment on the main page as well.Part of his objection was to the blog to which I linked—or rather, to the commenters on that blog. As I noted, on high-traffic blogs, I don’t read the comments unless I know they’re tightly patrolled (as with, for example, U.S.S. Mariner, or Adam Brickley’s blog), because otherwise, they will uniformly be ugly. (And if you think this just applies to political blogs, spend some time in the sports blogosphere—your eyes will be opened. Republicans vs. Democrats has nothing on Red Sox. vs. Yankees.)More importantly, to point out a double standard on the Left is not to imply anything, positive or negative, about the Right; there’s simply no logical connection there. If there’s one thing I’ve found to hold true about groups of people, it’s that they’re all the same—the same tendencies, good and bad, will tend to emerge in roughly the same proportions unless something specific to the group acts to emphasize or suppress them. As such, do I imagine that being conservative means that one is immune to certain sins? No, certainly not. In this particular case, for instance, I know full well that the Right has its tendencies toward double standards, too. However, I will note that in areas in which the Right tends to get publicly sanctimonious, it usually follows through against its own, even if only because the media won’t let it do otherwise. Where is Mark Foley? Where is Larry Craig? Where is Ted Haggard? The list is not without exception (David Vitter comes to mind; the only explanation I have for his survival is that Louisiana is a different world politically), but neither is it short. When you have a preacher peddling leftist hate, like the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., liberals defend him; by contrast, preachers peddling rightist hate will often find their sharpest critics among evangelicals. Fred Phelps, that malignancy on the body politic, is a classic example.The question with regard to the attack on Mount Hope Church is, are there liberals who will call a spade a spade here, the way evangelicals (and even some fundamentalists) routinely do every time Phelps opens his yap, and denounce this as an intolerant assault on freedom of speech and freedom of religion? And with regard to the Obama campaign’s disabling of protections against credit-card fraud, will the liberals who sermonize about the corrupting influence of money in politics step up and call this what it is—namely, corrupt? The point is not that there’s supposedly some kind of vast left-wing conspiracy—we got enough of that kind of talk in the other direction from the Clintons. The point is, when the Left talks about tolerance, and political ethics, and the the need for campaign-finance reform, and all those things, are those just clubs to use to beat up Republicans? Or are folks on the Left willing to call out their own side on these issues?Certainly, Republicans aren’t perfect in this respect, but there are always GOP pundits and politicians willing to take up that role. The question is, are there leaders and media figures on the Left who will do the same? Or do they only care when it’s Republicans who are guilty?
This response is clarifying and I appreciate it (I’m also happy to call you “cyberfriend” also); I do think your point is still being hampered by language of Left and Right.
I get that it is frustrating to you that there is a double standard – it is for me too. I feel like I call out leftist crapola now and then, but I’m a little guy with a piddling ‘audience’, so it has little clout and isn’t heard, and I agree that I see in public punditry the tendency to protect “our own” no matter the cost.
This, for me, is a problem with punditry, not leftishness. The pundit is motivated by a warfare mentality – one side has to win, and the pundit has to fire off as much verbal artillery as s/he can to crush the enemy into submission. Listening to pundits is like listening to an aerial bombardment – it is noise and damage and thereis nothing redeeming about it (to me at least).
I cannot tell you how many times the Bush administration, or the Republican congress under the Clintons, did something despicable that was loudly defended up and down by the punditry on the right. For a while, I responded to this by thinking “people on the Right are a bunch of hypocritical jerks”, but the remedy for this was to actually talk to people on the right – what I found was that I had more in common with them, and that sometimes, deep down, they didn’t like the hypocrisy either. It even changed some of my views over time on things like abortion.
So, you’re right to call *everyone* out to decry this kind of vile garbage – known in the case of the church attack and suspected in the case of Obama. But using the left-right language just isn’t helpful, because it gives the strong impression that you do not believe what you wrote:
“More importantly, to point out a double standard on the Left is not to imply anything, positive or negative, about the Right; there’s simply no logical connection there. If there’s one thing I’ve found to hold true about groups of people, it’s that they’re all the same—the same tendencies, good and bad, will tend to emerge in roughly the same proportions unless something specific to the group acts to emphasize or suppress them. As such, do I imagine that being conservative means that one is immune to certain sins? No, certainly not.”
In my experience, to point out a hypocrisy and call it “a hypocrisy of the Left” has *precisely* the effect of giving the impression, by implication, that you think the right does not have such hypocrisies, or that it is a political wing composed of people who are somehow better. Its an ugly human hypocrisy being perpetrated by the left (well, you suppose it is – it was something of a pre-emptive cry of hypocrisy) – saying that is very different from saying that it is “The double standard of the Left, in full force”.
That, basically, was my point.
As for the “leaders” and (more accurately) media figures on the left – I’m not too impressed with most of them either, truth be told. I think they’ve long since abandoned genuine liberal or progressive credentials in many cases, and sideline genuine progressives whose views I personally resepct. For me, the nail in the coffin was any supposed liberal voting for the Patriot Act, or the second Patriot Act, which was in every way a violation of what liberalism holds dear.
I’m not as mad about Jeremiah Wright, honestly. From my point of view, too much was made of the point he was making, which does reflect what is found in the Bible – that God does not bless a nation that destroys innocent life (pro-life preachers say this all the time about the “fake” America). He’s a preacher who says a lot of incendiary things, but if I’m not worshiping the USA (as I think San Hannity does, for example) it isn’t as much of a problem. He can say “God damn America” and Barack Obama can even listen to him say it and it isn’t a big problem for me. But I’m also not frightened by ideas; I’m only frightened by actions.
If Obama is perpetrating massive fraud, that’s frightening as well, but I need more than pundits talking about it to find it convincing. I also need evidence that it is especially egregious fraud, since I assume as a matter of course that all national political figures are on some level frauds by my standards. We have a vast culture of ignoring the frauds of our leaders – it isn’t as if Obama is inventing something here; I see him as a lightening rod for the corruption that is rampant in our system.
Again, thanks for the response, and I’m sorry I used so much space on your comment thread.
I think to respond substantively will take another post. For now, a couple things.
One, I never used the word “hypocrisy.” That’s your word.
Two, to say that there’s a double standard operant among most of the high-profile figures of the Left is, in my judgment, true. It’s also true that high-profile figures on the Right are also guilty of this. However,
Three, and I’ll say more about this later, the left/right distinction is a distinction with a difference here, and therefore relevant, even if only because the media enables such double standards by liberals but exposes and decries them by conservatives. This tends to encourage this sort of thing on one side and discourage it on the other, because the level of benefit to the behavior is disparate.
Four, I’ve certainly spent time calling out my own side as well, though I’ll admit those criticisms tend to be aimed more at the church than at the political party; I don’t believe I’ve ever had much to say about the Rockefeller wing of the GOP, since I don’t feel any connection to those folks.
And five, it’s not that the Obama campaign is perpetrating massive fraud. What they did, and are doing, as a matter of established fact, is make and profit from a decision to refuse to make any effort to prevent fraud. Indeed, it took them active effort to do so, as they had to remove the code that’s designed to do that from the software they used and are using to take online donations. Personally, I consider making a special effort to enable people to cheat and skirt the law to be egregious.
You are fighting a losing battle with lefty mea culpa in so many areas.
As a hardcore conservative, you don’t even want to get me started on President Bush’s shortcomings.
And there in lies the difference.
Oye..
As for Obama, I ‘think’ I heard on the radio that he would not rescind the Bush Tax cuts as promised. If true, the I give him props.
Any talk of a stimulus package on Inauguration Day, is patently the wrong thing to do. It is nothing more then buying votes with money that your kids and grandkids will have to pay back. With interest. And China is our creditor. Every dollar going out increases the length of the economic recovery and further advances us on the path of a false economy completely opposite of free trade. How can there be any honesty in a market place where the success of your company’s rise or fall hinges on the fact that your “competitor” will not be allowed to fail because Uncle Sam is fixing the game?
Think people. You do not want to go down this road. Bailout = Bad, bad, bad.
-dbrletich
Eh, not fighting a battle, really; just broadcasting, and letting people respond as they will. It’s good, most of the time; I learn from those who add to my arguments, and I learn from those who challenge them. We have to learn from those who disagree with us, really, because they catch things that we don’t, and won’t.