<p>Heck no, I’m not going to be left holding the liberal ball, so to speak…to have the joy of FS and Driver and FF and Barrons all yelling at me? No thanks!</p>
<p>If the other CC liberals bail on me, I’m going into political hiding and talking about sheets. I like sheets. I like towels. Not much wrangling, except about thread count and color.</p>
<p>momrath quoting Shakespeare and FS quoting Solzhenitsyn, I love it! I’d go beyond the Russian though. I’d say it is hard for most humans to truly sympathize past the length of their own arms. Clever or not, we mostly live our minutes while projecting ourselves onto others. I’ve learned this by living alongside a seriously bi-polar brother for twenty years. He’s bundled into the ambulance before any of us realize, hey, he has been a bit manic over the past few weeks. We project our mental health onto him even when it’s clearly not there and we should know better after a dozen hospitalizations. </p>
<p>Indeed garland, cyber ridicule is annoying and anti-intellectual. I hate those posts, though I have been able to diffuse one or two posted in my direction ;). </p>
<p>Gentle and humourous chastisement, however, is good for all of us smarty pants. Bring it on, I say. I’ve got big burly contractors yelling at me all day. You ain’t gonna hurt MY feelings. This isn’t personal. I’m here to understand The Game.</p>
<p>-Allmusic-, come out from under those covers!</p>
<p>Garland,</p>
<p>Maybe I am misinterpreting your comment but I don’t see how anyone who comments here could be considered more or less powerful than any other commenter. The beauty of the internet is that we are all equal and the “winner” is the person who states the most convincing case. There are clearly excellent writers who post at CC but, ultimately, it doesn’t matter how eloquent the comments are. The underlying logic is what matters most. I know I’ve been convinced to rethink issues based on comments I’ve read, and I suspect that’s true of others - liberal and conservative - as well.</p>
<p>Cheers said, “However, their desire to retreat is also a worry. For one thing, I don’t see any arch-conservatives retreating (has anyone else noticed how well the conservatives write? As a group?). Digs, you realize that if you leave with other liberals, AllMusic and cgm will be left alone to present liberal counterpoints?”</p>
<p>I too agree with your whole post Cheers, especially this point^ </p>
<p>FS, please substantiate how Franken is more viscious than Limbaugh. It’s difficult for me to see since I’m on his side. Franken at least has intelligence and wit as opposed to Limbaugh’s bombastic loud mouth style. I would also take a wild guess that Limbaugh has a much wider audience.</p>
<p>
You mean like this? <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=240795[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=240795</a></p>
<p>:)</p>
<p>And yes, DRJ4, you misinterpreted Garland’s comment.</p>
<p>DRJ–no power differences here. That’s why I said here what i don’t like is ridiculing members of the community.</p>
<p>I’m not going to name the commentators who make fun of people less powerful than them. But FS, I defiinitely disagree on Franken. It’s definitely the more powerful he’s talking about.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Wait…wait…</p>
<p>FIFTEEN YEARS?</p>
<p>More like three hundred AND fifteen years. Check out the rhetoric people used against governors before this country even was. Or better yet, the crap spewed forth during the earliest political campaigns in our actual national history.</p>
<p>Hell, defamation of character was happening in Greece, for Zeus’s sake. Nothin’ new.</p>
<p>Hmmmmm. DRJ4, non-English speakers are at a disadvantage but still worthwhile. Less educated posters are at a disadvantage but still worthwhile. Less articulate posters are at a disadvantage because CC readers dismiss a point of view that is delivered in sentence fragments. (I do anyway). Less aggressive posters are at a disadvantage when a thread moves into attack mode. Younger posters are at a disadvantage because they are often overly sensitive to adult criticism and suggestion. Or, as I used to tell my sons when they were 14 and anxious to confront their teachers: it is not possible for a 14 year old to verbally slay a 40 year old, even if the 14 year old has a 30 point IQ advantage.</p>
<p>Anyway, I think the powerful, young and old, know who they are.</p>
<p>Yes, public rhetoric has always been a blood sport but the wider public understood that and didn’t absorb the rhetoric as personal affronts. Privately, Americans were able to discuss the issues back and forth. I remember those discussions from my childhood dinner table. When I was growing up, my family could sit down and discuss politics to the nth degree, to the last man standing. Now we cannot do that because the discussions turn to custard–pretty much along the lines of what makes digs cringe. </p>
<p>Mention Hillary or Bill Clinton or Democrat to my father and his blood boils right over. He is frothing. He HATES those two people beyond the politics they represent. He hates their beings. Irrationally. I think he would spit on them if he met them on the street. He would never speak to them. Mind you, otherwise, he is a well-educated, well-travelled, cultured, charitable, highly spiritual man who always has his nose in a history book. Go figure. I wish my father were alone in his anti-intellectual attitude, but I know he is merely part of a wider social phenomena.</p>
<p>Me I just don’t like how snotty it gets in the political threads. And I keep waiting for everyone to raise their hands and admit, “Me too! I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about either!!! My political views are a reflection of my parents’ childrearing styles, my body chemistry, and, as for Scrooge, the mustard I ate for lunch!!! I don’t know anything because I am just an accountant in Indiana or a media mogul in LA or a software programmer in Silicon Valley or…”</p>
<p>I don’t categorize posters as “powerful” or “less powerful,” and wonder how anyone could. Maybe I am not understanding the term “powerful.” I tend to think that the very posters you are perhaps labelling as “less powerful” (due to using sentence fragments, etc.) are actually very prominent on this board in their own way. Each person has their own style for getting across their pov, which is a dimension of their individual personality. I think it’s sort of condescending to label these differences as “powerful” or “less powerful.”</p>
<p>I’m going to go out on a limb here and even remark that the biggest difference I see on this board between the liberals and conservatives is the element of snobbery or condesension on the liberal side. This thread actually illustrates my point, i.e. we’re a tad too superior to get down in the trenches and battle it out with THOSE people…</p>
<p>Garland and Cheers,</p>
<p>Like HH, I still don’t get what you mean by more powerful or less powerful. Obviously, it’s fairly easy to tell when someone does not speak English as their first language and I agree they deserve special consideration. But how many fall into that category? I haven’t noticed unfair treatment based solely on communication skills. As for younger commenters, I don’t think it’s right to respond in a patronizing or cavalier manner but that’s a good rule for any response.</p>
<p>For the most part, what I have noticed is that people don’t like it when their ideas are challenged with convincing rebuttals. I’m not that happy when I have to admit I’m off base and I doubt anyone else likes it either. Overall, though, CC seems tame to me and that’s one reason I visit. That and I like to have my views challenged (or supported) by thoughtful, articulate people. If it seems like a blood sport to you, don’t play but it certainly doesn’t seem that way to me.</p>
<p>Garland,</p>
<p>Sorry, I didn’t mean to address you in my last comment. I understand your position and thank you for clarifying it.</p>
<p>
Good one, Ari. Truth and wit in 72 characters.</p>
<p>
Au contraire… Waaaay off base on that one.</p>
<p>Liz, </p>
<p>I’m guessing Limbaugh has a much greater audience for a reason. </p>
<p>Franken is funny as a humorist–sketch comedy. As a talk radio commentator he is a self-righteous bore who speaks in the squeaky monotone of a know-it-all intellectual…and he means it. Limbaugh is also self-righteous–though judging by the size of his audience, not a bore–who speaks as a know-it-all intellectual…with a none-to-subtle tongue-in-cheek self deprecation. To wit: “I am the most brilliant man alive and I am here to tell you so.” One offers liberal scolding, the other slapstick, right-of-center knuckle-head entertainment. </p>
<p>I don’t really care for either of these clowns (though only one of them is self-aware in this regard), though I don’t much listen to AM radio, or talk radio in general. But the few times I could pick-up Franken’s static-buzz station he seemed such a smarmy, pompous know-it-all…an over-grown Denise the Menace…that it was hard to wait and listen through the crackling for the renowned liberal humor his fans claim for him. Worse, from what I heard, his comments were all ad hominems addressed to his real and perceived enemies. He spends a great deal of his air time talking about those who talk about Al Franken: he, the subject, is the object of his attention. From time to time I believe this to be a liberal trait–it’s so often about them, their pain, their feelings (they need to avoid the political threads–the pain being more than they can bear–the drama;))–often projected onto the pain of actual victims -out there- with real pain. </p>
<p>The drama…oh, the drama.</p>
<p>Still, I would be happy to concede that Limbaugh and Franken are essentially equally offensive and obsessed –it’s just that one of them seems to have garnered an actual audience…the other is too often on liberal life support --and he doesn’t think it’s fair (he’s a liberal).</p>
<p>
You could be the first…I mean, if you feel like taking yourself up on your own advice.:)</p>
<p>.</p>
<p>It’s always easy to build an audience by telling them “The others are wierd, contemptible, and inferior to us good, upstanding, brave, smart, worthy people.” Worked for Hitler, worked for McCarthy, works for Limbaugh, works for Coulter. It’s a lot harder to build a mass audience for “The world is a complicated place. We need to try to understand the motivations of people who are different from us, and work in not immediately gratifying ways for positive change in the long term.” </p>
<p>See what I mean? Not exactly yock-a-minute, is it? I’m not surprised that liberal talk radio doesn’t have the mass appeal of right wing talk radio. Cheap 'n easy beats complicated and thoughtful every time in the mass market. Watched TV lately?</p>
<p>I love the cafe forums, and find the political threads, in particular, thought provoking and insightful. They challenge me to think more deeply on the issues and consider the possibility that my view of things might be wrong. In the past year especially, I find myself asking myself: “Why do you feel the way you do? Do you actually know enough to justify your stance? Are you being intellectually honest?” </p>
<p>Plus, I really like you guys—even the ones with whom I most often vehemently disagree. I’ve come to respect and feel genuine affection for many of you. Citygirlsmom, for instance. I find her quite exasperating at times, but we agree on a surprising number of things. But even if we agreed on nothing, I still admire her. Though I believe she can be somewhat alarmist at times, I love her passion, her love for humanity, her unfailing idealism. I would so hate for her to go away. CC would not be the same without her (and I mean that in the most positive way). I often agree with the sentiments expressed by Fountain Siren, another poster whom I admire (though for different reasons). Her wit, her coolheadedness, her sparkling intellect. Thedad and Driver might seem like polar opposites, but I would love to hand out with both of them and get to know them better. </p>
<p>Stay, Digi. We don’t all have to agree. But we all have to (should) treat each other with respect.</p>
<p>
In fairness, I think you should add Dan Rather, Eason Jordan, and Bill Keller to your list of people who built an audience with an “us vs. them” mentality.</p>
<p>… and Hillary “Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy” Clinton.</p>
<p>Funny, I see exactly what Garland and Cheers allude to, in terms of power and ridicule. I have always contended that there are some who like to attack the <em>person</em> (i.e. the “ad hominem” attackers, those who like to cry that people with different arguments are evil, stupid, irrational, immoral, etc.) as opposed to the point of view.</p>
<p>Go ahead and attack a point of view. That’s fair game in an argument or discussion. But I dare say, the ad hominems, from my perspective, tend to come much more from one side of the political spectrum than from the other. </p>
<p>I have witnessed, and been the recipient of the name calling. It isn’t pleasant, and it isn’t fair. I always say, attack the argument, which some of you do very fairly. But do not attack the person, just because you disagree with the argument.</p>