Bishop: Discourse on Discourse – Separating Word & Actions
Thursday, June 22, 2017
People believe things. It is not any mystery that they tend to believe things that reinforce the way they see the world. Following my embrace of Trump’s rejection of the Paris climate treaty I was chided by a friend on Facebook who quoted Stephen Covey: “we see the world not as it is, but as we are”. Just So as Rudyard Kipling might have said. The oddity is that folks who favor Paris don’t imagine that this bit of Covey’s business beatitudes applies to them as well . . .
People are passionate. The roots of passion and the roots of the word are in suffering. They didn’t call it the passion of Christ for nothing. Add to that that our country is confounded – or blessed – to be somewhat equally divided in our passions and some see a recipe for violence.
Indeed, this political division is the very source of suffering for many who have now decided to resist. Such reactionary despondence is no mystery to those of us who have been in resistance . . . eer opposition . . . for the previous eight years. Neither is the convenience of labeling passionate arguments as incitement rather than invective in an effort to censor them.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTThe temptation is great, now that the shoe is on the other foot, to jump to the conclusion that progressive obsession lead directly to the shooting of Republican Steve Scalise and others at a congressional softball practice. Yet some conservatives argue that the backlash against the Trump victory has become tantamount to shouting fire in a crowded theater and such passion ought to censored. But this is just a rewarmed version of the allegation that conservative angst over Obama’s election fostered the shooting of Democrat Gabby Giffords. It wasn’t true then and its not true now.
Can you identify which of these quotes is Paul Krugman after the Tuscon shooting and which Sean Hannity following the softball practice assault?:
“When politicians continue to dehumanize opponents and paint them as monsters day in and day out, year in and year out, the climate around the country, becomes more than toxic, and the tragic results, of course, follow.”
“The shooter appears to have been mentally troubled. But that doesn’t mean that his act can or should be treated as an isolated event, having nothing to do with the national climate.
When blowhards on both sides say the same thing when their ox isn’t being gored, does that mean a truth has been established? It’s more likely that they are both taking advantage of circumstances and both wrong?
Of course our political discourse is subject to censure, i.e., strong disagreement, rather than the censor. Disagreement can be courteous but that isn’t always the hallmark of our political culture. Strong disagreement, after all, implies passion. The strength of arguments is not theoretically altered by their civility. Perhaps rhetoric is more persuasive if its nature convinces someone to listen in the first place. But many people speak not to convince others, but to rally those who agree, or simply because they have the power to do so. And the very nature of the power is provocative – some might say hateful.
Yet, as the US Supreme Court ruled unanimously this week, there is no ‘hate speech’ exception to the first amendment. Thus the patent and trademark office was wrong to reject the band “the Slants” when they tried to register their name (and just as likely be protected are registration for everything from the Washington Redskins to the gangsta rap group Niggaz Wit Attitude).
Now, the world has a habit of referring to that band as N.W.A. So there is such a thing as self-censorship. And there are also degrees of self-censure. These are both habits that lend civility to public discourse. By way of self-censure, Bernie Sanders disavowed violence in the wake of reports that the softball shooter had been a follower and campaign volunteer. Sanders wasn’t responsible for what happened. Some might have advised him not to fuel accusations he was by speaking up. But that would just leave for people to fill in the blanks that this is what the left means when they say ‘by any means necessary’. Sanders’ calls for unprecedented action are not invitations to violence, he is looking for unprecedented civic engagement.
This kind of problem also confounds American Muslims. There are some notable Muslim organizations that confront terror and intolerance carried on in the name of Islam. But these efforts are not particularly widespread, as noted earlier this month when a small group of Muslims demonstrating against violence after the London attacks was stage managed by CNN to create a photo op. No mass movement this.
Muslims aren’t responsible to create an enormous backlash to Islamic terrorism. But if they do not, they leave themselves open to the question of whether they support it. They can act put upon that they should have to stand up for their religion because of the aberrant actions of a minority, suggesting that they are the victims of guilt by association. Or they can recognize that guilt by association is human nature and simply keeping their heads down is not an option. This has long been apparent to we embittered rural voters who cling to our guns or religion. Well, we know which religion Obama was talking about, and it wasn’t Islam.
Indeed, prolife advocates have every need, when some whack job goes and shoots abortion doctors, to decry such behavior, just as strongly as they decry abortion itself. A civil society does not solve its discord in this manner.
A friend and onetime Rhode Islander, Ken Ward, will be sentenced this week for burglary for breaking into a pipeline facility in Anacortes, WA and closing a valve to halt the flow of tar sands oil because he is exercised about climate change. There is, of course, no difference between his claims that a crime can be necessary to prevent a greater harm and those same claims by anti-abortion radicals.
Ward did not kill anyone. But his crime is more serious than the Bundy gang, sagebrush rebels who were equally exercised about how the government was treating the world. Brothers Ammon and Ryan Bundy and followers occupied a wildlife refuge building that nobody was using for a month. While I sympathize more with the Bundy’s grievances, Oregon’s Governor was right to observe: “The occupation of the Malheur Reserve did not reflect the Oregon way of respectfully working together to resolve differences”.
Those familiar with farm life will know that occasionally one cow will push another through the fence, rather then brave the electric shock themselves. But people have self-determination. They are not pushed across the line by the words of others.
There can be a close divide between militant self-determination, a respected American trait, and outright lawlessness. It should not be our habit to decry activism and to suppress ideas because that line could conceivably be crossed. We punish those who cross the line, not those who walk up to it.
Brian Bishop is on the board of OSTPA and has spent 20 years of activism protecting property rights, fighting overregulation and perverse incentives in tax policy.
Related Slideshow: RI Democrats React to Trump Withdrawing from Paris Climate Agreement
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