A Peek at the Inner Workings of a Liberal
Tuesday, July 21st, 2009Mike Thomas over at Rhetoric & Rhythm has published a post explaining why he is a liberal. Here’s a sample:
The term “liberal,” on the other hand, has been so denigrated over time that even many people on the left have opted to abandon it in favor of terms like “progressive” or “moderate” to distinguish themselves from the dominant rightwing ideology. Gross caricatures of liberalism abound throughout our culture and are constantly reinforced by the vast web of rightwing media which includes nearly all of talk radio, most of cable news and the majority of newspaper op-ed pages. Even the funny pages are rife with demeaning liberal caricatures propigated by rightwing strips like Mallard Fillmore, Prickly City and B.C.
Well, he’s partly right and partly wrong. Yes, liberals have been running away from the term liberal for years now, but not because of a “vast web of right-wing media.” As for cable news, Fox News is the only cable news network I know that has a rightward lean to it. How one network became “most of cable news” is beyond me. Has he never heard of MSNBC, CNBC, and CNN? The way I see it, its three to one against Fox News, unless he was talking about ratings (Fox has beaten its competition by more than two-to-one combined for months now). Regarding the comics, I guess he’s never read Doonesbury, Luann, or Rose is Rose. There are plenty of liberal comics out there, especially in the Editorial realm.
Liberals are typically viewed as being uppity, arrogant elitists who reject traditional social mores and want to force their own moral absolutism onto everyone else. Liberals are supposed to be anti-religious, or at least anti-Christian, and enemies of traditional “family values.” Liberals are usually unreformed Hippies with long hair pulled back in a pony tail. The men wear earrings, the women avoid bras. They are anti-military, anti-patriotic and hold protests where flags are burned and soldiers are spat upon.
Liberals are anti-business and want to take the country in the direction of “socialism.” If they get into the government, they immediately try to raise taxes and give all the money away to undeserving constituent groups – thus punishing the successful and the hard-working people to benefit the lazy degenerates of society. And it goes on and on.
Mike, you seem to have this all backwards! Not every liberal is a hippie; however almost all hippies are liberals. Its because they came from the liberal counter-culture movement of the Sixties. Liberals are seen as enemies of family values because a huge number of liberals are trying to use the Courts, as well as other means, to transform traditional family values into something which bears no resemblance to family values at all. I can also say that I have never, ever seen a Conservative burn an American Flag in protest, while I’ve seen scores of liberals do so on the evening news for as long as I have been alive.
As for the next paragraph, it pretty well sums up everything the Obamassiah has done, or tried to do, since taking office in January, with the more-than-willing help of the Democrat-controlled Congress.
The rest of the post talks about Mike and how he sees things, and I’m not going to argue about that. I believe he is sincere in his beliefs and so I leave it there. However, Mike needs to realize something — these stereotypes he complains about have become stereotypes because it is what the public sees everyday in the news and on the streets. Liberals have done nothing other than re-enforce these stereotypes with their actions and deeds at any one of hundreds of protests every year. If a war breaks out, you can count on several protest marches in Washington, D.C. with American flags burning, huge paper-mache puppets walking around, and several people shouting incredibly stupid-sounding slogans, and all of the people doing these things will be liberal. Did you spot some hippies sitting in the grass next to the picket signs? Yes, they’re liberals. Did you also see the protesters trashing the Marine Recruitment Station in the middle of downtown? Yeah, they were liberals too.
Contrast this to Conservatives, who only seem to protest abortion clinics with any type of anger or malice. Also, most Conservatives are very vocal about denouncing the use of violence in protests, especially when it was other Conservatives doing the protesting! Quite a difference, if you ask me.
Mike, just to be clear: There is nothing wrong with being a liberal. It would be a much less interesting world if we all agreed on everything all the time. If you and your fellow liberals don’t like the stereotypes, try changing your actions instead of your labels. Thats what I do to fight the Conservative stereotypes which are every bit as abundant as the liberal ones.
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July 22nd, 2009 at 1:08 pm
My thanks to Nick for taking the time to peruse my post on “Why I’m a Liberal” and to give it such a thoughtful response. We clearly have some sharp differences in our political philosophy, but it is great that we can discuss and debate these differences in an open and civil manner on our blogs.
One of our first big differences is our perception of the media and its ideological bent. Nick thinks it is too liberal. I say it is not hardly liberal at all, but mostly focused on appealing to the biggest audience possible so as to boost ratings and make money.
Most of the news channels do this by trying to go straight up the middle – assuming that this is where they would be able to scoop up the most viewers. What Rupert Murdoch figured out a longtime ago is that he could capture a large enough audience to be profitable by creating a niche news channel that appeals primarily to the rightwing conservative side of the spectrum. Thus Fox News makes no effort to be “fair and balanced” even though they still brazenly use that phrase as their motto.
CNN has long been a center-right news channel that has recently gone even further to the right in an effort to compete with Fox. CNN helped to launch crazy righwinger Glenn Beck before he jumped to Fox and is also the home of crazy rightwinger Lou Dobbs. There are NO programs on CNN or CNBC that present a consistent view from the left. The only time CNN has EVER had a program with a left tilt was when it briefly gave Jesse Jackson his own talk show, and that hasn’t been on the air in over a decade.
CNBC, on the other hand, is that station that gave rise to the whole Tea Party madness with the rightwing ranting of one of its newscasters. The only news channel that could conceivably be considered left of center is MSNBC because of the success of Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow. But MSNBC still tries to “balance” them out by giving rightwing former Congressman Joe Scarbrough a 3-hour show every morning. Fox certainly does not give time to the other side the way MSNBC does.
And my personal pet peeve is the comics page. Do I read Doonesbury? Of course! But while it is the one truly liberal political strip today, it is not nearly as harshly partisan as Mallard Fillmore or Prickly City, both of which make a point of attacking Democrats and Liberals a daily function of their “humor”, while Doonesbury has long-drawn out and complicated story lines often featuring characters such as B.D. who are sympathetic to the conservative side. Even the strip’s title character – Mike Doonesbury – is a moderate Republican in the strip.
And Luann and Rose is Rose as liberal strips? You’ve got to be kidding me! You would have to read those strips everyday for a year to get even an inkling of a political message out of them. Certainly not like the in-your-face-everyday rightwing propaganda that is the forte of Mallard and Prickly.
As for the “all hippies are liberals” argument, I would just offer one example – David Horowitz. He is a one-time radical leftist from the ‘60s who did a 180 and became a hardcore, radical rightwinger in the ‘80s and today. And there are many other examples.
But I will acknowledge that there are plenty of crazies on the liberal side, just as there are on the conservative side. The difference, I think, is that more of the crazies on the right are in positions of power and influence than on the left. There is certainly not a Democratic Congressman who is as looney on the left as Michelle Bachmann is looney on the right. And outspoken liberal whackos don’t tend to have their own TV and radio shows like rightwing crazies Glenn Beck and Michael Savage or get million-dollar book deals like Ann Coulter and Mark Levin.
There may be some on the left who would burn flags and spit at troops, but that is not something that is tolerated by the Democratic Party and fringe people like that do not have any sway within the party.
Finally, when you say “…these stereotypes he complains about have become stereotypes because it is what the public sees everyday in the news…” That is precisely my point. The public is fed these stereotypes everyday by the rightwing media on the radio, on Fox News and elsewhere. And I try to fight these blowhards like Limbaugh and O’Reilly who spread these lies the best I can, but my little blog is like an eye-dropper compared to their firehose.
July 22nd, 2009 at 1:46 pm
Mike, I appreciate the kind words and also welcome the civil debate on these issues.
“Niche?” You call having the Number One prime-time lineup in all of cable news, beating all competitors combined by more than two-to-one at some hours, a “niche?” Seems to me Fox News attracts viewers by providing content which the viewers want to see and are interested in. As for Fair and Balanced, this study on the last election shows that Fox News was the most balanced network of the major networks. Heck, even Ed Rendell, with the Clinton campaign, said Fox’s coverage was the fairest.
May I introduce you to the following? Sheila Jackson Lee (D – Tx) (who still insists on being driven to her office each day, even though it is only two blocks away from her residence), Al Franken (D – Mn) (former Air America host and well known liberal activist who is known mostly for his off-color humor), former Representative Cynthia McKinney (D – Ga) (she accused G.W. Bush of knowing about the 9/11 attacks before they happened), etc. etc. You want Democrat loonies? I can go on for days.
As for what is shown on the news, when a protest is covered (or not covered, as in the case of the Tea Party protests up until 4/15) the news can only show who is there. If there are a group of long-haired hippies spouting slogans against the war or burning a GW Bush effigy, then that’s what gets on the air. Anyway, now that Dan Rather has been retired by CBS, maybe fake “news” about Republicans and Conservatives will stop being so prevalent on TV.
July 22nd, 2009 at 4:52 pm
Yes, Fox News is a niche, but then you could describe all cable news channels as niche programming same as cable sports channels or cable movie channels and so forth.
And the reason Fox has strong ratings is because it gives its niche audience (i.e. right-wing conservatives) programming that is exactly geared toward what they want to hear. Fox News always tells its loyal viewers that they are right about everything and that other people are to blame for all their problems. I’m sure it’s nice to have a network that constantly strokes your ego and reinforces your positive views of yourself. But it is not reality.
As for the bogus study you cite it was done by a rightwing organization founded by a guy who worked for a rightwing thinktank and was a Fox News contributor. Just look at who provides their funding.
There is no way you will ever convince me that Fox News is anything more than a rightwing propaganda outfit.
As for Sheila Jackson Lee, she doesn’t hold a candle to Bachmann on the looney scale. And while I agree that Cynthia McKinney was nuts, I would just remind you that her constituents voted her out in the Democratic primary sometime ago and she subsequently left the Democratic Party. Bachmann is still a Republican with strong support from the party. In fact, the way things are going they will probably soon give her a position in the leadership.
Sorry that I don’t have more time to go on for days talking about Republican and Democratic loonies, but I’m leaving on vacation tomorrow.
Cheers!
July 22nd, 2009 at 9:53 pm
[...] the comments section of the previous post, my Friend Mike Thomas from Rhetoric & Rhythm said this: As for Sheila Jackson Lee, she [...]