The tone of political debate on major controversial issues these days

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/politics/jan-june11/rhetoric_01-10.html

Mark Shields: But what I'm saying is this. [Imagine that] David [Brooks] is a member of Congress, and so am I. This is what has happened to our language. And this is what's happening to our democracy. Instead of saying David on an issue on the other side is misinformed or mistaken, I say David doesn't love America. He's evil. He obviously doesn't believe in the same God we believe in. He doesn't believe in the same country that we believe in. He's owned by other people and other interests, probably foreign interests.

And when this happens, this not only debases our debate; what it does is, it forecloses democracy from working. It means that we won't be able to be allies in a future event or on a future issue, because I would then be trucking with somebody...

I will just tell you one quick anecdote. When [former Democratic congressman from Chicago and chairman of the Ways and Means Committee] Dan Rostenkowski died last summer, I pointed out...on a discussion that he had — it was a different Congress. They only had one paid trip home a year. So, they used to have to drive back and forth to Chicago.

And he drove back with Bob Michel, the Republican House leader from the Battle of the Bulge, and Harold Collier, another Republican, in a station wagon. They switched turns driving, OK? And they had a cot in the back. One of them slept.

When I raised this, a conservative, you know, pundit, whatever you want to call him, authority, said this proves that Michel wasn't a real Republican. This just proves that he was, you know, a house puppy or whatever else.

And, I mean, that's what is happening to our politics. And the language has contributed to this climate. And it's just debased it.

Note that there are two parts to this issue:

1. Whether such talk incites violence, and
2. Whether such talk is a good idea, regardless of whether it incites violence.

I know already that this will be a lively topic, but I'll kick off with a thought of mine: While I've seen Godwin's Law tripped by crazies on both sides, in relation to both Bush and Obama, my experience has been that, when faced with a government they don't like...

• stereotypical stupid extreme liberals say they will move to Canada.
• stereotypical stupid extreme conservatives say they will engage in armed rebellion against the government.

Usually the conservatives only imply the armed rebellion rather than stating it outright, though.

I'm talking about the really crazy ones.

Not really. Same basic sentiment as far as I can tell.

I think that's fair. Conservatives tend to be more hawkish, liberals more dovish. I've never encountered a conservative that extreme, though. I think extremist conservatives are more likely to attempt vigilante justice of their own sort than overthrow the government. After all, conservatives tend to be more nationalistic, too.

I don't think that's the same sentiment at all. Wanting to leave when you're dissatisfied with the government is completely different than wanting to overthrow the government.

edited 10th Jan '11 6:49:55 PM by Ultrayellow

I'm talking about the really crazy ones.

If you mean the really crazy ones, then yes. I was talking about people in the gray area of the Overton Window (like, say, Bill O'Reilly on the right and Michael Moore on the left).

Really crazy leftists brings to mind the New People's Army or something, not Canadians.

The NPA isn't American, though.

edited 10th Jan '11 6:52:45 PM by Ultrayellow

It's the same sentiment in that it's a vague threat of some kind that no one expects to ever implement. Although if you want to be stereotypical, the liberals threaten to move further north, what are the conservatives gonna do, move to Mexico?

The NPA isn't American, though.

Well yeah. You gotta dig deeper to find militant leftists in that country.

^^^Canadians aren't either. I think he's pointing out an issue with Glenn's examples of extremeness.

edited 10th Jan '11 6:55:36 PM by Funnyguts

Move to Australia, maybe? The problem is that most of the countries that line up best with American conservatism aren't English-speaking.

Or easy to get to. Then again most of what I hear is less "violent over throwing of government" and more cession. That might be a Texas thing though.

edited 10th Jan '11 6:58:23 PM by Deboss

Tzetze, I think what Glenn is saying is that extreme leftists say that they will move here because of a percieved notion of Canada being more on the left side of politics than America. While true to an extent, we have a Conservative government right now.

My point is that extreme people are silly and don't know what the fuck they're talking about.

Which is, I think, probably Glenn's point too.

Well, what I mean is that I wouldn't call people who threaten to move to Canada extreme. Dumb, maybe, but not extreme.

I think this is more an artifact of the American political situation than anything. The aforementioned Overton window is right-of-center, so we're closer to the rightist crazies, but farther from the leftist crazies.

The part I find saddest about this is that, as most people tend to be/identify as "moderates" rather than either extreme, the continuing polarization of both sides is basically leaving people without representation in the government.

Extremism steals the discussions/media spotlight, and therefore the elections, time and time again. And then the discussions/legal process gets jammed with stubbornness, and then the government fails to do its job.

...now, what to do about it...I'd make a joke about shooting the extremists, but this is OTC.

The aforementioned Overton window is right-of-center

The Overton window, by definition, is in the exact center (whatever that means), unless you mean right-of-center in a global sense. Do you mean right-of-center in a European sense?

edited 10th Jan '11 7:05:58 PM by silver2195

Well, Obama's a moderate. A moderate whose own party turned their back on him for giving concessions to the other side, and who the Republicans have condemned like he's as far to the left as you can get...yeah, I see what you mean.

edited 10th Jan '11 7:21:09 PM by Ultrayellow

I think that sort of demonizing of the other side and lambasting the other party is just uncalled for. It's needlessly divisive.. In my opinion, democratic and republican should be descriptions of the politician in question's general principles, not a side. After all, democrat or republican, both are American first, dammit.

And I think it's high time that Congress remembers this and stops with it's "us vs. them" mentality of rep v dem that has stagnated progress of our country.

edited 10th Jan '11 7:30:59 PM by MarkVonLewis

The Overton window, by definition, is in the exact center (whatever that means), unless you mean right-of-center in a global sense. Do you mean right-of-center in a European sense?

I meant in a hypothetical objective sense measuring from distance from militants, I suppose.

"both are American first"

Which 'American'? Regular or corporate?

Honestly, I don't think that statement's true at all.

edited 10th Jan '11 8:23:23 PM by CommandoDude

Mark von Lewis: In my opinion, democratic and republican should be descriptions of the politician in question's general principles, not a side.

This. Well, approximately; in reality, the labels refer to "parties", which in a first-past-the-post two-party system, ends up meaning "which general coalition of people with many different ideas".

One of the current conflicts is actually been the conflict between this above idea, and the idea of turning the parties into ideological brands—the way things are with multi-party systems whose parties are smaller and more ideologically cohesive. This is especially prominent among Republicans, whose numbers are increasingly dominated by self-described conservatives.

A nasty side-effect of the two-party system is also to cause political positions to be aligned along a one-dimensional axis even more strongly than in multi-party systems. Having a one-dimensional axis is what allows this sort of "either with us or against us" thinking to dominate, and what allows this whole "ideologicalization" to occur in the first place.

@Tzetze: There is no objective sense; probably in 150 years the Overton window will entirely not overlap ours and nobody will think this is odd.

Ours doesn't overlap the Overton window from 150 years ago much either.

*stereotypical stupid extreme liberals say they will move to Canada.

• stereotypical stupid extreme conservatives say they will engage in armed rebellion against the government.

A tad different, dontcha think?

There's nowhere for us to move. In the past hundred years, the Overton Window has moved far, far to the left, such that a Lockean republic where most people go to church as a matter of private conviction is the closest thing to the ancient regime available.

For "fight or flight" to be a choice, there has to be somewhere to go.

.........what?