William F. Buckley was pretty much the father of the modern American Right, and they've largely been following his propaganda script since. So, no, the fact that his attacks on the left mirror what's seen today isn't an example of "history repeats itself", it's an example of a movement that's been using the same propaganda nonstop the whole time between then and now.
And of all the examples of "history repeats itself" to use right now why would you go with "liberals are mean!" and not the whole rising fascism thing that, yes, is actually happening again.
Intolerance from our contemporary left and right are roughly equivalent. Moderates of both camps have more in common with each other than with the provocative fringe groups spouting this nonsense. The fact that they have strong voices at all only demonstrates the hyperpartisan state our government is in.
It's doesn't have too much that is as pointedly specific as the SIXHIRB meme. If I had to pick what Americans conservatives tend to use that's kind of equivalent to SIXHIRB, it would be either allusion to country ("real American" type memes / unpatriotic / traitor) or allusions to certain stereotypes (such as "elites" or "hippies").
It's interesting in the Oxford link though that "bigot" and "racist" are hurled from both sides of the fence roughly equally.
Special snowflake, 'triggered!', elitist, pussy, pinko, queer, and so on. The difference is that the labels you point to as 'ad hominem' when used by liberals aren't really ad hominem. They are about ideas and behaviours. Calling someone 'nasty', or saying that they are a 'special snowflake' is much closer to the idea of an ad hominem attack as I understand it.
The distribution for Bernie is probably even more young.
Additionally, there are ~3x major 24/7 news networks leaning left and only 1x that is right. Online newspapers have a similar distribution.
So it's easy to believe that hyper partisan nastiness is more popular on the left. But I'm not sure that's the case. Otherwise I'd be much more inclined to agree with you.
I'm neither mainstream left/right but regardless I've noticed a definite trend on the internet towards left wing slander and villianization of anyone on the right. But I associate that with the media distribution bell curve pushed far to the left.
Especially on places on Twitter and Reddit which largely regurgitate media to validate peoples views and the subsequent hive-mind that generates.
A ripe, and quite fair ground, might be the 2 recent Women's Marches.
- The (leftist) Women's March (for abortion, LGBT rights, etc.)
- The conservative Women's March for Life (against abortion)
Do we see equal amounts of slurs and vitriol at each march? One might examine the signs held by protesters, the videos taken, the violence that occurred.
You'll likely hear about more vitriolic protests on the left. Again this is mostly influenced by media coverage - protests don't necessarily translate to being representative of whole populations. Protests are largely something young people do (which means more liberal) and the kind of extreme protest tactics that get in the press push more people away than helps - so it's not necessarily drawing wide support, even from within the party.
The media also loves a good protest, regardless if only 100 people show up. Which is again further tilted by media biases.
There's also the generalization that the left is better at organizing while the right quietly shows up in strength at the voting booth. The exception to this rule recently was the Tea Party, which largely took a page out of the left's political handbook and created a visible protest 'movement'. But again that's the exception.
Some people on the right like to joke that people at protests are all unemployed or students, while the conservatives are all adults too busy working or taking care of a family.
So I'm not sure how much you could gather from looking at protests or issue movements. It's possible that young people are just less mature and don't know better than to use slurs and vitriol, which is reflected in group dynamics. Not to mention education and social class.
You would need to account for differences in group size. An equivalent number of slurs out of both would amount to a larger proportion for the smaller group.
Off the top of my head: libtard, cuck, shill, godless, communist, hippy, thug, welfare queen, other assumptions that their opponent has no job or no work ethic or smokes a lot of weed. "Intolerant" is a bipartisan insult now as well.
I don't deny those have been used against the left. (Although some terms, like shill, aren't left or right wing, and godless could describe an atheist whether conservative or liberal.)
The difference is cadence. Do conservatives label virtually all our opponents with slurs? No. But the inverse is true: the left almost invariably labels its opponents with SIXHIRB.
For example, go to FoxNews.com and find articles about leftists. Is there name calling? How often?
Now do the same on HuffingtonPost.com and find articles about conservatives. Is there name calling? How often?
> Do conservatives label virtually all our opponents with slurs?
Yes. That is, for any opponent of the right, you'll find someone on the right that has labelled them with a slur for their politics.
Of course, many on the Right see themselves as individuals and the Left as a single faceless collective, so while they will take it as "the Left" using a slur if anyone on the Left does so, they will dismiss it as an isolated subgroup if someone on the Right, but not the whole Right, does so for a particular target on the Left. (The same is true in reverse, of course.)
There's a lot of overreaction on the left but the right does have some real issues with race, religion, and gender. If you create policy that oppresses people on any of those bases without some damn good reasons you should expect to be labeled accordingly.
How would you suggest the left approach minority voter suppression? Racially biased criminal justice systems? The rise of religion and race-based hate speech and hate crimes? Perpetual Republican attempts to control what women can do with their bodies? Republican attempts to teach Christian creationism and abstinence-only sex ed in public schools?
Hell, how about painfully irrepresentative gerrymandering? Disproven and destructive economic policy? The predominantly conservative military-industrial complex? The financialization of power? Global climate change? Environmental catastrophes? The dismantling of government institutions that serve millions of Americans?
How should the left expose people to their subconscious biases in a way that causes change? I agree calling everyone "racist" doesn't help but at least it gets the message across.
"[Universities in particular have] a kind of intellectual blindness that will, in the long run, be more damaging to universities than cuts in federal funding or ill-conceived constraints on immigration. It will be more damaging because we won’t even see it: We will write off those with opposing views as evil or ignorant or stupid, rather than as interlocutors worthy of consideration. We succumb to the all-purpose ad hominem because it is easier and more comforting than rational argument. But when we do, we abandon what is great about this institution we serve."
Maybe I should clarify. The left does need to stop calling their opponents names and ignoring hard truths. I love talking with people who can expose me to hard truths, even if I reflexively reject them. But the right also needs to open their perspective and understand how their goals affect people who are different from themselves. The GOP has seemingly lost all compassion for their fellow humans and that's what the left is rebelling against.
>> "I agree calling everyone "racist" doesn't help but at least it gets the message across."
By that measure, the best way to expose people to their subconscious bias about abortion is to call them murderers of innocent children.
Sure, it gets the message across. It just doesn't help public discourse, and it furthers the divide between Americans of different political viewpoints.
As for your political points, you asked "how should the left address [list of perceived wrongs]." Answer: that's for you to figure out. But if you simply resort to name-calling and personal attacks, we in middle America will keep voting for people who oppose you. Speaking for myself, if the left persists in personal attacks and identity politics, I'd be glad to vote for Donald Trump for a 2nd term.
What I'm saying is when the left attempts to engage in rational debate they're called names or ignored just the same. The problem you're talking about doesn't only exist on the left. Case in point: lots of pro-lifers do call liberals murderers of innocent children. I'd argue that a clump of embryonic cells is no more important than the pounds of dead skin we shed in our lifetimes and that there are important benefits to allowing abortion... But I do at least try to understand where they're coming from, see things from their point of view.
Another instance: I listed out several plainly-worded, well-known, evidence-supported societal issues based in race, religion, and gender and your response is to simply call them "perceived wrongs". You're clearly an intelligent person and I'm sure you can understand how many on the left make the logical leap from ignorance of systemic bias to racism. If you're a white person living in middle America you most likely aren't exposed to even half of the day-to-day issues that come up when we don't acknowledge and account for tribal ideologies. Ignoring these problems increases volatility for everyone. Vote for Trump again if you want but don't be surprised if we elect a literal communist after him...
>> "I listed out several plainly-worded, well-known, evidence-supported societal issues based in race, religion, and gender and your response is to simply call them "perceived wrongs."
Yes, because you perceive them to be real wrongs, and we do not. I find most of them to be very good and progress for our society towards an upright, life-honoring and wise civilization.
>> How would you suggest the left approach minority voter suppression?
Voter suppression? You mean like requiring identification for voters like many western nations already do? We find it insulting to minorities to say they're being supressed by asking for identification.
In a fair system, each person gets 1 vote. Identification helps ensure that. It's not suppression, it's ensuring fairness.
Most of your other issues are likewise based on false assumptions.
> Moderates of both camps have more in common with each other than with the provocative fringe groups spouting this nonsense.
Moderates have more in common with each other in rhetorical style, but more in common with their own sides extremes in substantive policy positions. The idea of a strong policy center is a persistent myth that is popular specifically because both sides find it useful to pretend that their moderates are that center, rather than because it is actually true in any substantive way.
Sure, there is no "center". But I think most of both sides are generally inclined toward fiscal conservatism and free market solutions while ensuring people in poverty are taken care of. It's just that vocal Republican voters think all liberals want to take all their tax money to spend on abortion and welfare recipients while vocal Democratic voters think all conservatives are power-hungry and severely intolerant of variable social perspectives. Both sides have some truth but moderates of all stripes mostly just want a safe, stable, healthy economy in which to grow their businesses and families. They're willing to work with each other to achieve that. There are other reasons that our democracy is not functioning properly.
(I don't personally believe the two parties produce solutions of equivalent quality at this point. Democrats have demonstrated much greater awareness of the deep problems in our governance. But I spend a lot of time trying to understand the Republican perspective and I can generally understand where they are coming from, even if I disagree.)
> But I think most of both sides are generally inclined toward fiscal conservatism
Only in the trivial definition where "fiscal conservatism" means government should spend money only on those things that are important for government to do, and tax no more than is needed to do that.
OTOH, the left and right (even the moderate left and right) have fairly divergent views of what government should do.
> and free market solutions
Even moderates on both the left and right tend to favor wide areas of government-run programs for "good" things, and of absolute prohibition of "bad" things (with overlapping, but conflicting, definitions of what is "good" vs. "bad"), rather than market-based solutions. ("Free market based solutions" is somewhat incoherent: "free market" is a single, universal state; were it achievable by policy at all, it would be exactly one solution, you can't have multiple of them.)
> while ensuring people in poverty are taken care of.
Even moreso than "fiscal conservatism", this is only a point of disagreement if it has no coherent definition, so that it is equivocation. Sure, the and the right would agree with the phrase, but mean radically different things by it.
No one wants to spend money that doesn't have to be spent. The argument is over what has to be spent. I agree that there are differing definitions at play.
The free market can be contained and guided. Governments set the platforms on which the free market operates, and it can be manipulated much like water can be poured into different shape cups. Water doesn't stop being water when it's poured into a different container... The free market can absolutely be leveraged into efficient solutions for societal problems. We do it all the time. If you want to think of the free market as a singleton then you'll have to include all interconnections and energy exchange throughout the entirety of the universe, which happens to include the human forces which are capable of regulating small parts of itself the way any other sustainable system does.
If someone on the right (or even right-center) would say something along the lines of "I agree gender equity in the US is a problem, and we need to think hard about how to solve it, but I don't think allowing abortions would help and here's the data that convinces me," I would listen. Instead, they say things like (1) gender imbalance is not a problem or (2) the effects that you're attributing to gender imbalance are actually because of innate biological differences that make men better than women (with nothing to back that claim up except the status quo) or (3) an appeal to family values which is a quaint way to say the man should be in charge.
With that being the standard, how can I _not_ think they are being sexist? Seriously, tell me what signals I should use to counteract these official policies, and conclude that in fact the people speaking them are not sexist? (the case is much the same for other injustices I see all around me)
The problem is that you're defining terms wrong. To you, "If someone disagrees with my ideas on gender equality, they are sexist."
It's like me saying, "If anyone disagrees with me about abortion, they're child murderers."
See the problem?
Not everyone who disagrees with you needs an ugly label. I'd be glad to talk to you about why we conservatives rationally oppose radical theocratic Islam. But not if you're just going to demonize me with an "islamophobe" label, I'll just avoid you and vote for people who institute conservative policies.
Actually, you misread my comment: if someone disagrees with my ideas on gender inequality, I will only take them seriously if their reasons include evidence and logical reasoning. It doesn't take much, either.
I've heard people tell me they oppose radical Islam and want to kick all muslims out of their city. Their reasoning: Sharia law has already taken over many cities in the US, and if Muslims are allowed in their city, they will take over their government. Is this your reasoning?
>If someone on the right (or even right-center) would say something along the lines of "I agree gender equity in the US is a problem, and we need to think hard about how to solve it, but I don't think allowing abortions would help and here's the data that convinces me," I would listen.
Maybe you should try doing the work to convince them, rather than assuming your position is "correct" and everyone who disagrees is wrong. Or, you can choose to "not listen".
>With that being the standard, how can I _not_ think they are being sexist?
