"The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence."- Charles Bukowski
The other day Sarah Palin twisted her panties into a wad over some "reality" show "star" being censored by the network that kindly, or not, hosts the show. She, Ms. Palin, claimed it was First Amendment violation. While Ms. Palin is clearly "the thinking man's Michelle Bachmann," she's dead wrong on this issue. Imagine that.
What is truly disturbing is that a little less than half of United States citizens grasp the First Amendment with the same flavor of crazy as Palin herself. These folks become indignant when they are fired for uttering a statement at work, or when one of their personal insults get deleted from the comment thread here on Patch.
I am not going to waste time explaining how the actual First Amendment works. Those of you who got a "C" in high school civics class can just stumble along in life feeling persecuted. In fact, you should stop reading now because the rest of this won't sound "fair."
I am, of course, talking about those of you who use an alias simply so you don't have to take responsibility for your words. You people with the cute web names, usually involving a misspelling, or an overly patriotic name; you there trying to imply strength in your name, probably for the same reasons middle-aged men buy "muscle" cars. You folks rarely address the argument, other than to toss off Fox News talking points; the vast majority of your "arguments" are ill-disguised attempts to soil the post's author or another commenter.
Talking points, slogans, and slime do not constitute intelligent discourse, let alone argumentation. Fortunately Patch has given authors the ability to delete any comment on his or her blog post. It's called "comment moderation." It is not censorship, and I intend to use it. From now on I will delete any comment that is not analytical in nature and fails to address the topic of my post. Unless, of course, it's a truly funny quip, and, yes, I get to judge what is "truly funny." The ethos I'll use to judge comments is that I spent 18 years of my life teaching argumentation on the college level, including at the University of California.
In the interest of "fairness," I'll give you an example of what actually constitutes an argument. The following was a comment posted on a Patch article regarding the new law that affects transgendered students in the public schools. Below it is my analysis of the comment.
Louf55 January 16, 2014 at 04:40 pm
The tyranny of the minority strikes again.
Seven words, but plenty to analyze. The most obvious observation is that Louf55 thinks that "the minority" in this country is guilty of repeated tyranny. That is the literal, surface level meaning of the sentence. And, since this sentence was written on a blog in the U.S., and he meant it to apply to an issue in our country, it's clear, given "again," that Louf55 believes minorities have a history of tyranny in our Republic. Our free Republic that is governed by elected representatives and that has never been governed by a despot.
The notion that any minority in the United States holds tyrannical sway is a laughable assertion given the historical facts of slavery, the Jim Crow south, lynchings, the violence inflicted on peaceful protests, gay bashing, dragging gays behind pickup trucks down dirt roads, and so on. In reality, our minorities in the United States have been victims of tyranny caused solely by European descended whites.
"Tyranny" is a specific word that means, among other things, "absolute power" held by a despot. There has never been a point in the history of our country where a despot, let alone a minority, has exercised absolute power. That is an absurd idea; it's hyperbole at it's worst and in it's most bigoted form. The word "tyranny" invokes images of brutal treatment that goes beyond reason and beyond our notion of due process. This diction choice is absurd and repugnant because minorities in the United States have been the victims of brutal treatment — from small pox infected blankets to whippings, lynchings, and the actual sale of human beings, including children. This image of brutality is reinforced by the use of the word "strikes," a specific verb meant to conjure up images of violence being done against us, the majority.
"Tyranny" is also an insidious diction choice because it was that form of despotism that caused the American Revolution. The colonies rebelled against King George, the tyrant, and we, us proud and patriotic Americans, know how we feel about that. So if "the minorities" are guilty of the same crimes against us as King George, then they must be traitors. We, us proud and patriotic Americans, can't and shouldn't possibly let them win.
Notice the use of "the minority" rather than the more specific term of "transgendered," which was the article's actual focus. A term like "the minority" is the same as "the boogie man," and it's a conscience choice made by the statement's writer. It conjures up fears of "the other." It's the same thing as calling native people "savages." It is a polite version of whatever racial or ethnic slur you'd care to call to mind. Nicely generic; one size fits all. What sort of person tosses odious slime like that around one asks?
"The minority" is also equated with the "downtrodden." In what parallel universe do the downtrodden exercise absolute power? In what sort of mind is this even possible? Underneath the seemingly politeness of the statement lays the speaker's insane, persecution complex. A "tyrant" is one who persecutes, after all, and our speaker is a man who sees his world spinning out of his control due to something "the minorities" have done to "us", apparently repeatedly because he used the word "again." In addition, "again" was placed at the end of the sentence. This is important because the last word carries most of the weight in a sentence. That word placement in a sentence provides the final impact and, if used correctly, it will leave a lasting impression. In this case, it's clear that "the minorities" tyrannical strikes must not be allow to continue.
The bigoted nature of this sentence oozes and drips in a truly disgusting exhibit of small-minded brutality against the victims in our society. It is a cruel sentence in the worst possible way, because it attempts to cast the rest of us as "the majority" who have somehow been wronged by giving the same rights to everyone. It wants us to ignore the fact that our Republic was founded on notions of equality and liberty, but that we've never quite achieved those goals. The sentence tries to convince us that everyone feels this way in order to bring us into the fold — to make us complicate in it's hostility and it's abhorrent prejudice. It is a statement only someone who doesn't believe in American Values like liberty and equality would utter. It is a statement that no one should be proud to whisper to their closest friend; we all know that Evil lurks among us — Evil that festers, contaminates, and ends up spewing from the mouths of our children as we look on helpless and horrified.
Now, if you want to comment you have to look at the diction and its syntactical relationships that I have analyzed and then intellectually prove that my analysis is flawed for specific reason, i.e. that "tyranny" doesn't equate to absolute power because... Such a rebuttal will need to be at least as specific as my statements. That, good people, is what makes an argument.
Or you can click here.
