Name-calling in politics should stop. PeopleCount can help.
In the conservative site David Risselada posted an article, “Liberals Fear the Gun Because Liberals Fear Themselves“. The article is garbage.
How many ways can a conservative fully misunderstand liberals?
It’s full of ways in which liberals are wrong. He says:
- “Liberals tend to be very emotional”
- “their alleged empathy”
- “individual liberty, personal responsibility, and self-governance are abstract”
- “they fear their own lack of self-control (not guns)”
- “Liberals simply do not believe that the average man is capable of making the”correct decisions, or acting in the interest of anything but his own selfish ends.”
- “the hate they feel burning through their veins towards conservatives is actually hatred they feel for themselves”
- “Liberals are repeating one lie after another with the belief that if they tell it enough, people will believe it”
Let’s tell the truth about political groups:
Many people tend to be emotional at times. We tend to hear and remember people who are more emotional.
When people display empathy, it’s almost always real. It takes a lot of work to fake emotion. Politicians and actors do it- they’re on a high-stakes stage. Most people are real most of the time.
Most liberals take liberty, responsibility and self-governance as real guiding principles.
Anti-gun liberals (not all are anti-gun) see news reports of accidental and intentional shooting. They believe a few people can’t be trusted occasionally and the danger is real. They believe too many too young children have access to guns. Many believe in child-proofing homes that have young children.
Liberals that I’ve met don’t hate conservatives. Many dislike or hate some of the oft-state conservative arguments and rants. Many hate the frequent name-calling and generalization like the ones in the above article. It’s easy to generalize the hatred to be against conservatives, but I find most liberals either don’t go there or realize it’s a logical mistake.
The last one is the worst, pretending to have a clue about what liberals believe, and then making up that they believe lying is productive.
People are people. Each has a view, including about politics
I’ve seen similar generalizations from liberals who try to make sense of conservatives.
The truth about liberals and conservatives is that they see from their own points of view. And people who invent generalizations like Risselada does try to make sense of another point of view from their own. That’s great that he’s trying to make sense of it, but the lack of respect in his conclusions should give him a clue that he has failed.
Many conservatives believe in absolute morality because in their view it’s true- it looks true. Most can see that relative morality has some merits and looks a bit true at times, but absolute good and absolute bad seem to exist to them.
Many liberals believe in relative morality because in their view it’s true- it looks true. Most can see that absolute morality has some merits and looks a bit true at times, but good and bad seem to be relative to points of view. Even different Christians differ in what they think is good and bad.
In general, if your view of someone’s actions make them wrong or bad or lesser, you’re not really understanding them. And your explanation isn’t a contribution to others. Think about it more. Discuss one of the points with a liberal to try to get a better understanding, or agree to disagree. Dumping your disrespect onto others is a disservice to us all.
There are fruitful discussions, too
At the same time, it’s good to voice that you can’t understand them, or that the only understanding you’ve managed to come up with is disrespectful. But voice it as this is the way they seem to you, rather than asserting that your theories are true. And at least, always add quantifiers. Many conservatives do X. Lots of liberals think Y. Even better, make it clear that you know it’s your perspective: I think many conservatives think X. It seems to me that many liberals think Y.
You can call it “political correctness” if you want. It’s also accurate to call it “correctness” or “avoiding lying.” It’s also accurate to call it “having manners”, “avoiding rudeness” or “being polite”.
This is why PeopleCount proposes to let people vote on issues. It’s polite. We’ll aggregate what people want aside from all the name-calling. You’ll still be able to do that on other sites, but PeopleCount.org will be a foundation that helps us work together. Please add your name to our mailing list to be notified when we go live.