The partisan knob in a common habitat
If you write, think, or talk about politics or sports, the partisan knob is an unavoidable pest. In Canada, at least recently, knobs are often found on the Internet, extolling Stephen Harper’s fiscal conservatism.
While partisan knobs can be found for every team, political party, or ideology (pardon the repetition), they tend to share several important features. These include:
(1) A tendency to believe those on “the other side” are delusional, evil, or both. A partisan knob simply cannot accept the existence of reasonable disagreement.
(2) A tendency to bundle their opponents together, ignoring diversity of opinion even among those who disagree with them.
(3) A tendency to hold all of their opponents morally responsible for the actions of any one of them.
(4) A tendency to interpret their opponents’ actions or deeds in the worst possible light, especially when doing so allows them to affirm (at least in their own minds) the negative beliefs they already hold about their opponents.
(5) A tendency to link terrible events to their opponents, despite lacking any evidence of causal connection.
(6) A truly remarkable capacity for self-delusion, because your typical partisan knob will almost never admit to exhibiting any of the tendencies identified in (1) through (5). Even though we all exhibit them from time to time.
Moreover, the partisan knob is apt to accuse all the other knobs of having these traits — thereby evincing his own knobbery, when you think about it.
Above: an imbecile
Partisan knobs can be found in stadiums, on the news, and even in the House of Commons (shocking, I know.)
Right now, the partisan knobs who would like higher taxes on the rich (roughly, but not exactly, corresponding to what some other knobs call “the left”) are blaming one motherfucking imbecile of a knob, Sarah Palin, for causing the “political climate” that led a crazy asshole to carry out a shooting rampage that killed six and left a bullet in the head of a Democratic Congresswoman.
Sarah Palin, the imbecile, once put crosshairs on a map. To leftish partisan knobs, it goes without saying that stupid maps can cause crazy assholes to believe the government is controlling minds through grammar. Stupid maps with crosshairs can cause people to act so belligerently in their college classes that professors and other students are frightened.
Sarah Palin's irritating voice can create a sinister red spot in your brain.
Or so the partisan knobs seem to believe.
Being a modern sort of individual and not one of the bien pensant post-modernists, I prefer mechanistic causality over sympathetic magic.
Jared Loughner, the attempted assassin, listed the Communist Manifesto as one of his favourite books. Therefore, on the basis of this “evidence”, a partisan knob might conclude, Loughner was (a) a communist, and (b) his communist beliefs i. put the 9 mm Glock in his hand, ii. slid the extended magazine into place, and iii. fired most of the shots.
However, Loughner also seems to believe in the gold standard. This puts him more in the libertarian camp, alongside my colleague Mike Brock. I expect this similarity between Brock and Loughner to produce terrifying dividends any day now.
True, I can’t show any causal connection between believing in the gold standard and shooting people, but there has to be one, because anything that makes my political opponents look bad must be true.
That’s the unconscious motto of the partisan knob.
The single, most obvious response from the knobs (the ones on the left, who believe that a belief in “conscience dreaming” and the gold standard makes you shoot people in the head) is that I’m taking up the view that environment has no impact on behaviour whatsoever.
I do not, however, hold this position. In fact, my position is very much the opposite: it is precisely because action is the result of a nexus of factors that I chide the partisan knobs in the world for seizing on some small set of them (and without evidence, of course) in order to blast their political opponents.
I don’t pretend to know why Loughner went on a rampage. If, tomorrow, we find a signed note in which he cites Sarah Palin’s stupid map as his inspiration, then I’ll draw the appropriate conclusion. As of now, I do not have the explanation, and neither do you.
UPDATE
Skippy says it better:
Look, baseball isn’t America’s national pastime, shooting one another in the head is. And Americans love shooting their political leaders most of all. The United States has as many or more political assassinations that even your most savage Third World shithole. But in Third World shitholes, assassinations either precede or immediately follow something productive, like the overthrow of the government. Americans seemingly just plug their leaders for the simple fun of it.
I would add another trait to your list. It is the one that I find most revealing(and most difficult to understand).
(7) An ideology that is perfectly in sync with the policy platform or belief system of those who he believes is of the same tribe. One only very rarely, for example, heres a Liberal partisan knob disagreeing with even the most insignificant opinion of Ignatieff or a Conservative partisan knob criticising anything that Harper has ever said or done.
It must be nice to agree so completely with a political party that one cannot find anything to criticize. I think most people struggle to find anything about any of the parties that they like enough to vote for rather than the other way around.
@Colin Which is why, although I reside in the bosom of the NDP, I can be as critical of it as any other party. Lock-step stuff isn’t my thing.
But…
@Terrence Put all your cards on the table, OK? What’s got you hot and bothered is the implicit critique of unfettered speech, that old hobby-horse of yours.
I don’t think that Loughner’s politics are really the issue. Rather, we need to ask why he thought gunning down a political figure was OK.
Just dreamed it all up, cut off as he was from anything ever said by anyone?
Or, given his interest (however deformed) in politics, might it be that the conservative eliminationist discourse that rules the airwaves and the print media in the US at the moment just might have shaped options for action in his diseased mind?
It’s childishly obvious that the first people to be affected to the point of action by all the loose talk of weaponry and elimination will be mentally unstable. Good grief, that’s a given. Talk incessantly to a child about shooting people, then place a loaded gun in their hands, and duck. “Oh, I didn’t mean it literally.”
Come on. You know better. This isn’t hyper-partisanship: I’m not pro-Democrat. But I can recognize a toxic political climate when I see one. To pretend that people are blissfully unaffected by it is frankly naive.
Dr. Dawg,
So you think that we should censor the way we speak on the off chance that something way say may trigger a lunatic to do something insane? We don’t know what triggered his action, but even if we did, Loughner is the only one who is responsible for the actions that he took.
So you think that we should censor the way we speak on the off chance that something way say may trigger a lunatic to do something insane
I don’t agree with this. But John Stuart Mill, would have.
Sure, no one else had the slightest responsibility for the outcome of incessant eliminationist rhetoric and putting a gun in his deranged hands.
What an alibi for incitement–no one actually gets incited.
I’m not arguing for censorship, although radical incitement to violence, in my view, should be suppressed. I’m arguing for civility.
And for taking responsibility. Putting a loaded gun in the hands of a lunatic and talking to said lunatic in the press and on the airwaves about shooting political opponents is irresponsible.
“I’m arguing for civility.”
Enforced civility sounds like censorship to me.
Aren’t you walking an intellectual tightrope Dawg? On the one hand you reject the suggestion that Islam is a philosophy that incites violence and on the other, you are implying that Sarah Palin has incited this particular violent act.
I may be missing something, but I find the distinction you are making to be confusing.
Not this time, Dawg. Those six traits I listed, along with Colin’s thoughtful addition? Observing normally thoughtful people exhibiting those traits bothers me.
Might be. I dunno. I don’t have sufficient evidence to determine what might have affected the disjointed mental process of Jared Lee Loughner.
Why the haste to draw a conclusion, Dawg? Why the rush to indictment?
Yeah, that’s why I was careful not to identify partisanship simpliciter with pro-Democrat/pro-Republican/pro-whatever partisanship.
So you think that we should censor the way we speak on the off chance that something way say may trigger a lunatic to do something insane?
If not that, how about we censor the way we speak so that sounding like a kook is not normalized the point where the real kooks are hiding in plain sight around us. From what is emerging, the signs that Loughner was a psychotic kook were clearly evident. But is anything he said or did any kookier than what Glen Beck routinely says. Nope. So instead of becoming someone to watch Loughner just becomes another kooky ranter that everyone is used to and ignores.
Robert I don’t think I ever heard Glen Beck claim we are being controlled through grammar. Nothing I have read by Loughner sounds anything like anything I have ever read before. So I can only conclude that you are being way to broad with how you are defining a lunatic.
The obvious question is who decides what’s “eliminationist rhetoric” and what isn’t? The government, which at the end of the day consists of political hacks of both parties? Do you really want said hacks parsing your words with an eye to disappearing them? Would Dr. Dawg and Mr. McLelland feel comfortable with, say, John Boehner doing that?
How do you square that with the First Amendment? More importantly, do we refashion our entire society over what psychopaths and children might do? If that’s the case, we might as well hand the keys over to Loughner and his ilk right now.
I’d be a whole lot happier if those who say incredibly dumb things on both sides of the spectrum were marginalized by their own fellow travellers, but I’m pretty sure that isn’t going to happen. That, in it’s own way, is also an expression of democracy. Remember, a political atmosphere is only as toxic as we let it be.
Ultimately, we decide. And we have. I might agree with you that this a terrible thing, but I fail to see what dragging more politics into is going to do to rectify it.
“If not that, how about we censor the way we speak so that sounding like a kook is not normalized the point where the real kooks are hiding in plain sight around us. ”
And how do you propose “we” do that? That is, how would such a law sound and who would decide on the parameters? You? Your delegates? How do you propose that such a restriction be enforced? What if someone decides that you are actually the kook and what if he can get enough people to agree with him? Are you willing to accede to the will of the majority and shut your mouth if that is what they determine is best?
“I’m arguing for civility.” Dawg above
“Readers may remember this little bit of American conservative eliminationism, from Sarah Palin’s PAC site.” Dawg, Jan 8, 1:57 PM
No doubt it took a little while to get the Dem talking point out.
Civility does not involve the unseemly attempt to point fingers or wave the bloody shirt within all of a couple of hours of an event.
But, to be fair, Krugman, Fonda and Kos were equally quick off the mark.
Hey Jay. I guess you’ll no longer get upset over anti-semitic rhetoric. After all, what does it matter if people say Jews run the world if such poisonous rhetoric has no effect on anyone.
You realize you have just set up an equivalency between a schizo and…Muslims? The irony here is delicious.
You realize by announcing that you think only Muslims espouse anti-semitic rhetoric you just made it impossible for anyone to take you seriously.
Um…I thought this was about who might be influenced by the rhetoric, not who’s saying it. Nonetheless, the vast vast majority of anti-semitism emanates from Islamic sources.
I’m trying very hard — honest! — but I just can’t take the claim that political rhetoric had much of anything to do with this shooting very seriously.
Eliminationist rhetoric = political speech Dawg does not approve of. Very simple. Also, I love the fact that Dawg is calling for more civility as he makes baseless claims of a link between Palin’s rhetoric and a shooting. Can’t make this up.
In fairness, Palin named Giffords on a post with crosshairs over her congressional district 10 months before Giffords got plugged in the noggin. It would be notable if that wasn’t mentioned at all.
While I disagree mightily with it, I can’t say that Dawg has no point at all. It just happens to be one that I think is lacking.
Skippy,
Thing is, Loughner’s animus for Giffords seems to go back a year or more. That weakens the point even further. What’s left of it?
Peter,
The syllogism the partisans are operating on seems to look like this:
1. Sarah Palin’s rhetoric could have caused the shooting.
2. I hate Sarah Palin.
—
Therefore, Sarah Palin’s rhetoric did cause the shooting.
Quite an enthymeme, that!
You have captured the essence of the leftist partisan rhetoric wrt the shooting perfectly. Dawg’s comments should be preserved show we can show people in future what an evil person he is.
I hope you’re aware of the irony of your comment… (re-read Terrence’s original post).
And for what it’s worth, Dawg is, in my judgment and in all my experiences with him, fundamentally decent and scrupulously honest.
I just happen to disagree with his politics. A disagreement that has never stood in the way of my respecting his opinion.
What irony? I did not nor wish to rule out the existence of this kind of rhetoric on the right, only that this obsession of Dawg and others like him is morally reprehensible. If you were to follow his posts on Jay’s thread you’d see that he’s being neither decent nor honest.
Even if the rhetoric has no effect wouldn’t it be nice to be able to have a discussion without the Cytotoxic’s of the internet driving the sane people away with their childish insults.
Never mind eliminationist talk, it seems asserting U.S. constitutional rights set this guy off.
How could anyone prepared to even suggest a causal connection between a Sarah Palin FaceBook page and a mass murder by an insane man possibly argue against banning all Coen Brothers’ movies?
And Tarantino.
But Terrance has the syllogism more or less right. The selective logic of the partisan left is a wonder to behold.
Fixed: The selective logic of *the partisan* is a wonder to behold.
The problem, as Terrence made clear in his post, is not the “left” part, but the “partisan” part. Let’s not single out a particular kind of partisan just because this example is fresh in our minds.
The Leftist are lucky we draw the line at the 1st degree of separation from direct harm, in providing for our own self-defense.
Just as they are also lucky that we cannot identify them individually who they voted for except when they admit it. Only them by State majority, or county/brought/Parrish.
Otherwise a great many of them would either already be either dead, or waiting their turn to face honest justice.
You know the kind of “justice” that actually punishes only those who act(including vote) to injure others.
http://bigcitylib.blogspot.com/2011/01/free-dominion-hosts-eliminationist.html
“If I could issue hunting permits, I would officially declare today opening day for liberals. The season would extend through November 2 and have no limits on how many taken as we desperately need to “thin” the herd.”
http://letfreedomrain.blogspot.com/2010/05/goehring-wants-to-kill-liberals.html
BEST THING IS TO KILL LIBERALS
http://www.familykb.com/Uwe/Forum.aspx/kids/5049/KILL-FORGET-SPICS-AND-NIGGERS-KILL-LIBERALS-KILL-ALL-LIBERALS-FEATHER
Robert,
I don’t see anyone here making the claim that “left” and “right” are equally bad when it comes to rhetoric, so what’s with the links?
Like I said upthread, and with all due respect to BCL, this stuff is easy to find, especially from the American social conservatives.
There seems to be some confusion as to the nature of this rhetoric (ie. an undue amount of attention paid to Palin’s map). So I though a few examples would clarify that.
That’s because Palin’s map is both at least vaguely suggestive of violence and connected to Giffords.
It’s also public in a way Freedominion isn’t, in the sense that it’s not entirely implausible Loughner might have been aware of it.
We still don’t know if any of this figured into his thinking. Everything I’ve read suggests the shooter’s anger towards Giffords went back years.
Palin’s map is not remotely suggestive of violence. A target on a map means anything.
Robert – Aren’t you worried that by linking to all of these hateful messages, you might be causing some other lunatic to read something that will make him kill someone else?
Colin does make a reasonable point, Robert. Having said that, you made a much stronger case at Jay’s place. I disagree with it, but it isn’t fantastically dumb.
Pointing to stupid blog comments, however, is fantastically dumb. I once said in a blog comment that I wouldn’t mind at all if a certain Liberal Party scumbag died of stomach cancer and/or rabies. It doesn’t necessarily follow that those comments make me a terrorist or stomach cancer and/or rabies my terrorist weapons of choice.