The liberals ask, where has the civility gone?

Kathlene M. writes:

On Sept. 14, 2009 ABC News had a piece called “Is Public Civility Gone?” Charles Gibson incredulously asked, “Why is there such an epidemic of incivility?” Reporter Dan Harris then examined this issue, noting that we’re a nation with “serious impulse control issues.” The piece examined the “coarsening of our culture” and showed a clip of the Alien-in-Chief on “60 Minutes” blaming the 24-hour cable news cycle for providing a forum for the “loudest/shrillest voices,” forgetting that he helped foment, as a community organizer, the loud shrill voices of victimization. George Will was then quoted as pointing out how our “culture of entitlement” has contributed to the decline.

Where have liberals been for the last 40 years? Haven’t they notice that, since the in-your-face protests and violence of the 1960s, things have become much worse? That various groups of victims over the years have been loudly demanding reparations, citizenship, or now marriage rights? Yet they seem genuinely surprised that our society is breaking down all around them.

LA replies:

Of course they’re not concerned about incivility; they love incivility. Just pick up any issue of the New York Times or Time or Newsweek from the last 20 years and you will see glowing homages to edginess as a manifestation of America’s free, diverse society. No, they’re just using their new-found concern about incivility as yet another weapon against the opponents of Obama Socialism.

And Gibson of all people talking about civility? Remember the way he looked down at and talked down to Sarah Palin during his interview with her one year ago as though whe were a noxious bug pretending to be human?

And what about Gibson’s predecessor, Peter Jennings, saying about the GOP victory in the 1994 congressional elections that voters were behaving like a two year old having a temper tantrum. Yeah, that was a civil comment that really uplifted public discourse. Was Gibson offended by it?

And did the segment talk about the perverse filth that has been a fixture on television for the last 20 years as an example of incivility?

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Gintas writes:

“Of course they’re not concerned about incivility; they love incivility. Just pick up any issue of the New York Times or Time or Newsweek from the last 20 years and you will see glowing homages to edginess as a manifestation of America’s free, diverse society. No, they’re just using their new-found concern about incivility as yet another weapon against the opponents of Obama Socialism.”

You’ve nailed it, this is the method of Cultural Marxism, they are happy to use words rightists understand, but rightists always miss the esoteric meaning that the Marxists have added (and eventually mainstream). The way to deal with it: aggressive, relentless verbal counterattack.

LA replies:

Yes. For 30 or 40 years, the dominant liberal-leftist culture has been a culture of transgression. And now liberals turn around and try to exploit a concern about “incivility” to delegitimize legitimate political debate. And their ploy depends on conservatives forgetting what the left has been doing for 40 years. Conservatives are so eager to approve of anyone appealing to conservative sounding ideals, such as civility, that they fail to notice that the people mouthing these ideas have no right to be doing so. Conservatives much become much, much tougher. Instead of embracing a liberal when he says something conservative-sounding, they should challenge him and say, “This contradicts everything you stand for. When conservatives have called for civility, you labeled them them oppressors who were trying to squelch freedom and diversity and force everyone into a Euro-centric mold. So what right do you have to appeal to civility?” Until conservatives develop this kind of canniness and hardness toward liberals, they will always be under the liberals’ thumb.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at September 15, 2009 02:45 PM | Send