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elfsSo, Martin Freeberg has followed his claim that "eliminationism is a phenomenon of the left" with a response to my essay, so it's time to give him a response to his response. This time he calls his article, "Eliminationism re-explored: they own it," and proceeds more or less where they left off.
Freeberg starts off with this claim: "As anyone who clicks through and reads my original work knows, I did offer a list of examples."
No, actually, he didn't. Here's what he wrote:
Note the list: it's meaningless. Not a single quote, not a single citation, not a single shred of evidence. Just vague "theys" and "thems." Freeberg does not, and probably cannot, cite a single quote by Randy Rhodes, Keith Olbermann, Stephanie Miller, Howard Dean, or anyone else to the effect that "the left wants the right destroyed."
I mean, the claim is ridiculous on its face: these people have owned the White House for the past eight years. They've had, if not control, at least complete veto authority over the Congress for the past twelve. You'd think that that would have caused enormous frustration with "the left," so much so that murderous impulses would be a dime a dozen. But Freeberg's accusations remain untethered to reality.
I'm also completely puzzled by Freeberg's attempt to hammer on the Boy Scouts issue. Case law is and always has been pretty damned clear about the use of government funds to subsidize the teaching of religious ideology. That's what the Boy Scouts were doing. As long as the Scouts continue to claim that their mission is divinely inspired and, as such, they must oppose the membership of American citizens who happen to be gay or atheist, they're likewise barred from taking government money.
If the Secular Scouts or Pagan Scouts had been denied federal funds, would Freeberg be quite so up in arms?
Really, I want to know how the Boy Scouts were made to feel "isolated" when, in fact, what the Supremes said is that the Boy Scouts must, like every one else, obey the law of the land. Freeberg doesn't want to address this. He doesn't seem to want to think about it. At best, he wants to retain a certain degree of exceptionalism. "We're special because... "
Freeberg then wants to have it both ways: He wants you to think that the Nazis (oh, he gets a Goodwin gold star) were "socialists" because that was in their name, when they were anything but: they didn't want the state to run the factories, they wanted powerful, centralized figures to run the factories along psuedo-capitalistic lines and rake in a significant portion in return for protection of those enterprises. That's facism. But he probably won't object to the claim that the "Trinity Church of Christ isn't Christian," despite their name. Look, the Nazis were anything but "Socialist"; it was a Nationist party, and it was a totalitarian ideology, but it was hardly what anyone then or now considered a "socialist" program.
Freeberg's free-floating continuation is just that: free-floating. He ends by saying that Orcinus' long line of quotes, which very clearly illustrate the mind-set of highly placed and highly visible citizens of the Right, were "nostalgic" and "amusing" and not to be taken seriously.
Yeah, right.
As for Freeberg, ah, SIWOTI. It exists only for my entertainment.
Freeberg starts off with this claim: "As anyone who clicks through and reads my original work knows, I did offer a list of examples."
No, actually, he didn't. Here's what he wrote:
Those groups, and many more, I've seen exposed to "complete suppression, exile and ejection, or extermination." "Unfit for participation in their vision of society." Earlier in the piece, the author further defines eliminationism as something that "cuts the target off from the community support it might normally enjoy and leaves them feeling even more isolated." Is it possible to jot down a more apt description for what has been done to the Boy Scouts?
Note the list: it's meaningless. Not a single quote, not a single citation, not a single shred of evidence. Just vague "theys" and "thems." Freeberg does not, and probably cannot, cite a single quote by Randy Rhodes, Keith Olbermann, Stephanie Miller, Howard Dean, or anyone else to the effect that "the left wants the right destroyed."
I mean, the claim is ridiculous on its face: these people have owned the White House for the past eight years. They've had, if not control, at least complete veto authority over the Congress for the past twelve. You'd think that that would have caused enormous frustration with "the left," so much so that murderous impulses would be a dime a dozen. But Freeberg's accusations remain untethered to reality.
I'm also completely puzzled by Freeberg's attempt to hammer on the Boy Scouts issue. Case law is and always has been pretty damned clear about the use of government funds to subsidize the teaching of religious ideology. That's what the Boy Scouts were doing. As long as the Scouts continue to claim that their mission is divinely inspired and, as such, they must oppose the membership of American citizens who happen to be gay or atheist, they're likewise barred from taking government money.
If the Secular Scouts or Pagan Scouts had been denied federal funds, would Freeberg be quite so up in arms?
Really, I want to know how the Boy Scouts were made to feel "isolated" when, in fact, what the Supremes said is that the Boy Scouts must, like every one else, obey the law of the land. Freeberg doesn't want to address this. He doesn't seem to want to think about it. At best, he wants to retain a certain degree of exceptionalism. "We're special because... "
Freeberg then wants to have it both ways: He wants you to think that the Nazis (oh, he gets a Goodwin gold star) were "socialists" because that was in their name, when they were anything but: they didn't want the state to run the factories, they wanted powerful, centralized figures to run the factories along psuedo-capitalistic lines and rake in a significant portion in return for protection of those enterprises. That's facism. But he probably won't object to the claim that the "Trinity Church of Christ isn't Christian," despite their name. Look, the Nazis were anything but "Socialist"; it was a Nationist party, and it was a totalitarian ideology, but it was hardly what anyone then or now considered a "socialist" program.
Freeberg's free-floating continuation is just that: free-floating. He ends by saying that Orcinus' long line of quotes, which very clearly illustrate the mind-set of highly placed and highly visible citizens of the Right, were "nostalgic" and "amusing" and not to be taken seriously.
Yeah, right.
As for Freeberg, ah, SIWOTI. It exists only for my entertainment.
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More evidence that liberal/conservative is a useless distinction
Date: 2008-08-05 05:33 am (UTC)The Nazis used all the same rhetoric as the Soviets, about how they represented the will of The People. And of course they were both lying about that.
The major differences between Nazis and Soviets were that the Nazis were more fashion-conscious and believed in overt authoritarianism. The Soviets didn't spend as much money on fancy uniforms, and when they massacred uncooperative villages they put a "more in sorrow than in anger" face on it.
And today, both "liberal" and "conservative" politicians claim to represent the pre-existing will of large parts of the population, whereas just like Nazis and Soviets they're really trying to lead their followers to places they'd never go on their own.
Also, I can tell you exactly why you think conservative activists are more prone to this "eliminationism" thing than liberal activists. You think all the conservatives are working together, whereas-- because you're involved in liberal politics-- you know perfectly well that the kind of liberals who want to kill conservatives (and there are plenty of them, including the animal-rights activists who have been blowing stuff up in Santa Cruz this week) aren't YOUR kind of liberals. You aren't a hardcore Communist. You don't put on a ski mask and interfere with economic summits. You don't spike trees. You don't feel responsible for the people who do, and you shouldn't. You don't support them, they don't support you.
I could just tell you that most conservatives don't feel responsible for Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter, either, but your model of how conservativism works wouldn't allow you to believe it.
The fact that this Freeberg guy can't really support his position doesn't mean you're right, it just means he's no good at establishing and arguing a rational position.
As far as I'm concerned, the only real argument anywhere near this one is about whether collectivists or individualists are more likely to want to murder their political opponents, and wow, there's hardly any way to carry on that argument for more than about 30 seconds. I won't even bother; you can run through the historical examples in your mind faster than you could read them here. Individualists just want to be left alone; they kill only to defend themselves and their way of life.
The bottom line here is that if you insist on building your political beliefs on top of symbols and assumptions that are false to fact, politics is never going to make sense to you.
. png
Eliminationism upon the Eliminationists
Date: 2008-08-05 06:24 pm (UTC)Not sure that's the way to go. You're not likely to prove much to me that way, and I know I won't prove anything to you.
Question: What happens when eliminationism is practiced upon the eliminationists (http://rachellucas.com/index.php/2008/08/04/when-bad-things-happen-to-bad-people/)? Still able to keep that mental paradigm about only-conservatives-engage-in-it nice and tidy and pure? If so, I'd be curious to know how.
Re: Eliminationism upon the Eliminationists
Date: 2008-08-05 07:58 pm (UTC)No, actually, I'm fully willing to admit that the left engages in violence (although I have to say that your wilfully pulling "Reverend" Phelps into your case does you very few favors).
At the moment, however, eliminationist rhetoric remains a tool of those portions of the mainstream media that hew to the Right Wing Talking Points.
I'm reminded, as I mentioned earlier, of Nixon's behavior leading up to the 1968 convention riot. Advised that "the left" was becoming frustrated with its failure to influence war policy and would escalate to violence, Nixon (and Lee Atwater), rather than do the responsible thing and try to contain the violence, encouraged it as a political tool. So yes, "the left" uses violence; "the right" is gleeful when it happens: it's either "payback" or "validation"; either way, it serves the right's inner narratative a lot better than it does the lefts.
What I don't understand is why "the right" uses it at all. What have you guys got to be frustrated about? Compared to the "social justice" movements of the late 1960s and early 1970s, Obama is a right-winger.
Re: Eliminationism upon the Eliminationists
Date: 2008-08-05 09:01 pm (UTC)ideaphile says "The fact that this Freeberg guy can't really support his position doesn't mean you're right..." It is logical sloppiness for him to so breezily conflate "can't" with "won't," but other than that he has a solid argument; what he's trying to tell you is exactly what I would have said, if I thought you were ready to hear it. The collectivist organization has a whole different way of practicing eliminationism, as I understand eliminationism. It has to. The union declares a strike; management refuses to meet the terms of the strike; management offers to hire scabs, and I offer my services as a scab. The union, at that point, has to break my kneecaps (as they did...and unions are leftists). They have no choice. If word gets out that this kind of transaction can go forward, it undercuts the collective bargaining process, and collective bargaining is what unions are all about.
On the flip-side, if I'm a right-winger and I'm smoking a cigarette in my own home, and some left-winger breaks in and says "you aren't allowed to smoke in you're home, you're going to have to put that out" and I say "DIE, hippie!", that's simply expressing a sentiment all individuals are going to want to similarly express if they have a love of freedom and liberty. Whether I follow through on it is another matter. But I've got a feeling, judging by Orcinus' examples, that I don't have to do this in order for him to count it in his list. The shotgun need not come out and go boom. Simply saying "die hippie" is another hash mark, another right-winger practicing eliminationism. I know the double standard is there. I mean, Ann Coulter said in the middle of her statement that she was making a joke. Orcinus went ahead and counted that.
So here's my question to you. When I build my list of left-winger eliminationist rhetoric, can I count jokes? How about threats, without following through? How about condescending speech, designed to belittle and intimidate people from expressing opinions unfavored -- to cast "a chill effect on free speech" as the cliche goes?
Over on my blog, I've considered the possibility that all these ambiguities are ultimately provided an answer situationally specific, consistently favorable to your "side." In other words, the chill effect situation -- counts as eliminationist rhetoric when a conservative does it, not when a liberal does it.
I've not seen anyone seriously state anything to the contrary. Therefore, I presume that is how it works. Like I said...you guys invented the term, and you're going to insist on owning it. If you didn't have that ultimatum in mind, I wouldn't have stirred your cackles so much simply by pointing out my personal experience is different.
But it's true that collectivists simply can't co-exist with individually-minded people. By means of threats of force, actual force, or softer social stigma -- the collectivist enclave has to wield some kind of weapon to bring everyone into line. It's always been that way. Individuals...not so much. We're all about turning our thermostats to 72' without President Obama getting in our faces about it.
Oh, and I'm not in league with the Rev. Nor did I say I was in league with whoever committed this act of arson. I simply pointed out, here we have two eliminationists going at it with each other, thereby making it a logical possibility that one side or the other could lock down a monopoly on this. You should have read that more critically.