Tag Archives: Name-Calling

Mentoring

Responding to same-sex marriage proponents who call you names

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A good post on tactics from Alan Shlemon at STR. (H/T Jojo)

Excerpt:

Bigot. It’s a nasty term. Usually, it’s reserved for the most intolerant individual. Usually, it refers to closed-minded and angry people. And usually, it’s applied to Christians who oppose same-sex marriage (SSM).

That’s right. If you’re a Christian and oppose SSM, then hundreds of news articles, thousands of blog posts, and millions of people think you’re a bigot. If your opposition to SSM is in any way connected with your faith, then your chances of being labeled with this term increase exponentially. Of course, you’re still homophobic, but now they think you’re also a bigot.

What is it with all the name-calling? Have people given up on offering a reasoned, well-thought argument against our position? In many instances, yes. That’s why they resort to name-calling. Plus, it’s quicker and more convenient.

Like them, I’m all about convenience. In fact, I have a quick and convenient suggestion for dealing with these verbal assaults. Next time you’re called a bigot (or any other name), just ask for a definition of the term (at Stand to Reason, we call this the Sticks-and-Stones Tactic). It’s just that easy.

Now, they’re not likely to offer the dictionary definition (a person who is obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her opinions), but they’ll think of something. What you’ll find is that asking for a definition can accomplish three things…

Read the rest here.

I have actually seen this done by pro-lifers quite a lot, because they have to face a lot of insults all the time. There really is no case for the pro-abortion position, it’s just about people wanting to avoid the consequences of their own decisions. So you hear a lot of insults instead of arguments.

Commentary

Can all opposition to secular socialist policies be dismissed as racism?

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Story from the Weekly Standard. (H/T ECM)

Excerpt:

For years now, those on the left have conflated resistance to any item of their agenda–high taxes, extravagant spending, laxity on crime, what have you–with motives of a dark nature: racism, nativism, fear of “the other,” and various species of “hate.”

[…]As Obama’s grandiose plans created a predictable political reaction, which first took form in the tea party movement, his sympathizers in the media theorized that racism, which had been in abeyance for the six monthsaround the election, had re-reared its mean head.

[…]Time‘s Joe Klein looked at people protesting taxes and spending, bailouts and czars, deficits in the trillions, and discerned fear of Hispanics spreading like wildfire in the white working class. “They’re seeing Latinos .  .  . move into the neighborhoods. They’re seeing South Asians .  .  . running a lot of businesses. They’re seeing intermarriage .  .  . all these things that they find threatening. .  .  . They believe that the America that they knew, which was always kind of a myth, has disappeared.”

[…]Michael Lind, writing for Salon, said… “From the beginning, attempts to create a universal welfare state in the U.S. have been thwarted by the fears of voters that they will be taxed to subsidize other Americans who are unlike them in race. .  .  . Racial resentments undoubtedly explain the use of ‘redistribution’ and ‘socialism’ as code words by John McCain, Sarah Palin, and Republican working-class mascot ‘Joe the Plumber’ during the 2008 presidential campaign.”

But the problem is that there isn’t any evidence of racism:

The most conclusive rejoinder to the contention that “socialism” is a racist code word comes from a poll taken by the Democracy Corps (the firm founded by James Carville and Paul Begala), which delivered the verdict that while tea party protesters were insane by the partisan standards of Bill Clinton’s backers, the protesters’ concerns were what they said they were–taxes and spending; the expansion of government–and were not about race. The pollsters began discussions among older, white, and conservative voters and found “race was barely raised, [and] certainly not what was bothering them.”

Is it healthy for democracy for the secular left to demonize their opponents all the time instead of listening to their arguments? Doesn’t this shurt down dialogue and prevent us from listening to a diversity of opinions and perspectives? It seems to me that the only people who ever make race an issue are people on the left. I’m really questioning whether we should be voting in close-minded leftists to run the economy when they seem to be incapable of appreciating both sides of economic questions.

It’s the economy, stupid.