Moderating our use of Extreme
Written by Daniel on February 18, 2007 – 10:51 pm - Welcome, if you're new here, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed or subscribe to our email newsletter. Thanks for visiting!
It is unfortunate that people in politics are so quick to label opponents “extreme.”
You remember the Democrats tag line from the fall? “Extreme Mark Green.”
What a false statement. Cong. Green was never extreme - he was solidly in the middle of the modern Republican party. Green responded with an ad rightly making fun of the ‘extreme’ label.
So now Wisconsin Club for Growth, Inc., is spending on the Wisconsin state Supreme Court race (primary Tuesday). The ads favor the conservative candidate in the race, Annette Ziegler. They do not even mention the liberal candidate, Linda Clifford.
Yet the Clifford campaign has issued a press release slamming the ads.
The Club for Growth has a history of injecting itself into races across the country and spending millions supporting the most extreme candidates in America. The ad buy by Club for Growth is a clear signal that extremist special interests intend to turn the Wisconsin Supreme Court race into their next battleground.
First off, Club for Growth is not “injecting” itself into this race. Wisconsin Club for Growth is a separate organization that is for of and by Wisconsinites. Second, the Wisconsin Club has never supported any candidates before to my knowledge, extreme or not. Third, the national Club does not support “the most extreme candidates” in America; it supports CONSERVATIVE candidates, not Birchers.
In 2004, The Club for Growth aired ads in Oklahoma in support of Tom Coburn, a rabid pro life conservative who has said “I favor the death penalty†for doctor’s who perform abortions and who, as a former obstetrician-gynecologist, has been sued for sterilizing a woman without her consent.
First of all, again, it was the national Club, not the Wisconsin club. Second, I believe you mean “rabidly,” not rabid, as he does not foam at the mouth due to a particular disease communicated through dob bites. Third, if you see how he arrives at the premise that life begins at conception, then you can see how he arrives at the conclusion the death penalty is appropriate for physicians who perform abortions. You can trace the logic. Fourth, many people are sued for many things, or indicted for various crimes; let’s not rush to judgement. Fifth, let’s not forget that a majority of the people of Oklahoma voted for him to be a U.S. Senator, and before that elected him to the House several times.
The Club for Growth also spent two million dollars on ads supporting Pat Toomey in his challenge of Senator Arlen Specter in the 2004 Pennsylvania Republican Primary. Toomey, now President of The Club for Growth, ran a campaign so extreme that even Rick Santorum endorsed his opponent.
The Club supported Toomey because Specter is a moderate on many important fiscal issues, and Toomey was a solid conservative in the House. Second, Rick Santorum’s endorsement of Specter was not a policy disagreement with an “extreme” Toomey. It was Senate tradition and collegial courtesy that mandates support for incumbents, and a belief that Specter would definetly hold the seat whereas Toomey would likely lose it, and thus shrink the majority by one.
Linda Clifford again challenged Ziegler to denounce the group, “It is clear that extremist special interests are trying to buy this Supreme Court election.
If anyone is trying to buy this election, I think the argument can be made it is Clifford. She led Ziegler in Cash on Hand by nearly $100,000 last filing. She has pumped more than $150,000 of her own money into this race. So who is trying to buy the election here?
Wisconsin voters need to hold Annette Ziegler accountable for the people and organizations who advertise on her behalf. If she doesn’t share the values of these extremist right wing groups, she should ask that the ads be taken down.â€
There it shows up again, that pesky word Extremist. It doesn’t fit. The Club isn’t extreme - it is mainstream conservative. The Club is no more Extreme for pro-growth fiscal policies than the Sierra Club is extreme for liberal environmental policies. Let’s just all drop the hot rhetoric and be judicious (no pun intended) with the labels we use.
Last 5 posts by Daniel- WisEye in Wis Lawyer - November 16th, 2008
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- Textbook Case - November 3rd, 2008
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- That's not a good thing - November 3rd, 2008
Posted in Ministry of Strategery |
February 18th, 2007 at 11:50 pm
“Third, if you see how he arrives at the premise that life begins at conception, then you can see how he arrives at the conclusion the death penalty is appropriate for physicians who perform abortions. You can trace the logic.”
I’m game. Let’s trace that logic.
1. Life begins at conception. (I disagree, but I can see how someone else would think this. I’ll accept that.)
2. Life is sacred and should be protected. (No argument here.)
3. The taking of human life should be a crime. (Once again, full agreement.)
4. Thus, abortion should be a crime, as it is a form of murder. (I disagree, but accept that it proceeds logically from the initial premise.)
5. Abortion doctors should be punished for their crime. (Still logical.)
6. Abortion doctors should be executed. (Wait, what? Doesn’t his argument proceed from the sacredness of human life and the evil of ending it? He just undermined his logic completely.)
I can follow the logic just fine…up until #6, where he completely tosses logic out the window. If you want to use #2 and #3 as building blocks for your argument, you can’t later decide to ignore them when they no longer suit you.
February 19th, 2007 at 12:29 am
[...] Fighting Like Warriors and Thinking Right. Systematically Debunking Liberal Rhetoric. « Moderating our use of Extreme [...]
February 19th, 2007 at 11:25 am
I do not enjoy commmenting on other comments but I must in this case. In your failed attempts to trace the logic you left out some very important steps.
1. Life begins at conception.
2. Life is sacred and should be protected.
3. The taking of INNOCENT human life should be a crime.
4. Thus, abortion should be a crime, as it is a form of murder.
5) Because abortion is murder and murder is a crime, punishment should be administered to those whom administer abortions.
6) If a murder is premeditated, then the murderer makes a conscious choice to take a life.
7) All conscious choices beget consequences whether positive or negative.
9) A doctor administering an abortion is a sufficient condition for he/she to receive the death penalty as punishment, in the American justice system. (logically follows)
The commenter argues that #9 above does not logically follow because because it is at odds with #2. We live in a nation of laws, like it or not–accept it or not. Within this construct, there are certain choices that can be made that will beget negative consequences. Pre-meditated murder, by its definition, is a conscious choice. If one is convicted of pre-meditated murder, they are by definition guilty. The whole argument here by the good Senator from Oklahoma is that we should ALWAYS protect INNOCENT LIFE. A fetus, by definition, is a life and while it can make certain choices within the confines of the womb (kicking, etc.), it clearly cannot make certain choice due to those confines. The fetus has wronged no one and thus should be given the same protections under the law as any other human being who has wronged no one under law.
February 19th, 2007 at 7:55 pm
Alright, let’s follow mrllab’s logical progression, just for kicks:
1. Life begins at conception. (As I said before, I’ll accept this as a logical starting premise despite personally disagreeing.)
2. Life is sacred and should be protected. (That sound you hear is me, vigorously nodding my head in agreement.)
3. The taking of INNOCENT human life should be a crime. (And herein lies the problem.)
In your version, #3 doesn’t follow #2. #2 proclaims the sanctity of ALL human life; #3 states that only SOME human life should be protected. At best, you are missing a step in your argument. Unless you can somehow provide the missing step–or rewrite #2 to claim that only SOME human life is sacred (which opens quite the moral can of worms)–your logical progression is no more successful then mine, and does not logically follow from your initial premises (#1 and #2).
Thanks for responding!
(On a side note, though, I agree that the term “extremist” has been overused and abused by both parties. If I were queen of the universe, I would ban the terms “extremist” and “activist” from political discourse.)