This Is Why I Do Not Get Political With Strangers

I fear the mob mentality.

I fear strongly held but poorly supported beliefs posing as fact.

I fear rumor and hearsay.

I don't like people shouting each other down.

I fear sound bites as a substitute for argument.

I don't like to fight; I like to argue.

The bible says, "He that argues with a fool is a fool himself"; and every member of a mob, who moves with the mob, whether it be for the right or for the wrong, is momentarily a fool, for he has surrendered though momentarily his ability to think for himself.

I don't like mobs, for one cannot argue with a mob; one can only fight a mob, and I do not like to fight. I like to argue. I do not argue with fools. When you argue politics publically, you almost always end up arguing with a fool and as it follows, behaving yourself as a fool.

That's one reason you couldn't pay me to watch the so-called debates, name-calling on national television so as to please your mob is not a debate. We black people have a name for it. It is called "signifying," "doing the dozen," or "ranking." "Yo mama so fat, she got her own zip code." Saying stuff like that to get your mob riled up at the other guy.

When I was a younger man, in grade school, I was chased home by a mob of schoolboys and schoolgirls, threatening to beat me up and yelling racial insults at me--they were black, as am I, so it was not a black/white thing. They thought I was Haitian, though to this day I do not understand what that had to do with it. I was the new kid from Boston, wherever that was, and I spoke English like Bostonians do rather than like Southern African-Americans do, and I was dark skinned (but so were most of the others--but since I was new, my dark skin made me a Haitain--are you following this?).

At any rate, it made me very sad to hear these kids, some of whom I thought I liked or could possibly like, saying these terrible things to me. I was on the verge of crying when I finally made it home.

The next day, and for several days more, I approached individually pretty much everybody who had joined in on the gang-up. And I talked to them, made jokes with them, made friends with them, and it worked with most of them. Things went fine after that. I became a very popular boy in the fourth grade, though new to that school and that city, Miami.

The mob scared me; and it still does. But I am unafraid to discuss ANYthing with ANYbody individually. Members of the mob are less the fool when they stand on their own two feet. There is safety in numbers, as well as insanity.

I am very saddened by the following article I found on AOL. If I could, I would speak to each and everybody who goes to these rallies and behaves in this insane (mobbish) manner.

Let me try to understand this . . . you are angry because a man is running for president whose views are slightly different from your own (In truth, Repubs and Dems are the same face on the same coin as far as I am concerned). If this angers you, then what, in your opinion, is democracy? These charges that you level at him--do you really believe them? Really? Do you know how many "suspected" terrorists are being held captive right now by the US? America takes terrorism seriously. Why is this man not being held? Come on, stop being silly. You're not in 4th grade anymore. Pose your arguments and force him to respond to them--he seems nice enough, and he seems like he knows how to argue. Argue with him. Argue with them. Do not yell and shout like . . . the uncivilized do.

And by the way, if you are certain that the man is a terrorist, then it is your duty as a citizen, or a senator, or a governor, to have him arrested immediately. If you don't do something to get a known terrorist arrested, then you need to be arrested yourself.

And by the way part 2, this is not about Republicans. Democrats do it too.

We are a free society. We have freedom of speech. We also have freedom to listen. These two freedoms combined make us both free and civilized.

But we seem happier to argue from the safety of large numbers. Be warned that there is a danger in practicing such a weak form of argument in a democratic society.

A few years ago I found myself watching an episode of the Jerry Springer Show. The topic that day was Man-Boy Love, and the show featured a panel made up of men from an organization called the North American Man-Boy Love Association, or NAMBLA--these are men who advocate for the right of adult males (over the age of 18) to have consensual sex with non-adult males (under the age of 18) a practice that in most states would be categorized as statutory rape--sex between an adult and a minor.

The men of NAMBLA spoke first--they argued that it is unfair on at least three grounds for them to be forbidden from having sex with males under 18.

First, the law discriminates against them as homosexuals because in every state a parent of a child under the age of 18 (and over the age of 13) can sign for the child to have the right to marry and have legal sex with an adult--no such option is available for a child who wants to have legal sex with an adult of the same sex.

Second, a child who is an out homosexual, they argue, can benefit greatly from the sexual guidance provided by a mature homosexual, but he will fail to get this because of the law, and will procede to make many (and possibly) dangerous mistakes as he is finding his way on his own as a young homosexual.

Finally, they added, the young men (who already know that they are homosexual and are confident in their identity) are wasting many good years of sex because of laws that criminalize behaviours in homosexuals that are dismissed or winked at when they occur with heterosexuals.

Now, whether you agree with these arguments or not, you need to hear how Jerry Springer's studio audience responded to the words of the men from NAMBLA.

People jumped up yelling things like, "I feel like punching you in your mouth."

"If I caught you in my neighborhood, I would string you up by your toes."

"You ought to be shot."

"You are monsters! You need to be killed."

So went the argument of the mod. In fact, it was no argument at all. The mob on the Springer Show, as so often happens, used its large numbers to shout down an argument that it found distasteful.

Very entertaining, but perhaps not.

Shouldn't we, as a civilized people, if we dislike NAMBLA be able to beat its argument with a better argument? In fact, shouldn't it be a no-brainer to counter such a weak argument as theirs, if, in fact, it is so badly flawed? And it is badly flawed, right? That's why we all in this large group disagree with it? But can we articulate intelligently WHY we disagree with it?

More often than not, the answer is no, we cannot. And thus, we can beat their butts, but not their argument.

Perhaps we cannot beat their argument because we have spent too many years arguing from the safety of the mob. We have gotten soft where the ability to argue is concerned. If we outnumber them, we win by shouting them down or beating them up, not by having a better argument. We win because of the strength in our numbers.

It is easy but dangerous to depend on this method to win arguments. First of all, When you argue, you may not always be in a majority (or at a rally preaching to the choir--you might be standing before the Supreme Court in front of an impartial group of jurists).

Second, you never really have any way to be sure that you are right--because you never learned how to argue so as to reach "truth."

And when those impartial jurists come back and grant NAMBLA the right to have sexual relations with boys, you will have to admit that the ony reason they won was because younever learned how to argue, having always depended on the mob to win the day for you.

And there have been many decisions made over the years that members of various angry mobs reciting their group's message to themselves have disagreed with--Roe V Wade, Affirmitive Action, the various repeals of parts of Affirmitive Action nationwide, the War in Iraq, the Civil Rights Bill, the removal of prayer from school, the right to Display the Confederate flag in government buildings in the South, the right for the Confederate Flag to appear in one form or another in the modern flags of various states of the former Confederacy, women's suffrage, taxation without legislation, the Vietnam War, gay marriage, the draft, $700 Billion Dollar bailouts, One Nation Under God.

If the mobs had learned to argue, some of these things would never have been enacted into law. If they had learned to argue, they might have learned to think and would therfore understand why it was just and right that some of these things they initially disagreed with were enacted into law.

But of course, I'm wrong. Arguing is way too hard, even here in civilized, intelligent, democratic America.

It really is a whole lot easier just to call someone a terrorist in front of 10,000 people who already agree with you.


Thanks,

Preston

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Found on Aol

(Oct. 10) - The unmistakable momentum behind Barack Obama's campaign, combined with worry that John McCain is not doing enough to stop it, is ratcheting up fears and frustrations among conservatives.

And nowhere is this emotion on plainer display than at Republican rallies, where voters this week have shouted out insults at the mention of Obama, pleaded with McCain to get more aggressive with the Democrat and generally demonstrated the sort of visceral anger and unease that reflects a party on the precipice of panic.

The calendar is closing and the polls, at least right now, are not.

With McCain passing up the opportunity to level any tough personal shots in his first two debates and the very real prospect of an Obama presidency setting in, the sort of hard-core partisan activists who turn out for campaign events are venting in unusually personal terms.

"Terrorist!” one man screamed Monday at a New Mexico rally after McCain voiced the campaign’s new rhetorical staple aimed at raising doubts about the Illinois senator: “Who is the real Barack Obama?”

"He's a damn liar!” yelled a woman Wednesday in Pennsylvania. "Get him. He's bad for our country."

At both stops, there were cries of, “Nobama,” picking up on a phrase that has appeared on yard signs, t-shirts and bumper stickers.

And Thursday, at a campaign town hall in Wisconsin, one Republican brought the crowd to their feet when he used his turn at the microphone to offer a soliloquy so impassioned it made the network news and earned extended play on Rush Limbaugh’s program.

“I’m mad, I’m really mad!” the voter bellowed. “And what’s going to surprise ya, is it’s not the economy – it’s the socialists taking over our country.”

After the crowd settled down he was back at it. “When you have an Obama, Pelosi and the rest of the hooligans up there gonna run this country, we gotta have our head examined!”

Such contempt for Democrats is, of course, nothing new from conservative activists. But in 2000 and 2004, the Republican rank-and-file was more apt to ridicule Gore as a stiff fabulist or Kerry as an effete weathervane of a politician.

“Flip-flop, flip-flop,” went the cry at Republican rallies four years ago, often with footwear to match the chant.

Now, though, the emotion on display is unadulterated anger rather than mocking.
Activists outside rallies openly talk about Obama as a terrorist, citing his name and purported ties to Islam in the fashion of the viral emails that have rocketed around the Internet for over a year now.

Some of this activity is finding its way into the events, too.

On Thursday, as one man in the audience asked a question about Obama’s associations, the crowd erupted in name-calling.

"Obama Osama!" one woman called out.

And twice this week, local officials have warmed up the crowd by railing against “Barack Hussein Obama.”

Both times, McCain’s campaign has issued statements disavowing the use of the Democrat’s full name.

A McCain aide said they tell individuals speaking before every event not to do so. “Sometimes people just do what they want,” explained the aide.

The raw emotions worry some in the party who believe the broader swath of swing voters are far more focused on their dwindling retirement accounts than on Obama’s background and associations and will be turned off by footage of the McCain events.

John Weaver, McCain’s former top strategist, said top Republicans have a responsibility to temper this behavior.

“People need to understand, for moral reasons and the protection of our civil society, the differences with Senator Obama are ideological, based on clear differences on policy and a lack of experience compared to Senator McCain,” Weaver said. “And from a purely practical political vantage point, please find me a swing voter, an undecided independent, or a torn female voter that finds an angry mob mentality attractive.”

“Senator Obama is a classic liberal with an outdated economic agenda. We should take that agenda on in a robust manner. As a party we should not and must not stand by as the small amount of haters in our society question whether he is as American as the rest of us. Shame on them and shame on us if we allow this to take hold.”

But, if it were up to them, such hard-edged tactics are clearly what many in the party base would like to use against Obama.

That McCain has so far seemed reluctant to do so has frustrated Republicans.

“It's time that you two are representing us, and we are mad,” reiterated the boisterous Republican at McCain’s town hall in Wisconsin Thursday. “So go get 'em!”

"I am begging you, sir, I am begging you -- take it to him," pleaded James T. Harris, a local talk radio host at the same event, earning an extended standing ovation.

“Yosemite Sam is having the law laid down to him today in Waukesha, Wisconsin,” quipped Limbaugh on his show Thursday, referring to the GOP nominee. “This guy, this audience member is exactly right,” the conservative talk show host said of the first individual.