The attacks against critics of the current administration, including those against us here at Daily Kos and in the netroots, are in essence attacks on our morality. Critics of the administration are deemed immoral, and criticism of the current administration is labeled as tantamount to treason. The administration sees itself alone as the only embodiment of high moral behavior.
Even those attacks from the right that are mild or are largely unintelligible, or even at first glance apparently ridiculous, are framed in a way to denigrate the moral integrity of Progressives.
Republicans view their world in unambiguous and clear terms that divide ideas and people into distinct and discrete groups.
George Lakoff notes that Republicans tell themselves that:
* The world is divided into good and evil.
* To remain good in the face of evil (to "stand up to" evil), one must be morally strong.
* One becomes morally strong through self-discipline and self-denial.
* Someone who is morally weak cannot stand up to evil and so will eventually commit evil.
* Therefore, moral weakness is a form of immorality.
Lack of self-control (the lack of self-discipline) and self-indulgence (the refusal to engage in self-denial) are therefore forms of immorality.
Lakoff also states that, for Republicans...
Those who give a very high priority to Moral Strength, of course, see it as a form of idealism. The metaphor of Moral Strength sees the world in terms of a war of good against the forces of evil, which must be fought ruthlessly. Ruthless behavior in the name of the good fight is thus seen as justified. Moreover, the metaphor entails that one cannot respect the views of one's adversary: evil does not deserve respect; it deserves to be attacked!
The effects of the right's rhetorical attacks and onslaught have been horrendous for our country. Instead of trying to find common ground, the debate has been focused on maintaining an "us vs. them" divisiveness always for all issues. Attendees at Presidential rallies are to sign oaths of loyalty or risk being arrested. Listeners at the Presidential State of the Union address must in no way, even silently and respectfully, voice any dissent lest they be hauled away.
The most mild of politicians, writers and would-be-sages on the right, including, George Allen, David Brooks, and Thomas Sowell and many others label criticism of the current regime as "unhelpful" for democracy, or like "an "inquisition", or "unpatriotic." Others call us Democrats as traitorous, helpful to terrorists, and in some cases worthy of the gas chamber.
We Progressives are especially vilified by the right as enemies of the good. This is not only because of our supposed immorality but also because of our supposed lack of self-reliance and self-control. We are said to blindly follow a "Kingpin", and act together like venomous and "rabid lambs" who, in our enraged and reactionary group zeal, are intent on hurling "hate" so as to preserve our own effete, self-congratulatory, latte-sipping, self-serving evil ways rather than adopt a path to a Republican-envisioned higher order and greater good. As a group we are said to produce "moral manias and mob psychology", are implicitly without redemption, and willing to "purge" all with "insufficient moral purity" because of our inherent liberal intolerance.
The sheer hypocrisy of it all is mind-boggling. Republican fascists labeling critics of their ways as fascists themselves can only be the result of an absurd and impenetrable circle of false logic, paranoia, self-deception, self-righteousness, projection and thuggery.
Despite its obvious fallacies and absurdities, there is likely no amount of argument or evidence that can rationally convince any Republican voicing this train of thought that he/she is crazy, and ultimately hypocritical. Reason, alone, has been, is, and will be ineffective alone in convincing anyone who believes these things of their ultimate wrongness or depravity. To counter the preposterous labels charges made against us requires not more careful consideration and arguing with them of the facts, or some effort to meet in some imagined middle ground, but reciprocation in kind.
To be effective, we should use against our opponents the weapons used against us. This is not to say we should act like them--far from it. Although personal morality itself is defined by the actions of that person, as much as we can we must strive to avoid ad hominem or degrading personal attacks when advancing our cause. Rather, to the extent we can we must fight this battle with ideas and in terms and in ways that destroy the very assumptions and bases that help form the "good-evil" paradigm the Republicans have constructed.
We must never, however, underestimate the true intentions of the neocons as anything but complete marginalization, if not removal (or even death, for some) of those who dissent from are cannot be fitted into the construct they seek to mandate.
To these ends we must not call our opponents only as "incompetent", as some do, but rather as engaging in immoral behavior.
We must fight this battle not as centrists, as some would have it, but as Progressives fixed firmly on the left and adamant about the good in liberalism and its values. The center is long gone as a suitable station for debate. The current Republicans under BushCo are now renegade extremists who paint their adversaries as evil and immoral.
We must not fight this battle as one to be won only with reasoned arguments, since the fight between the left and the right is not centered around facts, reality or logic but rather around more abstract notions of good and evil, morality and immorality, and power and impotence. To win the fight and take back the country we once knew we must state with conviction the innate moral inferiority of the Republicans' policies and actions, and the moral superiority of our own.
* We must cry "hypocrite" to those who label us, both literally and figuratively, as heretics to the faith.
* We must cry "tyrant" to those who deem us unpatriotic or unworthy of contribution to the national conversation unless we acquiesce to some larger false notion of authority, hierarchy, and discipline.
* We must yell "bigot" when minorities and the poor are repressed and criticized by our own government and their acolytes for their very existence.
* We must call each and every failed action of this administration not as failed but as expected given the inherent immorality or our opponents' policies and action.
* We must say that George Bush is not prevailing over a failed presidency but over a grand immoral endeavor with horrifying immoral consequences. The needless deaths of tens of thousands in Iraq, American and Iraqi alike, and the abandonment of his own people in time of need after a natural disaster, are testimony to this.
* We must say that George Bush's rise to power was not based upon "self-reliance" but wholly upon support from others, especially through paternal connections. His few business successes are entirely the product of preferential treatment and rescue by others-- a sign of weakness by his own moral standards.
* We must say that George Bush's dedication to country has always been a sham. With the help of his powerful father he avoided serving his country in a time of war and was willfully derelict of his duty as a National Guardsman. The same can be said for many others in his administration, including the Vice-President, who expressed a need to meet "other priorities" than to country when his service might have helped a larger cause than himself.
* We must say that George Bush's manifesto of the values of unencumbered free-market capitalism is really masked cronyism and corruption on an unprecedented scale.
* We must say that the neocons are not interested in international peace but only in hegemony.
* We must say that the neocons are not interested in national harmony but only in separation and vilification of those who challenge their power.
* We must say that the government occupied by the Bush administration, which stifles dissent of the government's opinions, rescinds civil liberties in the name of some putative government-sponsored good, and wishes for a subdued press only capable of rehashing governmentally-controlled information, is not truly an American government but something else, since such actions are anathema to any moral and free society.
* We must say that unlike the Republicans who cherish only power and strength, we Progressives are not Godless liberals but rather morally-driven champions of the sick, the dispossessed, and the common good. Those who characterize us otherwise are themselves acting immorally since they are only interested in sensationalism, fame, and preserving their own power at the expense of justice and compassion.
* We must say that unlike the Republicans who are interested only in control of one's decisions in all things, including in the bedroom, at the altar, and on the deathbed, we Progressives believe in freedom from government intervention for all deeply personal life events. Our relationship with our family and God is a personal one, not to be infringed upon by anyone--especially those claiming some special divine authority unassociated with any evidence of divinely-inspired action.
* We must say that unlike Republicans who talk morality, we Progressives act on our morality to comfort and support our fellow man. Moral deeds always count for more than empty words.
We must fight the moral fight on terms far sharper than is necessary in normal times, with a relentlessness surpassing that of our adversaries, and with a mission to demonstrate true morality from false platitudes. The Republicans are bullies intent on maintaining their power at all costs with motives and means painted in stark moral terms. They maintain power only so long as they maintain division through real or imagined crises and the debasement of those who challenge them for something better.
We must take their terms and actions and use them against them until we persevere.
* We Progressives, not they, are the moral ones, the strong and united, and disciplined and the self-controlled, who contribute to the greater good.
* We Progressives, not they, are intent on preventing the evil, immorality, and consequent weakness invariably associated with skewed moral values.
* We Progressives, not present-day Republicans, are the ones who give power back to the people through moral actions, and who can thereby unite this country again.
* We Progressives detest those who usurp the principles of morality for use in promoting selfish, divisive and nefarious ends.
* We Progressives seek harmony throughout the community by promoting the dignity of all.
On whatever scale is appropriate, and in language suitable to the issue, whether it is large or small, we must declare every chance we get this administration and their actions to be immoral. Simultaneously we must claim the higher morality of our solution to these issues. Everything we say as we respond to the caustic and angry attacks sent our way must invoke a moral equation, based upon facts, realism and our perception of the common good.
Doing anything less, I believe, is tantamount in these critical times to acquiescence, defeat, and dereliction of duty to our Country. We in the netroots of course know what to do. We are a community that recognizes both the stakes at hand and the terms of engagement in the battle with those who have taken power in this country away from the people who own it. We know the way forward.