Posted on 03/19/2018 6:01:45 AM PDT by Kaslin
One day the right is mocking Hillary Clinton for taking a fall while walking down a flight of outdoor steps in India. The next day the left is mocking the president’s weight. Must we be so infantile in our criticisms? Aren’t there enough issues of substance for us to discuss and debate?
I don’t want to name names here, but suffice it to say that some major voices on the right seemed to enjoy watching Mrs. Clinton’s struggles in India. After all, she’s the fading icon of the left, the very image of failed policies and ideas. Mocking is her fine. That’s what we do to our political opponents.
And how many times did we replay the video of Mrs. Clinton collapsing during the presidential campaign, only to be whisked away by her bodyguards? Was this simply a concern for her health, which would have been legitimate for a presidential candidate? Or was it a matter of enjoying our ideological opponent’s apparent frailty? Were we concerned or were we gloating?
Conversely, without naming names on the left, Sarah Huckabee Sanders has been appearance-shamed more than once (quite cruelly and baselessly at that). And the president’s weight has been a matter of ongoing mockery, most recently from a major magazine. But they are both fair game, since their critics say they represent the worst of the right. They are allegedly liars. They are supposedly hateful. They can be vilified. That’s what we do to our political opponents.
And does anyone really think that those fat-shaming the president are genuinely concerned about his health and well-being? That they’re concerned that, if he doesn’t get in better shape, he might not serve out his term, let alone another term?
It’s one thing for political cartoonists to ply their trade with exaggerated and embarrassing caricatures. That’s what they do, and sometimes, putting aside the insulting caricatures, they are brilliant in their craft. Their artistry conveys a powerful message. Plus, public figures know they’re going to be caricatured. (Think, for example of Barack Obama’s ears or George W. Bush’s puzzled look.)
It’s another thing, though, when political commentators on the right and the left get pleasure out of mockery and insult. (And I don’t mean mocking someone’s position. I mean mocking their appearance or their health struggles.)
Unfortunately, the mocking game plays well, like throwing meat to a bunch of hungry sharks. The insults lead to a feeding fest among the faithful followers.
In my view, when we degrade others in such childish ways, we ultimately degrade ourselves. We make ourselves less credible. We make our positions less worthy of serious discussion. We make our viewpoints less tenable.
Let me drill this home with a hypothetical example.
Imagine that I’m debating a liberal university professor about the culture wars. Someone in the audience interrupts the debate, calling me some crude name. In response, I shout – no, sing – back, “Stick and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.” And I do this while shaking my head as if to say, “Na-na na-na-na! You can’t hurt me!”
How would you respond to the rest of my presentation? How seriously would you take my scholarly arguments?
Or what if I got upset with my debating opponent and began to insult his choice of clothes or the way he wore his hair or the names of his wife and children? Would I enhance my position in your eyes? Enough said.
I personally believe that the depth of our convictions can best be seen against the backdrop of fairness and civility. In other words, we can be definitive and dogmatic, convicted and clear, incisive and insightful without being mean-spirited, let alone childish. In fact, when we hold our ground with grace, we expose the incivility of our opponents.
Let them degrade into the name-calling. Let them make the threats. Let them act like children. They hurt their cause, not ours.
You might say, “But these days, the president is leading the charge, calling others by crude names and mocking their failures.”
I don’t disagree. But since when did the bad behavior of a leader justify the bad behavior of a nation? And are you going to tell me that the mockery and insult and mud slinging wasn’t here on both sides long before the election of President Trump?
Right now, our nation is precariously divided, and it’s becoming increasingly rare that both sides can come together for serious debate and discussion. But there are life and death issues that divide us, because of which it is imperative that we get our message out loudly and clearly.
To the extent we can step above the fray, acting like adults rather than children, we have a chance of being heard. And personally, I want to be heard.
As for Christian leaders, there’s a biblical passage that speaks directly to us: “A servant of the Lord must not quarrel but must be kind to everyone, be able to teach, and be patient with difficult people. Gently instruct those who oppose the truth. Perhaps God will change those people's hearts, and they will learn the truth. Then they will come to their senses and escape from the devil's trap. For they have been held captive by him to do whatever he wants” (2 Tim. 2:24-26, NLT).
If this was good enough for Paul, it’s good enough for me.
A fatso can be President no problem.
A drunk can not.
Brown’s bleed-heart is showing.
I’m reminded of how Jesus absolutely excoriated the hypocritical Pharisees and teachers of the law with NAMECALLING and associations with the most despicable imagery.
Sheesh, hope this makes Mike feel all better after admonishing his lessers.
Nothing the right does compares to the evil the left spews, nothing.
Agreed. It is not comparable.
Hillary would be an awful president. Her health problems, viciousness and self-righteousness were all crippling defects in a Head of State. We needed to make sure that such a person did not get into office, and so we tried to tell people about her very real flaws.
Calling someone a fatty is not the same thing. That’s childish.
The media wouldn’t cover Clinton’s health.
How about it was an attack on the fake news for failing to do its job and question Hillary's health for being able to handle the presidency.
Until that vid the MSM refused to even consider Hillary had health issues. And even with the vid the Fake News refused to investigate.
I am not in the habit of defending Hillary Clinton, but I have slipped down worn stone stairs like that more times than I can count.
Unless you have been to someplace like India, you have no idea how treacherous worn stone stairs can be. The risers can wear away to the point where the whole thing becomes more like a ramp than stairs. On top of that lies a layer of grit, that makes it impossible for a hard leather shoe sole to find purchase.
It is possible to navigate stairs like that with a good shoe that has soft rubber soles and a deep tread pattern. However, in thin leather sandals like Hillary was wearing, you might as well just toboggan down on your belly, because there is no way you’re getting down without falling.
If she had won, we’d have that smarmy sniveling Virginia faggot Tim Kaine as defacto president.
Trouble is if you are from the left and try to talk about issues the left demands you be fired from your job, kicked out of town, and censored for life. Especially if your correct.
Huma shouldn’t have let her get anywhere near those stairs. Unless of course it was a passive aggressive thing.
Ask Ms Wax at Penn St law indoctrination station.
Turn your scorn to liberals and their outright hatred.
I think Brown’s general point is right. I get so sick of people here calling everybody they don’t like by bizarre insulting nicknames (sometimes so bizarre that I’m not entirely sure who they are referring to) which usually imply that the object of their scorn is gay or engages in other weird sexual practices, or are based on insults about that person’s appearance. On top of everything else, it comes across as very childish and devalues the poster’s entire post.
I’m certainly not innocent myself; I don’t think I ever referred to Obama by his name, but I usually called him “Bambi,” because he wanted to portray himself as a dewey-eyed innocent when the reality was anything but. But I don’t see that any benefit from calling him other gross names I have seen here.
Commenting is one thing (for example, commenting on Hillary’s falls, which I think most certainly do indicate a health problem) and I don’t think we should be restrained about that. But I do think we could do with a little less ugliness.
And then there’s that whole Christian thing - Jesus may have spoken strongly to people who were in error, but he called them out to their face and condemned their behavior in no uncertain terms. I don’t recall His ever sitting around referring to his enemies by childish dirty nicknames when He was talking to the Apostles.
THANKS to our President we the people are not quiet any longer. We have seen things before and never said anything AND NOW we are giving it right back and the left is crying foul!
As Dennis Prager points out, “who started it?” is not an ignoble question.
So? She’s fallen down every where in the United States as well. If she’s so ill, she shouldn’t be traveling to countries like India in the first place. Now she’s supposedly fallen in the bathtub and broken her wrist. I doubt it was a flea-bitten motel.
Get off your high horse and look really hard at what’s happening in this country! The left and the deep state are engaged in a coup...and you want to complain about how mean people are to laugh at Hillary?
You may be onto something there...
Not to long ago, no westerner would even think about going down to the water at these steps. It was not our place.
People used to have more respect when they were travelling. Now they have to get into everywhere, see everything, and take a selfie to prove it.
Car VILE and Beg (the question) Allah...Superb examples of the dimwitocrats....
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