Phil Klein describes what’s infuriating about media coverage of extremist violence:
…the reason why conservatives get irked when “right wing” is used in reference to major acts of violence — often without an iota of evidence to back it up — is that the term “right wing” is broadly applied by the media to the entire conservative movement. I don’t think “right-wing” Jennifer Rubin and Sheldon Adelson get pumped every April for Hilter’s birthday, that “right-wing think tanks” like the Heritage Foundation burst out the champagne on the Columbine anniversary, or that “right-wing rock star” Scott Walker is a big fan of the Oklahoma City bombing.
Even putting aside the bias issue, it’s just lazy and imprecise journalism to use the term “right-wing” so broadly that it could refer to anybody from a libertarian who believes in a small centralized government to somebody who wants to restore the Third Reich.
As a rule of thumb, I think journalists should avoid terms like “right-wing” and “left-wing” in basic news coverage. But given that the idea of a right vs. left dichotomy is so ingrained in our political lexicon, it’s unlikely that shying away from this terminology would make a difference at this point. Instead, I think that if reporters mean to refer to a threat presented by a specific group — neo-Nazis, Islamic radicals, anarchists, white supremacists, or so on — they should do so. If they have broader category in mind, they should use a broader term, such as “domestic extremism.” But throwing around a term like “right wing” whenever violence strikes — which is associated with conservatism in the American political context — is irresponsible.
It’s worth pointing out, though, that there is an asymmetry here. The Left is generally proud to wear the label (when they’re not attempting to mislead by calling themselves “liberal” and “progressive”). I don’t know very many conservatives (maybe none) who refer to themselves as “right wing,” and no libertarians who do so. I certainly don’t accept the label, and never have.
Given the origins of the terms “right wing” and “left wing,” it seems weird that the biggest State-humpers get to be the “left wing” while their pro-freedom opponents are the “right wing.” But then look how the Hive has distorted the term “liberal.”
For me contemporary use of the term “right wing” lost any semblance of coherence when “liberals” could apply to it to an anti-war anarcho-capitalist such as Murray Rothbard and the pacifist libertarian anarchist Robert LeFevre at one end of the spectrum, and Hitler at the other end.
Their sloppy usage also somehow lumps radical socialists like Hitler and Mussolini into the right wing, so the only descriptive value it has is “someone we’ve vilified or any violent person we haven’t made apologies for.”
As I’ve mentioned, Mussolini was called right wing because he sat on the right-side of the Italian parliament so he could be as far from his former Socialist party brethren as possible, after they’d stiffed him out of becoming their party head.
But fear not. The bomber who’s still at large tweeted Chechen racist jokes, so the left should have no trouble maintaining a workable narrative.
“I don’t think “right-wing” Jennifer Rubin and Sheldon Adelson get pumped every April for Hilter’s birthday, that “right-wing think tanks” like the Heritage Foundation burst out the champagne on the Columbine anniversary, or that “right-wing rock star” Scott Walker is a big fan of the Oklahoma City”
The writer may not think that.
BUT that’s exactly what the MSM means and in many instances SAYS out loud, at every chance. It’s the same type thinking that they use to say that the ‘right-wing’ doesn’t care about babies and children having food or old people having clean water or air. I know Lefty people whom I’ve known for 40 odd years who truly believe those things too.
That their beliefs have zero basis in fact, or history and are totally lacking any proof doesn’t even matter to those I know, so I can’t imagine that the Maddow / Morgan / Matthews contingent cares about facts either. More so, IF they had real proof, they’d be running roof that the ‘right-wing’ hates old people, children, air, water and everything BUT guns, Bibles and George Bush.
It serves it’s purpose for the left. It doesn’t matter how we feel about it.
Whining about it won’t make it go away. Nothing will really.
It simply self identifies those that should be totally discredited by it’s use.
Apparently it hurts conservatives’ feelings to be called right-wing. Meanwhile, the right routinely refers to Democrats as socialists, communists, fascists, and members of the “Democrat Party”.
What is the right label for someone like Timothy McVeigh or Eric Rudolph?
Domestic Terrorist
That’s not it Jim. Being slandered is a problem. That’s all their inappropriate broad brush, knee-jerk, use of the term is.
Or are you telling us you like being lied about and slandered?
Socialists, communists, or whatever label with similar meaning are valued and accepted members of the Democrat party’s big tent. They help organize every protest and play prominent roles with activist groups, like unions. And let’s not forget OWS.
I can understand if a Democrat doesn’t like being called a socialist but there are many Democrats at all levels of power who are socialists or communists or have the exact same ideology but lable themselves something different.
Are you really saying this isn’t happening and socialists don’t exist? Have you ever looked at the signs at protests or the list of organizers of events?
Usually a conversation like this starts with denial, then it moves to so what there is nothing wrong with socialism. IMO if you don’t have a problem with socialism just say so, don’t lie and say that it isn’t a big part of the Democrat party.
And if you don’t like socialists, then you might ask yourself why the Democrat party has embraced them. Kicking them out of the party is the only thing that would convince people that Democrats don’t like socialism.
As far as all socialists being like Stalin, they certainly aren’t but there are also a significant number who lean that way. From pushing red buttons to SWATing political oponents to wanting to pry guns out of cold dead hands to numerous bombings and shootings, violence is a significant problem with Democrat groups.
“Apparently it hurts conservatives’ feelings to be called right-wing. ”
Doubt it, but you’d have to actually ask a conservative about this. Hurt feelings isn’t exactly the point, but trust Genius Jim to miss the big picture.
It’s difficult to think when you’re in the habit of being an imitation Baghdad Bob and just parrotting the party line on any given issue.
“Meanwhile, the right routinely refers to Democrats as socialists, communists, fascists. . . .” Maybe to avoid confusion, Democrats should stop acting like socialists, communists and fascists, and adopting their rhetoric. Mussolini’s “Nothing outside the State, everything for the State, nothing against the State” could be the motto of the modern Democratic Party.
“What is the right label for someone like Timothy McVeigh or Eric Rudolph?”
Practicing Abortionists.
McVeigh was an atheist, Rudolph a Nietzschean. You are, however, correct that calling Democrats socialists, communists, fascists, and members of the “Democrat Party” is counterproductive at best.
Funny how adopting “left” and “right” from the French Revolution hasn’t turned out well. Who could have seen that coming?
You are, however, correct that calling Democrats socialists, communists, fascists, and members of the “Democrat Party” is counterproductive at best.
That’s what makes Rand’s complaint here so rich. As far as I can tell, in his world view Scandinavian mixed-economy socialism is exactly equivalent to Stalinist or Maoist communism. Hell, he even goes so far as to say that the rightist authoritarianism of the Third Reich or Mussolini is “leftist” because the word “socialist” is somewhere in a party name. (If you accept that, East Germany in the cold war was both democratic AND a republic. Try exercising your fundamental rights at that time…)
My point is that “right” encompasses a spectrum that is both authoritarian and non-authoritarian, just as “left” can be authoritarian and non-authoritarian. I suspect that everyone on this forum can embrace non-authoritarian, regardless of left-right disagreements, and that would be a departure point for common understanding.
Mussolini substantially influenced the New Deal, a historical reality that was swept under the rug when it became inconvenient to acknowledge it. Authoritarianism was widely admired in the US in the 1930s, especially by young, well-educated people: “Many a university teacher during the 1930’s has seen English and American students return from the Continent uncertain whether they were communists or Nazis and certain only that they hated Western liberal civilization.” (Hayek)
My point, rather, would be that there are very, very few people in the US today who actually want to turn the place into North Korea or Somalia, but to hear some people talk, that’s what our politics is all about. Again, adopting labels from the French Revolution has turned out to be a really bad idea, which should surprise no one.
Re the New Deal, I often think of Norman Thomas, once the perennial presidential candidate on the Socialist ticket, who stopped running because he felt his programs had pretty much been “co-opted” (as we would say in the 1960s) by FDR and his Brain Trust.
As far as I can tell, in his world view Scandinavian mixed-economy socialism is exactly equivalent to Stalinist or Maoist communism
That’s because you apparently can’t tell very far.
“‘As far as I can tell, in his world view Scandinavian mixed-economy socialism is exactly equivalent to Stalinist or Maoist communism.'”
“That’s because you apparently can’t tell very far.”
Indeed. Dave may need a course in remedial reading.
That, or he’s a typical “low-fo” Obama supporter who lazily prefers the Straw Man Argument.
You do realize that both those parties actually produced reams of documents describing their beliefs in detail, and that we have the Internets, don’t you?
Mussolini had been a communist propagandist and the editor of the Italian Socialist Party newspaper before he went even further left to add elements of anarcho-syndicalism to arrive at Fascism. Nazi propagandists wrote treatises explaining their party name, that their foreign policy was nationalist while their domestic policy was socialist. It wasn’t the “socialism lite” that Europe switched to after the war, it was full bore socialism that made Western European socialists drop many of their tenets and back away slowly.
So you are saying some Democrats are socialists but we are not allowed to speak of it? That isn’t how things work in this country.
If a group of neo nazis showed up at a Tea Party, they would get run out. If a group of socialists showed up at a Democrat activity, everyone would hug, talk about what went on since last they met, and thank each other for all the work getting the event together.
You say people can pick through the spectrum but when Che and Chavez are celebrated heros among Democrats, it makes the rest of us wonder. The first step in convincing the rest of us that Democrat socialists wouldn’t round people up and put them in prision for being political dissidents, is to not idolize historical and contempory figures that have done just that.
“My point is that ‘right’ encompasses a spectrum that is both authoritarian and non-authoritarian, just as ‘left’ can be authoritarian and non-authoritarian. ” Further evidence that the terms are useless and misleading. As I said before, if the term “right wing” groups individualist, anti-war anarcho-capitalists such as Rothbard, and a individualist libertarian pacifist such as LeFevre, with collectivist mass murderers such as Hitler, what actual meaning does it have? What would be the common denominator among Rothbard, LeFevre and Hitler? If there is no common denominator, then the “right wing” is not only useless but misleading. If there is a common denominator, I would certainly like to know what it is. The only common denominator I can think of is “People the Left don’t like.” Although even in that case, the fact that the National Socialists of Germany got on the “left’s” Fecal List seems more of an accident of history than of anything intrinsic to National Socialism. (True, there’s Hitler’s anti-Semitism, which put him on the wrong side of the American Left, with its high percentage of Jews; but the Left doesn’t seem that put out by manifestations of Jew-hating in its own ranks.)
I don’t know very many conservatives (maybe none) who refer to themselves as “right wing,” and no libertarians who do so.
Pat Buchanan does I think.
He can have it.
Rand’s complaint is rich with understanding. Left-wingers use “right-wing” in mirror image of their own beliefs. Left-wingers hold to the belief “no enemies on the Left,” which is why FOB and academic Ayers wanted to emulate the death-camps of Stalin; why the White House admires Mao; why academics and artists praise Chavez, Castro, and Che; and why philosophers like Sartre and de Beauvoir were Stalinists.
That is, since Leftists recognize that totalitarian mass murderers are their kind, they naturally project the same to their enemies.
Mussolini was a man of the Left, a theorist the equal of Lenin, who like Lenin and Mao, extended Marxism. Communists shouting right-wing at Fascists mean no more than the right side of the socialist spectrum, which ranges from Hitler and Mussolini to Mao and Lenin.
So much this. ^^
Frankly, anyone who thinks it’s insulting to call someone “right” should be happy with being called “wrong.”