Unfortunately, this sort 0f tactic is used by both sides and both sides accuse the other of being Nazi/Commies/Birthers/Druggies without ever looking into the mirror. Folks who misuse the facts to support smoking a carcinogen (marijuana) or assisted suicide (that DOES create a real risk once we have universal health care) are now horrified when the other side uses the same tactics. The I-1000 campaign was openly Catholic-phobic and derisive of that Church, yet similar tactics demonizing healthcare as "Canadian" are offensive. The SDS (an organization I belonged to, the grape boycott (same) used tactics not very different from the tactics used by today’s brown shorts.
These tactics have become more worrisome because we have lost most of a semblance of a rational public forum. The O'Reilly crowd now ROUTINELY refers to the NYT (one of the world’s most conservative media?) as “far left” and does so with few winks. The Washington Times, supported by the the truly nut cased Rev. Moon, is accepted as the legitimate peer opf the NYT. The networks have replaced serious reporters with coiffed heads .. whether that be Couric or Brokaw.
The other huge problem the lack of a credible conservative party. Republican party teeters over the abyss of mass psychosis. Responsible conservatives either run as Democrats or are afraid to run for office at all because they can not win primaries. Sarah Palin is taken seriously as a presidential candidate.
What is left is … the Democratic party. An unwieldy pastiche of interest group driven, philosophically divers clans, largely rational but defined by opposition to brainless leaders of the GOP.
Some place in this mess we need rationalism.
cross posted at HA.
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