dlowan wrote: OCCOM BILL wrote:Blame America First is more of a
label... or a
distinction really than it is a
slogan. Same with
the usual suspects or
the Christian right ... It's the kind of thing where the words are going to come out in the same order so very many times before they naturally, inevitably, evolve into first a distinctive phrase
and then, if common enough, they'll even begin to blend together.
For example; let's examine the term "
a lot". These words are so often said together that many people think
alot is a word... which by default means it soon will be. Now if A2K's Blame America First tendencies provide an accurate cross section of the World's Blame America First tendencies; it shouldn't take more than another decade or two before the word
Blameamericafirst shows up in the Merriam Webster Dictionary. Now since some will find this new word to be derogatory in nature, though it's really just an accurate descriptor for a particular mindset, it may even come with a caution like;
usually offensive for instance or
sometimes considered inflammatory or maybe even
don't provoke the bunny.
Actually, I agree that slogan is not a good word.
The kind of thing I was thinking of is the sort of derogatory word/phrase that people pair with the disliked party/ideology etc - and which, with use, begins to act as sort of attitude shaper and thought stopper - so, here, I ask whether a certain story is true, and instead of any informed response, I get an opinion - with a "leave it to the BAF people to do bla bla" - so we have moved from a factual question, to a "oh that's just the usual blame america first" stuff - with no pause in between actually to examine the question and the facts. That was only part of the process, of course.
Here's where you make an assumptive conclusion based on the BAF comment, that simply isn't true. I
A. Read the story.
B. Did search for corroboration and
C. Since I didn't find corroboration; concluded that
if the story is true, the speaker of the comments is guilty of ignorance.
There was considerable pause in between reading your post and writing what you wrote off as bla, bla, bla. Said pause was used specifically to "actually examine the question and the facts".
I concluded: even if the story is true, and Chris Cox is the ignorant fool he'd have to be to make such a comment; it remains a very poorly constructed Strawman to imply that the entire gathering was in agreement with the ignorance by virtue of being present when he presented it. That's where the Author, Michelle Goldberg, dropped the credibility ball. Had she been satisfied with her scoop (assuming it's true), she had a clear cut shot at exposing the ignorance of a powerful Republican Congressman. This
is news.
Unfortunately, the apparent hack couldn't be satisfied with an accurate, if not earth shattering, story about a foolish Congressman. She chose instead to use her legitimate scoop as the tidbit of truth in a very shabby case against the other, more powerful attendees of the conference in an attempt to paint a coat of idiocy over the entire party. It is absurd to pay heed to a theory suggesting that everyone within earshot of a speaker agrees with his words based on her perception of their perception based on her observance of their response
or in this case lack thereof. This
isn't news.
This is overly partisan foolishness, so petty and common from both sides of the fence that thinking folks from both camps typically ignore the hacks that create such drivel in favor of spending their learn-time more efficiently. Now since this has the flavor of overblown crap that ultra-Partisan sources like Salon are known for, I commented: Leave it to Salon to publish an article implying the entire gathering of "hundreds" agreed. And since this has the flavor of overblown crap that many of A2K's lefties crave (and because Revel had just made a reference to the BAF) I further commented: And leave it to the "Blame America First Crowd" (Special Delivery ) to misinterpret the elaborate Strawman as news.
Interesting that you would think it was I who hastily categorized information as BAF when in reality it is you who's making faulty assumptions about how that categorization comes about. It is
usually the result of a Righty having an utter lack of understanding for another plausible explanation for a Lefty's seemingly inexplicable opinion. Said opinion will
usually have a negative slant that the Righty deems unsupported by his or her weighing of the evidence. The parallel would be the multitude of times when Lefty's [/I]assume
that Righty's seemingly inexplicable opinion is the result of Bush-Loyalty of some kind. Both sides are frequently, terribly guilty of assuming the opposition could only reach their conclusions out of ignorance. While this is certainly true much of the time, our own inability to understand the opposition's perspective makes a poor measure of ignorance. Much better to rely on a broader non-partisan assessment of mutual history to base such a judgment on. This is why, Deb, you're so very unlikely to hear me accuse you of ignorance. This is also why various word-sets that are descriptive of your pre-dispositions (which are so totally opposite mine) tend to come out with some regularity. While terms like hyper-partisan, BAF, etc. may not be very flattering; I doubt that any practical
