An End to Tantrum Politics, Please.
I, like most people, have to admit to certain beguilement, when seeing a fight take place in the media.
Two pugilists swinging …bludgeoning each another with their point of view. Usually it’s the politically left and the political right battling it out. Usually it’s one argument pitted against another.
And usually the strongest one wins.
Usually… but not now.
Now….. the winner is not the one with the best argument. Best intentions. Or best plans.
Now the winner is the one … who was loudest, who was more outraged, and who got the biggest apology.
Let’s review a few examples:
Sarah Palin vs. David Letterman.
A classic case of extragrated moral outrage. With the Republican party banished in the political wilderness, Ms. Palin attempted to be heard at whatever cost necessary. One A-rod joke….. and one comic innuendo about the less than virginal daughter of the Alaskan governor…. and what do we have. The biggest, fakest moral outrage that has hit the pike since Dan Quayle railed against Murphy Brown.
And because, simple voiced disapproval wasn’t enough for Sarah Palin, she upped the ante. She wrapped herself in a hypocritical cloak of defending women’s right, children’s rights, family rights, and the Right’s rights. Give it a rest Palin, Letterman is a comedian, not a politician. Comedians tell jokes. That’s what they do. They skewer political blowhards, like you, for a living. How about go after morally dubious members of your party. Or the Democratic party. Or any political party. Not television personalities. What’s the point in that? That would be silly, stupid…… and loud. And that’s the point.
Palin got loud. The outraged Right got loud. And Letterman apologized. Palin wins by a decision based on decibels.
And how about to our own backyard.
Let’s hit the homegrown protests of the Tamils in Toronto last month. After months, if not years, of public demonstrations in the city, the Tamils took it up a notch. Blocking the main artery into the city,
The Gardener Expressway. Then wouldn’t leave until the political establishment took up their cause….. pushing everything else to the back burner.
Words and arguments got replaced with civic disruptions and threats. A citywide equivalent of a bully blocking your path was played out. In the end, the politicians succumbed to the shouting. And the Tamil’s won the battle of Toronto.
Getting your own way through screaming, yelling, and reigning moral outrage is a hallow victory at best.
Oh you may win the battle, young loudmouths, but you most definitely will lose the war. The public grows very tired very quickly of people acting very badly. And your cause, however just and noble, gets ignored as quickly as an infant in full tantrum at the mall.
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Tags: david letterman, Media, politics, sarah palin, Tamil Tigers
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July 21st, 2009 at 8:15 am
Wonderful typo. Getting your own way is indeed a “hallow(ed) victory”. I always wonder how that cliche of winning the battle and losing the war worked. Wars are a series of small battles, winning them is almost certainly good (I hardly think the otherside was running a gambit). The problem isn’t that the causes of the loudmouthed get ignored. It is that the reasonable get ignored. Point and case this post. The avowed purpose of the rallies was to bring attention.
Politicians spout hypocrisy as comedians tell jokes. This is a truism no? So, when exactly was it that the strongest argument won and politics was not a battle of volumes? Even your metaphor at the beginning of the article does not evoke a sense of reasoned dialogue. System’s broke, that isn’t pessimism; there are no substantive arguments to support the opposite view.
Anyhow you can hardly blame noisemakers when the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Incidentally Palin has a majority of Republican support if she wants to make a bid to be the next President, this after quitting as governor. But the “The public grows very tired very quickly of people acting very badly.”. What “just and noble” causes are you aware of anyway? For people to be made aware of a cause there must be noise associated with it. But of course we can think for ourselves. Right?