SMOTHERED BY MARSHMALLOWS: Ted Barlow is playing host to a discussion of who trashes the opposition in more disgusting terms–the left or the right? The discussion highlights all the problems I have with this kind of debate: 1) Confirmation bias–if you’re a lefty you notice when someone on the right says something nasty, and gloss over it when someone on the left says something similar; and vice versa for us righties. 2) “Those idiot weasel lying slime-sucking Republicans are always calling us names!” 3) Should you actually adhere to a belief because you hate the most visible representatives of the alternative beliefs? I know that credibility matters a lot; I know that we (rightly) give people more credence when we generally agree with their worldview; I know that I’d be very, very skeptical of any political position that was advocated primarily by people who seemed loathsome or cruel, even if that position initially seemed to make lots of sense. But one of the reasons this debate feels both futile and bassackwards, I think, is that we should try to form our political stances in such a way that we could take a stand even if the most public adherents of that stand are lying jerks. Otherwise we’re a) ignoring the non-lying-jerk people, who seem like the ones who should get more of our attention!, and b) abdicating our responsibility to judge the issues–the message, not just the messenger.

But that’s not what I wanted to talk about. What I really wanted to say was just that the form of left-wing invective that I find most irritating doesn’t, at first, appear to be invective at all. It’s the “smothered by marshmallows” approach: “I’m a liberal because I care!” “I’m a liberal because I think about the poor!” The Yale College Democrats at one point posted recruiting signs with their name and the slogan, “We’re the good guys.” Frankly, I would rather they’d just posted, “Republicans are fetid hateweasels!”–it would be less smarmy. Now, Republicans have totally bought into this image–many Republicans genuinely seem to believe that they’re the hard-hearted but hard-headed party. This is depressing in the extreme. So I guess my plea to “both sides” (and yes, I’m well aware that there are really innumerable possible constellations of political beliefs, so I apologize for the pigeonholing in this post) is: Don’t say stuff that implies your opposition hates poor people or doesn’t care or doesn’t think about them. And if you’re on the Right, don’t think you’ve got an excuse–you do still have to work for justice and mercy for those in need. That isn’t soft-headed–it’s honorable.