Expressing and Being Open to Diverse Viewpoints Are Essential for Democracy

“When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen”

                -Ernest Hemingway

Silencing, dehumanizing, and erasing of opposing views are at odds with the tolerance necessary for a free and democratic society.   While many assert that we have to “listen to one another,” it becomes harder and harder to believe that is what they really want.  I am more and more of the belief that the Left’s goal is not just to silence those with more conservative or less socialist leanings than their own but to completely erase all differing views along with those who hold them.

In my experience, those on the Left, rather than listen and learn, often prefer to isolate, shame, and silence those with whom they disagree.  Their methods of doing so range from simple mean-spirited name calling to more aggressive forms of harassment and sometimes even to violence.  All, I believe, are intentionally hurtful.  But all also reveal an immaturity and a lack of self-control in the same way that a schoolyard bully throws a rock at someone who doesn’t do what he wants because he has not yet learned a better way to deal with his emotions and a more civil way to communicate.  He has not yet learned tolerance for differing viewpoints or that simply disagreeing is not an act of aggression to which one responds with an attack. 

Also like a schoolyard child who has not yet learned to probe below the depth of situations to understand more complex ideas, my experience is that many on the Left are either unwilling or incapable of having any sort of dialog that goes past the restatement of buzzwords, memes, and memorized phrases.  That is, the depth of thought needed for adult communication is not apparent.  

In an excellent opinion piece Nolan Finley of the Detroit News, calls out those on both sides of the political aisle. In part of the piece he states:

“Public shaming of [political] opponents is easier than engaging them in persuasive debate. Better to harass them in public, threaten their families, troll them on the Internet and violate their right to privacy than to prevail on the strength of earnestly expressed ideas.

Disagree with what someone is saying? Shout them down. Chase them from the podium. Go after their jobs.

The catch phrase answer to all of our problems is, "We need to have a national conversation."

But we are as far from a constructive dialog as a nation can be. Conversing requires listening. And we don't want to hear what the other side has to say.

Winning is all that matters, and we're so convinced we hold the keys to wisdom that we think it's OK to do so by any means necessary.” 

(See https://www.detroitnews.com/story/opinion/columnists/nolan-finley/2018/10/28/finley-honest-we-hate-each-other/1773954002/).

In what seems to be a futile attempt to have conversations with those of differing, usually Leftist, opinions, I have many times been the recipient of such harassment, verbal assault, and public shaming.  I have written about some of those experiences in previous blogs.  Last week I faced two such incidents, One was in person, during a lunch, and I included that in a blog last week.  The other was an incident in which I was unfriended on Facebook for a fairly innocuous comment responding to a meme attacking Trump.  To summarize briefly: before the serial bomber was arrested, a then Facebook friend posted, in a series of quite hateful and ad hominem attacks on Trump and his supporters, a meme that asserted that asking Trump to go after and arrest the bomber was like asking OJ to go after his wife’s killer.  Later that day, after the arrest was made and Trump had spoken and denounced him and his acts, I posted a comment to the meme which said “But he did, didn’t he – caught him, condemned him, condemned the acts.  Now if only the Democrats would condemn the Democrat who shot and almost killed Scalise, the Democrats who assault Trump supporters for wearing Trump hats/shirts, the Democrats who call for assaults and harassment of Trump supporters and the Democrats who answer that call.”  Without further comment, and without any notice or communication with me, I was unfriended - erased from this person’s world.

Now, while I admit my comment may have been a bit snarky, it was nothing like the hateful speech regularly appearing on this person’s page attacking conservatives.  It was, however, the only comment that expressed any disagreement with the Leftist views on this person’s page.  But, this is simply one more piece of evidence in my growing exhibit folder (and shrinking “friend” folder) that many on the Left cannot deal with anyone who does not parrot their own positions.  There is no room for conversation in their world.  There is no desire to listen to other views.  Rather, many on the Left would simply erase all who do not think like them. 

The Left’s response to anything or anyone that challenges their viewpoint is to shame and silence.  I have previously discussed how this is a brainwashing tactic (See Blog dated 8/19/18, https://ps.pinkspolitics.com/2018/08/a-suggestion-of-mind-reform-are-you.html ).   They even want to silence the President, to turn him into someone closer to the sort of politician that, if not one of them, they can at least control to some extent with traditional political games.  Anything he says which they do not like they claim is adding to the problem of violence in this country.  The unspoken demand is that he simply stop speaking – be silenced.  Meanwhile, they have no problem with their own leaders and their supporters encouraging and specifically directing people to harass and silence those with whom they disagree.  The hypocrisy is truly deafening.   

In this environment it becomes harder and harder for someone to reach out to those with differing positions to try to have a conversation, to try to listen and learn about differing views.  Many on the Left seem unable to deal with differing views.  Simply stating one’s position or asking a fair and legitimate question is often perceived as some sort of attack.   It is far easier to just label those views and those who hold them as one or another form of deplorable.  In the true form of identity politics so favored by the Left, that allows the dehumanization of those holding other viewpoints; and, when dehumanized, one needs no longer be tolerated or understood and harassment or worse of that dehumanized identity group becomes perfectly acceptable and often even viewed as necessary (not unlike the sorts of dehumanization that has led to various forms of “public cleansings” in the past and that is often the justification in one’s mind for hate crimes).

Sadly, fewer and fewer of those whom I once called friends are a part of my life today, simply because they will have nothing to do with one who does not walk in lock step with their views.  I can count on one hand people who hold distinctly diverse political views from mine who still interact with me as a true friend, and, our means of doing so in most cases is not to share and discuss and learn from our diverse political ideas, but to have an unspoken agreement to simply not discuss them.  Yet, without dialog and discussion with those who are not just mirrors of ourselves, we cannot grow as individuals or solve problems that face our community and our world.

It would be easy to retreat to a bubble where I would only interact with those who think just like me.  Sadly, that is what many people do.  I will not do that.  For that only furthers the division of our country into differing identity groups – tribes at war with one another.  Instead, I choose not to be dehumanized by those who would place me into one or another identity group.   I will not be silenced. I will not be erased.  I believe that I, like every other individual in this country, have a right to express my point of view.  I also believe that I have a responsibility to listen to the views of others.  That is a basic premise of our democracy, a premise with which the dehumanizing of opposing views is in direct conflict.

In America, we aim to tolerate and respect one another.  That includes one another’s differing political views.  We listen and we argue and in so doing we learn and we grow and we and our country move forward.  Expressing one’s views is not an act of aggression, it is not something for which one should be attacked, shamed, or silenced.  The unstated premise of those who would do so is that they prefer something other than the democratic republic that has served us well for the past 242 years.