Writes Matthew Yglesias about Joe Stack:
As you probably know, a white guy entranced by an extremely version of Tea Party-style right-populist paranoia deliberately crashed an airplane into an IRS building in Texas yesterday. I’m not especially interested in debating semantics, but I think it’s very clear that if this had been done by a brownish-looking Muslim guy whose suicide note paralleled Islamist political themes that the right wing would be pissing its pants and demanding that anyone who refused the label the attack “terrorism” be put up on treason charges.
First, while his anti-tax, anti-bailout rhetoric might fit broadly under the Tea Party rhetoric, his anti-George W. Bush, anti-religion, pro-health care reform rhetoric decidedly does not. As such, trying to associate him with “Tea Party-style right-populist paranoia” is unfair and incomplete.
Second, I am really tired of the rhetoric template used above (I am sure it has a name, but I don’t know what it is). That is the ol’ if the person had been X, then the reaction by Y would have been different than the one we are seeing, and that’s not fair so I will do the thing I am decrying (but not really, just kinda) to use this situation to make my point.
Sound familiar? It should, as that was the exact rhetorical device used by Glenn Reynolds and William Jacobson (and many others) when they said, basically, “if Bishop had been involved with the Tea Party, they press would have gone wild, so let’s point out how someone on RateMyProfessors.com called her a “socialist,” etc.).
Is there any way we could start evaluating an event for what it is (or is not) instead of being compelled to note how the situation would have been discussed differently if the facts of the situation were different? Now only is it axiomatic that different facts will lead to a different discourse, but it is also true that we really cannot know how said alternate reality would have played out. Instead, when we imagine this other world, we can make it however we like. That’s great for fiction writing, but not so much for an analytical discussion.
I would note that I have noticed this particular pattern in the Blogoshpere (and in talk radio and cable new chat) for some time (and have even been guilty of it myself, I must confess). It just needs to go (but I reckon it won’t).
Having said all of that, I will say that I agree wholeheartedly with Yglesias over the main point in his post:
The key point, that all authorities seem to agree on, is that while this is a serious crime and a genuinely Bad Thing To Have Happen, that you need to put the likelihood of this sort of incident into a broader context. Simply put, the odds of “death by disgruntled anti-tax activist flying an airplane into your office” are extremely small and it’s extremely difficult to think of cost-effective and efficacious methods of ensuring that this never happens again.
[…]
It’s smart, then, that as a country we’re responding to his terrorism by trying to avoid counterproductive overreactions.
Indeed.
Sphere: Related Content
February 19th, 2024 at 9:11 pm
Uhh…you’re missing the whole point–the real question now convincing was Tiger Woods’ statement of contrition?
This plane thing is passé. It’s time to move on to the important stuff.
February 20th, 2024 at 9:29 am
“Is there any way we could start evaluating an event for what it is (or is not) instead of being compelled to note how the situation would have been discussed differently if the facts of the situation were different?”
Simple answer: not as long as we continue to participate in the charade that is Democratic-Republican politics. And the reason is equally simple: this is the very form of Democratic-Republican hypocrisy. As long as we continue to reproduce the Democratic-Republican duopoly system of government, we will be subjected to the inane rhetorical devices of Democratic-Republican duopoly ideology.
February 20th, 2024 at 6:31 pm
Ratoe… You made me lol!
February 20th, 2024 at 7:05 pm
Reading the poor man’s manifesto leaves one with the impression he was all over the map about his troubles, but if you must equate him with a group why stop with the Tea Party, his blaming Bush for much of his problems seems to come right off B Gibbs note book, then he opts to spout a Communist BS line. The man had problems that most will never understand and have little right to interpret. Find a story that helps not hinders the Nations woes.
February 21st, 2024 at 2:00 am
[...] But Steven Taylor called foul: [...]
February 21st, 2024 at 9:35 am
Yglesias uses the rhetorical tactic you decry to illustrate a language problem: that people assume a definition of the word “terrorism” that doesn’t match the definition they claim to hold, so that they can use that word and its attendant associations in support of their political views.
Using the tactic as a way to attack political positions is indeed tiresome, but it does happen to be a good thought experiment for testing the definition of a word.
February 21st, 2024 at 11:49 am
Steven,
I take the point, but I would disagree that what it going on here is just about defining a word. At a minimum, “terrorist” is a word so rife with politics that it is impossible to talk about it without it being also about politics.
S