The Words We Say

>>Keep in mind that Obama has said the following things (from a list compiled by someone else when I was trying to remember them all):<<

*headdesk*

Thank you for the examples. I'd heard the "fight for it" and "I'm angry" ones but not most of the rest. Sheesh, and this is one of the most rational politicans I've seen in recent decades. We are so hosed.

>>The President. Who could, if he wanted, just toss me in jail without any explanations or reasons. Or my spouse. Or my family. Or anyone.<<

Yeah, I am really really not keen on America's increasing desire for the power to "disappear" people.

>>If we're going to start with getting rid of the violent and threatening rhetoric, could we start at the top? Couldn't Obama set an example? I bet that would be a big deal. But he doesn't. Palin's not the only one using martial language.<<

Well, trying to remove all violent or martial imagery from English is extremely difficult. There is just SO much of it, we don't even think about most of it. There are whole books and classes on this topic.

Why don't you drop by Change.org or Care2 or one of the other petition sites, and start a petition asking President Obama to use and advocate nonviolent language, and refrain from martial imagery? Maybe include 3-5 examples of the more creepy phrases he's used, with citations of sources. If nothing else the number of signers would let people know how many folks consider it important for the president to speak civilly.

Custom is FAR more powerful an influence than law. My observation with laws is that, by the time you need a law for something, you are usually past the point where having a law will help. The pressure driving people to that undesirable action is too high. You won't fix it by corking it; something will explode. You have to backtrack and relieve the pressure and find other options. Laws are mainly useful for providing general guidelines ("Don't kill each other.") and stopgaps to disastrous behavior until social means can catch up with practical needs ("You can't enslave other human beings anymore."). It is always more efficient and effective to teach and support good behavior than to punish bad behavior.

Sadly America is gung-ho on prisons (we're ahead of CHINA!!) and indifferent or hostile to teaching social skills. GIGO.

>>Is it because they're angry? Should we ban anger from the discourse? I'm all for that, but it would wipe out a lot of liberal equivalents too.<<

I wouldn't ban anger, but I would strongly discourage irrationality and violent languages. It's too easy to whip people into a frenzy, and then somebody gets hurt. Extremists tend to aim for that; I don't think it's a desirable way to run a society.

Good decisions most often derive from good data, careful consideration, and well-balanced arguments. Poor data, logical fallacies, and hateful dialog tend to result in bad decisions with ineffective or destructive results. You have to balance what you feel with what you know, because your own emotions can get in the way of your goals if you let them run away with you. If people are just screaming at each other, they are unlikely to get any good out of it. I think they miss a lot of common ground that way.

My main beef with the Tea Party is its heavy use of logical fallacies such as ad hominem attacks and distraction techniques. The result is that people have a very poor idea what's actually going on. For example, there was the TP protester who claimed to be against "socialized medicine" but then said "don't you touch my Medicare." That program IS provided by the government, but the protester -- after listening to TP presentations on the topic of health care -- apparently didn't know that.

I don't have a problem with people disagreeing over what is wrong or what should be done to fix it. That can be frustrating when they don't agree with me and I think their plan would be bad for me -- but it doesn't generally make me feel like nobody's driving this bus. What makes me frantic is when I see people, and especially the public en masse, making decisions based on emotion or religion without regard to facts, or handling facts carelessly enough to introduce major misconceptions. That way lies disaster. If you've got your facts straight and your arguments are rational, then if the solution goes wrong, at least you can troubleshoot it and find out why. If the facts and arguments aren't reliable -- and especially if there's an expectation that people shouldn't criticize authority -- then it's difficult or impossible to back up, analyze what went wrong, and fix it.