If I had to define myself, I’d be a left-leaning conservative, a bleeding-heart rugged individualist, a common sense ideologue, a Capitalistic socialite, a war-mongering peacemaker, a fiscally responsible spend-o-crat, a reasonable extremist, and a pro-choice anti-abortion activist all rolled up into one mushy mess of labels that I’ve been called over the years. Of course, these labels clearly have no more meaning than … well, the whispering of sweet nothings into your significant other’s ear on a drunken Friday night.
Just think of all the labels and groups there are to be a part of in this country. You could be a liberal or conservative, green or socialist, Democrat or Republican, neo-conservative or libertarian. My advice: screw being a part of any political group! It only dumbs down your arguments because then you have to belong to some stringent party platform — and try defending yourself when you don’t “fall in line” with the agenda of that group. Think about it. It was “cool” to belong to some clique in high school, but not anymore. Strict conformity only breeds ignorance.
Take, for example, Rush Limbaugh. Whenever I hear his radio audience call in and say “Mega-Dittos Rush,” I immediately write that person off as a complete idiot. Who could trust a man that claims to be pro-family, but is currently on his third marriage? How can anyone call Rush the voice of God when he called Kurt Cobaine a piece of human debris for being a drug addict, but has popped more pills than Ozzy Ozbourne and the Ol’ Dirty Bastard combined?
Or how about those on the “left” who can never think outside the box? Let’s take for example people that worship Al Franken. How can you take a political argument seriously by a former Saturday Night Live actor who played Stuart Smalley and spent a good portion of his life being a satirist?
The bottom line is this: anyone who goose-steps, if you will, in line with one political party is nothing more than an ideologue who has thrown rationality and right-versus-wrong judgment out the window for a sense of mind-numbed belonging to a political group. I’m talking about those who can never see anything good that comes from the “opposing side.” Here’s a perfect litmus test to see if you’re being disingenuous or not.
Let’s say for example, that you claim to be a Republican, and I ask you to cite a policy that you agree with the Democrats on. If the only thing you can say is, “Uhh, I agree with all of Zell Miller’s policies, and he’s a Democrat,” then you have chosen blind obedience over common-sense judgment. If you claim to be a Democrat, and I ask you to cite a policy that you agree with the Republicans on, and all you can say is “I agree that George Bush is a chimp,” then you have been bitten by the disease as well. Let’s think rationally about this: No one party or political group is right 100 percent of the time, period.
The political ideologues in this country on the far left and the far right have become nothing more than a bunch of cartoons that are more fake than Ashley Simpson’s “live performance” at the Orange Bowl this year. In addition, notice that these people don’t ever put forth arguments, but rather they bank on name-calling, which of course goes along with my thesis about their “dumbed down” mentality.
On my radio show, I answer countless emails every day from party hacks. Example: I got an e-mail from a Republican hack who writes: “Casey, you are a pansy-assed, PC, pussy-liberal bitch.” Wow, that was a very substantive argument. Here’s one from a liberal hack: “Casey, Mega-dittos you nationalist prick.” Again, sounds like a regular Socratic thinker wrote that one.
These ideologues on both sides have become mean, irrational bomb-throwers who are empowering each other through partisan hackery. The Internet is part of their graffiti, where they constantly make accusations based on lies against their political enemies due to sheer intellectual laziness. Thankfully, politics is only a small portion of life because the world isn’t black and white, Democrat or Republican. I’ve noticed that most of life’s choices come in shades of grey, which gives individuals all the more reason to be just that, rather than fictitious elephants or donkeys.
Casey Hoff ([email protected]) is a UW student and the host of “New Ground with Casey Hoff,” live Monday through Friday, 9-11 a.m., on Talk Radio 1670 WTDY.
