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  • S

    Samantha StankoApr 22, 2010 at 6:11 am

    “liberals are sharpening once-normal words into throwing knives to flick at conservatives”

    Notice how you use words like ‘liberals’ and ‘leftists’ derogatorily? Throughout everything you’ve written for The Campus?

    I FLICK MY LIBERAL THROWING KNIVES IN YOUR GENERAL DIRECTION

    ps–Will, your argument was very coherent and well-written.

    Reply
  • W

    WillApr 9, 2010 at 4:33 am

    So, as I understand it, you wish for the Republican party to cease engaging in “petty” arguments with the liberal intelligentsia. Well, let me counter this argument with a few quotes, which need no citation:

    – “An opposition as despicable as the left”
    – “While liberals are sharpening once-normal words into throwing knives”
    – “Scrubbing away liberals’ illusion of credibility”
    – “The left has always sought power.”

    There are three things that these four quotes have in common. First, they are all from this article. Secondly, they are all unexplained and unfounded. Why? Because, thirdly, they are all in contrast with the message of the very article they come from.

    If the purpose of this article is to urge the right towards a more intellectual debate, you have missed the target.

    In what ways are the ideologies of the left “despicable”? It is not a matter of whether or not I agree with you; it is a matter of hypocrisy. There is no explanation for this buckshot accusation, and what’s more, it perpetuates the image of childish barbs from the right that you seek to destroy.

    “The left has always sought power” instead of the “truth”? Well, what is the “truth”? Furthermore, what political group has ever shied away from obtaining power? I’ll answer my own rhetorical question: none. Liberals, conservatives, moderates, socialists, capitalists, fascists, communists, they all seek power. And political movements should strive for this ephemeral concept of truth? No. When in a position to make policy changes and political progress, the “truth” is whatever is most convenient for any party.

    This “illusion of credibility” that is claimed to exist (by the way, another example of hypocritical rhetoric) is no illusion. Less than two years ago, the “despicable”, power-mad liberals won not only a majority in the U.S. House and in the U.S. Senate, but a majority in the U.S. Presidency. Like it or not, the liberal agenda was voted on, and it was approved. It’s a bit too late to question the credibility of something which was bestowed credibility by popular mandate

    Again, if I may dwell on specific phrasings in the article, these “once-normal words” that liberals now use to hurt their rivals? What are they? Please, tell me. I want to fully understand your point of view.

    I’m not the sharpest spoon in the cellar. I doubt my argument above is as coherent as I would like it to be. Do not take any of these comments as a personal attack; just as you target what you believe to be the morally corrupt, ineffective left, I target what I believe to be the morally corrupt, ineffective right. Hopefully, I have avoided the petty games politics invites, just as I hope you will in the future. But if I have not, well, darn. I tried. I appreciate your opinions, and ask you to keep writing; I enjoy the argumentative spirit it brings forth.

    Reply
  • J

    JaneApr 7, 2010 at 11:06 pm

    “Calling everyone who doesn’t toe the Republican party line a kook cuts conservatives off from a boundless well of arguments.”

    Is that not what you did in the first half of this essay?

    “This has never been true. What kind of opponent precariously balances his case on emotional drivel and then reviles anyone who has the audacity to present a logical counter-point?”

    Your arguments are full of flowery rhetoric, but I fail to see any real argument in them. What makes this claim more worthwhile than an identical claim from the opposite side of the political spectrum? Such an argument would be just as fallacious as this one, but you would only recognize it because of a close-minded system of judging everything by its position on an arbitrary, wide-reaching political scale. What do you call “emotional drivel”? What are these vague “logical counterpoints”? Why should emotion be discounted in the first place?

    Please, I urge you to stop thinking in terms of “left” and “right”, because those things aren’t true beliefs.

    Reply
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“Getting serious” in the age of polemics: Columnist argues for conservatives to return to their rich intellectual tradition