Note: I want to preface this by saying I am not attacking
anyone personally, nor am I attacking any particularly political
persuasion. I simply want to point out
what I consider to be particularly fallacious reactions regarding last week’s
shooting.
Since the shooting last week in Alexandria, Virginia of
Congressman Steve Scalise and several others, reactions have run the gamut from
sympathy to vitriol. While most have
stuck to the former, there are those on both sides who, predictably, have
preferred the former. It is natural to
want to assign blame for such a tragedy, but politicizing it will do no one any
good. On the contrary, it will serve
only to drive us further apart.
Particularly perturbing to liberals such as myself is the
attitude that this was somehow the culmination of rampant hatred of
conservatives and Republicans. This is a
baseless and offensive argument. Are
there those on the left who truly hate the right? Absolutely.
I know some of them. But you
would be hard-pressed to find suggestions of violence towards the right from
any but the most hardcore of leftists, and they make up about 1% of all
left-leaning people. Not one leftist I
know would EVER condone such an attack.
On the other hand, I have heard an attitude skewing towards
violence from many on the right, mostly those who support Trump. I have heard many advocating for running over
protestors simply because they were blocking a road. I have heard many advocating for violence
towards the news media because of “unfair reporting” and “fake news”. I have seen many reports of Trump supporters
assaulting protestors at rallies. If
these attitudes are perfectly reasonable, then why would it be wrong for the
left to share them? The answer is that
it’s not okay for either side to do it. But for them to suddenly call out the
left for doing what they have been doing for months is nothing but hypocrisy.
Unfortunately, many on the left, in an attempt to defend
against these attacks, attacked right back.
Within hours of the shooting, memes containing quotes from various
Republicans regarding guns and crime began circulating around social
media. The problem is that most of these
proved nothing and simply made the creators and those who shared them look like
fools. True, some of them were horrific,
essentially being threats to shoot and kill Democrats and liberals, but some of
the quotes actually hurt their argument because they made a fair point. For example, the following from Rand Paul was
included: “Why do we have a Second Amendment?
It’s not to shoot deer. It’s to
shoot at the government when it becomes tyrannical!” First, this was taken out of context; as
Snopes pointed out (http://bit.ly/2s5yWEP), this came
from a tweet sent by Paul, but the tweet was written by a staffer, and it was
actually referencing a belief of Judge Napolitano’s that he often discusses. Second, this is actually a valid point; one of
the reasons for having the right to bear arms is to give us the ability to
remove a tyrannical government just as our founders did (of course, those who
cling hard to this reason in order to dismiss any argument in favor of gun
control often miss the historical context that shows that there was another
reason for the Second Amendment, which was to help preserve slavery: http://bit.ly/29xMizo). It is foolishness and shortsightedness like
this that renders arguments moot, and if those making the arguments want to be
taken seriously, they would do will to heed this lesson.
Unfortunately, this fallacious use of “evidence” is
commonplace on every part of the political spectrum. It usually comes out of an attempt to defend
against an attack, but it is quite commonly a tactic of attack as well. The problem is that the loudest on both sides
like to use fallacious reasoning as an argument (I am as guilty of this as
anyone, but I am trying to better myself in that respect), and it simply isn’t. Logical fallacies are fundamentally flawed
arguments that prove absolutely nothing, usually derived from faulty reasoning
or bad logic. That is not to say that
all arguments that contain a fallacy are wrong, but using fallacies detracts
from one’s ability to prove their argument.
We need to get over faulty logic, false assumptions, and
blanket generalizations. We need to stop
immediately lashing out after tragedies such as this (and, by that same token,
we also need to stop trying to pass legislation in knee-jerk reactions to
tragedies because it will always do more harm than good). We frankly need to stop lashing out at those
with opposing views period. Yes, we will
disagree, especially given the way our country is being run right now. But differing points of view do not mean we
must be anything less than civil to each other.
Both sides are equally guilty of being jackasses in this
situation. Instead of using this to
unify us, they both chose to politicize it in order to attack those they
dislike. To make a blanket
generalization about the mentality of anyone with certain political leanings is
dangerous, offensive, and, in my humble opinion, distinctly un-American. That is precisely why I refuse to go near the
path that so many hardcore anti-Trumpers have gone in having an attitude of
nothing but opposition. Such attitudes
are precisely what keep us divided. But
using half-baked arguments and flawed evidence to attack, even in defense, is
no better.
There is no better irony in this than the way Congress
initially reacted to the shooting.
Instead of devolving into shouting matches or political attacks, they
simply came together for a bit. Yes, some
of the Republicans later went on to attack liberals for the shooting, but the
initial reactions were exactly what we needed.
Several Congressmen, including Speaker Ryan, gave brief, heartfelt
speeches noting that it is tragedies like this that remind us that we’re all
human, and that we need to be able to put aside political differences in order
to help each other through the grief.
For once, our leaders were actually leaders. It’s a rarity, but it does happen. We need to follow their example and remember
that we’re all human. We’re all in this
together. Launching into attacks in an
attempt to assign blame for a tragedy like this will help nothing. It will simply keep us divided.
It’s time we started listening to each other instead of
trying to tear each other down.
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