Tag: civility

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ideological culture social media

Of Loudmouths and Silence

Rob Reiner, Donald Trump, civility, rudeness

The murders of Rob Reiner and his wife — allegedly by their son, Nick — were horrific enough. But because the elder Reiner was, in rallies and interviews and on social media, a spittle-​flecked progressive who said vile things about his opponents, including the current resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, it was inevitable that President Donald Trump’s reaction would fail to serve as a stellar example of gracefully acknowledging the death of a 
public figure.

After calling the fatal knife attack a “sad thing” but before exclaiming “May Rob and Michele rest in peace,” Trump made the incident about himself. 

The butchery, he asserted, “reportedly” was the result of “the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME, sometimes referred to as TDS.” Trump referred to Reiner’s “raging obsession” and “paranoia” that reached “new heights as the Trump Administration surpassed all goals and expectations of greatness, and with the Golden Age of America upon us, perhaps like never before.” 

More extreme than Rob Reiner’s derangement may be Trump’s own. 

But the actor and director, in his heyday, also demonstrated some difficulty assessing his public persona honestly. Reiner never seemed to realize that he became the “Meathead” he played (maybe with only inadvertent satire) on All in the Family in the 1970s.

Some folks find it hard to condemn Trump for being petty and political upon Reiner’s death when that seemed to be precisely what Reiner was upon, say, Rush Limbaugh’s.

Both Reiner and Trump inhabit the “loudmouth” camp of public rhetoric, using strong condemnatory language and a reliance on over-​statement when railing against their opponents. At death, do loudmouths deserve less honor?

The acceleration of history being what it is, perhaps, “too soon” no longer sticks as a useful censure when it comes to gallows humor and double-​murder indecency.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability general freedom ideological culture media and media people moral hazard national politics & policies Regulating Protest Second Amendment rights

The Other Kind of Trade War

trade war, fractured, division, Alex Jones, censorship, boycott, civility, civil discourse

President Donald Trump’s promise — threat? mere negotiating gambit? — to add a 25 percent tariff on steel could usher in a new international trade war, which he says is “easy to win” but which in reality could lead to a cascade of tariff increases worldwide, throttling trade and plummeting us into a Great Depression.*

This is not just politically divisive (designed to please his protectionist base), it’s socially and globally divisive.

But that’s not the only radically divisive move at present. 

Last weekend, YouTube froze, for a short time, the account of one of the most popular channels on the video service, Alex Jones’ Infowars. This is part of a major effort by Google’s platform, Jones says,** as well as a general trend by businesses and European governments, to suppress the speech of the strongest critics of open immigration, PC speech codes, gender politics, and outrageous media bias. Though, in Jones’ case, admittedly peddling some ridiculous conspiracy theories in the process.

YouTube has admitted that the new people the company had hired to police the platform — from the Southern Poverty Law Center, Jones pointedly emphasizes — had taken down thousands of sites without cause.

For partisan reasons. Apparently.

Jones and many other YouTubers call it a “purge.”

What to make of all this I’m not sure. But I do know that the pressure that activist groups are putting on some companies to sever all ties with the National Rifle Association has an obvious problem: fracturing the market into warring political tribes.

Do activists on the left not see where this ultimately leads? Some companies serving half the market, others the other — this is a disaster in the making.

I prefer civil discourse.

And democracy.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* Just as it happened in 1929 – 1931 with the Smoot-​Hawley Tariff Act.

** Infowars insists that CNN is behind at least some of the push against Jones’ popular radio/​podcast news-​and-conspiracy commentary business, as CNN’s own coverage more than suggests.

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education and schooling ideological culture

Why Homeschoolers Make Good Citizens

Horace Mann promoted the “common school” not primarily to increase literacy or prepare kids for college. No, the movement that gave birth to the modern public school system in America was designed to inculcate good citizenship by putting all kids through a “shared experience.”

A few years ago, Mann’s notion was re-​iterated by a college professor in an essay called “The Civic Perils of Homeschooling.” Public schooling, he wrote,

is one of the few remaining social institutions … in which people from all walks of life have a common interest and in which children might come to learn such common values as decency, civility, and respect.

Are we really supposed to believe that public schools instill decency, civility, and respect?

In “Does Homeschooling or Private Schooling Promote Political Intolerance? Evidence from a Christian University,” Journal of School Choice: International Research and Reform, 8(1), Albert Cheng left bald assertions aside and conducted some research. He concluded that private schooling does not decrease social tolerance, and “those [college students] with more exposure to homeschooling relative to public schooling tend to be more politically tolerant.”

Why might this be the case? Cheng himself offered two possible reasons — greater self-​actualization in homeschooling, and religious instruction — but I can think of others.

For one, public schools bring together many, many kids, but through regimentation and Mann’s desire for “shared experience,” the results tend toward more conformity, and bullying, and less tolerance.

Meanwhile, homeschoolers are doing something different than the crowd, and perhaps are that much more wiling to accept others doing their own thing, even if not the norm.

So, hooray for homeschooling! The cradle of liberty.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.