I want to talk about writing and speaking tactics for getting information to “the other side.” I have noticed, both in some of the articles and in many of the comments on GFZ, that people are fairly liberal in their use of name calling. I’ve noticed that it’s been a bit of a trend over the past six to ten years. It’s not a trend that I like.
When I first moved to the States, I was expecting to run into “rude rednecks” all around me. Imagine my surprise when said “rednecks” turned out to be polite, well spoken, and for the most part, educated and intelligent. I quickly learned that the people I was most concerned about, that the liberal folks of the north had feared, were the people who were the most ready to help someone who was in need.
Fast forward to ten years ago. I had long come to understand that the Right were fairly polite except for a few extremists that no one liked. I had come to a personal understanding that the Left were only polite to their own, and even then it was iffy, but they often couched that lack of politeness with pretty words. I was disappointed, surely, but I started slowly moving to the Right.
And then Trump got into office, and something changed. Suddenly, the people who I had come to know as being well spoken and softly polite were not, anymore. They began using some pretty nasty tactics to rile up “the other side.” One of those tactics was name calling.
For the past twenty years, I have been calling out people on the Left for indulging in name calling and petty behavior. People who mocked Bush for his ears or for misspelling potato, people who attacked Trump because of his weight or his hair, these were people that I roundly denounced. I culled my friends vigorously, removing those who would use that kind of base rudeness to lash out at “the other side.”
Now I’m seeing it, more and more, from the Right. Boy, it bothers me. It bothers me more than it does from the Left, if I want to be honest. My movement from Left to Right has been slow, and due to people like Awa and others who I trust and who have taken the time to teach me. I expect more from the Right, and the Right is now letting me down.
What I need you to understand is that you are not ever going to sway the people who are far Left. It’s not going to happen. More than anything else, they just don’t read what you have to say. They’ve muted you, deleted you from their FB friends list, and they avoid you. You’re not talking to them. You don’t need to sway those on the Right. They already side with you. Your target audience is ME.
And you’re losing me.
By giving in and using the tactics used by the Left, the Right is going to lose this fight. Those of us who’ve slowly been migrating Right are now pulling back. We’re taking a close look at you, and making decisions.
Believe me when I say, I have no interest in Biden or Harris, or in the Left bull cookies that are currently being spread around. I very much want to see a solid Second Amendment, and I want to see the First Amendment protected as befits its place as first. I want to see each and every child in the country taught about the Constitution both as an historical document and as a living document.
But you are shooting yourselves in the foot when you lower yourself to using the Left’s nasty tactics. Every time I see someone on the Right call Biden by some insulting name, I withdraw further. If you want to call him inept, ineffective, medically unsound, I’ll stand beside you and hold a sign with you. Those are truths. But the insulting, the name calling, the stooping into the muck? No. That’s not truth, it’s anger. If you let your anger rule you, you lose.
I don’t think the Right can prevail over the Left if it continues to fight in the same way it has for the last five decades. But I KNOW the Right cannot win this if they lower themselves to the Left’s level. All it does is push away the people like myself who want to know more, who are beginning to see that the Left’s carefully crafted lies are unraveling.
Awa will tell you, I was hesitant to write this column (From Behind Enemy Lines). I don’t use my real name, and I’m hiding in my anonymity. That hurts, just to be clear. I’ve always despised those who hide behind shields. But it’s the only way I was willing to write here. Because I don’t want to be splattered with whatever it is you’re slinging at the Left this week. I no longer feel safe enough around the Right to speak my mind openly.
Read that one again: I no longer feel SAFE ENOUGH around the Right to speak openly.
I realize it isn’t your job to make me feel safe. I really do. However, if your aim is to convert people like me to the Right, to lure me in because y’all have good cookies, then you just cannot be handing out cow pies and claiming they are cookies. It doesn’t work.
The Left has worn me down until I really just expect them to twist words. While that’s a very sad state of affairs, it is what it is. That’s the current status quo. What’s even more sad is that the Right is doing it now, too. When I bring it up, I’m told, “But they did it first!” I don’t really care. It’s not an excuse. When you shoot back with rude words or name calling, you seem to be telling me that you’re just like them, meaning the Left. Is that what you want?
And before I hear that it’s not the same thing… yes, yes it is. It is indeed lowering yourself to their level. It is behaving badly. It’s wrong. It’s wrong when the Left does it, but at this point, they’ve been doing it so long that I don’t think they are even aware. YOU are all aware, though. You know what you’re doing when you do it. Behaving badly “because the Left did it” is sort of like being a bad parent “because your neighbor did it.”
So… those of you who are actually interested in swaying the opinion of others, who want to teach the ones like me who are on the fence, who are learning… think about how your words and actions affect us. It’s looking pretty grim right now.
Heuristic Hagar
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