Myth vs. Opinion
I'd been planning to write a post about how there's a strange disconnect I'm beginning to have with people who consider themselves centrists, but unfortunately Publius at Legal Fiction already wrote a great post about this in October in regards to Team America: World Police that sums up a lot of my thoughts perfectly, but I want to summarize it and bring up another revelant point concerning how we view facts in politics.
On Centerfield a few months back, I had asked the main blogger there, Rick Heller, what he thought a centrist was, and he felt that it could be measured by percentages. You take some online survey with questions on all the issues and based on those opinions, you're either on the left, on the right, or in the center. I can't argue with that definition. But I'm beginning to feel right now that centrism is not so much a function of moderation as much as it is a belief that both Michael Moore and Sean Hannity are nuts and therefore being somewhere in the middle is right.
Matt and Trey, the producers of South Park and Team America, proudly consider themselves centrists when it comes to politics, and they truly dislike the fact that everyone gets painted as either left or right in this country. Though they admittedly don't care as much about politics as it may appear from watching their show and their movies.
This was a quote from Trey in an interview:
The disconnect comes, as Publius points out so well, that the arguments of the left and the right have to be weighed equally against the facts to be able to say that a centrist position is either the most wise or the closest to the truth. When it came to the Iraq War, we weren't talking about some nebulous philosophical debate between "being weak" and "being strong" where you naturally want to be somewhere in the middle. We were talking about whether or not invading a country was the right strategy in the War on Terror. So while over here in reality, we were trying to ascertain facts, too many centrists like Matt and Trey seemed to think that it was just detached celebrities and hippies arguing with military men and racists, and that the right answer was somewhere in the middle.
Well, no, it wasn't. And this leads into the main point of this post. There's a very big difference between an opinion and a myth. I had a conversation recently with someone on the right who felt that believing in things such as Saddam's links to terrorism or that believing that the inspectors weren't given access to Iraqi sites in the beginning of 2003 were opinions, and that if you were on the right, you had a valid reason for having those opinions. Again, no, you don't. You can't believe in things that aren't true and just call it your opinion because it supports your position. The problem I see with centrists today is that they're looking at people on the right who are saying, "Everything in Iraq is going great, we're just not getting the good news," and considering that as valid an opinion as the person who admits that things are disastrously bad, despite the fact that one 'opinion' is based on reality and the other 'opinion' is clearly a myth.
I've stopped going to Centerfield since they non-sarcastically posted links to Chrenkoff, who's still trying like mad to convince everyone there's a ton of good news in Iraq that no one wants to report. I truly worry about this country when even people who have understood the value of moderation well enough to become centrists are now believing in fairy tales in order to still feel centrist.
On Centerfield a few months back, I had asked the main blogger there, Rick Heller, what he thought a centrist was, and he felt that it could be measured by percentages. You take some online survey with questions on all the issues and based on those opinions, you're either on the left, on the right, or in the center. I can't argue with that definition. But I'm beginning to feel right now that centrism is not so much a function of moderation as much as it is a belief that both Michael Moore and Sean Hannity are nuts and therefore being somewhere in the middle is right.
Matt and Trey, the producers of South Park and Team America, proudly consider themselves centrists when it comes to politics, and they truly dislike the fact that everyone gets painted as either left or right in this country. Though they admittedly don't care as much about politics as it may appear from watching their show and their movies.
This was a quote from Trey in an interview:
Just like everything we do — and the “South Park” movie was this way, too — [our scripts] always start off being about 120 pages of politics and basically expository crap. And then you whittle it down and whittle it down, and you start to look at stuff, and then you realize, “Okay, the funniest stuff is watching a puppet falling out of a car — and that’s what the movie’s really about.” [laughs] You weed it out and let the politics take a back seat. Because I know I’m sick of politics. It’s more about f***in’ up puppets.South Park has been one of my favorite shows on TV for years, but I've learned over time not to take their politics too seriously, mainly because you can easily tell that they don't. And with the political climate of the country right now, that disconnect is really beginning to show.
The disconnect comes, as Publius points out so well, that the arguments of the left and the right have to be weighed equally against the facts to be able to say that a centrist position is either the most wise or the closest to the truth. When it came to the Iraq War, we weren't talking about some nebulous philosophical debate between "being weak" and "being strong" where you naturally want to be somewhere in the middle. We were talking about whether or not invading a country was the right strategy in the War on Terror. So while over here in reality, we were trying to ascertain facts, too many centrists like Matt and Trey seemed to think that it was just detached celebrities and hippies arguing with military men and racists, and that the right answer was somewhere in the middle.
Well, no, it wasn't. And this leads into the main point of this post. There's a very big difference between an opinion and a myth. I had a conversation recently with someone on the right who felt that believing in things such as Saddam's links to terrorism or that believing that the inspectors weren't given access to Iraqi sites in the beginning of 2003 were opinions, and that if you were on the right, you had a valid reason for having those opinions. Again, no, you don't. You can't believe in things that aren't true and just call it your opinion because it supports your position. The problem I see with centrists today is that they're looking at people on the right who are saying, "Everything in Iraq is going great, we're just not getting the good news," and considering that as valid an opinion as the person who admits that things are disastrously bad, despite the fact that one 'opinion' is based on reality and the other 'opinion' is clearly a myth.
I've stopped going to Centerfield since they non-sarcastically posted links to Chrenkoff, who's still trying like mad to convince everyone there's a ton of good news in Iraq that no one wants to report. I truly worry about this country when even people who have understood the value of moderation well enough to become centrists are now believing in fairy tales in order to still feel centrist.
posted by thehim at 8:28 PM
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