Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - Your thoughts on the Bush administration? Be honest.

smooth · 04-14-2004, 05:53 PM

OK, let me try this again.

Irate, you originally interpreted my statement to say that rural dwellers mispeak words regularly or as part of their dialect.

I'm not stating that rural dwellers talk like that. I am saying that they don't attach as much significance to it as someone who has been taught that speaking in a particular way is indicative of one's social class.

The only two reasons I even singled out rural dwellers were because:

1) given that they comprise the majority of the population, a political figure needs to appear to be like them

2) they are working class individuals, save for the few wealthy people who own property in rural cities. Working class people aren't specifically trained to make judgements regarding one's social position based on how one speaks or writes while members of the upper class are taught that these are valid ways to identify one another.

Consistent with my claim that rural dwellers actually comprise the vast majority of our nation's population, I never limited them to region. In contrast to your interpretation that I was referring to southerners or the plains states, there are more rural cities than urban cities in California, Oregon, Washington, New York, Vermont, and etc.

I agree that you take no more liberty with our language than someone in New York. My point is that mispronunciation is going to raise less eyebrows in upstate New York than it will in Manhattan, it's going to matter more to people in Wall Street or Berkeley than people in Wal-Mart or at the beach--not that New Yorkers or Californians are more intelligent or talk better than people in Arkansas or Oklahoma.

In regards to your american notion:

Liberals are not operating with a different definition of "american." First of all, re-read all of my posts and you would find extremely limited instances of me even using the term "american." I only did so in the last few posts because I was juxtaposing it against the term "anti-american." Speaking for myself, I view Canadians and Mexicans as Americans and almost always refer to our nation's population as US citizens.

Secondly, you mixed goals with means. Both liberals and conservatives rely on a common ideological background--but we differ in the actions we want to take to retain them.

One of the most cherised US value is the notion of freedom of political expression. When liberals say that we want to consider an alternative to the current actions, that is one of the most "american" things one can do.

Some people claim that calling someone else a traitor is a justified form of freedom of expression. I doubt the framers would believe that to be the case given how I explained how that can result in choking off ideas.

There is a huge difference between saying, in rebuttal to one's expressed political belief, "that belief would not serve the nation's long term interest because..." and "you are a traitor for holding that belief."

The only thing I can think of that would justify a label of treason would be when someone actively tries to abolish the US political system/nation and replace it with the values and structure of another nation.

Liberals aren't trying to do that--we are trying to change the actions of our government and sometimes the beliefs of other citizens around us. But we still want it to be the United States of America, with a government that embodies the beliefs of its citizentry. If half of us are conservatives and half of us are liberals, then the government should recognize both belief systems and work to provide a consensus that we can both agree to. Labeling one side of the debate as anti-american is essentially claiming that a subset of the entire population is holding invalid beliefs.

That stance is not appropriate behavior for a government because it derives it's power from the people as a whole--not just the ones in political power.

04-14-2004, 05:53 PM	#47 (permalink)
smooth Junkie Location: Right here	OK, let me try this again. Irate, you originally interpreted my statement to say that rural dwellers mispeak words regularly or as part of their dialect. I'm not stating that rural dwellers talk like that. I am saying that they don't attach as much significance to it as someone who has been taught that speaking in a particular way is indicative of one's social class. The only two reasons I even singled out rural dwellers were because: 1) given that they comprise the majority of the population, a political figure needs to appear to be like them 2) they are working class individuals, save for the few wealthy people who own property in rural cities. Working class people aren't specifically trained to make judgements regarding one's social position based on how one speaks or writes while members of the upper class are taught that these are valid ways to identify one another. Consistent with my claim that rural dwellers actually comprise the vast majority of our nation's population, I never limited them to region. In contrast to your interpretation that I was referring to southerners or the plains states, there are more rural cities than urban cities in California, Oregon, Washington, New York, Vermont, and etc. I agree that you take no more liberty with our language than someone in New York. My point is that mispronunciation is going to raise less eyebrows in upstate New York than it will in Manhattan, it's going to matter more to people in Wall Street or Berkeley than people in Wal-Mart or at the beach--not that New Yorkers or Californians are more intelligent or talk better than people in Arkansas or Oklahoma. In regards to your american notion: Liberals are not operating with a different definition of "american." First of all, re-read all of my posts and you would find extremely limited instances of me even using the term "american." I only did so in the last few posts because I was juxtaposing it against the term "anti-american." Speaking for myself, I view Canadians and Mexicans as Americans and almost always refer to our nation's population as US citizens. Secondly, you mixed goals with means. Both liberals and conservatives rely on a common ideological background--but we differ in the actions we want to take to retain them. One of the most cherised US value is the notion of freedom of political expression. When liberals say that we want to consider an alternative to the current actions, that is one of the most "american" things one can do. Some people claim that calling someone else a traitor is a justified form of freedom of expression. I doubt the framers would believe that to be the case given how I explained how that can result in choking off ideas. There is a huge difference between saying, in rebuttal to one's expressed political belief, "that belief would not serve the nation's long term interest because..." and "you are a traitor for holding that belief." The only thing I can think of that would justify a label of treason would be when someone actively tries to abolish the US political system/nation and replace it with the values and structure of another nation. Liberals aren't trying to do that--we are trying to change the actions of our government and sometimes the beliefs of other citizens around us. But we still want it to be the United States of America, with a government that embodies the beliefs of its citizentry. If half of us are conservatives and half of us are liberals, then the government should recognize both belief systems and work to provide a consensus that we can both agree to. Labeling one side of the debate as anti-american is essentially claiming that a subset of the entire population is holding invalid beliefs. That stance is not appropriate behavior for a government because it derives it's power from the people as a whole--not just the ones in political power. __________________ "The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann "You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman Last edited by smooth; 04-14-2004 at 06:22 PM..