Reply #36: Unconstructive straw manning

[DirkGently]

The premise is no more true than Republicans asking why Democrats "hate America" when we criticize bad foreign policy, etc. The left is not rooting for Democrats or Obama to fail. That should not have to be stated, because there is no good-faith reason for that argument to be made.

Should we get down to the carpet fibers here and discuss what is really being suggested, which is that legitimate criticism of the administration should, by mutual agreement, or failing that, zero-sum factional warfare, be silenced? Does anyone want to openly defend that argument, or are we going to continue to see it hinted at and suggested from 1000 different angles? Does someone want to argue, straight-up, that Democrats or liberals are doing more actual HARM by refusing to gloss over actual problems than they would by shutting up and arguing monolithically for the infallibility of the party or specific leaders?

Or, would someone like to suggest that these problems are not real? That the continuing war in Afghanistan, or the continuing abuse of the State Secrets Act, or the sanctioning of targeted killings of American citizens without due process, or this smelly, spin-ridden adoption of BP's wildly optimistic take on the Gulf oil diaster, is some kind of unreasonable, irrational whining?

Does someone want to openly defend the idea rank and file citizen Democrats have an affirmative duty to bend or ignore the facts on the theory that this the way to "win?" Win what, exactly? Let's hear the case that liberals and Democrats need to be ruthless with the truth to achieve some theortical greater good.

Is there any way to conceptualize this view other than as demanding that people support "the lie agreed upon?" The lie that whatever one's own party (or country) is doing is good, not because of what people actual DO, but because of who they are when they do them? Is there any idea liberals and progressives should be more opposed to than this?

If not, I think people would be better off spending their energies discussing ways to improve the country and the Democratic Party with liberal and progressive views than trying endlessly to convince others that they need to adopt a monolithic, inarticulate, unexamined, unreserved support for whatever the national party and it's Leader(s) happen to be doing.

We can do better.