Demonisation

It is, of course, that "the left" accuses "the right" of demonising the poor, immigrants, blacks, Asians and the infirm (or whatever the socially acceptable term for these people is, this week).

This is an actual conversation on twitter:

Literally a post made by the social media campaign for a political party representing an entire state. Gross. LINK
-- Tom Nix

@TheTomNix @SpaghettiJesus and?
-- Me

OK, so here we go. I read that link and all I got was "if you hand out stuff, the recipients become dependent on the handouts". I don't think there's any particular controversy in that argument. But if you're looking to be offended, the obvious thing to do is to drag something irrelevant into the point.

@obotheclown @TheTomNix they compared poor people to animals
-- @SpaghettiJesus

@SpaghettiJesus @TheTomNix we’re all animals, last time I looked
-- Me

@obotheclown @TheTomNix yeah but people running for political office tend not to want to insult their voting base on principle.
-- @SpaghettiJesus

I'm afraid that if you go around looking for things to be offended by, it's very difficult not to offend you. I'm frankly astounded by the lengths to which someone will go to be offended. And anyone looking for votes is trying very hard not to offend potential voters.

But watch this...

@obotheclown @TheTomNix of course they're inbred and basically brain dead so object permanence is hard for them.
-- @SpaghettiJesus

Having just accused someone of making a sweeping generalisation that could be considered offensive, the obvious thing to do is to make a sweeping generalisation that could be considered offensive. I mean, right now I'm pretty poor and I didn't take offence at the handouts thing. But if I was an Oklahoman, I'd probably be mildly annoyed at being described as inbred and brain dead because of an accident of birth. You can't really choose where your born, any more than you can choose your skin colour. So where is "the left's" moral high ground now?

Of course, that's just one conversation, but it's one I see quite often:

Left: Tories hate the poor / blacks / immigrants / women

Right: No they don't

Left: Of course they do, look at the Infographic from Labour Eoin / video of Iain Duncan Smith which I'll pretend is him cheering murdering the poor / innocuous comment from David Cameron that I'm going to twist and take out of context.

Etc.

I think that "the left" hate "the right" far more virulently than "the right" hates anyone. "The right" just has a different set of things that they believe is important to make the poor better off than "the left". That doesn't mean they want them dead or ground under heel, it just means that their compassion and reasoning has led them to a different conclusion. This doesn't mean their motives or objectives are evil.

If "the left" genuinely wants to engage and change the way "the right" thinks or behaves, then not blaming them for every evil in the world and ascribing the worst of human nature to their every word, thought and deed is possibly a good place to start.

I'm not holding my breath.