jon stewart you are so the worst.
THINGS THAT ARE WRONG WITH THE MARCH TO RESTORE SANITY:
Disableism. It is absolutely unacceptable to use a word loaded with ableist connotations - in this case "sanity" as a measure of anything other than actual mental health issues - and then dub yourself the arbiter of what is civil discourse in America. "Crazy" is not a synonymous with "someone I don't like who should be shunned." Plenty of people in Stewart's core audience, myself included, suffer from mental illness. It is profoundly bigoted to allege that mentally ill people should be even more stigmatized than we already are, or that we are all inherently immoral and destructive. Moreover, people who contribute to the marginalization of "radical left-wing ideas" such as affordable, accessible health care for everyone because those of us espousing them are "loud" and uncouth are actually standing in the way of restoring actual sanity for PWD who can't afford their meds. I don't so much care about people colloquially using "crazy" or "sane" in private conversations, but this is a public conversation which intentionally equates mental illness with dangerous bigotry.
Excusal of the right wing: How can anyone not see how this works? If the violent, eliminationist right is just insane, then they are necessarily not responsible for what they say and do. But they are very responsible. They are actively, openly choosing to create and augment violent discontent among a large sub-set of the populace. That isn't "crazy" wackiness, it's bloodthirstiness, and deserves to be exposed for what it is.
Form over substance: Stewart is pissed that people are shouting. But it isn't if you shout, it's what you shout. The linked article talks about people like Bill Kristol espousing reprehensible ideas in a mild-mannered tone of voice, but the opposite is true as well. Sometimes shouting is not only okay but good. If you mildly, politely tell the person next to you that the building you're in is on fire, you aren't being polite, you're being a selfish shit. It is perfectly acceptable - it is an ethical obligation - for political players to make a cogent argument as skillfully as possible to as many people as possible. Citizens deserve information and there's a lot of noise out there.
Deliberate misrepresentation of politics: Greenwald covers this, so I'm just going to suggest that you check out his piece. It's really important to remember that those "crazy" anti-war kids on the left have way, way less influence on the Democratic party than the Tea Baggers have on the Republican party. This is really a subset of form over substance. It's not that there are people out there who have registered politically-relevant domain names. It is that some of those people have great influence on American politics and that influence should be rationally criticized with the goal of minimizing it. Those who do not, can safely be ignored.
Liberal and progressive are not dirty words: and so a bunch of left-leaning folks lumping themselves into "moderates" with actual moderates makes the country look more conservative than it is, therefore empowering the hard right to get even harder. Thanks, assholes.
Misogyny: Anyone else remember how introducing the march, Stewart equated the violent right with with Code Pink? Code Pink is an organization of non-violent protesters, starting out geared towards the Iraq war - a position which Stewart himself has espoused for many years now - but now with a broader focus on environmental and military-industrial-complex issues in general. There's more than a subtle whiff of misogyny in the declaration that it is JUST SO UNSEEMLY for a group of women, some of them even not young and nubile and Exploring Sexual Liberation, to express a perfectly mainstream opinion even several years after said opinion was the topic du jour, it is just as bad as the xenophobic conviction that Obama is a Sekrit Muslim. (Full disclosure: I have rallied with Code Pink because, like Stewart, I had political and moral disagreements with the Iraq war from the very beginning. So, you know, I GUESS I SINGLE-HANDEDLY RUINED AMERICA AT THE AGE OF 18. QUAIL BEFORE ME.)
Bad Logic: The whole march is predicated on a logical fallacy, and that fallacy is known as the argument to moderation. Like other logical fallacies, it's easier to see with math. If you say 2+2=4, and I say 2+2=400, we're not both equally wrong because there are two of us and therefore 2+2=202. Politics are fuzzier, but there's still circumstances where one person is clearly right and one is clearly wrong, or at the very least, one group of people are far, far closer to rationality and benefit maximization. Both sides are not equally wrong. It is simply a bad faith argument to pretend that is true.
(note: This is a very hard post for me to leave unlocked because it's usually quite difficult for me to talk about having mental illnesses, but I've decided to make it public for now because I think it's important to challenge this narrative. So, you know, don't be an asshole.)
Disableism. It is absolutely unacceptable to use a word loaded with ableist connotations - in this case "sanity" as a measure of anything other than actual mental health issues - and then dub yourself the arbiter of what is civil discourse in America. "Crazy" is not a synonymous with "someone I don't like who should be shunned." Plenty of people in Stewart's core audience, myself included, suffer from mental illness. It is profoundly bigoted to allege that mentally ill people should be even more stigmatized than we already are, or that we are all inherently immoral and destructive. Moreover, people who contribute to the marginalization of "radical left-wing ideas" such as affordable, accessible health care for everyone because those of us espousing them are "loud" and uncouth are actually standing in the way of restoring actual sanity for PWD who can't afford their meds. I don't so much care about people colloquially using "crazy" or "sane" in private conversations, but this is a public conversation which intentionally equates mental illness with dangerous bigotry.
Excusal of the right wing: How can anyone not see how this works? If the violent, eliminationist right is just insane, then they are necessarily not responsible for what they say and do. But they are very responsible. They are actively, openly choosing to create and augment violent discontent among a large sub-set of the populace. That isn't "crazy" wackiness, it's bloodthirstiness, and deserves to be exposed for what it is.
Form over substance: Stewart is pissed that people are shouting. But it isn't if you shout, it's what you shout. The linked article talks about people like Bill Kristol espousing reprehensible ideas in a mild-mannered tone of voice, but the opposite is true as well. Sometimes shouting is not only okay but good. If you mildly, politely tell the person next to you that the building you're in is on fire, you aren't being polite, you're being a selfish shit. It is perfectly acceptable - it is an ethical obligation - for political players to make a cogent argument as skillfully as possible to as many people as possible. Citizens deserve information and there's a lot of noise out there.
Deliberate misrepresentation of politics: Greenwald covers this, so I'm just going to suggest that you check out his piece. It's really important to remember that those "crazy" anti-war kids on the left have way, way less influence on the Democratic party than the Tea Baggers have on the Republican party. This is really a subset of form over substance. It's not that there are people out there who have registered politically-relevant domain names. It is that some of those people have great influence on American politics and that influence should be rationally criticized with the goal of minimizing it. Those who do not, can safely be ignored.
Liberal and progressive are not dirty words: and so a bunch of left-leaning folks lumping themselves into "moderates" with actual moderates makes the country look more conservative than it is, therefore empowering the hard right to get even harder. Thanks, assholes.
Misogyny: Anyone else remember how introducing the march, Stewart equated the violent right with with Code Pink? Code Pink is an organization of non-violent protesters, starting out geared towards the Iraq war - a position which Stewart himself has espoused for many years now - but now with a broader focus on environmental and military-industrial-complex issues in general. There's more than a subtle whiff of misogyny in the declaration that it is JUST SO UNSEEMLY for a group of women, some of them even not young and nubile and Exploring Sexual Liberation, to express a perfectly mainstream opinion even several years after said opinion was the topic du jour, it is just as bad as the xenophobic conviction that Obama is a Sekrit Muslim. (Full disclosure: I have rallied with Code Pink because, like Stewart, I had political and moral disagreements with the Iraq war from the very beginning. So, you know, I GUESS I SINGLE-HANDEDLY RUINED AMERICA AT THE AGE OF 18. QUAIL BEFORE ME.)
Bad Logic: The whole march is predicated on a logical fallacy, and that fallacy is known as the argument to moderation. Like other logical fallacies, it's easier to see with math. If you say 2+2=4, and I say 2+2=400, we're not both equally wrong because there are two of us and therefore 2+2=202. Politics are fuzzier, but there's still circumstances where one person is clearly right and one is clearly wrong, or at the very least, one group of people are far, far closer to rationality and benefit maximization. Both sides are not equally wrong. It is simply a bad faith argument to pretend that is true.
(note: This is a very hard post for me to leave unlocked because it's usually quite difficult for me to talk about having mental illnesses, but I've decided to make it public for now because I think it's important to challenge this narrative. So, you know, don't be an asshole.)