Who Are You Calling an Extremist?

Flopping Aces ^ | 08-08-12 | Brother Bob

[Starman417]

This might have happened recently or it might just be the "Frog in a pot of boiling water" effect, but the recent controversy around Chick Fil A and gay marriage made me notice how that debate fits into a bigger picture. I've read articles, seen blog posts, and seen tons of electrons spilled on Facebook1 over the Chick Fil A / Gay Marriage issue. I've noticed that a great deal of the leftist sentiment often uses carefully crafted language to define their opponents' positions - "against gay rights", "anti-gay", or my personal favorite, "Extreme anti-gay". Aside from my referring to people who disagree with me as leftists (which as far as I can tell all of them have been), I try to avoid labeling other's views, as it takes away from the argument itself.2 For example, I've followed the lead of other right-leaning writers in labeling people in the abortion debate by their chosen monikers of "pro-life" or "pro-choice". All of that said, I've noticed a disturbing overuse of one particular word that I just noted - extreme.

We see the extremist moniker applied to any conservative position:

• Believe that marriage is between a man and a woman? Extreme anti-gay.
• Are you against abortion? Extreme anti-women
• You're also part of the "War on Women" if you support a woman's right to choose to buy contraceptives with her own money but don't want to buy them for her yourself
• Against allowing our president and Congress to spend more money than we could ever hope to repay? Extremist!
• Believe in the rights of citizens to defend themselves? Extremists under the influence of the gun lobby
• Tea Partiers? Fuhgetaboudit - Believing that the government shouldn't spend at insane levels so as to fund new and inventive ways to intrude in our lives is extremist, not to mention racist!

Sadly, we don't see people on the right call out the Democrats or leftist journalists (but I repeat myself) when they throw out these buzz words. Naturally, everyone sees their own opinions as perfectly reasonable, but from what I've seen Conservatives use the "extreme" label a lot less frequently. Phrases like that are useful to try to paint yourself as the reasonable person in the debate while your opponent is out on the fringe, but it's not useful for that respectful dialogue that leftists claim to want.

[NoGrayZone]

For the past few years, I have started calling the “pro-choice” pro-abortion.

They get all worked up and vehemently deny it. I just state facts and they sit there and just explode in their usual incomprehensible babble.

[spel_grammer_an_punct_polise]

The jpg from flopping aces doesn’t show.

I suppose that makes me an extremist.

Well, I’m an extreme concervative anyway.