The Dehumanization of Conservatives and Christians
The purpose of dehumanization is to diminish or delegitimize a person or group. According to Wikipedia, dehumanization is “[I]diomatic language that likens certain human beings to non-human animals, verbal abuse, erasing one’s voice from discourse. Dehumanization often ignores the target’s individuality (i.e., the creative and interesting aspects of his or her personality) and prevents one from showing compassion towards stigmatized groups. Dehumanization may be carried out by a social institution (such as a state, school, or family) or via an individual’s sentiments and actions.”
The Nazi’s mastered the art of dehumanization against the Jewish people and caused the greatest atrocity of our time.
Today there is a new group being targeted for this particular type of ostracism. The liberal elite have set their sights on conservatives and Christians. Bashing the opposing side has been a long political tradition but it was taken to a different level beginning in the 90’s. The Clinton administration knew they were in trouble over the Monica Lewinsky scandal. When truth is not on your side you must counterattack and cast doubt on your opponent. Hillary Clinton skillfully created the “vast right wing conspiracy” to throw the scent off her husband’s perjurous testimony. That was followed with a brutal character assassination of Ken Starr. It was brilliant– truth be damned. The Left has followed this cue and turned the dehumanization of conservatives into an art form.
On a daily basis you will find blogs, websites, newscasts and newspaper columns filled with hateful and degrading speech about conservatives and Christians alike. We are portrayed as ignorant, uneducated, racist, sexist hillbillies The academe are associated with the left in every story and the right is painted as a fat, knuckle dragging, toothless, brainless caricature.
Chris Matthews of MSNBC’s Hardball is notoriously known for this. While accusing Republicans of being ignorant about science, (because they don’t believe the global warming myth) he ranted that he “learned in grammar school that trees absorb carbon monoxide” and cutting them down contributed to global warming. (Sorry Chris, but isn’t that carbon DIOXIDE?) Perhaps Republicans are reluctant to put faith in false science when highly lauded professors, such as Richard Muller of Berkeley University and Phillip Jones and his crew at East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit, have been discredited when it was discovered they had egregiously lied and manipulated data. Maybe conservatives are not so crazy to instead believe equally educated yet ethical scientists who dispute global warming theories, like Professor Judith Curry of the prestigious Georgia Institute of technology, who has an impressive 30 years of climate research behind her and Professor Ross McKittrick, a climate statistics expert from Guelph University Ontario.
Somehow, no matter how many facts conservatives present on any particular subject the Left seems to be allowed to discredit them merely by name-calling. The Internet has been a great way to proliferate their propaganda. Almost overnight during the 2012 presidential campaign, the Democrats created a sound byte, “Republicans: The party of stupid?” They reiterate this mantra without substance. Meanwhile, their learned candidate had this to say: “I have now been in 57 states… I think one left to go?” And Barack Obama is touted as the Left’s “thinking man”? Adolph Hitler was touted as Germany’s favorite “thinking man” in his day, too.
Among those listed as great thinkers, whose statements about the Jews are mentioned with great admiration, the most cited and admired is Adolf Hitler. In the 1930’s, Hitler and his Nazi regime led a campaign of propaganda spreading lies about the Jews. As the “Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda” of the Nazi party, Josef Goebbels created a negative image of the Jewish people, blaming them for the economic and social problems of Germany and the world. The propaganda was intended to dehumanize the Jews by naming them as “inferior”, to create widespread anti-Semitism and lay the groundwork for the elimination of the rights and freedoms of the Jews. The Nazis preached that Jews must be excluded from society, and used schools, the media and popular art forms such as films, posters and dramas to teach and project a distorted image of the Jews.
Similarly, the Left repeatedly tries to diminish Conservatives, Republicans and Christians with these same tactics by questioning our intelligence, attacking our values and limiting our speech. If we disagree with them we are silenced. They call us racist, sexist, illiterate hate mongers. They are taking away our right to free speech and our religious freedoms.
The Left has also become very adept at targeting our youth and using our schools for indoctrination of their social values. They subsidize the LGBT agenda, globalization, climate change, evolution, biometric data collection and social justice to name a few. Parents used to be given the ability to opt out of these programs. Parents were expected to be in charge of their children’s education and values system. Unfortunately, under this administration, that is no longer so.
Liberals have adroitly used Hollywood and their celebrities to advance the leftist agenda. You can’t surf through television shows without seeing an Eva Longoria or Alec Baldwin spewing venom against the conservatives. You’d be hard pressed to find a movie without a leftist slant.
Will the Left ever agree to relinquish the creepy, Fascist tactics in which they so artfully engage? They need to stop name-calling, educate themselves on a subject instead of repeating sound bites, and allow for serious debate. It is good to have differing opinions and ideas. Those differences should be explored and discussed not dismissed and diminished. The opposition shouldn’t become victimized by dehumanization methods. Where are the journalists of America? Can we ever return to a time when truth and substance matter? Is there any journalist left who will seek these things? I would like to see the day that opposing viewpoints are given equal credence by journalists and factual substantive reporting devoid of manipulation.
