More liberal talk
By Tom Quiner
Liberals continue to respond to the meme above posted by my ultra liberal state representative on her Facebook page.
Here is the ongoing dialogue:
“No wonder they are all “single”; selfish sobs.”
My wife responded:
“Do you people really believe that all Republicans hate women?”
A liberal man jumped into the fray:
“They just vote that way.”
In other words, yes, that is how he believes.
Building up a head of steam, he came back for more:
“Republicans defeated the Equal Rights Amendment they have been keeping women “in their place” for decades.”
A classic tactic. Change the subject.
I responded:
“For the record, the ERA was passed with bi-partisan Congressional support in 1972 and endorsed by President Nixon.”
Undeterred, he came back at me again:
“BTW Marti Anderson’s post just reports a fact. Distinguishing fact from propaganda comes hard for Fox viewers.”
I responded:
“What does Fox News have to do with the conversation? I am simply reporting the facts discerned and reported by Obama’s Department of Labor in their comprehensive study on the subject. They studied the so-called wage gap, and discovered it didn’t exist. Again, here are their exact words:
“ ‘This study leads to the unambiguous conclusion that the differences in the compensation of men and women are the result of a multitude of factors and that the raw wage gap should not be used as the basis to justify corrective action. Indeed, there may be nothing to correct. The differences in raw wages may be almost entirely the result of the individual choices being made by both male and female workers.’ ”
He circled back to the meme above:
“On April 9th 2014 every Republican voted against equal pay. FACT. explain away why you think women should just accept mansplaining (?) their votes.”
I responded:
“Laws are already on the books at the federal and state level defending equal pay for equal work. This law would have made it easier for trial lawyers to initiate class-action lawsuits on the sole basis of statistical variations between different groups of workers, which Obama’s Department of Labor had already explained away in their comprehensive study. The proposed legislation had nothing to do with equal pay, and everything to do with Democrats supporting a group who spend a ton of money to get them elected, trial lawyers. This was a “make trial lawyers even richer” piece of legislation.”
An objective observer of the exchange above would notice two things. First, supporters of the meme tended to not be fully aware of the scope and history of the issue.
They had some of their facts wrong.
And secondly, there was no nuance. If you didn’t support their issue the way they see it, then you didn’t simply disagree with the intent, wording, or negative impact the bill would have on our communities, you hate women.
End of discussion.
It is challenging to have a conversation on the issues of the day if you are labeled not just a hater, but a HATER.
The exchange above supports the conservative meme that liberals are low-information voters.
Some studies have even shown that women in certain careers get paid MORE on average than men. I demand a recount! (I know that doesn’t make any sense. I was just trying to mimic a liberal…)
I think a liberal would say that’s proof that the employer hates men, except that it is impossible to discriminate against (white) men. Right?
I feel your pain Tom. I like to “debate” (although that may be a poor choice of a word) liberals in many forums and have found that a large majority of them tend to simply regurgitate liberal talking points and are completely incapable of doing any real fact-finding research on their own. It’s sad, really.
You make a good point, Steve. I awaited some reason on why we needed a law that duplicates laws already on the books. The liberals never could give a reason. All they could do is what you said, regurgitate liberal talking points that you hate women if you disagree with them.
Full disclosure: I’m a liberal. That said, I appreciate a factual argument over what I refer to as Bumper Sticker Debate. Sadly, you could probably show me a dozen more examples just like that one, and I could show you a dozen that go the opposite way.
What I find to be the the most obnoxious contributor to this dynamic is online filter bubbles. If I were to post the meme you show above on my Facebook page, all my liberal friends would see it because Mark Zuckerberg thinks we only want to see things we agree with. All of my conservative friends, however, will never see it. The end result is a post with 50 “likes” and 6 comments that are all in agreement. I come out of that scenario absolutely certain that the vast majority of people agree with the meme, so there’s no point in researching any further.
This is an extremely dangerous precedent, and has been key in getting us to the point where we any disagreement is the end of the world. We forgot how to have civil conversations and disagree with each other without taking it personally.
I appreciate the factual and level-headed nature of your responses, and I would appreciate any real debate you would like to offer on truly important topics.
I very much appreciate your response. I think you’re spot on, and it cuts both ways (conservatives can be guilty of the same sort of thing). It is challenging to have civil conversations on a wide range of topics anymore. I try to always be civil, although I’m certainly partisan. On this particular issue, I awaited a response that would explain why we needed the new law, and it never came. Instead, the subject was changed to “the Republicans were against the ERA,” which itself is not really accurate. Thanks for taking the time to write.