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Liberal Logic Has No Clothes
Thursday, April 24th, 2003
When liberal activists expose themselves, they also expose the emptiness of their position.
The embattled Dixie Chicks have taken a stand against their critics in the latest Entertainment Weekly magazine. No, this in itself isn't news, seeing how they've offered numerous explanations, spins, and apologies since offending a large percentage of their fan base with the comment made by lead singer Natalie Maines against President Bush ("Just so you know, we're ashamed the President of the United States is from Texas"). What is news is that the Dixie Chicks (and a likely body double for Natalie Maines) have appeared naked on the cover of the same magazine. Written on their bodies are inflammatory and contradictory words like "Boycott", "Hero", "Traitors", and "Patriot".
Now whatever the artistic vision behind this picture is, the one thing that's clear is that it will both attract attention and sell magazines. It will also generate just a little more publicity to help the Dixie Chicks once again explain their side of the story. Just to safeguard myself against an attack by Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon, I'm not questioning the Dixie Chicks' right to speak. We all know how we must avoid any even the remotest appearance of consequences for liberals exercising their free speech rights. No, instead I'm going to highlight what seems to be a uniquely liberal political trend and how it shows the emptiness of their positions.
It started in earnest several years ago with PETA's "I'd rather go naked than wear fur" campaign. In this brilliant political move, PETA hoped to convince millions of Americans that wearing fur was bad by having female models, singers, and even average women pose naked behind banners stating "We'd rather go naked than wear fur." Of course, they never really seemed to be naked since they were 'clothed' by their banners, but we humored them and didn't sue them for false advertising.
Fast forward to recent months when female 'Peace' activists decided that they could make everyone forget about the threat Saddam Hussein posed by getting together in large groups and spelling out 'Peace' and 'Make Love Not War' with their naked bodies and photographing it. Unfortunately for them, the tactic of using aging hippies to whom gravity and time haven't been kind doesn't produce the kind of enthusiasm you'd normally expect when you announce a picture of 100 naked women. Imagine the disappointment of a young, undecided-on-the-war college aged male, browsing the Internet, seeing a story about women posing naked for peace. Then he clicks on the story and sees a 100 women who all look like his grandmother. It's not something that's going to attract repeat customers, that's for sure. Hint for this crowd: If you want your publicity to last beyond the first viewing of your photographs, next time hire models. And not models for AARP ads, either.
Besides nudity, the common thread in all these instances of 'stripping for your cause' is that they're coming from the left. Why don't you ever see anything like this coming from the right? It's not that the people on the right are 'conservative' and find nudity horribly offensive (I'm sure some do). No, it's that on the right, ideas - real, intellectually based ideas - come first. On the left, the emotion is the argument and the reason for the belief. The nudity is just a sideshow that attracts attention to the cause while distracting the viewer from the truth - that their beliefs don't stand up against logical dissection.
Think about it. For PETA, fur is bad and meat is murder. But what if the sight of an almost naked woman makes me take a PETA brochure? What am I going to learn? That in order to get a burger on my plate, some cow had to die, and it probably wasn't happy about it? Well, stop the presses, I didn't think meat actually came from living animals, but if it did, they all ran to be first in line for the slaughter house! I'll just forget that man has been an omnivore for pretty much his entire existence, and I'll start eating tofu and soy substitutes and tell myself it tastes just as good as the real slaughtered, butchered, seasoned and cooked-in-its-own-juices thing.
The Peace crowd was so appallingly pathetic this time around that they had to recycle slogans from the last Gulf war. The main reason for their massive opposition to the war turned out to be that George W. Bush is actually Adolph Hitler reincarnated, and only the left has been able to see it. Now imagine you're that same college age guy mentioned before, and passing by a peace protest you see what looks like a group of naked women. You get closer (naturally you have to check this out and evaluate the situation) and one of the protesters starts to explain why you should oppose this war. Because war is bad. Because peace is good. Because we must think of the children and Bush is a dictator who stole the election from Al Gore, who really should be our President. Not exactly points that will actually help a debating team win, unless the judges are all from Berkeley.
Now we come to the Dixie Chicks. They've already offered more explanations and apologies than I can remember. But the real controversy is that the rubes who should be out buying their albums had the gall to attach consequences to their actions. To the chagrin of the left, we've actually broken the unwritten rule: That free speech is to have no repercussions from mainstream America when it is practiced by the left. While organizing boycotts of Rush Limbaugh and Dr. Laura is to be expected and encouraged, calling your favorite country music station and demanding they pull the Dixie Chicks from their playlist is uncalled for and unacceptable.
Of course, this exposes the lack of logic in the Dixie Chicks' argument. Yes, they do have the right to free speech. And no one in government has tried to censor them. However, they do not have the right be free from the consequences of what they say. This upsets them, but they and the Susan Sarandons of the world can not make their case and be logical at the same time. Their message only survives on hysteria and dies when faced with common sense. And that message has been heard and rebuked by mainstream America. The Dixie Chicks are down in the charts. It's costing them money. They have a tour starting, and although it was sold out before Natalie Maines exercised her First Amendment rights overseas, you still need people to show up and buy T-shirts, souvenirs, and refreshments at the show if you want to make as much money as possible. So to get more attention for their newest spin, they're taking off their clothes hoping the public gives them a second (or third, or fourth) chance.
One of the best ways to evaluate the merits of a philosophy or approach is to reverse it. So to best do that, we'll have to apply the 'Political Advocacy Through Nudity' to the other side of the fence. For example, in the 'Quagmire' phase of the Iraq war, when the Pentagon could do nothing right, there was absolutely zero chance that Donald Rumsfeld would do one of his press briefings in his underwear to draw attention and sympathy for the war plan. Instead he answered all the (often idiotic) questions posed to him in a logical and thoughtful manner. As far as advocating a cause goes, it's extremely unlikely that we'll see school choice advocates hiding behind a banner that says "We'd rather go naked than attend public schools" while in their birthday suits. Instead they'll debate on the increased effectiveness of choice-based education and the tremendous cost savings. And if the economy continues to be slow to recover, leaving George W. Bush in a tough race for reelection in 2004, all odds are against him appearing naked on the cover of Newsweek with words like "Unemployment", "Tax Cuts", "Recession" and "Osama" written on his body.
So how will this tactic evolve? Will we see more people getting naked to promote causes that struggle to stand on their own merits? Whatever happens, you can be pretty sure the causes they're stripping for will be coming from the left. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against people getting naked, but if "Hillary and Pelosi in 2008" campaign decides this is a good idea, I'm outta' here.
Liberal Logic Has No Clothes
Thursday, April 24th, 2003
When liberal activists expose themselves, they also expose the emptiness of their position.
The embattled Dixie Chicks have taken a stand against their critics in the latest Entertainment Weekly magazine. No, this in itself isn't news, seeing how they've offered numerous explanations, spins, and apologies since offending a large percentage of their fan base with the comment made by lead singer Natalie Maines against President Bush ("Just so you know, we're ashamed the President of the United States is from Texas"). What is news is that the Dixie Chicks (and a likely body double for Natalie Maines) have appeared naked on the cover of the same magazine. Written on their bodies are inflammatory and contradictory words like "Boycott", "Hero", "Traitors", and "Patriot".
Now whatever the artistic vision behind this picture is, the one thing that's clear is that it will both attract attention and sell magazines. It will also generate just a little more publicity to help the Dixie Chicks once again explain their side of the story. Just to safeguard myself against an attack by Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon, I'm not questioning the Dixie Chicks' right to speak. We all know how we must avoid any even the remotest appearance of consequences for liberals exercising their free speech rights. No, instead I'm going to highlight what seems to be a uniquely liberal political trend and how it shows the emptiness of their positions.
It started in earnest several years ago with PETA's "I'd rather go naked than wear fur" campaign. In this brilliant political move, PETA hoped to convince millions of Americans that wearing fur was bad by having female models, singers, and even average women pose naked behind banners stating "We'd rather go naked than wear fur." Of course, they never really seemed to be naked since they were 'clothed' by their banners, but we humored them and didn't sue them for false advertising.
Fast forward to recent months when female 'Peace' activists decided that they could make everyone forget about the threat Saddam Hussein posed by getting together in large groups and spelling out 'Peace' and 'Make Love Not War' with their naked bodies and photographing it. Unfortunately for them, the tactic of using aging hippies to whom gravity and time haven't been kind doesn't produce the kind of enthusiasm you'd normally expect when you announce a picture of 100 naked women. Imagine the disappointment of a young, undecided-on-the-war college aged male, browsing the Internet, seeing a story about women posing naked for peace. Then he clicks on the story and sees a 100 women who all look like his grandmother. It's not something that's going to attract repeat customers, that's for sure. Hint for this crowd: If you want your publicity to last beyond the first viewing of your photographs, next time hire models. And not models for AARP ads, either.
Besides nudity, the common thread in all these instances of 'stripping for your cause' is that they're coming from the left. Why don't you ever see anything like this coming from the right? It's not that the people on the right are 'conservative' and find nudity horribly offensive (I'm sure some do). No, it's that on the right, ideas - real, intellectually based ideas - come first. On the left, the emotion is the argument and the reason for the belief. The nudity is just a sideshow that attracts attention to the cause while distracting the viewer from the truth - that their beliefs don't stand up against logical dissection.
Think about it. For PETA, fur is bad and meat is murder. But what if the sight of an almost naked woman makes me take a PETA brochure? What am I going to learn? That in order to get a burger on my plate, some cow had to die, and it probably wasn't happy about it? Well, stop the presses, I didn't think meat actually came from living animals, but if it did, they all ran to be first in line for the slaughter house! I'll just forget that man has been an omnivore for pretty much his entire existence, and I'll start eating tofu and soy substitutes and tell myself it tastes just as good as the real slaughtered, butchered, seasoned and cooked-in-its-own-juices thing.
The Peace crowd was so appallingly pathetic this time around that they had to recycle slogans from the last Gulf war. The main reason for their massive opposition to the war turned out to be that George W. Bush is actually Adolph Hitler reincarnated, and only the left has been able to see it. Now imagine you're that same college age guy mentioned before, and passing by a peace protest you see what looks like a group of naked women. You get closer (naturally you have to check this out and evaluate the situation) and one of the protesters starts to explain why you should oppose this war. Because war is bad. Because peace is good. Because we must think of the children and Bush is a dictator who stole the election from Al Gore, who really should be our President. Not exactly points that will actually help a debating team win, unless the judges are all from Berkeley.
Now we come to the Dixie Chicks. They've already offered more explanations and apologies than I can remember. But the real controversy is that the rubes who should be out buying their albums had the gall to attach consequences to their actions. To the chagrin of the left, we've actually broken the unwritten rule: That free speech is to have no repercussions from mainstream America when it is practiced by the left. While organizing boycotts of Rush Limbaugh and Dr. Laura is to be expected and encouraged, calling your favorite country music station and demanding they pull the Dixie Chicks from their playlist is uncalled for and unacceptable.
Of course, this exposes the lack of logic in the Dixie Chicks' argument. Yes, they do have the right to free speech. And no one in government has tried to censor them. However, they do not have the right be free from the consequences of what they say. This upsets them, but they and the Susan Sarandons of the world can not make their case and be logical at the same time. Their message only survives on hysteria and dies when faced with common sense. And that message has been heard and rebuked by mainstream America. The Dixie Chicks are down in the charts. It's costing them money. They have a tour starting, and although it was sold out before Natalie Maines exercised her First Amendment rights overseas, you still need people to show up and buy T-shirts, souvenirs, and refreshments at the show if you want to make as much money as possible. So to get more attention for their newest spin, they're taking off their clothes hoping the public gives them a second (or third, or fourth) chance.
One of the best ways to evaluate the merits of a philosophy or approach is to reverse it. So to best do that, we'll have to apply the 'Political Advocacy Through Nudity' to the other side of the fence. For example, in the 'Quagmire' phase of the Iraq war, when the Pentagon could do nothing right, there was absolutely zero chance that Donald Rumsfeld would do one of his press briefings in his underwear to draw attention and sympathy for the war plan. Instead he answered all the (often idiotic) questions posed to him in a logical and thoughtful manner. As far as advocating a cause goes, it's extremely unlikely that we'll see school choice advocates hiding behind a banner that says "We'd rather go naked than attend public schools" while in their birthday suits. Instead they'll debate on the increased effectiveness of choice-based education and the tremendous cost savings. And if the economy continues to be slow to recover, leaving George W. Bush in a tough race for reelection in 2004, all odds are against him appearing naked on the cover of Newsweek with words like "Unemployment", "Tax Cuts", "Recession" and "Osama" written on his body.
So how will this tactic evolve? Will we see more people getting naked to promote causes that struggle to stand on their own merits? Whatever happens, you can be pretty sure the causes they're stripping for will be coming from the left. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against people getting naked, but if "Hillary and Pelosi in 2008" campaign decides this is a good idea, I'm outta' here.
