Right-Wing Projection, A Continuing Series

So, you know how one of Karl Rove's tactics is to accuse your opponent of exactly the dirty trick you yourself are trying to pull? Like accusing Kerry of trying to steal Ohio? Well, I think the right-wing makes such a projection about how one goes about taking a strong disliking to a certain politician.

On the left, here's how that works, at least among people I know who are liberals: We have strong ideas and beliefs about stuff. If there is a politician who strongly disagrees with us about those beliefs, and who uses their power to work against causes we believe in, we tend to take a strong disliking to them.

Here's how I feel like it works on the right-wing, at least in some quarters: So-and-so becomes designated as Bad. Things they support, then, must also be Bad, because they themselves are Bad. We witness this with the current attitudes in conservative circles to cap-and-trade and to the individual mandate-centered health insurance system, both originally sensible Republican ideas. But Obama proposes them, so they are BAD.

So now in the wake of this Arizona shooting, with some liberals starting to talk about how maybe the talk of violent overthrow of our government is a bad thing, I think the right is treating this as us "targeting Sarah Palin" or "going after" Palin. It isn't. Here's how it works, as I see it: we think violent rhetoric is bad, and she happens to be one of the foremost purveyors of the stuff (although really Glenn Beck is out of her league), and so she runs afoul of our esteem. We aren't looking around trying to find something to go after her with, because we're opposed to her; rather, we're opposed to her because there's such an abundance of things with which to legitimately, in our view, go after her.

Side Note: I think this relates to the sin vs. consequences method of morality. In particular, as I wrote the bit about how I see some right-wingers practicing their opposition I was reminded of the Puritan notion that some people are just inherently Good, and some people are inherently Bad, and therefore you knew that the things that good people did were good, and vice-versa. Whereas we atheist humanist whatevers tend to judge people based on their actions, the consequences of their actions, and perhaps the foreseeable consequences of their actions.