Religious beliefs

Enough about love and peace for the moment. Let's talk about propaganda. In this edition of his famous "Talking Points" segment, self-styled "traditionalist" and Fox News megastar Bill O'Reilly vilifies the ACLU for "becom[ing] become the attack dog in the secular progressive jihad to change the culture and political landscape in America." Anyone who thinks the ACLU is protecting their rights, O'Reilly claims, "is absolutely hopeless." In fact, O'Reilly claims that "[t]he ACLU is no longer about liberties, or the Constitution, or the regular folks."

And his evidence for this smear? Precisely zero. He names three big ACLU donors, Peter Lewis, George Soros, and Anthony Romero, all of whom he identifies as "far-left." As to what "far-left" means, well, O'Reilly fails to point that out. He claims that Romero "opposes most traditional beliefs," but neglects to say what those beliefs are. In fact, the only specific political position that he mentions as "far-left" is Lewis' support for the legalization of drugs...but that idea is also supported by William F. Buckley, the founder of the National Review and one of the conservative movement's most famous figures.

As additional evidence that the ACLU is "far-left," O'Reilly airs an excerpt from an interview with Michael Myers (no relation to the comedian), a former ACLU board member. Myers asserts that the ACLU has a "lefty-looney agenda," "appeals to the hard left," and "has been taken over by the hard left." But he states no specific actions or positions of the ACLU to back up this claim, nor does he elaborate on what "left" actually means. Basically, the segment that O'Reilly uses as evidence just repeats O'Reilly's name-calling.

This is the same as if I repeatedly called O'Reilly a "dweeb," then showed a video clip of one of one of O'Reilly's former producers saying "O'Reilly is a dweeb," and then said "See? Proof that O'Reilly is a dweeb." At that point the only question to answer would be the one I asked when some kid first called me that at age 9..."What is a dweeb, exactly?"

Bill O'Reilly is doing a very dangerous thing by flinging around supposedly negative terms ("far-left") without specifying what they mean, and then using the application of these terms to justify political action. Basically, he's creating a shibboleth - a bogeyman to scare his viewers into hating his political enemies. Loyal fans of Bill O'Reilly's show will begin to believe that there is a sinister movement out there called the "far left" that is out to get them, even though they won't know in what way that movement is out to get them, or why. After that, everyone and anyone whom O'Reilly tars with the "far-left" brush will be vilified, no matter what their politics are. Defending oneself will be of little use - I could spend a lot of time in this post pointing out all the good things the ACLU has done, but people would fall asleep before they finish reading the link. Name-calling smears, fear-mongering, and vilification have historically been very hard to reason against. That's very dangerous fire O'Reilly is playing with, and something tells me he's doing it on purpose.

I'm always against people making political movements and platforms into their religion. When you start to believe that a certain policy is good without considering the evidence for or against it, you're taking reason and rationality out of the political process, and little good will come of that. But, just as my least favorite aspect of real religion is the idea of Hell, I believe that the absolute worst kind of political religion is smear-based fearmongering. I'm uncomfortably reminded of the "Two-Minute Hate" from 1984, of thousands of Party faithful flinging their loathing toward the public scapegoat, the mysterious villain Goldstein. No good will come of this.

O'Reilly's attacks on the so-called "far left" are not rational political discourse - in fact, they're not discourse at all. O'Reilly is creating bogeymen that go bump in the night, to scare people into hating whoever he decides is his political opponent of the month. And it's not just O'Reilly doing it either...