Posted by
inkling_revival on Monday, February 18, 2008 12:00:00 AM
I was reading a New York Times article discussing
efforts within the Democratic party to avoid a bitterly contentious convention, when I came across this comment regarding Al Gore's role in settling disputes:
Several allies said that because of Mr. Gore’s bruising defeat in 2000 presidential voting in Florida, he would have the credibility with Democrats to carry the message that the will of the people should be respected.
The sad irony here is that the Florida 2000 vote illustrated the precise opposite of what the Democrats claim. Gore took deliberate, cynical action to destroy the public's confidence in the voting process in a vain attempt to change the outcome of an election
he knew he had lost. I can think of no action more dismissive of the will of the people than to attempt deliberately to change the outcome of an election that's been settled. His efforts to discard absentee ballots of military personnel over technicalities that had never been a problem in previous elections (the lack of a certified post office on board ship, for example) further illustrates his cynicism. And yet, this cynical effort earns him credence as a
defender of the people's will among Democrats.
This is an example of a cultural phenomenon I've come to call the
screeching inversion. The short version of the
screeching inversion is that the most immature among us get to pretend that they're moral paragons, while the most mature are treated as moral pariahs, simply because the immature screech louder and a lot more often. Thus, in a morally deteriorating society, evil gets tagged as good, and good, evil.
Here's how it works:
Read more at Plumb Bob Blog...