(crossposted at Heretical Tendency)

In the comments following my post on how Republicans use typical patriarchal rhetoric to shut down Democratic challenges, user high5 mentioned a post of eirs in which eir had made the same realization while listening to an interview with a Norwegian social psychologist, Berit Ås. Ås had developed a typology of these masculine domination techniques, and how to counter them. Intrepid reader Halcyon found a copy of a speech in which she outlined these techniques, and tossed it to me with the suggestion that I diary it. Thanks, Halcyon! Anyway, sucker that I am, here is my attempt to apply these hard-won feminist lessons to the current political debate. This post is a bit long, please bear with me.

The recent tussle over Barbara's guest post on Unclaimed Territory defending liberal religion has gotten me thinking. Given the extent to which the current political climate is split along religious lines, it is unsurprising that defense of an institution so closely identified with the worst of our opponent's excesses provoked such a vehement reaction. Personally, I hate the way religion is used by the right-wing, but I remain unconvinced that religion as a whole must be thrown out. The most vocal advocate of the "baby-too" school of thought is Pharyngula, who responded to Barbara's post with this no-holds-barred assault on religion.

The problem is faith.

 Faith is a hole in your brain. Faith stops critical thinking. Faith is a failure point inculcated into people's minds, an unguarded weak point that allows all kinds of nasty, maggoty, wretched ideas to crawl into their heads and take up occupancy.

Here is where the anti-religion folks leave me behind. I am, I must say, a die-hard fan of faith.

It's funny, how I just now realized this. When Republicans slap down Democrats who stand up for themselves? They use the rhetoric of patriarchy to do it. They discipline Democrats with the same words and attitudes that are used to teach them damn uppity women their place. It's the same words, over and over: hysterical, frenzied, shrieking, Bush(=man)-hating, and my personal favorite: shrill. Shrill is such a dead give-away too...how did I miss it? What is that word ever used for besides to describe a woman, overexcited about some silly thing or another, busy shrieking at some poor, brow-beaten man? Besides liberals, of course.

The shrill demands from the right for equal representation, used to suppress anyone who  expresses an opinion with which they disagree, have proven one of their most effective techniques. It's a remarkable feat of political judo--using the widely-embraced liberal ideal of freedom of expression to silence critics and ensure a hearing for their wacko ideas. They didn't just come up with it yesterday, though. It has a long history, going back at least as far as 1973.

(more on flip)

Conservatives and their neo-con progeny are so very fond of accusing Hollywood of liberal bias. This often strikes us on the left as just a mite bit ridiculous--how does the mix of violence and sex that Hollywood sells have a liberal bias? What freaks me out is that when I think about it, I realize that, strangely, inexplicably, conservatives are right. Hollywood IS liberal, and does advocate liberal positions. They notice more than we do, because when they see it, it jars their delicate sensibilities. For us, it doesn't even register. The conservatives are right. Hollywood is liberal.

The simple fact is that being right and sounding right are two very different things, and the Democratic Party has too long thought that having good ideas is in and of itself a winning strategy. Unfortunately, you also need to convince the American public your ideas are good, and in this area Democrats are simply pitiful.

It is a matter of education versus persuasion. Republicans are very good at sounding right, at persuading with superficialities--but there's nothing to their positions other than kneejerk reaction. There is not depth to Republican positions, not anymore. Once upon a time, Republicans had policy too. No more. Whatever works, whatever gets the job done, whatever helps them win--that's their only standard now. They have sold out their principles in favor of winning.

So you are the good old U.S. of A, and you have a fat stack of chips that brooks no disrespect. Ever since U.S.S.R. lost that big hand and split its pile, you've been the undisputed chip leader. You've been having your way with the table for the last hour or so.

That pesky Saddam two seats ahead of you bets big on the flop, and you know he hasn't got the chips to back it up if you take him on. You look at your cards-- 9 and 10 suited. Not really a great hand, but Saddam is a notorious bluffer and this is a great chance to take him out of the game. You check and raise him for all he's got. You watch him flinch, and you know you own him.

But what's this? So far everyone at the table has folded, but then the bet gets to the shadowy, dusty player sitting right behind Saddam. He matches your bet, and doubles it. You do a double-take.  As you watch, the figure's chip stack grows. A couple of chips here, a couple there, passers-by tossing chips in. From the darkness around the table, cheers come at his cheeky bet, and even more chips start to flow in.

That is another thing about banning that bugs me--it assumes that just because a user made one bad call, came down a little funny on one issue, that means that they have nothing to contribute on and subject. And that simply isn't true.

Tin-hattery isn't an absolute, it's not black and white. It's a matter of degree. Most people are pretty crazy about some topic or another, despite their general mental well-being. Damn near EVERYONE has their moments of insanity. Haven't you ever made a comment that, in retrospect, was pretty damn wacked? Not merely useless, but actually harmful to rational discussion?

But if you need further evidence that occasionally EVERYONE goes a bit off their rocker, check out the comments of this post and watch Armando totally and utterly fail to grasp BooMan's point. Now let's be clear: I respect Armando a great deal. I think his Lincoln 1860 strategy is perfect. But here he is displaying a rare moment of obtuseness, and we ought to take this for the lesson it is. None of us are innocents when it comes to insanity.

So we have a problem. I didn't think we did; I never ran across one of the trouble diaries, and maybe if I had I would have a different opinion about it. However, I doubt that. My objection to banning people has nothing to do with what exactly was said--my objection is to banning itself as a means of dealing with unproductive members. We are liberals, advocating a liberal ideology, trying to convince a nation that our ideas are the best way to run this country. If we can't even build a working web community according to these principles, then what are we doing trying to convince the whole nation to follow?

Banning people, no matter what they are saying, spits in the face of progressive ideals. It is the web equivalent of life imprisonment, or exile. It is draconian. Most of all, it is the refusal to communicate that bothers me. It is the absolute denial that that individual has anything to teach, anything to contribute. It may be true, but how can you know unless you listen first?

Kos, please trust us to distinguish between good diaries and junk. Please trust us to notice when diarists go off their rockers--we can close our own windows and go on to the next, hopefully more-intelligent diary on our own. Really, we can. We do! Isn't that why you let us rate and recommend in the first place? Because we can help sort the good from the bad. By the brute hours of work we can put into it, if nothing else. There are a lot of us! Sure, some of us are pretty crazy, but what did you expect? This is the internet, after all. I think on average we do pretty good.

We are big boys and girls. We all have pretty good crap detectors--we're here, after all, aren't we? We can hold our own with the wackos, out in the real world or here at dKos. If the crazies come here, well, then here we will point out their insanities, be they of the right-wing or left-wing variety. We've had plenty of practice recently, God knows. So trust us! We do all right.

"The issue is not whether abortion is right or wrong; the issue is whether or not it's the government's role to decide whether abortion is right or wrong."

Okay, I lied--it's not new. But I think that it succintly captures the point we need to make. It is easy to remember, and it neatly diverts any argument over to the ground we want to be fighting on. It can be used (with a little modification) in nearly any debate.

So knock yourselves out.

We say them in the same breath so often that we forget that they are polar opposites; we forget that to increase one we must suffer a decrease in the other. This is the tension that America is founded on--for every decision we must weigh and consider, is the equality gained by this worth the sacrificed freedom? Is this freedom worth this inequality?

If I have the right to carry a gun then anyone who does not carry a gun becomes less equal. If I do not have the right to carry a gun then I am less free than I might be. If millionares are free to spend as much money as they please on politics, then my contribution and influence and theirs cannot be equal. If they may not, then they are less free than they might be. Always, there is the balance to be struck. Here, freedom must be lost for the sake of equality. There, equality must lose to freedom.