Name-Calling and Demonizing Reflect Badly on Aspiring Writers

Have you ever noticed how quickly some personsAnother example involves persons caught up in
resort to name-calling and demonizing whenthe gun culture. Gun owners and members of the
referring to others who hold contrary views?National Rifle Association paint themselves as true
Republicans and Democrats, conservatives andpatriots and defenders of freedom. They claim to
liberals. It seems they are all guilty of such actionsunderstand the Second Amendment to the U. S.
at one time or another. I consider such actionsConstitution, whereas others do not. They
rhetorical bad manners. Worse, they are indicatorsdemonize the opposition by saying they would
that the person making the statements is merelycoddle criminals while "disarming law-abiding
attempting to bolster otherwise weak arguments.citizens." Persons who oppose the proliferation of
Stated differently, if you can't match the otherfirearms in the society also resort to name-calling,
side's facts, reasoning and logic, then attack himoften referring to gun owners as neo-fascists,
with outrageous criticism. Call him unpatriotic, aright-wing stooges or John Wayne wannabes.
criminal, a threat to the community-remarks thatOn the immigration issue, name-calling and
are untruthful and which never come close todemonizing again appear. Some argue that the
addressing real issues. Recently I read read in apersons who enter the country without
community newspaper that a letter-writer wasdocumentation are "lawbreakers" and unlawful
referring to a columnist as "toxic waste" merelyaliens. They say the immigrants come to this
because he disagreed with the columnist'scountry merely to get on the welfare rolls and to
viewpoint. That statement said more about thereceive free education and health care for
critic than it did about the columnist, or about hismembers of their family. One politician in Northern
ideas.Virginia recently went so far as to say that
Candidates for political office are keen onundocumented workers and those who support
name-calling and on trying to demonize the otherthem are "un-American" (whatever that means).
candidates. Usually these actions are referred toThose who support the immigrants say they are
as mud-slinging, a term that appropriately comesmerely "day laborers" who fill jobs that Americans
under the heading of "dirty politics." They describerefuse to take, particularly in agriculture,
themselves as patriotic, anti-tax, pro-family,construction and landscaping. Further, they say
freedom-loving, God-fearing persons. Concernedthat citizens and politicians who lead campaigns
that their opponents may adopt the sameagainst the day laborers are racist, nativist and
characterizations, they try to pre-empt them byxenophobic. A friend went so far as to also say,
accusing them of being unpatriotic tax-and-spendwith tongue firmly in cheek, that the community
candidates who ignore family values.cannot possibly have a problem with aliens
There are examples of demonizing in manybecause Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) wiped
newspaper stories. For example, those whothem all out in 1979.
oppose abortion rights claim exclusive right to theThe extreme statements that I have mentioned
title of "pro-life." They then accuse pro-choiceso far are not true. They fall into the categories
people and others of beliefs and actions that areof exaggeration, hyperbole and incendiary rhetoric.
inconsistent with life values in the broadest sense.But nevertheless they persist. Most Americans, to
They call them baby killers whom God will surelytheir credit, are not swayed by arguments
punish, probably by sending them to hell. Theadvanced by the extreme right or the extreme
pro-choice people are sometimes just as bad,left. They gravitate around a political center that
characterizing the anti-abortion activists ascontains many shared values. Politicians and civic
meddlers and religious zealots.leaders are successful only when they learn that.