Like Chasing A Greased Strawman

Sometimes, in order to try to understand those with whom you disagree, you have to try to put yourselves in their mind; to try to think like they do.

We’ll come back to that.

Last week, I saw that Spotty from Cucking Stool wrote what seemed to be yet another take on the left’s most threadbare post-Tea-Party meme; in this case, it was…:

Tea Party brigade struggles to put out BWCA fire

I assumed it was yet another tilt at the “If you don’t support all government, you oppose all government” meme.  Hardly worth a read, in and of itself; if you’ve seen it once, you’ve seen it all you need to.

It started out with a clip from a Strib piece about the rigors of firefighting in the Boundary Waters

Plywood walls were plastered with maps showing the growing footprint of the wildfire that’s raging across Minnesota wilderness of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. Dozens of officials summoned to help subdue the blaze that has consumed more than 100,000 acres of forest…

Read the Strib piece for more.

“Spot” picks up…

…I was about to say “the narrative”, but that’s not quite right.  A narrative, certainly.  One of a choice of narratives?  I dunno.  Anyway:

The quote and the picture are real enough and from the Strib, but the headline — obviously — is fictional.

And utterly misleading, since the article relates not at all to the Tea Party, to budgets, to…well, anything but the rigors of firefighting.

There is, in fact, some controversy whether the Forest Service moved fast enough after the fire was started by lightning and whether logging should have occurred after the blow down in 1999…

Which is a fascinating subject, perhaps – I’ve written about it here – but, Spot informs us, it’s really not why we’re here.  Not at all:

Which brings me to the real point of the story. Walter Hudson, the spittle-flecked chair of the North Star Tea Party Patriots,

I’ve met Walter Hudson many times.  He’s been to several MOB parties.  He’s actually a pretty soft-spoken, measured kinda guy.

So why would “Spot” call him “Spittle-flecked?”  Let’s think like our opponent…

Racism is the only reason.

Well, no. It’s not.  Let’s go back to the top of the piece; let’s try to think like our opponent to understand him.

Why would one completely mangle the context of an op-ed to take a roundabout, groaningly false whack at the character of someone disagrees with?  Let’s try to put ourselves in the mind of…whatever our pseudonymous, utterly unknown writer is…

Nope.  I still got nothing.

Maybe some clue will come to us as we continue through the piece:

[Hudson is] speaking to the adoption of a supermajority requirement to raise taxes in Minnesota, but here’s what Walter thinks of social goods:

Government ought not “function” to any whimsical end. Government should function only when its aim is proper, only when it protects individual rights.

You can read how Walter concludes that a simple majority vote is whimsical; I’m not going to try to explain it.

Having read both Hudson’s actual piece – which concludes “Government’s mandate is not to “function” at any cost. Impasse, gridlock and shutdowns are not inherent evils” – and tells the DFL and its supporters that there is much more to “majority rule” than browbeating the minority into submission, and says not one thing about government’s essential services, like protecting lives and property – firefighting, a subject even Ron Paul agrees is a legitimate government service – I don’t honestly think Spot could explain it any better than he explains Minnesota’s self-defense law.

But maybe there’s some hidden flash of insight in his conclusion:

What is whimsical is the fact that Walter heads a group with the word “patriot” in it. Patriots love their country. Walter’s patriotism extends no further than the tip of his nose, or his stomach, whichever sticks out farther.

So “Spot’s” whole piece is…a laborious personal insult?  Whose underlying “point” seems to be that “patriotism” is not only keeping government’s every whim funded, but funded without the need for real consensus?

I’m open to further suggestions.  I’m rhetorically tapped.

This whole “understand what your opponent is thinking” bit is a lot harder than I thought.