An appreciation of happy warriors *UPDATED*
Bookworm on Oct 20 2010 at 10:36 am | Filed under: Barack Obama, Chris Christie
I like Chris Christie in large part because he is a happy warrior. He engages in political fights with intelligence, vigor, and a singular lack of animus. He wades in joyously, and emerges refreshed and happy. He wants to win, but he takes no joy in his opponent’s destruction, nor does he thrive on humiliating or brutalizing people. Reagan was like that. Palin is like that too.
I am not a happy warrior. Part of why I’m a sniper (i.e., an anonymous blogger) is that I find direct confrontations incredibly upsetting. This is true even when the direct confrontations are over the internet. A case in point is a facebook exchange I had today. A liberal friend rejoiced over what he perceived as O’Donnell’s incredible constitutional ignorance, rushing to Coons’ defense by repeating over and over that “separation of church and state” is in the constitution. I very politely explained — with facts – that, historically and constitutionally, O’Donnell is in fact correct in her interpretation. The friend didn’t reply, but one of his other friends waded in on his behalf, with one of the rudest, most ill-informed screeds I’ve seen in a long time.
I’ve never met this woman. I will never meet this woman. She is an ignoramus, and she’s a bully. You’d think, therefore, that what she said wouldn’t affect me. But me, being me, I went into total fight or flight mode. Had I been in the room with her, I honestly don’t know if I would have hit or her run away! As it is, I wrote and deleted three incredibly insulting, denigrating replies, before settling on a slightly snide and condescending response that wouldn’t insult the liberal who started the whole discussion (after all, he wasn’t rude to me). I’m still a little shaken, though. And that’s why I’m not a happy warrior.
Obama, incidentally, isn’t a happy warrior either. He’s a bully. He enjoys a fight, not for the joy of battle, but because he wants to destroy his opponent.
UPDATE: A new blog on the block linked to this post, making a good point, namely that discourse with liberals is emotionally fraught because, not only do they not espouse the same means as conservatives, they no longer espouse even the same ends. A good debate can be had about different means to the same ends. It’s almost impossible, though, to debate with someone who sees the ends you espouse as inherently, and irremediably, evil.
By the way, I did end up coming to verbal blows with the rude person at that facebook site. I spelled out, chapter and verse, the person’s inane and insane historic inaccuracies. By the time I was done, my hands were shaking on the keyboard. The person fired back with another assault, which I didn’t bother to read. It is impossible to engage in any sort of forward-moving debate with someone who lives in an alternate factual universe, one that is utterly unsupported by the historic record. I can only hope that what I wrote has an impact on others who read that facebook thread, and who are not so ideologically blinkered.
UPDATE II: The coda to all this is that I got a very nice email from a lurker to that facebook thread, thanking me for stating clearly and correctly the Constitutional standards. I didn’t change any minds, but I made one person happy!
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16 Responses to “An appreciation of happy warriors *UPDATED*”
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Hey, Book, I believe it is called “empathy.” That is what Christie, Reagan, and others have. They understand how others will feel. You, in fact, have it as well; the evidence is that you deleted your less-than-perfect responses without sending them.
A bully, such as Barry (middle finger to Hillary, bitter-clingers, kick some ass) Obama is a bully precisely because he dosn’t have empathy for anyone but himself.
A few teachers that I know here in NJ keep telling me that Christie “hates” teachers. I have tried (to no avail, so I have stopped) to tell them that “No, he doesn’t hate teachers, he just doesn’t like the way the teachers’ union runs things.” I have yet to tell any of my teacher friends that it scares me that they think that way – you know, the ol’ it takes one to know one; In other words they jump to that conclusion because they, themselves, are quick to hate others. Not exactly the folks I want teaching children!
Lastly, after Clinton left office I read a couple of books written by some of the White House staff on exactly how self-centered the Clintons’ behaviour was. I can only imagine how many such books will be written and what will be said after the Obamas leave 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Books, I know just how you feel. More than anything else, I suspect what eventually ruined my marriage was my conviction that by avoiding conflict I was being a “good person” — when in fact it just made my ex respect me less.
The thing is, you have to stay out of the fight-or-flight mode. Take deep breaths, remember (especially in an internet convo) that they can’t actually hurt you. Maybe, as you did, write the harsh combative things you want to say and delete them.
Then calmly and reasonably demolish the other person. Let them have the fight-or-flight.
I have the opposite problem. When I do attack, I have been known not to let go of the throat until long after the target is demolished (rhetorically speaking). For that reason, I keep those instincts carefully parked away in reserve for those special moments. I use other tactics mostly, like trying to complete undermine the pillars of my Liberal/Lefty opponents’ faiths with a few good arguments. That tactic is still a work in progress, however.
Book, please oh please share with us those rude, ill-informed screeds you received so that we of your Bookworm Room elite thugee unit can have our way with them.
The O is NOT a warrior by any stretch of the imagination. A bully and several more that can not be repeated here on this blog. Let the warriors BE warrior’s and take care of the bad guys while you and your cohorts do the writings and what you do. They say the pen is mightier than the sword but then there are automatic weapons and warriors that know how to use them.
“Semper Fi”
Mike
And Danny you keep undermining the pillars. That’ll make me a happy warrior.
There are really two very different meanings to the word “empathy”….what I’ll call empathy type A is the ability to understand the feelings of others, empathy type B is *caring* about the feelings of others. A successful con man usually has a lot of empathy A and no empathy B….Bill Clinton, I think, comes close to this model.
What is odd about Obama is that he seems to lack empathy A as well as empathy B; normally a politician needs a fair amount of A-type in order to get very far.
That’s a very good point, David. Narcissists are masters at reading other people’s emotions, in part because they study them objectively, without any engagement. They then use the results of their study to their own advantage. That’s definitely a Clinton.
You’re also right about Obama. It is rather amazing that someone without any type of empathy got so far. I was, I believe, the first person in the political blogosphere to liken him to Chance the Gardener. (Not that I get credit; I just latched onto an obvious idea before anyone else did.) While he’s hardcore Left inside, the front he presented to the world was carefully vacant, but for two things: black and Ivy League. That was enough for the liberals to project all of their fantasies onto him, including their fantasy that he was a Clinton-esque empath. The media and academic liberals than sold that fantasy as reality to the average uninformed voter.
I think you’re right about the Obama blank-slate phenomenon. One rather pathetic example of this is the way in which so many academics perceived him as being *like them*, whereas it should have been obvious that Obama was not the sort of person who would have wanted to devote himself to teaching and research, nor indeed that he had the analytical skills to be competent at the second of these functions.
[...] I read a post from Bookworm Room that praised those with a talent and perceived enjoyment of the debate, such as [...]
“As it is, I wrote and deleted three incredibly insulting, denigrating replies, before settling on a slightly snide and condescending response that wouldn’t insult the liberal who started the whole discussion (after all, he wasn’t rude to me). I’m still a little shaken, though. And that’s why I’m not a happy warrior.”
I second Danny’s motion. Give it to us. We’ll give you a reply that you can then say “your friend” wanted you to tell them. Yes, yes.
Foster, Obama makes up for it with the cult of personality magnetism. Charisma isn’t the same as empathy. But often times it works better in a cult than empathy.
Btw Book, you need a hug. Tell one of you children that I told them to hug you, since I cannot myself.
“ill-informed screeds you received so that we of your Bookworm Room elite thugee unit can have our way with them.”
She’s the one that speaks softly. We get to carry the sticks though, right Danny.
American Front makes a good point: You cannot have a debate if their view is “emotional” and yours is “rational”. There is no common ground for discussion and that is why it is so frustrating. If you are feeling upset, then you have gone emotional and are out of your element. You have “lost” if that is the correct term. Their goal is not to find answers, or “common ground” but to inspire the same type of emotion that makes them such miserable people. Don’t waste your time arguing with these emotional types and don’t feel bad not debating them. If you want to deal with them on their terms just call them names. This they can understand. Better yet, don’t waste your time and be happy. You owe them nothing.
Thank’s for the link, BW. Believe it or not, your post, and Stanleys comment make me feel quite a bit better about my “no political talk” policy. Though my brain tells me it’s pointless with those types of people (and it sure keeps me from getting worked up all the time), a part of me felt that as a responsible citizen, I was failing in my duty to not debate and at least attempt to provide facts or an opposing possible consequence, and took the cowards way out by just saying “No, I’m not doing this anymore).
I pray that as in the past, these people are just a SMALL, vocal minority, but with many of these reaching higher office(s), I fear that perhaps it’s not as small as I’d like to think.
They can be small. But the vocal believers always outpower the more numerous silent types.
It’s why in a volunteer organization, full time volunteer revolutionary Leftists will always dictate policy. Not the “soccer mom” Democrat volunteers.
What’s so funny, Scott D, is that when I linked to your post, I didn’t realize it was you. I just knew that I liked the sentiments expressed, which has always been true for your writing!
(For those of you confused by that cryptic paragraph, let me explain that Scott used to have another blog — Scott’s Right Wing News — which got eaten by its server. He took a break from blogging and is back now. And clearly, I like the way he thinks! It’s a testament to how genuine my sentiments about his writing are that I liked what he said even when I didn’t know it was he who was saying it.)
Sorry….I thought my email arrived before the comment! But yes, it’s the old blog crew again