Nostalgia is in the air. The presidential campaign is reminding those of us of a certain age of our youth, when McCarthyism roamed the earth.
“Senator Obama, is it true that terrorist Bill Ayers is a fellow traveler of yours?”
“Governor Palin, are you now or have you ever been a member of a traitorous secessionist party in Alaska? ” (This was an accusation being flung around in the comments section of Strangemaps.)
“Senator Obama’s health care plan is socialism.”
“The Big Bailout is socialism.”
These are all good topics of discussion, but to reduce them to labels and guilt-by-association is not exactly discussion.
Instead of just crying “socialism!” Obama’s opponents ought to explain that his health care plan is bad for the same reasons that socialism is bad. And they should tell us what those reasons are. The same for the big bailout. It’s more work that way, but it’s necessary work.
Palin’s association with a secessionist party is certainly worth asking about. Maybe some good discussion would come of it. Andrew Jackson hung around with secessionists when he was a Tennessee politician, before he became president and eventually became a strong supporter of union, as was revealed at the 1830 Jefferson Day dinner. (“Our Federal Union! It must be preserved!“) Maybe an inquiry into the topic would lead to a discussion of secessionist movements in Chechyna and Georgia, and of just what it is that makes a unified nation.
And if it turns out that Obama had friends and acquaintance from all walks of live and all ideologies, including terrorist Bill Ayers and Pat Robertson’s fan club, that would actually make me more respectful of him. I would hope he would have done more to influence them to moderate their ways than vice versa, but mere association wouldn’t be a reason to oppose him.
But for now it looks like we won’t get into those interesting discussions. We’ll have to settle for nostalgia for the good old days of the HUAC.