I’d like to examine what I consider to be a textbook example of genuine eliminationist rhetoric. (As opposed to the highly questionable variety discussed by Rick Moran.) I found the above picture at post by Tammy Bruce titled “Hezbollah Among…

If referring to a whole group of people (say “liberals”) as traitors or as friends of terrorists is not akin to wanting to do away with those people then I don’t know what is. You all know what the penalty is for treason.

Some of the spokesmen of your movement have argued that roughly 1/2 of the adult population (i.e., liberals, Democrats, etc) be either 1) disenfranchised, 2) institutionalized, 3) or executed because they are enemies of the state.

You play stupid word games about the meaning of “eliminationism” yet fail to confront the very real truth that there are some outspoken and widely respected conservatives who engage in that rhetoric on a regular basis. Wake up and smell the fascism.

Defense Mechanisms

Defense mechanisms protect us from being consciously aware of a thought or feeling which we cannot tolerate. The defense only allows the unconscious thought or feeling to be expressed indirectly in a disguised form. Let’s say you are angry with a professor because he is very critical of you. Here’s how the various defenses might hide and/or transform that anger:

Denial:
You completely reject the thought or feeling.
“I’m not angry with him!”

Suppression:
You are vaguely aware of the thought or feeling, but try to hide it.
“I’m going to try to be nice to him.”

Reaction Formation:
You turn the feeling into its opposite.
“I think he’s really great!”

Projection:
You think someone else has your thought or feeling.
“That professor hates me.”
“That student hates the prof.”

Displacement:
You redirect your feelings to another target..
“I hate that secretary.”

Rationalization:
You come up with various explanations to justify the situation (while denying your feelings).
“He’s so critical because he’s trying to help us do our best.”

Intellectualization:
A type of rationalization, only more intellectualized.
“This situation reminds me of how Nietzsche said that anger is ontological despair.”

Undoing:
You try to reverse or undo your feeling by DOING something that indicates the opposite feeling. It may be an “apology” for the feeling you find unacceptable within yourself.
“I think I’ll give that professor an apple.”

Isolation of affect:
You “think” the feeling but don’t really feel it.
“I guess I’m angry with him, sort of.”

Regression:
You revert to an old, usually immature behavior to ventilate your feeling.
“Let’s shoot spitballs at people!”

Sublimation:
You redirect the feeling into a socially productive activity.
“I’m going to write a poem about anger.”

** Defenses may hide any of a variety of thoughts or feelings: anger, fear, sadness, depression, greed, envy, competitiveness, love, passion, admiration, criticalness, dependency, selfishness, grandiosity, helplessness.

http://www.rider.edu/~suler/defenses.html

“Accusing a liberal of “treason” or of being a “traitor” may be hyperbole but it is not hate speech. I find it fascinating that liberals would be so touchy about being tarred with these epithets seeing that they find they words “patriotism” and “patriot” so problematic, “the last refuge of scoundrels” being a common add-on whenever the terms are used.”

If find your reasoning ‘problematic’ (as you say). Saying those that you disagree with are traitors, I think, starts to fall under the definition of this word you don’t believe exists. Because, what is the punishment for a traitor?

I agree it’s not hate speech. I don’t really think that hate speech should be any less protected than any other speech actually. But, if I disagree with anyone on a particular issue (your GitMo example serves aptly), and you call me a traitor (and I wouldn’t be surprised if you did) you are calling for my elimination. In effect it is calling for that person who disagrees to be eliminated from political discourse, from voting, from citizenship. Because their opinion, as a traitor, should not be allowed, right?

So, I disagree. Should I not then be punished and hung by the neck until dead as traitors should?

You win the contest! Congrats.

Now all we have to do is get those words into the dictionary. You know anyone at Websters?

Have you ever been to college? The only place you’ll find eliminationist rhetoric is in academia and the mainstream media–in other words, on the left–where they regularly censor any and all facts and ideas that disprove, disallow or disagree with the little cartoon world they’ve made up in their tiny minds. And it’s never intelligent or well-reasearched. It’s juvenille and propagandized pseudo-intellectual bovine feces, probably more responsible for global warming than all the farting cows in the world.

Eliminationist is no more a real word than any word someone just makes up that no one else uses. I can play that game.

Complexiphobia: noun, an irrational fear of the complex, a mental disease most commonly infecting progressives.

Realidisfigurementarian: noun, a disfigurer of reality, a synonym for liberal.

Phantasmagoridemoronia: noun, an optical effect by which moronic democrats appear to dwindle into the distance when confronted by facts and logic, a synonym for the plummeting ratings and subscriptions for leftist television and radio shows and news publications.

Although, you can certainly try again if you wish. Who knows? With half a brain like yours at work, anything is possible.”

I was providing an honest answer to Aric’s question based on a logical extrapolation of behavior that conservative pundits and bloggers have displayed in the past.

I did this because you seemed to be afraid to address the question. That’s not surprising, since this entire post is about your own fear of dealing with criticism of your philosophy. Dave Neiwart writes a series of intelligent, well-researched posts on the rise of eliminationist rhetoric on the right. You don’t want to deal with it, so you just pretend the word doesn’t exist.

Then you conclude the post by basically saying that since you can’t adequately address the points raised by Glenn Greenwald, you’re going to ignore him.

There’s really not much difference between your post and a petulant five year old sticking his fingers in his ears and repeating “la la la I can’t hear you” ad nauseum.