On Friday’s broadcast of Newsmax TV’s “American Agenda,” Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA) stated that one issue is that people are too sensitive to rhetoric that they disagree with.
Smith began by saying, “The number one thought is we’re spending too much time talking about, oh, what is the rhetoric, is the rhetoric too hot, is this too –? Violence is never acceptable, period, no matter what anybody says to you. The notion that, somehow, well, it’s the rhetoric that’s to blame for the violent reaction is something we can never accept in a free society, even if people say something that is deeply offensive, that is not an excuse to commit an act of violence. We’ve sort of moved past the fact — yeah, we can get into a discussion about what type of rhetoric we should do, and I think we should probably talk about that, how can we bring the temperature down, learn to disagree in a more productive, less hostile manner? But all of that is a separate discussion from what happened here. Violence is never an acceptable response to something somebody said, and I think that is the one point that should be being made instead of trying to go down all these rabbit holes of whose words contributed to what? No, do not advocate for violence, and violence is never acceptable, no matter how offended you are or how offensive something someone says is.”
He added, “I’ve noticed this in the last 10, 15 years, we have moved from being sort of a representative democracy that believes in free speech and free debate to being sort of an advocacy country, where we figure out what we want, and then we figure our job is to go enforce that on everybody around us, not understanding that we live in a society, we live with other people, people who disagree with us. If we’re really going to have a civil society and a representative democracy, then, in any given situation, you’ve got to figure out, okay, what do you and the groups that you support want? That’s certainly part of it. But to get along, you have to figure out what do the other people want and what’s in the best interest of society? We’ve just moved past that. No, we’re always, no, I have to have what I want, I have to have it all the time. We don’t listen to each other. Walk into a conversation from the standpoint of I’m trying to get to the right answer, not from the standpoint of I’m trying to force everybody to agree with me. So, that’s one part of the problem.”
Smith continued, “The second part of the problem is, we have become overly sensitive to rhetoric. And believe me, I’ve been interested in politics and having these arguments since I was a teenager. And when I really strongly believe something and then I run into someone who says, oh, that’s ridiculous, I don’t agree with that, initially, that’s kind of jarring…and it does sort of emotionally cause you a problem. But the solution to that is not to say, I want to create a society where I never feel that, the solution to that is to understand and grow in your thinking on how to process it. And understand that’s part of life. There’s a whole bunch of different people with a whole bunch of different ideas. Number one, respect those ideas. But the second thing I’ve found, it’s amazing how much you learn if you actually consider the possibility that you might be wrong and that the person saying this to you, maybe they have a point you haven’t thought of, and that’s fine if they do. If they don’t, argue your point. We’re just always advocate, advocate, advocate, I’m right, I’m right, they’re wrong, how come no one’s listening to me? Let’s start thinking about the other people around us a little bit more, and I think that will help.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
