{"id":23512,"date":"2012-11-16T15:19:20","date_gmt":"2012-11-16T20:19:20","guid":{"rendered":"\/news\/?p=23512"},"modified":"2012-11-16T17:46:17","modified_gmt":"2012-11-16T22:46:17","slug":"the-case-against-nice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/the-case-against-nice\/","title":{"rendered":"The case against nice"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>
\"\"<\/a>

Yes, let’s be polite about this.<\/p><\/div>\n

Among the many things I appreciated about Kristen Walker Hatten\u2019s November 12 post<\/a> was the following passage:<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve always thought subtlety is overrated, and I was never that great at \u201cnice.\u201d True kindness \u2013 true love \u2013 is a lot of things, but it is not \u201cnice.\u201d I am a Christian. \u201cNice\u201d is for quasi-Buddhists who live in the Bay Area and drive Smart cars and secretly hate everyone east of Oakland. Being nice at the expense of being honest is\u00a0not kind. It is not loving.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Kristen has hit upon an important truth that even the good guys often fail to appreciate. Our culture places a premium on \u201ccivility,\u201d the idea that political differences should not be made personal and that all sides should be credited as having good intentions. By holding ourselves to various standards of decorum, the theory goes, we demonstrate our high-minded reasonableness and foster bipartisan cooperation.<\/p>\n

That sounds lovely. Too bad it never works.<\/p>\n

The left talks of civility whenever there are moderate voters to butter up or conservatives to pretend to be offended by, but people on the left never hold themselves to any of it, with the \u201cWar on Women\u201d alone bursting with examples<\/a> of liberals at every level of power, influence, and legitimacy engaging in the sleaziest lies imaginable. (Similarly, their idea of \u201ccompromise\u201d amounts to little more than rubber-stamping their agenda<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

They reject civility for a very simple reason: negativity works, and they know it<\/a>. As much as people might claim to be turned off by mudslinging, the alleged facts about a candidate or a position that negative advertising disseminates still color the perceptions of whoever hears them. Liberals put in the effort necessary to drive home the impression of conservatism as something to be scared of and repulsed by, and it pays off.<\/p>\n

Similarly, they have defined their own positions as the epitome of feel-good enlightenment. The right frequently criticizes the left for placing intentions over results, but in reality, intentions aren\u2019t all that important to liberals, either – rather, getting credit for them<\/em> is. Through the media and the culture, liberals have for many years cultivated an association between their policies and general niceness – the price of admission for being accepted as a decent person in polite society. Supporting abortion on demand means you respect women, favoring wealth redistribution means you have compassion for the poor, blind allegiance to teachers\u2019 unions means you care about children, and so on. Liberals have created a quick and easy way for people who crave approval to get it – just check off the right ideological boxes, and you\u2019re set.<\/p>\n

If we are to have any chance of really winning over public opinion, this is the paradigm that we have to topple, and right now, we\u2019re not doing it. Somehow, we have to create and sustain a public perception that there is nothing to be proud of in letting unborn babies be killed, that it\u2019s actually something every bit as guilt- and disgust-worthy as defending violence against blacks, Jews, or gays. We have to reorient our culture to understand protecting babies as the default position of good people. (And dishonesty and character assassination in the service of abortion have to be stigmatized every bit as vigorously.)<\/p>\n

This will require us to be more candid and forceful about the suffering and evil abortion inflicts and, yes, to raise uncomfortable questions about the kind of character it takes to knowingly go along with it. That doesn\u2019t mean we never make distinctions<\/a> when dealing with those who are sincerely misled, but it does mean that those who ought to know better – particularly those in government and media who are paid to know what they\u2019re talking about on matters they influence – should be held to a higher standard.<\/p>\n

The campaign to end abortion is a battle of good versus evil. But it will never be fully understood as such if there\u2019s no price to be paid to one\u2019s social standing for doing evil.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This isn’t about mean versus nice. It’s about good versus evil.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":54,"featured_media":23513,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe case against nice - Live Action News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/the-case-against-nice\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The case against nice - Live Action News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This isn't about mean versus nice. It's about good versus evil.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/the-case-against-nice\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Live Action News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/liveaction\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-11-16T20:19:20+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2012-11-16T22:46:17+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/Abortion-Crosses.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"604\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"453\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Calvin Freiburger\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@liveaction\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@liveaction\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Calvin Freiburger\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/the-case-against-nice\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/the-case-against-nice\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Calvin Freiburger\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/6eb2bf94c8064b71953ba137bf413c4d\"},\"headline\":\"The case against nice\",\"datePublished\":\"2012-11-16T20:19:20+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2012-11-16T22:46:17+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/the-case-against-nice\/\"},\"wordCount\":693,\"commentCount\":34,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#organization\"},\"articleSection\":[\"Issues\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/the-case-against-nice\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/the-case-against-nice\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/the-case-against-nice\/\",\"name\":\"The case against nice - 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