Decency and indecency

We are, I believe, perilously close to losing whatever distinctions we might have once made between decency and indecency. This new book about Obama by Jerome Corsi offers an excellent chance to ponder this distinction. As we already know who Corsi is, and we already know what he has written and said before about Democrats, and as he has admitted he doesn’t want Obama to be President, one does not have to be very bright to know what a hatchet job his book is going to be. No, I have not read the book. I have no intention of ever reading it. I feel no need whatsoever to read it as I already know that it will be complete and utter trash. And so it is, according to all the comments about it I have seen so far. I believe it is an indecent book. I don’t believe a decent person would have written such a book. I don’t believe a decent editor would have accepted such a book. And I don’t believe a decent publisher would have published such a book. Apparently the lure of profits far outweighs any sense of decency. I don’t condemn the book because it is anti-Obama. It could be a decent book that just points out facts about Obama that people might or might no know about. Real facts, that is. But this book was written with no regard to facts whatsoever, and with the sole purpose of trying to destroy the reputation of a person running for public office. For example, Corsi apparently claims that Obama is a drug addict. There is absolutely no basis in fact for such an outrageous claim. It is true that Obama admitted to experimenting with marijuana and cocaine as a youth, but so did hundreds of thousands of other young people, and he does not use such drugs presently (and there is no evidence that he does). This is a purely indecent claim about a decent person. The Obama people have already prepared a 40 page rebuttal, pointing out the factual errors and scurrilous claims and whatever. But some damage will probably result from this piece of trash anyway. Most everyone now agrees that negative ads work (and the implication is that everyone should use them). This is a clear cut case of ends justifying means and is in and of itself somewhat indecent.

So-called attack-ads can be either decent or indecent, depending upon their content. This Corsi book is the equivalent of an attack ad and it personifies an indecent approach. But when an ad is negative because it points out an obvious contradiction or a claim that is so transparently wrong it can’t be allowed to pass, it might be negative but it would not be indecent. For example, When Bush says to a reporter in China there are no problems in America, and others point out how absurd such a claim is, there is nothing indecent about the juxtaposition of the two points of view. Similarly, when McCain is on record of denying there is a recession, when most people believe there surely is, it is not indecent to point that out. Contradictory points of view are not indecent. But when blatant lies and fabrications are involved it is another matter entirely. When McCain was accused by Rove and his hatchet men of having fathered an illegitimate black baby, that was indecent. When the swiftboaters spread lies about Kerry’s war record, that was indecent. When it is demonstrated through their own words that Bush/Cheney and others lied to lead us into an unnecessary “war,” that is not indecent. When a claim can be shown to be factually correct it cannot be indecent. When obviously fabricated claims are made in the absence of any factual information those claims are indecent. The problem is, in this era of attack ads and negative ads, it is not always completely clear whether something is indecent or not. And unfortunately, there seem to be thousands of Americans who don’t even care about the difference. Thus indecent people like Corsi, Coulter, Limbaugh, and others of that ilk manage to find an audience for their filth. Right-wing groups order their books by the dozens, even hundreds, to give the illusion they are best sellers (and have a much wider audience than they actually do have). There is an interesting question here: how different are such indecent books from yelling “fire” in a crowded theatre? Not much, I’d say, but then I also believe in free speech. But decent people don’t abuse free speech.

LKBIQ:
The history of our race, and each individual's experience, are sown thick with evidence that a truth is not hard to kill and that a lie told well is immortal.
Mark Twain