The Northern Valley Beacon got its feelings hurt and its dander up. What did it this time was Jason Heppler's post of June 25th. Mr. Heppler quotes from a comment that Newquist posted on the Clean Cut Kid website. Here is Mr. Heppler's original post:
Newquist: Our Flag Isn't Worth Saluting
David Newquist, Democratic candidate for the state legislature, questions whether the American flag is even worth saluting anymore:
A flag is a symbol. It symbolizes our history, our aspirations, our values. Of course it is upsetting to see someone desecrate our national symbol. But the Bush administration would like to get the nation in a raging furor, while it quietly erodes, undermines, and desecrates our Constitutional rights and protections.
When the New York Times published a story on tapping into international financial transactions, the Bushites railed that the newspaper was endangering the nation and that the 3,000 people killed during 9/11 were being violated. Of course, they never mention the 2,500 of our finest troops sent to slaughter in a war that the Bush administration cannot find a reason for.
In totalitarian societies, it is a practice to criminalize those who protest by committing acts against cherished symbols. The state rages against the desecraters, while it desecrates the values of freedom, equality, justice.
And if the flag in fact represents what this nation has become under George W. Bush, well do you really want to salute it?
This a portion of Dr. Newquist's reply of July 24th. I have not quoted it all, so please go to his site and read it.
You can tell that the 2006 election campaign is underway. The Ministry of Truth (as Orwell called it) is out in full force to demolish the language by misrepresenting words and to exterminate any thoughts and ideas that do not conform to its party line.
Some comments I made recently concerning what the U.S. flag symbolizes became grist for the Ministry of Truth processes of distortion, fraud, and malicious misrepresentation that has become the official mantra of elements of the Republican Party. The blog South Dakota War College joined forces with with South Dakota Politics, an established leader in the business of defamation, to make some crude forgeries of language, which they attributed to me.
I am a candidate for the state legislature. That is the apparent motive behind the falsification of the comments I made in response to a posting on Clean Cut Kid’s blog. I can envision the would-be character assassins slobbering over their keyboards at the thought of taking a real, live candidate out with their dishonest little missives. After making some points about the fact that a symbol, like the flag, is not the thing it symbolizes, I ended with what is an obvious rhetorical question to those literate and educated enough to read it:
“And if the flag represents what this nation has become under George W. Bush, well do you really want to salute it?”
The Ministry of Truth’s puppet at South Dakota Politics transformed that question into this post.
“Newquist: Our Flag Isn’t Worth Saluting,” read the headline.
The comment, which did provide a link to my original comment, was: “David Newquist, Democratic candidate for the state legislature, questions whether the American flag is even worth saluting any more.”
While the comment provided a link, the false paraphrase was made under the assumption that a goodly number of the dupes who feed on degraded language and acts of verbal vandalism would not have the interest or integrity or the ability to read the original words in their full context.
South Dakota War College endorsed the false paraphrase.
My comment addressed the matter of whether the Bush administration has upheld the standards of liberty, equality, justice, and integrity that the flag is supposed to stand for. Deliberately misconstruing the question into the statement that I am advocating disrespect to the flag is a dishonest and grossly incompetent paraphrase. The basic rule of the paraphrase, no matter what venue it appears in, is that it must restate the original facts or ideas fully and correctly. Falsification through misquotation is a standard practice at the Ministry of Truth.
Now consider what happened here. Dr. Newquist made a comment that he says was intended rhetorically. Jason read it more literally than that, and commented accordingly. Dr. Newquist surely knows that rhetorical questions, metaphors, satire, and other such devices are frequently taken literally even in ages where rhetoric is taught.
It is one thing for Dr. Newquist to say that he was misinterpreted, and he has every right to make that point. It is another to say that this was deliberate. Dr. Newquist acknowledges as much by his phrase "an obvious rhetorical question to those literate and educated enough to read it." The implication is that Mr. Heppler might not have been "literate" enough to catch the rhetorical nature of the question. In fact Mr Heppler's reading was a fair one, and Newquist produces not a shread of evidence of deliberate misrepresentation; he just asserts it, and on that basis he accuses us of being liars. He says near the end that "Misquotation and taking words out of context are forms of lying." Pretending you have proved that someone was guilty of something when you have not done any such thing, well that can be a form of lying as well.
Dr. Newquist hurls his accusations at SDP bloggers collectively, without mentioning Mr. Heppler by name. Here it is Newquist who is being either dishonest, or incompetent, or both, for he fails to mention that I came to his defense a few days later on this very matter. Here is my post of June 30th.
David Newquist posted a note on the site that is reprinted by Mr. Heppler below. I reproduce here two of four paragraphs.
In totalitarian societies, it is a practice to criminalize those who protest by committing acts against cherished symbols. The state rages against the desecraters, while it desecrates the values of freedom, equality, justice.
And if the flag in fact represents what this nation has become under George W. Bush, well do you really want to salute it?
Now I think Professor Newquist gets totalitarianism wrong. Totalitarian symbols are not to be "cherished," they are to be feared. And it is absurd to compare what would happen to someone who defied such a symbol in such a country, and what would happen to a flag-burner in the U.S.
On the other hand, I agree with Professor Schaff (and I assume with Newquist and all the folks at CCK) that an anti-flag burning amendment is a bad idea. I note that both Senator Thune and Senator Johnson voted for the amendment. I do not think that either should be held in contempt for that vote, much less the millions of ordinary Americans who wish to see the flag defended because they love it.
With regard to David's ultimate paragraph, it does strike me as a rhetorical question and as such cannot be taken for a clear statement of his opinion about "what this nation has become." So I think the criticism of him in this and other blogs is a bit unfair. [emphasis added to last paragraph].
So Newquist himself clearly misrepresents what South Dakota Politics did and said regarding his now infamous flag line. "We," collectively, disagreed about what he meant. I myself read his comment exactly as he now says he meant it, and came to his defense. Surely no one would know that from reading his July 24th post. Leaving out key facts that contradict your case, that also can be a form of lying.
And while we are at it, consider this paragraph of Newquist's:
South Dakota Politics and South Dakota War College are symptoms of the degradation of American politics. Issues cannot be examined and discussed. They can only demonstrate a vicious disrespect and a seething hatred for people who do not subscribe to their party line. They always meet opposing viewpoints with a rolling of the eyes and a defamation of personhood and personality. This is the politics of the lower order creatures clawing and pecking their way to a higher status within the dog pack or the chicken flock. It is the politics of the reptilian cortex. They stand for the opposite of the freedom, equality, and justice that are the driving principles of American democracy. I fought against these kind of political tactics in the military service. I fight against them now.
Now I suppose all this is just rhetorical, but isn't it a bit contradictory to accuse someone of "a vicious disrespect and a
seething hatred for people who do not subscribe to their party line," and then a moment later compare that person to a "lower order creatures," with a "reptilian cortex." Now I know Newquist will shout that I am misrepresenting him, that he was speaking only of our political behavior, as he sees it, and not us as persons. I will say in advance that it doesn't matter. It would be no defense against a charge of bigotry if someone said that Jews behaved like vermin, but did not go on to say that they actually were vermin. Using language like "lower order" and "reptilian" to describe persons who have done no more than interpret his writing in an unfavorable way, that is extreme to the point of hysteria.
The fact is that South Dakota Politics has taken Dr. Newquist seriously as a voice in our state, and we did so long before he became a candidate for office. We have read him carefully, interpreted him as honestly and fairly as anyone could, and replied to him when we thought it fit to do so. On such occasions we quote him liberally, and have always provided links so that anyone could retrieve and review the original of his words. That comes close to the standards of professional scholarship, which is more than journalism, amateur or professional, demands. To say otherwise is dishonest.
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