On becoming cowards and snivelers.

In Early 2012, the American retailer JC Penny hired comedian Ellen Degeneres to be their principal spokesperson, and in the language of corporate advertising – to represent what that company presents as their values. As much as I find corporate posturing to be generally saccharine and transparent, Ellen Degeneres really does seem to be a genuinely nice human being, who, in her own words stands for: “honesty, equality, compassion, kindness, treating people the way you want to be treated, and helping those in need”.

The possibility that anyone would be frightened or intimidated by Ellen seems far-fetched, but apparently some people are terrified, as a project of the American Family Association called itself One Million Moms (with 40,000 members) attempted to have JC Penny fire Degeneres by boycotting them. The JC Penny accountants determined that more than 40,000 Americans thought One Million-Moms were a bunch of morons, and JC Penny stood behind Ellen and told the anti gay organization to go fornicate themselves. And everybody laughed about the joke, except perhaps, for 40,000 ahem, moms.

This organization tried again when JC Penny advertized a sale on Father's day, featuring two male actors as presumably gay fathers – apparently motivating the million moms to further publicize JC Penny. There was even some speculation that the apparently anti gay organization was created by JC Penny to generate publicity for the retailer. Much amusement was had by all.

And then along came a group of very well funded arbiters of right and wrong who slapped a label on One Million Moms parent organization the American Family Association, ensuring nobody would ever have to consider another word they said. Let it be known henceforth that the American Family Association is a hate group.

And thus, cowards and intellectual weaklings are spared the heavy lifting in addressing an easily refutable argument, that “the gay lifestyle” is as harmful as second hand smoke. And yes, that really is part of the AFA's argument against acceptance of gay men and women. By labelling them a Hate Group, the AFA are effectively silenced, and nobody even noticed that the entire exercise by the SPLC, those deep pocketed arbiters of right and wrong employed the simplest logical fallacy to do so. The Ad-Hominem argument. By attacking the speaker, rather than their argument. It is dishonest and cowardly, and almost all of America fell for it. However, the oppositional position towards gays and lesbians taken by the American Family Association is a logically weak position, easy to refute, without the recourse to the trickery and dishonest cowardice of logical fallacy. Surely, the public are not such intellectual toddlers that they must be sheltered from the use of their own reason.

Im aware that this might be regarded as an unjustifiably optimistic view, given the current erudite state of mainstream media. And this is also a part of the problem. Mainstream commenters on the political right habitually refer to their colleagues across the isle as “the far left”, while those on the left (note the absence of exaggeration) refer to their right-leaning colleagues as “the extreme right”. In each case, the superlative “extreme” or “far” serves to discredit whoever is described. However, doesn't this characterization of excess equally diminish those using it to undignified whining sissies? The urge to silence, rather to to address an oppositional argument is cowardly and totalitarian.

So, while it is easy to heap pejorative on those so threatened by a differing point of view, labelling as a means of silencing, this is lazy, dishonest and fearful. This is why, within the much maligned men's rights movement, one particular group opposed to the human rights of men and boys are regularly described as eugenics enthusiasts, rather than as a “hate group”. Enthusiasm for eugenics is informatively descriptive of that group's published position, and invites public attention to that position, rather than simply rendering them silent by application of a label.

The abject failure of some in the sphere of public discourse to address arguments they oppose, and the demonstrated preference to label, as a tool of censure is a poor indication of intellectual courage in those employing such rhetoric.

Unfortunately, on all sides of public discourse, this appears to be increasingly the popular approach. And as we quietly agree that whoever we disagree with are boogymen, we become a culture of cowards.

Addendum: Apparently, a particularly depraved and futile male feminist has demanded that a video by Bernard Chapin - currently featured on AVfM be removed by me, along with my apology for allowing it to be posted. A more timely example of the cowardly, totalitarian urge to censorship could not have been planned. Bernard's video stays up, and anybody who disagrees with him is invited to stand up on their hind legs and field an argument.