Us vs. Me political satire
By Tom Quiner
I have shown tremendous restraint at avoiding politics on my personal Facebook page, including commenting on others’ political FB posts. There is little upside to commenting. People get mad. No one is persuaded. However, a recent bit of political satire (above) provoked me.
I interpreted the cartoon to suggest that left-wingers are charitable, interested in others, and altruistic in contrast to right-wingers who are selfish, uncharitable, and self-absorbed. (I acknowledge that I may have totally missed the point.)
I’m acquainted with the woman who posted the satirical cartoon. She attends my parish, so I responded with restraint:
“It’s an interesting assertion, but I’m not sure if it’s really accurate. If one wants to use political affiliation as a metric to gauge compassion, the liberal Huffington Post points out that Republicans (54%) are more likely than Democrats (45%) to donate money to charity. Even more, Republicans (33%) are more likely to volunteer their time for a cause than Democrats (24%). I typically avoid commenting on political posts on FB, but because of my respect for you, I thought you would be open to a different way of looking at things if the evidence was compelling enough. I certainly know generous people of all political stripes, as well as others who aren’t. And it’s very possible I missed the entire point of the cartoon. Thanks for letting me weigh in.”
She reacted to my commentary well and ‘liked’ it, eventually removing the cartoon from her page.
Relevance to the abortion debate
What’s this have to do with the biggest issue of our age, abortion? Generally, ‘right-wingers’ are pro-life while ‘left-wingers’ are pro-abortion.
When a man and a woman conceive a child, they are now a family, an ‘us.’ Left-wingers are not the least bit ‘us-oriented’ when it comes unborn family members; they are ‘me’ oriented.
So this piece of political satire misses the mark again. ‘Right-wing’ pro-lifers adopt unwanted babies; they support women’s pregnancy resource centers who offer authentic healthcare; they help fund post-abortive counseling resources to help women traumatized by their abortions; and they help women after their babies are born through pro-life organizations like Catholic Charities and the Knights of Columbus, to name but two out of many.
The abortion movement is me-oriented. The pro-life movement is actually you-oriented, although we view our unborn brothers and sisters as part of ‘us.’
Political satire is a great tool for conveying a political point of view with power and pithiness. It can also distort reality, as I believe this one does. Sometimes, we can’t let it pass. Sometimes, we shouldn’t let it pass.
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