Playing the Fascist Card
by Cowboy Bob Sorensen I've previously written on the way people label other people . Sometimes it's a means of reference, but quite often it's a way of pigeonholing them to avoid listening to what they have to say, or even as a means of trying to control their speech. Labeling can also be a means of demonizing and manipulation. There's another approach that is similar to labeling that is quite popular: playing the card. Assembled using graphics from Openclipart and modified with Paint.Net There are several cards to "play" that, in the mind of the user, trump all other considerations . In the United States, it's common to hear someone "refute" a criticism, complaint, or even an observation regarding someone of a minority ethnic heritage and say, "You're a racist!" That's the race card. (Reading that a black leftist called a black conservative a racist may cause Cranial Keyboard Embedment Syndrome.) Don't want wome