Democrats use more vitriol in their language than Republicans
In answer to a comment from a previous post, it was suggested that there would be far more comments calling “Democrats traitors, accuse them of being guilty of treason, accuse them of supporting the enemy, charge them with being unpatriotic and of being evil.”
Well, let’s take a look at that by doing some quick research on Google:
1,540 hits for “Republicans are traitors”
694 hits for “Democrats are traitors”
6 hits for “Republicans are guilty of treason”
720 hits for “Democrats are guilty of treason”
284 hits for “Republicans support terrorists”
412 hits for “Democrats support terrorists”
2,320 hits for “Republicans are unpatriotic”
4,170 hits for “Democrats are unpatriotic”
19,600 hits for “Republicans are evil”
597 hits for “Democrats are evil”
Just for the fun of it, I threw in a bonus search:
761 hits for “Republicans are bastards”
3 hits for “Democrats are bastards”
But the “are bastards” search will NOT be tallied in with the below figures. The below only tallies up poster Doug’s criteria:
Negative Comments against Republicans: 23,750
Negative Comments against Democrats: 6,593
So, that is 17,157 more negative comments against Republicans overall. Well, seems as if the suggestion that overall you’ll find more comments calling “Democrats traitors, accuse them of being guilty of treason, accuse them of supporting the enemy, charge them with being unpatriotic and of being evil” is completely wrong. Of course, we can break it down by category- then you actually do have Democrats with three in their “favor” and only two in the Republicans “favor.” But I feel it is safe to declare liberals the winners of the mantel of “Most Negative.” The only question remains is to how they will twist these facts to try and make themselves sound less negative than Republicans? It will be hard to dispute cold, hard numbers but I’ve no doubt they will try.
May 17th, 2007 at 7:33 pm
Sadly, from what I see, this is pretty much true. You of course have Republicans that say mean things, but really nowhere near as many liberals trashing conservatives.
Take the recent post-death bashing of Rev. Falwell, for example.
May 17th, 2007 at 7:39 pm
Using Google to search for random phrases in order to prove your point is simply preposterous. Who has time to analyze all the data in order to eliminate duplications, to ascertain whether the speaker is actually making a derogatory statement or is merely asking a rhetorical question such as “is it true that Republicans are traitors?”(which would show up under your analysis as vitriol), to determine what political party each writer is affiliated with in order to make sure the results are not skewed by independents or other party affiliates making the accusations (which would imbalance the Democrat vs. Republican angle), etc.
But even aside from that, to illustrate how ridiculous this approach is, consider your first item of “research.” You Googled “Republicans are traitors” and received 1,540 hits, and then “Democrats are traitors” and received 694 hits.
Now add the article “the” and Google “The Republicans are traitors” and you get only 694 hits, while “the Democrats are traitors” will net you a whopping 6,920 hits.
Or try this: Google “All Republicans are traitors” and you get 107 hits, while “All Democrats are traitors” will net you 1,270 hits.
So I just have trouble viewing all this the way you put it, as “cold, hard numbers.” As you well said in your earlier post “this is completely unscientific.” So I really am surprised that you would use this method to attempt to make the point that “Democrats use more vitriol in their language than Republicans.”
May 18th, 2007 at 9:31 am
Well, Democrats really are traitors - so that’s not a very good example.
May 18th, 2007 at 1:24 pm
Ah, Jeff, your comment in reply to Doug leaves me crestfallen. After my post about engaging in intellectual debate instead of resorting to name calling
May 18th, 2007 at 3:16 pm
Good grief… You could show a liberal a banana and they would swear it was an apple.
May 18th, 2007 at 7:39 pm
Although I agree that those leaning left are far more capable of voicing a personal attack, and actually having it heard…I still think it’s a futile effort to conduct these experiments. The time spent in this respect could have easily been used to continue to review history and further analyze the causes of hate on this planet. It’s not constructive to point out what you’re pointing out, it solves nothing.