Alan Weiss’s Monday Morning Memo® – 9/15/25

It’s time to face some facts about political violence. I’m an independent and nonpartisan. This applies to all parties. (A few weeks ago a reader grandly informed me he was unsubscribing because he detected political bias in something I had written. Adios.)

I made a sarcastic remark on Facebook about our horoscope signs being changed because of some gradual shifting in the stars. I said I was going to change to Taurus, until I found out it was a failed Ford car from 2019. Well!! Someone, obviously wedded to the validity of astrology took me to task, saying that my “religion of sarcasm” was no better than their astrology!

This was an ad hominem attack, the Latin meaning, which is an argument directed against the person rather than the person’s opinion or stance. We’ve all experienced it, from arguments at social gatherings to presidential debates. It’s basically a resort to vilification because you either don’t think you have an intellectual response or you are so arrogant that someone disagreeing with you isn’t just wrong, but morally inferior and unworthy of respect or civility.

When you vilify a person—and we've all experienced this on school boards, in client boardrooms, at family gatherings, among strangers outraged at a conversation in which they’re eavesdropping—you demote them to non-equal and even nonhuman, inviting any kind of psychological, emotional, or physical violence. After all, they deserve it because they don’t share my “correct” views.

We have too easy access to guns in the US, and we need better background checks and longer waiting periods, and I think a restriction on automatic weapons. We have poor policies on the mentally ill, and we need, I think, better ways to help them by institutionalization and proper medical care and not leaving them on the streets. I understand you may disagree, and that’s fine.

However, the third component, less talked about in the media as much, it seems even relished by them, is the no-holds-barred profanity, invective, and slander addressed to those with opposing views. (I stopped sending funds to my Congressman when he hosted a notoriously profane Texas representative at a luncheon.) We have to stop rewarding people who perpetuate and sanction what I consider “hate speech” of any kind.

Kamala Harris called Joe Biden a “racist” during a primary debate for the party’s nomination. Biden later chose her for his running mate, because he believed a black woman would help him win the election. He was right about the outcome but wrong about the choice. I don’t believe you accept people who so freely attack your character in order to leverage their position.

Jesus said to “turn the other cheek.” But he never said to let them keep hitting you. That doesn’t mean to strike back physically or with slurs. It means you’re in a battle of the wits and other person has come unarmed.

Calling people stupid with no real solution of your own is a fool's reach for superiority. ― Criss Jami

Stupidity is something unshakable; nothing attacks it without breaking itself against it; it is of the nature of granite, hard and resistant. —Gustave Flaubert

Before you give up hope, turn back and read the attacks that were made on Lincoln. —Bruce Barton