I think you have to view these things more as part of the endless “Bush is Evil” propaganda stream. It matters not at all whether there is anything objective behind the acusations– just that you respeat them over and over. If the President went to a PTA bake sale it would be because he favored child obesity and corporate flour makers. If/when they succeed in putting Democrats in control of the Executive, all of these horrible things to which they object will become suddenly benign. Did we hear the same level of hysteria from the left when Senator Obama suggested that invading Pakistan was a viable tactic? Imagine if President Bush had said that.

Dr. Sanity pinpointed something interesting in this article, but this way of doing things is not always relevant to hysteria. And when not, then it is relevant to a technique practiced by people who learned it, and perfected it through multiple little experiences and rehearsals.

I explain.

The problems of the leftist rhetoricians are several. First, they are not necessarily well educated because they often come from the labor class where they were taught contempt toward the rich and the empowered. This implies that they feel they must be “simple” and refrain from “succumbing” to all exterior marks which characterize their natural and eternal foes: the bourgeoisie and the affluent society.
These thus banned marks which are described and perceived as expressions of snobbery are mainly: good education, politeness and fairness, sophistication in arts, high technology, expensive goods of consumption, dressing code, and even corporal cleanliness.

This leads to a progressive transformation which make them behaving as labor class people is supposed to do, if ever they are sincerely convinced believers coming from upper classes. In his Little Red Book, Mao Zedong warns his followers about the danger of “succumbing” to the prestige accompanying higher positions within the ranks of the Party (i.e. the Communist Party). He recommends that those who succumb to this “weakness” must be downgraded and be sent to work on manual agricultural tasks which will force them to get back to the middle of the unskilled workers they are supposed to protect and serve. Thus they will learn “humility” and will feel, again, as part of the popular (or working) masses. Here they will be compelled to eat simple and poor meals, drink cheap wine, and wear the simplest clothes. The process aims at breaking individuality and self-esteem and to make them receptive to indoctrination.

In sum, this is an authentic brainwashing process whose following steps may include the teaching of certain techniques of rhetoric I will describe below.

In civilized and non-communist countries it is not possible to openly perform such brainwashing process and things cease to be explicit to borrow, instead, to implicit forms of encouragement to equally implicit obedience.
In this other case the “punished” will loose his position, his friends and relatives, and will undergo petty forms of harassment until he yields to this implicit, informal and unofficial authority which acts “underground.”

Those who are naturally endowed with what we familiarly call a “big mouth” and who feel unconcerned with the notions of fairness and courtesy can be selected for an informal training whose objective is and to organize these anarchic expressions of vulgarity so as to make them a redoubtable “weapon” against those who respect the rules dictated by the “establishment.”

They’ll be taught that most people tend to believe those who are the last to talk, and who talked the loudest, and who seems the most convinced by their own opinions during a discussion or a debate; no matter how absurd and irrational is the content of the proposition or argument. Adolf Hitler knew all this and he developed this skill for himself to the point that he used it with exceptional talent. Didn’t he seem hysteric when we listen attentively to old records of his public speeches?

The good practitioner of this special discipline learned that he must manage by all means to leave his opponent the less opportunity possible to express himself and to counter his arguments with little regard for fairness and courtesy. He must steal his opponent’s thunder and never hesitate to interrupt him in raising his voice so as to cover his and in affecting the tone of indignation and revolt.
By all means and however he did rally the majority on his side or not he must always pass as “the victim” or represent “the victims” in the face of his attendance; and always turns the argument of social justice in favor of his own interests.
He must loudly accuse his opponent, again and again, and ridicule him each time it is possible to do so in managing to make others laughing so as to unsettle and to overwhelm his mind and arouse anger in it.
When meeting an equally skilled opponent he must permanently hijack the matter at hand and struggle to shift from one subject to another so as to find the ground, at last, on which the opponent seems to be the least at ease.
As the skilled radio caster does he must make his speech an uninterrupted thread and avoid pauses so as to overwhelm the audience and not let it time for thinking.
Also, he will do his best to appear as the sympathetic, simple, and warm person who, above all, care for others. Those others must be the majority which is, in most cases, made up of the poorest and the least educated. That’s why it is of utmost importance not to be sophisticated in one’s way of talking and to address to passion rather than to reason.

Once one masters all these tricks, then he will be able to win the heart and mind of many and so to fool them with the most absurd theories and arguments. And once this will be successfully accomplished the smartest opponent will experience the greatest difficulties at calling the attendance back to reason; especially if this opponent uses logical and rational arguments in a scholar-like manner.