Planetguy wrote:scroll up buddy. if you've read this thread you can see it was ted who accused the left of using "tactics" of ridicule and sarcasm...and it was ME who pointed out that the right does the exact same thing!
but somehow that makes ME guilty of hypocrisy????
I'm not claiming "victory" as much as trying to get you to engage with your own thoughts on the facts and reasons behind the disagreements between left & right.
I'm afraid to discuss it with you now, only because the "right" has jumped all over you in the middle of an unfinished discussion. Please guys....we're all brothers. Let each new discussion lead us towards higher ground instead devolving into a shouting match every time???
Mark, I'm sorry if that was the impression I gave you, but that is not the point I was trying to make. My point was that those on the left use ridicule as their first (and quite often, only) tool when discussing people who disagree with
policy on the right.
I have never disagreed with your assertion that those on the right "use" ridicule also. Our only disagrement (as I see it) is the degree, intensity, and strategic differences in the use of ridicule. This very thread shows that sarcasm and ridicule does come from the right also; but I posit that it is a consequence arising from frustration when those on the left won't deal with fact & reason. In other words, it is usually a
response (of the right) to ridicule when that is all we get for trying to debate something with substance.
So allow me to clarify the small details of that general statement by stating it this way: On the right, I see people who at least start out with a disagreement over policy and begin their debate about that, as opposed to attacking policy based ONLY on personal attacks.
I readily confess that the frustration of conservatism (as an ideology) constantly losing in the political battles has created a much more vulgar society as a whole. We are as divided as anything that happened before the Civil War, imo, but I also see that era as a political division over Constitutional Law. Slavery was only one issue successfully used (by Republicans) to divide Democrats morally.
I lament the balkanization of Americans today. Yet coming from a family with a long history of Democrats, I believe that Party has been completely transformed into a European-style of socialism that will only continue to destroy the rights of the individual in favor of a communal government.
I find it commendable that my liberal friends care about social issues of people not in their own demographics. I find it dishonorable that they assume the worst of people who simply have a disagreement with them on the best policy to achieve the noble goals we share. In other words, I do believe that most of my liberal friends have good intentions but we disagree on how that will be accomplished. They tend to look at government for the eventual answer, where I believe conservatives trust the individual will eventually make the right choices.
I believe all people should have the right to be stupid and/or offensive. In an open and free society, they marginalize themselves by doing so. But if this individual right is suppressed by law that forces them to hide their true position, these emotions turn inward and resentment turns to hatred, instead of allowing for any level of mutual understanding based on hearing another viewpoint.
kapish?