| Mr Khan said: Have to take this piecemeal due to the fact that multi-quoting is a skill that eludes me. -Badgenome: I'll admit hyperbole on my part for declaring it a variety of anarchy, but in arguing with you i often find that you inject points into the argument that didn't really belong there in the first place, placing presumptions on my mode of thinking and then attacking those presumptions rather than my actual points. Remember also that talk is cheap, while action is the name of the game, and while there are hysterical elements on the left that decry spending cuts in an irrational manner, one must take at least part of that hysteria as signaling in lieu of belief. I would argue that the left doesn't believe in spending as a fundamental good, whereas the right believes in the lack of spending as a fundamental good, where the difference lies. -Kasz: again, hyperbole on my part regarding the "guvmint hands" comment. My point was that the hatred of "government" tends once again to be a core belief, rather than a practically applied idea, such that you see the Republican base embrace these oddly contradictory ideas where they try to bolt reality onto the "anti-government" rallying cry. Because the Right isn't anti-government, but merely uses it as a rallying cry, much like how they aren't truly anti-intellectual or anti-elitist, but use them as a rallying cry in a way which, i contend, is harmful to the national discourse. And therein lies the root of the matter. The shrunken American left relies on black-and-white matters to stay relevant (literally "black and white" in the case of race, where otherwise conservative poor blacks vote democrat because the other side has racist tendencies), but the Right runs a constant play for the least-common-denominator, reducing debate to a number of platitudes in a way that is more distinctly pervasive and actively discouraging those who seek shades of grey moreso than the Left, and when one side runs entirely on platitudes, can there truly be national debate? |
Again... I don't think you can argue that only the right does that.
For example... Mitt Romney isn't worried about the poor because he believes our social saftey net is adequate enough.
Yet it's portrayed as "Mitt Romney doesn't care about the poor and doesn't think about them!"
Many polticians suggest affirmitive action should be gotten rid of, primarily because it doesn't actually seem to work.
This is always mentioned as "He/She's a racist!"
When, a real national debate, Democrats would acknowledge that affirmitive action is greatly failing in a real way... and would try and argue for different programs, and a replacement of the old ones. (My suggestion would be a transformative assets bank, or if what we're really looking for is to have an ~ equal number of rich and poor, more focused effort on specific individuals.)
I mean, the amount of hyperbole and out of context reporting about Mitt Romney has been ridiculous. (Though that cheesy grits comment was hysterical.)
I wouldn't vote for Obama over Romney, but it's pretty clear Romney has been getting a bad shake from the media, and has been hugely taken out of context on a number of things.
Your only seeing it from one side, because you only care about one side.
