[quote]HangerBaby wrote:
Why can’t two parties get along without slinging shit over the most ridiculous things?
Apparently if someone doesn’t support the war
they’re a LIB
and we allll know LIB is a bad thing
and if someone voted George Bush
they are a neocon
and we alllll know about those neocons.
Someone please explain this hatred to me, I am not seeing the difference between this and religious sect violence (besides the fact that ‘mericans are big sissies and wont shoot nothin’)…[/quote]
I’ll take a shot at the OP - I think it has to do with the proliferation of reflexive hacks on both sides of the aisle. Many political folks - those who pay attention to politics a fair amount and have formed opinions - are convinced they have politics all figured out and have no need to engage the “other side” in good faith.
In other words, one side assumes the other side to always be acting in bad faith - if a person argues for a tax cut, the reflexive Leftie doesn’t think the tax cutter believes a tax cut is a good thing for society’s prosperity: he is selfish, stupid, and evil, not just wrong. If a person argues for a tax raise, the reflexive Rightie doesn’t believe the tax raiser has a good faith reason to offer the argument: he is the enemy of production and a thief.
We see it here constantly - a reflexive ad hominem the moment a substantive political discussion is started on a candidate or an issue. Think Affirmative Action is a bad idea? You are labeled a racist and the conversation ends. Think Universal Health Care is a good idea? You are labeled an enemy of capitalism and the conversation ends.
Not only is it bad, it dovetails on an earlier point made about “moron voters” - if there is a “moron class” of voters, it’s likely that class of fairly politically interested folks that know just enough to think they have it all figured out, but not enough to be able to engage other ideas in good faith because they either don’t know as much as they think they do or too unprepared to actually have to defend their ideas, rather than have a bunch of bobble-heads nodding in unquestioning agreement.
In my humble view, that is the biggest distraction to what we call bipartisanship, Alexander Pope’s maxim:
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring; There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain; And drinking largely sobers us again.
Too many politically interested folks won’t drink deep - look no further than these threads - and with a little knowledge, suddenly they are smug and dangerous. The more you “know”, the more interested you are in hearing what the “other side” has to say.