Right, left, right, left, right, left, right, left, right, left, right, left, right, left, right. One is right and one is wrong... right? Does everything have to have a partizan angle?
Since it is folly to expect conservatives to surrender the emotional pulpit (since it has worked so well for them thus far) why should liberals not stoop to it as well? To expect your opponents to give up your own weapons and tactics out of decency is folly. The enemy does not do what you want them to do. That is is why the enemy is called the enemy.
Please. Please. Liberals invented the appeal to emotion as a political tactic. Their goofy reality-impaired view of the world has no basis in reason, leaving them with only emotion.
Meh. Liberals rely on pity and shame, Conservatives depend on fear and outrage. Tomato, tomato. That doesn't work as well in writing.
I found it absolutely pointless to talk to Americans about the whole left vs right thing ages ago. Just sayin'.
Don't kid yourself. Liberals depend upon fear and outrage in equal measure. Guns, [-]hole in the ozone[/-] [-]global warming[/-] climate change, immigration (a bit of that from both sides, to be fair), Sarah and Bristol Palin (quite a bit of outrage on that count in the last few days right here at home). Both sides of the aisle have their fingers in the "fear and outrage" pie.
Tell you what. You get Glenn Beck to make a public statement that he's a Big Fat Liar and he takes back every vicious thing he's ever said, and I'll write to some people about this.
Tell you what. You get the organizers of every anti-Bush protest on the mall in DC to admit they're raving lunatics and they take back, oh behalf of the crowds which they incited, every vicious thing that was ever said at those rallies, and I'll starting writing that letter to Beck.
In this case YES and I'll tell you why: It is inevitably the LEFT who says "everyone should be nicer! These mean mean nasty right wingers who are racists, bigot, gun-crazy, violent, hate-mongers need to simmer down!!!" It's NOT the right who starts the conversation by saying that the left are big meanies. So, when in point of fact people on the left hypocritically display the behavior they profess to lament when they find it on the right, that's worth noting and it can't help but be noted in a right/left paradigm. It is EXACTLY the same as when the right says, in so many words, "the left is full of heathen sex-crazed people who have no self control or family values" and then one of them (Sanford for instance) and pisses all over "family values" then the left gets to - rightfully! - say "look at the hypocritical right wingers" and yes, that MUST be presented in a right/left paradigm because it's the right that crows about family values. So, does EVERYTHING have to be right-left? Oh hell no. Can you argue NOTHING should be right-left? That's every bit as silly.
they shouldn't give it up - I said after the Giffords shooting i'm for wide open speech. what they SHOULD do, if they wish to have credibility, is stop crying about civility if they do not wish to BE civil. "Civility for thee and not for me" is bullshit.
I think it has more to do with a person than it does with politics (I feel this way toward religion too). No matter what you believe, it's all about the core of who you are. I would go out on a limb and venture that most liberals and conservatives are good hearted, honest people with good intentions. What happens is people are people, and so they get scared, they get scared that something bad will happen if others don't accept their conclusions, and in some cases, those people lash out and declare those that don't adhere to that ideology to be destroying the planet or abolishing the importance of family, and so it goes back and forth. It's not a left/right thing, it's a human thing, and it probably won't change anytime soon.
I don't disagree, John, however, I think that it would be dialed back quite a bit if weren't for the fact that both media and politicians keep fanning the fire.
From your lips to god's ears. When you (general you) start calling someone on the other side of the political fence "the enemy" or out to bring down civilization, you reinforce the idea that the "other side" is evil and must be stopped at all costs.
But that's exactly my point in starting this thread. the problem is NOT "lack of civility" Be it by Beck or his political foes. The problem here is hypocrisy - "Yall play nice while we paint you as the scum of the earth" Given that reality, Beck is under no obligation to make any public statement.
