RuralEngineer wrote:
MediumTex wrote:
Things run pretty smoothly here in general, but when the discussion turns to how one party has it all right and the other party has it all wrong things seem to stop moving in a good direction.
Is there anyone on these boards advocating for a particular party? Obviously I've not been around very long, but even the most liberal or conservative posters I've seen usually have plenty of condemnation for both parties. There's seems to be an overwhelming majority of Libertarian and Independent aligned people, so that's to be expected.
My feeling has been that people disagree about specific issues, some quite vehemently, but I've not seen anyone pushing a particular party, just particular viewpoints. With a 2 party system, it's going to be hard to engage only in discussion of viewpoints that isn't somehow attached to one party or another.
I think that if the topic is a political issue things seem to move along fine, whether it's abortion, gun control, taxes, or whatever.
The problems seem to arise when the conversation turns to the idea that if it weren't for the Democrats or weren't for the Republicans some of these issues would somehow not be as problematic. I'm not saying that this may or may not be true with some issues, I'm just saying that this seems to be when the wheels fall off of the discussion because it seems to turn from a search for truth with respect to a single issue to a need to defend turf if you happen to believe that one party has more of the right answers than the other party.
I don't mean to criticize this particular way of thinking and viewing the world, but a common pattern of thought seems to be that one of the major political parties is incapable of coming up with good ideas or leadership when it comes to
any issue, while the other party is doing a fair to good job of protecting us from the first party. What this pattern of thought seems to invariably do is find someone who feels the opposite way and it quickly becomes an argument over which party is right, rather than a shared search for truth that may consist of something we don't already know.
Here at this site there are probably more people who feel that the Republicans have many of the right answers, and there are a few who think that the Democrats have better answers than the Republicans. In my experience, these broad areas of disagreement seem to have little chance of enlarging the understanding of anyone involved, while discussions of specific issues sometimes seems to have better results. I don't know why this is the case, but it is what I have observed.
One of the tests for me when it comes to whether a discussion is worthwhile is to ask the person I am talking with to quickly make a case in broad terms for both sides of an issue. When it comes to specific issues, it seems like people can usually do this. When, however, it comes to broad ideological matters such as "What is the best reason to vote Democratic?" or "What have been the best things about Barack Obama's administration so far?" sometimes people just can't bring themselves to see the other side of the discussion. When this is the case, I would say that it's better not to have these discussions with people you otherwise like, because you run the risk of straining the relationship over an ideological disagreement that ultimately may not even be rational.
Maybe it's always been this way, but from my earliest awareness of politics I have noticed that many people seem to have a real
hatred for the leaders of the other political party. Any time I have gotten tangled up in conversations with people where this has come out I always marvel at the seeming level of
bitterness, disgust and even
anger they feel at the mention of the names of certain politicians. What's strange is that these people rarely have such strong feelings toward political leaders in other countries who have committed far worse atrocities than any U.S. politician, and that is part of my basis for thinking that some of these beliefs are irrational, even though they are strongly felt.
For me, I see so many flaws in ALL politicians that it's weird to think that the members of one party could somehow be more flawed than members of the other party. It would be like going to a narcissists' convention and spreading the idea that the brown-eyed narcissists are the really evil ones, while the blue-eyed narcissists are basically using their narcissism productively and for the good of society. Such an arbitrary distinction among a group of people who are all suffering from basically the same type of mental illness wold be silly. That's what these right/wrong political party discussions sound like to me.
