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[thom1102]

1. I see your point, but...

this is how I see this situation. The right has been stirred into a foaming frenzy by the irresponsible rantings of the right wing hate radio commentators. This has essentially gone unchecked for the last decade. We on the left have tried to be responsible about them, by not stooping to their level, by ignoring them, and by dismissing them as a radical fringe element, not realizing how effectively their message was resounding with the general public: people who trust the media and don't bother to check it's veracity. Now we on the left have had enough and are fighting back, and realizing that the only way to deal with them is on their level.

I personally, have nothing personal against people whose ideology differs from mine, and have no problem engaging them in an enlightened, and civilized debate over the issues. But I find it increasingly difficult to find people on the other side who shares the same respect for my right to have differing opinions.

[Cassandra]

2. Hi Pete

Even worse, no matter what we say, no matter how factual it is, they assume we're lying and have the most evil motives. True, I usually believe that of them, but am willing to consider that, like a broken clock, they might be right about something, accidentally.

[Name removed]

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[GOPFighter]

3. I've wondered the same thing

How can so many people see things almost directly opposite of each other? Strom Thurmond was a hateful racist (DU) or a Southern country gentleman (Freep); "Thank God for Bush!" (Freep) or "Impeach the Bastard" (DU) "Impeach the Bastard!" (Freeps about Clinton) or "Clinton's the victim of a vast right-wing conspiracy" (DU).

Amazing!

[TheUnionDemocrat]

9. It's partisan propaganda...From BOTH sides.

Nothing more, nothing less.


Add another to your list...

Liberal Media/Corporate Media.

[PunkinPi]

4. It would take both sides agreeing,

not to use personal attacks as part of the argument. Intellectual ideas can't be won if people (on both sides) keep resorting to kindergarten tactics (ie. name calling, etc.). Once that is established, they need to base there arguments on facts, rather than emotional response to the opposite side. Whichever argument has the most merit (based on logical reasoning and produces what is best for all people) - would be the best option.


"At least two thirds of our miseries spring from human stupidity, human malice and those great motivators and justifiers of malice and stupidity, idealism, dogmatism and proselytizing zeal on behalf of religious or political idols." - Aldous Huxley

[Frederic Bastiat]

6. Partisan arguments make for impossible communication

Neither side is entirely right; neither is entirely wrong. There is good and bad in both- there is ultimate truth in neither.

Fact: The zealots on the right will never agree on with the points made by the left.

I had a really good friend who used to debate with me on these issues and we were so diametrically opposed that, even as friends, we couldn't see the other's side because of the dogma involved.

Since I moved to Québec my understanding of the way things work has changed and I have come to see a lot of things differently. I've changed my stance on most the important issues- from war to taxes to free trade. (We have what you would characterize as “right-wing” government in Québec that has, in a few short months, drastically slashed corporate welfare and reduced deficit spending and taken a swipe at the dirgisme mentality unlike the previous “tax us to death” leftist government). Nowadays I judge each issue based on its own merit without any crap from some 'group' or 'preconceived notions of truth' to guide me. Isn't that the way it ought to be?

I've decided that the way American politics works is this-

There are two camps that have their own locked in voters. They are happy with that. They know that no matter what the debate, the lefties and righties will see their respective points of view regardless of the particulars, as long as they parrot the appropriate dogma. And then there are the swing votes. That's me. I'm willing to swing either way when I hear sensible stuff that will really make a difference.

Know what? Neither side is very good at this. It could be because they can't stray too far from their respective dogmas for fear of losing their core sheep, it could be because they aren't capable, but for whatever the reason, the result is the fact that real problems are never solved.

[rman]

7. the proof is in the eating of the pudding

what is the measure of success?
income distribution?
bank accounts of top managers?
number of prisoners?
trade deficit?

Since we'r on the left, it seems we'v already decided what's right and what's wrong.

I don't think it's practical to remain neutral untill such a time when we've decided beyond a shadow of a doubt what's right and what's wrong.

[TheUnionDemocrat]

8. "Mirror Image" is a good term.

We hate them...They hate us.

We destroy America...They destroy America.

We are communists...They are fascists.

It's nothing but a game of hate that goes both ways. Anyone who is honest with themselves will admit this. This is why I get so frustrated with people around here who claim they're moving out of the country or a number of other kooky claims. Things simply ARE NOT that bad. And when we're back in power there will be kooks over on their side who will screetch that America is dead and they're leaving.

Sigh...


As for who's right? We are, of course. :)

No wait...We're left and they're right! Now I'm confused.

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

10. Hate is a Tactic

The right-wing radio hate is a tactic. The actors (Limbaugh, O'Reilly, Coulter, etc.) don't take it seriously, it's a job.

The idea is to control who the public hates, who the villans and heros are. Republicans naturally want the heros to be Bush, so they worship him and excuse any faults he may have.

They want Democrats to be villans, so they attack them for any reason, good or bad, and spin or ignore anything good they may have done.

It's when they preach bigotry that it becomes more than just politics as usual - Savage Weiner and Dr. Laura and FreeRepublic preach outright bigotry, especially against blacks, Hispanics, and LGBT - and that sort of bigotry is dangerous and leads to race riots and bashings.

The tactic works differently for different groups - bigots become bolder, since they hear their bigotry broadcast to millions, liberals become quiet, because they feel like the minority opinion, and people who just don't know now have an easy target for their hate.

Notice the right wing NEVER criticizes business executives, CEOs, rich people in general, or corporations. Their villans are always "lower" social status then the listeners. That's part of the class war. That's why we have right wing radio but no union radio - there's money in attacking the poor, but no money in attacking the rich.

[baffie]

11. I believe in these cases it's crucial to look carefully

I do my best to take away all emotion and look at the balds facts as best as I am able to. Then I ask, is there really a right or wrong here? Some people like to view such conflicts as though both sides were just squabbling children - is that a wise view, or is that the shallow view of someone who just doesn't want to be bothered?

I want to always remember that there is a difference between neocons and true conservatives.

When I try to read the comments of, or dialoge with, people from the neocons (not the true conservatives), I find there is no dialoging with them - they are so full of rage, and seem to have no real ideals. Their whole platform seems to be anger and foolishness. Reading David Brock's "Blinded by the Right" brilliantly confirmed my observation.

In my observation, people on the left are of course flawed as they are human beings, but what I hear from them is real ideals, based on some level of compassion for life.

The best way I can explain what I observe is by using the Buddhist model of the 10 Worlds: The bottom ones are Hell, Hunger, Animality, and Anger. The top four are Learning, Realization, Altruism, and Enlightenment.

In my personal observation, the neocons represent the four lower worlds, and the left represents at least Learning, Realization, and Altruism. IOW, though deep down neocons are Buddhas, in their current state they are dominated by their fundamental darkness. And lefties, though they are flawed, tend to be more influenced by their fundamental enlightement.

So, long story to short, yes I do think there is a vast difference between the right and the left.

[THUNDER HANDS]

12. the only difference between conservatives and liberals

Is that if all liberal programs, policies and initiatives came to fruition, the right-wing would be annoyed.

If all conservative programs, policies and initiatives came to fruition, the left-wing would be terrified.

That's the difference. Liberals annoy conservatives. Conservatives scare the hell out of liberals.

[RichM]

13. Very tough question - can probably never be satisfactorily answered -

One difficulty in responding is just that humans are what they are; at some point, their political ideas almost necessarily are based on instinctive rather than wholly rational mental processes. It's hard to see how more than a fraction of the population will ever be able to transcend this. Things like fear & jealousy will always be with us.

At another (more interesting) level, there's the problem that what seems right for someone in one position in a hierarchy, may not seem right for someone in another position. If you take 2 identical twins and make one an oligarch & the other a serf, their identical pursuits of self-interest might make the first a loyal defender of the social order, & the second a revolutionary.

There would be an asymmetry in the 2 twins' arguments: the serf would be arguing for more justice for the greater number of people positioned lower in the hierarchy, while the oligarch would be arguing that the prevailing system seemed eminently fair & reasonable to him. It's hard to imagine, though, that the oligarch twin would often wind up being "won over" simply by the rational correctness of his serf-twin's justice-based arguments. "Power never surrenders anything without a struggle..."

[sirshack]

14. Winning the battle of ideas....

...and getting things right can be two different, completely unrelated things.

What it comes down to is many of the things we base our politics on are moral. What's right, what's wrong, what should be supported, what should be ignored etc etc etc. As long as people have different moral beliefs, they're going to behave different politically.

[DS1]

15. True to a point

but you're only talking about 5,000 people total between the two websites, and 1% of the population watching the dedicated right or left wing tv shows.

Nothing is as severe as either DU or FR make it out to be.

[ithinkmyliverhurts]

16. The problem we define as poltical is actually

a manifestation of philosophical differences. If we imagine that politics is the way in which to bring about a "just" society in which creativity and reason would reign (in all sortts of social spheres), then we see the beginning of the chasm that separates the right from the left. Politics has as first principle a devotion to a priori abstractions--i.e, theory. We then build political models (in which we can exercise power) based on this theory. Each side has its various theories of the best way in which the world will work. O.K., fine, but it really leads only to a power struggle. Today we see this manifested in wall-to-wall Orwellian rhetoric, a place where utopian theory actually falls to the wayside and reveals itself for what it always was: a power struggle.

Simply put, American politics (and the prevailing mode of analysis on this board) has always pursued the question of "why" in politics. Why get involved? Why am I even interested? (these two VERY broad questions can be broken down into smaller "why" sub-categories). Even the most beneficial policies ever created (and many of which I fully support) fall into this category. One may be seeking power for the poor, or the working masses, or the priveleged few (there was a post concerning a meritocracy versus a democracy that underlines this point); even if it's for the sake of "justice," one still seeks to wrest power away from one and deliver it to another.

I guess I've always been interested in the "how" questions. "How" do politics (read explicitly as history and rhetoric) function in our political system? Michel Foucault explains it thusly: "The real political task in a society such as ours is to criticize the working of institutions which APPEAR (my emphasis) to be both neutral and independent; to criticize them in such a manner that the political violence which has always exercised itself obscurely through them will be unmasked, so that one can fight them."

This position is, of course, anathema to the American poltical system. All political engagement is always already an engagement to reorder power relations. In any battle, political or otherwise, imitation is the foundation of all conflict. We are, after all, engaged in the same struggle for the same power. Politics simply gives it a language. But now we're at least VERY far away from the "why" questions of politics and scratching the surface of the "how." This, it seems to me, is the simple hermeneutic device employed by Zinn in his opening chapter of "A People's History of the U.S." He exposes his own ideology as ideology so that he can present it as narrative. The "why" being put aside (and immune from charges of sneaky ideology), he can center on questions of HOW did the Europeans achieve and maintain power, and how is power maintained. The brilliance of Zinn's book, I believe, is found in the opening chapter and in the very first "endnote" of his book (take a look at it).

To say the right desires power is a truism. Where I come from, this is what the left (and I a member of it) desires as well. I think this begins to explain why the two sides are so highly imitative of one another.

O.K., enough.

[Name removed]

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[ithinkmyliverhurts]

21. But we know WHY, don't we?

You can fill in the various rhetroical devices (and I mean not to diminish any of them): justice, individual freedom, workers' rights, small government, etc., etc.

Here's the root of our disagreement. You write: "If I can find an objective way to distill the arguments to their essence and then explain why Jane's position is better, I can 'win' the power struggle..."

The idea of finding an "objective" way is a question of the HOW. But a question of the HOW is inherently (within the realm of the political) a question of power. What you call "objective," I call mere theory, abstractions. Your investigation of the political still takes place within the realm of the political. Mine does as well, but at the foundation of my investigation is a consciousness of my particpation in the very process (hence not an "objective" position).

I certainly respect where you're coming from. What you articulate above is precisely a core argument of Chomsky, for example. While I can agree with his positions, I simply maintain that he is blind to the process in which he is engaged. For me, there is NO external position of certainty. For Chomsky, as both linguist and political observer, there is a human nature, universals, that if we just take the time, when can scientifically discover them.

One is always already engaged in the WHY debate. The questions is, it seems to me, HOW did we get here. What if "justice," for example, is itself an idea invented as means to a certain political (or economic) end, or to that point, an invention specifcally designed to fight that poltical power? We can choose sides, and declare which is more justified, but we do it within our own definitional parameters. And we seek to instill (perhaps after we "distill"?) justice based on this. But this is not objective; this is the implementation of an abstract theory. Because it becomes an employed theory makes it no less abstract in the theoretical sense.

Knowledge, as much as we can wish it to be true, is NEVER external to political struggle. Knowledge is a classic example of the greek pharamkon: it is both a part of a danger and a remedy for that danger, but never takes place outside of the system. Knowledge is simply the eyeball that can't look at itself apart from itself.

Politically speaking, I align myself with the left, because I agree with its ultimate ends of power (for the disenfranchised, the working poor, the environment, etc.). But I realize the game in which I particpate. It is, however, the only game in town.

[baffie]

20. It depends on what each wants the power for

Power is not evil in itself, it's neutral; it can be used for good or evil.

When one side wants power to gather wealth at the expense of the well-being of others, or to freely oppress whomever one wishes, that's one use of power.

When the other side wants power to promote equality, justice, accessible health care, a decent quality of life for all, etc., that's another thing.

I think there's a very clear difference there.

[2tb]

24. Your post confirms the original proposition in this thread.

"When one side wants power to gather wealth at the expense of the well-being of others, or to freely oppress whomever one wishes, that's one use of power.

When the other side wants power to promote equality, justice, accessible health care, a decent quality of life for all, etc., that's another thing."

Any number of conservatives would say that the "other side" wants to promote its own vision of equality and justice which is totally at odds with their vision of those attributes. Frankly, most folks on the left and right are trying to promote equality and justice, they just disagree on what those words mean. To cite one minor example many years ago Congress imposed uniform sentenancing guidelines for the federal courts because there were perceived disparities from one judge to another in punishments for similar offences. Some people think that that tended to enhance justice while others take the opposite view. Would justice mean all similar offences would be treated equally or would justice mean that a judge could take each individual defendant's situation into account? I doubt you could get much concensus on that question from just those who post at DU; national concensus on that question is probably impossible.

I have to agree with the originator of this thread, DU and FR are pretty much mirror images of each other. Each side hates the other because "they are evil and we are good". There is not much reason behind either sides position that that.

[poskonig]

23. Crackpot power worship is disgusting.

It is not even defensible, which is precisely its point. "How do you back up your claims?" "I don't need to, it is all getting hit in the head with sticks." As if human beings were machines. This is a philosophy of terror -- a pseudo-fascism which threatens to consume us all.

We would think people would get the idea what this stuff is about after after the Sokal hoax or Derrida's defense of de Man's fascism in 1987.

[Az]

17. Someone is definately wrong

But someone is not necissarily right. This is the swamp in which human nature finds itself. There are a multitude of views each claimging to be the right one. All of them cannot be correct. But we do not know if all of them are wrong. Thus a means by which to discern truth is necissary. But even that is a long and convoluted path open to error and misunderstanding. As such it must always be ready to challenge itself and change paths if necissary.

My advice is to look for a system or group that holds tolerance and a desire to understand in high honor and side with them lending your voice where you agree and attempting to guide where you do not. Thus through honest struggle and community you may grow closer to a path that is less wrong than others.

[poskonig]

18. Why base your ethics in deontological terms?

In other words, why not take a virtuistic approach grounded in practice? Go back to Aristotle and Aquinas? A divine-command morality doesn't make a lot of sense without a divine-commander, though some have tried various substitutes, whether it be reason, history, biology, pleasure, et cetera. Alasdair MacIntyre's "After Virtue" (1985) is probably the best book written on ethics in the last 50 years, along with Bernard Williams' "Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy," also written in 1985.

On a more personal and less technical level, I enter a discussion with a fallibilistic approach -- I could be dead wrong on the issue. With ethics, people will either argue for a non-naturalistic/rationalist view or a naturalistic view. Naturalists believe ethical terms can be reduced without remainder into naturalistic terms, while rationalists believe at least one term is ethically basic and impervious to analysis, such as right or good. With rationalists, one should try to have them make explicit how their conclusions follow from their principles. When discussing with naturalists, try to see if they can provide a good reduction. All of this while using common-sense terms without all of the technical jargon like "deontology" and "rule-utilitarianism," et cetera.

Bottom-line: treat other human beings with respect and trust and it is usually, but not always, easy to have a good moral discussion.

[prolesunited]

22. I don't want to sidetrack the discussion too much

but I think an even more important question is not how this occurs, but why it occurs. There is a reason why we are fighting this ideological war in the trenches: It is spurred on and directly benefits the ruling, monied classes in this country.

Think about the intractable issues that we are engaged in debating: Race, abortion, homosexuality. They are all emotionally charged issues with no "right" answer. I can have my opinion bolstered by facts and I may think mine arguments are stronger, but there is no objective litmus tests for these issues.

However, while we — lower and middle classes of all races and creeds — are arguing about all of this, we are missing the BIG PICTURE. They are creating a corporate-controlled oligarchy and privatizing all of which we once valued as public, land, airwaves, education, etc. They have drained the treasury and created a debtor nation that benefits those who already hold the wealth. They preach laissez-faire for big business but want to control what we do with are bodies and what we do in the bedroom. They contend ours is a land of opportunity, but more and more of us are going without adequate shelter and health care. These are but a few examples and I'm sure we could add much to this litany.

The bottom line is that I'm not really that different from my right-wing counterpart: We want a nice, safe place to live, food in our bellies, the dignity of work, opportunities for our children. What divides us is the notion of how to achieve these goals, a chasm fueled by ideologues on both sides of the aisle. And while we're fighting each other, the ruling class gains more power.

I have seen this power play in action, albeit on a much smaller scale. The community in which I work is about 50 percent Hispanic and 35 percent African-American, yet the power structure, including a mayor who has been re-elected eight times, is dominated by white men. Why is that? Because they throw out a few scraps from the table and while the Hispanics and African-Americans fight for them, they continue to dine at the banquet table.

I'll end with a passage from Orwell's 1984 that summarizes my comments:

If there was hope, it must lie in the proles, because only there in those swarming disregarded masses, 85 per cent of the population of Oceania, could the force to destroy the Party ever be generated. The Party could not be overthrown from within. ... But the proles, if only they could somehow become conscious of their own strength, would have no need to conspire. They needed only to rise up and shake themselves like a horse shaking off flies. If they chose they could blow the Party to pieces tomorrow morning. Surely sooner or later it must occur to them to do it? And yet-!
http://www.online-literature.com/view.php/1984/7?term=proles