Political commentary

[jhetley]

I don't like it any better when Democrats demonize their "enemies" than when Republicans do it.

Comments

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

*slow emphatic nod*

[wcg.livejournal.com]

Ayup.

[pernishus.livejournal.com]

I agree. There is something quite unlovely about the way political passions manifest themselves from time to time in a kind of -- well, just plain old meanness -- which otherwise lovely people seem in the heat of battle unable to resist.

I'm of the "resist not that which is evil, but overcome evil with good" camp, myself -- or at any rate try to be, in my nobler moments...

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

I think the proverbial straw (for me) was the almost Fred Phelps "God's righteous wrath" approach to the Palin Daughter pregnancy . . .

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Isn't it funny how the same people who are most eager to talk to you about their god of love who forgives all sins, also seem to be the ones most eager to threaten people with divine wrath and hellfire in retribution for the same sins they just got done telling you their god exists to forgive?

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

That, and more. I'm sick and tired of political campaigns based on dividing the electorate into "us" and "them" and playing "Right, let's stick it to THEM, not because it benefits us in anyway, but just because it serves them right for being 'not us'." The idea that anyone who does not think as you do is barely human and deserves whatever can be done unto them.

I am also utterly tired of "political campaigning" defined as "slinging all the mud we can find or make up". Susan Hammer, when she initially ran for Mayor of San Jose, publicly agreed with her principal opponent to run a clean, no-mudlinging campaign, and kept her side of it ... right up until the last moment, when she launched a vicious smear campaign too late for her opponent to respond. She won.

Sometimes I think what we need is some kind of impartial election oversight body, not allowed to take any money from ANYONE, with the responsibility to keep watch over elections and the authority to say "Right, you, out of the pool" any time any dirty tricks get played.

[johnpalmer.livejournal.com]

Well, the biggest trouble is that some issues demand nasty talk.

e.g., there has been torture done in the name of the United States. That's for sure. Whether it was officially sanctioned or not is questionable. How deep it went is questionable. Whether we can legitimately claim it was "a few bad apples" is questionable.

Now, I think America deserves a full, fair investigation into the truth of that. I reckon some would insist that a "full, fair investigation" is code for "a partisan witch hunt".

Now, here's the thing: who is being nasty to bring this up?

The answer is, you'll never know, unless and until you know how fair the "full, fair investigation" would be. If it was going to be a witch hunt, then calling for it was nasty and wrong. If it was going to be careful and fair, then opposing it was nasty and wrong.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

I think you're confusing multiple issues here. The investigation itself is just something that needs to be done. If that needed investigation gets turned into either a witch hunt or a whitewash session, then that's a problem, and the persons responsible are at fault, but it doesn't change the rightness of or need for the investigation itself. It's not the investigation's fault, so to speak, that the people assigned to carry it out perverted its intent and suborned its purpose.

[johnpalmer.livejournal.com]

Well... let's say I run on an "investigate!" platform.

My opponent runs on a "no partisan witch hunts!" platform.

Now, if I was out to burn me some of the other side's witches, I'm the one running a nasty campaign by pretending to want an investigation when I just wanted to hurt my opposition. If my opponent is accusing me of trying to burn witches when I just want a fair investigation, my opponent is being nasty.

So, during the campaign, which one of us is being nasty, or playing dirty tricks, or whatever, depends on something else, and it's something that an impartial judge can't determine, until some time in the future. You see?

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

I haven't noticed that level of dialog, to even bring up the question of "witch hunt" versus "whitewash". Dialog involves speaking and listening and then answering what you heard, not shouting insults and turning a deaf ear . . .

Both sides.

[johnpalmer.livejournal.com]

Point taken. But what I was going for was, politics can be serious business, and so sometimes there are serious issues, deserving of some level of nastiness.

I wish there could be a referee who was respected, who could call out players for "pointless venom" and "unnecessary bullshit". But I'm not sure it's possible, because there are going to be times where venom would be appropriate.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

And we're not likely to get closer to discussing serious issues with people throwing around phrases about how that unseemly baby-to-be ". . . serves them right, for opposing Sex Ed in schools . . . ."

Which I have seen in various places around the internet.

[johnpalmer.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that, in particular, bothers me.

Part of me... well, I posted in my own blog that I think it shows the failure of abstinence-only education, but that I sympathized for her situation. And at the time, it seemed like mild snark, but not nasty. And I regret it now, because it's gotten stupid.

There is no "serves them right". No one should be stuck with an unwanted pregnancy, and especially not for something her mother supports.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

That's far from the most toxic slime I've run into.

Hell of it is, I'm not looking for them. I *avoid* political sites and blogs. It's just what shows up on my normal internet rounds, here or on sff.net or alt.callahans.

[malkingrey.livejournal.com]

No kidding. It's always worse to see your friends behaving badly . . . you expect that sort of thing from your enemies, not from the folks who are supposedly on your side.

Watch them doing it often enough, and the little voice in the back of your head starts whispering, If they'll do it to those people, what will they do to me if they and I someday come to a parting of the ideological ways?

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

Heretics get treated worse than unbelievers, most cases . . .

[edschweppe.livejournal.com]

It would be a pleasant change to have the candidates talk about the real issues facing the country.

Not that I'm going to hold my breath.