There are more of us than there are of them

[Berzerker]

To "lose" the moral high-ground, you need to actually hold it. I have a hard time thinking of a time where the GOP actually had any sort of moral ground, not even speaking of holding the highest one.

The moral high ground is relative, the GOP had it after the Dems gave Clinton a pass and lost it with Trump. Clinton and the Dems delayed the metoo movement because they blamed the 'Bimbos' instead of Slick's Willie.

So a Franken level misbehavior is a fair trade for Moore? I see you acknowledge that the GOP has lost the moral High Ground, but you can understand that the Democrats are loath to make such a trade again.

All of the people that crossed the line have to be expelled from office eventually. But my suspicion is that the GOP won't play fair. We all know that I advocate against eating beef, but I've learned when someone points out my leather belt they often aren't trying to do anything but get me to not have a belt.

Franken for Moore was the trade the Dems made to gain the moral high ground, what Moore allegedly did was far worse but the Dems couldn't embrace Franken while pointing their fingers at Moore.

Ah, "both sides".

Dude, there's bad faith right there. The problem is one of escalation. At any point in time, the escalation can slow down. Claiming "they started it" doesn't work when the problem is escalation

Both sides think they're better than the other... So which is worse, a valid rape accusation against Bill Clinton or Donald Trump? If you say both are terrible is that bad faith? How do people opposed to these wars condemn Bush for Afghanistan and Iraq and ignore Obama for Libya, Syria, and Yemen? If you say all those wars are immoral how can you accuse others of bad faith for thinking both sides are responsible? "Both sides" is the good faith argument because its true.

I have one of these belts, I will never go back to one w pin and little holes again. Why would I want 6 or 8 possibilites when I could have infinite?

For the overweight those holes are motivation

 

[Synobun]

You don't find it daunting that there are strong odds that you literally don't understand their perspective? You're disagreeing on a balance of dilemmas. But golly, surely you should understand the dilemmas before proclaiming that you're right!

I can only imagine treating every philosophy class with strong certainty that my answer is correct, and the professor is saying "you seem to only understand part of the problem". Or imagine wanting a fitness instructor who literally didn't understand the idea of 'wanting endurance'. Or any other system where there's a multi-factorial balance.

If you're in an argument, and you disagree with what they say, is it more 'damning' to understand what they're saying? Or, is the fact that one party can only misrepresent the other position not a factor?

Now, it's obvious that you're in the cohort that doesn't think you can convince anyone of your position. But surely, knowing that you don't understand should trigger concern, yeah?

In other words, this thesis on 'indicting conservatives'. How do you know you're not just using a post-hoc rationalization of the underlying assumption that you're correct?

It doesn't trigger concern. These are the same people who look at people being stuffed into cages and go, "Good. They deserve it." The same people who see non-white people as morally weaker than their community. I have no interest in treating their perspective as worthy of consideration. We already know what their ideal world looks like, and it looks like a world that's very white right indeed. They want punitive measures for anyone who doesn't fit their singular mold. They want to hurt people who are different. If it were up to them, when they think of the world they want to live in, it's a world without "others." And if their ideal world allows others, they're only allowed to be other elsewhere.

What benefit of the doubt, what debate, am I supposed to offer to that? What should I be trying to understand? Should I be interested in knowing the reasons they came up with for wanting to hurt people? Should I pretend this is a matter of discussion and that one particularly compelling statement will sway them from "Hurting others is right." to "Hurting others is wrong?" What is gained by providing their rhetoric a seat at the table?

I'm comfortable with my post-hoc rationalization being "Hey, maybe don't base your worldview on hurting others." I feel it's pretty solid. If someone's worldview is different from that, well, they're wrong. I've been called a moral relativist before, but I have no interest in validating someone's "pro-harm" viewpoint as something legitimate to ponder and assess.

 

[rah]

Well my conservative friends outnumber my phobic-friends which is in 2019 down to one as everyone else came around, and as he said, "I'm trying to be better about that." Buuuut generally if I'm with gay or trans friends then he's not invited.

Maybe if he did, he would stop seeing them as the boggy-man. Heck I'll admit that I wasn't exactly gay friendly until I got a few gay friends and quickly figured out they really weren't that different. It has to start some place. Ignorance breeds fear.

 

[Berzerker]

It wasn't a trade. Dems got to swap senators in a safe seat and pick up a seat in a GOP state. All that was needed was for the WaPo to pick up some visas and guidebooks, deploy to the exotic land of AL, and convince people that Moore, who was a Democrat at the time, locked a girl in a car before child safety locks were installed in a parking lot that doesn't exist. In a coverage-driven sequence of events like this, there is no high ground or objective truth, just strategy. There was some benefit in it as well, because the media overplayed the strategy in their battle with Kavanaugh the following year and got what was coming to them. At the price of a supreme court appointment.

The trade was Franken for the moral high ground to go after Moore, but you're right the Dems had a strategic motive as well. As for Moore and Kavanaugh, I believe they lied. How did Moore lock a girl in a car? Even if you give the benefit of the doubt to the accused in a 'he said, she said' case, multiple voices erase it in my mind. Many women have accused Moore, Franken, Clinton and Trump.

 

[Akka]

You don't find it daunting that there are strong odds that you literally don't understand their perspective?

You're disagreeing on a balance of dilemmas. But golly, surely you should understand the dilemmas before proclaiming that you're right!

*chucke*

Good luck.

 

[Hygro]

That reads as addressed to me @Hygro, but just in case I'm wrong, can you confirm? On the general trend of believing the best of each other, believe me when I say I don't like starting pointless arguments.

Arguments in general? Sure!

Yeah gurl now get in there! I wrote that all on mobile even deleting paragraphs and rewriting. 2 hour drunk post.

 

[El_Machinae]

It doesn't trigger concern.

Then we need you in the 'raw power' or 'legal power' camps. There are oodles of people here who don't think that charisma matters (despite those of us who you don't understand suggesting that it does). And if you don't think that people can be swayed, then you're not of value on that front.

Do push-ups on your knuckles and earn moola. We'll need you at the Planned Parenthood marches.

Keep in mind, you should know there's a strong chance that you don't know 'what they want'. That's what triggered by incredulity that you didn't care.

 

[Farm Boy]

Been back on the treadmill recently. I'll try to make you break a sweat, old man.

 

[Narz]

They want punitive measures for anyone who doesn't fit their singular mold. They want to hurt people who are different. If it were up to them, when they think of the world they want to live in, it's a world without "others." And if their ideal world allows others, they're only allowed to be other elsewhere.

What benefit of the doubt, what debate, am I supposed to offer to that? What should I be trying to understand? Should I be interested in knowing the reasons they came up with for wanting to hurt people? Should I pretend this is a matter of discussion and that one particularly compelling statement will sway them from "Hurting others is right." to "Hurting others is wrong?" What is gained by providing their rhetoric a seat at the table?

I'm comfortable with my post-hoc rationalization being "Hey, maybe don't base your worldview on hurting others."

You're never going to get anywhere w that attitude. Are you being genuine in that fact that 100+ million Americans are basically horrible people who want to hurt others (and nearly 100% of some towns)?

A small percentage of people do actually want to hurt others but mostly people just have ill thought out ideas (encouraged in some cases by bad people and in others simply by uninformed people).

My mom is always sending me Jewish World Reveiw articles about how the free market and how liberal policies hurt the poor, blah blah blah. She's heard this crap for decades and is likely not going to change her mind in her lifetime (she's 79). Some whackos on this forum would happily call her a racist, ignorant, even worthy of deportation (yeah one poster fantasizes about deportation of anyone on the right).

I lived w a black republican in the heart of philly who bought the idea that the welfare state creates dependency and hurts his community. Saying he has "internalized racism" or some nonsense is just idiotic. He likes himself and his "people" just as much as anyone. He just bought into some ideas, which honestly have some grain of truth to them (having received government support at various points in my life I can comment on that, it is both a blessing and a curse).

The fanaticism and demonization the reactive left employs drives the divide further. Everyone turns off and becomes more radical if someone shrill is yelling at you, calling you evil and not listening to you AT all.

This is why Bernie, who isn't afraid to go on Fox News, and listen to the concerns of traditionally conservative voters would have beaten Trump whereas Clinton, happy to dismiss half the country as "deplorable" did not.

Note : I havent followed this whole thread so I may be misunderstanding your words. Perhaps you are only talking about a small segment of the right. If that's the case I apologize. But there are plenty of posters who will lump everyone on the right and even many in the center into this catagory. I'm pretty damn far left, imo, and yet I'm constantly under attack from such folk, probably even as we speak (tho I'll miss the silliest of it thx to CFC's ignore feature )

 

[Light Cleric]

Which party isn't constantly claiming escalation? Doesn't seem like I'm the one with "bad faith" issues in this context.

When you go to the White House with an infrastructure plan to discuss and the President tells you to go away and that he won't work with you until you stop investigating him - which is literally part of your job - who is working in bad faith?

When you pick a Supreme Court nominee that is more moderate than your others, and then Mitch McConnell refuses to give him a hearing for 293 days - who is working in bad faith?

When House Republicans in North Carolina tell the Democrats "Yeah, go to the 9/11 ceremonies, we won't pass anything" and then use that opportunity to pass legislation, who is working in bad faith?

I see a lot of "both sides operate in bad faith" but not a lot of actual proof and it irritates the living hell out of me that "both sides bad" is just treated as axiomatic.

You can't compromise or work with people when you come to the table and the people you try to bargain with flip the table.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

When you go to the White House with an infrastructure plan to discuss and the President tells you to go away and that he won't work with you until you stop investigating him - which is literally part of your job - who is working in bad faith?

When you pick a Supreme Court nominee that is more moderate than your others, and then Mitch McConnell refuses to give him a hearing for 293 days - who is working in bad faith?

When House Republicans in North Carolina tell the Democrats "Yeah, go to the 9/11 ceremonies, we won't pass anything" and then use that opportunity to pass legislation, who is working in bad faith?

I see a lot of "both sides operate in bad faith" but not a lot of actual proof and it irritates the living hell out of me that "both sides bad" is just treated as axiomatic.

You can't compromise or work with people when you come to the table and the people you try to bargain with flip the table.

I could counter with my own whataboutism, or I could simply quote this as a case in point, which is less effort.

 

[Light Cleric]

I could counter with my own whataboutism, or I could simply quote this as a case in point, which is less effort.

I agree, that is less effort than actually backing up the assertion you made.

Please don't respond to me if you're that lazy thanks.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I agree, that is less effort than actually backing up the assertion you made.

Please don't respond to me if you're that lazy thanks.

What's there to back up when you prove the point for me? You literally quoted a point about escalation by engaging in escalation.

It's kind of amusing to point fingers about supreme court nominees and talk about bad faith right now though.

 

[Light Cleric]

What's there to back up when you prove the point for me? You literally quoted a point about escalation by engaging in escalation.

It's kind of amusing to point fingers about supreme court nominees and talk about bad faith right now though.

So asking you to back your claim of "both sides act in bad faith" is itself proof of bad faith, got it.

 

[Synobun]

Then we need you in the 'raw power' or 'legal power' camps. There are oodles of people here who don't think that charisma matters (despite those of us who you don't understand suggesting that it does). And if you don't think that people can be swayed, then you're not of value on that front.

Do push-ups on your knuckles and earn moola. We'll need you at the Planned Parenthood marches.

Keep in mind, you should know there's a strong chance that you don't know 'what they want'. That's what triggered by incredulity that you didn't care.

I don't need to know what each individual wants, as history has already done a good job at showing what it ends up being. Like I said, this isn't a new cycle or concept. What conservatives believe in and do has already been documented, and the results have been bad.

But I'll get right on picking myself up by my bootstraps and no longer being a cripple. At least I'll be able to throw a fist when the conservatives slash my benefits and put me out on the street for daring to be unhealthy. Maybe I'll be blessed with understanding them when it happens, too.

You're never going to get anywhere w that attitude. Are you being genuine in that fact that 100+ million Americans are basically horrible people who want to hurt others (and nearly 100% of some towns)?

A small percentage of people do actually want to hurt others but mostly people just have ill thought out ideas (encouraged in some cases by bad people and in others simply by uninformed people).

Note : I havent followed this whole thread so I may be misunderstanding your words. Perhaps you are only talking about a small segment of the right. If that's the case I apologize. But there are plenty of posters who will lump everyone on the right and even many in the center into this catagory. I'm pretty damn far left, imo, and yet I'm constantly under attack from such folk, probably even as we speak (tho I'll miss the silliest of it thx to CFC's ignore feature )

It ends up being mostly irrelevant. That "only a few" genuinely believe in the creed is a pointless distinction when the ones who don't believe in it are still glad to support it. Someone voting to imprison POC and ban body autonomy for women doesn't change their impact if they don't truly believe in that policy. They still voted for it, and they're still going to bat for the people who froth at the mouth for it.

Is it 100+ million Americans? I doubt it. But even to this day Trump has the support of over a quarter of the nation despite being caught in crimes time and time again, being quoted as a specific danger to minorities, and is just all-around immensely cruel and disruptive. He's supported by people who willingly turn a blind eye to not one pattern of behaviour, not two, not even three, but dozens of consistent behaviours that would disqualify someone from authority, let alone the seat of POTUS. His inaction and action supports the very worst America has to offer. He derives joy from harming others. He encourages his followers to harm others.

So what distinction is there between a devout believer and someone who doesn't believe but supports him anyways?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

So asking you to back your claim of "both sides act in bad faith" is itself proof of bad faith, got it.

Your list of supposed bad stuff that only the bad guys do is an example of the escalation chaining El Machinae referenced and I quoted. Seems Synsensa's taking that approach too.

Escalating while quoting that discussion is an odd argumentative effort. Quoted seems to be sensitive about the possibility of being in bad faith for some reason, despite that all I did was point out one of the examples was ironic.

If you want reasonable discussion, saying someone is posting in bad faith as the first gesture you make is an interesting way to approach it.

 

[Light Cleric]

Your list of supposed bad stuff that only the bad guys do is an example of the escalation chaining El Machinae referenced and I quoted.

Escalating while quoting that discussion is an odd argumentative effort. Quoted seems to be sensitive about the possibility of being in bad faith for some reason, despite that all I did was point out one of the examples was ironic.

You know there are PACs that literally pay for ads and people to spout the same stuff you're spouting, right? Ditto for talk radio hosts.

You know why? Because it prevents the people actually doing garbage things from actually being held accountable.

Before you try to take the high ground with the same old pseudo-intellectual non-answers that completely avoid the question, maybe you should figure out why you're unwittingly parroting openly partisan people.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

You know there are PACs that literally pay for ads and people to spout the same stuff you're spouting, right? Ditto for talk radio hosts.

Do you think the Democratic party does not put money into misleading ads?

You know why? Because it prevents the people actually doing garbage things from actually being held accountable.

Show me politicians who consistently enact and follow policies which will make them be held accountable near the top of either party.

Before you try to take the high ground with the same old pseudo-intellectual non-answers that completely avoid the question, maybe you should figure out why you're unwittingly parroting openly partisan people.

You're claiming it's partisan to point out that both major political parties in a FPTP voting system do bad things regularly. You seem to be claiming this unironically, too.

It might be useful to review what the word "partisan" means!

 

[Narz]

It ends up being mostly irrelevant. That "only a few" genuinely believe in the creed is a pointless distinction when the ones who don't believe in it are still glad to support it. Someone voting to imprison POC and ban body autonomy for women doesn't change their impact if they don't truly believe in that policy. They still voted for it, and they're still going to bat for the people who froth at the mouth for it.

At one point a large majority was anti-abortion and for harsh drug laws. There is a ton of data now about how access to legal abortion is a huge positive to society and the war on drugs is a negative. That's what I focus on not calling everyone who isn't on board misogynists and racists (which numbs people out to just insults and makes them LESS likely to change their minds).

Is it 100+ million Americans? I doubt it. But even to this day Trump has the support of over a quarter of the nation despite being caught in crimes time and time again, being quoted as a specific danger to minorities, and is just all-around immensely cruel and disruptive. He's supported by people who willingly turn a blind eye to not one pattern of behaviour, not two, not even three, but dozens of consistent behaviours that would disqualify someone from authority, let alone the seat of POTUS. His inaction and action supports the very worst America has to offer.

Agreed. He's also a HUGE money maker for left-wing media. Selling the hateraide is much easier and more profitable than selling solutions. Focusing on the negatives of the enemy and promoting the wrong candidate is how the DNC botched up last time. That's why I like Yang and his relentless emphasis on his policies and unwillingness to get sidetracked hyperfocusing on his opponent.

He derives joy from harming others. He encourages his followers to harm others.

I don't think he's a sadist, I don't think he cares either way, he just knows how to play people to get the maximum attention. I see him as a wolf ravenging a village not a monster. He acts how he can get away with. There is too much focus on vilifying him and not enough on slaying him.

So what distinction is there between a devout believer and someone who doesn't believe but supports him anyways?

The passive-supporter can be educated. But not by focusing on all the negatives of Trump but by the positives of defecting.

If someone is in an abusive relationship that they know is horrible they often still won't leave until they are assured the alternative is safe/secure. Lot of Republicans are so jaded and afraid to be "****" that they have become the ultimate *****. Like it or not they need to be approached w compassion not "omg u r idiot/evil, now listen to me" (unless you don't actually care about conversion & just want to vent). Again this is why I like Sanders and Yang, they are willing to engage with the supporters of the opposition.

Edit : wow I cant use the shortened version of ****hold?

 

[Cloud_Strife]

Because at this critical junction in history what we obviously need is yang, a strident capitalist who wants to gut the government even more outsource it to the private sector