It has been my experience, having spent some time posting on both left leaning and right leaning comment boards, that in terms of methodology and tactics of the two sides have more in common than in difference.
There are goodly percentages on both sides that are ideologically hidebound to both party affiliation and visceral hatred of any and all who they perceive as or have been told by leadership is the "enemy".
That said I find the leftists to be far quicker to leap to generalizations, name calling and outright viciousness when it comes to responding to any content they don't agree with.. Present them with hard facts and reference historical source materials and the reactions can grow to bordering on violence. Whatever the reaction don't ever expect them to respond with a logicly constructed counter argument. It happens but not very often. Engaging in open, honest debate is the last thing they want to do. When they can't counter an argument they resort to distraction, accusations , name calling and vilification.
Again there are elements on both sides of the aisle that are guilty of this. Both parties suffer from a form of atrophy.. The Democrats have not had a new movement, new idea or direction come forth since the hard left took control of the part in 1972 with the nomination of George McGovern. The Republican elites reestablished control after the Regan presidency with George H. W. Bush and has fought tooth and nail to retain it ever since. They fear and loath the emergence of the so called "Tea Party" as much or more than the democrats do.
And no this is NOT an endorsement of the Tea Party on my part. They are as naïvely wedded to economic free trade policy as any capital R republican or capital D democrat establishment type. Both parties are deeply dependent upon the financial elitists and imperialists that have pushed this false notion since before the American Revolution. These forces don't really care which party claims "control" of the government just as long as it is their agents that maintain control over economic policy.
Anyone who doubts this need only look at the pedigree of those who have held the post of Secretary of the Treasury over the last decades. The names of Goldman Sachs, J. P. Morgan etc. come up over and over again regardless of that party occupying the White House or in control of Congress. They are not there to serve the best interest of the party or the administration or the American people. They are there to maintain policy continuity and control by the financial elites.
They happily set one side against the other, encouraging and financing the most vicious behavior for the singular purpose of keeping the general populace distracted from their continued accumulation of wealth and power.
The Tea Party may be right when calling for the return to founding principles but they will be destined to failure unless and until they also call for the destruction on the power of the financial elites and the return to sound asset based monetary policy. Something that believe it are not, there are elements within the traditional old school Democrats, would agree with.
Getting past the ideological horse blinders and conditioned hatred is and will remain a most difficult obstacle for both sides to overcome. And that is just the way the financial gods of Wall Street and the City of London want it.
In spite of their long standing animosity both Jefferson and Hamilton were right when it came to the need for an open an honest American financial system.
"All we ask is to be left alone"
ReplyDeleteFat chance, again.
I generally agree.
ReplyDeleteBut I have one exception - and it is with the paragraph that starts thus:
"That said I find the leftists to be far quicker to leap to generalizations, name calling and outright viciousness when it comes to responding to any content they don't agree with.."
I believe the opposite is true. From my observation the republicans are currently far more prone to this behavior. But I also believe that this is because the democrats control the White House. It would likely be the opposite if the republicans were in control.
The republicans lambast the democrats for their liberal ideology - that loving, all inclusive, warm and fuzzy, Kumbayah, notion that we are all brothers and there is good in everyone. But that very ideology makes them less prone to the viciousness that I see coming from the republicans.
You are of course entitled to your opinion, but one not delve too deeply into the likes of daily kos or Huffington post or liberland to find the blind hatred and rage I speak of.
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