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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: carranza2 who wrote (17994)	5/8/2006 12:08:17 PM
From: epicure	Respond to of 543332

We are worse off because many people, including people on SI, are ever so willing to call the "other" side "traitor", or (when they are less inflammatory) "stupid"- but both chill discussion. That's the kind of thing that makes any real exchange impossible. When one assumes (as so many on SI do) the other side is just stupid, ignorant or evil, there really isn't much hope of rapprochement. And we see the same thing in the commentators as we see on SI. I don't remember a time (preClinton) when people were as vituperative as they are now. I couldn't stand Regan, but I don't remember the rhetoric on issues being as vile as it is now. Perhaps the internet has facilitated people being more vicious in general, since it often allows people to feel more distance from their words (just as emails often encourage people to be more boorish than they would be in other mediums)- but whatever the reason, I think John is right about the animus, and often personal animus, that has been injected in to debates that really don't have much of a personal component. I would bet a statistical study done on the number of personal slurs in articles, and attacks on the opposition (whoever they might be), would show an increase in dehumanization, and villification- used by all sides of just about any debate.

To: carranza2 who wrote (17994)	5/8/2006 12:22:54 PM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 543332

However, some people have the ability to gather a large mass of material and somehow make sense of it You and I shouldn't have to do that much work. Folks in a better position to do it--academics, media, think tanks, self-styled experts, government, etc. should do it for us and put the rationale and the bottom line out there where we can find it without having to sift through so much crap. As for the no-name pundits, if they are loud and controversial, they get names and they crowd out the useful stuff that might otherwise find its way into the media. I can sift through material in arenas where I have some expertise. I'm not about to get a degree in environmental science just so I can sort through a political issue. I blame the folks who turn everything into a political issue and dumb it down while turning up the volume in the process. And the people who encourage them. You can be an apologist for them if you like but I'm not buying it.