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

To: Bearcatbob who wrote (50933)	2/29/2008 8:49:53 AM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 542903

Your essay would have been stronger had you given examples from both sides rather than attributing the categories to both sides but giving examples from only one.

To: Bearcatbob who wrote (50933)	2/29/2008 9:19:42 AM
From: JohnM	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 542903

From my perspective on the right I see three broad categories of leftist opposition. I believe the same three categories exist on the right from the perspective of someone on the other side. I'm having a hard time understanding your argument. Your first category of principled opposition consists, I gather, of people you know, who don't share your views; the second category appears to consist of people you don't know who don't share your views. Would it be fair to say that if your wife disagrees with you about global warming, that's principled opposition, but if someone on this board does so, it's "looney left." That's the first problem with the categories. The second is that you get awfully close to saying anyone who disagrees with you, from what you consider a "left" perspective, is part of the looney left. Let's take global warming as an illustration. The overwhelming accumulation of evidence is that global warming is occurring and human activities contribute, rather heavily, to it. Do you consider all that scientific evidence, "looney?" The third problem with your categories is that, while you offer a slight phrase to say you think they characterize both right and left, you apparently only see them on the left. Thus, the phrasing of right and left looks gratuitous. I assume you are serious about this. If so, it would be interesting to continue this conversation. My own view is that there are sins across the spectrum of political views (I have a hard time with the right-left distinction but will use it for short hand purposes), but those sins are human sins not ones derived from political views. To illustrate that ever so slightly, I find folk with rigid commitments to ideological points of view to largely be very rigid in their approach to life. So it's a psychological predisposition well before it's a political point of view.

To: Bearcatbob who wrote (50933)	2/29/2008 9:22:48 AM
From: Dale Baker	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 542903

So much of what goes on in Washington is a naive muddle; you can call it looney but I just think of it as stupid and self-serving. Every bizarre economic theory under the sun gets trotted out and tried eventually while we ignore the fundamental, structural problems of our borrow and spend addiction. Energy policy is an intellectual void on both sides of the aisle. I rarely see anything smart done in that area. Most foreign policy pronouncements come from folks who know little or nothing about countries and cultures outside our own. We make up what we would like to believe should happen then promise that it will. When it doesn't work we start pointing fingers and blaming domestic opponents. Makes me wonder why I devote the time I do to political subjects. It's a nice release valve from market stuff, and I can't resist dabbling in my old profession. But there is plenty to bitch about on the left and the right. That's why I'd like to see someone try a whole new paradigm. It can be any dumber or counterproductive than what we have now in the name of naked partisanship.

To: Bearcatbob who wrote (50933)	2/29/2008 5:09:07 PM
From: Cogito	Respond to of 542903

BCB - Good post. Thoughtful. Just to add to what you said, I think you would agree that the three broad categories don't cover everyone on either side. For example, I do believe that Bush and the other main drivers of the Iraq conflict manipulated and misled the American people intentionally, though for the most part they were careful not to actually "lie". On the other hand, I see no need to "destroy" the Republican party, conservatives in general, or even the political evangelical movement, though I do consider the latter to be dangerous. I believe there is more common ground between the left and right than most people are able to see. I believe that if people come together in the spirit of cooperation, and try to solve problems, without regard to which "side" the solutions come from, we might actually get somewhere. - Allen