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

To: Rarebird who wrote (244283)	2/9/2014 12:03:33 PM
From: epicure	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 540697

I don't think genuine dialog is possible. The best case is that the two sides stake out their positions, politely, and then stop. Absent that (and it's almost always absent that) the two sides start to insult and belittle each other, over their political stances. Real dialog isn't possible because the two sides have such different premises. There will never be agreement- and it's about both sides, not just the right, although I'm not willing to allow for rational equivalency between folks who have rational arguments, and the folks who believe what they believe because they think they have invisible friends mandating their beliefs. But even with "rational" premises, there's little chance of change. The folks on SI are adults, often very old adults, and it's unlikely at this point in their lives they'll stumble on some "new" information which will change their minds. The right likes to think the left are morons, or clueless, and we on the left like to think the same about the right, but most of us have seen the same information, and we just want different things- so the information means different things to us. Because left and right have become so very different in what they want, I see no chance for rapprochement, and the more the right becomes driven by religious currents, the less it will have in common with the secular right and left and middle, and with the non-religious libertarians (who must be the loneliest people on Earth.) And let's face it, with the obvious acrimony between the two sides, it's unpleasant to have mixed political groups. And who likes unpleasantness? Well, the people on the unmoderated threads obviously- and they should be allowed their unpleasantness, but no one should be forced to experience that. And that is why there is a need for threads like this- and those little rightwing fiefdoms, where the rightwingers can keep things pure, or allow a left wing troll in so they can beat it up and insult it. And may they scratch their own itches however they wish- they just won't scratch them here for long.