Discussion: The Problem With Blaming Both Sides In Politics

Yes, both sides are equally to blame, sort of in the same way that a match and a water hose are equally to blame for a fire starting.

I’m so sick of hearing that.

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If I had to blame anyone - I would blame the Democrats as they just have not been forceful enough in responding to the crazy antics of the Repubs. Just imagine how these Republicans would have dealt with the obstruction, fillibustering and useless, expensive probes of non-scandals had it been the Democrats that perpertuated what we are seeing now.

The Republicans made a pact to obstruct everything - even the most mundane piece of bipartisan legislation just to make a point. They worked hard to bring the country to its knees because they hate Obama - and government. Behavior that other countries would clearly call treason.

Why work for and draw a salary from a government that you so detest ?

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It’s really all about the Overton Window, or in the football metaphor, it’s about moving the goalposts down the field until your own goalposts are at what used to be your opponent’s 20-yard line.

Liberal position: Guns should be totally outlawed to civilians.
Former conservative position: Guns should be available with few controls.
New conservative position: Guns should be encouraged as a response to violence; open-carry to the point of waving guns around in restaurants should be tolerated; etc.
New liberal position: Can’t we do something, anything, even a little bit, to control this craziness? We’re willing to compromise, guys!

Net result: most people at least realize the NRA rules in the status quo, but they’re willing to write stupid columns about how both sides are at fault. If any compromise does come, it will be perceived as a concession, and Republicans will be hailed for bravely standing up to the NRA. So why can’t the Dems stand up to their [entirely powerless] left-wing?

Liberal position: We need to do something about health care costs and about the uninsured. Probably a single payer system is best.
Former conservative position: We need to do something about health care costs and about the uninsured. A mandate system working through private insurance is best.
New conservative position: Obamacare involves death panels and must be stopped. We need to do nothing about health care costs and about the uninsured, except maybe talk about them in broad terms and pretend we’ll do something about them.
New liberal position: We need to do something about health care costs and about the uninsured. A mandate system working through private insurance is best.

Net result: the status quo is now considered a Democratic win. So why can’t those Dems give up a little bit in return?

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What he said. But.
There are systemic factors that force the processes of campaigns and government to support politcies that bend the trajectory toward injustice.

Of course, one party is currently actively attempting to impose corporate oligarchy with bones for the religious right, and decimating government and democracy to achieve it. They aren’t shy about harnessing fascist energies.

The other has too many pols that are just a bit too comfortable, wearing blinders to the effects of systemic corruption (until its own survival is at stake with the flood of money the SC has condoned), and too often takes into account the interests of Wall Street and the security state over their own constituents. Even so, that party actually cares that people are jobless, hungry or ill.

Big difference. With Meri, I wish the difference were much larger.

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Those who say “both sides are equally to blame” comprise yet another part of the symphony played on the heads of the long-suffering American people. I say “long suffering” because, given the riches the country possesses, most of it goes (in an ever-more-rapid stream) to the top 0.01% of the population. But, make no mistake, “both sides are equally to blame” is an important segment in the Republican arsenal.

It is sort of like the distinction between different MOS’s in the US Army.

Rush and Talk Radio is another one.
FOX is another one.
The US Supreme Court is another.
The Republican Congress is another.
Corporatized education is another.
Corporate media is another.
The Confederacy is another.
The dominance of “race” as an issue in the US is another. 0.01%-friendly tax codes is another.
Outsourcing of jobs is another.
Destruction of labor unions is another.
Unliminted 0.01% money in politics is another.

etc. etc. etc

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I don’t know any liberal who denies that there are legitimate reasons for a citizen to own a gun.

What we deny is that there are persuasive reasons for private gun ownership that in any way justify the 30,000 deaths they cause every year.

And since the worse-than-pedophiles of the NRA insist that they will never accept any compromise, a total ban is rather easier to achieve than a partial one.

Yes, dead kids do trump Joe-the-fake-plumbers guns. 30,000 unnecessary deaths a year trump private gun ownership rights.

The onus is on the gun owners to prove that their hobby can be made safe for society. We have laws that stop private individuals owning tigers and lions unless they can prove that they can do so in a way that does not endanger other citizens, guns should be no different.

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The ONE thing Cokie Roberts, and her mindless ilk, do not want is anybody questioning their dubious punditry. It’s a mindless mantra they repeat for mindless consumption. Sadly NPR hasn’t figured that out.

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" T]he Left pretends that [the ACA] is a radical step forward to justice, when actually it is a very modest reform of the existing – exceedingly, unsustainably expensive – system, based largely on onetime GOP proposals…"

Actually its the “Centrists” that call the ACA a radical step forward, the left thinks we should have fought for universal coverage or at the least a public option, personally as one of the far left I don’t think ACA went far enough, that it relies too heavily on private insurers and yes it IS based largely on GOP proposals.

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It is a fact that Dems would be crucified for attempting any tactic the Pugs use, no matter how destructive.
The public will not punish Pugs but they will punish Dems.

Decades have been spent building the right wing propaganda edifice. It won’t be easily abandoned until it effects enough people directly.
Perhaps it would help if Dems offered a radically different ideology, aka Sanders and the Progressive Caucus. Perhaps it would help if Dems raised the battle cry against systemic forces that ensure people feel powerless and unheard.

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To access the money that flows from it for your political allies.

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The probem is that one side takes the rules of the game seriously. The other does not. One is an honest attempt to solve problems; the other is always an attempt to gain profitable advantage for allies.

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I dare say those ordinary folk don’t consider the expansion of access to be merely modest.

Actually, for me, it’s been a life-saver.

Mr Schindler, you can shove it.

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Nicely put Joan.

Yeah, liberals have always been getting it wrong by failing to see the justification for the other side’s opinion:

  • Slavery
  • Racism
  • Anti gay bigotry
  • Hunger

On all these issues the left should work to see the validity of the right wing point of view. After all if there wasn’t a case to be made for it why would so many right wingers support these causes?

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A list Schindler needs to address.

In the gun control debate (if you really want to call it a “debate”) the NRA has been promoting this idea that Obama has some secret plat to take away all guns. They also insist that ANY new regulation is “the first step” towards all guns being banned.

This is the kind of reasoning the right uses-- absurd conspiracy-based straw man arguments that they they actually believe– how does one debate that kind of paranoia?

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Is this a new strategery for RWNJ sock puppets?

Does it pay any better than the original disruptive, misspelled style?

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NPR has it plenty figured out imo, at least in the straight news dept. They’re weaving tapestries of free-floating worry, dread, and resignation Cokie couldn’t even dream of.

This. Both Shoor and Schindler equate the “Left” with Obama and mainstream Democrats. This ends up constraining debate.

.

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The rethugs are showing people, blatantly, what they will do when they take over the the senate - they cut funds meant to help the VA only to now ask for Shinseki’s resignation. Look at the farm bill as anpother example. You would think people would rail against this but we have a part of the population (specifically the red states) voting to hand the Senate to the rethugs and thereby cutting their noses off to spite their faces in the process.

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