The difference between "us" and "them"

[joeprogressive]

I have spent the better part of the last ten years trying to figure out why anyone would possibly classify themselves as a republican. There have been many discussions here at DU that break this classification down into the essential elements of greed, ignorance, and religious extremism.

After reading the post about FDR and reading through the thoughtful responses it occurred to me that we are so much more evolved than a freeper. We can analyze something that may or may not be a negative mark on the liberal cause and give it objective scrutiny.

I have spent time over on the dark side to get an occasional laugh or to see how they react to headlines such as "Bush numbers at lowest ever" or "Rush Limbaugh is a drug addict". They live in oblivion and are the most lazy researchers. They will talk about the most inconsequential things when the country is collapsing beneath their feet. They love talking points. In fact, if they didn't invent the talking point, they surely perfected it. It starts by someone posting a bogus stat such as "employment is at its all time highest in history of the US", which they heard on Hannity or Limbaugh. They will slap each other on the back for 100 responses without one person mentioning that total employment will always go up each year because of population increases. No, they are too busy re-circulating the talking point to realize their stupidity or they are too embarrassed or cowardly to call one of their own out.

Sure, progressives have their talking points too. When we say almost 2,000 US soldiers have been killed in Iraq, there isn't too much room for dispute there. Just remember, they will always have a talking point for every fact. "2,000 is a small price to pay for freedom" or "we are taking the fight to them so we don't have to fight here" It is hard for them to admit that Bush and his party have been a miserable failure because they have so much invested in their guy. I mean, to them it is better to watch this country self destruct than to admit they were wrong.

I hope we can continue to be objective at DU. When our side screws up it should be posted immediately. We should debate contentious points in order to get to the truth. This will work in our favor as the truth is almost always on our side.

I had a relative tell me last night that he is no longer a republican. He had been spewing the talking points for years. He even has pictures of himself with Bush, Ashcroft, and Delay. He is one of the most kind and compassionate individuals I know and would classify him in the politically ignorant/religious zealot crowd. I have had more conversations with him in the past six months than ever before. Up until then he was politically isolated from reality; only hearing the talking points.

So I just wanted to say thanks for the intellect and compassion that is shown on this site every day. I learn more about a broad array of subjects than I could anywhere else. This is interactive enlightenment at its best and I hope we never allow our allegiance to our ideals or party to ever blind us to reality. Give the other side the facts and many will come around. They are much more like us than we give them credit for, they just need to evolve a little.

[applegrove]

1. They need to stop letting themselves be grown down. n/t

[Face_in_the_Crowd]

2. It takes a lot to break down and analyze a situation....

for a lot of people change is not welcomed with open arms. One thing is for sure, those who imbrace change and intellectually process the issues at hand will lay the groundwork for the future...even if they are seen as "leftists" or "radicals" today.

"The radical of one century is the conservative of the next. The radical invents the views. When he has worn them out the conservative adopts them."
Mark Twain

[TallahasseeGrannie]

3. I ponder this a lot

and have come to the conclusion that AT THE EXTREME the right acts without thinking and the EXTREME left thinks without acting.

And the trick is to think and act. Balancing act.

I hesitate to characterize Republicans in general as lazy thinkers. There are some heavy duty thinkers over there. I think it is tempting for us to think of them all as fundamentalists, and I think THOSE folks are not thinkers. They want all the questions answered. I wish I understood what proportion of the people who voted for Bush are truly evangelical fundamentalists. See, the thing is, I live in a red state and I don't know any. So I just don't know.

On the other hand, I know that when I was in college back in the days of "the open classroom" (I am a teacher... this was a VERY liberal concept of education) we didn't ask a lot of questions, either. Many of us followed this no structure mantra rather blindly, I'm embarrassed to say. I remmeber once a professor cautioned me: "You know, you can be so open minded your brain falls out!"

So since that time I have tried to find balance between my thinking, feeling, and acting. I'm not quite there yet, though.

[welshTerrier2]

4. the dissension / reintegration process ...

thanks for your very thoughtful post ... there's no question that "we" are far more open to analysis and debate than the robotic, uni-minded "thems" ...

i did want to extend your analysis, however, to look beyond the openness of debate among Democrats ... i think one of the problems "we" have is our inability to develop processes to build consensus ... the best process, in my view, starts with a full airing of all views ... each and every Democrat should be heard ...

our internal party processes should allow opinions from all Democrats to be freely exchanged between common folks and "leading" Democrats ... too much in the Party comes from the top down ... we are a party of ad hoc candidates and ideas ... we don't seem able to build a consensus and then keep those who represent us on message ...

"groupthink" is a terrible starting point from which to analyze problems and propose alternative solutions ... but synthesizing divergent views into a consensus and staying on message is necessary to be politically effective ... "avoiding groupgthink" and "building consensus" are two ideas that can and should co-exist ... they are both part of the same process ...

[electropop]

5. I saw at least two ex-Republicans at the protest in DC yesterday.

One had a T-shirt and the other a sign. Welcome into the sunshine, people!

[pretzel4gore]

6. the herd, the sheep (w/out a shepherd) the 'masses'

recalling the imbroglio over the taking of pictures of the dead, it seemed that the gopigs were being precious with their concern for the 'dignity' or feelings of the victims and families, it appeared indeed they were using the victims - this goes on everywhere, often called political correctness, but it often seems like an excuse to hide unpleasant facts in the larger interest of bush and all the crap that the name bush has now become synonomous with. Yet perhaps the entire recent reagan/bush rightwing extravaganza suggest a certain consistancy in their thinking. IE: the individual before the collective, the private before the 'public' etc, which is another way of saying the strong before the weak, the rich before the poor and so on....but our entire social order has been in reaction (notice how the pig somehow paints himself as the 'reactionary' as if in caveman days the community dictated to the strongman!) to exclusivity, to abuse of power, and in the separate rules for citizens operating under exactly same circumstances....the 'law' evolved entirely in an effort to protect the 'masses' or the weak/poor from the rapacity of the strongman/upperclass twittery/rich. And our history is precisely that: a battle for 'dignity' by members of the herd, a battle for power over their own lives against mindless stupid cohersion by goofs (upper class twits)... Yet the gopigs, or nazipoos, or busheviks, or however you call them (not 'republicans'...republicans were the good guys in US civil/spanish civil wars!) have somehow taken the lifelong effort of humanity for survival and turned in into 'my struggle'

[eallen]

7. Political parties are always compromises.

For an individual, party affiliation may have little to do as much with what trends the individual most wants or fears, as with simple ideological alignment. At the wacky end of the GOP lies the religious right. At the wacky end of the Democratic Party lies those who think that capitalism is evil and has to be eliminated.

There was a time in the 70s -- when tax rates were high, when every public problem seemed to generate a new bureaucracy, when the worldwide ideological battle was capitalism vs. socialism -- that it made quite a bit of sense to lean Republican. That was then. Today, the Soviet Union is dead, every nation in Europe has a capitalist economy, China is half-capitalist and becoming moreso, tax rates are moderate, and the desire for a kind of socialism that does away with an underlying capitalist economy is pretty much dead, except in North Korea and Cuba. Even a leftist leader like Chavez has no desire to see his stock markets plummet, or to eliminate them. It's too bad he doesn't persuade Fidel of the benefits to the legal and economic environment that leads to a stock market. (As an aside, I totally reject the free market fundamentalism that treats every social program as a threat to capitalism. That's nonsense, whether from those on the far right who want to eliminate social programs, or those on the far left who want to vilify capitalism.)

The battle between capitalism and socialism largely is over. Today, the ideological war of importance pits religious fundamentalism against liberal democracy. The wackos on the right are not just wacko, but nascent. The GOP is dangerous, not just because it has wackos in it, but because its kind of wackoism is what most threatens liberty, democracy, and science. Today. So, no, I don't see how anyone reasonable can support the GOP in 2005. But that has as much to do with today's political realities, as it does with going down a list of political issues, and figuring out which party matches against the majority of them.

[cassiepriam]

8. Brains and moral compass.