Blind Loyalty vs. Common Sense

[austin78704]

I lifted this topic from a subthread of the "Troll Bust at DailyKOS" thread because I felt it needed attention.

Personally, I interpret a lot of the discourse here as blind loyalty to something somewhere. You criticize Obama you'll get some number of posters or unreccers mad at you. You criticize Nader you'll get some number of posters or unreccers mad at you. Same goes for any policy, politician, theory, academic, or whatever. Like it or not, wherever you draw the "blind loyalty" line, some fraction of this place crosses it. Somewhere else, you'll have some common sense observations from more rational folks. In between, you've got the grey area.

The grey area is what I'm getting at.

How would you go about sorting it out? You see a comment, it's in that grey area, what do you do? Ignore it? Flag it? Argue against it? Ask questions?

Now what if it's your own comment you happen to notice in that grey area? How do you guard yourself against falling for blind loyalty?

Since I'm the one writing this, in my own case, I used to be completely anti-gun. Got to the point I was automatically suspicious of gun owners. But then I kind of found out lots of my friends and family were gun owners and hunters and I simply didn't know that fact. It blew a gaping hole in my entire gun owner==bad premise and I realized that my entire belief was based on knowing basically nothing and having very powerful opinions about it. (yes, I still think the NRA is nutty, and most of that is due to their blind faith that all gun control == evil)

So for me, one of my red flags is ignorance combined with faith. If I don't know, but I'm sure, then whatever I have to say after that is bullshit. And on the flip side, I apply that to other posters' comments. That's why I don't get along with some of the commonly held notions around here; and the one that's specific to the thread that inspired this is "Just vote for Democrats no matter what." Nowhere does that idea require knowing anything beyond what "D" looks like.

I'm not saying you're wrong when you say that, I'm only saying that I don't take it for granted. From my way of thinking, I see that as blind faith. So when you pop that out there and then move along with the discussion as if all is well, I'm still back a ways, trying to resolve what you said.

Looking around, it's apparent I'm not alone on this. So instead of just convincing me, you have to convince us. And, of course, we have to convince all of you. To a point, I take it for granted that voting your conscience is best in the long-run, so I tend to just throw it out there and regard disagreement as a sign of blindness.

It's our failure as posters to recognize this difference of perspectives and address it honestly that's splitting most discussions into two sides: the side you agree with, and the side that's obtuse, crazy, or paid.

But maybe I'm wrong. So I'm asking, how do others around here determine what's blind faith and what's just common sense?

[leftstreet]

1. Blind Faith. Can't Find My Way Home. Awesome song

:thumbsup:

You ask interesting questions

[RandomThoughts]

5. What I have found is people want you to think the way home.

Is to follow them, I think it is learning as much as possible then following the better ideals they also might be following, not any person.

I think it should be about thinking and feeling, it is like people want you to join in for their cause, be part of their 'army' I think people should think and feel, and when they support the same ideas move the same way, but not as leader and follower.

But side by side.

I find that really interesting. People move the same way by being part of the same ideals but also with differences, not by joining some other group, not following people, but following the better ideals shown by many people. And in that I don't need followers, I think that would be wrong, and have succeeded in avoiding that, and see many people that move the same direction but not as a leader, or a follower but as on the same path.

I find that so interesting.

Then you are part of the same army, by ideals and thought and feeling, not by blind followship.


Side note: Just remembered something, for those that read the post on my Father Al. He worked for Ideal Cement company, around the time he was removed, they changed the name to Lone Star Cement.

I find that interesting.

[realisticphish]

2. blind faith is what you believe; common sense is what I believe

:shrug:

You bring up some excellent points

[pnwmom]

3. Obama is the Democrat. Nader is not -- not only that, he has

often stated that he'd prefer the Republican to win.

Since this is the Democratic underground, not the Nader underground, I draw the line at Nader and Green supporters coming here to denigrate the Democrats.

[babylonsister]

4. You're sort of wrong. If you had spent any time on DU during

the appalling years of the BFEE (bush family evil empire), you would know how abhorred they were and how the majority of us don't want to return to that.

I'm all for constructive criticism, but that doesn't always happen around here.
A person puts up a post, article, and link, from an accredited source, and then DUers still go at it. That's democracy. It's always been said that the Dems have a big tent; I don't think the rethugs do at all.

So we argue about what this admin is doing, has done, might do, but the majority of us are not at all in favor of giving the reins back to the rethugs.

[lonestarnot]

6. Keys damn it! Keys!

[sabrina 1]

7. Blind faith is when your team wins and suddenly you

accept and apologize for things that when the other team was doing them, you were outraged by.

You argue that it's better if it's your team doing these things because you trust them more than the other team and you try to shut up people you once agreed with when the other team was responsible.

Common sense is when you do not change your opinion on things you knew were wrong when the other team was doing them. Iow, when you apply the same standards to your own team as you applied to the other team.