Why must every issue first be pigeonholed into Left vs Right?

[IDemo]

The hottest topic of the week by far - the TSA Scope n' Grope, has followed the familiar pattern: above all else, it must be defined as an issue which has strictly defined sides belonging to the Left or Right. Climate Change is the classic example.

I do not, and I am quite certain most DU'ers don't believe in or espouse any of the rhetoric from the right, whether it comes from Tea Party mad hatters or spasmodic tv and radio personalities. But when an issue such as airport frisking comes along with obviously questionable Constitutionality and results, it shouldn't mean it's time for still another predictable scramble to decide whether the practice should be defended or condemned strictly because of the balance of pro/con opinion columns and Palin Twits by the Other Side.

If you feel that the Scan n' Grab is fully justified because of security concerns, then feel free. But don't try to tell me I have been manipulated by a Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy if I disagree. That's just plain bs.

[leftstreet]

1. Because they don't want us talking about Ruling Class vs Working Class n/t

[The_Commonist]

2. +1000

That's it in a nutshell...

[JackRiddler]

3. Bravo. Our rights and liberties are not a team sport.

[TheKentuckian]

4. So those without any principles of their own can decide how to feel

[Historic NY]

5. Because the media thrives on this stuff it sells.

[AuntPatsy]

6. K n r

[krabigirl]

7. K & r

[Warren Stupidity]

8. This is a civil liberties issue, and as such

opposition and support crosses the ideological boundaries, and is instead a division between supporters of The New Security State, and opponents. Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich are on the same side. On the other hand the 'opposition to climate change' is rightwing idiocy at its finest. Consider that the opposition is not to climate change itself, it is opposition to the scientific consensus that we are in the midst of a human civilization induced climate change of rather alarming proportions, it is ideological opposition TO REALITY. With very few exceptions the division on this issue is in fact left v right.

[IDemo]

10. Most of the commentary I have read on this from the right is of the form:

"I caught a snowflake on my tongue this morning, therefore Al Gore is guilty of fraud." I haven't seen much from the right admitting that the planet is warming, let alone due to human causes. Discussions of scientific or economic issues seem to be particularly difficult for the RW mind to separate itself from dogma.

[Warren Stupidity]

11. They have a whole well healed set of 'think tankers' who

are employed to attack 'the consensus' on all fronts. This includes accepting the data that we are in fact in the midst of an era of rapid climate change, while attacking the theory that the cause is 'us'. For example, the specious claim that it is sunspot activity instead. Other attacks of course include questioning the data, but the data is rather overwhelming, so those attacks are not generally in the form of actual 'science' any more (although they were a few years ago) but instead, as you say, more of the moronic false noise variety.

[Poboy]

9. Been at this since the Patriot Act bullshit. Why should I abandon my convictions just

because the left leaders refuse to champion them? Civil rights is not a partisan issue, but it USED TO be a Democratic issue worthy of defending.

[SoCalDem]

12. Because the 25% of zealots on either far-reaching "side"

simply MUST make it so...and they refuse to see any "side" but their own..they also tend to be paranoid-ish, and see any difference of opinion-not-their-own, as a "personal attack" on their integrity and/or an extreme lack of intelligence on the part of the person disagreeing with them..

Unfortunately, DU has morphed into a place where many of these people like to call their home..

It was not always this way..(been here since 2001)

[somone]

13. I suspect many would heartily approve of waterboarding

if Obama authorized it.

[Kablooie]

14. Because up and down aren't political categories.

and no one knows what your talking about when you classify things as charm or strange.

[IDemo]

15. Sounds like typical quark spin :)

[PopulistLeftist]

16. animals always try to fit what they encounter into the world they know

go catch a great horned owl. Hold it captive on your gloved fist in front of you. If you place your finger in front of its curved beak, you would lose that finger. It reacts to your finger in the way nature has programmed it to do.

Now, if your hair is the same color as the feathers of the owl, present the top of your head to that owl. Will it bite your head? No, it will instead use that cruel beak to gently groom your hair. You see, your hair resembles the feathers of another owl. The owl's programs make it behave that way.

So too do "politically aware" americans, trained and programmed by years of centralized, corporate mass media, react programmatically to certain verbal stimuli. They operate off of word filters. Certain words and phrases will trigger certain behaviors and cause them to speak or type certain responses.

Also, both parties have platforms that have been molded by big money over decades so that the issues positions that now exist in both parties are positions that favor the rich. Mixing and matching using right and "left" would ruin those evolved party issue positions for the rich.

[IDemo]

17. Thanks for that reply, and welcome to Democratic Underground

Sounds as if most of us are almost Pavlovian when it comes to politics.