Letters to the Editor
Published Letters: 54 Editor's Choice: 3
-
Politics is everything? Seriously?
[Read the article: How can I love my Republican parents?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I find those of you who write as if politics is just ideas and we each have our own-- many of you think this is as far as one can go in liberal sophistication-- to be appalling. These Republicans and Democrats and Communists and Fascists, etc. have very much to answer for. Republicans, for example, play at tormenting young women about the means of their reproductive health, make a mockery of environmental science, export risk around the globe and deny they live at other peoples' expense, support but do not argue for torture and bottomless surveillance, murder in war....
See, this is exactly the problem with this sort of over-simplistic (and monstrous) analysis. You're judging someone who disagrees with you from your perspective of their motives and results. It's as fair to say that Republicans "play at tormenting young women" as it is to say that Democrats enjoy torturing and killing babies; both perspectives miss what the other "side" thinks is the core issue.
Even leaving aside the folly of speaking of Republicans or Democrats (or any political affiliation) as if they were all one seamless bloc of like-minded individuals, this kind of language is inherently divisive. Democrats don't think of themselves as being coddlers of the criminal element; Republicans don't think of themselves as murderers and risk exporters. To have a civilly productive conversation with these groups, it is necessary to understand what they think their issues are, and the reasons they would give for them -- and while it's fair to detail your own reaction to their approach, like "I understand that you're worried about the murder of babies, but I don't think an unborn fetus' (I wouldn't call it a baby) right to live outweighs the mother's right to reproductive freedom," it's outrageously authoritarian to speak of your opinions as if they were the only accurate description of those issues.
That's what Fox News does. Is that what you want to do?
-
Politics, not partisanship....
[Read the article: How can I love my Republican parents?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Thousand of people are dying horrible, violent deaths - because of George Bush and the people who voted him into office. This is no small difference. I too feel revulsion towards people who voted for Bush. It's not just money we're talking about, it's murder.
Justifying bad behavior as a necessary response to dire extremity is exactly why so many people who think abortion is murder vote Republican. If something is wrong -- if, for example, feeling revulsion towards people who have done nothing more than disagree with you about our nation's priorities is wrong -- it doesn't become less wrong just because you're really worried about something else.
Equating voting Republican with being supportive of murder is a gross misrepresentation of the motives and positions of people who vote Republican. If you intend to share this country with those people -- if you don't expect to have to take up a gun and shoot them in the near future, in other words -- you should probably get out of that habit. You won't convince them of the rightness of your position by displaying no understanding of or sympathy towards theirs.
-
It's really very simple....
[Read the article: Barack Obama's Republican edge]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]If we nominate Clinton, we will lose. Period. Kucinich is more electable than Clinton at this point.
The bulk of the Republican base right now is exhausted and demoralized; only their true believers, the ones who wouldn't vote Democratic ever, really care about their candidates right now. The Dems can steal that base by electing somebody who promises to do things differently -- which is the one thing that Clinton cannot ever believably promise to do, no matter how sincere she sounds; it's just not something ex-Republicans will believe her capable of doing.
Her candidacy is a mistake. She wouldn't even make a good Vice-President for Obama, because she's not scandal-free and doesn't bring much experience to the table.
-
A bit of a star bias, don't you think?
[Read the article: Barack Obama's Republican edge]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]So, um, we hand out red stars for bashing Obama now? :)
-
Oh, please...
[Read the article: How can I love my Republican parents?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]People who still support Bush may have crossed into the dangerous/despicable category that would necessitate walking away.
These people may not themselves be the moral equivalent of SS men, but they are certainly now the moral equivalent of people who whistled past the crematoria, of Good Germans who studiously knew nothing about mass murder. And they are also the moral equivalent of Klansmen, and other die-hard racists.
Hrm. Would it be equally fair to say that everyone who votes Democrat is complicit in the murder of millions of babies?
-
Hm.
[Read the article: How can I love my Republican parents?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]So, I guess we just accept that is the only thing we have in common, then get back to the trenches.
Wouldn't it make more sense to just abandon the trenches? I'm always disappointed when I hear liberals using the language of war to justify treating their political opponents like crap.
-
I have to admit...
[Read the article: Silencing "Opus," again]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]...that I'd find the whole "censorship" thing more interesting if the strips themselves had some quality.
-
You know, as much as I love 'Salon'....
[Read the article: Psst! Have you heard...?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]...I'm not sure why they keep paying people to justify their personal failings and neurotic tics to an audience in essay form. They could just randomly scrape LiveJournal for much less money.