Thursday, November 04, 2004
Name calling politics.
There may be traces of irony here. If so, too bad.
There are people of all political stripes. If you can imagine it, then odds are there are people who would steadfastly support it, and steadfastly denounce it. Twould be a dull world indeed if everyone agreed on everything all the time.
In fact, it’s good to have ‘bad’ ideas linger. Sometimes an idea is ‘bad’ because it needs other ideas to make it good (for example, what good’s a can without a can opener?).
So, I like the idea, nay, love the idea that there are people in the world I disagree with. I even acknowledge that while I’m right 100% of the time, it doesn’t mean that they’re wrong 100% of the time.
There are many people who can’t accept that others don’t share their thoughts. And they’re never more evident than during election time. Now that the US election is fading into history, there are scads of name callers. Look, I don’t agree with Bush on every issue (or even on enough issues to comfortably call myself a Bush Supporter), but I’d never call him a monkey.
You start calling people names, and suddenly your own credibility is gone. If the best you can do is childish name calling, then the first thing that comes to my mind is that you’re WRONG. You may not be, but you’re not conveying a message that I’m listening to. You might as well be trying to send me a telegraph in Swahili. I won’t get it.
Do you think the War in Iraq was a bad idea because $87 billion could be better spent fighting AIDS in Africa? That’s a valid point. Tell me that, I’ll listen. Call Bush a hyena, and I won’t, and I’ll never think that fighting AIDS in Africa will do more to fight terrorism than any invasion. (I don’t postulate this is true, but don’t have enough knowledge to proclaim it to be false. To be honest, I don’t know that anyone has made this assertion!)
Of course, the ‘Conservative Side’ (which I suppose I’d be on) is far from innocent. I hate for anyone on my side to do something that I hate.
If you’re going to run for office, run on ideas. I’d like to say ignore the other side, but that’s not practical. Attack bad ideas as bad ideas. If someone changes their mind because they backed bad ideas and have moved on to good ones, praise them for seeing the light, don’t harp on the fact that they changed their mind.
Hopefully with the Most Important Election in History behind us, I’ll be able to take on things in the world besides US politics!
¶ 2:06 PM
There are people of all political stripes. If you can imagine it, then odds are there are people who would steadfastly support it, and steadfastly denounce it. Twould be a dull world indeed if everyone agreed on everything all the time.
In fact, it’s good to have ‘bad’ ideas linger. Sometimes an idea is ‘bad’ because it needs other ideas to make it good (for example, what good’s a can without a can opener?).
So, I like the idea, nay, love the idea that there are people in the world I disagree with. I even acknowledge that while I’m right 100% of the time, it doesn’t mean that they’re wrong 100% of the time.
There are many people who can’t accept that others don’t share their thoughts. And they’re never more evident than during election time. Now that the US election is fading into history, there are scads of name callers. Look, I don’t agree with Bush on every issue (or even on enough issues to comfortably call myself a Bush Supporter), but I’d never call him a monkey.
You start calling people names, and suddenly your own credibility is gone. If the best you can do is childish name calling, then the first thing that comes to my mind is that you’re WRONG. You may not be, but you’re not conveying a message that I’m listening to. You might as well be trying to send me a telegraph in Swahili. I won’t get it.
Do you think the War in Iraq was a bad idea because $87 billion could be better spent fighting AIDS in Africa? That’s a valid point. Tell me that, I’ll listen. Call Bush a hyena, and I won’t, and I’ll never think that fighting AIDS in Africa will do more to fight terrorism than any invasion. (I don’t postulate this is true, but don’t have enough knowledge to proclaim it to be false. To be honest, I don’t know that anyone has made this assertion!)
Of course, the ‘Conservative Side’ (which I suppose I’d be on) is far from innocent. I hate for anyone on my side to do something that I hate.
If you’re going to run for office, run on ideas. I’d like to say ignore the other side, but that’s not practical. Attack bad ideas as bad ideas. If someone changes their mind because they backed bad ideas and have moved on to good ones, praise them for seeing the light, don’t harp on the fact that they changed their mind.
Hopefully with the Most Important Election in History behind us, I’ll be able to take on things in the world besides US politics!
¶ 2:06 PM
