Sorry this happened in your city

[*michaelsean*]

(11-01-2018, 07:46 PM)Dill Wrote: Random thoughts aimed at no one in particular--

The refrain "both sides do it" signals a problem which has come to fore at the current conjuncture of American politics, making productive or even serious discourse about political issues more difficult now than at any time since '68.

To offer a triple thesis (subject to empirical testing): There are certain things 1) that both sides don't do (and recognizing this matters), and 2) there are some things both sides do, but in nowhere near equal degree (and recognizing this matters too). And 3) saying "one side does it mostly" may be description, not partisanship

Hasty/sweeping generalizations about large fuzzy groups called "the Left" and "the Right" don't clarify much as so many different and ideologically conflicting groups can be lumped in either category. (Not saying such groups cannot be usefully and accurately defined, only that they usually arent.) Same for generalizations about lies and hypocrisy--claims that "they all do it" should not pass for insight. Bias hunting seems not very productive either, in part because it is bias which produces and intensifies the perception of bias.  No doubt pointing out "the other side does it" can have a salutary effect if and when the other side actually does it; but if false equivalence becomes one side's preferred mode of defense, insistence "the other side does it too!" frequently just puts the claim beyond empirical testing--a move as likely to support bias as to contest or expose it.  So it is certainly possible that bias could drive a claim that "both sides do it" while a claim "one side does it more" could be an empirical claim, not automatically evidence of bias at all.  And one can only tell which it is on a case by case basis.

Some may call the situation hopeless and just cocoon. And it might in fact be hopeless--i.e., impossible for people of opposing political views to sort this out.  But people in times past have succeeded, in part because they were clear on standards, such as what could constitute an analytic framework in which questions concerning the causes of current divisions and who might bear more or less responsibility for them could actually be answered. They could agree that questions of who said what, and said it first, and what consequences followed, were to a high degree empirical and factual questions. They could also separate determinations of fact from determinations of value (e.g., blame or praise), which is important in determining proportion and degree. They could even sort out the import of figural expressions--important to good faith reconstructions of another's intentions.  

But perhaps such people no longer exist in the critical mass required to make politics work in the U.S.?

This raises for me the question of how much apparent divisions over matter (taxes, immigration, citizenship) are much more divisions over form--standards of how evidence is evaluated and cases are argued, and norms of conduct.

You’re like a Templar on crusade with the anti-both sides do it. Trust me, anyone who reads this forum is well aware of your position on this.

Question: is there anything at all bad that you think the Democrats or the left- whichever you prefer-do that would qualify for #1 #2 or #3 and if you answer with a “they care too much” type answer I will hunt you down.