PH said:
I attack people who disagree with me because I think the topic of disagreement is an important one and that my view is correct and theirs is wrong. Is there something unacceptable about that? What are people who have passionate views about what human society should look like, when the stakes are this high and things are this bad, supposed to do if not challenge those whose ideas and behaviors are obstacles to achieving a better future for everyone? Why does compromise always refer to a compromise between the center and the right?
But, but but, I think that I'm right and you're wrong.
I believe it's okay to attack ideas, but not people. And, even when you attack ideas, it's best to give a very good explanation as to why you don't agree. I don't believe in freewill when it comes to moral values, behavior and ideology, so imo, it's wrong to attack people. You might be just like them if you had the same background and influences. It's possible to change a person's opinion, but you don't do it by attacking them.
I actually agree, but it doesn't change anything, since you're giving me suggestions on how I should conduct myself with ideological opponents
as if I had the free will to do otherwise.
Since I don't hold a narrow minded radical view, I can see the positives in something while not expecting it to meet all of my desires or goals.
What you are calling "a narrow minded radical view" is what I am calling "an ethical objection to something that is accepted as normal by liberals and centrists". It's not a matter of failing to see the right balance of positives and negatives in something, it's a matter of having the view that a particular policy or approach is so negative that no positives can outweigh it, or so positive that its negatives can be safely ignored. If it's really, truly the case that nobody should go without their basic needs being met, and almost everybody with a chance at power is satisfied with vast numbers of people going without their basic needs being met, the time for compromise is over. If it's actually very bad and evil to kill many innocent people to further the goals of big business, then there is no silver lining to look for in any candidate whose platform contains or apologizes for that. None. The proper response to egregious violations of the foundational moral principles good people hold dear is righteous anger, not docile and strategic posturing.
I have no idea why you think that compromise is always between the center and the right. Maybe we have different definitions of what the center and the right mean.
That's definitely true.
Compromise is simply taking the other group or person's views into consideration when achieving something. If the entire country was far left and left of center, then compromise would be between those two factions. If the entire country was center right and far right, those two groups would need to compromise. Our country is all over the place with far right and far left groups not wanting to compromise. But, if you take a far right and a far left group who want to accomplish a goal, the solution is likely to be in the center. Otherwise, we stay stagnant and accomplish nothing.
No. The side that should win is the one that has good and rational ideas that don't treat people like chattel slaves or cannon fodder; having a difference of opinion on those basic matters of human value isn't something that needs to be taken into consideration by anyone who is serious about what they believe. Time and time again, we have reached across the aisle to accommodate these ghouls, who have used the opportunity to slide further and further into a proto-fascist cult while vociferously opposing everything to the left of Nixon. That's never accomplished anything durable. Social, civil, and economic change has always happened as a result of radical action from masses of fed up people. Every time, they were characterized as wild-eyed extremists. Every time, half-measures were pushed forward by centrists as realistic, practical steps to whatever was being demanded (an end to slavery, the right of women to vote, etc.), not seeing the moral gravity of the situation; if they did, they would know that nobody with a conscience could abide anything less than the whole package. The right response, then and now, was to firmly repudiate the more liberal-minded slaveowners who had bright ideas to improve the living conditions of their slaves so they would be more comfortable, or the progressives who were willing to give women a vote that counted for half as much as a man's.
The reason you don't understand me is perhaps because you don't see anything in our current political climate that rises to this historic level of wrongness, and think I'm being hyperbolic to invoke them as examples. If you had a strong perspective about something like human freedom from endless work imposed by capital, or the rights of Palestinians not to be surrounded by an encroaching wave of ethnic cleansing, then you wouldn't see the point in finding a middle ground on these issues, and you would take offense to anybody who chided you for not being more open-minded.
Maybe you do have such an opinion about something like a woman's right to choose to end her pregnancy; imagine if the prevailing debate in this country was between those who felt women who get abortions should be put to death and those who believed they should only serve time in prison. Would you be so even-handed about taking all the pros and cons of each position into account, when both represent a total distortion of what should actually be done? I doubt it. You would feel the need to constantly question both, and while the ones advocating for the death penalty were obviously more monstrous, you'd feel a special kind of frustration and scorn for their opponents advocating for prison, because the energy they spent opposing the first group--for what is clearly the wrong reasons--could be used so much more productively if they just stopped caring about meeting them halfway.
So, if you value having an open mind, you should consider the possibility that to the left of your position on the spectrum is a large, nuanced, and varied school of thought on society and how it is structured, and from this vantage point most of American politics seems like the debate about how severely to punish women who get abortions would probably seem to you. Something deep in the bedrock is lacking in someone who genuinely thinks we should settle for imprisonment of such women, and spends more time chiding the "absolutists" than fighting the death penalty advocates. In that case, it's the recognition that women have absolute and irrevocable autonomy over their bodies. In the case of the left versus the right, it comes down to how you feel about capitalism. What I meant by my comment about compromise is that the entirety of left-wing thinking flows from the desire to overthrow and replace capitalism with something else, yet all of the compromise that takes place in our society is among supporters of it. I don't see Clinton and Trump as equivalent, just as you wouldn't see the two factions of pro-lifers as equivalent, but I see liberals and conservatives as the left and right wing
of the right wing, and I think my attitude towards both is reflective of the distance between both and where I'm coming from.
And, it's so nice of you to judge me by calling me an enemy. I strongly disagree with your positions, but I don't refer to you as an enemy. I just think you are not being realistic, assuming you still support communism or pure socialism.
