Regardless, both sides are not the same. "Both sides are the same" is for people who don't actually know what's going on and want to sound reasonable and aware.
You say "both sides" as though there are two, and only two, sides.
I see no reason to be that simplistic.
I see that as the sort of extremism that is the main problem. You're either with us or you're against us.
I'm not either one. I am both Pro-Choice and Pro-Life.
Tom
YOU presented two sides, not me. Saying things you don't like, commenting on "both sides are the same" mentality, etc., are not identifiers of an us v. them extremist world view.
Certain people LOVE complaining about some political nastiness or stupidity and saying, "on both sides!" as if there's really no difference in behavior among people of very different ways of thinking, which of course are many and varied, but in the US and some other places, there is almost always some level of divide between left and right, or liberal and conservative. There's a reason for this and that reason lies in human heads.
Left and right ideologies are not like sports teams where everyone plays by the same rules and there's just two different team colors on two identical ends of the field. In ideology and world view, it's not an arbitrary distinction. There's a reason there's more criminal indictments and convictions among Republicans than Democrats, and it's not even close. There's a reason that authoritarian religions meld so well with conservative parties but not with liberal parties. There's a reason that you find a hell of a lot more authoritarian personalities on the right wing end of the spectrum and relatively few on the left. There's a reason so many accused or convicted abusers find it so easy to get on a Republican ticket for political office but virtually none can find themselves a Democrat party candidate, and when there are, people
within the party actually speak out. They don't ignore it, excuse it, downplay it, or lie about it just because it's their side.
And there's a reason that right wingers will go and try to find all the examples of Dems or liberals doing any of these things and believe that whatever small number they find would compare to the mountain of Republican wrongdoing and misdeed they're ignoring.
There's a reason for this. As my signature says, the worst of human thought and behavior pools to the right. It doesn't mean anyone is dumb or unaware or any of those things that do indeed pool to the right. It just means that some people who are not dumb or unaware
choose to not examine their beliefs honestly or objectively and instead choose to dig in deeper and continue to take an impersonal world even more personally.
I could go on and on, but I have better things to do today than to educate you on right wing / left wing world view and psychology, and how it all gives rise to society wide movements, attitudes, and beliefs, and to the crises and events that we're seeing in the world and have seen throughout history.
Also, people with a right wing world view and way of thinking can sometimes be pro choice or even atheist.
