Why partisanship makes fools of us
Can this guy get anymore hysterical and foolish?
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Here's a test I bet Keith could handle.How about you stake your credibility on, 5 years out, checking up on how many of those predictions actually come true. And then be willing to give up policy commitments that flow from that logic.
I got a better challenge for you, Keith.
I'll put my own record against yours and you pay me the proportion of your salary comparable to the difference between the proportion of my predictions that come to pass and the proportion of your predictions that come to pass.
Something tells me your salary would take a serious hit, Keith. I bet I'd take the majority of your salary, Keith.
And it has not a bit to do with what party I vote for or even when.
It has to do with having a more honest heart and mind and knowing what you are doing better.
Partisanship leaves its proponents perpetually defending outlooks that are either wrong, unrealistic, counterproductive, base, mean-spirited, or bad policy, without ever having to be accountable to whether they are ever even right. Because of course they always are. Even when they aren't. Always. Without exception. No matter how much they get it wrong.
Partisanship is foolish, is the truth. It's one long assertion that I'm right every time because all my buddies agree. It's the worst distortion of honest reasoning. And it means literally zero. Any more than any religious partisan claim of spiritual superiority.
It's one long excuse for bullying for a political cause. And, thankfully, it is on the ropes.
What is the alternative?
Thinking for ourselves. And engaging honestly the consciences of those who agree and disagree.
That is the essence of liberal values, liberal education, and liberal democracy. Everything else is distortion. And we are very, very slowly working our way out of that distortion of our most honest values and our humanity.
Liberty is valued in liberal democracies for a reason. Because it best respects the consciences of its citizens.
And political partisanship, like religious partisanship, is one long excuse for why we confuse our ugliest impulses with our strongest values and pretend that they are what we want them to be so we can get our way.
The last 10 years has been one long experiment in illiberalism in the name of liberalism. And it is, thankfully, beginning to unravel itself. Despite ourselves. Exactly how so much of our growth and learning happen, much of the time.
And it is the love and the learning that is the heart of liberal values and liberal education. And what makes liberal democracies more genuinely strong.
3 comments:
the worst part is how little faith he has in people... the unquestioned assumption that money trumps all because we, the stupid, will blindly be suckered in by the ads.
cdb
That just about sums up my thoughts about this issue, at this point, Carson. Crazily enough, I think people seem to get to the better arguments, eventually. Just not as quickly as we might like, sometimes. And, in the meantime, most of us, myself included, just have a hard time admitting that maybe the person in the wrong is me and not the crowd.
It's crazy, dude. But, strangely enough, at this point, I actually have more confidence in voters to get many important issues right than their elected leaders. Or at least to know when something is wrong. Most folks may not know exactly what to do with this or that issue. But they seem to have a better nose, a lot of times, I think, for when something is wrong.
Keith's kind of become a train wreck, some nights, at this point, I think, Carson. Entertaining though his particular brand of wreckage is. He's Rush Limbaugh for the left. With not nearly enough sense of humor about himself. And the irony is that this is what I thought his ace at ESPN. I thought he was funny as shit, personally. Now he's just kind of tragic for me to watch, much of the time. Maybe John Stewart will help him find his way. We'll see.
Good dispatch and this post helped me alot in my college assignement. Thank you for your information.
Post a Comment