# Can right and left agree on anything? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [November 19, 2017, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-right-and-left-agree-on-anything/802094 "2017-11-19T19:28:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![JackieLikesVariety](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackielikesvariety/32/296_2.png) [@JackieLikesVariety](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JackieLikesVariety)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2017, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-right-and-left-agree-on-anything/802094/181 "2017-11-21T02:18:46Z")
> [@Filbert](#): > > ♪♫Fee-eed the tro-olls, tuppence a bag♫ I used to think Clothy was an idiot, but a genuine one - now I think he’s a troll. so, yes, we need to stop feeding him. :mad: ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2017, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-right-and-left-agree-on-anything/802094/182 "2017-11-21T03:16:31Z")
George Will is a respected conservative commentator. Perhaps we can loook to him to bridge the gap which worries OP. [_ **Mr. Will is alarmed by Mr. Trump’s inability to think.** _](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDv-xG0GUms) How do the Board’s right-wingers feel about that? ---
**Author:** ![DUCKofDEATH](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/6f9a4e/32.png) [@DUCKofDEATH](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DUCKofDEATH)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2017, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-right-and-left-agree-on-anything/802094/183 "2017-11-21T03:53:27Z")
> [@BlankSlate](#): > > What’s wrong with people beating up neo-nazis? 😕 Just like a Democrat to say something like that. A few decades ago, they’d be asking why they can’t lynch black people. What is it with Democrats and wearing hoods? ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2017, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-right-and-left-agree-on-anything/802094/184 "2017-11-21T04:01:28Z")
> [@madmonk28](#): > > Of course we can’t agree on anything, you dumb ass red state pig fuckers. You’re a third world country, basket of deplorable doesn’t describe you, you’re America’s Taliban and on the weekends we go down to buy some apple butter and see if we can get one of you meth addicts to fuck a donkey. You went through the 90s talking about how much you hate us, you missed the part where we hate you too and we’ve been fucking carrying you since the 40s. I’m not sure you understand math. ---
**Author:** ![DUCKofDEATH](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/6f9a4e/32.png) [@DUCKofDEATH](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DUCKofDEATH)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2017, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-right-and-left-agree-on-anything/802094/185 "2017-11-21T04:17:19Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > Hey look, a new poster. Welcome to the SDMB. Let’s see if we can teach you some useful concepts. That would be very neighborly. > [@](#): > > Every single time one side goes after popular norms, that side will say one of two things: > > 1. It’s well-founded based on this specific exception, > or > 2. The other side did it first, we’re just leveling the playing field. It’s always Democrats doing the bad thing first. Republicans are slow to retaliate because we’re saddled with excessively strong morals. It’s a handicap. > [@](#): > > Right-wingers on this very forum defended the unprecedented rejection of Merrick Garland by pointing to Bork. Democrats thought it was a specific exception to reject Bork. Democrats defend Obama’s executive orders by pointing to Bush’s, and claiming that it’s a specific exception because Congress is so ineffectual. And so on, and so forth. Kidding, right? Who cares what justification Democrats used for Borking Bork. They started it, and as is usual with Dems, they thought their scorched earth tactics would never come back to haunt them. Wrong. > [@](#): > > Neither excuse actually helps uphold our norms, and if we keep on “leveling the playing field” like this, soon we won’t _have_ a playing field. “An eye for an eye will leave everyone blind.” Gandhi’s quote has the usual flaw: if you’re fighting against sufficiently vicious opponents, ending up blind and standing beats being blind on your knees. Democrats aren’t interested in playing fair. They cheat their own (as Bernie learned, to his amazement), so you know they’ll cheat their opponents. The reason so many Republicans love Trump is because he fights just like Democrats do: dirty. We’re heartily sick of fielding decent gentlemen like Bush and Romney, only to have Democrats call them Hitler. Now we’ve got a bare knuckle brawler thumping on the Left and it’s driving them crazy. Not that it’s a very far trip. > [@](#): > > A free and independent press is a crucial aspect of any free democracy. Absolutely. Which is why we need to force the media to be evenhanded. Or strip them of their licenses and let someone else try. > [@](#): > > The same laws that protect MSNBC also protect Fox News, [Breitbart.com](http://Breitbart.com), and every other source _you_ use for your news. If Trump actually succeeded in stripping MSNBC of its broadcasting rights, what’s to stop the next democratic president from saying, “Turnabout is fair play” and banning Fox News? All we have is Fox News and Breitbart. The Left has all the other media. So I’d be happy to lose Fox if in exchange the Left lost the NYT, WaPo, Time mag, Newsweek, ABC, NBC, MSNBC, CNN, you get the picture. > [@](#): > > This is your model of reality, right? So, based on this, we should be able to make some predictions. Without looking it up, why don’t you tell me what percentage of coverage of Hillary Clinton was **negative** in tone on the following networks in the lead-up to the 2016 election? > > - MSNBC > - NBC > - ABC > - New York Times > - Washington Post > > According to your model, I’d predict _very_ low numbers. What would you guess? She coasted for most of the election, keeping clear of the media. When she did have the rare interview, she got softball questions that didn’t address her health, or the tarmac meeting, or any number of other controversies that afflicted her campaign. If she’d been a Republican, the press would have gone after her non-stop with negative stories. > [@](#): > > Why is this relevant? Breitbart is essentially a mouthpiece for the far right, and has run incredibly positive coverage of Donald Trump (at times it gets quite hilarious - like when their coverage of Trump sharing top secret information with Russia focused not on the fact that Trump shared top secret information with Russia, but that the Washington Post had the audacity to publish the story to begin with!). Does that mean we should revoke its press rights? Or do they have the right to be a news outlet with a slant? Are you in favor of the fairness doctrine? You really should take a step back and read what you’re writing because it’s absurd. The mainstream media is exclusively Leftist. Fox News is a cable channel with a small fraction of the viewers that the MSM enjoys. Breitbart is not a major news source (it’s on the order of BuzzFeed). > [@](#): > > How would you even _establish_ which news sources are “abusing” their position to help one party or another? And how would you ensure that, when the democrats regain power, they don’t use your justification in the same way on your favorite news sources? Remember, you may think that MSNBC is hopelessly biased in favor of the democrats, but the democrats think that Fox News is hopelessly biased in favor of the republicans, and they have all kinds of data to back up that assertion. Turnabout is fair play, as you established at the start of this post. Be very careful what you wish for. Strip the major broadcasters of their licenses because their biased news coverage is hurting America. Then the next guys would learn. We’d only have to do it once. And if the Democrats did the same thing when they got into office again (could happen), things would go back to the way they’ve been for generations. ---
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2017, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-right-and-left-agree-on-anything/802094/186 "2017-11-21T04:18:02Z")
> [@Randolph](#): > > He’s always been mad, you know he’s been mad, like the most of us are. Very hard to explain why you’re mad, even if you’re not mad. The lunatic is on my message board. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2017, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-right-and-left-agree-on-anything/802094/187 "2017-11-21T04:21:52Z")
> [@DUCKofDEATH](#): > > Just like a Democrat to say something like that. A few decades ago, they’d be asking why they can’t lynch black people. What is it with Democrats and wearing hoods? You are a fucking moron. I shall put you in a box, with your chickenshit thoughts, and you will only be allowed to think and speak of those thoughts. Not that it would make any difference, because you are already bound up tightly in your hate and stupid. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2017, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-right-and-left-agree-on-anything/802094/188 "2017-11-21T04:44:20Z")
OK, you say that we should strip away the freedom of the press that’s enshrined in the First Amendment. And you also say that any time anyone does anything bad, it’s the liberals who did it first. So, what prior occasion of the liberals stripping away the freedom of the press would you like to point to? ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2017, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-right-and-left-agree-on-anything/802094/189 "2017-11-21T04:51:46Z")
> [@DUCKofDEATH](#): > > It’s always Democrats doing the bad thing first. Republicans are slow to retaliate because we’re saddled with excessively strong morals. It’s a handicap. I’m sure you believe that. A solid half the country _doesn’t_. Clearly, there’s something going on here. There’s a partisan disconnect. I’m asking you to take a step back and think, “what if I’m not sure if I’m right, what can I do to help American democracy?”. > [@](#): > > Kidding, right? Who cares what justification Democrats used for Borking Bork. They started it, and as is usual with Dems, they thought their scorched earth tactics would never come back to haunt them. Wrong. Okay. Do you see how Garland was not just equivalent, but an _escalation_ of this pattern? It’s not like Obama nominated someone republicans hated, and republicans responded by saying, “No, fuck this guy, nominate someone else” as the democrats did for Reagan. What we have here is an _escalation_. It’s getting worse, not better, to the point where now the norm is not “congress generally agrees on supreme court justices” but rather “congress will only confirm judges if their partisan leaning agrees with the president”. Things _got worse_. It doesn’t matter if you’re a democrat or a republican, our political system got _that much more dysfunctional_. Again, what I am asking you to do is step _outside_ of partisan politics for a moment. The democrats thought they were justified in blocking Bork’s nomination because of his history with Watergate and his fairly radical writings on race and gender. The republicans thought they were justified in blocking Garland’s nomination because they had the votes. Both events were objectively harmful to American democratic norms as a result. The more we respond the way you have, with, “The other side did it first, therefore it’s okay when we do it”, the worse these norms get. To put it bluntly, the American political system is _not good enough_ to face a constant devolution of norms. We’re not Germany, we don’t have a political system specifically built to work even when partisan politics gets increasingly dysfunctional. > [@](#): > > She coasted for most of the election, keeping clear of the media. When she did have the rare interview, she got softball questions that didn’t address her health, or the tarmac meeting, or any number of other controversies that afflicted her campaign. If she’d been a Republican, the press would have gone after her non-stop with negative stories. Can you give me a number? What percentage of coverage would you _estimate_ was negative for Clinton on mainstream “leftist” media networks? Trust me, there _is_ a point here. > [@](#): > > You really should take a step back and read what you’re writing because it’s absurd. The mainstream media is exclusively Leftist. Fox News is a cable channel with a small fraction of the viewers that the MSM enjoys. Breitbart is not a major news source (it’s on the order of BuzzFeed). Breitbart is the single largest right-wing website. It actually beats out Fox News for that title. In the US, [it’s in the top 50 most visited websites, according to Alexa](https://www.alexa.com/topsites/countries/US). The _only_ news sources online that are bigger are CNN, the Washington Post, and the New York Times. Sure, it’s _technically_ on the order of BuzzFeed, but _BuzzFeed is also huge_ - much bigger than almost any mainstream news organizations. Meanwhile, Fox News is the #1 news network in America. [It has been for 15 years](http://press.foxnews.com/2016/02/fox-news-channel-marks-14-years-as-1-cable-news-channel-in-january/). You’re really underestimating the reach and impact of right-wing news. Even if you _do_ assume that there’s an equivalence in partisan spin between Breitbart/Fox and the mainstream media, there isn’t this huge liberal tilt to media, because the major right-wing sources are _really, really big_. > [@](#): > > Strip the major broadcasters of their licenses because their biased news coverage is hurting America. Then the next guys would learn. We’d only have to do it once. You never did answer the question. What happens the democrats take power, and decide that what’s good for the goose is good for the gander? After all, _you’re_ the one saying that they’re so vicious and “fight dirty”. You object that if you take away Fox and Breitbart, the right wing has nothing; do you think _they_ care? If the standard is “strip biased broadcasters of their licenses”… Well, I hope I don’t have to explain to you that most democrats think that Fox and Breitbart are _far_ more biased than any mainstream media sources. Again, what I’m asking you to do is _step outside the bounds of partisanship_. You seriously think the democrats are so vicious? Well, guess what: if they are, whatever you do to them, they’re going to do to you back. > [@](#): > > And if the Democrats did the same thing when they got into office again (could happen), things would go back to the way they’ve been for generations. …You mean for generations, we _didn’t_ have a free and open press? These norms are not easily replaced. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2017, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-right-and-left-agree-on-anything/802094/190 "2017-11-21T05:01:15Z")
Reasoning with trolls (and especially articles of clothing of trolls) never works. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2017, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-right-and-left-agree-on-anything/802094/191 "2017-11-21T05:15:26Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Yeah, especially since you’ve given us so many hundreds of other instances when you were blatantly lying, being disingenuous, trolling, or just being plain stupid. None of the above, Bryan, just pointing out liberal stupidity which ties your collective shorts in a knot. Deal with it. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2017, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-right-and-left-agree-on-anything/802094/192 "2017-11-21T05:16:49Z")
> [@Skywatcher](#): > > I’ve known too many people who invent their own narratives to not doubt that the encounter went anywhere except in his mind. And as usual, you would be wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2017, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-right-and-left-agree-on-anything/802094/193 "2017-11-21T05:17:50Z")
> [@Skywatcher](#): > > **C’hump** has such a persecution complex and need to attack anyone he sees as “liberal”, the jogger probably didn’t say anything beyond “hello”. If even that. And as usual, you would be wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2017, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-right-and-left-agree-on-anything/802094/194 "2017-11-21T05:32:34Z")
> [@DUCKofDEATH](#): > > Got facts, not innuendo from a real source? (BuzzFeed?! Puh-leaze!) Says the guy who used the Daily Caller. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Chisquirrel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6bbea6/32.png) [@Chisquirrel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chisquirrel)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2017, 5:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-right-and-left-agree-on-anything/802094/195 "2017-11-21T05:48:45Z")
> [@duckofdeath](#): > > that would be very neighborly. > > It’s always democrats doing the bad thing first. Republicans are slow to retaliate because we’re saddled with excessively strong morals. It’s a handicap. > > Kidding, right? Who cares what justification democrats used for borking bork. They started it, and as is usual with dems, they thought their scorched earth tactics would never come back to haunt them. Wrong. > > “an eye for an eye will leave everyone blind.” gandhi’s quote has the usual flaw: If you’re fighting against sufficiently vicious opponents, ending up blind and standing beats being blind on your knees. > > Democrats aren’t interested in playing fair. They cheat their own (as bernie learned, to his amazement), so you know they’ll cheat their opponents. The reason so many > republicans love trump is because he fights just like democrats do: Dirty. > > We’re heartily sick of fielding decent gentlemen like bush and romney, only to have democrats call them hitler. Now we’ve got a bare knuckle brawler thumping on the left and it’s driving them crazy. Not that it’s a very far trip. > > Absolutely. Which is why we need to force the media to be evenhanded. Or strip them of their licenses and let someone else try. > > All we have is fox news and breitbart. The left has all the other media. So i’d be happy to lose fox if in exchange the left lost the nyt, wapo, time mag, newsweek, abc, nbc, msnbc, cnn, you get the picture. > > She coasted for most of the election, keeping clear of the media. When she did have the rare interview, she got softball questions that didn’t address her health, or the tarmac meeting, or any number of other controversies that afflicted her campaign. If she’d been a republican, the press would have gone after her non-stop with negative stories. > > You really should take a step back and read what you’re writing because it’s absurd. The mainstream media is exclusively leftist. Fox news is a cable channel with a small fraction of the viewers that the msm enjoys. Breitbart is not a major news source (it’s on the order of buzzfeed). > > Strip the major broadcasters of their licenses because their biased news coverage is hurting america. Then the next guys would learn. We’d only have to do it once. > > And if the democrats did the same thing when they got into office again (could happen), things would go back to the way they’ve been for generations. сосать мой член, товарищ ---
**Author:** ![Blue\_Max](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9de053/32.png) [@Blue\_Max](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blue_Max)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2017, 6:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-right-and-left-agree-on-anything/802094/196 "2017-11-21T06:50:25Z")
@ OP I really don’t understand this at all. Someone decides to post a piece dividing America into a camp they identify with, an other camp they ascribe all kinds of negatives without sources, wonders why America is divided, and after four pages, they have only personal attacks to offer? I’m sorry, but all this did is come off as rabid. It’s like the words defy the hope, and the actions give lie to any kind of trying to build common ground. If you really want common ground, don’t start with an attack. Start with the problem, and if the problem is “I really don’t understand why Liberals think this way…”, that’s something people can explore. Because the way this went, you look like part of the problem, like all you want is validation for a narrow worldview where you and Donald Trump are right and everyone else is wrong. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2017, 6:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-right-and-left-agree-on-anything/802094/197 "2017-11-21T06:55:23Z")
> [@](#): > > Strip the major broadcasters of their licenses because their biased news coverage is hurting america. I think this has already been addressed. The networks do not have licenses that can be stripped. The licenses belong to each individual broadcaster, not the network. You would have to go out and strip each individual station of their license. Then, of course, you have cable/satellite. Do those content providers have to have a license to feed to the cable provider? I am going to say probably not. So what about Jezebel, The Daily Beast, Alternet, The Blaze, on _ad infinitum_? Those are somewhat-to-very popular sources, along with the sites that are run by the broadcast networks. How do you shut those down (apart from killing net neutrality), and where do you stop? ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2017, 7:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-right-and-left-agree-on-anything/802094/198 "2017-11-21T07:01:01Z")
> [@Clothahump](#): > > None of the above, Bryan, just pointing out liberal stupidity which ties your collective shorts in a knot. Deal with it. Y’know, if you don’t want to be seen as a troll, I offered a well-meaning suggestion that would probably be a pretty productive thread back on page 3. ---
**Author:** ![bobot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobot/32/21622_2.png) [@bobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobot)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2017, 10:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-right-and-left-agree-on-anything/802094/199 "2017-11-21T10:38:39Z")
From moron OP: “The Constitution? Conservatives believe in it.” That would be utter bullshit, flaming bullshit, or maybe “unconstitutional on its face”, or just a lie. Or all of the above. One example, not a rarity but just the most recent: > **[Federal judge rules Trump defunding sanctuary cities ‘unconstitutional on its...](https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/361297-federal-judge-makes-permanent-ruling-against-trumps-sanctuary-city/)** > > A federal court on Monday blocked President Trump’s executive order halting certain federal funds for so-called sanctuary cities, calling it “unconstitutional o… “A federal court on Monday ruled to block President Trump’s executive order halting certain federal funds for so-called sanctuary cities, calling it “unconstitutional on its face.” …” ---
**Author:** ![BlankSlate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blankslate/32/80_2.png) [@BlankSlate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlankSlate)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2017, 11:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-right-and-left-agree-on-anything/802094/200 "2017-11-21T11:34:21Z")
The sock troll eschews capitalization. That will fool 'em. Actually, it probably will. Marley the Mighty Sockhunter was never adequately replaced. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-right-and-left-agree-on-anything/802094.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-right-and-left-agree-on-anything/802094.md?page=11)