I agree with the OP. It’s not only childish, it detracts and distracts from the meat of the discussion. If you resort to taunting, it should be taken as an indicator that not only do you have nothing useful to say, bit that you also recognise the emptiness of your argument
But I’m also sick of the way everyone has to be lumped together into tightly bounded categories and that everything has to be labelled a liberal / conservative / socialist etc idea. Acknowledgement of common ground is very rare and it seems like people disagree with ideas not because they don’t like them, but just because the other people said it.
We’ve had this discussion before, but especially on this message board and in GD to see the childish name slinging… it just degrades the level of discussion. I really thing we should just disregard anyone’s post who tries to win points by name calling on the other side. You think you’re clever, but in reality you’re just juvenile.
I think most insults are insulting because they convey an intent to insult, rather then the actual literal meaning of the word. After all, lots of insults have rather mundane literal meanings, “nigger” is just a corruption of a word for “black”, “homo” is just a shortening of the more acceptable “homosexual”. And of course, lots of slurs don’t even have an meaning that anyone remembers. No one seems to remember why gays should be insulted by being compared to a bundle of sticks, but we still all recognize “fag” as an insult.
But I don’t think anyone would argue that those terms are insulting, not because of their literal meaning, but simply because social convention has marked them as words you use to insult someone.
An even a more discussion-degrading tactic is to inevitably, regardless of topic, dismiss both parties’ actions by drawing false equivalences - they do not both do it equally, and are not equally “bad”, no matter what the self-described above-it-all may habitually claim with their supercilious tut-tutting.
And you know who I’m referring to in addition to the OP.
I generally lurk, but many of the times I have come out of lurkdom have been to tell people (particularly on my side of an issue) to stop doing this; it makes us look dumb.
That being said, I do not mind calling Bush Shrub or Obama Barry. They both strike me as mild enough to be acceptable in an online discussion.
That’s exactly the same—nobody ever said “Ronald Wilson Reagan.” It’s exactly the sort of juvenile tactic I remember from elementary school: kids being annoying, and when called on it, going, “but it’s technically correct!” Yes, but it’s also flouting convention in order to be annoying. Quit it.
We don’t? British politics gets at least as bitchy US politics. My hero, Nye Bevan, famously referred to Tories (and was right) as “lower than vermin.”
Where there is a difference is that we admit the class system exists, and that class warfare happens. Another huge difference is the role of religion. When you have a major part of the political system believing their policies are ordained by God, demonizing the opposing view is inevitable.
Well, it’s grammatically incorrect, given that “Democrat” is a noun, and “Democratic” is an adjective. Secondly, use of the phrase “Democrat Party” was tested by Republican pollster Frank Luntz and he advocated its use for strictly partisan reasons. See this New Yorker piece for more of an explanation. (BTW, Luntz is responsible for many of these code words, such as “death tax” instead of estate tax.)
My pet idea about this also includes the fact that there are only two viable political parties in the U.S., whereas most other places have at least 3. I think that very easily leads to polarization of opinion, whereas with 3 or more I now have to examine policies more closely, and I’m not likely to like or dislike 100% of a platform.
I think this is a good explanation. The two party system (two VIABLE parties) has led to a complete “You’re either with us or ag’in’ us” attitude with nothing in between.
I largely agree with the OP, though I don’t completely agree with his list (for instance, most uses of Obamacare I’ve seen are neutral, not derisive). I don’t associate with either party, so these sorts of things stick out a lot to me and it’s endlessly frustrating because, while I generally disagree with either party more than I agree, I can’t really discuss the policies of either party without these sorts of things coming up and distracting from the discussion. But worse, it’s just the idea that “we’re right, they’re wrong” or “the other party is out to destroy the country” and not a perspective of “reasonable people can disagree” that is the real cause.
For instance, if I talk to a strong Democrat, he’ll talk about the tax policy of Republicans as obviously throwing the poor and middle class under the bus for the sake of the wealthy and so they’re evil and have no problem destroying the country, but yet I know plenty of Republicans who honestly believe that’s what’s best for the country. Similarly, if I talk to strong Republican about the same thing, it comes down to wealth redistribution and trashing the economy for the sake of maintaining power and they have know problem destroying the country, yet I know plenty of Democrats who honestly believe that their taxation policy is what’s best for the country. Neither of these people is out to destroy the country, they honestly believe that it’s what’s best. Obviously, one or both of them is wrong, but we never actually get to discussing which policy is best because we spend so much time pigeon holing motivations that aren’t there.
Now, that’s not to say that there aren’t people who are truly interested in power or money rather than what’s best for the country, nor is it to say that both sides do it in exactly equal amounts, but even the side that does it less still does WAY more of it than they should.
