yosemite, this attitude everyone takes offense at (and I certainly would too if it were directed at me), is that something that only happens here on the board? In real life? From people that are close or strangers? Is this something that was prevalent all throughout the campaign or only after the election was over?
Since I said in another post that I am surround mostly by those who think opposite to me, I’d don’t have much interaction (beyond here) with like-minded individuals. And as such, haven’t encountered much of the phenomenon described. But I so don’t want to partake in it or have blinders on to it, so could you elaborate? Because I’m praying that it’s just hurt feelings and such (on both sides) after the fact, rather than constant condescension.
Of course, they say naivete is my best feature. Yeah, right.
I can’t speak for other people. I am a “centrist” born and raised in Southern California and I’ve seen both sides—scary conservatives and smug liberals. Extremes on both sides can be scary, but perhaps it’s because of my background (artsy-fartsy California girl), but I’ve met more than my share of knee-jerk smug liberals. But not everyone’s like that, certainly. I have some very polite, laid-back, cool friends and associates so I don’t think I’m soured on hearing either side of the political spectrum. But I won’t listen to the angry rantings of an asshole. Never will.
For the most part, I’ve been mostly focusing on is the behavior on these boards, and some people on other boards. Some of you people are un-freakin’-believable. There are more than a few people here who have lost all credibility with me because of their behavior. I’ve seen some shameful behavior on other boards too. Maybe it’s because I am drawn to artsy-fartsy whackjob friends (and message boards), I don’t know.
It also really takes the cake when these people won’t even own up to their own jackass tendencies, and actually try to deny that their shitty attitude has contributed to people tuning them out and rejecting their “cause.” Boggles the mind, I’m tellin’ ya.
Excuse me, Suse, but I’m not referring so much to the venting of the past two days as to the tone on this board for the past five years. I entered a thread saying I favored civil unions, absolutely equal under the law to marriage, for same-sex couples, but not extending the word “marriage” to those unions. I was called a hateful bigot, evil, and other terrible things. (NB: since that time, I have amended my position and now support state-level recognition of same-sex marriage - no thanks to the insulters of that thread).
Nor was my experience in that thread unique.
It’s not the venting, Suse. It’s the way liberals had of approaching certain issues as “You think as we do, or you’re an ignorant bigot.”
Noted. That’s a bad habit of mine, but you’re absolutely correct. “Some liberals…” My bad.
Hey, I’m not saying I broke into tears and ran trembling into the night. But the experience was symptomatic of what I - and others - are describing. It happened. Suse suggested that the vitriol was venting; I rebutted that assumption by pointing out it existed for years here.
And although I didn’t break into tears, I didn’t like it much, either.
Well, no, the losses in the Senate were sufficient to transform him into a good President. The losses in the House means that all those documents and stuff, proving that what he said wasn’t so, they all go poof!.
To a point. Despite the inability of Kerry to sell his message in an election that by rights ought to have been a cakewalk, you have to admit that a certain degree of snowing of the voters happened. C’mon, “The Democrats will ban the Bible” flyers in West Virginia?
Still, that does not remove the onus of a failed strategy from the Dems. I’m just sayin’.
Maybe my original election strategy, which I posted right here on The Dope, was the right one. I was all for getting nasty, dredging up old dirt on the incumbent and going for the jugular. Everyone else wanted to play fair. Fair lost the election.
Sorry, some grownups were having a discussion of the issues. Please find a discussion board for Ashlee Simpson fans. Your substance-free posts should fit right in there.
So, there we have it in a nutshell. Some liberals on this board are jerks. Others are persuasive and intelligent arguers. And fortunately, Brutus just stuck his head into this thread, making it easy to make the point that that’s true about conservatives, too.
The only thing I’ll add is that I cut people a bit of slack, when judging how overemotional and assholey they’ve gotten, on issues which directly affect something in their life they passionately care about. If two people are discussing (to pick a slightly less emotionally charged issue), say, medical care for veterans, and one of them happens to have a father who is currently at a VA hospital awaiting enough funding to pay for some very expensive life-saving operation, that person is likely to get a lot more emotional about the issue than someone who is arguing it purely out of political opinion. It’s very easy, in that hypothetical, for the second person to be all cool and collected, and for the first person to start yelling at him and calling him a heartless unthinking bastard. The second person then walks away looking like the more reasonable, impassioned debater, but, in fact, they could be equally reasonable people, one of them just had FAR more emotional investment in the discussion.
Which is not to say that some people aren’t assholes during debates…
I will admit (and I think I’ve done so before, but my memory makes Swiss cheese look solid, so…) that that thread gave me a headache and confused the hell out of me. I went from thinking I understood your position to thinking you were hiding behind a screen for homophobia to thinking I understood your position again. And I will also admit that I was swayed several times to different positions by other people on my side who were screaming way too loudly and not always accurately about things you’ve posted before.
And right now, I’ll admit that I was the most wrong when my Position-o-Meter swung over to the homophobe side. You’re not. I may not always find your process-worship easy to swallow, but I have to admit that you’re consistent in it (and that’s not meant pejoratively). You may be unreasonably rigid about the way things get done in our courts and government, but you’re no hypocrite and you’re no homophobe.
I apologize if I ever gave the impression I believed you were.
To be fair, it wasn’t really the snarkiness of the liberals that lost the election. It was the crappy candidates. The snarkiness was a by product of that.
Confidence has a calming effect on people. Neither candidate exuded confidence because neither of them has the skills to knock the ball out of the infield, let alone the ballpark. I think Kerry and Bush could have claimed Ohio residency based on the time they spent here in recent months. I mean, I was flattered by their attention at first but after the 45th phone call reminding me of when Election Day was and why the other candidate was an incompetent fool, I started to get a bit testy. Desperation is terribly unattractive and makes everyone really nasty. I believe that the main reason that this country is divided is because neither candidate was qualified for the task at hand. Had someone like Ronald Reagan or Bill Clinton been running, we’d have already been back to griping about how crappy our football teams are.
Speak for your own candidate. Bush was voted for. We like him as a candidate. Perfect? No. But certainly great. Kerry, on the other hand, is just the schlub that was there suck up anti-Bush votes.
dre2xl, thank you for your explanation. I also felt that Kerry didn’t give enough information to back up his assertions and to illustrate exactly how he planned to carry things out once in office. I was just having a hard time correlating that and when some said they did/didn’t vote a certain way due to assholish behavior. I suppose a lot of that is simple hyperbole, strain of emotions and, probably, exhaustion. I’ll keep digging deeper to grasp the whole of the situation rather than let my gut response take over.
I also appreciate the time you took to tell me what you meant, yosemite. Since I don’t encounter much outside my own little world of agoraphobia (and even the loved ones in my ‘circle’ are pretty much limited to phone conversations these days), I only have internet exposure. And like I said, I try to view opinions online very carefully and consider the person behind the posts. Not always easy, as I’m sure we all know. However, if most of what is postulated aims here, then it makes sense. As the Dope isn’t representative of most of the rest of mankind.
I’m just thrilled to know that not everyone lumps all participants into one category. I hate being “broad brush” stroked. Now thick brushes…
Oh, nevermind.
Thanks to Max too, for allowing me to bask in the glow that for once, I didn’t come across as a blathering idiot. My point was just gibberish! Woohoo! You’ve made my day!!
Just because such flyers were distributed doesn’t mean people believed them. For all their efforts and expenses, I don’t think the swiftvets or Michael Moore had more than minimal effect on the election either. Shit stinks, whether from the right or left, it’s still shit and it still stinks. Most voters can smell it.
Yeah, right.
However, if most of what is postulated aims here, then it makes sense. As the Dope isn’t representative of most of the rest of mankind.