Well, I sure do, the Japanese surrendered.
I said “typically.” I didn’t say “never.” 
But regardless, aren’t “extreme” views sometimes warranted? It’s simple probability that some things in this world can only be defined by terms that are “extreme.” Also, isn’t that diverting attention from my argument? My question explicitly asked for people to explain why my assessment is wrong:
Unfortunately, it’s difficult to. That’s why the GOP has suffered such massive defections in the past year.
We still have our champions, like General Powell, but they are few and far between.
Believe me, this situation is just as worrisome to us – or even moreso – than it is to you.
True.
The news is flushing through the intertubes even as we speak, “ABC caves in to Obama jackboots, changes story on crowd size…”
Your argument boils down to: Eeeeww Republicans have cooties. I don’t like them.
That’s a large part of the problem with politics today. An idea should stand on its own merits, regardless of which party proposes it. Instead, your side refuses to think Republicans have anything worth saying, simply because they are Republicans. The Republicans refuse to hear anything from Democrats, merely because they are Democrats. And the country is the worse therefor.
Nah, they’re too busy beating the “ACORN is teh suxxor” and “Obama is a Socialist!!” drums.
I don’t believe misinformation, ignorance and fallacy are the bread and butter of the GOP. I believe they’re its crack cocaine.
I doubt they will come through to refute your assertions. It is likely they will come through with the childish ‘Democrats do it to argument’ and provide a few examples while ignoring how much more common it is on the republican side.
uh, no it doesn’t.
I agree with you. But doesn’t this imply that one can choose a side based on his assessment of the situation?
No. I just have not been impressed with Republicans lately. And by “not impressed” I mean that I have been very disappointed with. You don’t need to get defensive. This is my view based on what I see and read. Maybe the most vocal mouthpieces of the Republican party (including TV hosts, radio personalities, and politicians) do not represent the thoughts of the “average” Republican. I suppose that is a possibility. Would you entertain that?
It was the 2004 election, not the 2000 election. As the Program on International Policy Attitudes reported,
Pretty much equally so for both parties, IMO.
Both parties use misinformation sometimes, both use willful ignorance sometimes, both couch their arguments in fallacy sometimes. We’re seeing a lot of it from some folks on the right currently like Beck and Limbaugh because they’re trying to ‘win’ debates by any means necessary, and not to honestly analyze the issues.
But we should also keep in mind that the Republican party has, for more than a decade now, had an explicit, methodical and moreover highly effective strategy of memetic combat that the Democrats are both too disorganized and not clued in enough to use. Gingrich flashed to this a long time ago and it is currently one of the center points in the Republicans’ strategy of talking points and a unified front that allows them to, pretty routinely, define the limits and set the terms of a discussion.
Lanuage: a Key Mechanism of Control.
Well, sure, they got professional whores, all we got are talented sluts.
Btw, the most hardcore drum-beaters on those counts are not Republicans, but Libertarians and various other fringier groups.
“That wasn’t us! You can’t prove anything! It was other kids, I swear!”
IMO, not even close to equally so. False equivocation provides quite the smokescreen for some to commit truly unprecedented and bizarre actions.
Of course, you can shut me up by showing me the well-attended rallies urging succession from the left…
The Republicans have been better at distilling their message into sound bites, bumper stickers, etc. When you put your message into text that is sufficient for a Facebook update, you leave a lot out and you leave a lot of room for interpretation. That lets you do the little sidestep dance when necessary.
The Democrats do a better job of detailed proposals that then put people to sleep (Mr. Gore - how ARE you today?). This leaves them open to attack when people track down the details.
By dodging details, Republican messages are easier to disseminate. OF course, that also means they are easier to play with in interpretation. In other words, “That bumper sticker didn’t mean what you thought it meant.”
This is the problem. The Republicans are good at condensing messages because there is no expanded form of the message! The sound bite is all there is!
From The Nation: