# Why do people feel the need to politicize everything? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 2, 2015, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-feel-the-need-to-politicize-everything/721490 "2015-06-02T23:37:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2015, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-feel-the-need-to-politicize-everything/721490/21 "2015-06-04T15:03:18Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Why does the dog lick its own genitals? Because if I did it he would bite me. ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2015, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-feel-the-need-to-politicize-everything/721490/22 "2015-06-04T15:07:03Z")
> [@Oakminster](#): > > The irony of the OP poking conservatives in a thread against politicizing everything is tasty. So you’re into that, eh? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2015, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-feel-the-need-to-politicize-everything/721490/23 "2015-06-04T15:09:16Z")
As Bill Maher would put it: It’s mostly the fault of President Blackenstein! ---
**Author:** ![CGav8r](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/34f0e0/32.png) [@CGav8r](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CGav8r)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2015, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-feel-the-need-to-politicize-everything/721490/24 "2015-06-04T15:26:28Z")
Because the comments section of websites seems to attract a very crazy and vocal minority. This is why you should “Never Read the Comments”. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2015, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-feel-the-need-to-politicize-everything/721490/25 "2015-06-04T20:11:32Z")
There is a certain subset of folks that listen /watch pretty continuously to propaganda spew. Which is carefully calibrated to label everything that happens as either the direct result of the Good Guys (\*our \*team) doing Good or else as the direct inevitable result of the Bad Guys (\*their \*team) doing Bad. Once you spend about 10 hours a day for years listening to that spew, interrupted only by commercials also full of spew, it’s pretty easy to begin to believe that everything that does happen in the world is caused by the machinations of Our Team vs Their Team. Just like many people grow up learning how to live in a family by watching sitcoms & soaps, as adults they learn to live in the world by watching 24/7 news and news commentary. In both cases the folks come out as pitiful caricatures of real humans with real human habits and real human decision-making. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2015, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-feel-the-need-to-politicize-everything/721490/26 "2015-06-06T13:24:42Z")
The invention of the printing press made the literary works of the greatest minds in politics, economics, science, the arts and every other topic imaginable available to any unwashed, uneducated, uninformed idiot with a passing interest in any subject. Unfortunately the internet has made the opposite possible. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2015, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-feel-the-need-to-politicize-everything/721490/27 "2015-06-06T15:58:11Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Pardon me, but hogwash. We opposed GWB on specific policy items, such as his proposal to privatize Social Security, or his mishandling of Hurricane Katrina. > > We didn’t blame him for the color of the sky. If anything, today’s Republicans are the ones engaged in excessive blame, such as the manufactured outrage over Benghazi. I specifically recall being a part of political conversations in other message boards and chatrooms at the time, with other liberals who were dead certain that Bush had masterminded the 9/11 attacks, that he sabotaged the levees in New Orleans in order to kill lots of black people, that he caused the flu vaccine shortage in 2004 in order to kill off Social Security recipients, that the Janet Jackson incident was part of a plot to crack down on the media and make pornography illegal, that he was planning to cancel the 2004/2008 elections and declare himself president for life, and that he and Jeff Gannon were gay lovers and mainstream media figures were being threatened with imprisonment in Gitmo if they reported it. (I was personally accused of being a CIA disinformation agent for saying that the last one was a load of nonsense.) ---
**Author:** ![Kimbosquee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/45deac/32.png) [@Kimbosquee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimbosquee)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2015, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-feel-the-need-to-politicize-everything/721490/28 "2015-06-06T23:33:43Z")
Oh, I’m never involved in these discussions. I just read comments and threads and watch these arguments from the sidelines. One poster was correct in saying that they usually have no clue what the hell they’re talking about. They just spout out political insults wherever they can and many sound like they dropped out of school at some point. They also have a tendency to polarize everyone. If you argue with a tree-hugging vegan, you are a conservative. If you don’t like a particular military movie for any reason, you are an America-hating liberal. Believe me, I have seen it. Educational videos of embryonic development are rife with abortion debates. An Allstate commercial with a white guy getting into an accident was “liberal propaganda”. A man crying in a movie is because feminists and liberals have taken over the media. On a video of people jumping from the Golden Gate Bridge, “I hope they were liberals”. No need to go on. :smack: If you simply have balanced views, you are automatically on the other side. It’s just annoying because I am not interested in hearing about politics every other day. ---
**Author:** ![Atomic\_Alex](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atomic_alex/32/175_2.png) [@Atomic\_Alex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atomic_Alex)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2015, 9:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-feel-the-need-to-politicize-everything/721490/29 "2015-06-14T09:11:30Z")
This is a good example, how does an article on the Large Hadron Collider turn into a bitter debate about American politics?!? > **[Large Hadron Collider Scientists Hope to Make Contact with Parallel Universe.](https://secondnexus.com/science/large-hadron-collider-scientists-hope-make-contact-parallel-universe)** > > The staggeringly complex LHC ‘atom smasher’ at the CERN centre in Geneva, Switzerland, will be fired up to its highest energy levels ever in a bid to detect - or even create - miniature black holes.If successful a completely new universe will be... And yes, it is really frikken tiresome OP. ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2015, 12:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-feel-the-need-to-politicize-everything/721490/30 "2015-06-14T12:24:46Z")
In college my political science professor said it was because Americans, if you looked on a bell curve with conservative on one side and liberal on another, tend to be mostly in the middle. Which is also the area people tend to be “eh, who care’s?” about issues. So to get them to vote or else come out for an issue they have to go for the extremes. ---
**Author:** ![GrumpyBunny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bc8723/32.png) [@GrumpyBunny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GrumpyBunny)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2015, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-feel-the-need-to-politicize-everything/721490/31 "2015-06-14T15:02:00Z")
Because Obama is a secret Muslim commie socialist, and Benghazi. Also, he lied about taxes. ---
**Author:** ![LH75](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lh75/32/4438_2.png) [@LH75](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LH75)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2015, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-feel-the-need-to-politicize-everything/721490/32 "2015-06-15T13:32:09Z")
I have relatives who are ultra conservatives. Last year my niece posted on facebook that their cable provider had stopped carrying Fox News and she was trying to figure out a way to switch providers before her husband woke up. These people are from South Texas. Last fall they were in town for a wedding in late October. I walked outside with my sister (their mother) so she could smoke. One of the Texas contingent (my grand niece’s fiance) was out there, and mentioned that he was chilly. October in Nerbraska is noticably cooler that it is in South Texas. I told him that it was just a typical October evening. His reply was “Well, so much for that cocksucker Obama and his fucking global warming bullshit!” Just the way one would make a good impression on the family before a wedding… ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2015, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-feel-the-need-to-politicize-everything/721490/33 "2015-06-15T15:08:04Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > I specifically recall being a part of political conversations in other message boards and chatrooms at the time, with other liberals who were dead certain that Bush had masterminded the 9/11 attacks, that he sabotaged the levees in New Orleans in order to kill lots of black people, that he caused the flu vaccine shortage in 2004 in order to kill off Social Security recipients, that the Janet Jackson incident was part of a plot to crack down on the media and make pornography illegal, that he was planning to cancel the 2004/2008 elections and declare himself president for life, and that he and Jeff Gannon were gay lovers and mainstream media figures were being threatened with imprisonment in Gitmo if they reported it. (I was personally accused of being a CIA disinformation agent for saying that the last one was a load of nonsense.) Damn, what weird places on the Internet did you hang out in, back then? :eek: I spent most of the Bush years hanging out in the lefty blogosphere, but I never even _heard_ of most of this stuff, and the stuff I did hear of, like the notion that Bush masterminded 9/11, I never encountered an actual proponent of stuff like that. Just heard that there _were_ proponents out there of ridiculous nonsense like that. Besides, everybody knows it was _Cheney_ who masterminded 9/11. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Count\_Blucher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Count\_Blucher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Count_Blucher)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2015, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-feel-the-need-to-politicize-everything/721490/34 "2015-06-15T16:57:39Z")
> [@Smeghead](#): > > Because of Republicans. Because of John Stossel style reporting. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-feel-the-need-to-politicize-everything/721490.md?page=1)