Quote:
Originally Posted by Aliantha
It's unlikely that anyone is going to change their views if they've already resorted to insults and personal attacks.
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Nobody is saying anything about changing views. But when Congress did work, same facts resulting in two completely different conclusions based only upon one difference - perspective. There is no right or wrong. But respect of other conclusions based upon same facts and a different perspective is what discussion is about. A discussion based only in “We want Obama to fail” is not respect for anyone; is just an example of hate.
Throughout history, the way to destroy tolerance and cooperation was to hype only hate. It worked for Hitler - read his book to see why. It worked for Milosevic. It worked for the Hutu extremists to justify the massacre of Tutsis in two nations. It worked because emotion results in black and white conclusions where perspective (and the associated respect) can never exist.
That has happened to American politics. It is not about facts and perspective. Even in the Tea Party, the most popular figures were those who most promote only emotion, insult, and hate - Limbaugh, Beck, and Hannity. Now respect for perspective - and even for the facts - no longer exists. True discussion and the resulting respect can never happen.
What did Sharon do to restart the Intifada? Constantly did things (ie walk all over Temple Mount with shoes and a few hundred close friends) only to incite emotion, hate, and extremism. Sharon needed Rabin assassinated and needed the Intifada restarted so that nobody would appreciate any other perspective - so that violence only entrenched extremists. That happens when emotion makes respect for the many perspectives impossible.
The world is not black and white. There is no blind ‘good and evil’. There are perspectives. Unfortunately those perspectives that only promote hate, well, at least we try to understand why they so hate tolerance, compromise, and consensus. They who hate will not. They who hate must subvert discussion so that differing opinions and the resulting diversified society that America strives for can no longer co-exist.
Discussion is not about changing minds. Discussion is about respect for differing opinions based in common facts and a different perspective. Limbaugh, et al is about destroying that just like Sen Joeseph McCarthy did generations previous.
Why was McCarthyism stopped? So many stopped ignoring and therefore encouraging him. The majority simply challenged that extremism. That extremism could only exist when so many zoned out and did nothing. Many who challenged McCarthy even agreed with him. But what turned them again McCarthy - he subverted free, open, honest, and honorable dicussion with cheap shots and insults. Once forced to provide the reason why he knew, well, it was all fiction. Once McCarthy was challenged to provide facts rather than cheap shot accusations - once discussion was possible, then McCarthy was done.