Zundfolge said:
Translation: Anyone who disagrees with me is doing so just because they are big old meanie doodyheads ... not because they have an honestly different viewpoint than mine.
It is very difficult for humans to seperate "disagreement" from "disagreeableness." However, adding more of the latter never reduces the former.
We very naturally assume anyone who disagrees with ourself must not have all the facts or must be delberately wicked.
Of course, this is not so. Starting from the same (and always incomplete -- if any of us knew everything, he would be rather more than human) information, people often reach dramatically different conclusions. Very often, it doesn't matter, as long as we are willing to leave one another alone.
It is when we're not willing to let the other folks go be
complete and utter idiots that difficulties arise -- like the Inquisition, or any of the World Wars. This is often awkward, and gets in the way of the usual sorts of work and commerce.
Zundfolge said:
This notion of "high road" only seems to apply to conservatives/libertarians/Republicans and NEVER to liberals/progressives/Democrats
Hey, now, what's this sandwiching libertarians between conservatives and Republicans?
First off, libertarians come in for plenty of licks from the Right, who suspect (correctly) we are Not Their Sort. Libertarians are not at all interested in
compelling Moral Goodness in others, as long as those others mind their own business. This makes them different to much of the Right and the Left.
Second of all, you'll make the conservatives and Republicans very uncomfortable by associating them with libertarians. That's hardly respectful of the feelings of others, now is it?
Third, the traditional American Left gets a hostile reception from many gun-owners
because its adherents have so often been outspoken opponents to gun ownership and critical -- often unfairly critical* -- of gun owners.
I know Hubert Humpphrey said the right stuff about gun rights, and probably would have walked the walk, too; but the Democrats haven't produced very many Hubert Humphreys in recent years.
It is a very rough sorting that puts all the American Right on the side of gun-owners and all the Left in the opposition; but it is more accurate than otherwise, most of the time, and that cannot be wished away.
--Herself
________________________
* For instance, in "Bowling for Colombine," Micheal Moore is at some pains to associate the NRA with the KKK, despite the two groups having been founded by officers from
opposing sides during the Late Unpleasentness and despite the NRA's long-standing policies of nondiscrimination.
