Blanket statements

I am really opposed to blanket statements.  A friend (you know who you are) posted last week about how Democrats had launched many "public benefit" programs.  He did not list what they were (although he did post a meme that listed a few- which we are not here to debate), and then followed with the "question" of what have Republicans ever done of a same nature?

Now, I have no problem if you would like to use the comments to inform him of what you feel on the subject- I already did on his blog.  But the thing I would like to address here is, here we are again with the same old same old of, "My team likes this, your team stinks."  Facebook and other social media are buried in such garbage.

Last week, Mad Jack had an excellent post on this very subject, based around the then-current story of the Kathy Griffin debacle.  In it he referenced a very pertinent comment made by Dilbert creator Scott Adams:

The takeaway here should not be so much about Griffin. The takeaway is that a room full of people involved in the photoshoot did not see this as a huge problem from the start. They were living a different movie. If you judge this situation to be an error of taste, judgement, intelligence, or morality, you are missing the bigger picture. The bigger picture is that the country is living two movies at the same time, and Griffin was acting “normal” in one of them.

I would certainly like to have a conversation with people not involved in a "movie", but with people who can actually accept that they have reasons for an opposing view.  Though he doesn't always show it, the original poster in my story does have this ability.  His buddy however, does not.  And I would like to share two things that this person said to me in comments that show that better than anything else I could show.

 Comment one:  "The Affordable Care Act is collapsing because the GOP doesn't have a plan!"

Here, we ignore the fact that a) the ACA was a DEMOCRAT plan, and b) the GOP having a plan doesn't matter because they haven't pulled their collective heads out long enough to do anything about it.  If the ACA was the great thing he thinks it is, why would/should the GOP NEED a plan?

Comment two: "You, CW, are the one who does not want to leave the smooth waters of your own site and deal with rational people who have differing views."

Ignoring the fact that we were having the discussion on HIS FRIEND'S blog.    Ignoring the fact that I pointed out his credibility issues based on and starting with comment one, and HE never replied to them, only bringing out his innumerable tables and links that explain how were were better off when etc, etc.


Lately, I have been reading Iron Curtain: The Crushing Of Eastern Europe 1944-56 by Anne Applebaum.  In it, I am seeing so many examples of traits the left are using to attack Trump and the right, up to and including control of the media, the schools, overwhelming propaganda, and shouting down speakers at meetings.  I have two observations about that.

Observation one:  In the end, precious little of the Eastern European populations swallowed the Soviet BS back then- and it surprised a lot of Communists that figured that they would be an acceptable alternative to Fascism.  Stunned by their losses, they turned bitter, drove the alternatives out by force.  My question is, why did they think their way was so right if NOBODY wanted it?

Observation two:  This would be an excellent excuse to play tit for tat with those who wanted to lately compare Trump to Hitler, by saying the left is using Stalinist tactics.  Now, you can compare Fascism to Communism- one is brutalizing the downtrodden by a party with a charismatic if evil leader, the other is brutalizing the downtrodden by a party with a grey monolithic and evil bureaucracy.  But for me to say we are watching the left use Stalinist ideology and tactics would beg that I am expecting the NKVD to knock on my door any minute and take me to the Gulag- or worse.  And folks, that ain't happening either.


Nor do I feel like playing tit for tat with this- which is why, after a few replies, I deleted buddy's last comment without looking at it.  As the original poster might say, he had descended into the use of "straw man arguments" to make points that were having increasingly less to do with the subject.  And it's a damn shame, because we DO have some common ground areas that he won't see because he is so blinded by his hate of the other side.  A hate which was birthed by blanket statements on both sides, which are all we hear anymore.

"The main reason for division between people is lack of communication." - Robert Jeffres