In these debates (here and elsewhere), this is the sort of thing I'm seeing over and over. Conservatives seem to think they are automatically in tune with "the truth" and anyone who disagrees with them ("liberals") are automatically against "the truth". It's like truth is defined by conservative vs liberal, rather than something each side must choose for themselves.
And then it is supposedly so black and white that the other side can be talked to like they're stupid. It's almost like a debate on whether you can float across a void, or whether gravity will pull you down. One side is "just right", and it is so obvious that the other side is stupid when they try to float across but fall.
I also notice the conservatives always end up accusing the other side of "anti-conservative" or "anti-American" venom, yet it's always their own responses that are full of taunting, mocking, sarcastic, bragging, belittling ad-hominems, and most of the liberals (at least in these discussions) are not returning in kind. It was shocking enough years ago when the likes of Botwinick and Meekins used to do it, here. Now, it seems it has spread to almost everybody.
So just what is all of this about? Especially given that people here and many of these others profess to be Christian? What is with all this hostility?
I know you all are angry about the liberal direction the country has gone in, especially with the most recent blow, in the health bill. But are you really expecting some administration to rise up and be able to restore America to exactly the way you want it? What does everyone realistically want?
Where does this whole "good guys versus bad guys" mentality come from? I have noticed this in conservative rhetoric for 30 years, and I always said it was like watching the Justice League vs Legion of Doom on kids' TV. America, in its past ideal is called "the closest thing to perfection man can produce". If you disagree with this, or relay a point from the other side, you are accused again of being an "enemy", and wholly favoring the other system. (e.g. liberalism, or "trying to institute socialism").
But not everyone sees things in that way. That if one side has error, then the totally opposite system must be instituted. Some people simply observe when they see a perspective that appears to lean too much towards an inaccurate extreme.
This type of thing is what makes these discussions so stressfull.
There seems to be no middle ground; absolutely no possibility of the so-called "good" side having some error that the other side avoids. It's all one EXTREME or the other. They will even throw up "there's only right and wrong; no gray areas" as if we were talking about biblical morality.
But in scripture, there never is any such dichotomy in human history between some being "all good" and "all bad". Or even "mostly good". Only God and the newly created Adam & Eve were all good, and the serpent all bad, but when the serpent deceived Adam and Eve, they and their progeny lost that goodness to this day.
(Yet people still think this was repeated as there was some golden age of righteousness formed somewhere, some time that was destroyed by liberals or humanists, or whoever, in recent generations).
While the pagan Gentiles were surely portrayed as evil and depraved; even God's people, Israel, who you would think would be the "good guys", kept sinning, angering God, and eventually killed God's own Son sent to them as Messiah. Afterwards, the Church; the regenerated saints, continued to be plagued by sin. Look at the Corinthians, Galatians, and most of the ones mentioned in Revelation.
It's not until you see the transformed saints in the end times, that you come close to that, and even then, their white robes of righteousness are the covering of Christ, not their own rightness.
One person I debated with elsewhere recently, when I asked why he thought he was always right, began saying that he "had no ego", and no "ideology", but just "looked at the facts", which liberals always avoid. The discussion was way OT (it started over censorship of old films, and in the name of "free speech" couldn't help but carry on this rant against Democrats and the NAACP as the real racists; blacks and liberals always get an unfair pass {q.v. http://www.baptistboard.com/showpost.php?p=1576541&postcount=23} etc. —And this even before the recent NAACP controversy in the news), so it was deleted before we could go on.
My next question was what makes him always "just go by the facts". Basically, like scripture askes, "what causeth thee to differ?" We're all sinful humans, hopefully regenerated by God, but that does not stop anyone from still having self-serving egos that cloud our perception in issues we are really passionate about.
So I just want to know what exactly are people thinking when they tear into others, including other Christians, over this stuff? ENEMIES?
Based on what I have gathered from conservative rhetoric:
•How do the "facts" always end up ALL favoring one side, and the other side is completely wrong? What causes the people in one political "wing" to be more inclined to seeing truth than the other? I know some will say "God", but then not all conservatives are even professing regenerate Christians.
•Why does civility, patience and temperence and the rest of "Christian" behavior go out the window and snarkiness, name calling and other ad hominems become OK just because a brother or sister disagrees?
•Where does God fit in with all of this? Is it some sort of "election" sort of process, where He has simply opened some people's mind to the truth, so that they are always right on these issues?
•How do people think God is sovereign over these things, yet they complain and rally as if evil has taken completely over and out of God's control? How does having supposed "facts" make their complaining OK, while the other side is always accused of "whining"?
Here's an balanced view on the issue of journalism on both sides
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4hruz5_Euo&feature=player_embedded
