Criticize the things you like

[monkeygirl]

In the heat of a political discussion with a RL friend on Facebook, I accused her of being one-sided with her political critcisms

though she claims no "labels" when it comes to politics. She said she hadn't seen me call out any Democrats on anything.

That's false but I don't go nuts about ti when I do.

 

So, how non-partisan are you? Do you complain as much when 'your' party/candidate/side makes a bonehead move or do you

forgive their sins more quickly and easily?

 

What are some of the things you can't abide done by people/administrations you generally support?

 

My biggest bitch with Obama is what he allowed the NSA to get away with. Civil liberties be damned, let's just go through every

American's shit JUST IN CASE.

 

I also-like with all Presidents-am not happy about his broken campaign promises.

 

YOU?

[Pong Messiah]

That's false but I don't go nuts about ti when I do.

Oh Tami. I could see you criticizing a Democrat if they did something truly awful, like vote for a ban on late term abortions, or vote against a massive minimum wage hike, or perhaps murder their spouse with an ice pick on live television -- i.e. act like a Republican. But aside from projecting an occasional "Get off my lawn!" grandpa vibe, and being marginally pro 2nd Amendment (though this seems to be fading), your FB wall often reads like a Daily Kos rage ejaculation, so I can understand why your friend might be critical of you. This isn't to say your friend isn't a mindless Fox News drone, of course!

----

 

 

I voted for Obama the first time (threw vote away on third party in 2012), and am pretty hard on him for not making the sea levels drop like he promised. Bastard. Would I be harder on a McCain or Romney? idk. I think it boils down to personality, really, 'cause there are lots of things to dislike about all of those guys. I could see myself being easier on McCain because I used to like him a lot back in 2000, and he's so adorably feisty and senile now. I could also see myself being a lot harder on Romney because he's Romney and ick.

[pavonis]

Criticize the things I like?

 

Hmmm.

 

Can't do it. I don't like anything.

[Pong Messiah]

Criticize the things I like?

 

Hmmm.

 

Can't do it. I don't like anything.

Hahah... that was my exact thought, too.

[Cerina]

I don't have a "side". I think I criticize pretty much all politics equally. Mainly I just think the government should stay out of most things.

[The Kurgan]

The only thing I'm totally against IS hyperpartisanship. There's good things and bad things, though not in equal measure, on all sides. As a general rule, I think, the longer a given "side" has been in power, or at least cozied up to the people in power, and the longer a set of ideas has been a "sacred cow" placed above scrutiny, criticism and (above all) ridicule, the more corrupt and excessive they'll tend to be.

[Ms. Spam]

I genuinely like my job teaching but my god some of the things they have me do are a facepalm away from flinging all the books and grading systems to the wind and going to live on an island. So I do tend to criticize my job at work. It's not that I'm not supportive of what I do. I read a post that someone made to Driver about common core. Texas opted out of that option and we still kind of do normal type stuff you remember from attending school but MY GOD if I had to do common core.

[Guest]

Tami, everytime I see a political post from you it's anti-Republican and frequently is a meme that could be discredited by a 2 second Google search, so, yeah, your friend is right. The question is, why is that a bad thing? Why do you WANT to be neutral when you're not? Denying who you are and what you believe seems utterly ridiculous to me.

 

That would be like pavonis pretending that he likes things, or Krawlie pretending he's a person.

[monkeygirl]

I'm not saying it's a bad thing, I just want to be fair. My ideals lie in the Democratic left so it's not a character flaw if I agree with most of their ideals. I never want to be what Kurgan describes-she thinks I am, I know I am not. I just wanted to share this to see how many of us can be candid about the flaws in the things we generally support.

 

I think I'm mostly giving up the memes unless they're ridiculous/funny-like the "Hates_______, still does his job". I initially liked them because they easily draw people into discussion. Now, that ensuing discussion's not worth it to me.

[Guest]

Fair enough. I guess I misread, but it seems like there's this annoying thing among people now who are pretending to be independent despite the fact that they aren't. People to the left of Bernie pretending that they'll take a Republican seriously, for example. As someone who really is independent, mainly because neither party aligns with my world view as a Catholic, I find it frustrating.

 

I also find that I tend to criticize more the party that I agree with more on a topic. I don't criticize Republicans as much for being anti-poor because that's what they do, but I'll criticize Democrats who claim to support the poor but then turn around and advocate for policies that harm the poor. Similarly, Democrats are pro-choice, so I'm not going to criticize that, but I am going to criticize Republicans for pretending to be pro-life and for trying to hijack the pro-life movement for their personal gain.

[Driver]

I claim to be a-political and centrist, and for the most part that's true-- but when it comes to civil rights and other such social issues I most certainly lean left, and those just so happen to be the big hotly contest issues, which makes me look like a total Demoshill.

 

While I think Obama has done a lot more than he gets credit for, he's done plenty of shady too.

 

If the GOP ditched the mad tea party and super fascist nutbags and gave me a candidate that wasn't a rich old white man that hates the gays, wimmins and coloreds I'd be all for it.

[D-Ray Kenobi]

I generally think Obama has done a pretty spectacular job, but his support of shady NSA stuff and his condemnation of Snowden still pisses me off.

[The Kurgan]

I think the fact that you're willing to ask the question shows that you're not some rabid SJW type, MG. You're a social liberal. You are NOT a social justice warrior. That's like the difference between a typical religious person and a fundamentalist. True believers, whatever their stripe, would answer a question like this in a very different way. An old high school friend of mine, who was such a fanatic SJW that I ended up unfriending the guy because any criticism of his sacred cows truly triggered him - criticized only the failure of himself and of white feminists in particular to be quite stringent enough in their remorse for historical injustices. I've witnessed comparable responses from people of all kinds of political and social views. In general, they allow criticism of failure to adhere to the party line, not of the party line itself. That's a crucial difference.

 

It comes down to how intense our personal attachment to our beliefs is.

[Pong Messiah]

Fair enough. I guess I misread, but it seems like there's this annoying thing among people now who are pretending to be independent despite the fact that they aren't. People to the left of Bernie pretending that they'll take a Republican seriously, for example. As someone who really is independent, mainly because neither party aligns with my world view as a Catholic, I find it frustrating.

 

I also find that I tend to criticize more the party that I agree with more on a topic. I don't criticize Republicans as much for being anti-poor because that's what they do, but I'll criticize Democrats who claim to support the poor but then turn around and advocate for policies that harm the poor. Similarly, Democrats are pro-choice, so I'm not going to criticize that, but I am going to criticize Republicans for pretending to be pro-life and for trying to hijack the pro-life movement for their personal gain.

Your post really resonates with me.

 

I recently had the pleasure of being in the presence of an "independent" woman who was yelling at CNN, filling in each pause by Obama with "He is such a ****ing liar!" and "Can you believe how ****ty this president is?!?" Was charming. And insane. Now, if there were a single national-level Democrat she didn't view as incompetent or evil, maybe I could write the Obama thing off as a singular disdain -- a personality conflict -- but it's pretty clear she just hates Democrats. You don't get to call yourself a "centrist independent" just because you'd probably stay home or vote 3rd party if Ted Cruz got nominated.

 

While the above is fresh in my mind and serves as the nutty perfect example (do sane people scream at their TVs?), rancorous partisanship, unfortunately, seems to be the norm rather than the exception among people I know who call themselves "independents." Given my social circle, this usually takes the form of attacks aimed at economic and (especially) social conservatives, though it goes both ways, of course. Anyways, staying home or voting 3rd party if the Democrats don't put up a candidate you like doesn't make you a "centrist independent."

 

I can also relate to being harder on people you agree with. When it comes down to it, I'm a soft Democrat. Sure, ideally they wouldn't cater to identity politickers and speech policers (the "religious left"), and they would celebrate the 2nd Amendment by giving every American over 12 a semi automatic weapon. Also, they might not be so reflexive in hating on big corporations or assigning "victim" status to everybody who is poor or unsuccessful. But overall, aside from a brief period in my life when I tended to vote 3rd party or "R" (roughly 2000-2005), I vote "D" or 3rd party nearly every time.

 

That said, I'd be lying if I didn't admit that one of my favorite sights is a gaggle of progressives running around in circles screaming with their hair on fire after a Republican victory. And while I have a lot more in common with the American far left -- culturally, if not ideologically -- than the religious right, I find the bleatings of the religious right far less annoying. It's probably a matter of saturation and how much it affects my day-to-day life coupled with expecting more substance and intelligence from liberals -- but whatever the reason, I am a lot harder on "my side."

[monkeygirl]

Interesting! That's something I never thought of and did not expect.

[The Kurgan]

While the above is fresh in my mind and serves as the nutty perfect example (do sane people scream at their TVs?), rancorous partisanship, unfortunately, seems to be the norm rather than the exception among people I know who call themselves "independents." Given my social circle, this usually takes the form of attacks aimed at economic and (especially) social conservatives, though it goes both ways, of course. Anyways, staying home or voting 3rd party if the Democrats don't put up a candidate you like doesn't make you a "centrist independent."

 

I can also relate to being harder on people you agree with. When it comes down to it, I'm a soft Democrat. Sure, ideally they wouldn't cater to identity politickers and speech policers (the "religious left"), and they would celebrate the 2nd Amendment by giving every American over 12 a semi automatic weapon. Also, they might not be so reflexive in hating on big corporations or assigning "victim" status to everybody who is poor or unsuccessful. But overall, aside from a brief period in my life when I tended to vote 3rd party or "R" (roughly 2000-2005), I vote "D" or 3rd party nearly every time.

 

That said, I'd be lying if I didn't admit that one of my favorite sights is a gaggle of progressives running around in circles screaming with their hair on fire after a Republican victory. And while I have a lot more in common with the American far left -- culturally, if not ideologically -- than the religious right, I find the bleatings of the religious right far less annoying. It's probably a matter of saturation and how much it affects my day-to-day life coupled with expecting more substance and intelligence from liberals -- but whatever the reason, I am a lot harder on "my side."

I totally get this. I'm pretty much the same. What I find is that ideologically and culturally, I'm closer to the progressives also. But in terms of style, they're both a lot alike, just privileging different groups. Both have their sacred cows, their dogmas you can't question, their charmed circles of preferred groups and interests, their paranoid narratives of vast, sinister forces out to destroy everything good and wholesome (rightists are threatened by socialism and Islam, lefties are menaced by racism and patriarchy), both employ morally ratched up rhetoric that demonizes their opponents, both rationalize double standards that favor their preferred constituents. In this sense, I find them equivalent. I suppose this is why I'm harder on the center left than I am on the right. I expect better from my side. Fundamentally and substantially better, not merely my pile of crap as opposed to their pile of crap.

[Destiny Skywalker]

I think it's one thing to be open-minded, I think it's another to pretend to be. My politics are all messed up, for somewhat similar reasons to Fozzie. I don't align perfectly with either party, but I do know how I feel on most issues.

 

I dont, however, feel the need to publicly air my opinion on every issue ever, like most people on Facebook.

[Pong Messiah]

I dont, however, feel the need to publicly air my opinion on every issue ever, like most people on Facebook.

if u arent sharing your opinions and grievances at all times u r part of the problem

 

obvious secret gop shill

[monkeygirl]

Fair enough. I guess I misread, but it seems like there's this annoying thing among people now who are pretending to be independent despite the fact that they aren't.

 

 

 

 

 

THIS. She IS THIS.

I dont, however, feel the need to publicly air my opinion on every issue ever, like most people on Facebook.

 

ARE YOU TALKING TO ME?>

[Destiny Skywalker]

NOT THIS TIME.

 

Seriously, I have a mom friend who is SJW extreme. The only reason I keep her in my Facebook feed is because her cousin is a semi-famous American goalkeeper, and I think that's cool.

[monkeygirl]

 

just checking cause it's all about me