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What was Fast And Furious? Who is to blame for the death of Brian Terry? Should Attorney General Eric Holder be impeached? Was Obama in on the conspiracy? You won’t find those answers here; that’s not the point of this blog. I’m here to discover and report on the arguments driving political opinion in the United States. The “Fast And Furious” scandal is becoming a divisive issue with many of us lining up on different sides to vent our anger at each other. Before we begin, it would probably be helpful if we were first aware of what the counterarguments are, and to question whether we really know what happened ourselves. There is a conspiracy theory out there that the operation was designed to increase gun violence as a pretext for increased gun control rules. Preaching this theory without hard evidence is reckless, dangerous, bad for the reasoned political debate essential to democracy, and sets us against each other needlessly. It has much the same effect as the conspiracy theory that elements of the US government were in on the 9/11 attacks as a pretext for war. There are also accusations out there that those trying to get to the bottom of the scandal are motivated solely to hurt President Obama politically, or even by racism. These accusations aren’t much help either, and only serve to divide us.
One thing I have long had a hard time understanding is how two people of differing political persuasion can look at the same article and find it supporting their own point of view. Sometimes pundits that seem to clearly lean one way are accused of leaning the other way by others. When it comes to comedy, where the message is less explicit, and nothing is to be taken literally, this phenomenon is even more pronounced.
I recently found a couple of links at the Coffee Party website you may find interesting. Why is politics so divisive? What drives it? How did we get here? One woman makes the case that it is the news media and lays out how it evolved over time.
Be sure to check out her other post on how "argument culture" hurts America. Natalie Portman is having a baby - out of wedlock. Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee made some comments about this. Now he's being criticized for them, but is it possible he was misunderstood?
Why? There are legal ways to do these kinds of sneaky political tricks. Why did they have to resort to breaking the law?
Every once in a while I have an idea for a compromise on some issue or another that as far as I know should give each side what they want. Sometimes I know power politics gets in the way of enacting these compromises, but other times I don’t even see the idea discussed. I don’t know why they don’t catch on. Here is another example of a potential compromise.
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AuthorHi, I'm Dan. I like chocolate, hiking, and politics. Archives
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