The Lie of Modern "Centrism"

[DeistPaladin]

...or the "Yeah but both sides do it" Myth

Centrism is all the rage in the media these days. Even John Stewart, who's Rally to Restore Sanity in response to Glenn Beck, indulged in the notion that "both sides" are responsible for the impasse in our political discourse these days. It's easy to understand why. Both the media and political satirists like Stewart want to maintain an image in impartiality and the easiest way to do this is to go with the notion that "the truth lies somewhere in the middle."

While this truism may be a good rule-of-thumb for many situations, it's a fallacy to assume that it always applies. Sometimes one side is right and the other is wrong. Or worse, sometimes one side is right and the other has gone crazy. Excessive application of the "middle ground" assumption can play into the hands of extremists. In this case, it has moved our political discourse further and further to the right.

Look around and you see it everywhere. Conservatives get caught lying, advocating violence or being abusive bullies and the follow up, predictable as the day is long, will be "...but the Democrats...".

Here's the formula:

Step 1: Conservative gets caught lying, advocating violence or being abusive.

Step 2: Conservatives and their centrist counterparts go digging for some equivalent example among liberals.

Step 3: If the liberal example falls short, hype it up.

Example: "Sure Glenn Beck is insane but look how angry Keith Olbermann is".

Step 4: Ignore or downplay multiple other conservative examples of lies, abuse, or threats of violence.

Example: Paul Ryan's festival of lies during the RNC speech was labeled "over-reach" by the media.

Step 5: Conclude "see, both sides do it" and imply that conservative abuse can be excused. (EDIT: Or use it to run cover for conservatives).

Example: "OK, let's talk about issues now and not get side-tracked by Obama's birth certificate or Mitt Romney's taxes" (equivocating a wack-job conspiracy theory with a run-of-the-mill request by voters to see the tax returns of a candidate)

I'm personally fed up with this excuse. Both sides don't.

[Mister Agenda]

Being fair doesn't mean presenting both sides as equal. If one side is being stupid, that should get them ignored, not equal time.

[Minimalist]

Republicunts have created their own jesus and money-fueled reality. For the ones without the money - there is always fucking jesus to fall back on.




They've created him in their own image.

[5thHorseman]

CNN go for that 'if the dems and republicans agree, it must be right' thing.

[Minimalist]

But they so seldom agree.

And when they do ( Iraq - Afghanistan ) it is usually wrong.

[TaraJo]

Both sides do propaganda; both sides lie; both sides attack; both sides distort the truth. The big difference isn't saying who does or doesn't do it, the difference is that you have a small pile of shit over on the left and it's easily cleaned up. The right has a huge mountain of shit, they don't even recognize it's shit, they keep piling more and more shit on there, tell everyone within earshot that their pile of shit is the best thing ever and then, when nobody is looking, they take their shit, throw it over to the Democrats side and, suddenly, they realize it's shit but it's not their responsibility anymore so the Dems are bad for having all that shit over there.

Honestly, I want to be able to see both sides, I really do; but I can't. I used to disagree with the Republican party even though their had a legitimate political philosophy. Not anymore; now, Bill O'Reilly, Glen Beck, Sarah Palin, Michele Bachman, Rick Santorum, Herman Cain, Paul Ryan and John Boehner have crossed the line from "political philosophy I disagree with" into "I was dropped on my head as a baby." Hell, they've crossed the line and run so far away from the line that they don't even seem to know where the line is anymore.

[Puddleglum]

Obamas Birth certificate and Romney's tax returns are irrelevant

[Minimalist]

Romney's tax returns would simply demonstrate how many loopholes and various other forms of scumbaggery are used by the super rich to avoid taxes.

[TaraJo]

Obamas Birth certificate and Romney's tax returns are irrelevant

When you examine the reality behind the birth certificate questions, it actually weakens the general idea behind 'state's rights.' The reality is, issuing birth certificates is something that's handled at a state level and there is no uniform way all 50 states do their birth certificates. That being said, someone who lives in New York can say "birth certificates have to have this feature and, *gasp* Obama's bc doesn't have it!" the reality is, New York birth certificates might need that but Hawaii birth certificates don't. If you wanted it to be easier for people to spot a fraud birth certificate from any state, fine, I don't mind, but it means we'd have to give up some of those 'state's rights' and have the federal government step in and have uniform standards that all birth certificates have to go by.

As far as Romney's tax records go, I don't see them as being a real issue, but I think there might be more behind his hiding them than most people would think. It might be about his church. To keep his temple recommend, he has to be an upstanding member of the LDS church and part of doing that is tithing 10% of his income. If he's been using tax loopholes to hide his income from the government, whose to say he's not using them to hide his income from his church as well? It even puts the LDS church in a tough spot if he is tithing less than 10%; they can't revoke his temple recommend but still endorse him for president, but they also don't want to let people think he's getting preferential treatment or that it's ok to not tithe their full 10%.

[Puddleglum]

Romney's tax returns would simply demonstrate how many loopholes and various other forms of scumbaggery are used by the super rich to avoid taxes.

If you don't like the loopholes then campaign to eradicate them