I am talking about mentally going over to their side.Kevin Solway wrote:What does it mean to "go over to their side"? If you are in the southern hemisphere, does it mean moving to the northern hemisphere? Does it mean that you have to sign up as a fundamentalist Christian or a nazi?David Quinn wrote: . . . this idea of having to go over to the side of the fundamentalist Christians, white supremacists and conspiracy nut-jobs that comprise most of the modern Republican party.
Imagine in Sicily that there is a man who boasts that he is pro-law and order. He goes around claiming to people that he is against crime, that it is his number one priority, that letting crime go unchecked will ruin society. It all sounds good in theory, but there is a catch - his definition of what constitutes a crime is very narrow. To him, the most heinous crime of all is graffiti. He can’t stand graffiti. It drives him nuts.
So when the mafia sweeps into his neighbourhood and announces a crackdown on graffiti, he applauds it. When the newspapers write about all the other types of crime that the mafia are involved in, he ignores it. He calls it fake news and gossip. When people accuse the mafia of being subhuman thugs, he berates them for name-calling. He even goes so far as to call the mafia don a successful businessman. And why? Because all he is focused on is graffiti. He has built graffiti up to be a very large menace in his own mind, a menace that needs to be stopped at all costs, even if it means siding with the devil.
As a “free speech advocate”, you make no attempt to address the various crackdowns and abuses perpetrated by the Republicans. It is obvious, for example, that Trump wants to take his country in the direction of Putin’s Russia, a place where crackdowns on free speech are far more prevalent and violent than in either America or Australia. In Russia, the attack on free speech is real. It is not uncommon for journalists and dissidents to be detained, and even killed. As a free speech advocate, you ought to be horrified and alarmed about what Trump is trying to do. But nope, there is nothing from you. Not a single, solitary peep. All the focus is on graffiti. Graffiti, graffiti, graffiti, graffiti.
Given that the communists, the radical feminists, and the fundamentalist Islamists probably make up less than 1% of the Democratic support base, while the fundamentalist Christians, white supremacists and conspiracy nut-jobs make up about 80% of the Republican support base, your comparison is not even remotely grounded in reality.And by the same token, if I were to support the democrats, would it mean going over to the side of the communists, the radical feminists, and the fundamentalist Islamists?