On Thu, Apr 28, 2011 at 4:46 PM, sjl:
To Dick, Republicans/conservative viewpoints are evil - they're killing the
old people, starving the poor people, putting people out of their jobs, etc.
To Dick, Democrats are the saviors of the world - they help the little guy,
increase entitlements, etc.
I'm not really interested in making this personal, so I'll chop out
most of the personal stuff in my replies. What is very clear to me is
the tribal nature of the list. My tribe good, yours not good. It's
malignant for 'liberals' to stereotype 'conservatives' but when
'conservatives' do it to 'liberals' it's teaching them a lesson.
I'm not taking sides - I happen to think that stereotyping in general
is overused and under-useful, regardless of the politics of the
speaker. If I comment on it, it's invariably because I think that
someone slipped, and that they are really better than that. And that
in my vanity, I think my words will remind them of their true
nobility.
I think it has become the nature of this list to be a lot about
revenge on the other tribe and almost not at all about having a cup of
tea and a sit down. I put it to the list bluntly: is this what we
aspire to be? A contest as to which of us can be the nastiest? Most
satirical? Say the worst things using words our minister would
individually approve of, if not in the combination we choose to wield
them?
