The "Both Sides" Argument
The "Both Sides" Argument
Posted in r/phoenix by u/RealtorMcclain • 1,795 points and 461 comments
"When someone says both sides, its obvious they have not been watching the actions of the political parties. Lets look how they vote." - /u/armored_cat
Really annoys me when I read apathetic people saying that Dems and Reps are the same. Yes, there's a lot of crony corpos in the Dems side but they are in no way even close to the same. There's a lot of stuff the Dems have done that I'm not a fan of, but are still not even close to being the same as Reps.
This is a great comment that outlines the stark differences on voting records that I archived so it wasn't lost.
They are not the same, make sure you vote to keep the fascists out. Also vote in the primaries so we can get more progressive/populist representatives as candidates. Voting is not the only answer to salvage the future but it's definitely a part of the answer.
The thing that upsets me so much about the both sides argument is that while it's an absolute nonsense, the dems have done a good job of working hard at doing nothing and allowing people to maintain this illusion.
Neoliberalism adopted during the clinton era and their pull right and unwillingness to stand for or fight for anything outside a few token causes is what lead us to where we are. Like think of all the blue collar voters that would probably still be voting blue if the dems didnt spend 2 decades being indifferent or anti-union and enacting policies that helped line the pockets of big businesses
Also vote in local elections
They matter a huge amount for how your state, county, and city function.
We're learning that lesson in spades now with all the shriekers and Bible thumpers trying to stack school boards, ban books and curriculums.
Not only trying, but succeeding.
Yes, also very important and can't believe I missed including local elections! Good call out!
No worries, many people overlook them or forget to bring them up all the time.
Hell this last election in my locality was with a hundred votes in some cases.
Talk to your neighbors, talk to locals, be the advocate for your community if you can. Even if all you flip is a single vote that's a single vote more than before.
vote in local elections, vote in primaries. Get as many progressives in as you can.
Oh yeah, this kind of language really chaps my caboose.
Which party is actively supporting trans rights, and which one is making it illegal to be trans? And if that doesn't resonate with you, replace trans with Black, Muslim, woman,... basically any minority you'd care to name.
If someone feel like both parties are the same, they live in a bubble of such overwhelming privilege that they must be totally disconnected from anyone unlike them.
Certainly Democrats are not perfect, but "not perfect" is a far cry from "trying to kill minorities." There's just no comparison.
chaps my caboose.
I love this, thank you for that lol
They're also trying to kill children by taking away school meals.
You know, those same children they claim to protect by making abortion illegal? Yeah.
I used to compare voting to a choice between a punch in the stomach vs a kick in the balls.
Nowadays it's a bit closer to a punch in the stomach vs repeatedly stabbed with a dirty needle by a guy hearing voices.
Like yeah, both sides are bad, but one is a LOT worse than the other.
It sucks that you can almost never say anything criticizing the Dems without a bunch of political white knights knee jerking "SO YOU WANT REPUBLICANS IN OFFICE??!!!"
No, just want Dems to be less like the Republicans I grew up with 40 years ago.
"I'm going to vote against Joe Manchin, first chance I get to in a democratic primary"
"So you want to vote for a republican?"
"No, I intend to vote in a democratic primary for an actual democrat"
I'm personally a pretty hardcore leftist, and from this position both liberalism and conservatism are too right leaning for me. Of course the democrats are closer to me, but I think it's important to keep in mind they are conservative lite, not truly left leaning. Establishment Dems in particular do not have the best interests in the people in mind, similar to Republicans. "Both sides" are acting to preserve capitalism and consolidate power, not distribute it.
With that in mind, the typical "both sides" argument that there's extremists on both sides is ludicrous to me. Extreme leftism doesn't mean forgiving student debt or implementing a UBI, it's banning corporations in lieu of co-ops, or replacing any company that provides things we need to survive with state-run monopolies (like single payer healthcare, for example). Neither side is left enough, and rhetoric that there's a happy medium between the two parties will end with us being incredibly right leaning.
Edit: should have mentioned Biden forcing the striking rail workers to go back to work. That is not leftism; democrats are not an extremist party.
Completely agree, the Dems have a lot of changing to do before they're close to representing what the people truly want and need. But they are the political party that's more left leaning and could more easily be pushed to a progressive stance with proper primary turnout from voters. You raise a lot of additional points on areas they need to improve on that I didn't cover in the post though.
I'm going to throw in a defense of saying both sides for the sake of argument. Both sides can be guilty of similar behavior and pointing that out should not imply symmetry between them. I personally find it frustrating to discuss topics that aren't framed explicitly as right VS left because you immediately get piled of for "both sides aren't the same!!".
You're unusual. Most people say "both sides" as an attempt to shut down discussion or as another flavor of "what aboutism".
In my experience, there are two kinds of people that say both sides are the same.
Apathetic voters and libertarians (ie conservatives who figured out saying they're a conservative makes most of the country hate them).
Exactly, nobody that says it is doing it to actually add anything or advance the conversation. One of my biggest pet peeves when discussing politics, just look at the link I posted. They're nowhere close to the same, you'd have to be willfully ignorant of the data.
Exactly. It's just a dog whistle.
Wait until you realize that both sides is true, but not because there isn't a difference between them. Both parties do suck. One just sucks worse, and so long as we accept the two party system, that's the way it'll be. We're stuck picking the lesser evil
The way I put it, I don't like either, but one doesn't want my friends dead, so I'll begrudgingly vote for them.
I desperately want to vote for someone who genuinely supports the workers. There's plenty of demand for American manufacturing, no one wants to take the jobs because they've historically been low paying, grueling, unfulfilling, and dangerous and our culture has repeatedly beat it into people's heads that they are failures if they work in a factory instead of an office (and those in the office deserve protection and support of the government too) I'm not very far left but a government that doesn't support labor doesn't support itself.
Yeah, almost every issue with jobs in the US could be fixed with more pay. "Nobody wants to work anymore" my ass. Paying more would solve literally almost every single problem.
If they want domestic manufacturing, pay people more.
It's either that or revolution, and the vast majority of people are disinclined to start a war over politicians being politicians.
The political system filters out the noncompliant, so the parties start to resemble one another.
The solution to the "both sides" argument is to develop a rigorous system of values based on purely logical reasoning with a definitive answer to what is ethical and what cannot be tolerated. As long as people follow emotional arguments and lines of reasoning based on higher-level concepts that fail to highlight the chain of proof that has led to their truth, then uncertainty will cause inaction and complacency.
I see how you got the mathematician part of your name.
Unfortunately, most people rely almost exclusively on emotive reasoning and even those who try to do better have trouble nailing down the exact values of humanity with mathematical sharpness. It stands high on my list of reasons to expect humanity not to survive the century, unfortunately. If you have a novel process to this end to point to I would be quite interested.
I find that the policies built on "logic only" tend to break down because they ignore emotion and feelings entirely. People are emotional by nature and our feelings, sense of well-being, sense of justice, sense of oppression, and so on are very real in that they drive how we react and respond to each other. Trying to make a utopia based on people not reacting to their emotions is like trying to make a utopia where people don't need to eat - it might be nice, but it's unrealistic.
Imagine if someone came up and kept stabbing you with a rusty pin every day, and whenever you jump away and say "ow!" they roll their eyes and say "logically, this shouldn't bother you, because it only hurts for a second, you're not bleeding and I know that this pin won't give you tetanus. You're being very irrational right now." Based on their logic, they're right, you won't be measurably hurt, but it still has a real effect on you and you'll want to do everything you can to stop getting randomly stabbed by a rusty pin every day. Your lived experience is real to you.
Firstly, that pessimistic attitude is invading the minds of many and all it does is confuse values and prevent progress, so I would recommend focusing on doing what you can to assert your values and bring change rather than spreading fatalism.
Secondly, this formulation has been done to a great extent by Ayn Rand, and reading Peikoff's full exploration of her ideas would be a great way to see this in detail. I think her prejudice prevents her from reasoning accurately on some higher-level points, but the point is that ethics and politics can be derived from basic axioms specifically because all humans have one core value of their own continued existence. I've been working the details out and I'd like to talk about it if you are interested in playing with the ideas.
No, they are not the same political parties, make sure you vote to keep the communists out. Also, vote in the primaries so we can get more conservative/freedom representatives as candidates. Voting is not the only answer to salvage the future but it's definitely a part of the answer.
Calling Democrats "communists" is such an advanced misunderstanding of both communism and the Democratic party that it's pretty tough to take you seriously.
What freedoms exactly do your "freedom" representatives provide? You can't do what you want with your body, choose the God you worship, decide who to love, or even the best way to live your life. They know what's best for you and will legislate it.
So, really, only the "freedom" to do precisely what they tell you... which is no freedom at all.
Hey look it's that thing where somebody says something on the internet so brick fucking stupid you can't tell if you're looking at an actual moron or a masterful satire.
Best wishes on a swift recovery from your head trauma/brain tumor/etc.
How do you feel about your moron fake president wiping his fat ass with the nuclear codes?
What is freedom-loving about conservatives? They often spend more than Democrats, are just as invested in welfare, and skirt the line on LGBT issues and freedom of education these days. Democrats can be bad in extreme cases for sure, and I don't like them just because I dislike conservatism, but "conservative" presidents won't bring freedom, if you mean Trump and the like.