[PeriscopeDepth]

Originally Posted by Aramike

This isn't about politics. This is about intellectual honesty, hypocrisy, and elitism.

It's about the way that both sides of the aisle skew everything in order to try to make their points resonate.

This is about the way that elements on the left continuously blame the right for this "rich, white guy" mentality then elect Ted Kennedy again and again. This is elements on the right unilaterally claim that taxation is bad, then go on to spend billions without accounting for it.

In Friedman's column alone you see example after example of him taking an element out of context in order to make his argument for a better US infrastructure. If your point is so damned valid, why do you have to be so "pie-in-the-sky" about it?

We just see this phenomenon again and again. In the abortion debate alone, we have primarily two sides which are absurdly titled "prolife" and "pro-choice". The right-wing acts as though it's somehow the moral highground on general issues of life, then go on to be for capital punishment. The left-wing acts as though the only choice that is presented is AFTER conception. Why not just tell the truth? Why these grand, bullsh** titles instead of the REAL positions of anti-abortion and pro-abortion?

These are the things I find interesting/frustrating. Thomas Friedman is just another case-in-point. He just made it REAL easy to post about.

I actually think you've hit on something important. Politicians aren't held liable for much worse. We, as a people, have become indifferent. "Political discourse" has degenerated to Left vs. Right, because it is simple enough for most people to handle and serves both political parties quite well. Political parties exist to "divide and conquer", having people vote for black and white issues that make them feel high and mighty. But political parties have become fraudulent electioneering mechanisms, AFAIC. Spouting about everything and acting on nothing. This country now has a political elite CROWNED BY MONEYED INTERESTS, IMO, and whether a Dem or Republican is in office actual policy differences are minimal.

The latest financial crisis is an excellent example of this. Nobody's telling the truth, the government (both sides of the aisle) is in fact cooperating with banks in NOT TELLING THE TRUTH and fixing the problems that financial institutions created with government's help. Because telling the truth means telling the citizenry that our financial institutions and the government that oversaw them royally screwed up.

What scares me most about it are not the financial repercussions, but social. People are starting to think of the government not as an institution that holds bad people responsible for their actions to protect the citizenry, but an institution that serves the bad people's interest first and foremost.

Everybody's just smiling and winking now, but eventually somebody's going to get an eye poked out down the line and I fear the consequences will be much, much worse than simply just telling the truth NOW.

PD