Political Posturing Makes You Look Like an Ass-hat
November 4th 2008 02:48
Due to the rather pointed and viscious shit-hurling that has been extremely common in the last few weeks, perhaps it is not yet too late to show up some basic truths. Politics may be considered taboo, and it could be that distance from a person makes it easier to abuse them but I still believe that we can talk in a more mature and adult fashion after looking at the following steps.
1. Lets assume that other people that don't agree with you may not be idiots
For some of you, who I won't name but did tell me not to drink a product that is not available in Australia, this may be quite hard. You have your reasons, have done your research and have formed your arguments on a nice broad bed of logic and emotion. It is when you meet a counter argument that is built on the same foundations but ends up with a different perspective that everything tends to come unstuck. But is it really necessary to assume that they may be right, or you might be wrong? Listening before brandishing the torches and pitchforks might not be as much fun as blindly spewing party rhetoric or pork barrel declarations of who loves their country more, but hey, they might have a point.
2. Lets keep this professional, not personal
If you tell me the factual reasons divorced from your emotional ones I'll benefit in two ways. First of all, I'll assume you're not a brainless redneck (you might be quite a smart redneck, if that is not a contradiction in terms). Secondly, I won't need an umprella to shield me from the shower of spit (insert H if needs be) flying from your mouth (or other orifice). The third reason is that you might just prove your point through simple and civilised discussion, rather than trying to beat the hell out of me. Mankind may have left the trees to the apes, but unfortuantely some of us seemed to have retained the urge to hurl faecal matter.
3. Lets not make our enemies into something less than human
Lets put this into perspective. I don't believe that either McCain or Obama are the anti-christ. I don't believe that anyone, regardless of race, colour, creed, religion, choice of beer or political party is anything less than an image or likeness of God. The semi-literate and frankly quite laughable claims that "THE END TIEMS ARE HERE!! HUSSEIN IS THE BEAST!!" Have gone from six year old cute to thirty five year old retard with the speed of a rabid and overly caffeinated cheetah. When we assume that the people we disagree with or don't like aren't as good as us, we reduce them from human to animal (which if you're a christian is something you're NOT ALLOWED TO DO!) and very quickly throw away our own humanity to boot.
So in short, let's stop all the fightin' and the feudin' Cleetus.
JZ
1. Lets assume that other people that don't agree with you may not be idiots
For some of you, who I won't name but did tell me not to drink a product that is not available in Australia, this may be quite hard. You have your reasons, have done your research and have formed your arguments on a nice broad bed of logic and emotion. It is when you meet a counter argument that is built on the same foundations but ends up with a different perspective that everything tends to come unstuck. But is it really necessary to assume that they may be right, or you might be wrong? Listening before brandishing the torches and pitchforks might not be as much fun as blindly spewing party rhetoric or pork barrel declarations of who loves their country more, but hey, they might have a point.
2. Lets keep this professional, not personal
If you tell me the factual reasons divorced from your emotional ones I'll benefit in two ways. First of all, I'll assume you're not a brainless redneck (you might be quite a smart redneck, if that is not a contradiction in terms). Secondly, I won't need an umprella to shield me from the shower of spit (insert H if needs be) flying from your mouth (or other orifice). The third reason is that you might just prove your point through simple and civilised discussion, rather than trying to beat the hell out of me. Mankind may have left the trees to the apes, but unfortuantely some of us seemed to have retained the urge to hurl faecal matter.
3. Lets not make our enemies into something less than human
Lets put this into perspective. I don't believe that either McCain or Obama are the anti-christ. I don't believe that anyone, regardless of race, colour, creed, religion, choice of beer or political party is anything less than an image or likeness of God. The semi-literate and frankly quite laughable claims that "THE END TIEMS ARE HERE!! HUSSEIN IS THE BEAST!!" Have gone from six year old cute to thirty five year old retard with the speed of a rabid and overly caffeinated cheetah. When we assume that the people we disagree with or don't like aren't as good as us, we reduce them from human to animal (which if you're a christian is something you're NOT ALLOWED TO DO!) and very quickly throw away our own humanity to boot.
So in short, let's stop all the fightin' and the feudin' Cleetus.
JZ
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