Yup. When the network corps were all bought up by conglomerates they were forced to become profitable. Integrity became too expensive and real journalism a passing fad
It doesn’t make sense to consider both people whose existence and rights are under constant legal assault (on the one hand) and people who can’t stomach their fantasy-based positions being criticised and mocked (on the other) as being equally “thin-skinned”. We can ask bothsides-ists why they take that position, but I have yet to see any of them provide anything approaching an adequate answer.
What? Expect that from members of self-declared “the party of personal responsibility”? That’s just the kind of liberal unfairness the bothsides-ists are talking about. /s
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When it comes to respect, the motto on the right seems to be “All for me, and none for thee.”
Only 19 hours to go…
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Respect for one’s opinion is earned, while a human’s right to exist and a citizen’s access to equal rights regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, or religion is non-negotiable. This should go without saying, but conservatives and their apologists have us saying it again and again in response to their false equivalencies and one-sided demands for respect.
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Agreed.
I’m not the one here advocating that we should be “kinder and more sensitive” to hateful people who would gladly see a third of the country exterminated, as long as they don’t have to do ‘the dirty work’ themselves and as long as the process doesn’t inconvenience their comfortable lives in any meaningful way.
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Whenever I see things like that post about McConnel getting gov’t subsidized polio treatment, or (ugh) try to talk to my father (another old white guy) about this stuff, I think their motto is: “I got mine, now I’ll take yours.”
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Amber Ruffin does a far better job than I can of explaining why we shouldn’t coddle haters:
“Searching for ‘the good’ in someone who thinks nothing of you is how they condition you to become accustomed to being treated like shit.”
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“…yet…” 
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Yet, indeed.
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If people didn’t think that women, LBGQT+ people, and people of color should have fewer rights than white men, we’d have a significantly more productive sociopolitical culture…
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Hell, some of them have out-right admitted that they think we shouldn’t even be allowed to exist.
Fuck that noise.
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Exactly! Kind of hard to have a civil conversation with someone who wants to out right KILL large portions of humanity!
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some of the best words written about “bothsiderism” were written by the blogger, driftglass, linked here–
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The key point:
Because these people and thousands more like them are not journalists or “pundits” or expert who offer facts or interpretation or a philosophical framework for illuminating and contextualizing the events of the world.
They are pushers, selling that last, nihilistic lie to the junkies on the Right who will pay any price and cut any throat to escape the fact that they are personally and specifically responsible for the destruction of the country they claimed to love in the name of a God they claim to believe in.
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I’ve always liked her, but she just keeps getting better and better.
I didn’t know she had her own YT show, so thanks for tuning me into that!
Cortez/Ruffin 2028!
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I’m don’t think I understand how, but if you would explain I’m interested. I also see a lot of people saying “bothsides” or something, but I don’t really know what they mean by that.
Ahem. @gracchus, if I may have the first pass, here.
@Pseudothink - the 3 “valid attitudes” you listed were bodily autonomy, gun rights, and “the libruls treat us stoopid.”
bodily autonomy was limited to not wanting to vaccinate children, which potentially hurts them and all of us, especially families with children who cannot safely be vaccinated, so that’s an antisocial position and not really well-reasoned. If they’re anti-vaxx, fine, stay out of my schools and off my roads.
Gun rights: this is nonsense. No democrats are making any meaningful moves to “take their guns away.” Some have expressed a desire to get rid of assault rifles. I don’t get how the same party who thinks the police are doing such a great job upholding “law and order” also think we all need to own assault rifles…
And to the 3rd point, I don’t even know what to say. 
How can you chant “make America great again” while buying all goods made in China? (I’m not saying every T supporter does this, but most.)
I’m sorry if they feel like they’re being treated as if they’re stupid, but they could read some stuff and learn about the experiences of other Americans, instead of just whining about it.
And I’m sorry if this comes off as aggressive- I may be wrong but I think you’re truly trying to think through these issues. I’m just frustrated. And none of these positions are “thoughtful or intelligent.”
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Let’s go through the conservative attitudes you cite as valid (i.e. having a sound basis in logic or fact; reasonable or cogent):
-
Body autonomy: but votes regularly for a party a core policy of which is to deny a woman’s autonomy over her own body.
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Gun enthusiasts who look at liberals at wanting to take away their right to own a gun: despite decades of warnings and several periods of Dem control of the executive and legislative branches, the Second Amendment has never been taken away despite thousands of needless deaths (including a massacre of kindergarten students) that occurred because people who shouldn’t have access to firearms availed themselves of that right.
-
Conservatives voting for the GOP they hate liberals.
Do you really think any of those attitudes have a sound basis in logic or fact or reason?
Now let’s look deeper at why #3 is invalid. You describe the feeling that liberals “generally judge and look down on them, and generalize and vilify them as racist, misogynist, homophobic, etc. simply because they vote Republican”, as if it’s valid for conservatives to consider it unfair to point out that they’re regularly supporting a party that undeniably pushes racist, misogynist, and anti-LGBTQ policies. Sound basis for that attitude in logic, fact, or reason?
Furthermore, you’ve studiously avoided discussing what Rebecca Solnit did in the article I cited above: that most of this resentment and spite against liberals has been actively fostered by the GOP and a well-funded “mighty Wurlitzer” media effort for decades, building on long-standing tradition of American anti-intellectualism. But acknowledging that would undermine your bothsides-ist argument that (try to follow this) both sides are equally culpable for the rancor and that both sides have equally valid attitudes (to the degree that these attitudes should not be criticised or mocked by liberal meanies).
After all that, do you really still maintain that people who voted for a right-wing populist demagogue (nmany of the twice) did so intelligently, thoughtfully, and based on valid attitudes?
I provided a bloody Wikipedia link for you above, which makes it more evident that you’re not actually reading the responses carefully (for what reason I’m not going to speculate). That, in turn, leads me to believe you’ll treat this response the same way. I’m putting this down mainly as a reference for the next time you try to push this laughable, victim-blaming, BS argument.
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If you do not believe a user to be acting in good faith, flag them. There is no situation in which derailing topics by denigrating other members of our community is appropriate. Rules-lawyering via counter-trolling just makes more work for the mod team, derails the topic, and will result in further action.
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