If you don't want people to call you a sociopath when you are dead

[hfojvt]

82. what is a sociopath, though?

Who are you talking about here?

Let me list some names.

Dr. Cornel West
Al Sharpton
Michael Moore
Andrea Dworkin

Anybody who stands up for a cause or takes a side on an issue will have supporters and will have detractors.

The question is - why can't we have a civil debate?

First, even when these people are alive, it seems like some people cannot oppose them without calling them extreme names.

Let me try for an example on DU. Here is my classic "Response to Governor Jindal" http://journals.democraticunderground.com/hfojvt/101

Yet the main response of DU was to start a whole bunch of threads about Piyush, and then a minor flame war erupted about whether it was proper to call him Piyush.

When somebody advocates for some issue or gives a speech if out main response is to call hateful names, then to a neutral or wavering observer it looks like - our side has no class, and our side apparently does NOT have the truth on their side since they are not fighting with the truth, they are only fighting with hate.

Keep in mind, this is only an ideal. Like Cesar Chavez who said "I am a violent man who is trying to be nonviolent" a person needs to keep reminding themselves of their ideal.

Like I said, it is one thing to speak ill of the dead and say "their policies were not good for this country or this world or this planet" and another to just say, even though it is so much easier and requires much less research, "they were a fugging a-hole".

Again, ideally we should be (which is not to say that we ARE)

fighting lies with truth
fighting hate with love
fighting evil with good

Otherwise you are just making an "ends justify the means" argument, that "since I am a good person fighting against evil, I am allowed to do all sorts of evil things for my cause."