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In reply to the discussion: Sanders: 'Trump is right' on Australian healthcare system [View all]JCanete
(5,272 posts)speaking honestly to your own challenges. I am sure I fail too, even while, like you, I try not to. There is a certain degree to which, when we put trust in someone, we will give them a little more rope --assume the best in that persons intentions and try to figure out what that person is thinking based upon those assumptions. and when the person is someone we do not like, there is a tendency to accept the least flattering spin possible, as fact. I think I'm less guilty of the latter(but who knows), and more "guilty" of the former, but if I can't square something, I try not to force a square peg into a round hole. I'm not a hero worshipper, and men and women are flawed, and rarely are they right on all of the issues. I do get that there's a tendency to push back when we think criticisms are levied unfairly, and that sometimes gets people to refuse to acknowledge their own discomforts with an action or platform or record, because they think that somehow gives some sort of victory to those who are being entirely unfair. But if that comes at the cost of us being unfair ourselves, then conversation has devolved to the point where its nothing but gotchas and jabs at the other side.
As for Sanders, you can see posts of me criticizing his decision to support Mello, and his use of "distasteful" when discussing Obama's speaking fees. I'm also capable of wishing (for the reasons I have laid out) that Obama hadn't taken those gigs, without going so far as to say he was outright wrong for doing so. There is a cost to doing so. That is all I want acknowledged, but people refuse to be nuanced at all. People want a simple narrative where there are heroes and villains(and no in-between) and the good guys always do the right thing and the bad guys NEVER do or say the right thing, and if the sun is out and sky is blue and a bad guy comes out and says it, you'd better believe you should be saying that's hogwash and that it's really black with pink polkadots, and that's no Sun, its a space station...
the question that these people should be asking themselves, is how does that make us look if we can't acknowledge the truth in front of us? What favors does it do us, and who are we convincing other than ourselves with that kind of bullshit? We should call it as we see it, and try not to let the bad blood color our vision.