Partisan Bunny Trail

Events occurring and how they relate/affect Anabaptist faith and culture.
Post Reply
User avatar
Bootstrap
Posts: 14445
Joined: Thu Oct 20, 2016 9:59 am
Affiliation: Mennonite

Partisan Bunny Trail

Post by Bootstrap »

Josh wrote:I think being “moderate” or “non-partisan” is itself a political Position (albeit an admirable one), but I also think it’s basically a lost cause at this point.
You know, here's something I notice frequently. We start discussing something, and some people are able to discuss the topic itself, other people insist that anyone who disagrees with them is a partisan, and that's the only real reason that they would disagree.

On any given topic, there's a simple test: are you actually discussing the topic, listening to what other people are saying, letting them speak for themselves, and responding? Or are you forcing the topic into a partisan mold, claiming to know the other person's thoughts and feelings, and turning it into a referendum on who is on "the right side"?
0 x
Is it biblical? Is it Christlike? Is it loving? Is it true? How can I find out?
User avatar
Bootstrap
Posts: 14445
Joined: Thu Oct 20, 2016 9:59 am
Affiliation: Mennonite

Re: Partisan Bunny Trail

Post by Bootstrap »

I plan to use this thread as a bunny-trail for posts like the one below. In the topic itself, we were having a rather reasonable discussion and floating a wide variety of proposals.

I really do believe that most people here are smarter than "everything Trump does is wonderful and everything Obama did was awful" or "everything Obama did was wonderful and everything Trump does is awful". I think we're better than saying "I am going to trash you because you don't agree with my politics". Please prove me right.

And you simply can't have a useful conversation by telling other people what their opinion of something else would have been. If we give in to that degree of factionalism - along political lines - we don't look much like the Kingdom of God. We can do better than that, and I don't think we have to forbid all political discussion to do so.
temporal1 wrote:
Josh wrote:The thread title has “Trump” in it, the people opposed are the typical anti-Trump wing, the people in favour are the typical pro-right-wing.

Come on Boot. We can all do better than this.
i wouldn’t use as strong language. but.
in my mind, the only way this debate could not (also, not entirely) represent political partisan-ing .. would be if a similar debate/discussion had occured over the school lunch program changes in prior years.
i do not recall a mention on this forum, but, there were plenty of complaints aired in the world.

if this measure had been proposed by obama? - swoon - genius! :lol:

however.
that does not mean this topic is doomed. i don’t believe it is.
it takes time for people to recognized they may have been mistaken .. longer to openly admit it.

DanZ had an early thread that comes to mind.
Peacemaking after the Election / Nov 2016
http://forum.mennonet.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=46
0 x
Is it biblical? Is it Christlike? Is it loving? Is it true? How can I find out?
temporal1
Posts: 16279
Joined: Sat Oct 22, 2016 12:09 pm
Location: U.S. midwest and PNW
Affiliation: Christian other

Re: Partisan Bunny Trail

Post by temporal1 »

well, Josh, if there were any doubts before, it’s now official where u+i would stand on a boot-owned/administered/moderated-policed forum. :lol:

aside from that useless bt, carry on for another day. :blah:
0 x
Most or all of this drama, humiliation, wasted taxpayer money could be spared -
with even modest attempt at presenting balanced facts from the start.


”We’re all just walking each other home.”
UNKNOWN
User avatar
Josh
Posts: 23826
Joined: Wed Oct 19, 2016 6:23 pm
Location: 1000' ASL
Affiliation: The church of God

Re: Partisan Bunny Trail

Post by Josh »

Boot,

You seem to be saying you can call others out for being partisan, but I’m offbase if I call you out for being partisan.

That’s fundamentally unfair. If every conversation I have with a person is about how something related to Trump is bad, I will start to believe they are an anti-Trump partisan. And I will also start to lose interest in the specifics of what they are explaining.

The conversation gets especially frustrating if any attempt to disagree with anything they say gets me casted as “You just say that because you’re pro-Trump.”

I really encourage you to review the positions you consistently take on and review how partisan they are. As a rule of thumb, if you can barely ever find something good to say about a politician you voted against, you have a partisan attitude.
0 x
User avatar
Bootstrap
Posts: 14445
Joined: Thu Oct 20, 2016 9:59 am
Affiliation: Mennonite

Re: Partisan Bunny Trail

Post by Bootstrap »

Josh wrote:You seem to be saying you can call others out for being partisan, but I’m offbase if I call you out for being partisan.
The word has a meaning. If you see me calling for loyalty to a particular side or candidate or telling someone, "well, you only think that because you are a Trump supporter", then please call me out for that. And I will call you out if you do the same to others. The alternative is to descend to the torches and pitchforks level of not actually being able to discuss anything unless we agree to start with.
Josh wrote:That’s fundamentally unfair. If every conversation I have with a person is about how something related to Trump is bad, I will start to believe they are an anti-Trump partisan. And I will also start to lose interest in the specifics of what they are explaining.
Perhaps you should participate in the Medicare thread, where I like what he is doing. And perhaps you should read what I actually said in the SNAP thread and respond to it - I really don't think I was being particularly anti-Trump there. If you don't actually read what I say, then turn it into a referendum on Trump, it trashes the thread.
Josh wrote:The conversation gets especially frustrating if any attempt to disagree with anything they say gets me casted as “You just say that because you’re pro-Trump.”
If I ever say anything remotely like that, please copy it here so we can discuss it.
Josh wrote:I really encourage you to review the positions you consistently take on and review how partisan they are. As a rule of thumb, if you can barely ever find something good to say about a politician you voted against, you have a partisan attitude.
We don't have the MD archives to look through, but I am quite certain that is not true. On the other hand, I probably see fewer positives with Trump than with most other politicians, but there were several Republicans I would have voted for over Clinton if they had been nominated. Of course, I do tend to vote for the person I like best.

Regardless, suppose it were true. Would you be unable to have a factual discussion with a partisan Democrat? Would you keep telling him that he only thinks that way because he's a Democrat? If so, I guess you should talk only with Trump supporters.
0 x
Is it biblical? Is it Christlike? Is it loving? Is it true? How can I find out?
User avatar
Josh
Posts: 23826
Joined: Wed Oct 19, 2016 6:23 pm
Location: 1000' ASL
Affiliation: The church of God

Re: Partisan Bunny Trail

Post by Josh »

I talk to people of differing political persuasions than I often. Most of it is just listening, or finding areas of agreement, because my focus is on the relationship with that person, not the topic at hand. I’m never going to talk a Democrat or Republican into being a kingdom Christian by skilful debate and solid facts and figures.

However, I also put little stock into anything they say in the “facts and figures” department. You seem to want to always make things about the facts and figures, yet can you admit that you have a selective bias on which facts and figures you’ll admit as evidence?

When I do use facts and figures which support my position, the source itself is often attacked as not credible enough or too partisan. In essence, Boot, you engage in the very behaviour you decry, and it’s really not fun to disagree with you on anything because it turns visciously political so fast.
0 x
User avatar
Bootstrap
Posts: 14445
Joined: Thu Oct 20, 2016 9:59 am
Affiliation: Mennonite

Re: Partisan Bunny Trail

Post by Bootstrap »

Josh wrote:I talk to people of differing political persuasions than I often. Most of it is just listening, or finding areas of agreement, because my focus is on the relationship with that person, not the topic at hand. I’m never going to talk a Democrat or Republican into being a kingdom Christian by skilful debate and solid facts and figures.
Most of the time, I'm really trying to figure out what is most likely to be true, not to win. But for a lot of things, "what is true" is closely related to facts and figures.
Josh wrote:However, I also put little stock into anything they say in the “facts and figures” department. You seem to want to always make things about the facts and figures, yet can you admit that you have a selective bias on which facts and figures you’ll admit as evidence?
I really do try to look for facts from some source generally considered reliable across the political spectrum, not political talking points from some faction. And I usually do ask others to do the same. And for most of the things we discuss, those sources exist.

Each of us is going to be biased in what we find, that's why it's good to discuss with others who have different biases. But is it really that hard to identify what counts as a reliable source of information?
Josh wrote:When I do use facts and figures which support my position, the source itself is often attacked as not credible enough or too partisan. In essence, Boot, you engage in the very behaviour you decry, and it’s really not fun to disagree with you on anything because it turns visciously political so fast.
Seriously, if I cite a source that you think is not credible or too partisan, please point it out. But when I ask about facts and statistics, I'm doing that because I don't want it to be a partisan political contest. That's precisely why I keep trying to turn attention to facts and policy instead of making everything a referendum on Trump. Of course some things like the Russia investigation are inherently about whether Trump should be investigated, but even then I try to talk about when and how a president of any party should be investigated.

Going forward, if you see examples where I'm violating that, please point it out in this thread. And if people accuse me of that in other threads, I will respond here so we can focus on discussing the actual topic in the other thread.
0 x
Is it biblical? Is it Christlike? Is it loving? Is it true? How can I find out?
GaryK
Posts: 2281
Joined: Sat Nov 12, 2016 6:24 pm
Location: Georgia
Affiliation: Unaffiliated

Re: Partisan Bunny Trail

Post by GaryK »

Boot, you may think I'm out to get you, but I'm not.

I think it's totally fair to point out something you wrote to Josh earlier, in light of what just happened in the SNAP thread. I've removed some of what you said to make the point.
Bootstrap wrote: And perhaps you should read what I actually said in the SNAP thread and respond to it... If you don't actually read what I say... it trashes the thread.
0 x
User avatar
Bootstrap
Posts: 14445
Joined: Thu Oct 20, 2016 9:59 am
Affiliation: Mennonite

Re: Partisan Bunny Trail

Post by Bootstrap »

GaryK wrote:Boot, you may think I'm out to get you, but I'm not.
I know that, and I really don't think you are out to get me.
GaryK wrote:I think it's totally fair to point out something you wrote to Josh earlier, in light of what just happened in the SNAP thread. I've removed some of what you said to make the point.
Bootstrap wrote: And perhaps you should read what I actually said in the SNAP thread and respond to it... If you don't actually read what I say... it trashes the thread.
That's fair, but perhaps it would be helpful to explain what happened? I misinterpreted this, and it still seems to me that there were two possible interpretations:
Runs about 50¢ on the dollar.
I thought he was talking about the percent of SNAP money that is fraudulently spent, he meant the exchange rate people get if they sell their EBT illegally. I simply didn't realize that there was another interpretation at first. Later I realized, and asked which interpretation he meant:
I thought you had claimed that 50-60% of SNAP spending is fraudulent and goes to alcohol and such, and that's not what this article is saying. I'm hearing a few people guess that it must be that high, but I suspect that's based on very little data.

Or perhaps I misunderstood what your were claiming? Were you simply saying that those people who do sell EBTs only get 50-60% of the face value? I find that less surprising, but I would have no idea what that value is, it's outside of my experience.
I think we sorted this out in the other thread.
0 x
Is it biblical? Is it Christlike? Is it loving? Is it true? How can I find out?
Post Reply