Can we please stop with the "Trying to catch everyone being a hypocrite" game?

[jm192 1,952]

There was a time I had some pretty good conversations here.  And I had really hoped that with the change in administration, we would talk about more issues and have some productive conversations.

But thread still go awry.  We can't actually talk about the subject matter.  We have to talk about "Well what about this thing Trump did?  You didn't speak out against that?"  "Well you didn't speak out against the Antifa riots, but you're mad about the capitol riots?"

Why can't it just be bad when Pelosi doesn't wear a mask--regardless of what Trump does?  Does Trump HAVE to be our standard for everything?  Why can't the capitol riots be a bad thing regardless of other riots? If you think the summer riots are bad, it should be easy to find the capitol riots are bad as well.

Why do we need a test of "Did you complain about xyz that your political side did?  Then shut up"

I'm probably guilty of it sometimes myself in the past.  I'm going to work to do better, so I can actually have a conversation beyond "You didn't complain back in October..."I hope you'll join me.

[Rich Conway 3,968]

You didn't complain about this back before the election.

[The Dude 1,037]

Calling out hypocrisy gets to your belief system.  If you are guided by morality, you condemn those things that go against your morales regardless of source. It’s when you are not guided by a belief system that your hypocrisy becomes transparent.

 

[jon_mx 9,159]

If your position does not stand up to scruntiny when one of your own is involved, it deserves to be called out.  There is way too much judgemental hypocrisy in this world on both side.  

Edited February 18 by jon_mx

[rockaction 26,306]

41 minutes ago, The Dude said:

against your morales

Kendrys indeed wants a word with you about jumping up and down on the plate in celebration.

[timschochet 35,029]

I approve of this thread 100%. 

Edited February 18 by timschochet

[The Dude 1,037]

47 minutes ago, jon_mx said:

If your position does not stand up to scruntiny when one of your own is involved, it deserves to be called out.  There is way too much judgemental hypocrisy in this world on both side.  

Agreed.  IMO, Its a sad byproduct of social media.  Your virtual Identity is expected to have a voice - even about things you don’t really care enough about to have an opinion.  But your opinion is important - Facebook says so.

And you end up being tossed around by influences while trying to find your footing - rather than let your footing frame your opinion.

[bigbottom 11,337]

I don’t have enough spare time to complain about all the things worth complaining about. So when I do find time to complain about something, there is no question that that there will be a #### ton of other complaint-worthy stuff I didn’t find time to complain about. It’s inevitable. 

[jm192 1,952]

1 hour ago, jon_mx said:

If your position does not stand up to scruntiny when one of your own is involved, it deserves to be called out.  There is way too much judgemental hypocrisy in this world on both side.  

I guess to be clear:

I'm not as concerned about the instances where your position is A when a Dem does it and it's the opposite when the Republican does it.  

The issue that plagues this board is:  Pelosi doesn't wear a mask.  Conservative posters point out how that's a bad look, bad leadership, etc.  A lot of posters from the left agree it's a bad look.  But some from the left rush into the thread.  "Well you didn't say nothin when Trump didn't wear a mask.  Stop clutching your pearls.  Pearl clutcher."  If I never hear "clutching pearls" again, it'll be too soon.  

People from the right side of the aisle are guilty of it too.  The whataboutisms of the summer riots being compared to the capitol riots being the most recent example.

Rather than actually having conversations about the bad things politicians do, we get into a peeing contest about "Well, did you go out of your way to criticize your own side when they did something similar?  Most threads devolve into "What about when Trump did this?  What about when Trump did that?  I get it.  Trump.  But man, I'd like to move on from Trump and talk about some other stuff.  

I realize someone is going to read the Pelosi example and want to go into specifics of that situation.  Please don't go down that rabbit hole.  It's an example that I probably didn't perfectly depict.  But it does display the "But the other side" problem.

Edited February 18 by jm192

[joffer 12,482]

ok?

can we throw false equivalencies in there too?

Edited February 18 by joffer

[jon_mx 9,159]

6 hours ago, jm192 said:

I guess to be clear:

I'm not as concerned about the instances where your position is A when a Dem does it and it's the opposite when the Republican does it.  

The issue that plagues this board is:  Pelosi doesn't wear a mask.  Conservative posters point out how that's a bad look, bad leadership, etc.  A lot of posters from the left agree it's a bad look.  But some from the left rush into the thread.  "Well you didn't say nothin when Trump didn't wear a mask.  Stop clutching your pearls.  Pearl clutcher."  If I never hear "clutching pearls" again, it'll be too soon.  

People from the right side of the aisle are guilty of it too.  The whataboutisms of the summer riots being compared to the capitol riots being the most recent example.

Rather than actually having conversations about the bad things politicians do, we get into a peeing contest about "Well, did you go out of your way to criticize your own side when they did something similar?  Most threads devolve into "What about when Trump did this?  What about when Trump did that?  I get it.  Trump.  But man, I'd like to move on from Trump and talk about some other stuff.  

I realize someone is going to read the Pelosi example and want to go into specifics of that situation.  Please don't go down that rabbit hole.  It's an example that I probably didn't perfectly depict.  But it does display the "But the other side" problem.

I find the left's treatment of right-wing protesters vs. leftwing protesters some of the most disgusting displays hypocrisy there is.  I really can't get past how the left can constantly stoke the flames of a race war, celebrate the BLM protests and downplaying any associated violence while finding Trump's actions impeachable.  

Edited February 18 by jon_mx

[timschochet 35,029]

14 minutes ago, jon_mx said:

I find the left's treatment of right-wing protesters vs. leftwing protesters some of the most disgusting displays hypocrisy there is.  I really can’t get past how the left can constantly stoke the flames of a race war, celebrate the BLM protests and downplaying any associated violence while finding Trump's actions impeachable.  

Re the bolded: try. 
Look, many of us don’t agree with your interpretation of the events you’re mentioning here. One can only be a hypocrite, IMO, when one is knowingly a hypocrite. If I believe, honestly, that these are two very different situations which demand two very different responses (and this is indeed my opinion on the matter) then whatever you think of my judgment I’m not behaving in a hypocritical manner. 

[jon_mx 9,159]

37 minutes ago, timschochet said:

Re the bolded: try. 
Look, many of us don’t agree with your interpretation of the events you’re mentioning here. One can only be a hypocrite, IMO, when one is knowingly a hypocrite. If I believe, honestly, that these are two very different situations which demand two very different responses (and this is indeed my opinion on the matter) then whatever you think of my judgment I’m not behaving in a hypocritical manner. 

That is a big part of the problem.  You can always rationalize crappy behavior on your side because you can find a few differences instead of admitting that they are 90 percent similar. However I see your insistence on things like massive amounts of institutional racism about as compelling as Trump's insistence on massive amount of voter fraud.  In both cases each side is being completely dishonest in how widespread their issue actually is.  IMHO, the amount of anger on both sides is way disproportionate to the reality of the issue and the resulting violence is unjustifiable.  

[timschochet 35,029]

11 minutes ago, jon_mx said:

That is a big part of the problem.  You can always rationalize crappy behavior on your side because you can find a few differences instead of admitting that they are 90 percent similar. However I see your insistence on things like massive amounts of institutional racism about as compelling as Trump's insistence on massive amount of voter fraud.  In both cases each side is being completely dishonest in how widespread their issue actually is.  IMHO, the amount of anger on both sides is way disproportionate to the reality of the issue and the resulting violence is unjustifiable.  

Well, again we disagree. But I didn’t really want to get into yet another argument over this comparison; we’ve been there already. 

What I want you to realize is that if I honestly disagree with you then I’m not being a hypocrite. 

[The Commish 13,984]

7 hours ago, joffer said:

ok?

can we throw false equivalencies in there too?

And the assumption that it's either A or B?

[lazyike 1,916]

Allowing a Political debate to end with an whataboutism argument without allowing one to point out how someone is comparing apples to oranges is going to be very convenient for those often making false equivalencies. Not sure if this forum will be very relevant if we adhere to your request.

Edited February 18 by lazyike

[lazyike 1,916]

10 minutes ago, lazyike said:

Allowing a Political debate to end with an whataboutism argument without allowing one to point out how someone is comparing apples to oranges is going to be very convenient for those often making false equivalencies. Not sure if this forum will be very relevant if we adhere to your request.

Sometimes a whataboutism argument is very relevant..sometimes it’s not

[Summer Wheat 927]

18 hours ago, Rich Conway said:

You didn't complain about this back before the election.

The PSF has evolved into a "gotcha" forum and is not going back anytime soon. There is very little actual conversation.  My local news station has a forum and it is the same way.  Seems like people can`t wait to pounce if someone on whatever side makes a blunder or is caught in a lie..and make no mistake both sides get caught.

When whatever side does something it is not nearly as bad as when the other side does it.

[Rich Conway 3,968]

Just now, Summer Wheat said:

The PSF has evolved into a "gotcha" forum and is not going back anytime soon. There is very little actual conversation.  My local news station has a forum and it is the same way.  Seems like people can`t wait to pounce if someone on whatever side makes a blunder or is caught in a lie..and make no mistake both sides get caught.

When whatever side does something it is not nearly as bad as when the other side does it.

Dude.  I wasn't trying to gotcha @jm192, I was just making a joke.

[rockaction 26,306]

48 minutes ago, lazyike said:

Sometimes a whataboutism argument is very relevant..sometimes it’s not

the whole whataboutism charge needs to be retired. It's clearly a term designed by the left to deflect away from its shortcomings while criticizing former President Trump's policies, dealings, and words. Especially when it comes to anti-democratic politics or parliamentary moves in Congress that went against the spirit of the law and representative government, both of which they were often very guilty of.

It's bollocks, the charge of whataboutism, and I know whenever it's brought up who is doing it, why, and what the narrative is. It's like the charge of slippery slope, which is binding no longer to me given that our government is king of taking the slipperiest slope imaginable in both regulation and law.

Edited February 18 by rockaction

[Summer Wheat 927]

5 minutes ago, Rich Conway said:

Dude.  I wasn't trying to gotcha @jm192, I was just making a joke.

Oh I know.    

[Ramblin Wreck 14,332]

57 minutes ago, lazyike said:

Sometimes a whataboutism argument is very relevant..sometimes it’s not

When my side does it it's relevant.  When the other side does it, it's not. 

Summer Wheat nails it above.  Most of the discussions here are nothing but gotcha now.  How many people are really interested in learning stuff and listening to other side versus jam their opinion down everyone's throat and ask dumb gotcha questions that never ever ever work.

[moleculo 9,409]

I don't mind the hypocrisy calls.  It should force introspection an cause one to reconsider positions and/or draw distinctions. 

The riots is a great example - why do I find them different? To me, one is a continuation of race riots from the 60s and the other wasn't so much a riot as a direct attempt to stop Congress from doing their duties.  Completely different.

[Apple Jack 4,943]

1 hour ago, lazyike said:

Sometimes a whataboutism argument is very relevant..sometimes it’s not

Some people are really bad at it. Like a kid who is taught a new word and then tries to incorporate it into every sentence, regardless of relevance.

[Grace Under Pressure 4,335]

Logical fallacies come in many shapes and sizes. "Whataboutism" is an often used debate tactic, but your debate professor would certainly strike it. At least it's a bit better than Ad Hominem, but not much IMO.

[jm192 1,952]

1 hour ago, Rich Conway said:

Dude.  I wasn't trying to gotcha @jm192, I was just making a joke.

I had a good laugh from it.

[wikkidpissah 19,215]

Somewhere, Jim DeMint must be giving marching orders for nonTrump conservatives to resume the passive-aggressive insinuation of Heritage values into mainstream discussion that was so rudely interrupted by all that populist trendsucking...

[lazyike 1,916]

2 hours ago, moleculo said:

I don't mind the hypocrisy calls.  It should force introspection an cause one to reconsider positions and/or draw distinctions. 

The riots is a great example - why do I find them different? To me, one is a continuation of race riots from the 60s and the other wasn't so much a riot as a direct attempt to stop Congress from doing their duties.  Completely different.

Completely agree and I might add the guy I voted for said “ rioting and looting is not protesting” nor did he stand in front of those he knew were violent  who he had summoned to a walking distance to where he sent them to fight like hell.

Edited February 18 by lazyike

[AAABatteries 25,272]

@jm192 how about a title change to “Can we please stop with...”

• trying to catch everyone being a hypocrite 
• playing board cop
• accusing someone of being outraged just because they disagree with something
• accusing people of fake outrage

could be a good catch all thread

Edited February 18 by AAABatteries

[AAABatteries 25,272]

......Posting your Twitter feed in every thread.

[Maurile Tremblay 22,721]

15 hours ago, bigbottom said:

I don’t have enough spare time to complain about all the things worth complaining about. So when I do find time to complain about something, there is no question that that there will be a #### ton of other complaint-worthy stuff I didn’t find time to complain about. It’s inevitable. 

You seem rather agitated about the limitations on the time you have available to complain about things. So much so that you made a post about it on the internet. And yet I note that you've remained curiously silent about the plight of the Yazidis in northern Iraq.

[The General 25,025]

9 hours ago, jon_mx said:

I find the left's treatment of right-wing protesters vs. leftwing protesters some of the most disgusting displays hypocrisy there is.  I really can't get past how the left can constantly stoke the flames of a race war, celebrate the BLM protests and downplaying any associated violence while finding Trump's actions impeachable.  

For like the millionth time people celebrating riots, criminal behavior under the pretense of BLM are wrong. There are many legitimate concerns that the protests of this summer were born from that need to be brought to light and are worthy causes.

Trump’s insurrection was based on this one guy’s lies and his weird mental problem with not being able to admit he lost. It’s insane. 

Edited February 18 by The General

[KarmaPolice 18,189]

6 hours ago, moleculo said:

I don't mind the hypocrisy calls.  It should force introspection an cause one to reconsider positions and/or draw distinctions. 

The riots is a great example - why do I find them different? To me, one is a continuation of race riots from the 60s and the other wasn't so much a riot as a direct attempt to stop Congress from doing their duties.  Completely different.

This.  

[KarmaPolice 18,189]

9 hours ago, jon_mx said:

I find the left's treatment of right-wing protesters vs. leftwing protesters some of the most disgusting displays hypocrisy there is.  I really can't get past how the left can constantly stoke the flames of a race war, celebrate the BLM protests and downplaying any associated violence while finding Trump's actions impeachable.  

Some of you really need to take a deep breath and step away from whatever outlet you are getting these ideas about the scary "left" from.  

[beef 3,000]

I'm ok with being a hypocrite.  Proves my dad wrong that I wouldn't amount to anything.  Ha!

[The Commish 13,984]

1 hour ago, AAABatteries said:

@jm192 how about a title change to “Can we please stop with...”

• trying to catch everyone being a hypocrite 
• playing board cop
• accusing someone of being outraged just because they disagree with something
• accusing people of fake outrage

could be a good catch all thread

......assuming they believe policy X on the left because they disagree with policy Y on the right (goes along with using semantically bleached words like "leftist" and the like).

 

[rockaction 26,306]

Stop trying to make "semantic bleach" happen. It's never happening.

[The Commish 13,984]

22 minutes ago, rockaction said:

Stop trying to make "semantic bleach" happen. It's never happening.

It happens all the time around here  

[Da Guru 6,568]

If people would just admit that both sides are pretty much all hypocrites and accept it there would be no need to accuse people of what we already know.  Politcs has always been a "Do as I say, not as I do" business.

That politics folks.  Always has been and always will be.

[GoBirds 10,397]

On 2/17/2021 at 11:07 PM, jon_mx said:

If your position does not stand up to scruntiny when one of your own is involved, it deserves to be called out.  There is way too much judgemental hypocrisy in this world on both side.  

 Exactly, after all the arrogance and insults thrown around in here to cope with not having an election go the way wanted in 2016 we shouldn’t change the rules to protect this behavior. 

[GoBirds 10,397]

21 hours ago, Ramblin Wreck said:

When my side does it it's relevant.  When the other side does it, it's not. 

Summer Wheat nails it above.  Most of the discussions here are nothing but gotcha now.  How many people are really interested in learning stuff and listening to other side versus jam their opinion down everyone's throat and ask dumb gotcha questions that never ever ever work.

You nailed it with the first part and has the bolded ever been true? I’ve never witnessed it, this forum was created to complain and vent about Trump. It is what it is. 

[jm192 1,952]

4 hours ago, Da Guru said:

If people would just admit that both sides are pretty much all hypocrites and accept it there would be no need to accuse people of what we already know.  Politcs has always been a "Do as I say, not as I do" business.

That politics folks.  Always has been and always will be.

I think this is true.  

But people here love love love catching someone being a hypocrite.  They want to do it with politicians.  They want to do it with posters.  It's the holy grail of the PSF:  Proving someone is a hypocrite. 

[The Commish 13,984]

9 minutes ago, jm192 said:

I think this is true.  

But people here love love love catching someone being a hypocrite.  They want to do it with politicians.  They want to do it with posters.  It's the holy grail of the PSF:  Proving someone is a hypocrite. 

All the while ignoring being in the mud together as two sides of the same coin.

[Da Guru 6,568]

12 minutes ago, jm192 said:

I think this is true.  

But people here love love love catching someone being a hypocrite.  They want to do it with politicians.  They want to do it with posters.  It's the holy grail of the PSF:  Proving someone is a hypocrite. 

Well there are a couple here that follow their Twitter feed 24-7 just to hurry up and post 'Hey..look what your guy just did"  Just what the PSF is now.

[massraider 11,435]

I imagine doing away with pointing out hypocrisy would be very attractive to some right now. 

You really aren't going to make headway in any kind of scandal over the next four years if people are going to keep pointing out that someone you supported wrecked the curve. 

This sounds like a great time to place a moratorium on hypocrisy. 

[bigbottom 11,337]

4 hours ago, massraider said:

I imagine doing away with pointing out hypocrisy would be very attractive to some right now. 

You really aren't going to make headway in any kind of scandal over the next four years if people are going to keep pointing out that someone you supported wrecked the curve. 

This sounds like a great time to place a moratorium on hypocrisy. 

Yeah, I would think folks would want to be free to criticize the current administration without having Trump thrown at them at every turn in an attempt to derail the conversation.

Edit:  And I realize that I'm just repeating the point you made.  Apologies, carry on.

Edited February 19 by bigbottom

[rockaction 26,306]

20 hours ago, The Commish said:

It happens all the time around here  

It's a Mean Girls reference. It's when somebody keeps trying to use a neologism in a context or within a sphere of conversation and nobody else adopts it. The quote from the movie is when Rachel McAdams's character Regina tells Lacey Chabert's character that her attempt at coining slang is off, which a pretty harsh thing to say to a Heather-in-training.

"Stop trying to make fetch happen. It's never happening."

[rockaction 26,306]

15 minutes ago, bigbottom said:

Yeah, I would think folks would want to be free to criticize the current administration without having Trump thrown at them at every turn in an attempt to derail the conversation.

Edit:  And I realize that I'm just repeating the point you made.  Apologies, carry on.

Unfortunately, what happens with that is that you wind up asking many conservatives who didn't back Trump -- and that's especially true of the conservatives on this board -- to explain away his inexplicable behavior. The person who took this thread out is one of those people, I am certainly one, and there are others that never apologized for Trump, and to the contrary, thought he was a pretty rotten guy and rotten President. Asking all of those people every time a Democrat does something wrong why they didn't come out and criticize Trump for doing something similar gets to be a chore at best, a deflection tactic by the speaker at worst.

[bigbottom 11,337]

21 minutes ago, rockaction said:

Unfortunately, what happens with that is that you wind up asking many conservatives who didn't back Trump -- and that's especially true of the conservatives on this board -- to explain away his inexplicable behavior. The person who took this thread out is one of those people, I am certainly one, and there are others that never apologized for Trump, and to the contrary, thought he was a pretty rotten guy and rotten President. Asking all of those people every time a Democrat does something wrong why they didn't come out and criticize Trump for doing something similar gets to be a chore at best, a deflection tactic by the speaker at worst.

Precisely. And it goes both ways. 

[rockaction 26,306]

Just now, bigbottom said:

Precisely. And it goes both ways. 

Yes, it does go both ways. I think your post upthread made a salient point. The energy needed to criticize everything somebody on "our side," or even "their side," does is too great, and life is too short to do so. I have a laundry list of things unspoken I disagree with about the conservative or libertarian movements, and when somebody brings a topic up, I'm more than willing to add my disagreement, but it's natural to not bring those internecine things up very often precisely because the other side does a great job of bringing those things to the fore. It's a function of self-interest in a way. Sort of like adversarial questioning in American law as opposed to the helpful, investigative questioning under civil law countries. You expect the side whose interest it is in to address the faults and the negatives of the other side.

I don't know. Perhaps that's hyper-intellectualizing it, but it seems to be true. We generally leave it to the other side to bring up problems with ours, partly out of loyalty to our side, partly out of time constraints.