Discourse Revisited
Published by Mark Von Nida on May 29th, 2008
By Mark
The tag line of this blog came from the regular feature of Diane Meyer’s Blog, Respublica when Diane and her M.O.T.H. (Man of the House) discuss manners. I remember one post that referred to talking civilly about politics that particularly impressed me. So the question percolated between Al and I.
Could two people of different parties blog together, write about politics, agree to disagree sometimes and out of respect for each other, listen long enough to change our minds? This of course is easier said than done and in fact, Al and I haven’t done much disagreeing. I suspect Al has done just what happens outside the blogosphere when one disagrees with an associate, change the subject.
I have posted on national issues recently mainly because of my habit of coffee and morning news shows have coincided with my writing time. I have avoided the Democratic nomination battle but a little bit of controversy might just get the comments flowing.
Why should I be surprised when a commenter reacts strongly to a post. Regular commenter Ron on the post G.I. Oughta:
The veterans are not victims, but they are treated so by a pandering democratic party.
I didn’t get what he was saying and thought it unfair to expand a policy disagreement into an indictment of the entire Democratic party but decided to try and understand what he meant. Afterall, I know Ron and his friendship is important to me.
One of the problems with talking about politics and religion isn’t what is said as much as what is heard. We use words which are loaded with connotation and meaning that act as shorthand for communication. Problems occur when the same words elicit different meanings among conversationalists.
What I think Ron was referring to is that by saying that it is unfair to treat service members differently than previous generations, the Democrats are treating them as victims. In other words, unfair policies always create victims. Those victims become constituencies of the Democratic Party and in order get those votes, Democrats must remind those voters they are being victimized.
I’m going to leave it at that and continue this conversation in the comments section. I reserve the right to disagree but I think it important to understand first.
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May 29th, 2008 at 11:03 am
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