oski003 said:
Willie Brown:
Yes, we dated. It was more than 20 years ago. Yes, I may have influenced her career by appointing her to two state commissions when I was Assembly speaker.
And I certainly helped with her first race for district attorney in San Francisco. I have also helped the careers of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Gov. Gavin Newsom, Sen. Dianne Feinstein and a host of other politicians
...
When they met, she was 29 and he was 60. Anyway, it's more of a glass houses issue. I guess nobody gets to throw stones.
Can you see that what you are doing is trying to discredit or cause controversy or make false equivalence, rather than actually try and figure out the character of the woman? This is why the us vs them is so bad right now, because ideas like this are floated out there not out of real interest or trying to find a truth or because you really want information, the question itself is a statement of belief by you. You are not really asking a question. Your mind is made up and the question is only an intention to score points for your side.
I know the temptation is to defend your own, and to see the other side as doing the same thing (If the situation were reversed it would be hard for me to concede this too), but it is not a case that "both sides do it." It is the right who have engaged in a type of rhetoric and debate that has become more and more extreme over the last 20 years that is causing the rift. It is not both sides fault.
Yes, liberals make mistakes and have strong opinions and say dumb things and have faults and can learn from the right. But Liberals are entering into discussions trying to figure out the truth and to make good arguments to convince others to agree with them. Even if you disagree with their positions, the effort is reasonable and fair and honestly attempted.
The FOX News and Alex Jones Republicans are not interested in any kind of fair or reasoned debate. They don't even have a principle or belief to argue for. They are just arguing to win the argument or make the Liberal wrong. That is the root of the divisiveness. When one side cares not about the truth or making the best decision anymore, they just want to be on the side that wins, the country as a whole loses and we spend all this energy arguing about things that actually do not matter or that no one really cares about or is not the real problem. We are debating symbols when there is real crisis we should be talking about honestly to make all of our lives better. That's what politics is for. Not winning, just making our lives a little better.
The Right needs to start caring about the real every day life experience and the 70 years we each get on the planet, and not Pyrrhic victory about defeating these symbolic, often nonexistent, enemies. We can't make you see how you are doing this, you have to have the guts to admit that you are in the wrong, not on the issues necessarily, but how you are arguing and not attempting to coexist with others.
The Bear will not quilt, the Bear will not dye!