Imposition by force of one's morality on others is *the* defining difference
Ah, but there lies the rub, eh? If their view is "The only correct view is our own, and all others are evil, and if you support them you are also evil"... do we support that? I suppose we have to let them say it--But if they're shoving that view down people's throats, if it gets to be like brainwashing...? What happens when people start to lose the ability to think otherwise?
Ira Glass had a conversation with an "undecided voter", someone who had voted Republican forever, detested Bush... yet couldn't bring himself to vote Kerry, even though he agreed with Kerry's stance on everything and disagreed with Bush's. He kept coming back to parroting Republican propaganda. Ira would convince him with reasoned arguments that he'd need to rethink, then he'd go away and come back and be leaning towards Bush again. Wanting to vote for someone who opposed all his own views! And this guy was a doctor, for Chrissake. He'd lost the ability to discern reality, or something. It was depressing to listen to.
Fahrenheit 9/11 bothered me a bit, because while it was the truth, it was also propaganda. But maybe we need to fight propaganda with propaganda of our own. Maybe if we don't, we'll lose the ability to voice our opinion at all.
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Ah, but there lies the rub, eh? If their view is "The only correct view is our own, and all others are evil, and if you support them you are also evil"... do we support that? I suppose we have to let them say it--But if they're shoving that view down people's throats, if it gets to be like brainwashing...? What happens when people start to lose the ability to think otherwise?
Ira Glass had a conversation with an "undecided voter", someone who had voted Republican forever, detested Bush... yet couldn't bring himself to vote Kerry, even though he agreed with Kerry's stance on everything and disagreed with Bush's. He kept coming back to parroting Republican propaganda. Ira would convince him with reasoned arguments that he'd need to rethink, then he'd go away and come back and be leaning towards Bush again. Wanting to vote for someone who opposed all his own views! And this guy was a doctor, for Chrissake. He'd lost the ability to discern reality, or something. It was depressing to listen to.
Fahrenheit 9/11 bothered me a bit, because while it was the truth, it was also propaganda. But maybe we need to fight propaganda with propaganda of our own. Maybe if we don't, we'll lose the ability to voice our opinion at all.
Then again, I could be wrong.