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Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield
You realize the Right feels exactly the same way.
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There certainly are people on the Right who see the Left as their mirror image, but that's some combination of projection and ignorance. There is no "Left" in the way that there is a conservative movement. The people who identify with the "Left" are a distinct minority of people to the left of most Democrats who are under no illusion that they are part of a common movement with other Democrats.
If you're just trying to introduce me to the idea that people on the Right have a different view of the world, thanks but I already get it. I have lived in places like Oklahoma and Wyoming. Most of my extended family lives in states like those.
I don't understand why you are so committed to the idea that Right and Left are somehow parallel and the same. Across multiple dimensions, they care about different things. For example, gun ownership is something that a lot of conservatives see as really, really important. While a lot of people on the left have opposing views, they just don't care about the issue in the same way. Correspondingly, a lot of people on the left see climate change as a really important issue. The Right doesn't in the same way, except that they like irritating the left. Which is actually another fairly important difference between right and left. Conservatives really like to upset the left. The left generally does not give a shit about upsetting conservatives.
I think they're both wrong. I think you're forgetting the swing voters, the middle. They're not Left or Right. They could be either on any given day depending on the issue, or they could be neither. They could be a blend of the two. Maybe, like many people I know, they can't even decide who to vote for until they're in front of the lever.
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I just hate political critics.
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Bingo.
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And maybe that's it. Maybe those of us in the middle are just kind of tired of hearing from everyone who identifies as Left or Right.
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That's not quite it, because almost no one identifies as Left.
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My best friend once told me, "If you're holding a sign, you care too much." I believe I forget my own best advice to myself to remain apathetic because, well, I'm never going to get what I want in politics. And life's pretty good, so why argue?
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Yeah, it's not identification with Left or Right that seems to bother you so much as people who care. Although Hitchens cared, and it didn't bother you. So that's not it either.
[eta] FWIW, I disagree with GGG that you're a conservative. You have a commitment to being in the middle, wherever that happens to be, and that leads to you to find conservative things to agree with when you're talking to people on your left.
