Sunday, February 27, 2005

You can be both "Right" and Wrong

Out for my morning run - long one today - bit of a pissing rain, as it seems to be this February. Got to thinking, as usual. Here's my thought for the day:

Many self proclaimed "right" wingers work to force their objectives and agenda on the masses because they truly believe they are right.

However, simply because you are speaking from the conservative "right" wing perspective, does not mean you are correct in your agenda, opinion, or assumption about a particular issue. I call this, "just because you say you are from the "right," does not mean you are correct," corollary.

There is a secondary corollary to this notion: Many of these self-appointed "leaders" swing also from the Christian side of the argument. That is, they use a "moral" approach to serving up their agenda. Hence the corollary: Just because you can quote the bible to support your viewpoint, does not mean that you are not a bigot.

That's about it to my line of thinking from the AM run, but I did slide into humming, Joe Jackson's tune "Right & Wrong," from the Big World Album. Stuck in my head, I'll leave you with the lyrics:

Stop everything
I think I hear the president
The pied piper of the tv screen
Is gonna make it simple
And he’s got it all mapped out
And illustrated with cartoons
Too hard for clever folks to understand
They’re more used to words like:
Ideology . . .
They’re not talkin’ ’bout right and left
They’re talkin’ ’bout

Right and wrong - do you know the difference
Right and wrong - do you know the difference
’tween the right and the left and the east and the west
What you know and the things that you’ll never see

So what ya think
You like the yankees or the mets this year
And what about this latest war of words
And what about the commies
I saw the news last night
All illustrated with cartoons
So when they come with that opinion poll
They better not use words like
Ideology . . .
Or try to tell me ’bout the issues
Ideology . . .
Whose side are you on
We’re talkin’ ’bout

Right and wrong - do you know the difference
Right and wrong - do you know the difference
’tween the right and the left and the east and the west
What you know and the things that you’ll never see

Where are we?

Right and wrong - do you know the difference
Right and wrong - do you know the difference
’tween the right and the left and the east and the west
What you know and the things that you’ll never see

2 comments:

Hurricane Bob said...

Intersting thing about your post. While I won't dispute it, you can substitute the word "left" everytime you have the word "right" and it will still be true.

Anonymous said...

Key word, ''Believe''


Doubt precedes all possibility of change.

Beliefs are not available for change by argument. The ''right'' believes that they're correct, the ''left'' believes in the Scientific Method. The left admits that they could be wrong.


The right's system of belief has no mechanism by which change change can be accomplished. From the right's perspective it's always incumbent on the left to change, the right has no ground to give.

Asymmetry in doubt is why people on the left don't find immediate virtue in assertions made by the right. People who do not admit doubt are from the viewpoint of the left status offenders beyond remediation.