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In general, I think 1 party areas suffer from extremism over time, and there's no counterbalance to the prevailing opinion. In Seattle's case, the same groupthink of the populace has not looked like a weakness yet as Seattle is a nice city that is growing. But I think over time, the "weakness" of 1 party control will manifest itself.
I agree with this. There is benefit to balance. I am a liberal, but one of the reasons our family doesn't live in the Seattle city limits is because of the complete lack of balance and opposing perspective. People ***** about Mike McGinn's quest to convert car commuters to bike commuters with more bike lanes and fewer roads, but I could see this coming back when they elected the kook. He was an environmental activist! Way too many extremists and unqualified candidates get elected in Seattle, voters pass silly laws, and the city is taxed through the roof. I am happier living in a place with reasoned debate, where radical policies and people will at least be challenged and not just blindly passed.
There is a plus to being a one-party state, though. You are spared the worst political bombardment. One side has given up on you and one side takes you for granted. So election years are tolerable. When I hear what those poor people in Ohio and Florida go through every four years, I'm glad I'm in California.
This is true. I travel a lot for work, and I hated life when I had to go to Missouri and see nothing but political attack ads on TV.
To comment on that, the difference is that Bush and Cheney lied their way into war in Iraq- full blown war. They cooked up false evidence of WMD's to have an excuse to go in there to finish what Bush Sr. didn't finish in the early 90's. Fast forward to today, Obama wants to simply have strikes performed to take out Syria's chemical weapon abilities after evidence became known of the chemical attacks on the people there. Democrats have always claimed to be supporters of the "little guy", supporters of people who cannot defend themselves and this sort of goes along with that. So with that in mind, Obama and his supporters are not being hypocrites, he is doing what he and his party have always believed is the right thing.
What is hypocritical is that the truly war mongering right wing people are against this. They were more than happy to roll into Iraq on false pretenses, while also fighting in Afghanistan, but now are against this? And they were giving Obama so much flack for not doing anything in Syria, and yet now that he is wanting to, they change their tune and are against it. They only want to be sure to be on the opposite side of whatever Obama is wanting to do, their protest is strictly political.
It's the same as their severe protest against "Obamacare"- that whole thing was a Republican creation back in the 90's as the alternative to the Clintons' plan for medical care overhauls- they were the ones who came up with the idea of requiring everyone to be covered under private insurance, but yet now that Obama took their idea and ran with it, they flip and are against it just because they can't possibly be seen as agreeing with him on anything!
You are truly naive if you think the drama surrounding the ACA is to keep it from being instated. Both sides want this mess to become law but one of them knows they must be antagonistic to allay any actual movement to delay or gut the thing and to stay relevant. The irreality of the usual modern liberals' grasp of what sort of government they live under today, outside of academe and without textbooks is as sad as the conservative viewpoint of the same. It is corporate-controlled and they use this hubris to keep people snarling at each other. Congratulations on all that warm fuzziness felt for being on the 'winning' side. Yes, exactly. What is the actual difference between 90's vouchers and the future collected mandates? Both will profit the HIC, as intended and control the society thru health-related 'preventions'. Enjoy all that!
Ditto this precious figurehead of a president who arrived right on time and whose agenda is controlled by the very same people, corporatists. The whole ME thing of the last 30 years has been to contain the effects of the Soviet collapse while opening the markets and cultures of the region. And yes, of course, resources and pipelines. And I seem to recall Mr. Clinton's cruise missle volley at a vaccine plant in the Sudan as a continuance of Bush I's policy, to strike out due to the WTC underground parking garage bombing and in retaliation for the USS Cole. Yep, that was against Al-Quaeda, too.
If only modern liberals could get over their need to worship personalities they might understand what follys they pursue... and that is the unbearable truth behind any place that seems to demand a monopoly on political correctness if not political uniformity.
You are truly naive if you think the drama surrounding the ACA is to keep it from being instated. Both sides want this mess to become law but one of them knows they must be antagonistic to allay any actual movement to delay or gut the thing and to stay relevant. The irreality of the usual modern liberals' grasp of what sort of government they live under today, outside of academe and without textbooks is as sad as the conservative viewpoint of the same. It is corporate-controlled and they use this hubris to keep people snarling at each other. Congratulations on all that warm fuzziness felt for being on the 'winning' side. Yes, exactly. What is the actual difference between 90's vouchers and the future collected mandates? Both will profit the HIC, as intended and control the society thru health-related 'preventions'. Enjoy all that!
Ditto this precious figurehead of a president who arrived right on time and whose agenda is controlled by the very same people, corporatists. The whole ME thing of the last 30 years has been to contain the effects of the Soviet collapse while opening the markets and cultures of the region. And yes, of course, resources and pipelines. And I seem to recall Mr. Clinton's cruise missle volley at a vaccine plant in the Sudan as a continuance of Bush I's policy, to strike out due to the WTC underground parking garage bombing and in retaliation for the USS Cole. Yep, that was against Al-Quaeda, too.
If only modern liberals could get over their need to worship personalities they might understand what follys they pursue... and that is the unbearable truth behind any place that seems to demand a monopoly on political correctness if not political uniformity.
Good stuff. And when it comes down to it, this is why left-wingers irritate me more than right-wingers. Both are obnoxious, but lefties are so much more rigid and inflexible -- making their claim to the term "liberal" so sadly ironic.
I grew up in conservative southwest Michigan, where people often had strong beliefs but were at least willing to hear other points of view and didn't ostracize you for thinking differently. But Seattle is not much different from most leftist enclaves I've come into contact with: Think like me or be shunned. This, of course, elicits a knee-jerk reaction from the right, and round and round we go, until we end up so severely polarized in this country that we can no longer have rational debates about anything.
What's so sad is that we argue so violently about things in this country when there's such a tiny practical difference between the two corporate-controlled parties. By international standards, the Democrats and Republicans comprise a very, very narrow slice of the political spectrum -- and they'd both fall right of center.
So is the unilateral political culture a bad thing? Yeah, absolutely. It would be nice for left and right to have a more equal ground to work together from. Heck, it would be nice if people could break out of the left-right paradigm and find new ways to come together and solve problems. Sadly, I don't see that happening anytime soon.
I think a big reason why Seattle has become so fringe left is largely because those of us who lean to more moderate, libertarian, or "real world" viewpoints see the situation over in that city and want no part of it. Couple that with those that flee the city because of how things are, and you have this self-fulfilling prophecy.
Just last night, I was asked by someone at a dinner party if I'd ever consider moving from the East side to Seattle. I gave the "not just no but HELL no!" line I always provide, which always has the follow-up of why, which leads me to point out things like the stupid war on cars, the forced recycling (even though I recycle anyways, I don't want to be told I *have* to), the fruitless taxation initiatives, so on and so forth. I imagine a great many people are like me and refuse to live there for these same reasons - which explains the explosion of population in the Bellevue region. So what you have here is a city that was already leaning too far left that pushed it far enough to chase out those who aren't fringe, which caused an even greater shift towards fringe left, which pushed out even more, so on and so forth until you have what you have there today - an environment that any non eco-terrorist finds toxic and unappealing, especially since they can just move 20 minutes away and escape it.
End result is the city itself has become thoroughly dominated by one faction. The only way to fix it is to inject more reasonable people into the populace to turn the tide a bit, but nobody wants to take on the task.
I think a big reason why Seattle has become so fringe left is largely because those of us who lean to more moderate, libertarian, or "real world" viewpoints see the situation over in that city and want no part of it. Couple that with those that flee the city because of how things are, and you have this self-fulfilling prophecy.
Just last night, I was asked by someone at a dinner party if I'd ever consider moving from the East side to Seattle. I gave the "not just no but HELL no!" line I always provide, which always has the follow-up of why, which leads me to point out things like the stupid war on cars, the forced recycling (even though I recycle anyways, I don't want to be told I *have* to), the fruitless taxation initiatives, so on and so forth. I imagine a great many people are like me and refuse to live there for these same reasons - which explains the explosion of population in the Bellevue region. So what you have here is a city that was already leaning too far left that pushed it far enough to chase out those who aren't fringe, which caused an even greater shift towards fringe left, which pushed out even more, so on and so forth until you have what you have there today - an environment that any non eco-terrorist finds toxic and unappealing, especially since they can just move 20 minutes away and escape it.
End result is the city itself has become thoroughly dominated by one faction. The only way to fix it is to inject more reasonable people into the populace to turn the tide a bit, but nobody wants to take on the task.
OMG, I can totally relate to everything in this post. And that's the thing about the East side. There ARE liberals on the East side, but the difference is that all opposing viewpoints aren't automatically shouted down or muted. I just found the people out on the East side far more likeable and mature. And of course you're going to have a lunatic lefty out East, it happens. I also felt that on the East side, since you were dealing with more of a professional class of people, it wasn't nearly as cliquish, more transplant friendly, and people were generally more friendlier. The East side was my goto spot for a good calm, and logical conversation or debate.
Liberalism in it's core is all about control. And they can't have that control if they are listening & accepting to differing view points. Communism, Socialism are both on the left side of the political spectrum....and they are all about controlling people. Yes, they even try to control speech....even in this forum.
Location: where you sip the tea of the breasts of the spinsters of Utica
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Maybe the reason liberals aren't listening is because they've built a resoundingly successful city on liberal principles, such as help for the poor, elderly and disabled ...... and respect for the environment.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Woof
Maybe the reason liberals aren't listening is because they've built a resoundingly successful city on liberal principles, such as help for the poor, elderly and disabled ...... and respect for the environment.
I don't think I could call it a a resoundingly successful city, nor do I see much in the way of help for the poor. Ask the 8,000 homeless that sleep in alleys and under the freeways, or in designated camps every night.
Location: where you sip the tea of the breasts of the spinsters of Utica
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The homeless have programs to eventually get housing, in several stages. Unfortunately many of them choose not to do so, or don't know about it.
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