Everybody always accuses the other side or wearing blinders...!!!! I'm getting sick of it!!!! From both sides, you obviously prove a point (i.e. The economy is doing good and/or Bush lied and is a stupid #$%@stick) and then when the other side offers contentions, or qualifications, or even concerns, out comes the 'BLINDERS!!!' comments. I ask this, are we going to convince each other? Do you really think I'm going to say, well, Bush is a jerk, looks like I have to vote for Kerry; or do I really think that I'm going to get you guys to say Well, thats it, more jobs, looks like I'm gonna have to vote Bush even though that big War thing is in the way. No!!! At best, we can hope to better refine our political opinions, and realize there is a tragedy in politics; it ain't ever gonna be perfect. But let's stop with the BLINDERS!!! comments!!!!
Of course. The point of debate is to account for all positions and persuade. Some Rebuplicans in Washington are finally starting to turn on Bush--there may be hope for you yet.
No, it was said BY an ambitious political leader who fabricated a pretense for a preemptive war of agression to further his own agenda, not ABOUT one.
"Fere libenter homines id quod volunt credunt." (Men are nearly always willing to believe what they wish.) -- Julius Caesar, 102? - 44 BCE
Man I was going for a funny with that one ... Didnt know it would start a whole thread twhy77 you have no idea what I was talking about ... You must have blinders on!!
In the philosophical metaphysics of Plato, when we perceive something we are starting from it's eidos, it's perfect abstract representational nature which exists only in our minds. When we look at an object, such as a table, we are not really seeing a table, but an imperfect object who's general state mimics the ideal, and we abstract (and therefore alter it). This could be described as a sort of Heisenberg Uncertainty Principal of logic. In perceiving, understanding, and thinking about things we not doing these things with the real, actual imperfect things but with our own internal, symbolic ideals. In this sense, the proper conclusion of this thread is that the originator has stumbled upon one of the immutable, metaphysical realities of the world, but doesn't see it for what it is -- There is nothing wrong with accusing everyone of wearing blinders because everyone who is accused is in fact wearing those blinders without being able to see them. They keep us from accepting the imperfections and vague half-truths of reality, but instead focus our vision on the eidos that appears directly in front of each of us. Truth, therefore can never be reached, but is instead approached by approximating it from the composite sum of of images painted each through our individually flawed and warped abstractions. This is the fundamental reality of totalitarian thought, and why the anarchist Michael Bakunin was able to effectively predict the failures of Marxism, aka Communism, aka Scientific Socialism. From Marxism, Freedom, & the State by Mikael Bakunin: In other words this is why the slow wobbling inertia of a pluralistic body of elected representatives is infinitely preferable to the clarity of purpose that makes an authoritarian single leader appeal so some. Another, similar tangent leads of to cubism, whose primary tenant is that in order to perceive something of the true nature of an object, one must abandon the carefully studied and presented type of one-perspective painting that reached it's apex in the fleeting spontaneity of Impressionism. One should instead endeavor to examine something that you can observe in a relatively unchanging form, and attempt to paint it from every possible angle at the same time. Of course, in practice you just end up with some funky looking pictures, but as a philosophy is deeply rooted in the concept that perception is imperfect and fleeting,
