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[hedgerow]

The school shooter's parents have been arrested in Detroit, after they fled and tried to go into hiding when they heard there were charges filed against them.

Plead not guilty on a half-million bond.  Assume they crunched a tenth to flee a bit.

The local rag seems to claim he struggled shortly before the attack, jotting notes and a drawing.  Police evidence includes online materials, and the charge of domestic terror was filed.  The boy is still awaiting trial.

When it comes to mental health, I wonder whether negligence on the parents' part could be construed as intentionally conspiring in the arms of domestic struggle, both on the hands of the child and as the wider arc of national controversy.  Mental health continues to be a remote action through degrees of culpability and protection.  While the home front is ambivalent and full of fortitude, the nature of the case seems less than fortuitous.

[McTraveller]

I still have yet to see any political article which actually considers all sides of an argument, rather than simply saying "the other side is wrong."

Does such a thing exist?  I don't care about the topic - any example would be a pleasant surprise.

[hedgerow]

I still have yet to see any political article which actually considers all sides of an argument, rather than simply saying "the other side is wrong."

Does such a thing exist?  I don't care about the topic - any example would be a pleasant surprise.

In the interest of saving time, who cares?

See the inevitability of 'no', avoid seaside hauntings, and find something to fix the problem.

[Random_Dragon]

I still have yet to see any political article which actually considers all sides of an argument, rather than simply saying "the other side is wrong."

Does such a thing exist?  I don't care about the topic - any example would be a pleasant surprise.

I've generally only ever seen the "both sides" perspective used to try and defend the arguer's own position by deflecting attention away from severe flaws in it.

Which is sad, because there are more justifiable ways to play the "both sides" card you don't see that often. Usually because the sane way starts with "my position is flawed, but the alternative is worse" rather than "look at the alternative's flaws, let it distract you from mine"

[Loud Whispers]

I've generally only ever seen the "both sides" perspective used to try and defend the arguer's own position by deflecting attention away from severe flaws in it.

Which is sad, because there are more justifiable ways to play the "both sides" card you don't see that often. Usually because the sane way starts with "my position is flawed, but the alternative is worse" rather than "look at the alternative's flaws, let it distract you from mine"

The majority of times I've seen the "both sides" perspective was from enlightened centrists who were keen to remind everyone that believing in things was for losers. Real people just disguise their own beliefs as common sense and demand everyone maintain status quo

[Random_Dragon]

Though I can understand the growing disillusionment with what options we have these days, given it's basically a choice between rich old bastards and fascist rich old bastards. :/

[McTraveller]

I think by "seeing both sides" I'm looking for stuff like - "I can understand why my opponents take this view. I can see their side, because of A, B, C.  I take my side, however, because of X,Y,Z.  A potential compromise situation might be O, P, Q."

Instead we just get "A B C are completely wrong, and X Y Z is the only way to go.  Anyone who can't see that is not even worth talking to."

I know I can be as bad as anyone saying things like "I don't understand <viewpoint X>".  I need to improve.

[Frumple]

Heh. If you want to see why you don't see much of that, take a moment to actually put concrete statements to those alphabet trios, then consider why folks might be taking the tack they are instead of confronting what those are and what "compromise" would look like in reality. US has a long and storied history of bending over backwards not to confront certain segments of our political spectrum, even when there were country wide terror campaigns occasionally slaughtering entire towns, man, woman, and child.

Can take it a step further and try to consider that from the perspective of, say, the lgbt youth that "compromise" looks a lot like quite a bit of death to, ha.

[Andux]

I think by "seeing both sides" I'm looking for stuff like - "I can understand why my opponents take this view. I can see their side, because of A, B, C.  I take my side, however, because of X,Y,Z.  A potential compromise situation might be O, P, Q."

Instead we just get "A B C are completely wrong, and X Y Z is the only way to go.  Anyone who can't see that is not even worth talking to."

The trouble is, a lot of the time, even though people may sincerely believe { A B C }, that belief is often based on distorted, incomplete, or outright false information; it's very tempting to take the second approach because 1) there are usually millions of people who believe { A B C }, and 2) it's an absolute bitch to change their minds.

[McTraveller]

Well I believe that's part of the problem - don't try to change their minds.  That's exactly why debate is often pointless - neither side is (in all probability) going to get the other one to change their beliefs.  So it's just a lot of energy spent on something implausible.

You've got to instead try to get some solution that fits in the worldview of both sides.

Yeah this is a lot harder than just saying "no you're wrong, we're in power, this is the way it's going to be."

For ultimately it is always whoever is in power that decides policy (and I mean in power in reality, not on paper - basically, whatever is enforced (implicitly or explicitly): that's the policy).  The question is, does everyone accept that that policy amicably, or under protest?  Societies are in trouble when it's too much "under protest" - regardless of the policy stance.

[delphonso]

I've generally only ever seen the "both sides" perspective used to try and defend the arguer's own position by deflecting attention away from severe flaws in it.

The 'both sides' argument is a clear false equivalence: it is employed to suggest that the moral/ethical/evidential backing of two opinions is equal, when it surely isn't.

The clearest example is when climate is discussed "from both sides" - putting one climate scientist in a room with one climate change denier. This falsely creates the image that it is a 50:50 split in the scientific community, when it is really a 97:3 split among all scientists and a 100:0 on climate specialists. It is the tactic of the minority view-holder to cement themselves in a higher league.

As for news outlets not showing both sides - if there is a truly split topic, such as "who should be the next president" (usually pretty close to 60:40 population-wise), I think motivated interests can explain away why they don't show the positives and negatives of both candidates. MSNBC gets their funding from centrist/democrat sources while Fox is funded by the Koch brothers. This is also intentional, news is entertainment now.

Truly central news (like PBS, I suppose) is just entirely boring, because they do cover both sides of split issues and fail to take a stance on anything. Although admirable from an information point of view, this misses the point of journalism, and I'd rather read a wikipedia article on each candidate.

[Lord Shonus]

That's not the only kind of "both sides" you can have. A more reasonable "both sides" would be a climate scientist vs an economist or similar (or, better yet, a panel of experts on both sides) discussing how to weigh climate effects vs economic disruption caused by mitigation. Because there's a huge potential response space, and there's reasonable arguments for multiple points in that space.

[delphonso]

That's true. I see what you mean, then - that'd be an interesting discussion. We can only hope that proponents could be so honest about their actual concerns, rather than denialists through and through.

[McTraveller]

Ah! Thanks @Lord Shonus - that's the thing I was not conveying properly.... I need to revise my statement that it's not both "positions" I think need equal footing in a discourse, but the people on both sides that both need respect.

It's when people start treating the people on either side of a debate with contempt, rather than the ideas, that things start going awry.

[TamerVirus]

In memory of Bob Dole,
here is his '96 campaign website

Jimmy Carter outlasts another one