Reply #134: The "disproportionate outrage" argument is very interesting. [View All]

[BzaDem]

After all, much of this board's commentary is criticism of Democrats for not being sufficiently liberal (or not achieving sufficiently liberal policies).

Yet when one posts about how Republicans are much, much worse, and there is disproportionate outrage directed at Democrats given how much worse Republicans are, they are laughed off the thread.

So this argument can really be used to attack a huge portion of all the threads here.

When one's argument can be used to attack such a large body of commentary, perhaps the argument itself is of low quality.

In the case of criticism of Democrats, the reason why much commentary on this board consists of such criticism is because we all AGREE that Republicans are much worse. That's why there is more criticism of Democrats than Republicans. There is less value in preaching to the choir.

The same holds here. Everyone would agree that the actions of the Colombian government are outrageous. So much so that it goes without saying. This is similar to the reason why we don't see that many posts arguing that a Republican policy proposal of (say) cutting taxes on the rich and raising them on the poor is wrong. Most here agree that it is wrong. Posts here gravitate towards areas of argument, where there is disagreement.

There is disagreement about Chavez's actions. Hence the OP. Saying that we should instead look at some other issue we all agree upon is irrelevant to the argument at hand.