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1. 

   chireef said, 9 months ago

   as i said in an earlier strip:
   when a community is this polarized then surely both sides are at fault… and one must remember both Sun Tzu,(長卿) and Alexander the Great … “Divide and Conquer”… so who is it that benefits if we are divided?
2. 

   Radish said, 9 months ago

   The one per cent always profit.
3. 

   Lynne B said, 9 months ago

   @chireef

   False balance, false dichotomy. The real world doesn’t work that way. For example: HIV does cause AIDS. That is a simple, physical, well-supported and known fact. However, there is a passionate and vocal minority which denies this. And there is a massive dichotomy between mainstream medicine, and the people who believe that. So do you really think that the people who accept the HIV-AIDS link are just as much to blame for the “polarity” as the deniers?

   
   Similarly:

   - Vaccines prevent potentially fatal diseases and do NOT cause autism.

   - Evolution happens, and results in the appearance of species.

   - Climate change is happening, and over half of it, at least, is the result of human activities.

   - “Austerity measures” do not improve economies.

   - Outlawing abortions does not mean that abortion doesn’t happen. It just means that more women die from unsafe abortions.

   
   All these things are well-supported by actual, physical and historical evidence. And for all of these, there is a passionate and vocal community who completely deny or misunderstand both the concept and the evidence, as well as a passionate and vocal community who insist that the evidence is real and means that reality works a certain way. The issue is, though, that the real physical world and the manner in which it works exists independent of opinion. One’s opinion either follows the evidence, or doesn’t.

   
   Now, are you REALLY claiming that the people who are dedicated to ignoring whatever evidence contradicts their ideology are no more to blame for any polarization than the people who are trying to follow evidence as closely as possible? Are you REALLY claiming that the people who think that evidence must come first, even if it is unpleasant, are as much to blame for stupid political maneuvers in the service of ideology?

   
   “Both sides are at fault” is no more true than insisting that the truth must always lie somewhere in the middle. Sometimes people just act more irrationally on one side of an issue than the other. Sometimes people are just flat wrong.

   
   The “always in the middle” argument is not just a sometimes misguided attempt at fairness, but also sometimes a shorthand, “blameless” way of not having to think too hard.
4. 

   Randy_B said, 9 months ago

   Okay, now I understand today’s comic better.
   It’s not one person representing “refusal to compromise” and another representing “inability to solve problems”.
   It’s an outside party trying to get a non-compromiser to understand that the two are necessarily connected.
5. 

   Randy_B said, 9 months ago

   @Lynne B

   Agreed. Both sides are not equally at fault.
   Neither is perfect, but they’re not equivalent.
6. 

   surfstuff55 said, 9 months ago

   This is BRILLIANT, and thanks for the insight Lynne B
7. 

   ne7minder55 said, 9 months ago

   I suggested to the wife we go out to dinner last night. We discussed where to go. I said “How about Italian?” She said “We have to eat hubcaps and anthrax” We didn’t reach a compromise – are we both at fault?
8. 

   Randy_B said, 9 months ago

   @ne7minder55

   Traditionally, the husband is always wrong.
   In this case, though, she’s way wronger.
9. 

   modena006 said, 9 months ago

   Republicans and Democrats.
10. 

    androgenoide said, 9 months ago

    @Lynne B

    I agree that the attempt to find a fair balance between science and nonsense is doomed. The problem is that many political issues are based on disagreements between advocates of various schools of thought in economics or psychology where scientific evidence is sparse, at best.
    Then too, there’s the question of risk assessment… cost/benefit analysis only works if we can agree on the cost of risk and that is often a personal matter.
11. 

    androgenoide said, 9 months ago

    I see the Tea Party and the Occupy movement as being two sides of the same coin. both are gut reactions to having been worked over by a non-functional system. They come out of different world-views, see different causes and propose different solutions, but are fundamentally similar. As long as both groups see the other as wrong and are unable to recognize their fundamental unity the system will continue to work them over.
12. 

    kamwick said, 9 months ago

    @Lynne B

    Well said…may I quote you? Word for word?

    “fair and balanced” doesn’t mean that the factually incorrect argument should get equal comsideration. The problem with media today is that it’s too scared of being sued to point out flaws. Happened years ago when NPR was threatened with a lawsuit for not presenting the anti-science argument against global climate change up equally with the scientific evidence for actual climate change. Back then, they weren’t even arguing about the cause. NPR caved.
13. 

    halvincobbes said, 9 months ago

    Brilliant
14. 

    Night-Gaunt49 said, 9 months ago

    @chireef

    The ones who benefits are the plutocrats who want to end the USA experiment an put in their own version.
15. 

    Night-Gaunt49 said, 9 months ago

    @Lynne B

    I agree with your list but one. And your interpretation of it is in the minority not majority. HIV is a precursor to AIDS. Where was it shown not to be true?
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