Crossing swords

Armando writes, at his new co-blogging venture with Josh Trevino "Swords Crossed" :

First, those who know me are aware that I am as fierce a partisan Democrat as you can possibly find. When writng at daily kos that is the hat I wear. While being faithful to the facts, I have always written with one thing uppermost in mind - how can this help the Democratic Party?

Here, my approach will be to try and discuss issues AND politics in a less partisan fashion. My beliefs will be the same. But my objectives will be different. My objective will be honest engagement.

Josh Trevino is a good friend and a good person. His political beliefs are anathema to me, as mine are to him. But I respect his integrity and his intellect. I admit that his conclusions sometimes amaze me, but generally (we’re only human after all), I believe he arrives at them from honest thought.

To me, this is the important first principle that allows for honest engagement on issues and politics. I hope that participants at this site can take that approach as well. While both liberals and conservatives may marvel at the positions each of us holds, perhaps we can understand each other better by discussing them here.


well said indeed. I am not a partisan Democrat, though I'd be a fool to deny that I am aligned. However I do value the work of principled partisans to reform their parties from within.

Someday I would like to see an election be about the greater of two goods, rather than the lesser of two evils. I am not likely to get a chance to vote for Armando [D] vs Trevino [R] for President in my lifetime. But if enough blogs adopt the philosophy above, rather than the partisan scalp hunting that substitutes for "debate" at present, then we do as a society move incrementally closer to that ideal. May it be so.

I do believe that Purple Politics requires an active and healthy two-party system. Ultimately both parties need to be competitors for a slice of the same True American Majority, rather than a GOTV-based approach of ekeing out their respective 50.9%. So I think that internal reform and honest debate between the partisan sides - which is the essence of what I see SwordsCrossed to be attempting to achieve - is a crucial component. Hence it is indeed authentically a Purple Politics endeavour and I wish them well.

 

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