Originally Posted by
mconlonx
Politics, pure and simple: both sides will scream 'till they're red in the face that their side is correct as a group, when in fact, both sides can be correct on an individual basis.
The problem is that people feel compelled to see issues as arguments between fixed, opposing sides. They break out the old Procrustean Bed and force everything into a simplified opposition, and then get backed into the corner of defending an abstraction. Extremists inherently have a problem understanding that notion: that the world isn't a blanket "A or B, never a middle ground, never both A and B at the same time."