You may have heard my spiel about bleacher thinking. (Seeing whole of other side’s bleachers, but can’t see the bad behavior on your side unless you willfully turn around and look back). One of the problems I have is if you aren’t willing to stand up to the barking moonbats on your side (much less acknowledge them) there’s going to be no trust from the other side. Hence, no movement. But even if you do come to a compromise, your credibility has been compromised by not even trying to appear concerned about the barkers.
I’m going to make a parallel to gun control advocates. What I am chewing on right now is ‘how do you demonstrate to people — especially the other side — that you aren’t really behind that moonbat?’ In “Guardians of the Galaxy” they have a similar problem. A rogue extremist intent on killing a few billion people — kind of in violation of the peace treaty — and when contacted, the other side says “I fail to see how this is our problem. Besides, we can’t control him.” Again, putting it pro/anti terms: How many gun control advocates say “We’re not for confiscating guns” and yet remain mute when others — in the same group — say they are? Do you trust them? Or do you suspect they gave that fucker the warship he’s using to attack?
Conversely, do you approach the guy who’s ranting about his Constitutional rights for open carrying his AR -15 and tell him “You’re NOT helping!” And if not, why not?
Rather important because when the other side is complaining about such a guy scares them, it’s nice to be able to explain to them that
a) you think he’s an attention whore and an idiot
b) as much as you disagree, it’s legal
c) here’s how to tell the difference between someone open carrying and a pending active shooter situation
And yes, I’ve had these conversations. First with the people squawking about the ‘dangerous gun in area.’ Then the ‘not helping’ one with the “No compromise on the 2nd Amendment” types. This allows me to honestly approach both sides and try to work things out.
I tell you that because as much as we may say we’re here for the people, we have to realistically acknowledge we are also engaged in a battle over the market. And the barking moonbats influence that market — often in a negative way.