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by SideburnsOfDoom 3617 days ago
> Sadly, both official campaigns were the worst kind of politics

"they're both as bad as each other" in political discussion is a facile position, and usually an unhelpful one.

1 comments

It also wasn't what I said.

Would you like to comment on the substance of my post, which was about how there was actually plenty of rational thinking and reasonable debate going on among the voters regardless of the official campaigns, and how the big problem now is how to set future policy since the result itself doesn't necessarily tell us very much about what the voters really wanted?

That's odd, I thought you said they were "both ... the worst". I have no issue with the rest of your comment, so I will decline your kind invitation.
Ah, I think I understand now. My intent was to contrast the official campaigns (and advocacy from foreign leaders) with the discussions among real voters, not to contrast one official campaign with the other. Apologies if that wasn't clear.
I agree that both official pro and con Brexit campaigns were ... not good. I just think that there is clear difference between them in terms of how bad they were.

In political opinions, particularly for US politics, you see a lot of ritualistic opening with words to the effect of "both sides are terrible", "they're both equally bad", which is facile even-handedness, and unhelpful when they're differing kinds and degrees of bad. Knocking it back as facile is also becoming a trope, though probably still a necessary one.