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Well said, rlmorel, well said. I voiced a quiet but robust "right-on, right-on!" when I read your sage assertion, "To say the comparisons in both examples are both the same is intellectually lazy at best, and provocatively bad at worst."

It's funny how there seems to be a correlation between increasing level of intellectual laziness and the decreasing level of rational discourse.

For what it is worth, it's taken me years to realize that many individuals simply do not want to seek common ground. Or, when common ground can't exist because the differences contained within the different opinions can never be eliminated, such individuals refuse to chose the "let's agree to disagree" path. If only because of work required. And the lazy, by definition, don't like to work.

Intellectual laziness is just as frustrating to encounter as are the behaviors of closed-minded individuals. Intellectual laziness is just as frustrating to encounter as is the hubris of individuals (e.g. BHO or AOC) who think they are so enlightened, so erudite, and so thoroughly "on the right side of history," that they already know enough. And, because they already know enough, they haughtily conclude that they simply don't have to listen to any other point of view or any other substantive argument. (Indeed, this latter type individual often arrogantly dismisses any substantive argument as utterly unworthy of consideration. It is beneath their dignity to listen to vermin. Vermin must be dispatched, not given a voice.)

But I think you know this. So, I'll leave it there.

Thank you for sharing your insights. And thank you for reading my long-winded replies. I appreciate it. Cheers.

And just to be clear-I am as guilty of intellectual laziness as anyone else on a given day, in the same way I think I am a good driver, but on any given day I can commit an error such as pulling out in front of a car whose speed I misjudge.

I subscribe to the "We are all A$$holes" theory, in that most of us try to be consistent and have intellectual rigor (including people who might use those emotional arguments or make moral/intellectual equivalences which I find abhorrent) but, with so many of us failing 5% of the time, it seems like everyone is an a$$hole all the time, so I generally try to be more forgiving about it, though I fail at even that sometimes.

Well. I guess that is what makes us conservatives. We often fail, and when we do, we know right from wrong and try to pick ourselves up and not do it again. Leftists just shrug their shoulders and move on as if nothing ever happened.

And by the way, I don't mind reading long responses, and especially not yours. I have never been able to understand things like Twitter (or even texting) where people are not only forced to be concise, they often mangle words and use acronyms extensively to make it even shorter.

I believe that complex issues require complex discussion, and while many things can be boiled down to their essence (Such as Elon Musk's tweet about wanting to purchase the Bidens, but the Chinese wouldn't sell!) for pithy and entertaining effect, most things need lengthy discussion, hence the length of your posts...and mine!

That means that posts like ours won't be read by a significant portion, but I can live with that. At this point in my life, I have to talk (write) things out in order to understand them, and I can see I am not alone in this.