Another example of why partisanship bugs me.

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Some of you may have already heard of the unfortunate event that happened on Sept. 7, 2007, when it was discovered that the Vietnam War memorial had been vandalized. Several feet of some unknown, potentially harmful, oily substance had been sprayed all over the wall. Now, it's being cleaned up, though it'll take a while to do it properly, so that they don't damage the wall. They don't know who did it, and from what I've noticed of the pictures, there's only slight discoloration, and that's about it. However, this isn't what bothered me the most. What bothered me was the discussions involving it. Sure, people going so low as to vandalize a memorial is pretty bad, but the accusations that were flung around, while predictable, were very annoying nonetheless. The right accused the left, the left accused the right - "anti-american", "traitors", "communists", and other colorful and hopelessly overused slurs were thrown about with reckless abandon. At some point I had to stop and ask myself if most of these people cared more about accusing one another than they did about the actual act. Sure, finding out who did it is important, but there's no proof war protesters did it, so why fling unfounded accusations? This happens a lot, I've noticed. When something goes wrong, even if the people at fault are not yet known, it never fails that someone starts blaming the right or left. When someone dies in the war, it's the "war-mongering right's" fault. When a over-zealous conspiracy theorist steps over the line, it's the "anti-american" left's fault. People delight when those of the opposite political ideology get into trouble, but are quick to defend when members of their own get into a similar mess. Of course, not all partisan minded folks do this, many people do it occasionally(sometimes unintentionally), but quite a few do it both often and intentionally, and that's what bugs me. Neither ideology is going to be 100% correct in their views, nor will every person on either side of the political playing field be a saint. People are wrong, and they do mess up, but using their mistakes to discredit and belittle an entire political ideology is rather, well, stupid. My point is this: if you disagree with someone's political views that's one thing, but to belittle an entire group of people based on the mistakes of their like-minded fellows show that the real problem is not with them, it's with you. Being a conservative/neo-conservative/liberal/libertarian minded person doesn't automatically make you right, nor does it automatically make you wrong. In other words, blanket condemnations/accusations are for losers, so at least try not to be a loser.