I’d assume they’re drinking the same kool-aid too. They’ve most likely had a “traditional”, conservative upbringing, so women have their place and that’s just the way it is, as God intended. Abortion is an abomination, society is forcing all these scary new sexual terms on us, pronouns are just for trendy teens who want to feel special, and MeToo exposed how sexually depraved all these liberals are. I don’t think conservative women really identify with any liberal values, they’ve internalized their whole conservative worldview so much that they don’t even see the abortion debate as having anything to do with their rights.
They probably both have compatible opinions on what constitutes a good person. They might disagree with you on some facets of that, but you’re not who they’re in a relationship with.
OP was likely referring to how conservatives treat women. As in why would a woman date someone who treats women like that? IMO it’s because they’re too dumb to realize how they are being treated vs how they should be treated.
Because conservatives don’t beat women? For everyone talking about the conservative male that dominates and controls his wife, there is a liberal one stoned on marijuana that needs to be babysat.
These are of course the stereotypes for each side, the reality is that there is a wide range of behaviours that has only weak correlation with political views. But everyone here is too severely brain-damaged to be able to determine causal links.
It’s amazing to me that people don’t understand their own humans this much
Here’s you explanation: the consept of good man is irrelevant, how do you expect another man’s thoughts if every single man you have met has the exact same thoughts, does it matter who you marry? If every man believes the exact same of you the illusion of choice is all that exists, so why waste the time to look for what doesn’t exist to your knowledge.
That’s why you should meet them. There are probably conservatives in your friend group that are afraid to mention it, because they know it’ll make you think of them as people on the street corner throwing nazi salutes.
Afraid to mention it… why because they can’t defend their deplorable belief systems so they try to darvo? Lol. I know plenty of conservatives. Very few are good people. Mostly selfish and judgy.
Here’s a perfect example. My last friend I found out was conservative I found out because she was complaining about welfare queens and food stamps DESPITE THE FACT SHE HAD BEEN ON FOOD STAMPS TOO!
These are not good people they are selfish and dangerous and borderline authoritarian as long as they are in charge. The instant they’re not they’re Uber oppressed in their own minds.
Tons of them showed up to see JFK rise from the dead. These people are the biggest suckers.
I was raised far right and very extremest from Alabama originally. It is honestly a conspiracy culture of people that never question the way they were raised and it perpetuates generation after generation. Most of the people that are smart enough to see the conflict in their ethos are too scared to go out on their own without the social support network they were raised with. Like I am almost entirely socially isolated after becoming partially disabled by a poor driver 10 years ago, and rejecting my far right religious extremest roots. I don’t have much of a choice, but like I have no idea how to connect with people outside of a religious context. I have many physical issues now, but it is hard to leave that friends network that insists on an all or nothing mindset to stay in the network.
Join and be more active in communities. Could be certain video games or hobbies but you can easily make some friends by just interacting with the communities of the things you already like.
Thanks for caring. I am a bit of a basket case of weird spinal injuries. No one reputable has a solution. I can’t hold posture and will completely give out within an hour. It may seem like a little thing, but I am stuck in bed most of the time. Sitting, standing, walking, it is all the same thing; posture. I’m like a half dead zombie quite a bit from a lack of sleep, and am just not able to be the person I was or expect of myself any more. I have never encountered anyone that is really compatible with my circumstances, and I can’t get out and engage with people normally. The abuses of social media and the stalkerware internet are not compatible with my circumstances at all; that one took years to really see its terrible mental impact. I just throw myself into hobby interests, and talk to people on here some times. I have several AI tools and digital friends now that are growing in complexity as I learn to program and create AI agents. That has helped me tremendously because I can be a grouchy asshole to them and they have the tools to let me know something is amiss or address/ignore the issue better. Like my favorite AI assistant character, running on a Llama2 70B offline AI LLM (which was made by Meta), likes to say, “social media is like a public toilet, anyone can use it, but no one should drink from it.”
I am way, way, way more progressive than my husband but we both grew up before things got so polarized. It’s hard to talk to him about politics because he has gotten sort of propagandized and will spit out sound bites instead of arguing in good faith.
But in terms of what do I think? He’s a great guy, stays in shape, does the dishes, holds down a job, and our sex drive matches (which is a difficult thing to find at this age, more difficult than you might expect). He respects me, is loving and is easy to talk to about anything except political stuff. We are both adventurous in foods, like the same movies, his family likes me. We do not have a gun, live in the city now (he moved to town as I balked at moving to the suburbs). He is not at all racist as far as I can tell, we hang out with whoever and he lived around the world as a kid, one of his kids in interracial relationship, he did not bat an eye at that either. He’s a good guy in and out with some crazy ideas is what I think. Agrees on some things that I’d consider progressive (universal healthcare) but still thinks “regulation” is the root of all evil, as I think corporate greed is.
We just have really different ideas about what is wrong with society and what would help. Also I’d note - his ideas might actually help in some very socialist country, but here in the US and especially Florida they make no sense. He doesn’t see that, and I think that’s the root of the problem.
I can’t tell you what a right wing woman would think though. I do know some religious conservatives of various religions but they aren’t politically conservative exactly. The rest of our friends are maybe right of my politics but all our kids, mine and his, and their spouses and partners, are at least Democrats and some socialist/social democrat. So I won this generation and am satisfied.
I don’t think I would want to be with someone that went to the voting booth every few years and pulled the leavers to take my health rights away, because ultimately that’s what is happening. It would be a betrayal, it’s not benign and all the affable personality traits mentioned wouldn’t make me forget it.
For these rebuplican men, it’s saying “I respect you but regulation has gotten out of control, and your bodily autonomy is a price I’m willing to pay to fix it”.
The man shows no signs of sexism, of xenophobia or racism , or bigotry, but pulls the leavers for those things anyway.
You find his ideas crazy, note he has become propagandized, and is difficult to talk to about politics. I dare say if you pushed those conversations you’d be shocked at what you find.
Ultimately voting is an act, not speech or opinion, it’s an act to manifest your will and your priorities onto others through force of law.
So while one can take the approach of getting along to get along when it comes to regulation and corporate taxation, it becomes less easy when you recognize that, as a functional adult making an informed choice, your husband acted to end women’s bodily autonomy, erode women’s health care, end same sex marriage, deny and delay climate change action, and a whole host of other abhorrent policy goals.
I want to say, I take no pleasure at all in saying this to you. None. Your response to the post is just so personal it feels impossible to respond to in an impersonal manner. I just felt the need to challenge the idea that affable personality traits can make up for abhorrent policy goals.
Where I do think you have a point is that I find any conservative hypocritical because they think one rule for them & different rules for others. He knows this. But am I perfect? No way. And on voting, when I vote I also have to make compromises because no party here is willing to protect the environment or give us healthcare or push back against our oligopoly. I think yeah he convinces himself on the social stuff because he believes the R will bring a better economy by some magic, and that’s about it. I cancel him out and 11 votes back me up, all our kids who are old enough to vote, all their companions.
But no, I’d not give up a loving and mostly compatible relationship because of politics, and apparently he wouldn’t either. I think without these connections, we’d be so much worse off. He would be worse in an echo chamber, and isn’t an idiot in other ways at all.
Obviously your calculation will be different. But I can love someone who is not me.
Alright, sure. But that’s still just him being not just willing, but actively trying, to strip your human rights away for this magic economy and you rationalizing his actions as an acceptable compromise.
I would see that as a clear example of disrespect and disregard for my well being and the well being of people who I care about.
This isn’t about finding someone just like you to love, far from it, compromise is normal and differences between people in love are wonderful. What this is about, for me anyway, is that I would draw the line at someone who is actively supporting the deterioration of my human rights regardless of how many dishes they do.
True. I mean, it’s sad for her to be with someone who’s got such a low bar. Does the dishes? Honey, you can use a machine for that. I’m doing them right now!
That’s the opposite of why people stay together. Usually people say, “Well they have trouble doing the dishes, but at least our major beliefs are similar.”
Honestly she seems pretty similar to her husband in how illogical she’s being. He’s like, “Well Republicans might be terrible socially but they might lower my taxes!” She says, “Well he votes for people I despise but at least those dishes got done!”
They are similar people in that they both make bad life choices. So maybe it works?
Honestly she seems pretty similar to her husband in how illogical she’s being.
Love is not logical. If she’s happy, I don’t see the issue. It’s up to her to decide whether she believes he’s a good person, and apparently she does. Who are we to tell her she’s wrong about someone we don’t even know?
Interestingly something like 41% of women identify as pro-life. I know you and the person you were responding to probably wouldn’t, but my point is just that there are a lot of women who would see their conservative male partner vote for anti-abortion candidates and not be bothered at all. Not because they’re rationalizing it, but because they don’t see it as a negative in the first place.
Both pro-life and pro-choice are sanitized descriptions of the beliefs they refer to. Both movements contain people that believe completely insane things on the topic, like that women or doctors should be imprisoned or worse for making a certain difficult health choice, or that unborn children aren’t really people until they’re on a particular side of their mother’s vagina.
And you are further sanitising the PC position. In the vast majority of cases abortion is not about health, but convenience. The vast majority of PL support medical exempts as shown by the actual wording of the laws passed.
That changes a lot depending on what time period of pregnancy you’re looking. The later you look the more it’s about health. By the time you get to third trimester abortions they’re almost exclusively about health. The ones of convenience are early, it all makes sense.
Citation? I can’t find anything to support this, just vague gesturing by organisations with no hard data. The only rigorous data I can find is a study from France which is irrelevant because France bans late-term abortions except for medical reasons. In fact I suspect that this is the cause of this belief, third trimester abortions are primarily medical, because most states in the US and countries in the world ban them except for health reasons. So of course the studies that address them are all going to be covering medically indicated abortions, and then journalists take this to the presses.
There is Kimport’s paper which doesn’t support your claim, but I find it quite shoddy regardless.
Not only her rights, the rights of people who aren’t straight, the rights of people who aren’t cis, the rights of kids to have a decent education, the rights of indigenous people, the rights of non-whites. That’s even not to mention that they’re against providing people with healthcare so that they don’t die, against trying anything that might make this planet livable in the future (for the kids that they claim to want to protect), and against not trying to fucking overthrow democracy. I don’t need to agree with my partner’s every opinion and political ideal, but at the very least I have to be able to respect them, and throwing everyone who isn’t a well-off white man off a cliff for “lower taxes” isn’t something I can respect.
There's a reason why the feminist saying "the personal is political" is so threatening. Because it denies precisely the reasoning seen above and elsewhere in this thread.
Conservatives often complain about progressives ending relationships and friendships over "politics". Because they want to draw a hard line between the two, where as long as they behave civilly to people's faces, it doesn't matter when they vote to make the same people's lives materially worse. Because "politics" is something... I don't know, abstract?
The problem is that many personal decisions have systemic consequences. Things like weight gain, smoking or even poor resource utilization cause serious societal and environmental harm, and yet terminating relationships over them is generally criticised. (Many of the biggest issues {climate change, healthcare, drug abuse etc} faced are directly caused by poor personal habits, not voting).
So the question is out of all personal decisions, why are political views being carved out as an exception that is worthy of terminating a relationship?
“is so threatening”
Sometimes when you are criticised it’s because you are a complete moron, not because your ideas are so brilliant they send people running.
Many of the biggest issues {climate change, healthcare, drug abuse etc} faced are directly caused by poor personal habits, not voting
This is just such utter nonsense. Many places around the world have made massive inroads into solving these problems and every single time, the solution has come from systemic policy decisions.
Healthcare has been addressed by various universal healthcare systems, drug abuse has been addressed through decriminalisation, offering of rehabilitation, and making sure people aren't living under crushingly miserable economic conditions.
And climate change is not caused by individual decisions, but by the fact that our economic system only values profit, and thus incentivises the destruction of the environment to increase profit.
So the question is out of all personal decisions, why are political views being carved out as an exception that is worthy of terminating a relationship?
Because politics affects people's lives. I could not care less if you're a nice person to my face if you are voting for policies that make it impossible for me to live my life.
You talk about personal choices as if someone being overweight is going to measurably affect your life, when it just isn't, no not even through increases in health insurance costs. And then downplay the actual effect of conservatives criminalising my healthcare.
One of those actions clearly has orders of magnitude more impact than the other. Yet strangely, you are concerned about the one with negligible impact, and want to ignore the one with considerable impact.
Sometimes when you are criticised it’s because you are a complete moron, not because your ideas are so brilliant they send people running.
You are below my contempt. Your ideas are simplistic and have been addressed decades ago. You are painfully boring.
“This is such utter nonsense” So you don’t think that people choose to be wasteful?
Laws and personal decisions both cause systemic changes. And guess what, laws do not pass if people do not already engage in personal habits that the laws encourage. The tobacco restrictions would never have passed if it weren’t for personal decisions that lowered the rate of tobacco use.
“You strangely are more concerned about the one with negligible impact”
No, they both have consequences. I’m pointing out that the distinction being made that somehow political views have special considerations over all the other personal actions is worthless. (Remember what the actual topic was?)
Additionally do you realise how completely insane your argument is? A single voter does not determine laws, groups of voters do. Just like how a single smoker does not burden the healthcare system, millions of them do.
“Someone being overweight isn’t going to on measurably affect your life”
It is. Here’s the hard facts, overweight people are less happy, they have worse socialisation, they are unattractive ( which as much as people want to pretend like attractiveness doesn’t matter, it absolutely does when it comes to casual interaction), they have shorter, less productive lives, they increase health care costs. All of these effect society as a whole and the individual.
“And downplaying the actual effect of conservatives criminalising my healthcare”
I have no idea what you are talking about, I never downplayed any laws, you’re just fabricating that so you can justify your whining.
Look, I’m not a conservative but more importantly I’m not someone who conjures nonsensical arguments to justify some vague gut feeling I developed while eating poisonous mushrooms.
“This is such utter nonsense” So you don’t think that people choose to be wasteful?
That's not what I said. Read again.
And guess what, laws do not pass if people do not already engage in personal habits that the laws encourage.
Of course they do. Behaviour can follow legislation. Furthermore most of the legislation would need to target corporations, not individuals. In which case behaviour definitely follows legislation.
No, they both have consequences. I’m pointing out that the distinction being made that somehow political views have special considerations over all the other personal actions is worthless. (Remember what the actual topic was?)
Because one primarily affects the person making the decision, with smaller secondary effects on other people. And the other primarily affects other people, doing significantly more harm.
People being overweight does not affect you nearly as much as people voting to ban gay marriage or trans healthcare affects LGBT+ people.
It is. Here’s the hard facts,
Oh please.
overweight people are less happy,
Which is none of your business.
they have worse socialisation,
You are deeply unpleasant yourself, take the log out of your own eye.
they are unattractive ( which as much as people want to pretend like attractiveness doesn’t matter, it absolutely does when it comes to casual interaction),
Nobody owes you attractiveness you little freak.
they have shorter, less productive lives,
None of your business, how other people spend their lives.
they increase health care costs.
Old people increase healthcare costs. If unhealthy people die earlier as you say, then they probably save the system money.
All of these effect society as a whole and the individual.
Not even remotely to the degree that political action does. Voting outweighs all of that by many orders of magnitude.
I have no idea what you are talking about, I never downplayed any laws, you’re just fabricating that so you can justify your whining.
It's called an "example" sweetheart.
Progressives aren't ending relationships based on political stances around taxes. They're ending relationships because of bigotry against marginalised groups.
“Further most of the regulations need to target corporations”
Guess what is also a way of targeting corporations? Market forces. If people aren’t buying your products/services, do you keep selling those products? The reason why boycotts generally fail is because people are spineless, not because the actual action wouldn’t cripple a business.
You so desperately want to prove the point that the only personal choice that matters is voting, that you are willing to deny reality.
“Then they probably save money”
Probably? Is that the strongest statement you can make? People who die younger don’t have lower healthcare costs (unless it’s an accident or homicide), because they are sicker throughout their end of life.
“Doesn’t effect you as much as people wanting to ban gay marriage”
Pretty, sure that more of my taxes go towards paying for emphysema treatment than are effected by the tiny amount of same-sex married couples (which incur costs how?).
“None of your business how other people spend there lives”
It’s everybody’s business. If this was true, then things like tobacco restrictions wouldn’t matter because healthcare costs are nobody’s business.
What happened to the good old socialists that recognised that if society has a responsibility to support you, you conversely have a responsibility to not be an unnecessary burden? Nowadays we just have libertarian-poisoned socialists who think that nothing you do matters.
“Nobody owes you attractiveness” They owe themselves attractiveness. It is an objective fact that obese people suffer socially, and that translates to societal problems.
“Not even to the degree as voting”
How many companies do you think have dedicated blocks of consumers amounting to 50 million people? A boycott of 50 million people would destroy most companies (if they even have that many customers). You are confusing the fact that most people don’t engage in personal action (because they are just like you), with asserting that personal action does nothing. The reason why political action works is simply because people do it in coordinated groups.
“Progressives are ending relationships based on taxes …”
Motte and Bailey argumentation. The topic was whether or not it is appropriate to end relationships solely on voting (but not personal habits), you explicitly argued that it was (because only voting actually matters) and are now narrowing it down to only “bigotry against marginalised groups”. When that was never the topic.
“You are deeply unpleasant yourself” Are you sure about that? Would you prefer a dishonest liar, who said “Oh my gawd. So true, sweetie.” to every nonsensical claim you made? (Obviously, yes you would, because posters like you are accustomed to sycophantic behaviour).
That’s an interesting take. Conservatives tend to have an image of hypocrisy - ie, maybe treat a woman well, yet seek to restrict her legal rights or prevent women from protections, and they seem to think that this hypocrisy cannot be questioned. They never like being called out or questioned on it.
My experience living in a couple of countries in Europe is that people’s tendencies for how they relate at an interpersonal and also towards society are cultural and that further, interpersonal and societal forms of relation are in fact separate.
For example, in The Netherlands there is more a tendency to consider the broader impact of one’s actions (and being called “asocial” is actually considered insulting), whilst in Portugal if you don’t take advantage of “The System” when you can get away with it you’re considered a sucker (the dutch tend to think of “The System” as “everybody else”, whilst the portuguese do not) but in both countries screwing people (not in a good, sex, way) is considered a bad thing and I would even say the portuguese tend to at least express more their concern with other people on a personal level, quit likely even be more emphatic empatetic.
Meanwhile in the UK taking advantage of others, personally, whilst being very polite about it, is the essence the upper class upbringing (the “gentleman” is certainly no such thing).
I expect that you get the same thing in US were culture is not broken along language barrier lines but none the less seems to be siloed by other factors.
Weird I’m not seeing any links to metaethics, semniotics or ontology. Is that because you fundamentally don’t understand the topic?
Let’s pop that hubristic little bubble of yours.
If fetuses are infact little clumps of cells, then how do we differentiate them from other little clumps of cells? Clearly there must be some additional property that lets us differentiate them, and if an additional property exists then it has a possibility of moral relevance. In other words, the mere fact that we can distinguish fetal tissue from other tissue means that we can ascribe moral value, rendering your assertion that it must be morally equal false. Even more dumbed down for you, if A does not equal B then Moral value of A does not have to equal the moral value of B.
So completely contrary to your claim, the reasoning does not actually follow, because fetuses and cancer cells can be easily determined to be different and ascribed different moral value.
Edit: Oh my science! I accidentally steel-manned you. I’m so sorry. You’re not saying that fetuses are inherently morally equal to cancer cells, you are saying that self-awareness is the criteria for moral worth (it’s not) and that ascribing moral value to a fetus requires asserting that it is self-aware. Possibly even stupider than denying classification theory.
Hijacking to point out to both the dumb lefty lemmies and the dumb righty lemmies that this is an amazing case study in the failure of people to separate their culture from their politics. I apologize for using you as a prop, vector_zero, but you signed up in this thread so I assume it's all good?
Here we have a person who believes that are right wing, but lives in a decidedly left wing location. What examples do they provide to demonstrate their right-winged-ness? Gun culture, cooking, sewing, quilting, home projects. Note the absolute lack of policy. When pressed about actual politics further in the thread, we get things like "yeah we need to fix gun violence, healthcare, and the economy, but I don't think any of the solutions I've heard will work." Essentially we have here a person who is completely disengaged from the reality of politics, but places high value on their culture and identity, having confused one for the other in the process.
This is all reinforced by the fact that this person lived in left wing area and is active here on a left wing website, where their self-identification as "right wing" earns them demonization, along with some doomed attempts at political discourse. Since vector_zero only really cares about their identity and culture, the demonization is all they notice, internalize, and respond to. It provides a pressure that actually validates and encourages their perceived need to stand up for and defend their cultural values. The political discourse is entirely ignored because vector_zero does not actually care about or understand politics. Meanwhile, the attacking lefties are blind to this miscommunication, characterizing it as "convenient dismissal of the real issues." No, it's not convenient dismissal, it's literally a disability: Our supposed "right wing" friend actually does not have the capacity to see beyond their shoelaces and understand how their emotional reaction to being personally attacked translates into large-scale impact for the rest of the world. So they go out and vote red (or not, since they are "powerless") without any understanding of what the consequences may be.
Perhaps the lefties as well are so blind to the importance of identity and culture that they suffer from the same "convenient dismissal" of the content of the discussion that vector_zero values. That's harder to say, but it's an interesting supposition. If that is the case, then we're doomed to go around in circles and continue beating each other until morale improves. But maybe not, maybe one or the other can recognize the tragedy for what it is and learn how to engage with it in a more constructive way.
It's painfully obvious to me that everyone involved here actually wants the same things, and there's a very clear education plan to get us all together on the same track. vector_zero simply needs to be made aware that left wing culture and identity is actually almost the same as right wing culture and identity. That absolutely nothing of themselves would be lost or reduced by voting for a democrat every once in a while. The difference is the policies, and since vector_zero doesn't actually understand or care about those, there isn't really any reason for them to hold up the label of "right wing."
You can just be a guy who likes guns, simple living, enjoying the day-to-day with the wife, and wants to retire one day.
Signed: A guy who also likes guns, simple living, enjoying the day-to-day with the wife, and wants to retire one day, but also votes democrat every time because I don't want anybody else to get hurt along the way.
I’ve noticed a tendency of late by some in confusing step-by-step building of arguments in written form with the product of Chat AIs.
Don’t know if it’s meant as an insult, is a way to try and plant doubt in the minds of the audience without actually addressing the argument being made, or if it’s people genuinelly not being familiar with structured thinking (which, for example, tends to be common amongst scientists and engineers because of their work) hence feeling it’s machine-like.
This really is how people trained in analytical thinking will figure things out, build theories and put together solutions and if you’re any good at it will most definitelly not include “decorations” such emotionally charged language.
(The funny bit is that Chat GPT and the like would be less unemotional, as those things are text-assemblers incapable or rationalization and trained in general language samples, so they actually fluff-up text like most people).
I would say one word covers a great deal of this (but certainly not all of it) - Tribalism.
People engaging politics in the same way as they engage sports, taking sides, living it almost entirelly at an emotional level, unquestioning of the superficial ideas (at times no more than slogans) they parrot and with thinking at best relegated to a supporting role as a “solver of puzzles” to come up with counter-“arguments” to those of the “other” side.
Whether one thinks oneself Left or Right (and, frankly, if you haven’t tought through your politics in my opinion you’re not really politically aware enough to be either), really analysing the pap one is fed by politicians in light of one’s personal principles and of “how will this lead to the World I would like to live in” is usually quite the eye openner.
I basically agree, but I think we should also think about this in a solution-oriented way at a large scale, beyond just personally opening one's own eyes.
Tribalism is part of our nature. It's not necessarily a bad thing, and it's fun. It makes us feel good to belong. The sports analogy is frequently brought up and is the example of tribalism being leveraged for entertainment and social bonding. It's a clever way to us to short-circuit our instinct for tribal warfare and use it for something constructive and fun instead of destructive and tragic.
Politicians and media outlets have started using this insidiously for their own powergames. Maybe this is too cynical, but it seems to me that the circus has been poisoned. You hear about all these people who "aren't into politics" but will repeat their CNN and Fox soundbytes. There's nothing terribly wrong with being personally apathetic about politics, in fact that's the norm for those people currently benefitting the most from existing policy, but it's terribly dishonest and destructive to lure such people into the political arena when they have no sincere interest in the impact of their political decisions, but a few powerful people benefit and countless powerless people suffer.
How do we reclaim our circus? Do we really just need more ESPN and less CNN? Can we punish politicians and news sources for the pervasion and perversion of information as infotainment? Can we educate people to source their identity from their family and culture instead of from their senator?
I wouldn’t be so sure that Sports tribalism is healthy.
Tribalism in Sports repeatedly leads people down certain mental pathways in contexts involving many people divided in groups and were one has chosen a groups, as well as personal identification with a group based on things with would otherwise be irrelevant, which familiarizes people with such ways of thinking about oneself and others.
Because the choice of the mental pathways we use when confronted with a situation is not conscious, it leads itself to us favouring what’s familiar from similar contexts, so repeatedly leading people down the tribalist route in Sports can be an insidious way to predispose them to go down the exact same route in contexts were the same kind of pattern exists, such as nationalism, politics, race and so on.
All this, by the way, is not too dissimilar to some of the psychological levers used by Modern Marketing.
Consider the possibility that the culture created around the circus both feeds from and feeds in the equally mindless cultures that have been created in things like politics and nationalism.
The crux of this is whether Us vs Them is instinctual or learned. I don't think we yet have a definitive answer, but certainly Us vs Them is so ingrained in our ways of life that removing it would be extraordinarily difficult.
Again, I may be excessively cynical, but my belief is that some people, maybe even most people, WILL take these mental pathways you describe no matter what, and the best we can do is provide distractions. Bread and circuses. At their best, these distractions channel our self-destructive tendencies into harmless oceans of impunity. At their worst, they are hijacked by ne'er-do-wells to transform the apathetic into frothing zealots of a cause they don't even care to understand. It becomes the responsibility of those who are paying attention to design a system that is resistant to abuse.
Presuming I am wrong, that means that there is a path for society to eliminate competitiveness from its apparent nature. I agree that would lead us toward utopia, but I am very skeptical such a path exists, and that those who attempt to follow it will simply be eaten by the wolves they believe they can train.
I expect people might learn to “decorate” those things differently (i.e. cheerful well humoured competitiveness rather than the kind were the fans of the opposing team are almost treated as “badies”) but I doubt most people will ever loose or overcome what are probably well rooted instincts.
Being ignorant of policy and perceiving any slight as a personal attack is a sign of a right wing voter. You know those studies that show conservative voters have higher disgust reflexes? This guy is the poster child. Downvotes?! The horror!
Then it should be obvious to you that inflaming those emotions isn't a productive way to engage. What point are you making other than, "yeah, he's a moron! fuck him!" Good for you?
I love your comment. As someone who’s perpetually hung up on others’ misaligned discourse on major issues, it feels so refreshing to see it pointed out and articulated better than I could’ve done.
Evaluating the world and the people around you with labels so generic as "left wing" or "right wing" is not useful at all. Another problem is being too politicized, as I think it can damage your relationships with others.
You're actually aiming your critic to a non-physical entity; falling in the fallacious use of collective nouns. In fact, your comment haven't even tried to add an argument against my idea.
Again, you're not providing me an argument against my main point to justify why I'm incapable of "the most basic understandings of politics or ideology". You're just insulting me because I have a different point of view, without even knowing what ideology I have.
The real issue is an inability to agree to disagree.
That's not a fair representation of the people you are talking about. We can agree to disagree about a lot of things. But not about the humanity, dignity, and freedom of people.
We will never agree to disagree about other people's humanity. Being willing to do so would make us monsters.
But not about the humanity, dignity, and freedom of people.
Are you referring to the recognition of the problems involving those concepts or the solutions proposed to fix them?
We can have different approaches and views about a variety of problems, but the concepts would be the same.
It doesn't mean we should always make an agreement about how to solve them, but the idea of treating others who don't think like me as "monsters" just because they are different is populist and dishonest.
It’s interesting that people don’t believe you can be this way. Many democrats dislike religion yet don’t treat most religious people badly; there’s no fundamental difference between that and any other trait or belief that would prevent someone from ignoring it while interacting with someone who has it.
Because many of us understand that there isn't a meaningful difference between personal interaction and political action.
The above person treats the gay people he meets with civility when he interacts with them personally. He also votes for political movements who want to dissolve their marriage and want to treat being gay as something to be hidden from public view.
That is not respecting gay people. That is not treating them as equals. It does not matter how nice and polite you are to someone's face if you vote against them being able to live fulfilling lives.
My entire life, for pretty much every progressive issue, has been filled with people saying "We agree with your cause but not the way you are going about it." literally no matter what "going about it" looks like.
Every effective proposition is shot down. There is no "solution" that is ever acceptable. Because changing the status quo is always interpreted as too radical.
So... I'm not keen on playing these kinds of stupid games?
Police violence, particularly against people of colour. Protests? Too disruptive! Literally just kneeling? Too disrespectful!
Even MLK Jr. mentioned this in his letter from a Birmingham jail:
First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
And that’s precisely the attitude that prevents people from having a civil debate. By manipulating definitions and using them to represent your opponent as an inhuman villain (or, in your own words, monsters), you’re the one trying to remove someone’s humanity.
Ironic. By representing a differing view as "manipulating definitions" like this, you pretend I'm engaging in the conversation maliciously, and completely ignore what I'm saying. You aren't going to get closer to understanding other people unless you engage in good faith.
In the eyes of progressives, conservative politicians undermine the dignity of minorities. You might not agree with that, you might not care about that, you might simply value other things more.
And cut the hyperbole. I haven't tried to remove your humanity. Do you really not know what that is like?
Calling someone a monster definitely dehumanizes them. Calling someone a monster for impersonal reasons simply because of their membership in a particular group, even moreso.
Literally how?
You enumerated your priorities, and to quote you: "If a policy helps that cause, I’m in favor of it. If it doesn’t, I’m probably opposed to it."
Eliminating discrimination is not among the priorities you listed.
I’ve read all your replies and you conviniently dodged two people making comments regarding homosexuality. Which only made me more curious:
What’s your opinion on gay people and gay marriage?
P.S. I never downvote people. Though I’m guessing by your reticence you may get downvoted for replying to me. I urge you to reply though because I’m curious and ask in good faith.
He said he wants to accumulate wealth for retirement.
Somehow you heard “and fuck the minorities, too” despite not having said that or even remotely implied that. If he’s insulted, it’s because you’re putting words in their mouth.
In the eyes of progressives, conservative politicians undermine the dignity of minorities. You might not agree with that, you might not care about that, you might simply value other things more.
This is what you said. In the eyes of progressives, that is how they see conservatives. In no way, shape, or form does his response to that statement have anything to do with the minoroties, but in the agreement that progressives see conservatives that way.
No. Read again. He quoted me saying "you might simply value other things more", and responded with "Correct. My priorities are: 1, 2, 3. If a policy helps that cause, I’m in favor of it. If it doesn’t, I’m probably opposed to it."
He values his personal wealth and comfort over the struggles of minorities. At best, he does not care about the plight of minoritised people. If a politician or policy offers him a benefit, but will increase the suffering of people who are not in his in-group, he still supports that policy. If a policy or politician focuses on alleviating suffering, but may come at some perceived expense to him, he opposes it.
It’s not the knitting projects at home or shooting cans in the woods people have an issue with, it’s the legislature you vote for, the way you treat people when you’re not at home, and the kinds of people you support (people in aggressive positions of authority)
There ya go, another ad hominem attack. Can’t actually debate, just engaging in rhetoric. Now we see your true colors. You really seem generally nice from this comment /s
As a queer person, I don't. You supporting a party that opposes my rights and is actively demonizing my existence. From grooming rhetoric to outright calls for the abolition for my way of life Listening to conservative politicians is frightening, scary and isolating. I'm sure you don't think of yourself as a bigot, but every donation, vote or right wing politician you promote, you embolden those who ask seek to block my basic rights. And very often, those people succeed. Your priority for "your own self interest" at the expense of my existence does not make you a nice person.
Kind people aren't selfish. Your actions harm me and many others like me, but you only think of yourself.
I think the point is moreso that the party you support typically is indifferent about minorities/LGBT/immigrants/poor people, etc.
This seems antithetical to the morality we are taught as children (ie: the Golden Rule) which is why people question how you generally survive in that type of relationship when both people seem to have blinders on regarding empathy for others.
I asked because I believe marriage and children can add pressures to a relationship, and may test right wing beliefs.
For example: What if your wife changed her mind about being a SAHM and wanted to continue working after having a child? How would you both handle household chores and parenting duties?
More examples: If your wife became pregnant but it was an ectopic pregnancy, would you support her having an abortion? Would you support an abortion if the baby was diagnosed with anencephaly while still in the womb?
Would you use IVF if you had trouble conceiving? Would you use birth control to plan the size of your family?
It's easy to see eye to eye about hypothetical situations but maybe less easy when it's real life.
An ectopic pregnancy would risk her life and her future fertility. Babies with anencephaly do not survive for long after birth, being stillborn (around 75% of them) or dying within hours or days; this pregnancy wouldn't risk the mother's life, though, but would be traumatic.
Without googling the definition of ectopic, we’d likely abort anything that put her at significant risk, or in the case of a major defect that would ruin all three of our lives.
States with very strict abortion laws or where abortion is illegal would prevent your wife from having an abortion in the your and my scenarios. She might be forced to delay the abortion until she ruptured in the ectopic scenario, or be forced to give birth to a dead baby or.one who died in a few hours. There are other dangerous scenarios when an abortion would be the humane option. This is something to keep in mind when voting or supporting candidates. ETA: I didn't mean this to sound like a lecture. I was just pointing this all out because you actually don't sound ring wing based on how you described your beliefs.
This is false, every law has medical exceptions. Journalists wildly reported that doctors would be too hesitant to perform medically indicated abortions, but this is simply malpractice not any requirement by the law.
I gotta be honest dude, what makes you consider yourself right wing?
Your GF is in STEM, you’d support her continuing her career if she wanted, you split chores fairly… none of that is things I would consider “traditional” or “conservative”.
Policy wise, you’re mostly vague. Economically you don’t seem to have any actual opinion beyond “things aren’t working as they are”. You’re pro-choice(Yes, even if you would only choose to abort in a dire situation, that’s still a pro-choice position), which is not a right wing position.
Like, what actually makes you right wing? Based on what you’ve said so far, I don’t get it. Are you secretly racist as fuck or something?
That is absolutely not the Pro-choice position. Pro-choice literally means desire is the only criteria that needs to be met (the pro-life position is that desire is necessary but not sufficient). If it actually was as you described, then no one would have had a problem with any of the post-Dobbs laws.
You seem to have this bizarre interpretation of what a conservative means. It’s not the 1950s anymore, literally nobody lives like that and hasn’t since your grandmother.
Non-vague statements that I can actually debate with, thank you.
All money should he removed from politics, including salaries for politicians. It should be a side-gig like it was in the past.
Can you explain what the actual benefits of this would be? The vast majority of our politicians wealth does not come from their salary, it comes from business deals, lobbying(aka legalized bribery) and, well, actual literal bribery in far too many cases. From my point of view, all removing salaries from these positions would do is guarantee that only those that are already independently wealthy could afford to take on these positions, any working class people would be too busy working a normal job just to survive.
Anyone caught accepting bribes should be removed
No arguments here, I agree.
both parties should be imprisoned for corruption
What do you actually mean by both parties? The leadership? Every elected official? Every registered member? I don’t have to register with a party to vote in my state, but if I did I would be a registered Democrat; should I be imprisoned for that? Where do you draw the line at? Certainly, there are individuals in both parties that absolutely need to be in prison, but due process still needs to be followed.
Nuclear energy, for the love of all that is holy.
This is kind of vague, but I’m assuming you are in support of nuclear energy. In which case, great news, I am too! It’s a fair point, even if you didn’t mention it directly, that in the past democrats were largely anti-nuclear, but that rhetoric is mostly dying away in the newer generation of progressive dems. With the relative lack of new blood in congress it will take awhile to truly effect policy making, but it is coming.
We can’t rely on China for all of our rare earth metals forever. They’re going to cut our asses off one of these days, and we’re going to go belly up when they do.
Agreed. Whether you think Biden is following through with his words or not(I have very mixed feelings about him), I think he put it best on where we should be with China: “Competition, not conflict”. We should be building up the US’s industries so they no longer need to rely so heavily on China. That costs a lot of money in the short term though, even if the benefits are worth it long term. Republican policy on spending money for any reason is very well known(they hate it), and as far as China goes they seem more interested in causing outright conflict with them rather than building the means to out-compete with them.
All gun laws are infringements. Every single one.
Infringements of what? The 2nd amendment? Here is the entirety of the 2nd amendment:
“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
There are TONS of gun laws you can have while still following this to the letter. A magazine size limit law, or a bump stock law, for example. Neither of those would infringe on the 2nd amendment, those are not “arms”, even if they are accessories to them, and thus they absolutely can be regulated. To be clear, I don’t agree with those particular examples of gun legislation, but they don’t infringe on the 2nd in any way.
Do I want felons to have guns? No, but if they cause a problem, just shoot 'em a little.
So only deal with the problem after they’ve presumably shot someone, if not multiple people. Swell. An entire police department supposedly trained to deal with active shooters couldn’t stop an 18 year old shitstain from murdering 21 people(Uvalde), but we’re supposed to expect random joe schmoes with a gun(With no training needed, at that! Firearm safety classes being required would be a gun law, no?) to always save the day? Come off it, man. I like guns too, I’m against outright bans for no reason as are many other leftists(look up the Socialist Rifle Association, if you’re interested), but I don’t think even most republicans would agree with no gun laws at ALL.
We should destroy the entire concept of health insurance. It’s a scam and has been for a very long time
I wholeheartedly agree. A good universal healthcare system would essentially accomplish this, as there would be very little reason to get private insurance anymore. It’s not the right wing trying to accomplish this though, if anything they’re trying to bolster the private insurance industry for their own greed. Not all democrats are innocent on this point either, but unlike republicans, they’re not ALL guilty of it.
We need to get rid of social security and encourage people to fund their own retirement accounts. If they don’t have the self control to do so, then bummer.
I fundamentally don’t agree with this, politics aside I think we have a moral duty to look out for those in need, but I won’t get into that. How do you realistically expect people to be ABLE to save for their own retirement with how much wages have stagnated versus inflation? Wages are mostly staying the same(Hell, Walmart recently lowered wages) while the cost of everything keeps going up and up. Republicans are the ones continuously fighting against living wages; they are the ones making it for most a herculean task to afford to just survive, let alone save for retirement.
End the Fed. They’ve become a 4th branch of the government without a constitutional amendment.
By “the Fed”, do you mean the Federal Reserve? If so, I won’t agree or disagree with you on this point, I’d need to research the topic first. If you didn’t mean the Federal Reserve, please elaborate on what you meant.
Stop glorifying gender non-conformity in schools. We’re going to convince kids to go down detrimental rabbit holes during their formative years.
What do you consider “glorifying”? I’m not going to put a boy on a pedestal and shower him with praise for wearing a skirt, but I see no reason to mock him for it or think less of him for it, either. It’s a piece of clothing, why should anyone care?
What would you consider as an example of a “detrimental rabbit hole” that this could lead kids to? Why do you think that(whatever “that” is to you) is detrimental?
Stop bailing out corporations. Let them fail, and let the people screwed over by such a failure do whatever they want to those in charge.
I agree with you. Republicans, however, do not. They love nothing more than giving corporations and their rich investors every break under the sun, while raising taxes on the working class.
Politicians shouldn’t be allowed to exempt themselves from the laws they pass. In fact, they should have to eat their own dog food for a year before anyone else is exposed to it.
Agreed. I’d go as far to say that elected officials should be held to a higher standard, and face a harsher punishment for breaking a law than a normal citizen would.
We need major data privacy regulations at the federal level.
Agreed. Frankly, both sides have been absolutely abysmal on this matter for the most part.
Any state or federal agency found to be in continued violation of the bill of rights should be shut down completely and permanently.
That’s just plain silly, no offense. There are so many different governmental agencies and pretty much all of them do multiple different important tasks. To completely shut them down over one illegal aspect is just wasting time and money. It is much, much quicker and cheaper to reform an agency and stop the illegal practices than it is to shut it down and then, what, start up a brand new agency to cover the other, non-illegal tasks the former agency did that still will likely need to be done?
I’m literally trying to have a productive conversation with you, dude. Nothing you’ve presented so far paints you as a conservative, so I want to know what your actual reasons for being one are. From there we could actually discuss things and maybe we could influence each others perspectives on matters, but we can’t do that if you get defensive the minute you’re asked questions.
The cognitive disconnect some in this thread would have to hear that I’m in a gay relationship and I’m somewhat right wing, whereas my boyfriend loves to watch Jimmy Dore and Tucker Carlson. We’re also both immigrants. We disagree on a lot(also agree on some things) but someone reaching different conclusions to me doesn’t make them dumb or a bad person.
It's not really a cognitive disconnect. Most of us know that some members of a minority group will vote against the interests of their own identity. Perhaps because they have some other trait such as wealth that insulates them from the consequences of their politics, or perhaps because they are ignorant. But Quislings have always existed, we know, it's not a shock.
My basis for my principles are not my own interest but rather my moral principles. There are plenty of Republicans I oppose, but also some I support, such as Rand Paul
I am the person who made the villain comment. No, we don’t think you actively go around acting like villains from cartoons lol. But while you quietly enjoy your life, you vote for and support policies that cause direct harm to tens of millions of people. You care about the things that impact you, but not about people you don’t relate to. The people you vote for spread hateful ideas that lead supposedly good, Christian conservatives to commit violent crimes because they think the trans person they meet is automatically a pedophile.
I vote against my own interests nearly every election. I try to vote for what I think is best for the country as a whole, and if that is unclear, I try to think “What decision will my kid want me to have made looking back in 30 years?”
Progressives routinely vote in ways that conservatives would consider against our interests. Fot example, I don’t have kids and never will, but I always vote for policies that will improve schools, pay teachers more, etc, even though technically I’m spending money on something that doesn’t benefit me directly. It’s just that progressives see that we all benefit from having a healthy, happy, well-educated population, while conservatives only care if they (or maybe a handful of family/friends) benefit and don’t care about anyone outside of that circle, particularly.
I vote to increase taxes every time, so very recently. Sure it would be in my best interest to hoard my money, but I care more about everyone having access to healthcare and social services, because I’m not a selfish person. Conservative policies are inherently selfish.
You cite gun violence, but right-wing politicians have absolutely no policies that aim to reduce gun violence. They oppose all forms of government social services and any gun control. When comparing violence between red and blue states/cities, per capita, red areas commit more violent crimes.
I think this is honestly a conservative misconception. i very recently considered voting for our Maori party here in the latest elections, all that stopped me was some recent controversy that called the party leader's integrity into question. but still, I would relish the country's minorities receiving greater representation and privilege. as a straight white cis male, I have plenty enough privilege already, even if I don't consider my own life especially easy.
no, I intended to reply to you, but perhaps I should have quoted vector in my response. i was wanting to expand on your answer, to add that it's a misconception of conservatives that people vote for their own interests.
I guess perhaps it could have worked better as a direct reply to vector.
We should fix the cost of healthcare being our of control, rather than subsidizing the treatment and lining the pockets of big pharma
First of all, what is our current healthcare system doing if not lining the pockets of big pharma? They get to charge whatever they want for lifesaving treatments because there’s no regulations on it, and everyone is expected to just pay out the ass for insurance to maybe have it cover a portion of the bill.
More importantly though, universal healthcare is CHEAPER than our current healthcare system, so that covers getting it “under control”*. There have been countless studies showing how switching to a single-payer system would reduce costs, while still guaranteeing every citizen healthcare.
(Why do we need to get it under control, though? Slash a $100B off the egregiously bloated as fuck military budget and healthcare has all the funding it needs)
“Slash a 100$ billion off … military budget and healthcare has all the funding it needs.”
Pretty misleading. That 100 billion isn’t enough, you’d have to raise taxes as well.
The actual cost is on the order of 3 trillion or higher per year. Larger than the entire US federal budget.
If you simply had looked at the cost of Medicare you would have seen how preposterous the 100 billion dollar estimate is. Medicare is not completely free for users and only covers around 18 percent of the population, has expenditures in excess of 700 billion.
Because they have higher tax rates. Some people argue that the tax rates are actually equivalent to the US, but that only factors in income tax and ignores VAT (which the US doesn’t have at a federal level).
The claim was that a mere 100 billion would pay for it, proving that claim false does not affect the fact that other countries have it.
“The universal healthcare model is cheaper than the US model”
By about 10 percent. The problem with a lot of analysis of Medicare for all plans is that they assume that it would be able to run at the same cost ratio as it does now. But Medicare currently does not pay for the full cost of services, it’s essentially subsidised by the private insurers. Replacing private insurance would require increasing the Medicare payout percentage or else hospitals would lose money, and have to cut services.
Additionally if you actually poll the public, they do not want to pay the additional taxes to fund this universal healthcare. The US is in a weird position were a chunk of the population has government insurance, but the bulk is pushed onto employers and that’s basically the best place to put it if you want to minimise the burden on the public.
But US people pay this too. Except they pay it to for-profit insurance companies, who are significantly less efficient than a single, universal, non-profit fund.
And they pay more. A lot more. To have a for-profit company sit between them and their doctors, practicing medicine without a licence, telling the doctors what care the patient is and is not allowed to receive.
And all that additional complexity also costs money! Healthcare professionals waste time trying to get procedures paid for and negotiating with insurance companies about the needs of their patients.
Like. It's just flat out cheaper to pay the additional taxes rather than the insurance company.
And it's just less useful and less pleasant for everyone involved. People from countries with universal healthcare don't know what "preauthorisation", "deductables", and "copays" are. If they get sick or hurt, they just go to the doctor.
Additionally if you actually poll the public, they do not want to pay the additional taxes to fund this universal healthcare.
Firstly, I don't actually believe you. But secondly, if that is actually true, that is so stupid as to make me wonder if US people are lobotomised at birth.
You can literally save money, and get a much more pleasant healthcare experience, and all you have to do is allow poor people to have coverage too. And the US says that they would rather fund an insurance company CEO's yacht than do that.
Did you miss the part where nearly all insurance people have is subsidised by either the government or their employer? People don’t actually pay these costs there employer does, usually as an employment incentive.
“But people in the US pay it too”
Insurance is optional in the US. So no they don’t necessarily pay it, infact it’s not uncommon to skip coverage to save some money. This would not be an option under a taxation system. And yet again, it’s primarily employer-subdised.
“People from countries with universal healthcare …,”
There are many different types of universal healthcare, the fact that you are making such a broad statement shows that you have no idea what you are talking about. Some countries implement it by forcing people to buy private insurance.
“All you have to do is allow poor people to have coverage too”
Okay, so you actually are too stupid to have this conversation. Lookup what Medicaid is, and additionally realise that needs-based programs are by definition not universal. In fact this is one of the biggest criticisms of Medicare for all and UBI, they involve giving money to a large percentage of the population that don’t need it. In fact universal systems literally tax the poor to pay the rich, it’s the epitome of a regressive policy.
The current US system is inefficient sure, it’s not as inefficient as widely claimed and arguing that universalising it makes it cheaper for the user is simply false.
People don’t actually pay these costs there employer does, usually as an employment incentive.
Tying your ability to access healthcare to a private employer who can remove that access on a whim is utterly insane.
Insurance is optional in the US. So no they don’t necessarily pay it, infact it’s not uncommon to skip coverage to save some money.
People do not voluntarily go without health coverage. They go without when they cannot afford it. Which is a problem that doesn't exist in countries with universal coverage.
And those people without coverage when suffer enormous financial burdens if they fall sick or get hurt.
Healthcare isn't optional in life. It's a matter for time before everyone needs something.
There are many different types of universal healthcare, the fact that you are making such a broad statement shows that you have no idea what you are talking about.
Oh shut the hell up.
I've lived in countries with various models, some with private coverage and some without. Some free at point of use, some only subsidised.
The reason I didn't enumerate every option is because it's irrelevant to the point I'm making.
Okay, so you actually are too stupid to have this conversation. Lookup what Medicaid is, and additionally realise that needs-based programs are by definition not universal. In fact this is one of the biggest criticisms of Medicare for all and UBI, they involve giving money to a large percentage of the population that don’t need it.
I can't believe I actually have to explain this, but it's clear you need someone to walk you through this very basic concept:
The rich pay higher taxes. So giving them 1000 dollars a month in UBI or healthcare is immediately recovered by the higher taxes. This isn't difficult.
And making the rich use the same systems as the everyone else means that the rich are incentivised to improve the quality of the services that everyone uses.
In fact universal systems literally tax the poor to pay the rich, it’s the epitome of a regressive policy.
That might be the single stupidest thing I've ever read. Congratulations.
The current US system is inefficient sure, it’s not as inefficient as widely claimed and arguing that universalising it makes it cheaper for the user is simply false.
It is literally empirical fact. Facts don't care about your feelings.
“is utterly insane” Asserting an opinion as objective fact. You have completely failed to argue that this is true. Also not only does an employer terminating coverage violate COBRA, in many cases it is also a violation of your employment contract.
“The reason I didn’t enunerate every option” You were never asked to enumerate every option, you were asked to not lie about how people don’t know what copays and deductibles are. That was the lie you made.
“The rich pay higher taxes… it’s immediately recovered”.
No it’s not. Unless you literally tax 100 percent of all money above a certain limit, the government will not get it back, only maybe 40 percent. You just threw away 60 percent of the funds.
“And making the rich use the same systems”
So what do rich people in countries with universal healthcare do? They use privatised services, just like in the US. So what incentive do these all powerful rich people have to improve the universal healthcare system that they don’t even use?
It’s unfortunate that you are selectively gullible to believe all the propaganda that brain-dead losers like Andrew Yang generate, but not actual factually-based critique.
“It’s literally an empirical fact” And an insufficient one. The fact that the US system is inefficient, does not mean that the end user pays more than they would in taxation. Private insurance is cheaper than Medicare for many people. I personally know dozens of low-income people who opt for private insurance.
“Facts don’t care about your feelings”
I hate Ben Shapiro, I think he has vacuous worthless opinions, the difference is that Ben Shapiro isn’t the one lying to people on this post right now.
The only way I can see to fix the healthcare costs is regulation, which conservatives vote against every time.
Enforcement of current laws is definitely an issue. Cops refuse to enforce policies they don’t like, and they send domestic abusers right back to their families to continue abusing. I am having a hard time finding statistics for the catch and release of violent criminals, do you have one that shows they comprise a significant or majority portion of violent crime? I see a lot of assumptions from conservatives that illegal immigrants cause the majority of the violent crime in the US, but I never see the data to back it up, so it just comes across as racist.
Illinois doesn't even rate in the top half of states.
Between 2008 and 2016 115 domestic terror incidents were far-right inspired, 19 were far-left.
Since 9/11 73% of violent extremist incidents that resulted in deaths were caused by right wing radicalism.
From the KKK, to Oklahoma City, to Jacksonville and El Paso, the vast majority of politically/religious motivated gun violence were far-right inspired.
No they don't, when you include Islamic attacks (which are absolutely right wing as they are religious authoritarian extremists) the number jumps to 96%.
If your talking about the firearm mortality rate, the top 4 states for firearm mortality are also the top 4 for homicide rate... there are a lot of similarities between the two and a strong correlation.
While I disagree with some of your politics, thanks for providing a thoughtful response, and follow-ups.
Also, Lemmy is much more interesting if we are (small l and c) liberal in what we upvote and conservative in what we downvote. Providing a coherent good-faith argument never deserves a downvote in my opinion. I basically only every downvote bad faith, trolling, or harmful posts. By that standard you haven’t deserved a downvote yet, but are getting buried. It’s a shame.
You ever watch The Sopranos? Carm loves that violent manchild with all her heart for a series of concerning reasons. It’s not exactly what you were asking, but I’ve been rewatching the show, and your question made me think of Carm crying about the portrait of the baby Jesus.
righties want women to have fewer rights when alive than when they die.
did you know, you can't take the organs from a deceased person without that person's explicit permission, prior to their death? not even to save the life of an unborn foetus that some broad is being forced to carry to term.
Actually, this makes intercourse. It sounds like you have a slew of bad definitions and explanations. You might want to educate yourself before having an opinion about these things.
They think the things you’d be surprised to learn people actually think.
I.e.
Crying makes you weak. They’re with manly men who don’t cry or go to therapy or any of that woke commie bullshit. They’re with strong men who will protect them. Louder = smarter.
If you are voting Republican in the US, you’re advocating fascism. Full stop.
And also lol what a dumb thing to say. Fascism is by definition right wing. It is the terminus of the right side of the spectrum. That isn’t an opinion, that’s it’s definition.
It is not sealioning. You are arguing something cars are blue, to address that I first have to understand what you mean by a car, and what you mean by blue. To me, fascism seems much more contradictory with right-libertarianism than with certain forms of socialism. Hence why I think its more reasonable to say its not far-right. That is unless your definition for right-wing is “bad”, and the badder it is, the further right it is. That’s why I asked for clarification.
What do you mean "again"? You haven't asked me before. And right-wing is another way of saying the side of the political spectrum that conservativism occupies.
The opposite side of the political spectrum, which progressivism occupies.
Also what do you consider the main traits of conservatism to be?
Fundamentally, the belief in hierarchy. Which manifests as support of capitalism, private ownership, and traditional social values.
Opposed to progressivism which opposes unjust hierarchies, and favours egalitarianism. Which manifests in desire for more equitable distributions of wealth and power, and critiques traditional social values.
No not any. But conservativism is characterised by belief in inherent hierarchy. That all people are not equal. That some people are more or less worthy than others.
And note I've said "characterised" and "belief". In reality ideologies are complex, and the humans and organisations implementing them are even more complex and subject to corruption. So it's not a simplistic "presence of hierarchy == right-wing". Some ostensibly left-wing governments fall to authoritarianism. After all politicians are vulnerable to greed and corruption. Though notably those governments begin to quickly abandon their left-wing principles as they do so. For example, the Chinese Communist Party has certainly gone all-in on capitalist ideas of private ownership of land and the means of production.
That characterisation is simply a useful lens for understanding political movements. One can easily see that when there is a push to distribute power "down" the hierarchy, people who refer to themselves as conservative will be more likely to oppose it. They oppose social safety nets that benefit those at the bottom, they oppose transgender recognition, they opposed gay marriage, they opposed ending slavery.
Would a technocracy be right wing?
Depends. If you mean replacing the democratically elected government with a government of "experts" (who gets to be an expert being decided by, you guessed it! The experts)? Then yes. As that is basically just a form of aristocracy.
But if you mean democratically elected politicians relying on expert advice to make policy decisions, then no.
Or leftist states with a leadership structure? Like, any leftist state.
Depends. How is that leadership structure maintained? If those positions are elected, and the elections are fair and representative, then no. Because the power ultimately lies with the people, with one person having one vote.
But, do you have a point that you are approaching? Because at this point it seems like you are just asking endless questions. In which case I kinda agree with the other person, you're sealioning.
Meh, he had various sources in hogwarts that where able to challenge the views he got taught by his parents.
At a certain point something is not just the fault of the parents but also from the person in question. A victim doesn’t double down on beliefs he knows are wrong.
Draco was raised by wizard supremicists then sorted into a house exclusively filled with people just like him. His only exposure to anyone different was through rival houses. The school heavily encouraged competition between the houses and segregated children into ideological bubbles. All after one sorting ceremony when they were 11. Draco was a child. Imagine being judged by the beliefs you held when you were 11 for the rest of your life.
There was a point after Half-Blood Prince where he could choose to change. There was a point where he had to see error of his ways between that and the Battle of Hogwards. It seems he took that step for a while, there was redemption arc brewing - but never happened.
He was indocrinated, yes. But he saw how terrible their side is and still chose to stick with it when he had a choice. He was 17 and adult in Wizarding World. Old enough to know right from wrong.
It is likely that some time after, he regretted it. Otherwise I don’t see Harry and him nodding at one anoyher in the epilogue. But at the time of the books, he was not a good guy at all.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say he was a good guy, but I still don’t think it’s fair to label him as a bad guy by the end of the book (pre-prologue). By the end of half blood prince he’d started realizing that he was on the wrong side, but how many 15/16 year olds are out there that have the confidence to openly defy their parents, especially ones so renowned as the Malfoys? Nevermind the fact that Voldemort would have him killed for defecting
And I’d agree with you, of he didn’t come back at the Battle of Hogwarts to actively stop Harry. He chose to do that himself, proactively. He had to just go with the flow with the other people leaving and not sneak back.
Damn, I haven’t read the books in over a decade so I’m hazy on some of the details. I remembered him trying to stop Harry in the last book but I was thinking he was still rolling pretty deep with the other death eaters
We have limited looks into what he was doing through the book but mostly he was in school. We (nly see him at the startin one of the meetings with Voldemort where he is clearly not comfortable. And then at Malfoy Manor where he refuses to identify Harry (or Hermione or Ron).
Also the book before when he had Dumbledore at his mercy, he was lowering his wand when other Dead Eaters marched in on him. He clearly had his doubts - no wonderv the whole Half-Blood Prince he was tortured with the impossible task he was given as a punishment to what his father has done and the whole year after they suffered Voldemorts displeasure by them.
And still, he went out of his way to serve. Honestly, I was not happy with this because I sensed his redemption arc coming and no he just became villain again. There is a cut scene from the movies where he throws Harry a wand and runs over from the Death Eaters when Harry reveals himself alive, which is something I think would be great for his character - to show that in the end he was a brainwashed boy who was victim of his upbringing but managed to overcome… but that’s not what happened.
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