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)
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.
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
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.
You care about the things that impact you, but not about people you don’t relate to.
Our of curiosity, when's the last time you voted against your own self interests?
hateful ideas that lead supposedly good, Christian conservatives to commit violent crimes because they think the trans person they meet is automatically a pedophile.
A tiny drop in a massive bucket, my friend. Gun violence statistics tell a very different tale. Yes, it happens, but gang violence in extremely left wing cities overshadows any sort of "Christian extremist" violence so enormously that it isn't even funny. Hell, one weekend in Chicago will likely exceed the last decade's worth.
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.
but I care more about everyone having access to healthcare and social services
I agree with the problem, but not the solution. We should fix the cost of healthcare being our of control, rather than subsidizing the treatment and lining the pockets of big pharma. A fine example of common ground with differences in opinion.
You cite gun violence, but right-wing politicians have absolutely no policies that aim to reduce gun violence.
Because throwing legislation at the problem only works insofar that we actually enforce the laws. As it stands, we've already have tons of laws on the books that have proven ineffective due to either a lack of enforcement, or due to us simply catching and releasing criminals who commit violent crimes.
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.
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.
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%.
Now go ahead and break those incidents down into a few subcategories:
Personal defense
Police
Gang violence
Accidents
Suicides
A raw number is a small piece of a much larger puzzle. Plus yeah, a conservative state with more people carrying will probably have more incidents involving guns. Same thing happens with places with more cars - more collisions.
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.
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 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?"
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 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.
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.
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).
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?
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.
The real issue is an inability to agree to disagree. I talk politics with my friends across all political spectrums. Some like a good debate, and others just get pissy when they can't magically change my mind on a topic. It's not about winning; it's about reaching an understanding, and people have forgotten that.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Both sides should feel like they got something positive out of a proper debate, but if you're dead set on winning, you can feel free to claim victory if it makes you feel better.
Married? Not yet. Planning to, but not in a hurry. I'd say we're traditional in our relationship, at least within reason.
Once a reasonably priced house becomes available, we'll move in together (probably before marriage, so that's maybe slightly less traditional). We're both working currently, but if we end up having a child, she'd become a stay-at-home mother until the child begins school, if not longer. I make enough to cover both of our expenses, so her extra income not entirely necessary. That said, it's certainly nice having another 100k a year to help build up a decent nest egg.
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.
Regarding household chores, we don't really keep score on that kind of thing. We just take care of things as needed. I do most of the cooking, and she's happy to was dishes and vacuum the floors. I scrub the toilets, and she wipes down the counters. If she's not feeling well or is overwhelmed by work, I'll pick up the slack, and vice versa. Honestly, it's a very easy relationship for both of us. We're both engineers though, so we take practical approaches to most things in life.
If she didn't want to be a stay at home mother, we'd find an alternative, whether it be childcare, family, or me taking a remote job or a leave of absence from work.
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.
Would you use IVF if you had trouble conceiving?
Nah, we'd take that as a sign to not have children. No need to pass along iffy genes :P
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?
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
Thanks, I appreciate the kind words. I'd say my comment upvote/downvoted policy is similar. I downvote things that are unproductive or nasty in nature, because I generally productive discussions.
But holy hell did the discussion take a toxic turn. By the end of the day I was just burnt out on it and went to sleep. Had it started as a proper discussion, rather than a downvote fest and immediately pulling out the usual "you're an evil Nazi" rhetoric, it would have probably gone in a much more civil direction.