Much of the recent months (after November’s election) has been a media/social-media lecture about how “Liberals need to listen more closely to (working-class America, conservatives, poor whites, high school graduates, mainstream America, etc.)”
Since “What’s good for the goose is good for the gander,” it’s only fair to have a thread for the opposite side - things that conservatives need to listen more closely to liberals on:
Some Dopers might reply “Everything,” , but to start us off I came up with a few, and I’d love for folks to add on to the list to jumpstart the conversation:
[ul]
[li]Pulling yourself up by your bootstraps can be nearly impossible in today’s America. $7.25/hour doesn’t get you anywhere, and also, as an Economist article puts it, “It’s Expensive to be Poor.”[/li][li]Some Trump supporters ***are *** indeed “deplorable” - Stormfront-ers, 4chan-ers, KKK-ers, etc. [/li][li]Trickle-down economics doesn’t work.[/li][li]In many ways, women’s lives *are *more difficult than men’s.[/li][li]Abstinence-based sex education isn’t very effective, because many teenagers are naturally horny and simply ignore abstinence advice.[/li][li]Man-made climate change is real.[/li][li]Conservatives have “patriotic correctness” just like liberals have political correctness.[/li][li]Most immigrants - legal or illegal - have incentive *not *to commit crime while in America. Illegal immigrants, due to their situation, would want to keep a low profile and *avoid *breaking laws whenever possible.[/li][li]Most regulations exist for a good reason.[/li][li]Many U.S. military operations are not about “protecting our freedoms” at all. Not every or even most such military operations have to be about protecting U.S. liberty, but we should stop with the talk about “Our troops are defending our freedoms” and “If you can read English, thank a U.S. soldier” talk, as if an enemy would invade the USA.[/li][li]Even if it were a good thing to do, ejecting 11 million illegal immigrants from the country is logistically all but impossible.[/li][li]Tax cuts would probably worsen the national debt.[/li][li]While outsourcing jobs is bad, in some instances it’s the only thing to do. [/li][li]The old Rust Belt jobs are not coming back, due to technology and new economic trends.[/li][li]Banning abortion might prevent a lot of abortions, but some women would still get dangerous illegal abortions anyway (the ‘back-alley’ type.)[/li][li]Single-payer healthcare isn’t much different than the concept of health insurance itself (you pay into a pool and the pool pays out patients’ costs,) but might save the country a lot in the long run.[/li][/ul]
In other words… conservatives need to stop being conservatives.
I know, it seems as if I’m just being snarky, but I don’t mean to be. I’m merely observing that it’s very, very tough for decent, sincere, well-meaning people to find common ground when their perspectives and priorities are incompatible.
Liberal policies make perfect sense to liberals, because those policies flow from liberal assumptions. Hence, to a liberal, liberal policies don’t seem radical- they seem like common sense. So, a liberal figures anyone who doesn’t buy into his agenda must be evil or stupid. (Yes, you can turn that observation around and use it verbatim to explain why many conservatives figure liberals must be evil or stupid).
So, even if BobLibDem and I are both good people (not hard to imagine) if good will, could be come up with compromises that would satisfy us both? Sigh… no. I don’t see it.
Only if being a conservative means, by definition, denying reality.
While it makes sense that we would disagree, as we do have different perspectives and goals, there were quite a number of things on the OP’s list that are simply factually true, but are denied by many conservatives.
If your point is that a true conservative cannot agree with most, or at least any of the things on the OP’s list, then conservatism is in even more trouble than I thought.
Again, you prove my point. As far as you’re concerned, your beliefs AREN’T beliefs- they’re FACTS that can’t be disputed. Ergo, you don’t bother to debate your opponents, you just assert your facts, and are either baffled or furious when people don’t automatically roll over and agree with you.
(Does it work the same way in reverse? Obviously.)
Right, yes - but since there have already been many threads about “Liberals need to listen to conservatives,” it was time for a “conservatives need to listen to liberals” thread likewise. Two-way street.
“(S)top being conservatives” is not the same as acknowledging facts.
Take bullet 7, “patriotic correctness” as the conservative counterpart of “political correctness”.
You are free to say that you believe that criticizing people for, say, not standing for the Pledge of Allegiance is morally superior to a liberal equivalent (like, say, criticizing anti-gay rhetoric).
That’s not denying reality. It’s expressing your beliefs.
Denying reality is to claim that conservatives don’t express such criticisms.
And that, in a nutshell, is why there’s no common ground. Because about two thirds of what was posted in the OP are facts, not beliefs.
The notion that disputing factually correct things (or labelling them as beliefs) is a valid debating technique is a primarily conservative thing. You’re literally arguing against reality, then shouting to the rooftops that “liberals” aren’t taking your positions seriously.
You’re right. We aren’t. And you shouldn’t be, either. If “We have to agree that reality is real, that the debate should be around actual facts and not paranoid fantasies, and that you’re an idiot if you believe that reality is secondary to ‘beliefs’” is a “condescending attitude,” then expect the condescension to continue.
I suppose I do prove your point, if your point is that conservatives and liberals cannot agree on basic facts.
There cannot be a debate, if we cannot agree on basic facts.
Tell you what, you go through velocity’s list there, and you tell me which of his observations you disagree with, then we can have a debate about those.
Once again, we are not talking about policies, we are not talking about strategies or preferred outcomes or goals. We are talking about basic, provable, facts.
Ah, and here is the problem. Trump’s administration in particular is trying to avoid knowledge in the hope to get some sort of short term benefit. Or they are just as dumb as a bag of hammers.
You can’t debate facts.
Defunding -
EPA
NOAA
NASA
To name a few with regard to earth science.
You’re welcome to your opinion, but you can’t have your own facts.
Here is my view of the list, with Fact/Opinion annotations:
[ul]
[li]Pulling yourself up by your bootstraps can be nearly impossible in today’s America. $7.25/hour doesn’t get you anywhere, and also, as an Economist article puts it, “It’s Expensive to be Poor.”[/li][li]Opinion (or “Fact” if we focus on the words “can be,” but the sense of the statement as I read it is that it IS nearly impossible)[/li][li] --[/li][li]Some Trump supporters ***are *** indeed “deplorable” - Stormfront-ers, 4chan-ers, KKK-ers, etc.[/li][li]Opinion in the sense that deplorable is not a matter for factual determination – but it’s an opinion I share[/li][li] – [/li][li]Trickle-down economics doesn’t work[/li][li]Opinion, unless we define what “work,” specifically, it’s supposedly doing or failing to do[/li][li]-- [/li][li]In many ways, women’s lives *are *more difficult than men’s.[/li][li]Fact, but a meaningless one, since it’s also a fact that in many ways, men’s lives are more difficult than women’s[/li][li]–[/li][li]Abstinence-based sex education isn’t very effective, because many teenagers are naturally horny and simply ignore abstinence advice.[/li][li]Fact[/li][li]–[/li][li]Man-made climate change is real.[/li][li]Fact[/li][li]–[/li][li]Conservatives have “patriotic correctness” just like liberals have political correctness.[/li][li]Fact[/li][li]–[/li][li]Most immigrants - legal or illegal - have incentive *not *to commit crime while in America. Illegal immigrants, due to their situation, would want to keep a low profile and *avoid *breaking laws whenever possible.[/li][li]Fact, but a generally meaningless one since most everyone has general incentives to not commit crime; crimes are generally committed by people who act counter to the rational incentives they face[/li][li]-- [/li][li]Most regulations exist for a good reason[/li][li]Opinion, because “good” rests on the underlying shared beliefs animating the regulation’s goals (or “Fact,” if this simply is a trivial observation that the good reason is the regulations were promulgated in accordance with proper procedures[/li][li]–[/li][li]Many U.S. military operations are not about “protecting our freedoms” at all. Not every or even most such military operations have to be about protecting U.S. liberty, but we should stop with the talk about “Our troops are defending our freedoms” and “If you can read English, thank a U.S. soldier” talk, as if an enemy would invade the USA.[/li][li]Opinion: the counter-argument is that maintaining military strength by shows of force are part of what keeps the country safe from invasion. In living memory, armed imperial forces attacked US soil and had long-term plans to invade and conquer this country. But “Fact,” if the discussion is limited to the short-term effects of a particular military engagement.[/li][li]–[/li][li]Even if it were a good thing to do, ejecting 11 million illegal immigrants from the country is logistically all but impossible.[/li][li]Fact[/li][li]–[/li][li]Tax cuts would probably worsen the national debt.[/li][li]Fact, but the devil is in the details; it’s certainly possible to imagine tax cuts and a balanced budget . . . just politically highly infeasible.[/li][li]–[/li][li]While outsourcing jobs is bad, in some instances it’s the only thing to do.[/li][li]Fact[/li][li]–[/li][li]The old Rust Belt jobs are not coming back, due to technology and new economic trends.[/li][li]Fact[/li][li]–[/li][li]Banning abortion might prevent a lot of abortions, but some women would still get dangerous illegal abortions anyway (the ‘back-alley’ type.)[/li][li]Fact[/li][li]–[/li][li]Single-payer healthcare isn’t much different than the concept of health insurance itself (you pay into a pool and the pool pays out patients’ costs,) but might save the country a lot in the long run.[/li][li]Opinion: it’s greatly different in ways that matter greatly to conservatives. Health insurance as a job-based benefit is a risk pool, yes, but it’s a risk pool for which all participants are carrying their own (or their own and their families’) participatory weight; single-payer spreads the responsibility to cover the costs to the taxpayer.[/li][li]–[/li][/ul]
I certainly appreciate that, but I have a few questions/challenges to some of them.
I will snip the ones you labeled as fact, as I have no reason to quibble on thins upon which I agree.
The weasel word in there of “nearly” should cover the few exceptions that make it out. But I would say it is a fact that if you are supposed to pull yourself up from your bootstraps from poverty, then you are statistically very unlikely to succeed. Those who do are either exceptionally gifted, or exceptionally lucky, or very likely, a combination.
Point is, it is a fact that being poor in america doesn’t give you many opportunities to stop being poor.
Work as in increasing the overall productive output of commerce, as well as increasing the spending power of the consumer.
While I would agree that it is difficult to say if something works if you don’t define what “work” is, I think that that is the definition that most are thinking of in this context, and it is factual as to whether or not trickle-down economics addresses and improves those goals.
What is true is that it is opinion as to whether or not those are laudable goals, as they certainly are not the goals of all, even if they are the goal of what I believe to be the vast majority of Americans.
This is true, and while we are getting into still mostly factual, but much harder to weigh area here, and I don’t have a cite for this, I would say that the ways that a women’s lives are more difficult are more numerous, more impactful, and more difficult to overcome than the ways a man’s life is.
Everyone may have a general incentive to avoid crime, but this is a group with not just a general incentive, but also an additional specific incentive. If their presence here is undocumented, then they certainly don’t want to bring any attention to themselves, and if they are legal residents, they still don’t want to bring negative attention to their community.
As a white guy, I have an incentive to follow the law, because I don’t want to get in trouble with the law, but I don’t need to worry about my actions being used to broad brush all the other white guys.
Good, as in having a direct and beneficial impact. Now, it is an opinion as to whether acid rain and burning rivers is a good thing or not, but it is a fact that regulations are why we don’t have those problems anymore.
Maintaining military strength is not the same as, and is in fact diametrically opposite to, getting bogged down in wars across the world.
We could have a quarter of the military, and none of the foreign wars, and people still would be pretty unlikely to even think about invading us.
I agree that that one is an opinion, in that what “much different” means can vary greatly between people. But, what is the difference between working for a corporation with millions of employees of all levels from CEO’s to janitors, all sharing the same risk pool and insurance options, and living in a country that covers hundreds of millions essentially the same way? In the work place example, they are not all carrying their own weight, the higher risk employes are being subsidized by the lower risk employees, and everyone is getting subsidized by the employer, both in terms of employer contribution, and economies of scale. If you were looking for a system where everyone is carrying their own participatory weight, you would actually need to be looking at the individual insurance market, which, before ACA, was an absolute mess, where I was actually paying much more for far less coverage than I get from an ACA plan.
If you get work based insurance, you actually do not get very much choice. Most employers that I have worked for have only offered two plans, each pretty much identical, and the most I ever saw was 5 plans, 3 of which were really not for the average worker. My business offers exactly 0 plans to its employees, as I am a small business that cannot yet afford to provide that benefit. The ACA, while not single payer, but closer to it, gave me dozens of plans to choose from.
I’ve said before that I feel a fundamental premise that underlies a lot of conservative ideology is the belief that life is fair. If you follow the rules and put in the effort, you will be successful.
The positive side of this belief is that it says success is available to anyone. The negative side of this belief is that it says that if you don’t achieve success, it’s your own fault - you either failed to follow the rules or you failed to put in enough effort.
You have a lousy job? You should have learned better skills. You’re being harassed by the police? You shouldn’t have argued with the officer when he pulled you over. You’re being deported? You should have immigrated to America legally. You claim black people are disadvantaged? Barack Obama’s black and he got elected President.
I think this belief to often fails to recognize that not every one has equal opportunities or receives equal treatment. Not everyone had the same opportunities to learn useful skills when they were growing up. Sometimes the police don’t treat black people the same way they treat white people. Some immigrants came to America illegally because there was no legal way for them to come here.
So conservatives need to remember that if you’re going to hold people accountable for their failures, you have to make it possible for them to have had a reasonable opportunity to succeed.
(Liberals, on the flip side, need to stop making excuses for people who have had opportunities to succeed and have failed through their own shortcomings.)
Well shit, let’s pick some “beliefs” out of that list, shall we? Here, let’s pick out all the “beliefs”, and what do we have left? Please, do what Bricker did. Be my guest. Pick out everything on that list you think is a “belief”. Because the sad, ugly, and increasingly terrifying truth is that many of the places where republicans and liberals differ are the places where liberals accept the facts, and republicans don’t.
Well, what do you do when your opponent takes a position which is simply unfactual? If republicans say, “Climate Change is a hoax made up by China”, then refuse to agree with the actual facts, what do you do?
I woulda said that 10 years ago. Things have changed since then. Gamergate, Milo, /pol/, various haarassment campaigns… Lumping 4chan in with the KKK and Stormfront is entirely reasonable, not least of which because 4chan is basically a fucking training ground for being a terrible person.
There are many opportunities to stop being poor. And I say this as someone who grew up quite poor, so my view is not merely theoretical.
The problems for continuing poverty arise in large measure because people don’t make the right decisions. They know abstractly that saving is better than spending, but have to have the nice stuff that other people have, and spend money getting things that are not necessary for life. As a kid I wanted a color TV because most of my friends had color TVs. But we were the last people in our apartment complex to get color TV, and then it was a used TV that someone else was selling to get a bigger color TV.
I agree the discipline necessary is not common, which I think gives truth to your observation that it’s statistically unlikely. But so what? It’s not unknown – it’s just that everyone wants to be the grasshopper and not the ants.
Then I disagree. If by “trickle-down,” we mean the general macro-economic process of investing in capital and lowering barriers to entry into industry and to the production of goods, then I argue that it will, indeed, increase “overall productive output of commerce, as well as increas[e] the spending power of the consumer.”
Again, though, devil in the details. Because if the general statement that “In many ways, women’s lives are more difficult than men’s,” is used to support specific policy proposals, then I don’t agree it’s sufficient. Women menstruate, men don’t – this is an area in which women’s lives are more difficult than men’s, but it’s a difficulty imposed by biology. The question is: what, if anything, are you proposing as a result of this inequity? Etc.
No, no, here I don’t at all agree. People that can be motivated by concerns about how their actions reflect on the community are not, in general, the people that commit crimes to begin with. And for those that do commit crimes, the general similarity is a lack of appreciation for longer-term consequences.
Agreed – but the claim is for MOST regulations. I don’t think there’s any genuine debate that some regulations have had salutary effects. But for every emission reduction of sulfur dioxide rule, I think I can show you a pair of 16-Ounce Soda Limit rules.
What was the size of our military in 1940, when Japan and Germany made tentative long term plans to divide our territory? Isoroku Yamamoto recognized the huge cost of such an attack but did not believe it impossible, merely too costly for Japan to undertake. In any event, the point is that you may weigh the risk differently than others; this does not transform the claim into fact.
I’m aware of only one employer in the U.S. over a million employees: Walmart, with roughly 2 million. The next largest is Yum! with KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut together reaching just half a million. And the answer is: as a Walmart participant, I’d pay a rate that was arrived by all the other participants being paying members of their families. As a taxpayer, I’d be paying my own share and the shares of people who weren’t paying for themselves at all.
, but to start us off I came up with a few, and I’d love for folks to add on to the list to jumpstart the conversation: