Like I said - you’re never going to get it.
Or perhaps, like I said, you’re never going to get it.
Regards,
Shodan
Well of course. But they got to express that opinion publicly and they were lauded for it. So there was some evidence available to people that you could in fact talk about immigration without being shouted down.
I ducked out of discussions about the Referendum because I didn’t want to get in an argument with the pro-Leave people at my work. I mmed and yeahed and said “that’s a good point” and then walked away. I know various other pro-Remain types who did the same thing. Does that mean that the right/Leavers are guilty of shutting down debate? I wouldn’t say so, but what’s the difference between my experiences and your friends?
And this is me in London. How did the minority of Remain voters in Lincolnshire feel about voicing their opinions? If they were reluctant, is it fair to say they too were silenced by the threat of abuse? Because the one obvious difference is that if they were, it clearly worked.
As expected, a complete dodge on the issue, together with a vague but condescending comment implying I don’t get it at the end.
You still haven’t made any case for there being anything to “get” here. Except maybe the well-known fact that people who do childish and stupid things don’t like being mocked for having done something childish and stupid. Yes, thanks, I already get that just fine.
Do you actually have any other reason for not mocking the childish stupidity of conservatives allegedly voting for Trump against their own better judgement, merely out of resentment because they thought liberals were being mean to them? Other than the obvious fact that the conservatives being mocked won’t like it?
There are things that don’t deserve to be mocked even if one disagrees with them, such as having sincere and well-intentioned support for a candidate that most other people think is terrible.
But there are other things that do deserve to be mocked. Such as treating a national election like a high-school popularity contest, in which voters are more influenced by their interpersonal miffs and tiffs than by any reasoned consideration of which candidate they really believe to be the best.
During the run-up to the referendum I had the “benefit” of working at various locations with various demographics in regions that were both pro and anti. My experience of a professional cosmopolitan London group didn’t match yours. They were overwhelmingly confident that a “remain” vote would prevail. When I told them that it seemed far from a certainty to me they we pretty shocked. There was definitely something of a London bubble at least in the contact that I had.
I don’t doubt that in pockets, very vocal “leave” sentiments will have closed down debate. However, my own experience was that, in general, those expressing moderate remain sentiment were far less worried about how their decision would be perceived than those leaning towards leave.
That’s my own experience of course but that shyness of the both the leave voter and the tory voter in 2015 was bourne out by the polling for both.
I think that it’s entirely possible for one side to consider things to be bigoted which may or may not be so.
For example, if I say that transgenderism is odd and not the natural order of things, I’ll likely be accused of bigotry. Yet in an absolute sense, it is NOT normal (what percentage of the population is trans anyway?), and as such, it is odd. One person’s bigotry is another’s way of saying that it’s something that’s very far outside the norm.
Of course that doesn’t mean that they should be treated differently under the law, etc… ad nauseam. Being odd or out of the norm isn’t something that should be persecuted, but merely pointing out that it’s odd isn’t necessarily bigotry either.
But a lot of folks around here will pretty much claim that it is.
But being rare is different from being “not the natural order of things”. Transgender individuals are rare, but they are certainly natural.
Colorblind female left-handers are likewise quite rare in the population, but there’s nothing “unnatural” about them; same with trans people.
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One person’s bigotry is another’s way of saying that it’s something that’s very far outside the norm.
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Well, no. Nobody is getting accused of bigotry just for saying “transgender identity is quite rare among the human population”. If you mean “rare”, then say “rare” rather than loaded terms such as “odd” or “unnatural”.
If you mean “Transgender identity seems odd and abnormal to many people, because it violates our society’s traditional and very strong binary gender norms”, you can certainly say that too.
But just saying or implying that a natural phenomenon in human beings is “unnatural” is always going to look a lot like bigotry. I’m sure that many people who blunder into such expressions are well-meaning, but that doesn’t mean that they haven’t ended up expressing their ideas in a bigoted way, however unintentionally.
There are always lots of parents for anything that happens. Why argue about it? I think that the tisking of liberals for how they talk is lame. Conservatives do not need a safe space. They will grow up. It takes a little time.
The idea that you need to tickle and stroke voters to get votes, I can’t get behind. It’s a question of priorities, and vision. Talk about “going down to their level”!
In Re: Trumps electorate: I think you’re conflating trumpism with conservatism. As Bob Dylan said “The wheel’s still in spin” meaning, you can’t make definitive statements about the allegiance of people to trumpism. He has no positions that he stands for except ridiculous dog whistling ones. The game is playing out now. And you have no idea what’s going to happen today or tomorrow. So how do you know what the hell people were thinking or what they will be thinking as days and weeks go by in this administration? You’re being very presumptuous I think.
The shame will come in when trump fails, which it looks like he is getting close to doing every day. His speech, his tweets (I can’t believe I had to just say that about the POTUS), his behavior, his policy moves: They are all on a very thin string right now, which you can see if you just look and listen to him.
Scolding liberals is fun now but that wave is almost over. It was a wave of fece, and the backwash will look a lot different from the glory of november. Shame is in short supply right now, but do you think it won’t happen? I think if one is a liberal it’s just being a turncoat and piler-on to add to the attempt to shift the blame for trumpism on to liberalism. IMO.
Fair enough, and I think it does work both ways, in that a lot of people around here, at least, are really primed to go off without trying to analyze if someone’s deliberately being bigoted or if they’re merely using an unfortunate word choice. And by saying it’s not the “normal order of things”, I was deliberately using a phrase that could go either way depending on the interpretation.
And this also supports my point- a lot of it depends on the interpretation. If you’re approaching it from the perspective of it’s a totally normal, natural situation for a person to be in, and it’s just an extremely rare one, that’s one thing. But someone could just as easily interpret the relative rarity and unusualness of transpeople as something that is wrong. Not in a moral sense, but in the sense of something is not as it should be, if someone feels like they’re in a body that doesn’t correspond to the gender they feel themselves to be.
But if you were to say that something’s wrong, that would most likely be construed as bigotry, even though it’s just unfortunate word choice.
Well, yeah, unfortunate word choices that use the same language as bigoted disparagement are often going to be construed as bigotry. I’m not saying that well-meaning people deserve to be immediately condemned and berated for having made an unfortunate word choice; just that well-meaning blunderers and actual bigots can sound an awful lot alike.
Exactly the reaction I expected, though you weren’t who I envisioned having it.
Really. How many Tea Partiers do you think are open to changing? Moral Minority types? The simple fact is that you can’t fight faith with rationality. It just will never work barring some kind of jolting RL experiences. The other side is not going to be convinced. Surely you’ve read some of the ideologues here. What chance do you think you have of convincing them? It’s a simple matter of pragmatism.
The same goes for ‘fighting dirty.’ The other side has proven its complete lack of compunction in doing so. The end justifies the means, they say. Hence their voting overwhelmingly for Trump. You may not like it, but that is the fact. You can either sit in an ivory tower and handwring about how dirty they played or you can do something about it, and the former will do nothing but make you feel good.
I am unsure as to whether the middle ground reads this board. But if they do, I’m sure as hell not going to let them think that faith-based position bears any relation to reality.
Hmm…so leaders are just organically chosen? Yeah…good luck with that.
As I made clear before, I don’t think I’m the best leader. I think I’m the only one who’s stepped up. Anyone else who wants to do so, feel free. This isn’t an ego thing to me, it’s a necessity thing. (And, btw, the direction I’m pointing is very much parallel to the little orange slogan at the top of every page.)
This whole thing about how others make it uncomfortable for one to express their political opinions always smacked of weakness to me. Two simple questions: Do you have the courage of your convictions? and Are you going to let a little resistance prevent you from voicing them?
As for the transgender issue, I doubt anyone cares what someone in the privacy of his/her own mind classifies it as. It’s when that classification turns into legislation that it becomes a problem. If you truly think anything other than heterosexuality and absolute male/female gender based on sex organs is unnatural, so be it. But you don’t get to enforce those classifications on anyone else, at least not morally.
The great mass of humans likes to go along and get along and for them confrontation/pushback, especially if cast in the light of being morally wrong or ignorant per the perceived standard is distressing.
A lot of people just will not trust someone in any kind of position of authority or influence - teacher, boss, public official - telling them they should speak frankly and freely and that there will be no consequence; they can’t fathom how it could not influence how they will be dealt with. Also a lot of people will not trust that a polling interview will be anonymized and is merely an informational tool, they’ll be suspicious of what was behind those questions and why were *they *asked.
That’s absolutely true. And I’ll admit, I haven’t seen you piling on too often. But there are others who are surprisingly eager to jump someone just because they’re not toeing the party line about bigotry, etc… Hell, even differences of opinion will get called out in economic / poverty related threads as bigotry or incorrect, when they’re literally just differences of opinion.
The thing is, around here it’s pretty lopsided. If it wasn’t so lopsided, there would be more than a small handful of coherent, consistent conservative posters, and we’d have real two-sided debates. As it is, those folks are reduced to something akin to trolling in a lot of threads- the most effective tactic is to essentially kick the anthill, and then see who’s willing to engage productively, as opposed to crying foul.
All you need is one person making a cogent argument. How many do you want? Every debate here comes down to some left right dichotomy, and accusations of hypocrisy. I don’t know how many posters you think is needed but there are plenty enough to make this happen. Every time. It prevents actual political dialogue. They kick the anthill to troll, not to find the one sincere arguer.
People want to say they’re outnumbered or something but numbers have absolutely nothing to do with it. Trolling happens because the argument is specious and frivolous and it’s in bad faith. What does it have to do with the population of your affinity group?
In other words, they’re more afraid of the consequences of speaking than they’re invested in upholding their beliefs. That would be a big No to the first question. Actually, the second one too.
it’s an honest response to the tone of your post. As it happens I am politically very closely aligned with you but I still think your approach is one that has partially lead to the currently, very polarised political situation.
You are not reading me fully. Recall that I clearly said.
So we agree here. For those tea party types and far right republicans a moderate tone and reasoned debate won’t convert them. So what? They aren’t the recruitment targets, they aren’t the ones we need to convince in order to get back into power.
Do something about it? of course. I’m assuming that you want to do something in order bring people back to our side. My point is that the “something” to be done is not to fight dirty, how exactly do you think that will be a vote winner? how well has it worked for the left in recent years? You speak of pragmatism above, pragmatism is about doing what works, not what feels good.
Of course they do. And you can fight misinformation and error without implicitly insulting or insulting those already partially convinced by the other sides lies. So if your approach here is different to when you are in the presence of the middle ground, that is less of a problem. However, how do you know when to switch? how do you ensure your approach here doesn’t bleed over? How are you identifying those occupying the middle ground?
You can proclaim, buy, manufacture yourself or struggle to get into a position of leadership but that does not mean that you are perceived as a leader. Ask Jeremy Corbyn in the UK,
I think it is admirable that people want to get more involved in fighting ignorance and putting forward alternative political positions. I don’t doubt your credentials nor your sincerity. I do doubt that your approach will be helpful and I fear it leads to even greater division and polarisation. It sounds like more of the same that has lead us to this pretty pass.
Grow up? Not to get too macabre, but it’s more likely for them to die. American politics will change a lot when boomers start croaking en masse. Not only on the right, but the left too (they loved Hillary).
Good luck combining feminism with the idea that the sexes have different brains. Imagine if you tried to do that for the races. This is usually dismissed in leftist fem circles as the “ladybrainz” theory, followed by riffing about how they must not get it because their poor feminized brains don’t understand science or math. Mainstream discussion about trans politics is always focused on the troglodyte right, but the decades long civil war in feminism is more interesting if you ask me.
It’s a long held belief of mine that American politics will change drastically as baby boomers retire. The budgetary constraints on the US Government are about to become severe as government bare the increased costs of boomer retirement and consequently healthcare of the elderly. The US government’s ability & commitment to fund non mandatory programmes & services is at real risk of being squeezed out. Im of the opinion that this will largely benefit the right but we’ll just have to wait and see where the political chips ultimately fall.
I’m not sure how this redounds to the right, other than “Government bad now. Go right!” But that reasoning is based on your thoughts today. Not how it will look then. You are saying that there can be no political shift. Which would be strange considering that we are in completely uncharted political waters now.