As someone who self-identifies as a conservative, I’ll say that there are various goals I have and that I’d like to see implemented, aside from “stop the liberals from doing anything”. Tax cuts (yes, I’d like to see even more tax cuts), spending reductions, restore / enhance the right of the people to keep and bear arms (constitutional carry, hearing protection act, etc), deregulation, enhanced border security, repeal of Roe v Wade, confronting threats to our security (e.g. ISIS), protecting the first amendment rights to free speech and free exercise of religion, etc. I suppose you could coach a number of those in language and phrasing that make it about stopping libs (“you just want to stop us from implementing any gun control” or “you just want to stop us from helping the poor”), but that’s not how I see them.
BLM is specifically about opposition to the torture and killing of black people by cops. People who ‘don’t support BLM’ are saying that they are opposed to people opposing such behavior, which means that they do in fact support the torture and killing of black people by police, whether overtly or just in a ‘I don’t like it but we should let it continue happening’ sense. And I’m explicitly not talking about “I don’t support this specific action by someone involved with BLM”, but about the broader “I oppose BLM”.
No, I have provided an example of examining an opponents position and looking at what it actually entails instead of ‘civilly’ pretending that we can agree to disagree on whether cops should or should not be allowed to murder and torture minorities with little to no consequence. I also don’t understand what you even mean by ‘projecting intent’ - I have not even spoken about intent, and I don’t really care what good intentions pave the road to Hell.
Except that I’ve provided clear evidence of the wrongs happening, while ‘the war on Christmas’ involves either completely made up wrongs or an objection to people that aren’t Chrisitan and/or don’t celebrate Christmas not participating in Christmas. No one is going to come up with a video of an anti-Christmas warrior tasering someone who said ‘Merry Christmas’, or of anti-Christmas forces slamming a kid in a Santa outfit to the ground, or of anti-Christmas militia shooting someone through the window for setting up a Christmas tree and then suffering no consequences for it.
That’s not accurate. Here:
What if I ‘don’t support BLM’ because I disagree with them about what constitutes “Commonsense Gun Laws”?
Then say that you support BLM for the most part, except for that one plank.
Then you’re out of step with the GOP, which wants to curtail the free exercise of religion by moving it closer to government.
Back in the 1990s, Apple and IBM were moving closer to each other; IBM was a lot bigger than Apple back then, so the joke going around was IBM + Apple = IBM. That is, if Apple moves too close to IBM, it will fall in and be consumed and nothing of Apple will remain within the Big Blue Monstrosity of IBM. Well, you can just as well say Religion + Government = Government; any time a religion gets too close to the state, it falls in and becomes just another arm of the state and nothing religious is left within the bureaucracy. All that happens is that the government becomes even more nanny-state, even more eager to restrict freedom in the name of moral purity.
Modern GOPists can’t understand that, or won’t understand it, or actively want the nanny state because they think they’ll get to be the nannies in their Dominionist Theocracy.
You have to then explain that you are a one-issue voter because the 2nd amendment is more important to you than all the other issues combined.
Both parties use the distasteful tactic of saying their opponent is against issue A because legislation pertaining to it was bundled with issue B legislation which the opponent is vehemently opposed to and they voted against it. People are forced onto “hills to die on” because of our unnecessary bundling of issues.
This is why I’d like to see every issue legislated/dealt with separately. No bundling. No bullshit deals. Then the issues that truly divide us would rise to the surface while the things we actually agree upon can be put to bed.
Could you give me some specific examples of ways they are doing this? I’m pretty sure I could give a few examples of ways I see them as defending the free exercise of religion, but I don’t understand which actions you’re seeing here as curtailing freedom of religion.
I work at a National Park devoted to the notion of freedom of religion/separation of church and state so I would be delighted to hear your examples of defending the free exercise of religion. No fooling, we collect modern examples of debate on the issue so I would be professionally interested in your take.
The Republican Party Platform says:
This is one recent example of them working to uphold that goal, at least IMHO. Here is another one.
I’m curious: which National Park is “devoted to the notion of freedom of religion/separation of church and state” (if you feel comfortable sharing that personal detail)?
Maybe this one.
What you quoted, about the Republicans being in favor of weakening the Establishment Clause, is more than sufficient. Curtailing freedom of religion includes forcing people to interact with a government which has declared a preference for a religion which is not their own… or, perhaps, you would feel comfortable with seeking justice in a government court with selected suras from the Koran on the lawn and copies of sharia law in the library?
I will give an example of a good conservative vs the other kind. Sunday’s op-ed in the NY Times included two conservatives. One was actually Maureen Dowd’s but written by her pro-Trump brother. He gave a number of reasons why he supports Trump. None of then hold water. For example; he believes Trump’s been good for the economy. I think the opposite but he gives no reason for me to change my view and neither of us is an analyst. In any case, the president probably does very little to guide the economy (although Trump with his tariff wars is certainly trying). He things that Trump’s actions in Iran and N. Korea are brilliant and I think they are just leading those two countries towards greater belligerence and also leading Iran to nuclear weapons. At this point I stopped reading his column since I had nothing to learn from it.
Contrast this with Ross Douthat. On actual policy matters I almost always out of sync with him. Nometheless I almost always learn something from him. He is a devout Catholic and, until Trump (whom he loathes) came along, a far right winger. Nonetheless he gives arguments, he gives explanations and occasionally even convinces me. But he is always worth reading. I would welcome him to the boards.
You know I’ve realized that I have gradually spent less and less time in GD and reading some posts here make realize why that has happened. It is much less jerkish posting from points right of me than it is by people who I mostly agree with but whose posting style and attitudes make me want to metaphorically slap them upside the head.
There are lots of reasons for people to say that they “don’t support BLM” that are not an endorsement of “torture and killing of black people by cops” ranging from that they do not believe that such is what is actually happening, to understanding the message of BLM as communicated by public mouthpieces and actions as something other than what you and I understand it to be. Reality (IMHO) is that the messaging was done in a very poor manner that resulted in its purpose being easily misunderstood by large segments of others who have been feeling that they have not been mattering. Setting up any disagreement with the movement as being on the side of torture is as much poisoning of the well as can happen. Do you really believe that 57% of Americans are in support of the “torture and killing of black people by cops”?
Once upon a time playing in GD was fun when one of a few things happened which happened somewhat often -
I learned more about why someone thought something very different than I did. Sometimes they learned something too. Sometimes my mind or someone else’s minds were even changed a little, or at least made more ready to change over time.
or
I had a fun debate in good faith using facts and logic. Not name-calling and othering.
What I see now is a complete lack of interest in understanding other POVs and more commonly the crap like the above where an opposing take is presumed to represent something hateful and anyone with a different take is evil incarnate or a troll. Good faith debates on even innocuous subjects end up with people claiming personal attacks.
Not sure what, from a posting perspective “good liberalism” is but I see a lot that isn’t.
And I hate HATE having to be on the side of people whose perspectives I disagree with so much!
When you open your eyes to the fact that people are getting tortured and killed every day, debate ceases to be a fun game. It becomes about saving people’s lives.
I agree with Pantastic on this one. The message of the movement is right there in the name: Black Lives Matter. So people who say they disagree with the movement are saying they disagree with the message. They’re saying that black lives don’t matter.
And, sure, there are people who are misinformed. But this is such a simple and direct issue, I don’t see how anybody can be honestly mistaken. The people who are misinformed about this issue are people who have chosen to be misinformed. They have chosen to get their information from sources that lie to them on a regular basis and have chosen to ignore the sources that are trying to tell them the truth.
Ignorance is not an excuse when somebody chose to be ignorant.
That’s assuming he gives a single shit about any of the other points.
So you DO think that 57% of Americans support “torture and killing of black people by cops”?
Let’s be clear, I am among those who support the movement but while the clear message is that Black lives matter too, it was easy for others who feel that society is leaving them behind to hear that name and feel that it instead implied that their lives do not matter.
Not yet being convinced that the magnitude of unfair treatment by police is as big as it is, which is one of the reasons that some do not support BLM, is not the same as supporting torture and murder.
Being ignorant, sometimes because they are more concerned about their own problems and how their problems are being ignored, is not the same as supporting torture and murder and is not the same as saying that anyone else does not matter.
Do the 12% of Black Americans who oppose BLM endorse the torture and murder of Blacks?
Of those who had heard of BLM (and yes some had never heard of it) 36% did not understand what the goals were. Were they evil supporters of murder and torture for that lack of understanding?
When the issue is not yet understanding the problem and its magnitude, when the issue is being afraid that your problems are being completely ignored, when the issue is just not yet understanding what a movement’s goals are, not by willful ignorance but because of not yet hearing a good explanation of it, labelling people as supporters of torture and murder (hell even labelling all of what occurs that BLM fights against as “murder and torture”) is “bad posting” to an extreme. It cuts off any chance for reducing ignorance and for reassuring that attending to these problems does mean that others’ problems are not also important. Only not so extreme because of how much other bad posting of similar degrees has become the norm. Everything being relative and all. But it is NOT “saving other people’s lives”; it is masturbatory posturing.
And those behaviors are sadly common.
A good guess, but no. Please allow me to introduce a man who was banished from Massachusetts for his “new and dangerous opinions” Roger Williams. One of Williams’ core beliefs was that one’s personal relationship with God was far too important for the grubby hands of the state or politics in general.
What are people doing when they defend the cops when this happens, argue against their being held accountable, and come up with reasons that the shooting must have been justified? They are justifying murder by cops.
This was very cool. Tha is for sharing. If I ever get out to R.I. I’ll have to visit the park.