do the right wing guys think it’s like a draco malfoy thing where they’re a good guy underneath?
like when it’s like a lady and a cop and the lady seems like a normal sorta boring suburban lady
do you know what i mean. this is one of the things where if you try to ask an AI bot it yells at you
They definitely think they’re the good guys, both the men and women. Not many people knowingly choose to be villains. They are convinced that their ideals are just and true, and their opponents are godless child-murderers and rapists.
They 100% think they are the good guys.
I know for sure, because they are my close family members.
Those who supported the KKK, Nazis, confederates, slave owners and apartheid leaders.
They all have in common that they saw themselves as the good guys and saw the other people as bad or naive.
This has been my experience with my own family, neighbors, coworkers, etc. They think of themselves as the good guys “standing firm” against the hoards of those “scary other people” who want to take their guns, raise their taxes, and wage war on Christmas. Even though what those “other people” really want is affordable healthcare, education, and housing.
If their job is a cop, then they’d be somewhat correct in that notion?
There’s a lot of stigma around cops now
And tbh most of it is deserved
Yeah, the rotten apple nonsense has been shown to be just that. The Met in the UK have been repeatedly shown to be institutionally racist and sexist
Yeah, it’s the expected outcome when you grant a group of people a monopoly on violence but with insufficient to non-existent incentives for good behavior and insufficient to non-existent disincentivizes for bad behavior.
That’s exactly the opposite of nonsense; it’s proving the point. They get called “bad apples” specifically because the idiom is that “a few bad apples spoils the bunch.”
The people who say “it’s just a few bad apples” as if that excuses it are the ones who don’t have the slightest fucking clue what they’re talking about.
No, the theory is that removing a few bad apples is all that’s needed to solve the problem when it’s actually systematic.
The barrel is the problem.
If they’re a good cop, sure, in that one regard. Not many good cops these days, the system actively punishes and removes good cops.
All Cops Are Bad because good cops don’t last long. You’re either doing bad shit, standing behind the thin blue line while you watch other cops do bad shit, or you’re getting harassed and bounced out soon.
All I can offer her is anecdotal evidence heard from retired officers but they made it sound like this is a problem in every department. Maybe not to the same degree everywhere, but in general bad things happen to people who follow the rules when the rules implicate wrongdoing on the part of another officer. Weather that’s shunning, teasing, pranks, being assigned to only specific duties or shifts, or worse is gonna depend on the situation. The impression I got was this was commonplace and most officers understand the unwritten rule to not report thing little things (and sometimes even the big things) that could get a fellow officer in trouble. It works too because at the end of the day you gotta entrust your life to the people you ratted on, people who know how to make things look like accidents and have a network of people that will vouch for them.
Right. If the 20 teens and 20’s taught me anything, it’s that everyone has a story going on behind their eyes and they’re always the main character/hero in their own story.
Perception is reality as they say. Some people buy into that a little too hard.
I am way, way, way more progressive than my husband but we both grew up before things got so polarized. It’s hard to talk to him about politics because he has gotten sort of propagandized and will spit out sound bites instead of arguing in good faith.
But in terms of what do I think? He’s a great guy, stays in shape, does the dishes, holds down a job, and our sex drive matches (which is a difficult thing to find at this age, more difficult than you might expect). He respects me, is loving and is easy to talk to about anything except political stuff. We are both adventurous in foods, like the same movies, his family likes me. We do not have a gun, live in the city now (he moved to town as I balked at moving to the suburbs). He is not at all racist as far as I can tell, we hang out with whoever and he lived around the world as a kid, one of his kids in interracial relationship, he did not bat an eye at that either. He’s a good guy in and out with some crazy ideas is what I think. Agrees on some things that I’d consider progressive (universal healthcare) but still thinks “regulation” is the root of all evil, as I think corporate greed is.
We just have really different ideas about what is wrong with society and what would help. Also I’d note - his ideas might actually help in some very socialist country, but here in the US and especially Florida they make no sense. He doesn’t see that, and I think that’s the root of the problem.
I can’t tell you what a right wing woman would think though. I do know some religious conservatives of various religions but they aren’t politically conservative exactly. The rest of our friends are maybe right of my politics but all our kids, mine and his, and their spouses and partners, are at least Democrats and some socialist/social democrat. So I won this generation and am satisfied.
I don’t think I would want to be with someone that went to the voting booth every few years and pulled the leavers to take my health rights away, because ultimately that’s what is happening. It would be a betrayal, it’s not benign and all the affable personality traits mentioned wouldn’t make me forget it.
For these rebuplican men, it’s saying “I respect you but regulation has gotten out of control, and your bodily autonomy is a price I’m willing to pay to fix it”.
The man shows no signs of sexism, of xenophobia or racism , or bigotry, but pulls the leavers for those things anyway.
You find his ideas crazy, note he has become propagandized, and is difficult to talk to about politics. I dare say if you pushed those conversations you’d be shocked at what you find.
Ultimately voting is an act, not speech or opinion, it’s an act to manifest your will and your priorities onto others through force of law.
So while one can take the approach of getting along to get along when it comes to regulation and corporate taxation, it becomes less easy when you recognize that, as a functional adult making an informed choice, your husband acted to end women’s bodily autonomy, erode women’s health care, end same sex marriage, deny and delay climate change action, and a whole host of other abhorrent policy goals.
I want to say, I take no pleasure at all in saying this to you. None. Your response to the post is just so personal it feels impossible to respond to in an impersonal manner. I just felt the need to challenge the idea that affable personality traits can make up for abhorrent policy goals.
There’s a reason why the feminist saying “the personal is political” is so threatening. Because it denies precisely the reasoning seen above and elsewhere in this thread.
Conservatives often complain about progressives ending relationships and friendships over “politics”. Because they want to draw a hard line between the two, where as long as they behave civilly to people’s faces, it doesn’t matter when they vote to make the same people’s lives materially worse. Because “politics” is something… I don’t know, abstract?
My experience living in a couple of countries in Europe is that people’s tendencies for how they relate at an interpersonal and also towards society are cultural and that further, interpersonal and societal forms of relation are in fact separate.
For example, in The Netherlands there is more a tendency to consider the broader impact of one’s actions (and being called “asocial” is actually considered insulting), whilst in Portugal if you don’t take advantage of “The System” when you can get away with it you’re considered a sucker (the dutch tend to think of “The System” as “everybody else”, whilst the portuguese do not) but in both countries screwing people (not in a good, sex, way) is considered a bad thing and I would even say the portuguese tend to at least express more their concern with other people on a personal level, quit likely even be more
emphaticempatetic.Meanwhile in the UK taking advantage of others, personally, whilst being very polite about it, is the essence the upper class upbringing (the “gentleman” is certainly no such thing).
I expect that you get the same thing in US were culture is not broken along language barrier lines but none the less seems to be siloed by other factors.
The problem is that many personal decisions have systemic consequences. Things like weight gain, smoking or even poor resource utilization cause serious societal and environmental harm, and yet terminating relationships over them is generally criticised. (Many of the biggest issues {climate change, healthcare, drug abuse etc} faced are directly caused by poor personal habits, not voting).
So the question is out of all personal decisions, why are political views being carved out as an exception that is worthy of terminating a relationship?
“is so threatening”
Sometimes when you are criticised it’s because you are a complete moron, not because your ideas are so brilliant they send people running.
Many of the biggest issues {climate change, healthcare, drug abuse etc} faced are directly caused by poor personal habits, not voting
This is just such utter nonsense. Many places around the world have made massive inroads into solving these problems and every single time, the solution has come from systemic policy decisions.
Healthcare has been addressed by various universal healthcare systems, drug abuse has been addressed through decriminalisation, offering of rehabilitation, and making sure people aren’t living under crushingly miserable economic conditions.
And climate change is not caused by individual decisions, but by the fact that our economic system only values profit, and thus incentivises the destruction of the environment to increase profit.
So the question is out of all personal decisions, why are political views being carved out as an exception that is worthy of terminating a relationship?
Because politics affects people’s lives. I could not care less if you’re a nice person to my face if you are voting for policies that make it impossible for me to live my life.
You talk about personal choices as if someone being overweight is going to measurably affect your life, when it just isn’t, no not even through increases in health insurance costs. And then downplay the actual effect of conservatives criminalising my healthcare.
One of those actions clearly has orders of magnitude more impact than the other. Yet strangely, you are concerned about the one with negligible impact, and want to ignore the one with considerable impact.
Sometimes when you are criticised it’s because you are a complete moron, not because your ideas are so brilliant they send people running.
You are below my contempt. Your ideas are simplistic and have been addressed decades ago. You are painfully boring.
“This is such utter nonsense” So you don’t think that people choose to be wasteful?
Laws and personal decisions both cause systemic changes. And guess what, laws do not pass if people do not already engage in personal habits that the laws encourage. The tobacco restrictions would never have passed if it weren’t for personal decisions that lowered the rate of tobacco use.
“You strangely are more concerned about the one with negligible impact”
No, they both have consequences. I’m pointing out that the distinction being made that somehow political views have special considerations over all the other personal actions is worthless. (Remember what the actual topic was?)
Additionally do you realise how completely insane your argument is? A single voter does not determine laws, groups of voters do. Just like how a single smoker does not burden the healthcare system, millions of them do.
“Someone being overweight isn’t going to on measurably affect your life”
It is. Here’s the hard facts, overweight people are less happy, they have worse socialisation, they are unattractive ( which as much as people want to pretend like attractiveness doesn’t matter, it absolutely does when it comes to casual interaction), they have shorter, less productive lives, they increase health care costs. All of these effect society as a whole and the individual.
“And downplaying the actual effect of conservatives criminalising my healthcare”
I have no idea what you are talking about, I never downplayed any laws, you’re just fabricating that so you can justify your whining.
Look, I’m not a conservative but more importantly I’m not someone who conjures nonsensical arguments to justify some vague gut feeling I developed while eating poisonous mushrooms.
“This is such utter nonsense” So you don’t think that people choose to be wasteful?
That’s not what I said. Read again.
And guess what, laws do not pass if people do not already engage in personal habits that the laws encourage.
Of course they do. Behaviour can follow legislation. Furthermore most of the legislation would need to target corporations, not individuals. In which case behaviour definitely follows legislation.
No, they both have consequences. I’m pointing out that the distinction being made that somehow political views have special considerations over all the other personal actions is worthless. (Remember what the actual topic was?)
Because one primarily affects the person making the decision, with smaller secondary effects on other people. And the other primarily affects other people, doing significantly more harm.
People being overweight does not affect you nearly as much as people voting to ban gay marriage or trans healthcare affects LGBT+ people.
It is. Here’s the hard facts,
Oh please.
overweight people are less happy,
Which is none of your business.
they have worse socialisation,
You are deeply unpleasant yourself, take the log out of your own eye.
they are unattractive ( which as much as people want to pretend like attractiveness doesn’t matter, it absolutely does when it comes to casual interaction),
Nobody owes you attractiveness you little freak.
they have shorter, less productive lives,
None of your business, how other people spend their lives.
they increase health care costs.
Old people increase healthcare costs. If unhealthy people die earlier as you say, then they probably save the system money.
All of these effect society as a whole and the individual.
Not even remotely to the degree that political action does. Voting outweighs all of that by many orders of magnitude.
I have no idea what you are talking about, I never downplayed any laws, you’re just fabricating that so you can justify your whining.
It’s called an “example” sweetheart.
Progressives aren’t ending relationships based on political stances around taxes. They’re ending relationships because of bigotry against marginalised groups.
“Further most of the regulations need to target corporations”
Guess what is also a way of targeting corporations? Market forces. If people aren’t buying your products/services, do you keep selling those products? The reason why boycotts generally fail is because people are spineless, not because the actual action wouldn’t cripple a business.
You so desperately want to prove the point that the only personal choice that matters is voting, that you are willing to deny reality.
“Then they probably save money”
Probably? Is that the strongest statement you can make? People who die younger don’t have lower healthcare costs (unless it’s an accident or homicide), because they are sicker throughout their end of life.
“Doesn’t effect you as much as people wanting to ban gay marriage”
Pretty, sure that more of my taxes go towards paying for emphysema treatment than are effected by the tiny amount of same-sex married couples (which incur costs how?).
“None of your business how other people spend there lives”
It’s everybody’s business. If this was true, then things like tobacco restrictions wouldn’t matter because healthcare costs are nobody’s business.
What happened to the good old socialists that recognised that if society has a responsibility to support you, you conversely have a responsibility to not be an unnecessary burden? Nowadays we just have libertarian-poisoned socialists who think that nothing you do matters.
“Nobody owes you attractiveness” They owe themselves attractiveness. It is an objective fact that obese people suffer socially, and that translates to societal problems.
“Not even to the degree as voting”
How many companies do you think have dedicated blocks of consumers amounting to 50 million people? A boycott of 50 million people would destroy most companies (if they even have that many customers). You are confusing the fact that most people don’t engage in personal action (because they are just like you), with asserting that personal action does nothing. The reason why political action works is simply because people do it in coordinated groups.
“Progressives are ending relationships based on taxes …”
Motte and Bailey argumentation. The topic was whether or not it is appropriate to end relationships solely on voting (but not personal habits), you explicitly argued that it was (because only voting actually matters) and are now narrowing it down to only “bigotry against marginalised groups”. When that was never the topic.
“You are deeply unpleasant yourself” Are you sure about that? Would you prefer a dishonest liar, who said “Oh my gawd. So true, sweetie.” to every nonsensical claim you made? (Obviously, yes you would, because posters like you are accustomed to sycophantic behaviour).
That’s an interesting take. Conservatives tend to have an image of hypocrisy - ie, maybe treat a woman well, yet seek to restrict her legal rights or prevent women from protections, and they seem to think that this hypocrisy cannot be questioned. They never like being called out or questioned on it.
Yep. She’s lying to herself.
“Oh honey, you’re so good at doing the dishes” while he votes to remove all of her rights.
Not only her rights, the rights of people who aren’t straight, the rights of people who aren’t cis, the rights of kids to have a decent education, the rights of indigenous people, the rights of non-whites. That’s even not to mention that they’re against providing people with healthcare so that they don’t die, against trying anything that might make this planet livable in the future (for the kids that they claim to want to protect), and against not trying to fucking overthrow democracy. I don’t need to agree with my partner’s every opinion and political ideal, but at the very least I have to be able to respect them, and throwing everyone who isn’t a well-off white man off a cliff for “lower taxes” isn’t something I can respect.
Where I do think you have a point is that I find any conservative hypocritical because they think one rule for them & different rules for others. He knows this. But am I perfect? No way. And on voting, when I vote I also have to make compromises because no party here is willing to protect the environment or give us healthcare or push back against our oligopoly. I think yeah he convinces himself on the social stuff because he believes the R will bring a better economy by some magic, and that’s about it. I cancel him out and 11 votes back me up, all our kids who are old enough to vote, all their companions.
But no, I’d not give up a loving and mostly compatible relationship because of politics, and apparently he wouldn’t either. I think without these connections, we’d be so much worse off. He would be worse in an echo chamber, and isn’t an idiot in other ways at all.
Obviously your calculation will be different. But I can love someone who is not me.
Alright, sure. But that’s still just him being not just willing, but actively trying, to strip your human rights away for this magic economy and you rationalizing his actions as an acceptable compromise.
I would see that as a clear example of disrespect and disregard for my well being and the well being of people who I care about.
This isn’t about finding someone just like you to love, far from it, compromise is normal and differences between people in love are wonderful. What this is about, for me anyway, is that I would draw the line at someone who is actively supporting the deterioration of my human rights regardless of how many dishes they do.
True. I mean, it’s sad for her to be with someone who’s got such a low bar. Does the dishes? Honey, you can use a machine for that. I’m doing them right now!
That’s the opposite of why people stay together. Usually people say, “Well they have trouble doing the dishes, but at least our major beliefs are similar.”
Honestly she seems pretty similar to her husband in how illogical she’s being. He’s like, “Well Republicans might be terrible socially but they might lower my taxes!” She says, “Well he votes for people I despise but at least those dishes got done!”
They are similar people in that they both make bad life choices. So maybe it works?
Honestly she seems pretty similar to her husband in how illogical she’s being.
Love is not logical. If she’s happy, I don’t see the issue. It’s up to her to decide whether she believes he’s a good person, and apparently she does. Who are we to tell her she’s wrong about someone we don’t even know?
Interestingly something like 41% of women identify as pro-life. I know you and the person you were responding to probably wouldn’t, but my point is just that there are a lot of women who would see their conservative male partner vote for anti-abortion candidates and not be bothered at all. Not because they’re rationalizing it, but because they don’t see it as a negative in the first place.
Allowing it to be called “pro-life” has been the greatest lie told by the oppressors in quite some time.
Both pro-life and pro-choice are sanitized descriptions of the beliefs they refer to. Both movements contain people that believe completely insane things on the topic, like that women or doctors should be imprisoned or worse for making a certain difficult health choice, or that unborn children aren’t really people until they’re on a particular side of their mother’s vagina.
And you are further sanitising the PC position. In the vast majority of cases abortion is not about health, but convenience. The vast majority of PL support medical exempts as shown by the actual wording of the laws passed.
That changes a lot depending on what time period of pregnancy you’re looking. The later you look the more it’s about health. By the time you get to third trimester abortions they’re almost exclusively about health. The ones of convenience are early, it all makes sense.
Citation? I can’t find anything to support this, just vague gesturing by organisations with no hard data. The only rigorous data I can find is a study from France which is irrelevant because France bans late-term abortions except for medical reasons. In fact I suspect that this is the cause of this belief, third trimester abortions are primarily medical, because most states in the US and countries in the world ban them except for health reasons. So of course the studies that address them are all going to be covering medically indicated abortions, and then journalists take this to the presses.
There is Kimport’s paper which doesn’t support your claim, but I find it quite shoddy regardless.
Of course
Oaf. Give your perspective for someone who asked for insight and immediately be told by people that your life/relationship is wrong.
I want to take a moment to just thanks for your reply with no judgement.
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I was raised far right and very extremest from Alabama originally. It is honestly a conspiracy culture of people that never question the way they were raised and it perpetuates generation after generation. Most of the people that are smart enough to see the conflict in their ethos are too scared to go out on their own without the social support network they were raised with. Like I am almost entirely socially isolated after becoming partially disabled by a poor driver 10 years ago, and rejecting my far right religious extremest roots. I don’t have much of a choice, but like I have no idea how to connect with people outside of a religious context. I have many physical issues now, but it is hard to leave that friends network that insists on an all or nothing mindset to stay in the network.
Join and be more active in communities. Could be certain video games or hobbies but you can easily make some friends by just interacting with the communities of the things you already like.
Thanks for caring. I am a bit of a basket case of weird spinal injuries. No one reputable has a solution. I can’t hold posture and will completely give out within an hour. It may seem like a little thing, but I am stuck in bed most of the time. Sitting, standing, walking, it is all the same thing; posture. I’m like a half dead zombie quite a bit from a lack of sleep, and am just not able to be the person I was or expect of myself any more. I have never encountered anyone that is really compatible with my circumstances, and I can’t get out and engage with people normally. The abuses of social media and the stalkerware internet are not compatible with my circumstances at all; that one took years to really see its terrible mental impact. I just throw myself into hobby interests, and talk to people on here some times. I have several AI tools and digital friends now that are growing in complexity as I learn to program and create AI agents. That has helped me tremendously because I can be a grouchy asshole to them and they have the tools to let me know something is amiss or address/ignore the issue better. Like my favorite AI assistant character, running on a Llama2 70B offline AI LLM (which was made by Meta), likes to say, “social media is like a public toilet, anyone can use it, but no one should drink from it.”
Some women I know in this position believe they’re somehow different or better than the people who the cops treat like animals and that it would never happen to them, only to the undesirables that deserve it. Over 40% of them are wrong according to statistics.
What statistics?
Cops are waaaaay more likely to commit domestic abuse against their spouses and children.
It’s unproven if shitty violent people are more likely to become cops, or if the training they receive and the culture they work in turns normal people into violent psychopaths.
But whichever is true, a cop is more likely to turn to violence in a disagreement/confrontation than pretty much any occupation.
I can guarantee that the training and culture certainly encourage those who are already likely to be shitty violent people to feel comfortable about it.
Thanks
https://olis.oregonlegislature.gov/liz/2017R1/Downloads/CommitteeMeetingDocument/132808
These one, oldies but goodies. If you take verbal abuse out of the equation the number drops 12 points to 28% instead of 40% and that’s the biggest ‘controversy’ I remember about these numbers. But I don’t think abuse thats only verbal helps someone think about their spouse as a good guy so imo the whole number is useful for this case. Theres also a strong bias in favor of the cops as its an observed phenomenon that cases of anything against cops, especially Domestic Violence, don’t often go very far, there are very real blind spots in the justice system for cops.
The wildly speculative ones that were the result of an informal ( and since retracted) survey, that used a very broad definition of domestic abuse to include yelling.
It’s basically the 13/50 dog whistle of the ACAB crowd.
On a scale from “a lot” to “all of them”, how many marijuanas did you inject before you typed this out? 😂
Ikr Draco wasn’t a good guy.
Draco was a brainwashed kid. He was a victim of his parents.
Meh, he had various sources in hogwarts that where able to challenge the views he got taught by his parents.
At a certain point something is not just the fault of the parents but also from the person in question. A victim doesn’t double down on beliefs he knows are wrong.
Draco was raised by wizard supremicists then sorted into a house exclusively filled with people just like him. His only exposure to anyone different was through rival houses. The school heavily encouraged competition between the houses and segregated children into ideological bubbles. All after one sorting ceremony when they were 11. Draco was a child. Imagine being judged by the beliefs you held when you were 11 for the rest of your life.
There was a point after Half-Blood Prince where he could choose to change. There was a point where he had to see error of his ways between that and the Battle of Hogwards. It seems he took that step for a while, there was redemption arc brewing - but never happened.
He was indocrinated, yes. But he saw how terrible their side is and still chose to stick with it when he had a choice. He was 17 and adult in Wizarding World. Old enough to know right from wrong.
It is likely that some time after, he regretted it. Otherwise I don’t see Harry and him nodding at one anoyher in the epilogue. But at the time of the books, he was not a good guy at all.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say he was a good guy, but I still don’t think it’s fair to label him as a bad guy by the end of the book (pre-prologue). By the end of half blood prince he’d started realizing that he was on the wrong side, but how many 15/16 year olds are out there that have the confidence to openly defy their parents, especially ones so renowned as the Malfoys? Nevermind the fact that Voldemort would have him killed for defecting
And I’d agree with you, of he didn’t come back at the Battle of Hogwarts to actively stop Harry. He chose to do that himself, proactively. He had to just go with the flow with the other people leaving and not sneak back.
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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)
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I’d like to think I’m a generally kind person.
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’m in California. I have no power here.
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.
Republicans are not “indifferent” about those things.
Yeah, actively trying to eradicate is not what I’d call “indifferent.”
If you vote for people who want gays to have less rights than other people, you’re not a generally kind person.
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You know for someone who acts like they care about “civil debate”, you certainly don’t engage in good-faith.
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And for someone who knows nothing about who I vote for
You literally started this thread by telling us who you vote for lmao
I didn’t comment about who you voted for.
I commented on the deflection.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
Lol what a lazy response. Just straight to trolling and whataboutism, no nuance in your thought.
You might want to reevaluate how you think about yourself as a “generally nice” person. This isn’t how nice people talk to others.
You said above:
That wasn’t very nice. I’d like to think I’m a generally kind person.
Now you’re calling someone a bigot when they said nothing bigoted. I guess when you said you were kind, it was a lie.
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.
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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.
I think you replied to the wrong comment :)
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.
a direct rapist to vector
Please tell me that’s a typo lol
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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.
If what you were saying is true, how does every developed nation on Earth, except for the US, afford it?
Not to mention that universal healthcare is cheaper than the US model.
https://wisevoter.com/state-rankings/gun-violence-by-state/#states-with-highest-gun-violence
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/firearm_mortality/firearm.htm
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.
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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.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/homicide_mortality/homicide.htm
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 know repulicunts love to shit on “dem cities”, but which large republican cities are doing it right?
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?”
Posted 22 minutes ago… and already playing the victim. Big surprise. Must be so traumatic being you.
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At least they aren’t suggesting people are bigots to insult them when they said nothing bigoted.
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Clever? No. Factual? Yes. Keep proving what a nice guy you are though.
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.
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?
out of curiosity, did you use a bot to write this? something about the frequency with which you use their username to refer to them stood out to me.
if that’s not the case, I wonder why it is that using a proper name instead of a pronoun or stand-in reference jumps out to me as unnatural…
I’ve just been on the internet a long time and pride myself on writing with precision. I am a rather bot-like writer, Narrrz.
I’ve noticed a tendency of late by some in confusing step-by-step building of arguments in written form with the product of Chat AIs.
Don’t know if it’s meant as an insult, is a way to try and plant doubt in the minds of the audience without actually addressing the argument being made, or if it’s people genuinelly not being familiar with structured thinking (which, for example, tends to be common amongst scientists and engineers because of their work) hence feeling it’s machine-like.
This really is how people trained in analytical thinking will figure things out, build theories and put together solutions and if you’re any good at it will most definitelly not include “decorations” such emotionally charged language.
(The funny bit is that Chat GPT and the like would be less unemotional, as those things are text-assemblers incapable or rationalization and trained in general language samples, so they actually fluff-up text like most people).
I would say one word covers a great deal of this (but certainly not all of it) - Tribalism.
People engaging politics in the same way as they engage sports, taking sides, living it almost entirelly at an emotional level, unquestioning of the superficial ideas (at times no more than slogans) they parrot and with thinking at best relegated to a supporting role as a “solver of puzzles” to come up with counter-“arguments” to those of the “other” side.
Whether one thinks oneself Left or Right (and, frankly, if you haven’t tought through your politics in my opinion you’re not really politically aware enough to be either), really analysing the pap one is fed by politicians in light of one’s personal principles and of “how will this lead to the World I would like to live in” is usually quite the eye openner.
I basically agree, but I think we should also think about this in a solution-oriented way at a large scale, beyond just personally opening one’s own eyes.
Tribalism is part of our nature. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, and it’s fun. It makes us feel good to belong. The sports analogy is frequently brought up and is the example of tribalism being leveraged for entertainment and social bonding. It’s a clever way to us to short-circuit our instinct for tribal warfare and use it for something constructive and fun instead of destructive and tragic.
Politicians and media outlets have started using this insidiously for their own powergames. Maybe this is too cynical, but it seems to me that the circus has been poisoned. You hear about all these people who “aren’t into politics” but will repeat their CNN and Fox soundbytes. There’s nothing terribly wrong with being personally apathetic about politics, in fact that’s the norm for those people currently benefitting the most from existing policy, but it’s terribly dishonest and destructive to lure such people into the political arena when they have no sincere interest in the impact of their political decisions, but a few powerful people benefit and countless powerless people suffer.
How do we reclaim our circus? Do we really just need more ESPN and less CNN? Can we punish politicians and news sources for the pervasion and perversion of information as infotainment? Can we educate people to source their identity from their family and culture instead of from their senator?
I wouldn’t be so sure that Sports tribalism is healthy.
Tribalism in Sports repeatedly leads people down certain mental pathways in contexts involving many people divided in groups and were one has chosen a groups, as well as personal identification with a group based on things with would otherwise be irrelevant, which familiarizes people with such ways of thinking about oneself and others.
Because the choice of the mental pathways we use when confronted with a situation is not conscious, it leads itself to us favouring what’s familiar from similar contexts, so repeatedly leading people down the tribalist route in Sports can be an insidious way to predispose them to go down the exact same route in contexts were the same kind of pattern exists, such as nationalism, politics, race and so on.
All this, by the way, is not too dissimilar to some of the psychological levers used by Modern Marketing.
Consider the possibility that the culture created around the circus both feeds from and feeds in the equally mindless cultures that have been created in things like politics and nationalism.
The crux of this is whether Us vs Them is instinctual or learned. I don’t think we yet have a definitive answer, but certainly Us vs Them is so ingrained in our ways of life that removing it would be extraordinarily difficult.
Again, I may be excessively cynical, but my belief is that some people, maybe even most people, WILL take these mental pathways you describe no matter what, and the best we can do is provide distractions. Bread and circuses. At their best, these distractions channel our self-destructive tendencies into harmless oceans of impunity. At their worst, they are hijacked by ne’er-do-wells to transform the apathetic into frothing zealots of a cause they don’t even care to understand. It becomes the responsibility of those who are paying attention to design a system that is resistant to abuse.
Presuming I am wrong, that means that there is a path for society to eliminate competitiveness from its apparent nature. I agree that would lead us toward utopia, but I am very skeptical such a path exists, and that those who attempt to follow it will simply be eaten by the wolves they believe they can train.
I mainly agree with you on that.
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.
Are you possibly reading far too much into someone who simply doesn’t want to debate politics at the moment?
“Left-wing identity and culture is almost the same as right-wing culture”
I fully agree, both embrace vacuous and contradictory ideals, care little for facts, and have a streak of individuals that really really want to kill.
I guess the expectation is that we crawl down into our secret lair and laugh maniacally while thinking of new and creative ways to kill minorities?
Well not crawl down into it.
Imagine making downvote edits on a barely voted on comment at all. Your insecurity is glaring.
The problem is that they fall in a false dilemma.
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.
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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.
Hating ideas is not the same as hating people.
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?
Hating ideas is not the same as hating people.
Show me a person who hates the idea of homosexuality that doesn’t also use it as an excuse to treat homosexual people as less than human.
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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.
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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?
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So you value you personal wealth ad comfort more than the ability of minorities to live their lives free of discrimination.
I don’t get why you get so insulted when people point this out?
So to clarify, you don’t support policies that help other people achieve those goals for themselves (assuming they’re neutral for you)?
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It’s not about “winning” a debate. Like ??? We don’t conceptualise “debate” that way.
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Have you? It has absolutely nothing to do with “winning” anything.
Don’t worry, I’m down voting you, you racist Nazi fuck.
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Being a man and giving the answer for a woman definitely confirms you are conservative.
At least it is an actual answer to the question, unlike most other comments
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Are you married and do you have any children together? Do you consider her or yourself traditional in relationships (however you define traditional)?
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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.
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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?
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Would you mind answering his question though? I really would also love to hear your thoughts.
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.
but if we end up having a child, she’d become a stay-at-home mother until the child begins school, if not longer.
Has she already agreed to this?
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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
They probably both have compatible opinions on what constitutes a good person. They might disagree with you on some facets of that, but you’re not who they’re in a relationship with.
OP was likely referring to how conservatives treat women. As in why would a woman date someone who treats women like that? IMO it’s because they’re too dumb to realize how they are being treated vs how they should be treated.
Because conservatives don’t beat women? For everyone talking about the conservative male that dominates and controls his wife, there is a liberal one stoned on marijuana that needs to be babysat.
These are of course the stereotypes for each side, the reality is that there is a wide range of behaviours that has only weak correlation with political views. But everyone here is too severely brain-damaged to be able to determine causal links.
Nobody said “beat”.
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Isn’t it sexist to think that women can’t hold their own regressive political ideas, and they only do so because they were tricked by a man?
Are we the baddies?
Obviously everyone is different. Etc. But you should read this article.
Basically this one woman immerses herself in the worst corners of the new right.
Come for the schadenfreude, stay for the man who won’t eat ketchup.
Aw damn it’s paywalled
Thanks!
wooow. that was a wild article.
“this (ketchup) doesn’t taste European”… uhhh, no shit dude, tomatos are a New World food.
all sincerity, thank you for sharing that.
I love that essay so much. I reread it occasionally. I think about the man who won’t eat ketchup pretty frequently.
You ever watch The Sopranos? Carm loves that violent manchild with all her heart for a series of concerning reasons. It’s not exactly what you were asking, but I’ve been rewatching the show, and your question made me think of Carm crying about the portrait of the baby Jesus.
It’s amazing to me that people don’t understand their own humans this much
Here’s you explanation: the consept of good man is irrelevant, how do you expect another man’s thoughts if every single man you have met has the exact same thoughts, does it matter who you marry? If every man believes the exact same of you the illusion of choice is all that exists, so why waste the time to look for what doesn’t exist to your knowledge.
