> I keep hoping one day folks in the US will get tired of being screwed on their healthcare and living in fear of getting sick... shrug
As someone with good but very expensive health insurance, any time I bring up health insurance prices, the response from people who get cheap health insurance through their employers is basically, "F* you, got mine"
Unfortunately, the block of people with stable corporate jobs also tend to have a lot of political power and are in no hurry to see their perks upended.
It's weird to think of Facebook as the reasonable people in the room.
The left wants to own online political discussion in the US, and they are very bothered that the right finds a ready audience when they are allowed to compete.
That's a very odd definition of "left" floating around down there in the US. What is being called "left" in that context is nothing but neo-liberal centrist politics, and it has wanted to own political discussion in the US in some form or another for over a century. It's right of centre and frankly conservative on fundamental economics issues [i.e. where all the power is held], and could only be called "left" in the domain of cultural issues...
Actual socialist politics are not permitted in US discourse, just stuff around the margins which is not threatening to corporate power (identity politics, maybe some health care reform).
I remain flabbergasted by the increasing number of people who can somehow in the same breath complain about "radical socialists" and "cultural marxists" while at the same time somehow equating those people with "corporate elites" and "silicon valley" -- the two are the enemy of the other.
EDIT: as a person with actual radical socialist politics, I can assure you that both Facebook and the NYT want nothing to do with my views.
>> The left wants to own online political discussion in the US, and they are very bothered that the right finds a ready audience when they are allowed to compete.
> That's a very odd definition of "left" floating around down there in the US. What is being called "left" in that context is nothing but neo-liberal centrist politics, and it has wanted to own political discussion in the US in some form or another for over a century.
I don't think that's the "left" the GP was referring to. I think were most likely talking about the "culture war" left.
> I remain flabbergasted by the increasing number of people who can somehow in the same breath complain about "radical socialists" and "cultural marxists" while at the same time somehow equating those people with "corporate elites" and "silicon valley" -- the two are the enemy of the other.
It's because we don't always get to control definitions, even ones we care a lot about (ask me about "crypto" sometime). IMHO, those are both fashionable (in some circles) new terms for the "culture war" left, somewhat inflected by plutocratic interests that harness opposition to it to further their own agenda.
Edit: IMHO, I think a flag-waving socially-conservative socialism could be surprisingly successful in America, if someone could get it off the ground.
I think I agree with you (and actually prefer not to use the term "left" myself in general for this reason), but I still think it's worth underscoring the points about the incoherence of the use of these terms. Someone on a hobby group I am on the other day started ranting about how rising fire insurance rates for farmers were "Just another step to push out the middle class and independent owners to make way for big corporate ownership." [ok fine, whatever] and then suffixed it with "The United Socialist States of America" [W the actual F? Makes zero sense].
I see this kind of talk from people with Q & Trump-inflected politics all the time. It's bizarre.
Traditional left/progressive values would include things like affordable healthcare, worker protection, progressive taxation, livable wages, the like. Importantly, for all.
The Democrats don't seem to deliver on any of these basics long achieved in many other western countries, therefore I agree that they are neither left nor progressive.
By comparison, not even our main right wing party (VVD) would be as conservative as the Democrats on the matters above. So locally, we would see the "left" Democrats as near far-right. That's one huge gap.
(as a weird complexity, over here "liberal" means right-wing. In the US it means left-wing. yet since US left-wing is in fact right-wing, I guess it does add up)
The second type of left in the US, I do consider truly left. It's hard to put your finger on it, but it includes identity politics, the "woke", down to even marxists.
Clearly they are on the rise, at least in media and institutes. Yet they are now in an unhappy marriage with the core of the Democrats, which as we established is right-wing. Good luck with that.
For the record, here in the Netherlands we largely reject that type of left.
So I agree with most of what you said, except for the Silicon Valley part. You're going to be super surprised how the biggest supporters of extreme left policy are in fact rich comfortable people.
I'll refer to one of the most mind blowing tweets ever produced (now deleted). A co-founder of Twitter took issue with the founder of Coinbase disallowing political discussion in the workplace, and tweeted:
"When the revolution comes, me-only capitalists like X will be the first to be put against the wall. I'll be happy to provide video narration."
The extremity and cruelty is impressive, but the truly shocking part is that the person tweeting it has a net worth of 300M.
Democratic socialism isn't anywhere near the same as the Cuba/Venezuela/USSR type of socialism. Are any politicians of the latter stripe currently in Congress?
Like I get that there's a popular meme that taxes and government services are "socialism". But that's a wildly inaccurate boogeyman conjured up by people who really, really don't want to pay taxes. (No one wants to pay taxes, but most of us accept they're the cost of having a society)
If taxes that fund government services are "socialist" then having a police force is "socialist" too. Do you agree with that? It sounds ridiculous to me but that's where that logic leads.
No one is talking about censoring arguments about what constitutes reasonable levels of immigration, or whether the government is spending too much, or what rights states should have vs federal gov. IE conservative policy positions.
The divide is on topics like anti-vax, nonexistent election fraud, et cetera. IE, actual lies.
This is a weird argument to make when the lab leak “conspiracy” was censored the same way.
Also, there was election fraud. There always is. Was it enough to turn the election? Who knows. To say that people shouldn’t be able to discuss it is mind-boggling to me. The only way we can have trust in our election process is if we can ask questions.
> To say that people shouldn’t be able to discuss it is mind-boggling to me.
This is a wild misrepresentation of the opposing perspective. Nobody is arguing that we can't discuss election fraud.
The argument—which I'm sure you are actually aware—is that there needs to be some level of credibility to the idea that a) fraud occurred, and b) that it happened in meaningful quantities before we spend significant time, cost, and effort in investigating claims.
Simply having lost is not a credible claim to investigate widespread fraud. Finding one or two isolated cases in elections with margins of thousands or more votes is not a credible claim to investigate widespread fraud.
Further, fraud cannot simply be a claim that is made and then perpetually reinvestigated by decreasingly-reputable third parties until you are able to invalidate an election whose outcome you disagree with.
Stopping people talking about election fraud because you don't feel a certain credibility has been granted is censorship.
Whatever gatekeeping rules you agree or don't with shouldn't matter. The gatekeeping is the problem. Being afraid of ideas and shutting down anyone who doesn't speak about approved topics is the issue not whether your gatekeeping rules have been met.
> Stopping people talking about election fraud because you don't feel a certain credibility has been granted is censorship.
Zero people are being stopped from talking about election fraud. You and I are sitting here discussion election fraud right now. The only thing that has been stopped is investigations of claims of widespread fraud for which there is virtually zero evidence.
This is precisely the kind of wild misrepresentation that people—including myself—are tired of fighting. If you need to misrepresent your opponent in order to defeat them, maybe you should reflect: are we the baddies?
> This is a wild misrepresentation of the opposing perspective.
I think that's currently how the game is played. You can try to be better than that, but then the other side wins because they are still happy to play dirty.
Well, they're the position of the most vocal and nutty segment of the right wing. Trying to paint the entire right with it is dishonest (whether accidentally or deliberately).
I will admit that the nutty ones get all the media attention at the moment. (You can decide whether or not you believe that's the media trying to paint the entire right that way...)
They're not only getting all the media attention at the moment but they are holding all the power in the GOP at the moment. Especially in places like Florida.
Incidents of voter fraud, and side effects from vaccines, etc are quantifiable, therefore not subject to opinion. Interpretation yes, but interpretation must be supported by evidence.
Yes, there we go: This reaction, when calling it obvious and blatant lies. Every time. Believing in lies is now normal and expected of right-wingers, and calling it out is called attacking political opinions.
Even if by some crazy implausibility it was the "greatest threat to our democracy since the Civil War", that's like saying, "Man, I just got a paper cut and that is sure the worst injury I've had since that accident where I was paralyzed from the waist down"
And are you kidding me? What if the mob had caught AOC or Pelosi? That would have turned from a "paper cut" to a political murder during an insurrection.
To be fair, that's not who they were chanting about hanging on the gallows they built. And, frankly, changing the outcome the way they wanted made uncooperative Republican targets more valuable.
I see you point. But using "right-wingers" is a tell of sorts. It makes you appear dismissive of the opposing viewpoint.
But otherwise I agree: there is such a thing as truth and there are out and out lies.
I hope that my views are based on truths but I recognize that there are areas that while true are nuanced enough that someone else can come to a different conclusion than me. For this reason I don't claim that everyone with a different view is backing their view with lies.
I don't think it's my labels that are polarising anyone. If you believe this nonsense, you are fully polarised already. I didn't do that. "Leftists" didn't do that.
Are you talking about the same "recent very secure elections" where the processes in place worked as intended? Those test votes were found and were taken out, specifically because there are processes in place to check and double-check and triple-check the count.
America does not keep trying to convince you that there is "substantial election fraud". It is clearly one political party and their friends at Fox News that are trying to convince you of this. Reality is the antidote to their poison.
So liberals get to pick the political arguments humans get to talk about? You may support that type of social conversation, but don't call it democracy, because it's not.
> The divide is on topics like anti-vax, nonexistent election fraud, et cetera. IE, actual lies.
It's funny that the party of "my body my choice" is so against people wanting a say over what goes into their bodies. I am personally vaccinated, but I think it's reasonable to let individuals make that choice.
Also regarding election fraud, when on election night you see charts like [1] with enormous one party spikes, it is entirely natural for people to be suspicious. Those people then asked for audits and were told to go to hell. If you want to undermine trust in the election system, that is exactly how to accomplish it.
None of this is "you aren't allowed to lie" it's "You aren't allowed to ask questions"
Again, I don't believe there was widespread fraud but people who refuse to discuss what happened and refuse inspections sure aren't helping us becomong more confident.
Last I checked, pregnancy isn't contagious. Not exactly an apples to apples comparison.
Who was told to "go to hell"? There were plenty of recounts in all of the close states. Even the recent farcical commission checking fraud in Arizona didn't find anything.
As to the "spike" in that picture, a simple Google search of "Michigan spike voting" produces plenty of resources showing how the "spike" was not fraud. And if you're so worried about the spike in Biden votes later in the process, why are you not also worried about the spike in Trump votes at Nov 3 21:00 (on the graph on the right)?
You're being downvoted because these arguments are so bad as to almost clearly be in bad faith.
> You're being downvoted because these arguments are so bad as to almost clearly be in bad faith.
I'm being downvoted because some subset of people here view down vote as "I disagree". I used to be bothered by it. I don't think much about it anymore.
Edit:
I'm also fairly certain I've got some followers who take it upon themselves to go through my comment history and start downvoting other posts of mine just for good measure. You know, really sticking it to the man or whatever.
I downvoted you. Not because I disagree, but because I too believe your arguments are in bad faith and/or misrepresenting the positions of those you disagree with.
> It's funny that the party of "my body my choice" is so against people wanting a say over what goes into their bodies.
Unlike anti-abortion laws which force women to take pregnancies to term against their will, I am aware of zero proposed legislation that aims to force people into vaccination against their will. The one potential exception to this is for entry to public schooling, for which religious exemptions are (generally but not always) easy to come by.
If not bad faith or misrepresentation, then what?
> Also regarding election fraud, when on election night you see charts like [1] with enormous one party spikes, it is entirely natural for people to be suspicious. Those people then asked for audits and were told to go to hell.
It is reasonable for people to be suspicious. But far from being told to go to hell, people have been given repeated and convincing evidence for why these spikes occur (blue votes tending to cluster in high-density, high-population districts). There was even ample discussion in advance of the election about how, where, and when we expected these spikes to occur, why they're expected, and demonstrating their historical precedent.
Some people still demanded investigations of fraud. Most of those claims were dismissed through official processes due to lack of evidence. Being denied an investigation into claims that have been repeatedly debunked is not being told to go to hell. In fact some of those claims were investigated, but essentially zero systemic fraud has been found to date.
> Unlike anti-abortion laws which force women to take pregnancies to term against their will, I am aware of zero proposed legislation that aims to force people into vaccination against their will.
Just this week, Biden was talking about having people go door-to-door to push the unvaccinated to get the shot. Arizona publicly told him to get bent - they weren't going to do that in their state.
So, that's not "forcing" people, but it's too close for my taste. I'm going to presume that you wouldn't be fine with the state sending people door to door to push those who were pregnant to carry to term.
> Just this week, Biden was talking about having people go door-to-door to push the unvaccinated to get the shot... So, that's not "forcing" people, but it's too close for my taste.
Can you acknowledge that—even taking this completely at face value—going door-to-door encouraging the use of a vaccine has absolutely nothing in common with legally forcing women to take unwanted pregnancies to term, regardless of which side of either policy you care to take?
This is exactly what I'm talking about. Trying to draw parallels between these two situations is absurd to the point of bad faith or willful misrepresentation.
> I'm going to presume that you wouldn't be fine with the state sending people door to door to push those who were pregnant to carry to term.
For reasons completely independent of "my body, my choice" which was the original goalpost.
This is an issue of public health for which we had to globally shut down international travel and social gatherings for a year and a half, and which had incalculable economic impact on billions. Can you also acknowledge that such consequences might perhaps clear a higher bar than that of a choice whose impact is fundamentally limited in scope?
Recognizing that difference in impact is why we've spent $20bn on vaccine development and who knows how much on the actual vaccine rollout.
> Can you also acknowledge that such consequences might perhaps clear a higher bar than that of a choice whose impact is fundamentally limited in scope?
"Fundamentally limited"? Given that a fetus is genetically human, and genetically different from the woman who carries it, it's clearly both human and not part of her body. There are plenty of completely reasonable people who see those two facts as putting abortion as being perilously close to murder, at best.
First, given that it's genetically a different individual, "my body, my choice" seems willfully blind to the rest of what's involved in abortion. Second, though, if you do regard abortion as murder, the death count per year is of the same order of magnitude as from Covid. So "fundamentally limited in scope" is assuming the answer to something that is, at best, very much still in debate.
I'm gonna guess that you're unaware of the states/large regions in which military recruiters go door to door, constantly send mail, and come to public schools in an effort to recruit kids.
Why is there no uproar about this after decades of it...?
> Either everyone has been blind for decades or the current narrative about racism is a lie meant to achieve some political purpose.
I think it's a bit of both. As the saying goes, "I can tolerate anyone except the outgroup" [1]. Part of that is racism, sure. A lot of it is people being uncomfortable with outsiders in general.
But also the left has found that words like racism, bigotry, xenophobia, etc. are very big sticks, and a big stick is a fun thing to hit your opponents with.
My understanding is that it's pretty common on the US coasts (i.e. the major metros where housing is super unaffordable).
I imagine it's a self feeding cycle. Young adults can't purchase homes, so their parents cosign and give a big down payment. Then sellers are able to ask more because wealthy parents are backing the sale, which just makes housing even more unaffordable.
Simplifying dieting down to calories in calories out is one of my pet peeves, because it doesn't give you any information about how to achieve those goals. People don't automatically understand satiation, binge eating, macro and micronutrients, shopping, cooking, the caloric density of restaurant and takeaway food, BMR, the relatively tiny amount of calories burnt by exercise, or calorie tracking. These things aren't obvious and they're buried under a lot of misinformation.
The same goes for budgeting. Saying "spend less and get a better paying job" doesn't really help compared to detailed instructions on how to open a savings account and automatically deposit 5% of your pay into it, reviewing your monthly expenditure, changing habits like ordering delivery food every weekend, long term investments like buying your own washing machine, or pursuing a qualification that will help you earn more.
I guess the point I was trying to make is more that doing these things is not impossible. It is just a matter of being properly informed (which is in itself a difficult task).
You can gain the acquaintance of quite a few strangers by joining groups.
My town has a general discussion Facebook page. I don't know that any of the people would recognize me on the street, but there are quite a few names I recognize now. This has been really handy since I didn't grow up here, and in small town America that often means people just won't get to know you because you "don't belong".
Also my wife is involved in several interest based groups. Mainly related to sewing and thrifting and such.
I don't know that it makes the world a better place, but it certainly can expose you to people you wouldn't otherwise ever have interacted with.
> How to reduce social division in America in the long-term: ban private schools, fund public schools at the national level, and do it quickly, utterly, and irrevocably.
We tried this to tame the savages [1], and I don't think people really look back kindly or positively on that choice.
I do believe the modern (us) conservative evangelical "back to basics" movement started in the 30s/40s as a response to rampant alcoholism from the great depression. Church of christ and similar denominations. They take a (claimed) "hyper" literal approach over a few key issues, like alcohol, sex, drugs, taxes, tithing, homosexuality.. Recent history was the 90s abstinence movement.. And in the last 7 or so years these have been the churches taking the brunt of the exodus and have been largely deflated, with churches across the nation dying due to lack of new young people.
I would wager good money that most modern conservative US Christian families have a male alcoholic relative not too far removed.
Or reverse causation, even... I've known more people turned alcoholic to cope with their christian family than people turned christian to cope with their alcoholic family.
I don't have a side project, but this is basically the approach I take at work. Try to do one useful thing each day. Doesn't even have to be a big useful thing. It adds up.
I guess that's really the whole point of the tortoise and the hare, now that I think of it.
