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Comment by carlosdp | Hacker News Reader

Oh please, there's a difference between "conservative" and "batshit crazy". If you get up and say you don't think medicine can/should be socialized in America, I don't think you're going to get ostracized at most companies, that's a serious debate and there are many sides. If you say gays shouldn't marry or that CNN is fake news media, yea you're going to get ostracized.

Not because you're conservative, but because you're an idiot and are making your coworkers super uncomfortable. The same would happen if you went around saying "people who wear red jackets are inferior" when one of your team members wears their favorite red jacket to work everyday.

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I disagree. I joined a conversation a few years back about gun ownership. I said I support people's rights to own them and in fact I owned one too. The result was an argument about how now because It was known that I'm ok with gun ownership, one of my counterparts now felt threatened at work and requested that i'd be moved. So while I agree there is a difference between batshit crazy and conservative, there's also a difference between batshit crazy and liberal of which there are many on both sides.

Our minds our faliable, it’s definitely a risk owning a gun - to yourself, coworkers, and family. Sure, you’re fine today, but get overworked for a few months or laid off, a bit of mania sets in, and then all of a sudden you’re on the evening news. The Las Vegas shooter had just won a huge jackpot before he committed his crime, people can snap in the weirdest of ways.

Given that workplace violence is a thing that happens, and the high emotions business sometimes gets us in, you definitely made a mistake telling coworkers you own a gun.

No I didn't, it's a legally owned firearm. I'm happy to identify as a firearm owner. I didn't just randomly bring it up, it came up in a conversation that was occurring prior to my joining.

I'll stand there and support your right to identify however you'd like and i'll support your right to express your views as your legal right, but who the hell are you tell me that acceptance should only apply to your stance that I should have just kept my mouth shut?

This right here is the exact behaviors that are driving Conservatives further right and frustrates those of us in the middle or slightly left to start swaying the other way.

Driving a vehicle is a risk to yourself, coworkers, and family. Taking medications is a risk to yourself, coworkers, and family. Drinking alcohol is a risk to yourself, coworkers, and family. Partaking in recreational drugs is a risk to yourself, coworkers, and family. Partaking in illegal drugs is a risk to yourself, coworkers, and family. Swimming in a pool is a risk to yourself, coworkers, and family. Cooking chicken you bought at Whole foods is a risk to yourself, coworkers, and family.

See the absurdity in a generalized statement?

It's just the free market adjusting!

The same argument could be made about liberals and BSC.

For instance, all the sex-and-ethnicity choosing going on. Totally without scientific merit, yet the left behaves as if it's science.

The pendulum swings both ways. Trump's election is a direct result of left-side hysteria and over-reach.

> ethnicity choosing going on. Totally without scientific merit, yet the left behaves as if it's science.

Are you suggesting that "transracialism" is treated as science or supported by anything approaching the mainstream left?

Yes. I haven't seen anyone on the left disputing or disparaging it.

And that could be an attitudinal thing. Why should I care about how someone else personally identifies? Why should I be disparaging about something that will have minimal or no effect on me?

I think this is part of why some conservatives find themselves unwelcome. Being outwardly disparaging toward people does not make you friends.

I'm offering an alternative view of "bat shit crazy".

It may be harmless (as you correctly point out), but it is not tethered to reality.

Fascinating. Have you seen the mainstream left be actively accepting of it?

Rachel Dolezal (by far the most famous case that I know of) was pilloried by the left for cultural appropriation:

https://www.google.com/search?ei=x-UhWuymEIyojwOc6Kz4Bw&q=ra...

Thanks for providing the search link. By my reading, a lot of those are sympathetic to Dolezal, not critical.

Shouldn't there be universal condemnation?

Why should there be universal condemnation or acceptance?

"The left" is not a spec or rigidly defined ideological canon that all "leftists" conform to. As with "the right", "capitalists", "socialists" or any other political or cultural generalization, actual "leftists" can comprise a spectrum of acceptance or disagreement.

What, pray tell, is BSC?

"bat shit crazy".

And his road to impeachment looks like the next swing.

That may be. But I think the left will be even unhappier with Mr. Pence in office.

Remember, Trump was a Democrat for a long while before he was a Republican. (IMHO, he became a Republican solely because it was the easier party to hijack at the time.)

I agree with you, I just said the fact. I don't agree with it. I'm a communist so I don't think the liberal "left" in the US is really a left wing thing. It is more like a pendulum swinging right to right.

"If you say gays shouldn't marry"

i.e. If you agree with Barack Obama's stated position on this issue from 4 years ago.

and before that he was for it, then against it.

Do we base morality on what politicians think is the best stance to get them elected?

The argument isn't that you "have to think this way because the government said so" it's that by airing viewpoints at work you're liking going to cause problems. As much as you might care a gay coworker likely has more reason to care, and they would view it as stomping on their rights.

No, we don't base our morality on what politicians say. But if a mere 4 years ago leaders were 'opposed' to gay marriage, you cannot in good faith or in fairness to any conversation call a person who doesn't support it now crazy.

Huge difference between a politician privately supporting an issue and pulling their entire national party behind an issue.

All I'm saying is that a position, which until the day before yesterday was so mainstream that even a fairly liberal politician in a liberal party agreed with it, is today considered so out of bounds that you may face consequences for publicly stating it.

I think Europeans would laugh at your claim that a progressive Democrat is liberal. Not only that, my parents are ~80 yrs old, life long Republicans, and have always supported gay marriage and women's reproductive rights.

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