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We are humans first, Americans second, and Democrats/Republicans/whatever third.

The issue is that many folks want to view others as $POLITICAL_PARTY first and human second.

Are fetuses human? That's a political issue. Who is allowed to be American? That's a political issue.

Hell, half of conservative political rhetoric is distinguishing between real and fake Americans.

That’s fine, and the mark of a well-functioning society is the ability to have those discussions calmly and rationally.

You can only really have those kinds of discussions calmly if you're not at all affected by the decision. It doesn't have anything to do with a functioning society. If you're black it's hard to have a dispassionate discussion about stop-and-frisk or no-knock raids.

If I point a gun to your head do you think we can stand there and have a calm and rational discussion about whether I should pull the trigger? Of course not! You're going to fight to protect yourself.

I always find it curious how easy it is for beliefs seem to line up so smoothly along party lines... even unrelated ones like economic policy and religion all seem to line up in a very clean way in the US.

Is there another universe where all the religious people are very pro-economic redistribution? That seems to be within reasonable interpretation of the teachings of Jesus.

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