Poll: 62% of Americans Say They Have Political Views They’re Afraid to Share
cato.org
cato.org
Political left and right both formed extreme wings that attack moderate opinions for not being extreme enough. The right is often threatening violence while the left is trying to get you fired from your job.
We need to get rid of engagement algorithms and actively try to counter echo chambers by injecting moderate content into news feeds.
Very well said. I hate all extremes of politics. I like asking questions and being critical. What I have noticed is that critical thinking is attacked viciously from both sides. Asking questions that go against your side's "hard fact" is greeted with intense hostility and vitriol. I would imagine that this behavior is encouraged because it teaches people to not ask questions and follow the herd.
Forming your own opinions, coming to your own conclusions, asking your own question -- this is all so offensive nowadays. It is sad because often there is real social risk in saying something that might offend the left/right. If you live in a community that heavily leans to one side, you are scared of stating your own opinions because people could shun you. This social punishment could extend to your children -- what parent would want to take that risk?
I genuinely blame social media for this "descent into dogmatism". Any time my belief is challenged in an online discussion, I can just retreat into my echo chamber and feel even more confident than before.
The issue is moderate really ends up meaning status quo (with basic changes), which if it's not clear a ton of people are suffering under the status quo.
So when you're a moderate you're in a way putting your seal of approval to the status quo, which ends up being pretty harmful for those who want to decrease suffering.
MLK is human he was capable of flawed logic just as all of us humans are. While I too revere him, invoking his disdain for moderates is a appeal to authority and does not make it a fact. I could similarly invoke Malcolm X and his realization in the end that, it was in fact not moderates but the people who thought they were helping that did the most harm (in his word radical white liberals). Both where wise men, both had irrational thoughts, as well as very rational lessons to teach humanity. But the fact that MLK saw moderates as a problem, speaks to the fact that while MLK moved more towards Malcolm's position, Malcolm, being an intelligent man as well, saw that his position was radical and moved towards pacifism and moderation. Where MLK started out. Neither were correct and both being intelligent moved their position, something that the dogmatic radicals of today's age have a hard time doing. Had MLK lived long enough he would have seen the error in his judgement. Unfortunately he was stricken down by a radical of a different belief system. Do you see the lesson in that? Is the lesson that the moderates helped the radical white supremacist? Or is it that radicals of all cloths, are full of hate?
Malcolm talked about that hate, and how it consumed him, that was a true from the heart message and it got him killed. In all respects humanity has more to learn from Malcolm given that he started out extremely flawed and hateful and thru educating himself and experience he reshaped his understanding of the world and reached the conclusion that what he wanted for the black man, does not need to be taken from the white man and that compassion for all man is the key, to ending the cycle. You see radicals (of all walks of life) want revenge. Revenge is a cycle, when what you should be seaking is justice. You can cloke it in whatever language you would like, but if the desire comes from hate it is revenge. Justice comes from sorrow but the realization that atonement has to happen.
Moderates by their very nature where not involved in MLK's death. They did not enable it, they did not condone it, they wanted nothing to do with it. Yet by your claim is that they did. I will spell it out clearly radicals on both sides are the problem, because you want to make everyone that does not eat your dogma the enemy, and your heart seeks revenge, to the point that it will take revenge on the innocent. The moderate majority is getting sick of it. Sorry for the harsh words but it's tough love time.
To be very clear I am not your enemy, I am a pacifist. I wish no harm to any human. I call them as I see them and I see the dogma of hate on both sides. I will stay where I am at, grounded in my pacifist principles, if that is worthy of calling me the enemy than so be it, but be very clear in your mind, you are labeling me an enemy, not the other way around and that strikes to the very heart of this very flawed thinking. Dogmatic ideology necessitates enemies, the prescription for that enemy is any that disagree with the dogma. Your dogma is creating the enemy not the other way around. This is at the very heart of why Malcolm left the Nation of Islam and why they saw him as such a threat. Malcolm shed the dogma, the Nation of Islam did not, we know who were the perpetrators of violence, thus who saw who as the enemy.
If you see someone getting attacked and you say you're a pacifist and you won't do anything to stop them then you're actively aiding the attacker and actively hurting the victim.
The fact that you're seeing this as a two sides issue means that you're honestly not actually aware of what injustices others are going through. If you were a victim of the injustices me and many other minorities have experienced you would expect more from others too.
No one says you have to join in on our fight. But if you're staying silent while I'm being killed then you're not going to be seen as a neutral player in this.
The reality is I am not going to support that as it is a doctrine of hate. You cannot couch hate in emotional issues and then label it good. If you are out supporting it, I am not going to support you. I am not with them, I am against the hate. I am against their as well hate, I will just as I am now, call out my opposition to violence, but I am not going to support or advocate hate or violence because one side feels it is justified. I used BLM because you mentioned minorities, feel free to swap them, for Patriots Prayer because the message would be the same in talking to someone that mentioned ultra-nationalist, right wing, zealots who package it up behind a message of god's love. The people I support are men like Ken E. Nwadike who are consistent in a doctrine and worldview of no tolerance for hate or violence and that non-tolerance starts with the only thing we can change in this world, ourselves.
If someone is being actively attacked no matter who they where I would try to stop the violence. This is very different that supporting any doctrine that espoused that it is acceptable to hate or be violent to others, this is the breeding ground of violence and I will not support it as to do so is to aid in violence. That being said if you are taking to the streets and you get killed don't expect me to come out to avenge you. You, just like the other side, took to the streets to push your grievances.
The grievances I see in the streets right now are back by some really nasty human desires. I want nothing to do with it, I am neutral because I am not lending my support to either side. If you cannot see that there is hate packaged with what is being sold, than you miss the point as to why I cannot support it, and why I am not lending the other side aid. To lend aid to hate would be wrong. Both sides will label me against them, and that is fine it's the way dogmatic hate works. Yielding to it, would mean that the cycle cannot be broken.
But once again, when you claim that a pacifist is participating in the violence by staying true to their belief in nonviolence. It is you that are placing the label on the pacifist, it is you that is putting into action blame and hate on a person that is correctly telling you that this is the fruits of hate, it is you that is placing blame, not me. Put simply the pacifist will not make someone their enemy, but that does not mean that people do not see them as the enemy and when you realize the truthfulness of that reasoning, you will understand the pacifists world view, and that is that hate starts from each and every one of us, to not condemn it oneself, while calling for the condemnation of it in others is hypocaracy. hate breeds contemptment and enemies, not the other way around. My actions cannot by their nature make enemies, anger and rage coupled with a feeling of justification are what makes them. You are justifying and rationalizing why it is ok to see a pacifist as the enemy, to the extent that you are claiming that they are participants in violence. I hope you can see where dogmatic thinking has led you.
You can argue there is a difference but I'm not going to agree with you.
You have a very majority oriented and "safe" worldview because frankly you're not being threatened. You're a bystander letting others do violence onto us.
Wait till you see the "guillotine for the landlords" crowd :-(
I've noticed what you mentioned too - people claiming that if you don't fight for their idea, you're against the whole left/right/whatever. I wonder if that's an inevitable result of presenting views as left/right and having two parties in the first place. Most European countries have many flavours of left/right and parties having to form various coalitions instead.
Violence like setting up guillotines in front of Bezos' house in Washington? Violence like when the Trump supporters held parades, shops were looted, people were beaten, buildings were burnt, and police were assaulted? So much so that shops boarded themselves days before the parades? Violence like protesters threatening "burn the system down" or "there is going to be a war" if they lose election?
Or violence like Hollywood actors and actresses openly discussing beheading or assassinating the most evil orange man, or politicians openly discussing how they wanted to snap Republican supporters, and how BLMs and Antifa chanted that they wanted to kill the police?
Of course there are extreme and crazy people in all spectrums, but where are the right except a few marginalized small groups?
Oh wait, I’m wrong. Anyone who disagree with the left is far right, right? So Shapiro should be beaten in Berkeley. Mayor Wheeler’s apartment can be stormed. Anyone carrying our flag can be sucker punched?
Yes, half of the nation is far right right and they threaten violence.
Perhaps because there were no signs or indications it was politically motivated?
> What matters are patterns of organizations and institutions.
Then you'll love this: https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/04/white-supremacists-...
And also this: https://www.businessinsider.com/right-wing-extremists-kill-3...
And so on, and so on, and so on.
As for the first article I would agree with the DHS's assessment and it gets to the heart of why each side commits violence. The radical left tends to see violence as a means to get what they want (think a child throwing a temper tantrum). The radical right tends to see violence as a declaration of war (think the OK city bombing). When the left commits violence it tends to be against the populus that they believe disagrees with them and that violence tends to stem from a "how dare you disagree with me mentality". When the right commits violence it is generally against the government and is generally a mentality more akin to a suicide bomber. I can certainly see where the government would find one form of violence more concerning that the other even if the touch points of one side are more frequent than the other. Make no mistake about it, right leaning violence intent is to be more deadly and more violent than left leaning as they are not intent on getting what they want, they are intent on revenge whatever the cost.
Or you could just, like, check the date line.
The problem with social media is that it isn't enough like real life, where I have a choice of whose opinion I have to hear.
Therefore, I propose a system whereby the participants don't see content that's objectionable to them. The highest rated content and comments are the ones that the participant is most likely to agree and be comfortable with. Everything else is hidden until I decide to explore it.
We need user-centric systems, not "truth"-centric systems. Let me form my own bubble just like I do in meat space.
The reason for this is because people do not spend their time wisely. Instead of trying to convince equally powerless people to see reality in some manner which doesn't matter, the logical thing to do is work to increase your locus of control over your surroundings.
Politics don't matter, they are downstream from structures and incentives. Whether you like the police, lgbtq+ rights, abortion, equality, etc is completely irrelevant, how those things make you feel is irrelevant, stop wasting time on them and let other people waste their time on trying to validate themselves and their feelings with political games. Do real activities and increase your influence and control over your surroundings, then exert your values over that sphere. Caring about people agreeing with you is the position of the victim and slave.
Consequently, I express no personal non-work related opinions not only at work but in fact not even with “friendlies,” as loose lips sink ships.
It is a shitty way to live, given how much time one spends at work.
But yes, the second portion of my comment was intended to capture that even outside of work with co-worker friends I am reluctant to express opinions. Even if I am mainstream today, or on a particular issue, the winds can shift quickly.
That is a dangerous and toxic milieu.
So in essence, feels like a textbook example of what the article was talking about, with leftists having consider able freedom to talk about politics and everyone else marginalized.
We created a hard rule at our company in 2016: No politics / No religion. Most humans are incapable of discussing these topics rationally, and it only serves to increase division at work.
One person could not handle the idea of not being politically active at work, and we discovered after she quit that almost everyone was happier no having her toxic commentary omnipresent.
In the best case scenario, folks like this are a big distraction - at worst they are a source for litigation, security issues, and horrible employee productivity.
People who want to be politically active at work are absolute poison to creating a healthy cooperative team environment.
You're doing the right thing, and if everyone else's constant hammering of politics at work is creating a bad environment for you, it's probably doing the same for others. You may want to anonymously suggest to the higher-ups that a similar rule should be implemented. Everyone will be happier.
However what’s new(?), and tragic, is (a) omnipresent social media and/or digital footprint and (b) that discourse outside work with coworker friends — at least for me but I suspect for many of those of us working 80+ hours, our social circle is largely coworkers or industry colleagues — could massively negatively affect career.
The current environment likely leads to a sense of isolation , ironically likely shared by the /majority/ of people.
What about a request to get time off to vote?
What if someone came to HR and said they felt they were being treated differently by their boss because they posted a news article that mentioned politics and religion in the team's Slack channel, and they think their boss considered that a sneaky attempt to circumvent your strict "no politics / no religion" rule?
Politics are inextricable from most plausible modern workplaces. I'm all for asking employees to try to avoid bringing it up if they can help it, but a "no politics / no religion" rule doesn't guarantee a reduction in "litigation, security issues, and horrible employee productivity."
> How would your company have dealt with a "Trump/Pence 2016" laptop sticker?
Presumably this would fall under the no politics rule. Remove it. It's a work laptop anyway.
>What about a request to get time off to vote?
Non-issue. Leaving to vote is not bringing your politics to work.
> What if someone came to HR and said they felt they were being treated differently by their boss because they posted a news article that mentioned politics and religion in the team's Slack channel, and they think their boss considered that a sneaky attempt to circumvent your strict "no politics / no religion" rule?
Nothing sneaky about it, posting in the teams Slack work be a clear violation of the rule. It's a work Slack channel.
If people are focusing on work, these little things go unnoticed.
What's great about it is that it's engendered a culture of eye-rolling to people who try to interject their religion or politics, and this has become somewhat self-perpetuating.
If someone spammed a political article into a common venue (we don't use slack because it's such a waste of time), then I doubt it would get reported - just ignored.
> Politics are inextricable from most plausible modern workplaces.
I don't see how you could logically make this argument. Our business plan and financial goals have zero to do with the current political landscape.
But I also don't live in California or work at a venture capital funded startup
That's not to say that you cannot convince people of new attitudes, so long as you appeal to their already held belief systems (LGBT rights, for example, animal cruelty, etc), but you cannot ram your beliefs down someone else by force and have that accepted and not have a reaction to it.
The only change now is that social media is showing each side the worst content from the other side getting them angry and engaged.
As for GWB ....
> George W. Bush's Forgotten Gay-Rights History > He defied his party by endorsing civil unions in 2004. (But that same year, he backed a constitutional amendment forbidding same-sex marriage.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/07/george-...
This might look inconsistent bjt I think the logic might have been to separate marriage, the religious thing from the civil union thing that is about tax deductions for couples etc.
This strikes me as somewhat pragmatic:
The government should have as little to say as possible on who lives with who - beyond not allowing close relatives to marry - while still protecting the religions of people living there.
I think the Pope fronted a similar conclusion recently.
Luckily I am no politician.
"interesting" in the sense of the Chinese curse phrase "may you live in interesting times", perhaps.
Some Americans were targeting even that. Apparently foreigners have no right to NOT RECEIVE political endorsements that mirrors their political views.
Your politics is too toxic. Sorry but it has to be said.
It's a campaign bus, not voters at a polling station. Drivers supporting another party are absolutely allowed to drive next to them.
Only california, fwiw.
Driving at that distance is wanton disregard for the safety of the persons in the bus, but that's open to interpretation of the officer at the scene.
[1] https://codes.findlaw.com/tx/transportation-code/transp-sect...
I'm just serving your point by quibbling about the law. The driver's intent is quite clear. Intimidating people because you disagree with them is unacceptable behavior. In this case, I suspect it's also illegal.
"Joe Biden’s presidential campaign canceled a Friday event in Austin, Texas, after harassment from a pro-Trump contingent."
and quotes:
"The Biden campaign’s Texas communications director, Tariq Thowfeek, said holding the event would have placed Biden staffers and supporters at risk."
But the CBS affiliate article says:
"The Biden bus has also been closely followed by Trump supporters while on the road, though Texas Democrats insist their presence didn't affect their decision to call off the downtown Austin rally ... Texas Democrats told us they canceled the event so not to take away attention from vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris"
Then the videos. The Twitter vids don't seem to show intimidation. They're all in vehicles, the trucks are just driving alongside the bus. There's a video of what looks like a failed merge on an overly busy highway, which is described like this:
“These Trump supporters, many of whom were armed, surrounded the bus on the interstate and attempted to drive it off the road,” he alleged. “They outnumbered police 50-1, and they ended up hitting a staffer’s car.”
Even the Daily Beast has to report this as "alleged" because he provides no evidence they tried to drive it off the road. If they'd wanted to do that they certainly could have done, given the number of trucks, but the bus was unharmed.
The only activity described in the article that could possibly rise to 'intimidation' is turning up and making some noise at rallies, but that's not normally called intimidation, is it? It's not exactly unheard of for anti-Trump people to turn up and make a lot of noise at his rallies, and the right don't accuse the left of intimidation or cancel events in those situations.
We're talking about people not feeling comfortable having a debate over abortion (it's a third rail on either side to try and establish a time when a foetus becomes a recognized being). This is something we should be curious to establish a benchmark for. Both sides fear that if we establish a number of days at which then we can't have abortions after and the other side fears we can have abortions before)
Or are you suggesting that I cannot?
I am an adult. You don't need to protect me from hate-speech.
Not everyone who gets targeted as such holds those beliefs, sure, but they absolutely do exist in America. Until fairly recently, those people’s beliefs actually drove real policies in America that had real teeth and caused real suffering for real people. Of course we still see remnants of these policies and we certainly see knock-on effects of them today.
It would certainly help if the left did a better job at isolating those who actually hold the beliefs I listed above versus those who hold beliefs that are merely “in the orbit” of them. It would be great also if the right did a better job of isolating themselves and their own respectable beliefs from those beliefs that are not respectable.
But in any case to act like any belief that someone holds needs to be treated with respect and never framed as a direct affront to human rights, even if it is, shows a lack of knowledge about the range of things that people actually believe.
A lot of that work involved dismissing some ideologies as fundamentally incompatible with America. Speaking of civility, one time we literally had to go to war with ourselves over what one side would characterize as a mere “political disagreement.”
The Constitution failed to protect people from systematic rape, torture, and forced labor for nearly the first 100 years of its governance over America. It failed to allow women to get credit before 1974. None of what we have today is guaranteed. Plenty of nations have slid backwards from liberalism.
If you believe freedom of speech is a basic right, then you should also believe in protecting the right of bigots to spread diatribe.
This is about our society’s ability and justification to categorize beliefs into respectable or not. Some ideas are simply not deserving of respect, though of course all ideas are deserving of legal protection.
Nazis are allowed to march down 5th Avenue and the people who call those beliefs despicable are not “just as bad as the other side.”
Yes, and that ability does not include harassment, doxxing, threats, and attempting to induce employers and customers to end their relationships with them. That _is_ just as bad as the other side.
You say yourself that rights are sometimes at conflict with each other. That requires that sometimes rights are restricted to a point that other rights are not infringed. For instance we lock up dangerous people. Why do you think is freedom of speech is some kind of super-right that triumphs over every other right? Is freedom of speech more important even when it’s used to incite genocide?
The way you've phrased it means that it's perfectly reasonable to be uncivil (violent) towards others. That's a breakdown of communication and has effectively "othered" the individuals/groups based on their disagreement with your framing of the topic.
It is, given the right situation. It is not as if the civil rights movement of the 60s got the very real improvements it did get by accepting being treated as crap. Rather, it got rather violent at times. What you suggest would make certain no real improvement could ever happen. Which make sense if you belong to the people that has a good situation in the current status quo, but it absolutely sucks for the people that doesn't. Quite often to change the status quo to the better you first need to make it unpalatable enough to the people that is favored by it.
Case in point: In Sweden any politician, and mainstream society in general, who even hinted at reducing immigration has been called a heartless racist for the last 30 years, completely shutting down debate.
The effect of this was predictable (indeed I've been saying it for about two decades): MORE people become anti-immigrant. (the Sweden Democrats are probably the biggest party now, if there'd be an election today)
When you're told by the press and politicians that even raising a topic makes you racist and you should be cancelled, you're not exactly going to be won over.
It's so sad to see from the sidelines. Why has the left shifted so much to shutting down all debate that isn't 100% in agreement with the party line? It's not that I disagree with them on the issues, it's that it's sad that they're not seeing how it's actively hurting their stated goals.
If Sweden is any predictor, then this is going to get much worse (or, if you're on the right, it'll get much better).
Every time someone who said "biological men should not be allowed to compete in sports with biological women" is called Hitler, that's one more person lost to your whole argument, and someone who says that Trump is an OK compromise, and who'll think "if that's your choice argument then you're too crazy to be listened to on abortion, too".
tl;dr: If you're choosing between "practical" and "effective", choose "effective". But also see history for how I think when you say "practical", you actually mean "low effort".
I would encourage Americans to reject this type of culture and embrace freedom of speech and diversity of views. Reduce the number of taboo topics rather than increasing them. This modern blasphemy culture is spreading in many western countries. Reject it before it's too late. Conversations are good. It is how society moves forward. No good ever comes from silencing conversations.
Are we suggesting that we ourselves cannot handle hearing and rejecting the speech, or are we suggesting that other adults should not even hear hate speech because they might be influenced?
Either of those is a profound infantilization of the public.
I am capable of hearing hate speech and rejecting it. I trust most other mature adults can do the same. I reject the notion that anyone needs to protect me from hate speech.
If you don't need protection, great! But hate speech emboldens bigots. It has a chilling effect.
If "emboldens" just means that they are speaking in a venue you frequent, then that isn't a problem.
> "It has a chilling effect."
The irony is that you are using a term that is actually a consequence of the actions you propose.
I'm perfectly aware. There's no irony. It's the dilemma of tolerance. Using oppression to minimize oppression. A chilling effect on undesirable ideas to counter their spread to counter the growth of groups whose presence and actions similarly lead to chilling effect.
The not so subtle difference is that one group sometimes commits acts of terror.
Yes, giving this capability officially to the state has serious consequences. Though it's not like states doesn't already have the capacity monopolized (and alas it's not like there are no abuses of state capacity without nowadays).
I don't see how I call everyone who disagrees a bigot. I'm saying that the very real process of gathering strength of the alt-right works through a lot of channels that have basically one thing in common, which is speaking hateful bullshit.
There are people who would benefit from some counter-process. (And a sample of one (koheripbal) who is fine is not a great counter-argument.) I'm not saying that anyone who disagrees with this is a bigot. Far from it. Disagreements are healthy, especially constructive criticism.
Obviously it's a lot harder to allow just one and not the other.
And again, it's exactly the nuance that's needed to separate these that are needed when one compares China, Iran, and the USA.
Executives ought to be able to express their views freely, also companies/shareholders ought to be able to freely replace executives they deem unfit (a bad fit for society).
Plus, there's a nuanced (even seemingly small) difference between state-supported oppression and "cancel culture".
Aaaand, finally, there's also a big difference between oppressing voices that call for more civil rights (eg. restrictions on what the state can do) versus voices that call for more state-supported restrictions.
Calling for more restrictions on women's rights in the name of babies is still supporting more rights for the state, whereas calling for more transparency, accountability, equality for citizens falls on the the exact opposite of this spectrum.
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The conversation about babies' rights is very hard because that it naturally pits two very special groups against each other, babies vs women. Where the former doesn't have the capacity to represent themselves in any meaningful way. So society at large with its myriad voices tries to stand in for them. Any "executive" that just start talking about babies' rights better be prepared to brandish some big guns of philosophy, because so far this issue is so murky that respectable philosophy stops at "well, it's hard", and all we are left with is the endless lowing and parroting of indoctrinated fundamentalist followers of various religions.
"A bad fit for society"
Seriously. This reads like something straight out of the playbook towards a fascist state.
Firm opposition does not imply that civility has to be dropped. In some cases it may even be counter productive since it ends up entrenching attitudes and positions.
We also need to be aware of how our own attitudes contribute to our own perceptions. It is not much of a leap to believe that we will be fired for our political views if we think that others should be fired for their political views, even if those beliefs and thoughts do not reflect reality.
I am not going to claim that civility must be maintained at any cost, there are certainly historical instances when it could not be. On the other hand, being proactive and civil will likely reap more positive change than the alternative.
And the political left has been gaming that for years now by declaring that every entitlement and vote-buying scheme they've come up with represents a basic human right.
In it, I remember it depicted a Christian knight and an Islamic paladin with diametically and fundamentally opposed views (this was written in the middle of the Crusades) sitting down and sharing a civilized meal together and having a conversation. This is what a civilized dispute looks like. Later they might have fought each other to the death for their religion, but they were still capable of reason and civility.
Note that both Christian and Islamic sides were accusing each other at the time of cruel atrocities - and yet the Christian ideal of tolerance includes the possibility of civility with everyone, regardless of what the sides think of each other.
An easy litmus test: are you advocating harm to a person for merely existing in the world, living with the skin color and sexuality they were born with, or making choices that don't harm anyone else? Then I have no interest in hearing your toxic and hateful opinion and I sure hope you'll be afraid to voice it around me.
It's a great thing to have political discussions and to try to see all sides of a topic. Your willingness to see the other side's points should stop at the point where the other side is actively trying harm people for the crime of existing in this world. (See also: antisemitism, homophobia, transphobia, racism.)
Just in case: speech, however abusive, or denial of association or services is never "harm".
Replying to a deleted comment: I think that white-only service is asshole behavior, just as holocaust denial and other stuff. I fight and would continue to fight it with education, counter-propaganda and civil boycott, but I would fight for those people to have legal right to do it without persecution by government at the same time.
But i feel that on the long term the list of ”too wrong to discuss” opinion tends to grow, until you reach the point where civil and peacefull discussion becomes impossible.
To me it seems this is the road U.S. is walking on.
The logical end to all of this exists in places in this world. You cannot share your opinion on Islam in some parts of this world, you’ll die. You cannot speak out against the government in China, you will be in jail.
It’s called political persecution. We are on the proverbial slippery slope.
This a dog whistle. Please define "harm", and "existing".
This phrase is so often used by people who say "silence is violence" (it's literally not).
I don't think you're being honest in your argument, here. You are implying lynchings and holocaust, but is that truly the debates you're applying your litmus test on? I highly doubt that.
Are you not more likely to apply it to:
* trans women competing in sports with biological women
* abortion
* pronouns
* equality of outcome
right?
I'm not even saying I disagree with you on any of those points. But your "litmus test" allows you to point your finger where the harm is, and shut down debate, cancel the person, and "punch a nazi".
And you also consider yourself as having monopoly on defining what pros and cons fall under "harm", and "existing".
E.g. if you define misusing pronouns to be harm, someone else could define compelled speach to be to surrender the right to your own thoughts (2+2=5, from 1984). Again, I am not saying I disagree with you on the point, but both sides here have a very good case for screaming "harm!!!! I have harm here! Just for existing!!!".
Same with a trans woman competing with a biosex woman. "Harm for just existing" applies equally, actually, to both women. Now what? You're just stuck screaming "fascist!" to each other. Why? What are you actually trying to accomplish?
You will lose people with this attitude, not gain them. See Sweden and Trump.
> Then I have no interest in hearing your toxic and hateful opinion
I don't think you know what "hate" means.
> I sure hope you'll be afraid to voice it around me.
So you're admitting that your argument is based in threat of violence?
The people that you think don't deserve civility in this scenario literally have the exact same viewpoint. This is the disconnect and it goes both ways.
Unless its straight up illegal, civility should always apply.
also, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck%27s_principle
What it does is preserve the integrity of our open democratic system.
Liberty is always a balance act, because if you give bad actors freedom in the name of tolerance they will use it to reduce the freedom of weaker actors within society. If you live in a "survival of the fittest"-type society that might be acceptable, but that might not be a free society anymore because it fails to protect the freedoms of some within it. If you overregulate and control on the other hand, you will also reduce the total freedom within society.
This is a balance few nations on earth managed to get right for prolonged periods. In my eyes the US didn't get it right for quite a while. Civility is a part of it, but letting people get away with fascist behaviour in the name of tolerance/free speech will potentially put the US (and therefore the whole world) in a much, much darker place.
Lately it seems to be the most misrepresented part of Popper's "paradox of intolerance", where he defines intolerance as those who resort to violence instead of speech, and the would be censors of this age who bring up the paradox - without seeming to have read it - tell us that the intolerant are those we disagree with. "we" being those the would be censors disagree with.
> free societies stay free if they draw a clear line what is unaccepted behaviour
> if you give bad actors freedom in the name of tolerance they will use it to reduce the freedom of weaker actors within society
I agree. There is a clear line, which is crossed the moment someone resorts to violence instead of speech, and it has been drawn clearly in law. The bad actors would be those looking to reduce freedoms such as speech, based on nothing more than disagreement, which as it happens is something fascists (among others) have done when they've had the chance.
Popper e.g. also says that the goal of elections is to have a transfer of power without having to have civil wars, guillotines and other violent means. This means to prevent violence we have to maintain certain rules.
This doesn't mean however, that we have to wait till bad actors in fact act violently, after e.g. having stated they want to abolish these rules, after threatening violence, after breaking present rules and stretching present conventions etc. This means that he didn't want to suppress intolerant views (IF they can be hold in balance with rational arguments and public discourse) — instead he would plead to limit their effects on society (thus reducing potential future violence).
But it has been over a decade since I read Popper, so maybe you read something I didn't.
Most people are not scholars, at best pundits, but even if they are, most of their thoughts are still not careful and nuanced constructive arguments.
And maybe, just maybe, putting some brakes on the global cyber hate wave machines, where anyone can share/amplify the most damaging shit with one click is not a bad idea.
That said, partisanship bias, fairness, justice are all related problems when it comes to how to apply those brakes.
And yes, the institutions are shit, both old and new. Academia, FB/Tw, MSM, parties/congress, religions. But they are not without advantages, not unsalvageable.
It's distinctly possible you've read more Popper than I have but his words seem very clear here too[2]:
> I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion
He goes on to contrast that with those who give up on speech and respond with violence (and it's all within about a page).
So we have a clear line and there's no need to wait for violence to actually occur before legal remedy can be sought, which would appear to me to fit with Popper's statement and what you studied.
I completely agree with Popper on elections, and free speech fits the same mould, it's primary function is to reduce violence. Without free speech the options for those who wish to change society are only violent. With it there is no excuse for violence.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clear_and_present_danger
[2] https://archive.org/details/TheOpenSocietyAndItsEnemiesPoppe...
Call for immediate violence is treated very much like violence in a lot of jurisdictions.
Other than that, I'm not sure what your point is.
If you look at social media, they paint with a very broad brush.
...such a broad brush and so will to employ any means necessary to silence opposition, that they begin to resemble the fascists they purport to oppose.
What should be done if this rational argument doesn't work anymore and the public discourse is fragmented is (to my knowledge) not mentioned in his works.
2020s material comfort, education systems, insane technological 'tooling' .. and yet we're still a good old mob when too much ambient stress rises.
What should we do ? have gatherings to just dissolve tension and make people go back to normal lives without trying to find weird remarks or conspiracies about what's going on ?
If 62% of Americans think homosexuality is wrong, does that really matter? Do we really wanna ask them that and act on it?
We are asking to many people what they think independetly of how much time and effort they spend with a topic or if that topic is not superseeded by something else (like an Amendment).
No one is going around and asking people what operating system is better.
My personal assumption, and this is now very critical for my inner conflict: I do believe every opinion should matter and i do strongly believe in democracy but this only works when the other requirement is true: People are reading up and educating themselfs on politics.
Enough people don't.
Enough people in politics don't.
They are there because they want something not because they care.
If your implication is true, I think there is going to have to be a serious re-assessment by the establishment regarding the divergence of their politics vs the populace --and there would be a realization that propaganda only goes so far and coercion is the missing ingredient.
If the establishment is right, then obviously they had the right pulse and nothing changes.
Things I've learnt in the last 2 months, Americans have real problems counting votes. I'm not talking about disputed votes (hanging chads), I'm talking about real actual undisputable votes. Also seem to be problems with the concept of free and fair voting - people having to queue for hours to vote is a sign of voter suppression, not of a healthy democracy.
In the UK, we vote either in person on the day (from 6AM until 10PM), or in advance by post (which has to arrive at the designated location by the time polls close, either by post, or by dropping into a voting station). If a charismatic person in a pub gets everyone to go voting you can get a rush just before the polls close as 300 people turn up, but an hour would be extreme.
Postal votes are opened daily in the run up to the election in front of observers from the various parties as they come in, verified, and stored in a sealed box.
On the actual day the in person boxes are sealed at 10pm (or slightly later if people are still queueing) and transported to a central counting location.
These counting locations tend to count 50,000 at a time, and in my experience 50-100 people do the counting (in front of observers from the parties), the counts start almost straight away, and the first results come in after an hour or so. Most results are in after about 6 hours, and unless there are transport problems (storms preventing votes from islands getting where they need to go) everywhere has declared within about 10 hours.
Now the US has more than the 32 million votes cast in the UK's December election, but this method scales easily enough.
So why does it take days for votes to be counted?
So a mailed in vote that needs to be tallied may not arrive to be counted till Nov 5 or 6 or 9 (depending on state deadline).
How do you know every vote is counted without a cut off period defined? It can take years to deliver some mail: https://www.itv.com/news/anglia/2020-05-29/soldier-s-letter-...
If the margin is less than the number of unreturned postal votes, surely there will be a question which can never be answered.
Yes.
The final Democracy Institute poll (https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1354506/us-election-202...) that came out Saturday predicts a Trump victory contrary to most other polls, because it found that 79% of Trump voters do not tell others that they support him, while only 21% of Biden voters are shy.
USC's poll predicts a Biden victory, but when experimental questions are asked to figure out how those polled really feel, it forecasts a Trump win (https://dornsife.usc.edu/news/stories/3338/experimental-poll...).
Moderates do not feel safe to express moderate views for fear of being ostracized and cancelled.
I'd modify it to allow a super yes/no with double the value per voter to force people to be a bit more selective.
You've gotta agree that those fall under the moderate umbrella a bit more right? I've lived/worked in some very conservative environments and I don't think anyone would've walked along with the race IQ path.
For what it's worth, I think you may be surprised how much you can discuss on this topic without crossing "the line" for most people. I think that if partisanship wasn't as divisive as it currently is than you'd be able to discover a lot more common ground with people.
.... though definitely not online.
With that said, all of these topics are not worth getting too into, since even 100% agreement on HBD or esoteric human rights philosophy topics doesn't really accomplish much. I have arrived at a sort of internal understanding that it doesn't matter if most people would disagree with me on this stuff. Also, if I find the common perspective to be ridiculous or stupid that doesn't really matter or entitle me to pressing the issue when it doesn't matter. What genuinely matters is finding common humanity/shared goals that are mutually beneficial and not getting bent out of shape over stuff that doesn't really matter, which in this case is trivia pertaining to generalized (which is practically useless individually) racial outcomes. Hopefully I've explained myself clearly and shown that I don't have any ill will intended towards you or anybody who has different opinions or may even hate or take offense at how I see the world. Have a nice Sunday :)
At most other points in human history, our discussion probably would've been a cordial trade of livestock for bread and there would never be a reason to fear ill will. It's bummer of the 21st century that this time it was meta discussion about politics on the internet.
New negatives in environments always come with new positives in the environment's survivors, and I am hopeful that we will all end up with a more thoughtful introspection similar to that which came from "oppression" (I hesitate to call what we are experiencing oppression due to how minor it is compared to gulags.) Some of the world's most beautiful literature as well as brilliant scientists have come out of Eastern Europe, I am optimistic that something similar will be the fruits of what is now underway globally with the advent of social media and its soft tyranny over social relations.
When I see respected economists reporting that there are differences in economic success that are correlated with race and respected sociologists reporting differences and other factual data analysis, I see differences that seem to persist by race. All of those are output measurements. What’s the next logical thing you do as an academic, seeking to understand a problem in search of a persistent, structural solution? Go look for input measures and see what you can learn about the system. That’s the step that seems to be a third-rail and if we’re not willing to study the structural inputs to the problem, we’re handicapping ourselves in solving any of it.
Asian Americans face racism, and have absolutely zero cultural standing, nobody cares that Asian Americans don't win Oscars, they are not on TV shows, they are not represented in sports.
And yet Asian Americas are literally 2x the national income and make up vastly disproportionate numbers of high tech workers etc..
The notion that somehow how 'Asian Americans' have 'vast Racial Privilege' that enable them to gain success is plainly ridiculous, obviously.
Most of them do not come to America with stashes of wealth to give them advantage, though some do.
So how are Asian Americans so successful? Because as individuals, they focus on the things that matter to them, and that enable them to have much higher incomes - like education as one obvious example.
Those attitudes, motivations, concerns, behaviours are passed down from generation to generation and though it's unfair to characterize anyone by their culture, those things have tremendous impact.
JK Rowling's view that Women, and Men who transition to women, while they should have 'equal rights' - are not the same thing, that there is a difference and that difference should be respected - got her cancelled. They are out for here in droves.
This is a mainstream view and probably extremely popular.
In fact, outside of hyperbolic politics I'll be basically anyone that even accepts 'trans folks' (because a lot of people wouldn't in the first places) actually feels that way.
The movement to 'erase' any possible difference that people might view Women/Trans Women differently is rooted I think in a really emotional, almost child-like concern/anger/will to 'defend rights!!!' in such a way that anyone who disagrees must be destroyed, without conceding some probable, basic realities.
I actually think that in a more calm, moderate, less hyperbolic situation, nobody would want to cancel her. It's the aggressive voice of less than 0.1% on the fringe who've internalized a lot of their academic views into emotional one's.
They tried to cancel Steven Pinker recently for suggesting, that according to the science, Americans are more generally subject to quite a bit more police aggression overall, and that though Black people to face disproportionate ire, that the problem is more general and widespread whereupon Black people have an acute situation.
Which personally always felt was the case, and absolutely nobody is willing to say it.
Put in other words, he almost said, in an academic kind of way that 'All Lives Matter' i.e. police aggression is more or less a general problem, not just a Black problem.
For this there were signatories, back room pushes etc. to cancel him. Fortunately, he's respected enough that he didn't have to worry but any 'less famous' prof. would have been destroyed.
This is again similar to JK Rowling in that a very basic, factual and what should be 'not even controversial opinion' gets you in a lot of trouble.
Almost ironically, during a CBC interview, Pinker spoke politely at length about the issues and used soft language to refer to the 'more extreme' on the left - but hilariously he used the language 'Social Marxist' which is almost identical to the term 'Cultural Marxist' (a derogatory term coined apparently by some bad person). It's funny because the logic of the terminology, which is to say that while Marx spoke about 'class struggle', the 'Social Marxists' (Pinker's words) use the same language but for race, gender etc.. If Pinker would have been anyone else, on a US outlet and had used slightly different words, he would have been publicly pilloried. It's funny how that works.
The fact that even Steven Pinker has come to the very obvious conclusion that this is very similar ideology but instead of 'class' you have 'race' or 'gender' - but that literally using any terminology to reflect that could get you in hot water, is Orwellian.
Imagine if the Nazis made a rule to suggest that any reference to the existence of Nazism or the power of the government will be met with prison or death. People all running around in that totalitarianism without even the language to point to said totalitarianism. It's probably the most 'Orwellian' of all 'Orwellian' concepts.
There is an interesting historical parallel during the Weimar republic, the German Communist Party (KPD) hated the 'centre left' socialists (i.e. people like Rowling, Pinker) more than anyone.
"The party directed most of its attacks against the Social Democratic Party of Germany, which it regarded as its main adversary and referred to as "social fascists"; the KPD considered all other parties in the Weimar Republic to be 'fascists'."
Literally anyone 'less Communist' than them, was a 'fascist' and subject of most of their ire.
Actually, this is not even 'parallel' - this is the the same social response being played out.
There are surely some 'Real American Nazis' who feel the same way, but I don't think anyone actually supports them, they have no power at all, whereas the 'Social Cancellers' have control over academia, a powerful wing in Congress, and weirdly enough extensive influence in the board room and are now trying to drive corporate social policy with some success which I think is due to the fact there's a lot of mostly good intention there, hard to separate from the more radical stuff.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Party_of_Germany
Basically, holding views from both parties, and not just toeing one party’s line.
* These cases of minority students with 1600 on the SAT not being offered places in top colleges are bad. College admissions and grading should be name- race- and gender-blind.
* These cases of people trying to ban gay media and speakers for 'obscenity' or 'outraging public decency' are bad. People should be able to publish what they like, and colleges certainly shouldn't ban invited speakers, even if some students find their views challenging.
* These people writing about computers and always referring to the user as 'he' is pretty out of date. Generous use of 'they' in preference to gendered pronouns is the inclusive choice.
The same stances, when viewed from a few decades later, sound right-wing: To modern ears, those stances oppose affirmative action, oppose no-platforming, and say it's OK to ignore people's preferred pronouns. To some, those views would sound positively Jordan Peterson-esque.
America in a nutshell.
I find it entirely bizarre that so large scope of population and media is fine with what is going on...
I reserve the term “violence” to situations described in Hannah Arendt‘s similarly-named essay, in which terroristic violence has historically been used by failing dictators against the legitimate power of the people as a whole.
If using violence to combat opposing political speech isn't your definition of fascism, then it's as equally sinister and takes us to an equally dark place.
We have seen many examples in the last few years of people feeling so entitled to combat what they consider fascism, that they use violence against anyone they perceive as the enemy.
Maybe we don't agree on the definition of words, but this is a bad development.
Like many in the US, I don't support the right but I don't support the modern left either and they ought to be very worried about that.
USC's poll predicts a Biden victory, but when experimental questions are asked to figure out how those polled really feel, it forecasts a Trump win (https://dornsife.usc.edu/news/stories/3338/experimental-poll...).
For those who are skeptical, put on a "Make America Great Again" hat and walk through downtown Chicago, San Francisco, Ann Arbor, or Cambridge before or after election day 2016 (or 2020). Now, put on a "I'm With Her" or "Biden/Harris 2020" shirt and walk through Provo, Fort Worth, or Pensacola before or after election day. In which scenario are you more like to be yelled at and/or physically attacked?
AS for America - last visit I made was over a decade ago but I learned to avoid political debate with a passion as people don't do debate and more argue you to death. Even then in the office had a chap come in and almost interrogated me upon political views, even worrying was others warned me of that and I dismissed them. You live you learn and I've found that the older people are - the more they are inclined to avoid such debates as they more often than not become toxic.
"Never mistake your Twitter feed for your country" (https://twitter.com/NickCohen4/status/1205273956078563328)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2019_U...
Obviously social media is a terrible barometer for political mood. It's designed to build a self-co gratulatory bubble, but I'm not sure I buy the argument that polling is rigged or unscientific.
Polling is a statistical model of a rare event of human behavior - of course there's uncertainty!
Today the president voiced approval for his supporters literally running his opponents' supporters off the road.
That's the reality Trump supporters are using fascist tactics (and I'm not exaggerating here, these acts are rightbout of a fascist playbook) while complaining that liberals say mean things to them.
[1] https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.dailymail.co.uk/new...
BTW there are reports that police refused to do anything, if that is true we are really right in 1930s territory.
Do you believe that is a healthy police force in a democracy?
Surrounding the bus, while keeping to all traffic laws.
And before you say "But what about the Biden car behind the bus?", as this video (https://twitter.com/JackPosobiec/status/1322646326807568390) shows, the black Trump-supporter vehicle was already close behind the vehicle in front of it before the white Biden vehicle moved into its lane from the left.
- everyone agrees that there should be more viewpoint diversity - but most people still support silencing "dangerous opinions" - and far right and far left more likely to support termination for offensive views
https://joinlincoln.org/pdfs/lincoln-2019-viewpoint-report.p...
People appear to be so emotionally vested in this election at this point it’s better to stay quiet. IMO.
Or if you think about it, of course you need much more Philantropists when you have Liberatism :D
I don't care one way or another about banning, but yeah, people really should not put any weight into what comes out of it today.
Sometimes Cato has useful studies or data, and then it's worth reading. It's a moderate, academic, economics-colored point of view on the world. I wouldn't call it exciting, but this kind of complete dismissal in a thread about dismissal and silencing of moderate voices apparently looks silly to some people.
Though I do think their opinions may be skewed, I don't doubt the facts they are presenting in this article.
I now feel like I will hesitate to submit a Cato article in the future, and I don't even know what is wrong with them! Basically exactly what the article discusses.
Conservative think tanks posts can definitely stimulate good discussion, but if you don't moderate consistently, the community will eventually form a hivemind politically.
I think millennials might be quite a case study on bad parenting, because Gen Z are literally turning out to be bad apples. This is all of our faults, we are failing our kids more or less.
Reminds me of the recent violence in France “connected” to Islam. Where did you kids learn this stuff? Who is parenting you?
What is all this internet and global economy, and social connections via social networks for if this is how narrow minded our new generations are becoming? What is the point of all this exposure if you are literally turning out to be stupid people?
Gen Z are the kids of Gen X, not millennials
It’s not easy raising kids for sure, but it’s almost like you have to be callous to not understand what kinda rat race the working world can be, and how hyper competitive even the shittiest of jobs are.
Why are these values not being passed down? Usually, children of working immigrants see how hard their parents or people in their community work in jobs. Are Gen X so well off in middle management somewhere that their kids casually believe it’s aright to sack someone’s livelihood for their political beliefs?
Do we need to take Twitch and Phones away from these idiots and have them go work in the gig economy like a dog for a bit?
The vast majority of people know fuckall about parenting, and in turn raise disfunctional kids that know nothing about proper parenting, and the cycle continues.
Intervention is needed, in the form of teaching better parenting.
I think the real issue with political polarization is that the stakes at the individual level are very very low when you are in an offensive position. People that think that people should get fired over donations have no risk of getting fired for that opinion themselves.
Generally there is a problem of escalation and individual responsibility, and its all being concentrated in the political sphere because of it.
There is another major trend which is that governments are directing themselves on polling more than ever: they are constantly making stances and policies on the latest hot-tweet, which makes the political sphere way too relevant to people's daily lives.
I suspect that the disconnect is far wider in scope. Most people are totally perplexed by the disparity between their own reality and what is portrayed in the news. For 3 years we had evidence-free but unrelenting Russia/Trump hate. This seemed insane, but it turns out that was just the warm up act to coronavirus!
The reality of what people see around them is sooooo far away from what is portrayed on the MSM. It amazes me that anyone pays any notice to the MSM at. But what it really shows, is that most individuals are not their own authority in their life. They defer to what is the consensus opinion that is blasted at them 24/7 from the MSM, rather than acting according to what they actually experience.
Imagine, somehow a person was frozen in time, and seeing how the majority live now - scared of living because someone said something on TV!
But that is the power of the media, and why it is such an effective control. The majority disagree with what is portrayed, but feel pressured enough to keep quiet and therefore acquiesce to whatever is being shouted out.