Facts won't fix this: experts on how to fight America's disinformation crisis

identity politics: economic problems are economic and fixating on identity is never going to solve them but further alienate people. What this sounds like is disrupting meritocracy "we <insert combo of minority identities> president or engineer... etc" but in reality is nothing but an extension of confessionalism, which never works. Look at where such politics ends (Lebanon's current crisis <-- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Pact, Iraq's current crisis <-- https://www.mei.edu/publications/nation-or-religion-iraqs-hy...). Increase representation by fixing the pipeline problem not instating qoutas without sunset deadlines or criteria

scientism: the usage of phrases such as "believe science" when talking about social issues like abortion where worth is assigned to lives and even ignoring it completely when talking about puberty blockers. Never mind how anti-scientific "believe science" is.

American exceptionalism: A lot more subtle than the right's "shithole country" comments but no less dangerous, look no further than how Poland is talked about, or Hungary... etc. Can't fathom how different societies look at issues from other perspectives. This is a form of cultural imperialism.

All of the above are subject to your definition of left and are points of debate within the left too.

Limiting what government can do puts the brakes on what such a person can accomplish. Leave things up to the states, of course you can still occasionally get problems at the state level, but that's only 1/50 as much of a problem.

Assuming anti-vax is a single movement. I have a normally reasonable friend who refused an STD vaccine for his newborn. Having a <1 year old baby vaccinated against STD's simply doesn't make sense. His experience opened my eyes: Some vaccines undoubtedly are genuine medical miracles that save lots of lives, but the necessity of others can be rather questionable. (The number of recommended vaccines for children has also exploded since my friend and I ourselves were kids, unless you have children yourself you might assume your childhood experience is still the norm, which it isn't.)

When you say "Why should I vaccinate my 0-year-old against an STD?" and the doctor can't give answer beyond "You won't be able to send them to school if you don't," it really does seem rather reasonable to conclude that it's medically unnecessary but Big Pharma's successfully lobbied the government to require this particular shot.

To be fair, my friend may be wrong. There may be sound medical reasons their doctor didn't know or didn't feel like explaining for the 1000th time.

My point is, there are shades and shades of anti-vax. We use the same term to describe (a) the irrational nutjob who rejects all vaccines and denies all historical reports of how bad things like smallpox were as some kind of elaborate hoax, and (b) reasonable people who are trying to reasonably evaluate whether a given medical product is a reasonable step for their health situation, and sometimes reasonably comes to the conclusion that it's not (as in the case of a parent who decides it doesn't make sense to vaccinate a newborn against STD's.)

I don't really like hawkish behavior either. Of course I want free healthcare and to not have to worry about war. Obviously reducing our presence in the ME would be great. But the reality is that China is essentially re-inventing colonialism, rapidly making military advances towards Taiwan, gobbling up islands, viciously oppressing their citizens, inventing new and terrifying surveillance technology, slipping their malware in front of our children as apps and games, and just generally bullying other members of the world stage. The Russian government is killing political opponents, working on their own Great Firewall/retreating into their own Internet, systematically trying to weaken Western democracy with what is basically psyops, hacking the shit out of everyone they can, and building ASAT/hypersonic weapons specifically designed to attack American resources.

Basically, the enemies of the US seem like they're spending massive amounts of time and resources trying to destroy us on every front. Meanwhile America, still can't get electronic voting right four years later, and was close to defunding its critical defense infrastructure: https://www.defensenews.com/congress/2020/07/01/next-gen-icb...

America has a lot of problems but compared to this kind of behavior, we are definitely not the bad guys. Nearly all of the anti-patriotic sentiment I've seen ("America is third-world", "America is stupid and racist", "I'm moving to Canada because I hate the government", "Everyone else does it better", "I would never work for the government", etc) is coming from the Left. They should be more honest with themselves about both the good and bad things about America, because we need to fix race relations, healthcare, education, etc. but we definitely also need military spending. Cause fuck China.

I HAVE adjusted my options on a few matters (BLM, gun rights, bail requirements). And I'm quite proud of that! I think I have a bit of a fear of empathy which holds me back, but enough of my self diagnosis!