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Comment by breadbreadbread | Hacker News Reader

I didnt say that "we don’t have enough of either"

Admittedly I was a bit rambley because i am scared for the safety of myself and others in this political climate. And everytime someone tries to "diagnose" the problem, they do so by treating the left and the right as the same, as value-neutral, as though they are two people on a tennis court following the same rules hitting a ball back and forth. I think this fundamentally misses the fact that both sides use vastly different tactics and have different standards for truth. I think that the values of each side cannot be put on the same line ("I think cops should be held accountable" and "democrats stole the election" are not equal and opposite positions). I think both sides are playing completely different games and each can claim the other is losing/winning/cheating, that is the problem... not individuals misperceptions.

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Everyone is scared, even the other side. They are just different fears. That's why its so vital to talk to your neighbors and to those who are different. To listen and to try to change hearts. Especially important is to see why people order their beliefs the way they do. They also think that values cannot be put on the same line ("I think babies should have the right to life" and "republicans stole the election from Gore" are not equal and opposite positions).

The hierarchy of needs is different on both sides; they are mostly incompatible and each side not only will, but _must_ violate the other's definition of justice (abortion is a perfect example of this, defined not by the act itself, but by the conflicting definitions/hierarchy of life and of rights).

I think social media is the problem. You used to have to get along with those around you. Now you can just bubble yourself on the internet, no matter how niche your position is. I am glad to have friendships all across the political spectrum -- we can always bond over being screwed by the system at large instead of the nebulous "other side".

So there is your problem: you don't see the right as being people, yet want the right to see you as a person.

i think thats a false equivalency. First of all I see them as people, I just see them as people who dont care about my personhood. Second of all, my value judgement of the right is based on the actions they take against my personhood, whereas their value judgement of me is based on.... who I am? who I love? the clothes I wear?

Notice how the person you're replying to conflated two extremely different forms of "dehumanization." Calling an attacker an attacker isn't dehumanizing them. This comment section isn't worth your energy.

Seeing people as persons, judged and viewed as individuals, has been one of the major contention between the center/center right and the left. The two sides that been fighting hardest to push identity politics away from the political discussion is generally the same group that view the left and the far right as being two sides of the same coin.

If the goal is getting people to see you as a person and the strategy you are deploying to reach that goal is pushing people away, then it might be worth looking into the effectiveness of that strategy.

I shouldn't need to strategize to be seen as a human. But yeah go ahead and blame queer people for people thinking they are subhuman.

You are misunderstanding and lashing out. Please don't.

Politics should not require strategy and neither the left nor right should see others as subhumans. Everyone is human living in the now and should be treated with respect and rights.

Human being are not a gender, a color, a sexual orientation, or a political object to be attacked. They are not a religion, ethnic origin, age or demographic. Human individuals are human. Reducing people down to single bits of information is reducing people to be less than human.

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