Comment by anon7000 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by anon7000 | Hacker News Reader

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There are a large number of policy issues the average American should be able to agree on, but have been polarized to the point that we don’t solve them.

- Get money out of politics. Everyone complains about corruption, no one tries to do a constitutional amendment to get rid of Citizens United.

- Strong privacy protections for your online data. Does anyone like the fact that your data gets sold and then used against you by car insurance companies?

- Break up big companies that are taking their power too far. Seriously, take your Syscos, Nestles, AB InBevs of the world and break them up. No company deserves to have that much power over consumer markets, and the centralization of that power definitely makes prices higher. My conservative parents definitely don’t like how when Walmart and Rite Aid came to small-town midewest, all the local drug & grocery stores went out of business.

- Every American knows our private health insurance system sucks. I mean every person you meet either doesn’t have good coverage, hasn’t used it much, or has had had a terrible experience with it.

- We need to do away with police overstep like asset forfeiture, where the government can basically just rob you. I’m not talking defund the police, but you could sit the average American down, and probably come to agree that the police state has too much power and not enough accountability in a couple areas.

There are so many stories along these lines which could get republicans and democrats on a similar page, and it comes down to the frustrations we ALL have with the systems we live in. It doesn’t matter who you voted for, when health insurance starts scamming you out of a procedure you need, it’s frustrating on a deeply personal level. And we all feel like we don’t have much control over federal policy — partly because businesses & moneyed interests can protect their interests while everyone else struggles, no matter who’s in charge.

(And btw, this isn’t a elected officials on both sides are the same comment, more of a “we Americans have a lot of shared frustrations regardless of party”

1) Despite the quite liberal lobbying laws the US seems to have, corruption is still rampant and illegal donations continue. Cracking down on lobbying would probably remove some of the money in lobbying but not all of it.

Points 2-5 are all "impactful for the average american" but most people will disagree with how and how far these should be implemented. Why did you signal out asset forfeiture as your example of police overstep but not no knock warrants, stop and search laws or the current ICE street gang situation? The problem with the view that all members of a nation share common struggle and therefore have the same political wants and needs is naive and these seemingly shared frustrations are often oversimplifications that disguise various political interests

- same sex marriage should be treated equally to heterosexual marriage - the tradition of gender being strictly tied to genitalia at birth should be abolished, with individuals able to change gender (and genitals) at their whim

Oops Americans don’t agree on queer rights and equality oops

- everyone should be treated equally and afford equal protection under the law, regardless of where they were born or what the colour of the skin is or what their genitals look like

Oops oops

Perhaps you could fix the things you all agree are bad before, or even at the same time as, tackling the ones that divide you.

And what happens when political actors capitalize on the things that divide you? What makes people vote against their own economical interest for the sake of preventing transgender care being passed or abortions becoming illegal?

No. The things that divide us are more important to me, I want them fixed first.

Most people even on the left don’t agree with the gender aspect of your points. It’s a pretty minority view.

Other than that we’re still at the point where most people will at least verbally agree with you that everyone should be treated equally (whether they believe it or not internally is another matter).

> the tradition of gender being strictly tied to genitalia at birth should be abolished, with individuals able to change gender (and genitals) at their whim

This is absurd. You can't just wish away your sex. It's a material fact.

You’re not paying attention. the biology of sex is an arbitrary generalization - it’s useful, but it’s not sacred. Gender is a tradition of play-acting we’ve been doing for so long that we’ve forgot that it’s just a game.

What’s absurd is looking at the world the way it is now, and thinking to yourself, “yes, this is the way it always has been, and must always be.” What a mire to live your life in. Such a pity.

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