Ouch. Uh, BlackAeronaut, I've written probably a hundred of those comments right there, and after about thirty of them, I learned to wait a day before posting them. After thirty more, I learned to hit the delete key when I was done venting, just to save time.
If your goal was to convince someone to change their opinion, then you have failed. Read this Voxsplanation about why we've become so partisan lately. There's a fundamental difference in worldview between the positions of the two parties, and you can't just resolve that with an argument or a dare, because that's just not how humans make decisions.
Honestly, I give a lot of time to considering conservative opinions, because of the risk of being wrong. There are a class of conservative thinkers tend to produce deep truths, like George Will, Bill Kristol, Steve Schmidt, and a few more I'm forgetting. Of course, the opposite of a shallow truth is false, but the opposite of a deep truth is also true.
See the thing is, you're working off of your underlying assumptions. But most Trump fans say something about him like, "Finally, someone is telling the truth!" And most of us in the opposition say, "Trump is a compulsive liar." The truth is not in the middle; both are true to a great degree.
Like, you're going after Ravjik for well, promoting being an asshole sometimes. I admit, when I read that the first time, I was thinking, "lol this dude just tanked his own argument." But you know what, maybe we're just naive? What if your worldview is that most everyone is an asshole all the time? That everyone is trying to take everyone else's stuff -- it's why we see crime, and illegal immigration, and all. So called free trade is just other people attempting to screw us right? So at least Trump, he's our asshole, fighting for us. And Trump doesn't attempt to hide that side of himself -- he's the first honest politician we've had in a long time, who doesn't pretend to play nice and cozy up to all of the other assholes in the world. Communists lie and take your money, but capitalists like Trump earn money in their businesses out in the open.
Except, well, not. Most of the political innovations of the second half of the twentieth century involved diplomacy and gifts, like the UN and the Marshall Plan. And I believe that all people are basically good, or would be good if they had the same chances that I had. If I could, I would completely open the borders of the United States, because after all, a world with open borders would be $78T richer. Everyone deserves a world without corruption or statelessness or poverty.
But the other side keeps me up at night, too. I think about the Late Bronze Age Collapse, where the Sea Peoples almost destroyed Western civilization. Illegal immigrants speaking other languages, stealing shit and killing people was all too fucking real, even if the notion of "illegal" back then mainly meant "people who my asshole king doesn't want." The conditions are basically happening again right now, with climate change, but into Europe this time. Systems cannot accept unlimited immigration, nor can society deal with too many unassimilated peoples.
So which way does the moral imperative point? Protect our own, just like everyone else? Or offer safety and equality to all, at cost to ourselves?
Given that it's the audience we have here, think back to Sailor Moon S. Can you understand why Haruka and Michiru think that Usagi is a bleeding-heart liberal who is going to get them all killed with her naïveté?* Hint: it's because Usagi basically does just that. She lets Mistress Nine live despite every opportunity to stop the whole thing, and then gets tricked into giving her the freaking Holy Grail. The whole world almost gets eaten by Cthulhu because Usagi wasn't willing to sacrifice one life, because she was willing to trust her enemy. Sometimes, you have to be the asshole to protect everyone.
Except well, not really. Usagi -- and really liberalism as a whole -- relies on eucatastrophe to work. She only is qualified to be queen when she pulls off a second miracle -- it wasn't just a fluke that they all survived. But you know, we all believe because we see miracles unfolding all around us -- corruption being reduced, slavery being limited, trade promoting peace and welfare, and people from the most repressive cultures around mysteriously wanting to be more like us. I know that sounds like a crazy argument, but even liberalism's detractors, like H.P. Lovecraft, saw society as something of a miracle. To him, it was just something that made life worth living in the face of the uncaring, selfish darkness -- which was most everyone else.
Anyway if you have no idea how someone could be so wrong, or the worst offense I hear from liberals, "How could someone vote against their own interests?", take a step back and look at your assumptions rather than daring people to prove you wrong. You're not gonna win hearts and minds with that stuff.
* (Conversely, do you understand why the Inner Senshi think that the Outers are cruel and heartless? Why hurting a child would never be worth the price, because you become the enemy by taking darkness inside yourself?)
If your goal was to convince someone to change their opinion, then you have failed. Read this Voxsplanation about why we've become so partisan lately. There's a fundamental difference in worldview between the positions of the two parties, and you can't just resolve that with an argument or a dare, because that's just not how humans make decisions.
Honestly, I give a lot of time to considering conservative opinions, because of the risk of being wrong. There are a class of conservative thinkers tend to produce deep truths, like George Will, Bill Kristol, Steve Schmidt, and a few more I'm forgetting. Of course, the opposite of a shallow truth is false, but the opposite of a deep truth is also true.
See the thing is, you're working off of your underlying assumptions. But most Trump fans say something about him like, "Finally, someone is telling the truth!" And most of us in the opposition say, "Trump is a compulsive liar." The truth is not in the middle; both are true to a great degree.
Like, you're going after Ravjik for well, promoting being an asshole sometimes. I admit, when I read that the first time, I was thinking, "lol this dude just tanked his own argument." But you know what, maybe we're just naive? What if your worldview is that most everyone is an asshole all the time? That everyone is trying to take everyone else's stuff -- it's why we see crime, and illegal immigration, and all. So called free trade is just other people attempting to screw us right? So at least Trump, he's our asshole, fighting for us. And Trump doesn't attempt to hide that side of himself -- he's the first honest politician we've had in a long time, who doesn't pretend to play nice and cozy up to all of the other assholes in the world. Communists lie and take your money, but capitalists like Trump earn money in their businesses out in the open.
Except, well, not. Most of the political innovations of the second half of the twentieth century involved diplomacy and gifts, like the UN and the Marshall Plan. And I believe that all people are basically good, or would be good if they had the same chances that I had. If I could, I would completely open the borders of the United States, because after all, a world with open borders would be $78T richer. Everyone deserves a world without corruption or statelessness or poverty.
But the other side keeps me up at night, too. I think about the Late Bronze Age Collapse, where the Sea Peoples almost destroyed Western civilization. Illegal immigrants speaking other languages, stealing shit and killing people was all too fucking real, even if the notion of "illegal" back then mainly meant "people who my asshole king doesn't want." The conditions are basically happening again right now, with climate change, but into Europe this time. Systems cannot accept unlimited immigration, nor can society deal with too many unassimilated peoples.
So which way does the moral imperative point? Protect our own, just like everyone else? Or offer safety and equality to all, at cost to ourselves?
Given that it's the audience we have here, think back to Sailor Moon S. Can you understand why Haruka and Michiru think that Usagi is a bleeding-heart liberal who is going to get them all killed with her naïveté?* Hint: it's because Usagi basically does just that. She lets Mistress Nine live despite every opportunity to stop the whole thing, and then gets tricked into giving her the freaking Holy Grail. The whole world almost gets eaten by Cthulhu because Usagi wasn't willing to sacrifice one life, because she was willing to trust her enemy. Sometimes, you have to be the asshole to protect everyone.
Except well, not really. Usagi -- and really liberalism as a whole -- relies on eucatastrophe to work. She only is qualified to be queen when she pulls off a second miracle -- it wasn't just a fluke that they all survived. But you know, we all believe because we see miracles unfolding all around us -- corruption being reduced, slavery being limited, trade promoting peace and welfare, and people from the most repressive cultures around mysteriously wanting to be more like us. I know that sounds like a crazy argument, but even liberalism's detractors, like H.P. Lovecraft, saw society as something of a miracle. To him, it was just something that made life worth living in the face of the uncaring, selfish darkness -- which was most everyone else.
Anyway if you have no idea how someone could be so wrong, or the worst offense I hear from liberals, "How could someone vote against their own interests?", take a step back and look at your assumptions rather than daring people to prove you wrong. You're not gonna win hearts and minds with that stuff.
* (Conversely, do you understand why the Inner Senshi think that the Outers are cruel and heartless? Why hurting a child would never be worth the price, because you become the enemy by taking darkness inside yourself?)
"Kitto daijoubu da yo." - Sakura Kinomoto