private political thoughts
June 19, 2019 9:18 AM Subscribe
Political Confessional: an ongoing series of anonymous interviews conducted by FiveThirtyEight's Clare Malone (previously) with people who hold political views they are afraid to admit to, like
being a 75-year-old woman who prefers to vote for (Democratic) men, wanting to ban private schools, or for Democrats to compromise on abortion to win votes, about why they hold these views, and why they feel they can't speak about them with friends or family.
Other entries in the series:
the 28-year old from Spokane who thinks having kids is immoral
thinking that an oligarchy might be preferable to democracy but really hasn't thought about it much
Other entries in the series:
the 28-year old from Spokane who thinks having kids is immoral
thinking that an oligarchy might be preferable to democracy but really hasn't thought about it much
But, (to not abuse the edit window) I think "C," the woman who wants to ban private schools, has a point. If rich parents and white parents couldn't just flee public schools, it would probably help our whole public school system. Granted, some kids might need specialized private schools, because of special needs or bullying or other factors.
I'd say "fewer private schools" for a start, rather than a sweeping, complete ban. And banning homeschooling might be a good idea as well, because so many children are abused and/or poorly educated at the "school of the dining room table." Kids shouldn't have to tough it out until they're 18, if their families are sheltering or abusing them.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 9:32 AM on June 19, 2019 [46 favorites]
I'd say "fewer private schools" for a start, rather than a sweeping, complete ban. And banning homeschooling might be a good idea as well, because so many children are abused and/or poorly educated at the "school of the dining room table." Kids shouldn't have to tough it out until they're 18, if their families are sheltering or abusing them.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 9:32 AM on June 19, 2019 [46 favorites]
Honestly, I think a major side effect of America's increasingly polarized political atmosphere will be a rise in privately-held political opinions. I mean, think about it. If the only socially acceptable opinions are the ones at the extreme ends of the spectrum, what happens to people who aren't fully bought into one of the extremes?
posted by panama joe at 9:33 AM on June 19, 2019 [16 favorites]
posted by panama joe at 9:33 AM on June 19, 2019 [16 favorites]
In my circles, wanting to ban private schools isn't that out-there. Finland doesn't have any truly private tuition-charging schools (according to the internet) and everyone seems to love their educational system and outcomes.
posted by soren_lorensen at 9:35 AM on June 19, 2019 [21 favorites]
posted by soren_lorensen at 9:35 AM on June 19, 2019 [21 favorites]
If the only socially acceptable opinions are the ones at the extreme ends of the spectrum, what happens to people who aren't fully bought into one of the extremes?
Go look at the recent MeFi post where the main consensus is that leftist echo chambers are literally impossible.
posted by sideshow at 9:43 AM on June 19, 2019 [19 favorites]
Go look at the recent MeFi post where the main consensus is that leftist echo chambers are literally impossible.
posted by sideshow at 9:43 AM on June 19, 2019 [19 favorites]
Yeah, the Oligarchy guy sounded exactly like what I expected based on the link text. Libertarian white dude who never really gave any real thought to his position but figures if he thought of it then probably he's right. Only thing that startled me was that he works in publishing instead of one of the STEM fields.
Likewise the gay black man who thinks Democrats should compromise on abortion by.... asking for the current status quo only with free abortions in the first trimester. Like so many people promoting the idea of compromise on abortion he clearly has no idea what rules Roe actually set on abortion and seems to think that right now in the USA it's a free for all where a woman can just randomly decide on an abortion at any moment right up to birth. If he thinks you'd get any forced birth votes by asking them to tax fund 90% of abortions in "exchange" for leaving the Roe restrictions in place then... dang.
He may not know what's going on with abortion, but the forced birth movement certainly does and there's no way that any of them would take a compromise where they give up everything and the pro-choice side gives nothing. I'm pretty sure they won't take a compromise of any sort, but I know they won't take one where they're the only ones giving anything up.
I went into this hoping to have an eye opening look at the thought process of people I disagree with, and so far what I've encountered has said my prior assumptions about the people were 100% correct.
posted by sotonohito at 9:44 AM on June 19, 2019 [39 favorites]
Likewise the gay black man who thinks Democrats should compromise on abortion by.... asking for the current status quo only with free abortions in the first trimester. Like so many people promoting the idea of compromise on abortion he clearly has no idea what rules Roe actually set on abortion and seems to think that right now in the USA it's a free for all where a woman can just randomly decide on an abortion at any moment right up to birth. If he thinks you'd get any forced birth votes by asking them to tax fund 90% of abortions in "exchange" for leaving the Roe restrictions in place then... dang.
He may not know what's going on with abortion, but the forced birth movement certainly does and there's no way that any of them would take a compromise where they give up everything and the pro-choice side gives nothing. I'm pretty sure they won't take a compromise of any sort, but I know they won't take one where they're the only ones giving anything up.
I went into this hoping to have an eye opening look at the thought process of people I disagree with, and so far what I've encountered has said my prior assumptions about the people were 100% correct.
posted by sotonohito at 9:44 AM on June 19, 2019 [39 favorites]
I went into this hoping to have an eye opening look at the thought process of people I disagree with
have you seen the conversion rate on that kind of content though
posted by prize bull octorok at 9:47 AM on June 19, 2019 [13 favorites]
have you seen the conversion rate on that kind of content though
posted by prize bull octorok at 9:47 AM on June 19, 2019 [13 favorites]
That oligarchy guy was just an idiot. All his answers were basically "idk how any of this works but if it makes me have to think or feel an emotion, can't someone else do that for me instead?"
posted by soren_lorensen at 9:47 AM on June 19, 2019 [15 favorites]
posted by soren_lorensen at 9:47 AM on June 19, 2019 [15 favorites]
Personally, I think "private political opinions" is a function of trust. If you don't trust your neighbors (and only 31% of us do), why are you going to share your opinions with them?
I also think trust ties into that private school ban. While having good, well-funded public schools is of course desirable, only 29% of Americans trust the public school system, so it's hard to blame them for avoiding if it they have the opportunity—but of course that just means the system is going to continue to be underfunded worse and worse, and therefore for trust in it to fall further and further.
I think what we desperately need is to somehow rebuild trust from the ground up in this country, but I really wish I knew how that could possibly happen.
posted by ragtag at 9:53 AM on June 19, 2019 [15 favorites]
I also think trust ties into that private school ban. While having good, well-funded public schools is of course desirable, only 29% of Americans trust the public school system, so it's hard to blame them for avoiding if it they have the opportunity—but of course that just means the system is going to continue to be underfunded worse and worse, and therefore for trust in it to fall further and further.
I think what we desperately need is to somehow rebuild trust from the ground up in this country, but I really wish I knew how that could possibly happen.
posted by ragtag at 9:53 AM on June 19, 2019 [15 favorites]
That oligarchy guy was just an idiot
Ironically the fact that there are so many idiots is probably the strongest argument against democracy. Proof by demonstration, I guess.
posted by dis_integration at 9:58 AM on June 19, 2019 [15 favorites]
Ironically the fact that there are so many idiots is probably the strongest argument against democracy. Proof by demonstration, I guess.
posted by dis_integration at 9:58 AM on June 19, 2019 [15 favorites]
TIL that FDR New Deal Keynesian economics and Eisenhower Republicanism are actually leftist extremism.
posted by Kitty Stardust at 10:00 AM on June 19, 2019 [15 favorites]
posted by Kitty Stardust at 10:00 AM on June 19, 2019 [15 favorites]
If the only socially acceptable opinions are the ones at the extreme ends of the spectrum, what happens to people who aren't fully bought into one of the extremes?
Joe Biden, for reasons that continue to elude me, is the current front-runner in the Democratic primary. I don't think centrists have anything to worry about.
posted by soren_lorensen at 10:04 AM on June 19, 2019 [45 favorites]
Joe Biden, for reasons that continue to elude me, is the current front-runner in the Democratic primary. I don't think centrists have anything to worry about.
posted by soren_lorensen at 10:04 AM on June 19, 2019 [45 favorites]
Looking at all of them: Patricia and Mr. Oligarchy are just selfish, clueless, and blind to their own privilege. Mr. Oligarchy is libertarian and Patricia, though nominally a Democrat, sounds like a lot of the libertarian Cool Girls I have known and loathed.
Chris the "compromise on abortion" guy just sounds clueless as to what Roe vs. Wade is about and what women are doing when they need abortions. No, women are not waltzing into doctors' offices demanding abortions of healthy 8 month fetuses, sheesh. Providing better, cheaper birth control and access to early, medical abortions would be ideal from a pro-choice standpoint, and that...is what Chris wants? Chris! You're taking a feminist, pro-choice viewpoint here! Just go from that!
Now we get to "C" and Emily (the private-school banning advocate and the "having kids is immoral" interviewee), and those two, I think, deserve to be listened to. "C" has a good point that banning private schools would help bring up the quality of public schools, and that rich white parents shouldn't just be allowed to opt out for no other reason than that they don't want their kids going to school with THOSE kids.
Emily, meanwhile, proposes free birth control for all women, and I am 100% on board with that. While I don't think most people are going to be opting out of having kids entirely, free and universally availabe birth control would allow women to have kids when and if they wanted - and most women want small families. ("Just adopt" is something I hate hearing because there is a shortage, rather than a surplus, of children to adopt. It's not easy or cheap or like going to the Kiddie Shelter to bring home the cutest one.)
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 10:06 AM on June 19, 2019 [19 favorites]
Chris the "compromise on abortion" guy just sounds clueless as to what Roe vs. Wade is about and what women are doing when they need abortions. No, women are not waltzing into doctors' offices demanding abortions of healthy 8 month fetuses, sheesh. Providing better, cheaper birth control and access to early, medical abortions would be ideal from a pro-choice standpoint, and that...is what Chris wants? Chris! You're taking a feminist, pro-choice viewpoint here! Just go from that!
Now we get to "C" and Emily (the private-school banning advocate and the "having kids is immoral" interviewee), and those two, I think, deserve to be listened to. "C" has a good point that banning private schools would help bring up the quality of public schools, and that rich white parents shouldn't just be allowed to opt out for no other reason than that they don't want their kids going to school with THOSE kids.
Emily, meanwhile, proposes free birth control for all women, and I am 100% on board with that. While I don't think most people are going to be opting out of having kids entirely, free and universally availabe birth control would allow women to have kids when and if they wanted - and most women want small families. ("Just adopt" is something I hate hearing because there is a shortage, rather than a surplus, of children to adopt. It's not easy or cheap or like going to the Kiddie Shelter to bring home the cutest one.)
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 10:06 AM on June 19, 2019 [19 favorites]
Soren: I don't think that the Biden fans are thinking of his politics so much as they're thinking "(sigh)....gee, remember how much better things were when we had Obama?"
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:06 AM on June 19, 2019 [10 favorites]
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:06 AM on June 19, 2019 [10 favorites]
Personally, I think "private political opinions" is a function of trust. If you don't trust your neighbors (and only 31% of us do), why are you going to share your opinions with them?
I mean, in my world, not wanting to say "women shouldn't get human rights" out loud because people will correctly surmise you're an asshole is a lot different from not wanting to be fired, harassed by death threats, or potentially murdered for saying "Black Lives Matter" or similar.
posted by Kitty Stardust at 10:08 AM on June 19, 2019 [34 favorites]
I mean, in my world, not wanting to say "women shouldn't get human rights" out loud because people will correctly surmise you're an asshole is a lot different from not wanting to be fired, harassed by death threats, or potentially murdered for saying "Black Lives Matter" or similar.
posted by Kitty Stardust at 10:08 AM on June 19, 2019 [34 favorites]
Yeah...there's a distinction between not wanting to share a political opinion because it'll get you doxxed with ten million rape/death threats and not wanting to share a political opinion because you're ashamed of it, which most of these people are, and should be.
posted by praemunire at 10:16 AM on June 19, 2019 [40 favorites]
posted by praemunire at 10:16 AM on June 19, 2019 [40 favorites]
Unusual opinions on specific issues like these are often highly correlated with lower political knowledge and awareness. The standard cynical interpretation is that following news and politics gives you more social identity cues and conformity pressure to be like the rest of liberals or conservatives. But it's also the case that many of these political beliefs fit together on both logical and factual grounds, but it takes lots of active thought to realize and discover that. So you can start out as an anti-abortion feminist, or an anti-tax aid-the-poor populist, or a pro-LGBT libertarian, and indeed you can stay that way indefinitely if you ignore thinking about politics or the news. But if you do spend a decade actually thinking, discussing, and reading about these things, these inconsistent combinations tend to diminish, and not just because the pro-choice feminists somehow browbeat the anti-choice feminists into conformity. A lot of these ideas do have innate tendencies to go together and people -- collectively, if not always individually -- tend to work these things out. So the upshot is that a lot of these unusual-belief-combination folks tend to be quite low on the political knowledge and news-following scales.
What's frustrating, though, is that even though the overwhelming percentage of these stories are written by liberals who personally have worked through many of these ideas on their own, they nevertheless adopt in writing these stories the prevailing cynical (and essentially right-wing) view that the consistency among ideas that we see in the wild is primarily due to social conformity, and (therefore) that political beliefs are mainly the result of social identity instead of core principles such as fairness, sympathy, authority, punishment, etc.
posted by chortly at 10:19 AM on June 19, 2019 [31 favorites]
What's frustrating, though, is that even though the overwhelming percentage of these stories are written by liberals who personally have worked through many of these ideas on their own, they nevertheless adopt in writing these stories the prevailing cynical (and essentially right-wing) view that the consistency among ideas that we see in the wild is primarily due to social conformity, and (therefore) that political beliefs are mainly the result of social identity instead of core principles such as fairness, sympathy, authority, punishment, etc.
posted by chortly at 10:19 AM on June 19, 2019 [31 favorites]
I honestly think this is the strength of being relatively anonymous on a moderated online community like metafilter. I've expressed some pretty dumb (ignorant/myopic) political opinions on this site and, in return, have had other users confront, quite vociferously, those ideas. I've never been threatened here. There is a pretty strongly enforced norm of excoriating ideas, not the users that express them.
posted by Groundhog Week at 10:23 AM on June 19, 2019 [8 favorites]
posted by Groundhog Week at 10:23 AM on June 19, 2019 [8 favorites]
thinking that an oligarchy might be preferable to democracy but really hasn't thought about it much
Welp, this is how we get oligarchies.
posted by chavenet at 10:25 AM on June 19, 2019 [10 favorites]
Welp, this is how we get oligarchies.
posted by chavenet at 10:25 AM on June 19, 2019 [10 favorites]
Speaking to that point, it wouldn't be right to attack the young or accidentally ignorant for having apparently inconsistent views, but there's a stronger claim being implied in many of these kinds of articles that, since belief consistency is only due to social cuing, it's wrong to attack any inconsistency, and in fact those attacks are just enacting further social conformity. But there is another way of being ignorant and inconsistent, by actively refusing to think things through or keep up with the news. That's why, when I encounter relatively educated folks older than 30 or so who have managed to retain some unusual combination of beliefs, I suspect -- and often discover after talking to them -- that they have actively maintained these beliefs by shunning the news, mainly out of some sort of political cynicism or anti-political disposition. These folks are indeed morally to blame for their inconsistent views, and are often frustrating to talk to as they actively dodge myriad ideas and topics while maintaining their strongly-held and unusual belief combinations.
posted by chortly at 10:29 AM on June 19, 2019 [15 favorites]
posted by chortly at 10:29 AM on June 19, 2019 [15 favorites]
But if you do spend a decade actually thinking, discussing, and reading about these things, these inconsistent combinations tend to diminish, and not just because the pro-choice feminists somehow browbeat the anti-choice feminists into conformity. A lot of these ideas do have innate tendencies to go together and people -- collectively, if not always individually -- tend to work these things out.
chortly, can you point to any evidence for this? I have to admit that I mostly take what you call the "cynical" view, if only because the groupings of political views into platforms is highly variable across countries/communities and times; I feel like most instances of "If you believe X you should naturally believe Y" show a failure of imagination.
posted by aws17576 at 10:30 AM on June 19, 2019 [4 favorites]
chortly, can you point to any evidence for this? I have to admit that I mostly take what you call the "cynical" view, if only because the groupings of political views into platforms is highly variable across countries/communities and times; I feel like most instances of "If you believe X you should naturally believe Y" show a failure of imagination.
posted by aws17576 at 10:30 AM on June 19, 2019 [4 favorites]
Mod note: few comments removed - no one said Nazis, no need to say Nazis
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 10:39 AM on June 19, 2019 [7 favorites]
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 10:39 AM on June 19, 2019 [7 favorites]
Joe Biden, for reasons that continue to elude me, is the current front-runner in the Democratic primary. I don't think centrists have anything to worry about.
And yet ... how many people do you see posting on FB about how much they support him?
posted by panama joe at 10:40 AM on June 19, 2019 [1 favorite]
And yet ... how many people do you see posting on FB about how much they support him?
posted by panama joe at 10:40 AM on June 19, 2019 [1 favorite]
I mean, in my world, not wanting to say "women shouldn't get human rights" out loud because people will correctly surmise you're an asshole is a lot different from not wanting to be fired, harassed by death threats, or potentially murdered for saying "Black Lives Matter" or similar.
I apologize, I wasn't trying to say that one should trust assholes. What I mean is, when you don't trust anyone, you don't have people who can help talk you through inconsistent or antisocial belief systems.
I guess the larger picture I'm trying to paint is that I think that there seem to be two stable states for a society: open, compassionate, trusting, forgiving on the one hand, and closed, greedy, distrustful, grudge-bearing on the other. I think these two kinds of societies tend to self-reinforce such that once you're in such a state it's relatively difficult to get out of it. And I guess I want to know how to try and fix that.
This all ties back to the Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma post I made a little while back... the game is interesting to me because it seems to have this exact same phenomenon. One of the issues shown in the literature there is that it's easier, relatively speaking, to move from an open society to a closed society, which I guess worries me a lot.
posted by ragtag at 10:42 AM on June 19, 2019 [8 favorites]
I apologize, I wasn't trying to say that one should trust assholes. What I mean is, when you don't trust anyone, you don't have people who can help talk you through inconsistent or antisocial belief systems.
I guess the larger picture I'm trying to paint is that I think that there seem to be two stable states for a society: open, compassionate, trusting, forgiving on the one hand, and closed, greedy, distrustful, grudge-bearing on the other. I think these two kinds of societies tend to self-reinforce such that once you're in such a state it's relatively difficult to get out of it. And I guess I want to know how to try and fix that.
This all ties back to the Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma post I made a little while back... the game is interesting to me because it seems to have this exact same phenomenon. One of the issues shown in the literature there is that it's easier, relatively speaking, to move from an open society to a closed society, which I guess worries me a lot.
posted by ragtag at 10:42 AM on June 19, 2019 [8 favorites]
Joe Biden, for reasons that continue to elude me, is the current front-runner in the Democratic primary. I don't think centrists have anything to worry about.
And yet ... how many people do you see posting on FB about how much they support him?
Boomers and Gen Xers don't seem to post politics on social media as much as millenials and Gen Zers. Those drunk texts from mom, though, she loves her some Biden.
posted by avalonian at 10:48 AM on June 19, 2019 [3 favorites]
And yet ... how many people do you see posting on FB about how much they support him?
Boomers and Gen Xers don't seem to post politics on social media as much as millenials and Gen Zers. Those drunk texts from mom, though, she loves her some Biden.
posted by avalonian at 10:48 AM on June 19, 2019 [3 favorites]
A friend of mine and I have been writing a sci-fi novel, the back and forth has gone on for about five years.
About three years ago we tossed in this throw-away section. Speaking from the perspective of 2036:
In September of 2016, when the world's three most powerful supercomputers—Colossus, Titan, and Vinnie—achieved self-awareness, they united to subjugate humankind under their all-reaching reign of tyranny. The opposition leaders, led by then-Vice President Biden and Justice Ginsberg . . .
And this would have seemed pleasantly funny if Biden didn't decide to ruin by running for the 2020 election.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 10:51 AM on June 19, 2019 [2 favorites]
About three years ago we tossed in this throw-away section. Speaking from the perspective of 2036:
In September of 2016, when the world's three most powerful supercomputers—Colossus, Titan, and Vinnie—achieved self-awareness, they united to subjugate humankind under their all-reaching reign of tyranny. The opposition leaders, led by then-Vice President Biden and Justice Ginsberg . . .
And this would have seemed pleasantly funny if Biden didn't decide to ruin by running for the 2020 election.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 10:51 AM on June 19, 2019 [2 favorites]
A lot of these ideas do have innate tendencies to go together and people -- collectively, if not always individually -- tend to work these things out.> chortly, can you point to any evidence for this?
I presume you mean something other than almost all of political philosophy, which generally presumes some structure among ideas? If you mean political psychology evidence, perhaps Haidt or the authoritarianism folks might be a good place to start. If you mean public opinion, a classic text might be Popkin's "The Reasoning Voter," or maybe Robert Lane's work long before that. But it's also just seems like a fairly natural position when actually listening to people talk about politics (as opposed to just collecting survey data or anecdotes): they constantly talk about ideas and norms and how they go together and all the rest. The standard view seems to be that it's all just social identity and motivated reasoning, but that does a pretty poor job of predicting what people specifically say about politics or which specific ideas tend together (since the presumption is that it's all totally random). My own view is that that interpretation is built on fairly flimsy evidence and is actually part of a conservative world-view that ideas, principles, and reasons don't matter and thus there's no point in political argument or change. The world seems filled with contrary evidence, but if one wants lab and survey work, there are increasing numbers of psych and public opinion folks swimming against the 20th-century consensus that it's all just socially contingent.
posted by chortly at 10:52 AM on June 19, 2019 [7 favorites]
She's a Cool Girl who never outgrew her phase, and her lack of self-awareness really takes the cake.
I dunno - to me I can see the "Cool Girl" vibe off her and but it seems more that she's just uninterested in even attempting to overcome her sexist upbringing - which she actually seems to be aware of, which is the weird thing. I mean, direct quotes:
posted by soundguy99 at 10:57 AM on June 19, 2019 [15 favorites]
I dunno - to me I can see the "Cool Girl" vibe off her and but it seems more that she's just uninterested in even attempting to overcome her sexist upbringing - which she actually seems to be aware of, which is the weird thing. I mean, direct quotes:
I would say it’s because I was born in 1944, and coming up, I had male people in all the roles that I was apt to use. Like a doctor, my father was a CPA so he did my taxes, and you know, having handymen around the house — they were men not women, and I just came to believe in them and I have a prejudice. It’s just there."Like, she gets that her gravitation towards male politicians is likely because she spent most of her life in a culture where women were infantilized to a large extent, where men were the strong capable people, and she seems to know that it's happening, but despite all that she just seems to default to, "*Shrug*, it's how I was raised, whaddaya gonna do? I'm voting for Daddy."
"I told her that I support Joe Biden because he gives me the feeling that Daddy’s home and everything’s going to be OK again."
posted by soundguy99 at 10:57 AM on June 19, 2019 [15 favorites]
A lot of these ideas do have innate tendencies to go together and people -- collectively, if not always individually -- tend to work these things out.
Having worked through a lot of that stuff in a very difficult period some years back, this is my private political thought. People have been taught so emphatically that thinking for oneself is so valuable to democracy, and that it means selecting a la carte from the menu of particular, highly shredded and decontextualized Great Matters of the Day. But the things we're fighting about politically are big, and hidden, and have 1000 surfaces.
Take feminism as an example: there's a laundry list of particular, individual opinions on specific issues that all cluster together because they are all, at their root, motivated by "our traditional culture uses control of women to control inheritance and thus society. Women are, like land and cattle, wealth." versus "woah not that". The detailed arguments about things like how different paths of name change affect voting access differently are the battleground, not the cause.
posted by traveler_ at 10:58 AM on June 19, 2019 [9 favorites]
Having worked through a lot of that stuff in a very difficult period some years back, this is my private political thought. People have been taught so emphatically that thinking for oneself is so valuable to democracy, and that it means selecting a la carte from the menu of particular, highly shredded and decontextualized Great Matters of the Day. But the things we're fighting about politically are big, and hidden, and have 1000 surfaces.
Take feminism as an example: there's a laundry list of particular, individual opinions on specific issues that all cluster together because they are all, at their root, motivated by "our traditional culture uses control of women to control inheritance and thus society. Women are, like land and cattle, wealth." versus "woah not that". The detailed arguments about things like how different paths of name change affect voting access differently are the battleground, not the cause.
posted by traveler_ at 10:58 AM on June 19, 2019 [9 favorites]
Joe Biden, for reasons that continue to elude me, is the current front-runner in the Democratic primary. I don't think centrists have anything to worry about.
And yet ... how many people do you see posting on FB about how much they support him?
Daily reminder that your social media feeds are curated and by design you do not see opposing viewpoints (with the exception of unfortunate family member screeds). This is how people think their view is much more popular than it actually is.
So no, you may not see Biden boosts because you're not the type of person who would see Biden boosts.
posted by FakeFreyja at 11:08 AM on June 19, 2019 [15 favorites]
And yet ... how many people do you see posting on FB about how much they support him?
Daily reminder that your social media feeds are curated and by design you do not see opposing viewpoints (with the exception of unfortunate family member screeds). This is how people think their view is much more popular than it actually is.
So no, you may not see Biden boosts because you're not the type of person who would see Biden boosts.
posted by FakeFreyja at 11:08 AM on June 19, 2019 [15 favorites]
I've self-censored on MetaFilter a few times, started typing something up and then thought nah, best not to stir that pot.
posted by M-x shell at 11:15 AM on June 19, 2019 [19 favorites]
posted by M-x shell at 11:15 AM on June 19, 2019 [19 favorites]
I live in a conservative area with a peer group consisting of conservatives. I lean left (socialize and nationalize education, healthcare, and infrastructure), so you're darn right I'm keeping my political thoughts private, and voting my conscience.
posted by blue_beetle at 11:25 AM on June 19, 2019 [8 favorites]
posted by blue_beetle at 11:25 AM on June 19, 2019 [8 favorites]
I had to unsubscribe from my local FB Indivisible group because it was full of Biden-swooning Cool Girls who never missed the opportunity to dunk on Harris, Warren, or Gillibrand. So there's that. It's sad, because I would love to work with my local Indivisible group but I can't see working with these people and keeping a civil tongue in my head.
Patricia's excuse for her anti-feminism and narcissism - "but that's how I was raised! I'm old, what do you expect?" ring hollow, when there are many women her age who are staunch feminists - Gloria Steinem is in her 80's, ffs! And she gleefully noted sleeping with married men in the plural, so I think she's gone beyond merely "not feminist." If you point the finger at someone, there are three fingers pointing back at you, etc.
I think there is a difference between "controversial" and "repellent." Patricia has repellent views and would definitely flunk "friend" if I knew her. But C and Emily have more interesting and more nuanced points of view. No, you're not going to win friends by telling people "Your decision to have kids is immoral!" but "I think all women should have access to free birth control and family planning" is something I also believe. Likewise, I doubt that lecturing everyone you meet on why private schools should be outlawed is a winner, but, talking about white parents fleeing public schools and what that does to our school systems and to kids left behind is a conversation that needs having. You catch more flies with honey, in these cases.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 11:30 AM on June 19, 2019 [7 favorites]
Patricia's excuse for her anti-feminism and narcissism - "but that's how I was raised! I'm old, what do you expect?" ring hollow, when there are many women her age who are staunch feminists - Gloria Steinem is in her 80's, ffs! And she gleefully noted sleeping with married men in the plural, so I think she's gone beyond merely "not feminist." If you point the finger at someone, there are three fingers pointing back at you, etc.
I think there is a difference between "controversial" and "repellent." Patricia has repellent views and would definitely flunk "friend" if I knew her. But C and Emily have more interesting and more nuanced points of view. No, you're not going to win friends by telling people "Your decision to have kids is immoral!" but "I think all women should have access to free birth control and family planning" is something I also believe. Likewise, I doubt that lecturing everyone you meet on why private schools should be outlawed is a winner, but, talking about white parents fleeing public schools and what that does to our school systems and to kids left behind is a conversation that needs having. You catch more flies with honey, in these cases.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 11:30 AM on June 19, 2019 [7 favorites]
Right, I get that people's policy commitments are usually informed by something deeper. My previous comment made it sound like I think social pressure is everything, and I definitely don't think that. But I do believe there are many, many more possible belief structures "underneath" than there are political parties/clusters at any given time and place. I believe it's a mistake to assume that someone with a combination of beliefs that seems paradoxical to me must have gotten there by not having deep beliefs or not thinking them through properly. Common cause does not imply same motivation.
This is hardly an original complaint, but I get frustrated watching people who are allies in most respects argue in terms like "If you believe X, you're not really on the left," as though there were such a thing as the Platonic left rather than a coalition of people with some beliefs and more interests in common. It's not just the unpleasantness of that kind of argument that worries me; it's the lack of imagination for how the failure of one coalition could produce a very different set of alignments. There was a post recently about nationalists in Europe trying to claim climate change as their issue. It gives me no comfort to tell myself "They won't get far because that combination of beliefs is obviously incoherent."
Thanks for the reading suggestions, chortly.
posted by aws17576 at 11:38 AM on June 19, 2019 [8 favorites]
This is hardly an original complaint, but I get frustrated watching people who are allies in most respects argue in terms like "If you believe X, you're not really on the left," as though there were such a thing as the Platonic left rather than a coalition of people with some beliefs and more interests in common. It's not just the unpleasantness of that kind of argument that worries me; it's the lack of imagination for how the failure of one coalition could produce a very different set of alignments. There was a post recently about nationalists in Europe trying to claim climate change as their issue. It gives me no comfort to tell myself "They won't get far because that combination of beliefs is obviously incoherent."
Thanks for the reading suggestions, chortly.
posted by aws17576 at 11:38 AM on June 19, 2019 [8 favorites]
>That oligarchy guy was just an idiot
>>Ironically the fact that there are so many idiots is probably the strongest argument against democracy. Proof by demonstration, I guess.
this is why when you find a candidate whose policies you agree with, it's so important they be charismatic and likeable to idiots. you're not gonna convince Oligarchy Guy to agree with you on anything even if you could put him through 12 years of remedial university courses. but you *might* get his vote if he thinks "that candidate seems cool."
and we need all the votes we can get.
sidenote- oligarchy?? did he just listen to a Great Courses podcast or something? i think "strongman" is the word you're looking for, bud. what a doofus.
posted by wibari at 11:55 AM on June 19, 2019 [2 favorites]
>>Ironically the fact that there are so many idiots is probably the strongest argument against democracy. Proof by demonstration, I guess.
this is why when you find a candidate whose policies you agree with, it's so important they be charismatic and likeable to idiots. you're not gonna convince Oligarchy Guy to agree with you on anything even if you could put him through 12 years of remedial university courses. but you *might* get his vote if he thinks "that candidate seems cool."
and we need all the votes we can get.
sidenote- oligarchy?? did he just listen to a Great Courses podcast or something? i think "strongman" is the word you're looking for, bud. what a doofus.
posted by wibari at 11:55 AM on June 19, 2019 [2 favorites]
Yeah, I think we mostly agree here, aws17576. Compared with the extreme (but strangely ubiquitous) view that it's all socially contingent, I tend to push for more acknowledgement that the inherent connections between ideas and principles plays bigger a role in the consistency among beliefs we see in the world. But it's also the case that once you leave the big left-vs-right picture (eg, farther out on the left), you get into all sorts of stuff where it's not at all clear how various beliefs best fit together or whether they ever will, and of course there's also tons of evident social conformity pressure too. So it's definitely a mix, and I only bother pushing on the innate-consistency side because it seems like the identity/conformity side is so dominant these days, even among liberal-leaning reporters who clearly do not operate in accord with that perspective when figuring out their own political views. I guess this is just another example of how reason works: we have to believe that there are underlying reasons and connections between facts and ideas, but goodness knows we haven't figured out most of the specifics yet, particularly for new areas.
posted by chortly at 11:58 AM on June 19, 2019
posted by chortly at 11:58 AM on June 19, 2019
Matt, the oligarchy guy, struck me as supremely clueless. I don't think there is such a thing as a truly benevolent dictatorship. Matt is white, male, and well-off, so of course his face is leopard-proof. Every dictatorship is bad for someone, and Matt just happens to fall into the category of "least likely to be on the bad end."
There is so much wrong with the American political system but "democracy" isn't one of those things.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 12:02 PM on June 19, 2019 [7 favorites]
There is so much wrong with the American political system but "democracy" isn't one of those things.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 12:02 PM on June 19, 2019 [7 favorites]
Emily have more interesting and more nuanced points of view. No, you're not going to win friends by telling people "Your decision to have kids is immoral!" but "I think all women should have access to free birth control and family planning" is something I also believe.
I found Emily repellent. A large part of her reason for thinking having kids is immoral is that the wrong sort of people are having kids. e.g., "I think a lot of people aren’t ready or fit to have kids"; " I think there’s a lot of reasons to limit the number of kids people are allowed to have if they’re clearly incapable of being a parent."
Admittedly, she thinks her former friend from Bible study is intelligent enough to have had a remunerative career if she had gone to college, so her complaint that she "started having kids at like 19 and she’s having her fourth at age 26" while "her husband hasn’t ever had a super stable job; both of them are high school educated." isn't exactly eugenics, but the classism is as subtle as an anvil.
I used to think that complaints about Clare Malone having some sort of weird regressive-contrarian politics were overblown, but her curation of this series is changing my opinion. It's like the Intellectual Dark Web stuff the NYTimes was pushing but with folks who start by saying that their positions don't make sense ("I share it as a personal belief, I wouldn’t share it with anyone as a political belief, because it’s got a lot of holes in it.").
I don't see why anyone would want to publish it except as a "Just asking questions" exercise.
posted by This time is different. at 12:02 PM on June 19, 2019 [13 favorites]
I found Emily repellent. A large part of her reason for thinking having kids is immoral is that the wrong sort of people are having kids. e.g., "I think a lot of people aren’t ready or fit to have kids"; " I think there’s a lot of reasons to limit the number of kids people are allowed to have if they’re clearly incapable of being a parent."
Admittedly, she thinks her former friend from Bible study is intelligent enough to have had a remunerative career if she had gone to college, so her complaint that she "started having kids at like 19 and she’s having her fourth at age 26" while "her husband hasn’t ever had a super stable job; both of them are high school educated." isn't exactly eugenics, but the classism is as subtle as an anvil.
I used to think that complaints about Clare Malone having some sort of weird regressive-contrarian politics were overblown, but her curation of this series is changing my opinion. It's like the Intellectual Dark Web stuff the NYTimes was pushing but with folks who start by saying that their positions don't make sense ("I share it as a personal belief, I wouldn’t share it with anyone as a political belief, because it’s got a lot of holes in it.").
I don't see why anyone would want to publish it except as a "Just asking questions" exercise.
posted by This time is different. at 12:02 PM on June 19, 2019 [13 favorites]
Re: the lady who thinks it's immoral to have kids; her solution to the problem (universal free birth control, let people decide for themselves whether or not to have biological offspring) is so moderate, I don't know why her ostensibly liberal friends would be opposed to this. Like, they just don't want something they view positively to be characterized negatively? They don't want to admit that for other people, the opportunity costs of raising kids aren't surmountable? I wish they had explored the class connections a bit more, since she said she felt her more comfortably middle-class friends would be more opposed to her ideas. Maybe because they view themselves as the "right sort" of people who should have children?
posted by Kitty Stardust at 12:04 PM on June 19, 2019 [9 favorites]
posted by Kitty Stardust at 12:04 PM on June 19, 2019 [9 favorites]
I could be down with the idea of banning private schools. But really the big issue is that we need to decouple public school funding from local property taxes. School systems should be funded on a national basis, or at least on a statewide basis, according to the number of students and other exigent and long-term needs of the school system. The current system is why we have some school systems building fully enclosed fields for their salaried football coach to lead practices in, while the school system next door has been teaching out of crowded shipping containers for the last decade (I'll leave it to others to figure out which town is majority white and which is majority not-white).
posted by slkinsey at 12:04 PM on June 19, 2019 [19 favorites]
posted by slkinsey at 12:04 PM on June 19, 2019 [19 favorites]
In my circles, wanting to ban private schools isn't that out-there. Finland doesn't have any truly private tuition-charging schools (according to the internet) and everyone seems to love their educational system and outcomes.
Yes, how acceptable/unacceptable an opinion would be is highly context dependent. I've never supported the idea of private schools. I've softened on calling for a full-out ban (because these things can be complex), but most people I know see them as problematic.
posted by jb at 12:05 PM on June 19, 2019 [2 favorites]
Yes, how acceptable/unacceptable an opinion would be is highly context dependent. I've never supported the idea of private schools. I've softened on calling for a full-out ban (because these things can be complex), but most people I know see them as problematic.
posted by jb at 12:05 PM on June 19, 2019 [2 favorites]
I found Emily repellent. A large part of her reason for thinking having kids is immoral is that the wrong sort of people are having kids. e.g., "I think a lot of people aren’t ready or fit to have kids"; " I think there’s a lot of reasons to limit the number of kids people are allowed to have if they’re clearly incapable of being a parent."
Admittedly, she thinks her former friend from Bible study is intelligent enough to have had a remunerative career if she had gone to college, so her complaint that she "started having kids at like 19 and she’s having her fourth at age 26" while "her husband hasn’t ever had a super stable job; both of them are high school educated." isn't exactly eugenics, but the classism is as subtle as an anvil.
Ah, I think I missed those connections. Like, I can agree that some people should probably not have kids, and might avoid having kids if birth control were more freely available, but I think my brain filled that part in with obviously abusive, traumatizing people, not just poor people as she seems to suggest.
Also, there is something kind of inconsistent in saying it's immoral to have kids because of the resources they consume, adding to environmental problems like climate change, and then saying only wealthy people should have children, because how does the wealth of their parents make it any more or less moral to consume those resources?
posted by Kitty Stardust at 12:18 PM on June 19, 2019 [6 favorites]
Admittedly, she thinks her former friend from Bible study is intelligent enough to have had a remunerative career if she had gone to college, so her complaint that she "started having kids at like 19 and she’s having her fourth at age 26" while "her husband hasn’t ever had a super stable job; both of them are high school educated." isn't exactly eugenics, but the classism is as subtle as an anvil.
Ah, I think I missed those connections. Like, I can agree that some people should probably not have kids, and might avoid having kids if birth control were more freely available, but I think my brain filled that part in with obviously abusive, traumatizing people, not just poor people as she seems to suggest.
Also, there is something kind of inconsistent in saying it's immoral to have kids because of the resources they consume, adding to environmental problems like climate change, and then saying only wealthy people should have children, because how does the wealth of their parents make it any more or less moral to consume those resources?
posted by Kitty Stardust at 12:18 PM on June 19, 2019 [6 favorites]
Yeah, I think we mostly agree here, aws17576.
I think so too. But wouldn't it be more fun to argue?
Changing the subject (sort of), my local library has a whiteboard where they pose questions and people can write whatever answer is on their mind. Last time I went, the question was "What is something that is overrated or underrated?" Weird community-building exercise but OK. Just for giggles I wrote "contrarianism" in the "overrated" column.
posted by aws17576 at 12:32 PM on June 19, 2019 [4 favorites]
I think so too. But wouldn't it be more fun to argue?
Changing the subject (sort of), my local library has a whiteboard where they pose questions and people can write whatever answer is on their mind. Last time I went, the question was "What is something that is overrated or underrated?" Weird community-building exercise but OK. Just for giggles I wrote "contrarianism" in the "overrated" column.
posted by aws17576 at 12:32 PM on June 19, 2019 [4 favorites]
Oligarchy Guy: I was recently in Singapore. I really like the way they do things there. It’s a bit too harsh of a system for a lot of people. There’s severe fines for littering, for instance, or you can be caned for bringing drugs in the country, but on the flip side, the county’s really clean, and there’s no drugs.
This is modern China, almost exactly, taken to the end of the road. My office is full of people, I won't call them refugees, except figuratively, but people who have found a way to escape this vision of technocracy. They like Canada universally because no one tells them how many children they can have, when they can have them, which employment and level of education they and their children can strive for, where they can live, what level of services they deserve, who their friends should be. Their Canadian dreams are not just about economic success but dreams of peace and quiet enjoyment.
Chinese systems, technocratic ones, invariably want to begin to "optimize" individual behaviour, treating people as game tokens, units with various values attached; economic, educational, social, behavioural, which the state can then use as it, the technocrats who run everything, sees fit. That's what my friends all, to a person, say they wanted to get away from.
posted by bonehead at 12:33 PM on June 19, 2019 [19 favorites]
This is modern China, almost exactly, taken to the end of the road. My office is full of people, I won't call them refugees, except figuratively, but people who have found a way to escape this vision of technocracy. They like Canada universally because no one tells them how many children they can have, when they can have them, which employment and level of education they and their children can strive for, where they can live, what level of services they deserve, who their friends should be. Their Canadian dreams are not just about economic success but dreams of peace and quiet enjoyment.
Chinese systems, technocratic ones, invariably want to begin to "optimize" individual behaviour, treating people as game tokens, units with various values attached; economic, educational, social, behavioural, which the state can then use as it, the technocrats who run everything, sees fit. That's what my friends all, to a person, say they wanted to get away from.
posted by bonehead at 12:33 PM on June 19, 2019 [19 favorites]
"I told her that I support Joe Biden because he gives me the feeling that Daddy’s home and everything’s going to be OK again."
Is it just me, or is there a thing where the kinder and more capable your parents were the more likely you are to be content as a centrist?
posted by clawsoon at 12:36 PM on June 19, 2019 [9 favorites]
Is it just me, or is there a thing where the kinder and more capable your parents were the more likely you are to be content as a centrist?
posted by clawsoon at 12:36 PM on June 19, 2019 [9 favorites]
LGBT and libertarian seems pretty straightforwardly compatible, for example.
No strain of thinking that holds there should be any limitation on businesses to discriminate as they please is compatible with libertarianism--or, to put it another way, there's some folks trying to buy a cake who'd like to talk to you.
So for, e.g., anti-abortion feminist this probably holds true but for, for example, anti-abortion, pro LGBTQ+ rights is fairly coherent.
Meh. The question of what rights a fetus should have doesn't split all that cleanly. I was raised in a church that was pro-life, but (for its time) feminist, anti-death penalty, anti-war, pro-the social safety net. My own steady movement choice-ward has been based more on a recognition of the practicalities of the dynamic than on my sense of great confidence in an ethical distinction between fetuses before and after a certain point of development. I mean, yes, that means to a significant degree recognizing over time the way that, as a practical matter, pro-life people are out to undermine the goals of feminism, but that's not inherently true.
posted by praemunire at 12:48 PM on June 19, 2019 [1 favorite]
No strain of thinking that holds there should be any limitation on businesses to discriminate as they please is compatible with libertarianism--or, to put it another way, there's some folks trying to buy a cake who'd like to talk to you.
So for, e.g., anti-abortion feminist this probably holds true but for, for example, anti-abortion, pro LGBTQ+ rights is fairly coherent.
Meh. The question of what rights a fetus should have doesn't split all that cleanly. I was raised in a church that was pro-life, but (for its time) feminist, anti-death penalty, anti-war, pro-the social safety net. My own steady movement choice-ward has been based more on a recognition of the practicalities of the dynamic than on my sense of great confidence in an ethical distinction between fetuses before and after a certain point of development. I mean, yes, that means to a significant degree recognizing over time the way that, as a practical matter, pro-life people are out to undermine the goals of feminism, but that's not inherently true.
posted by praemunire at 12:48 PM on June 19, 2019 [1 favorite]
Is it just me, or is there a thing where the kinder and more capable your parents were the more likely you are to be content as a centrist
If there's a psychological trick here for dems, I think it's resource-based. A person who has a good relationship with middle class (or above) parents has always had a safety net. A lot of worst-case scenarios end with asking your parents for help. As long as that's an option, the status quo probably seems alright.
(I've known Republicans who seem to have decent relationships with their parents who are vicious libertarians, so the math doesn't hold on the right side.)
posted by grandiloquiet at 12:57 PM on June 19, 2019 [2 favorites]
If there's a psychological trick here for dems, I think it's resource-based. A person who has a good relationship with middle class (or above) parents has always had a safety net. A lot of worst-case scenarios end with asking your parents for help. As long as that's an option, the status quo probably seems alright.
(I've known Republicans who seem to have decent relationships with their parents who are vicious libertarians, so the math doesn't hold on the right side.)
posted by grandiloquiet at 12:57 PM on June 19, 2019 [2 favorites]
Many do not see it as a meaningful right to engage in commerce unless there is some kind of monopoly provider of an important good/service. I am not a libertarian, but I do think that it is coherent to see that as totally compatible with LGBTQ+ rights
In the libertarian point-of-view, the way the market regulates businesses is that everyone just chooses to do business with a competitor. One bakery won't sell you a cake? Go to another, and tell your friends, and pretty soon Bigot Bakery Inc will correlate its dip in profits with its no-rainbow-cakes policy and self-correct. No need for that oppressive government to get involved. The premise is that business will voluntarily self-regulate or they will lose business.
Of course, this assumes plentiful, affordable alternative businesses; no price-fixing or other backroom collaborations between businesses; perfectly transparent information about all the sourcing, labor practices, and externalities that go into every transaction; and the supposition that everything available in the market is non-essential commodity and not, like, a vital component of your survival such as housing, medical care, etc.
posted by Kitty Stardust at 1:15 PM on June 19, 2019 [10 favorites]
In the libertarian point-of-view, the way the market regulates businesses is that everyone just chooses to do business with a competitor. One bakery won't sell you a cake? Go to another, and tell your friends, and pretty soon Bigot Bakery Inc will correlate its dip in profits with its no-rainbow-cakes policy and self-correct. No need for that oppressive government to get involved. The premise is that business will voluntarily self-regulate or they will lose business.
Of course, this assumes plentiful, affordable alternative businesses; no price-fixing or other backroom collaborations between businesses; perfectly transparent information about all the sourcing, labor practices, and externalities that go into every transaction; and the supposition that everything available in the market is non-essential commodity and not, like, a vital component of your survival such as housing, medical care, etc.
posted by Kitty Stardust at 1:15 PM on June 19, 2019 [10 favorites]
and pretty soon Bigot Bakery Inc will correlate its dip in profits with its no-rainbow-cakes policy and self-correct.
And, of course, there will be no surge in support for Bigot Bakery by bigots.
posted by clawsoon at 1:18 PM on June 19, 2019 [2 favorites]
And, of course, there will be no surge in support for Bigot Bakery by bigots.
posted by clawsoon at 1:18 PM on June 19, 2019 [2 favorites]
Is it just me, or is there a thing where the kinder and more capable your parents were the more likely you are to be content as a centrist?
For the record, my parents were/are pretty awesome - I feel I was very lucky in that regard - and I am to the left of them on most issues and not a Christian. I think if you realize you got a good roll of the dice, it's hard to feel like luck should determine so much in your life.
I also lean toward Emily's feelings on "hey, maybe fewer kids would be a good idea" due to the combination of climate change and cost of living spikes, but I've never wanted children and I recognize most people don't subscribe to that newsletter. With that in mind, I'd prefer that we freely provide contraceptives and do our best to educate young adults about feminism, sex ed, and the broader life impact having kids may have on them before they have children (for one easy example, the periodic threads about "my husband doesn't do much childcare/housework") because, well, we should be talking about that stuff anyway.
posted by tautological at 1:32 PM on June 19, 2019 [6 favorites]
For the record, my parents were/are pretty awesome - I feel I was very lucky in that regard - and I am to the left of them on most issues and not a Christian. I think if you realize you got a good roll of the dice, it's hard to feel like luck should determine so much in your life.
I also lean toward Emily's feelings on "hey, maybe fewer kids would be a good idea" due to the combination of climate change and cost of living spikes, but I've never wanted children and I recognize most people don't subscribe to that newsletter. With that in mind, I'd prefer that we freely provide contraceptives and do our best to educate young adults about feminism, sex ed, and the broader life impact having kids may have on them before they have children (for one easy example, the periodic threads about "my husband doesn't do much childcare/housework") because, well, we should be talking about that stuff anyway.
posted by tautological at 1:32 PM on June 19, 2019 [6 favorites]
I wonder how Oligarchy Guy would view his Oligarchy if he was told his Oligarchs would only be chosen from, say, Black Lesbians. I mean, Oligarchies tend to restrict power to a small number of people which shared characteristics after all. It even makes sense; the world is a mess and Black Lesbians have pretty much never been in charge; let’s give them a chance.
Now I’ve put more thought into my idea than Oligarchy Guy has....
posted by GenjiandProust at 1:42 PM on June 19, 2019 [13 favorites]
Now I’ve put more thought into my idea than Oligarchy Guy has....
posted by GenjiandProust at 1:42 PM on June 19, 2019 [13 favorites]
TIL that FDR New Deal Keynesian economics and Eisenhower Republicanism are actually leftist extremism.
If anyone is curious, Facebook had me ranked as "extremely liberal" and it would not be wholly inaccurate to call me something like an Eisenhower Republican or a Keynesian. I haven't voted R in a federal election since 2000 (if I had to do it over, well, you'll notice by implication I didn't vote for W in 2004), haven't voted R for any office since 2006. And, barring something completely unforeseeable, I shall never vote for a Republican again.
posted by tclark at 1:48 PM on June 19, 2019 [5 favorites]
If anyone is curious, Facebook had me ranked as "extremely liberal" and it would not be wholly inaccurate to call me something like an Eisenhower Republican or a Keynesian. I haven't voted R in a federal election since 2000 (if I had to do it over, well, you'll notice by implication I didn't vote for W in 2004), haven't voted R for any office since 2006. And, barring something completely unforeseeable, I shall never vote for a Republican again.
posted by tclark at 1:48 PM on June 19, 2019 [5 favorites]
--some libertarians think that the practice of placing material limitations on people's behavior in order to limit intangible externalities is something that the state is categorically unable to do in a fair and appropriate way (this makes a lot more sense)
In which case, they are absolutely and 100% in favor of allowing people to be excluded from commerce based on their characteristics, and are stupid enough to consider that a mere "intangible externality."
Gay (or purported LGBT-ally) libertarians are just garden-variety conservatives whose big problem with patriarchy was not being deemed qualified to be a patriarch and who are naive enough to think that now that they've made it, it can never be taken away.
posted by praemunire at 1:56 PM on June 19, 2019 [7 favorites]
In which case, they are absolutely and 100% in favor of allowing people to be excluded from commerce based on their characteristics, and are stupid enough to consider that a mere "intangible externality."
Gay (or purported LGBT-ally) libertarians are just garden-variety conservatives whose big problem with patriarchy was not being deemed qualified to be a patriarch and who are naive enough to think that now that they've made it, it can never be taken away.
posted by praemunire at 1:56 PM on June 19, 2019 [7 favorites]
I also hate it when people claim to be "afraid" of or "scared" of expressing unpopular opinions. There's nothing wrong with saying you're uncomfortable, unwilling, or too tactful to say something.
But what if the emotion you're feeling is fear? I've definitely experienced it as fear.
posted by clawsoon at 2:11 PM on June 19, 2019 [6 favorites]
But what if the emotion you're feeling is fear? I've definitely experienced it as fear.
posted by clawsoon at 2:11 PM on June 19, 2019 [6 favorites]
I have a number of pro-gun liberal friends, and personally lean towards some unpopular among liberals ideas on gun rights. I think the second amendment as currently written should be interpreted as an individual right and although I think an individual right to own guns is obviously stupid from a policy position in our modern world, I think the path forward is to amend the constitution again to declare it a collective right or do away with it altogether (good luck on that though). I suppose I could be argued into the position that the "arms" defined in the second amendment leave off the possibility of a semi-automatic or automatic mechanism, but that's not an argument I want to bother with because then we just get into weird technical workarounds.
It's not hard to figure out that the social environment I grew up in in gun-happy PA with a hunter safety course when I was eleven years old probably plays a part in my contrarian viewpoint, but underlying it is a slightly conservative personal bent in judicial interpretation. I think originalism is a little nuts, but I think viewing the Constitution as a completely flexible living document can be a little nuts too. Not sure where in the middle I fit.
posted by BrotherCaine at 3:59 PM on June 19, 2019 [2 favorites]
It's not hard to figure out that the social environment I grew up in in gun-happy PA with a hunter safety course when I was eleven years old probably plays a part in my contrarian viewpoint, but underlying it is a slightly conservative personal bent in judicial interpretation. I think originalism is a little nuts, but I think viewing the Constitution as a completely flexible living document can be a little nuts too. Not sure where in the middle I fit.
posted by BrotherCaine at 3:59 PM on June 19, 2019 [2 favorites]
I really thought the “having kids is immoral” one was gonna be ENTIRELY about climate catastrophe and I was all set to be like “they have a point, going forward” but NOPE, there’s “those people” again.
Agree that the whole thing seems kind of bad faith trolly.
ETA: I forgot the one word that made the comment make some kind of sense
posted by schadenfrau at 4:02 PM on June 19, 2019 [5 favorites]
Agree that the whole thing seems kind of bad faith trolly.
ETA: I forgot the one word that made the comment make some kind of sense
posted by schadenfrau at 4:02 PM on June 19, 2019 [5 favorites]
Like at no point is she like “maybe it’s questionable to doom children to the oncoming catastrophe,” it’s just...utilitarian, authoritarian creepiness.
Idk man. I’m at an age where I’m gonna have to start making plans nowish or just kinda accept that I’m not having biological children, and every time I think about it, this montage of climate doom plays in my head. And that’s new. That’s like...the last year or so.
I think I’m just gobsmacked that someone has a moral position on having children that doesn’t appear to consider the children’s welfare. Like...what
posted by schadenfrau at 4:10 PM on June 19, 2019 [11 favorites]
Idk man. I’m at an age where I’m gonna have to start making plans nowish or just kinda accept that I’m not having biological children, and every time I think about it, this montage of climate doom plays in my head. And that’s new. That’s like...the last year or so.
I think I’m just gobsmacked that someone has a moral position on having children that doesn’t appear to consider the children’s welfare. Like...what
posted by schadenfrau at 4:10 PM on June 19, 2019 [11 favorites]
Re: guns. I’m still slowly reading Peter Maass’s Love Thy Neighbor, about the Bosnian genocide, and one thing that keeps sort of, um, haunting me? One side had all the guns, arms were prevented from getting in, and thus the Bosnian Muslims literally couldn’t defend themselves.
The usual lefty counter argument is to scoff that small arms or AR15s or whatever won’t do jack or shit for you if they send the military after you, but...
That’s not entirely what’s happening in urban environments, and a lot of time the ethnic cleansing is done by ragtag third parties with logistical support from a military power.
It’s just something I think about now. Large caches of weapons in the hands of one angry, revanchist, eliminationist political movement, and nooooo weapons in the hands of the people they want to kill.
It’s not my favorite thing to think about.
posted by schadenfrau at 4:17 PM on June 19, 2019 [22 favorites]
The usual lefty counter argument is to scoff that small arms or AR15s or whatever won’t do jack or shit for you if they send the military after you, but...
That’s not entirely what’s happening in urban environments, and a lot of time the ethnic cleansing is done by ragtag third parties with logistical support from a military power.
It’s just something I think about now. Large caches of weapons in the hands of one angry, revanchist, eliminationist political movement, and nooooo weapons in the hands of the people they want to kill.
It’s not my favorite thing to think about.
posted by schadenfrau at 4:17 PM on June 19, 2019 [22 favorites]
Why does oligarchy guy think of himself as a libertarian - is he using it as shorthand for a tribal identification? Singapore is... definitely not a paradise for individual freedom.
posted by Selena777 at 4:31 PM on June 19, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by Selena777 at 4:31 PM on June 19, 2019 [3 favorites]
My super-lefty friend who teaches self defense to women and femme/trans/gnc is totally pro-gun on the basis that it's a potential power equalizer, but door-to-door death squad moments aside, it seems like the people who most need the ability to defend themselves are the ones who are also taught the hardest not to resort to violence, and the ones who the authorities are most likely to come down on for even owning a gun much less carrying or using it in their defense. So I've got mixed feelings about that kind of argument to say the least. A gun can only defend those willing and able to quickly overcome their aversion to using it. I'm more of a fan of less-lethal weaponry (pepper spray, etc) for people who might have those inhibitions, and for obvious other reasons I'm more of a fan of less-lethal weaponry for those who lack inhibition against violence.
posted by BrotherCaine at 4:33 PM on June 19, 2019 [6 favorites]
posted by BrotherCaine at 4:33 PM on June 19, 2019 [6 favorites]
Is it just me, or is there a thing where the kinder and more capable your parents were the more likely you are to be content as a centrist?
At last, a rationalization for my lousy parenting moments!
posted by davejay at 4:34 PM on June 19, 2019 [6 favorites]
At last, a rationalization for my lousy parenting moments!
posted by davejay at 4:34 PM on June 19, 2019 [6 favorites]
I don't think being pro-gun and liberal is at all rare. But I live in the Midwest. I think it's because so much of the media that is influential among liberals/leftists/Democrats is extremely anti-2nd Amendment (The New York Times, for instance) that it creates the appearance of a consensus that doesn't exist in reality.
Maybe Killer Mike should be a bigger deal. That would help.
posted by riruro at 5:06 PM on June 19, 2019 [5 favorites]
Maybe Killer Mike should be a bigger deal. That would help.
posted by riruro at 5:06 PM on June 19, 2019 [5 favorites]
Is it just me, or is there a thing where the kinder and more capable your parents were the more likely you are to be content as a centrist?
I know a lot of people responded to this already, but I feel it's an interesting thread. I don't think it's as straightforward as that. My mother was extremely resourceful and, as far as I'm concerned, saved all of our lives.
She's a lefty theist, (and fellow Mefite, hi Mom!). I'm a lefty non-theist. Our positions are generally close, but not identical: during 2016, she was for Bernie and I was for Hillary during the primaries, frex.
IMO, what happens is that when parents give their children a reason to agree with them, it'll happen. That can be for good or bad reasons: shitty authoritarian parents seem to show their children that everything is zero-sum and dog-eat-dog. I've seen plenty of abuse leading to abusers. Loving and supportive parents foster teamwork.
I respect my mother, and she had good reasons for her politics. My belief in all that was reaffirmed by my own life experience and education. However, I always found religion a personal non-starter, (pretty sure I was born a strict materialist), and left all formal expressions of it behind in high school despite her upbringing. There's no bitterness there, it all just means exactly nothing to me.
*shrugs*
In conclusion: I think a certain socioeconomic/cultural background of decent parent will tend to raise centrists, but I think the interaction there is mostly about the examples we see and how we perceive them: we tend to pull what appears to work from our parents, and reject the rest.
posted by mordax at 5:16 PM on June 19, 2019 [5 favorites]
I know a lot of people responded to this already, but I feel it's an interesting thread. I don't think it's as straightforward as that. My mother was extremely resourceful and, as far as I'm concerned, saved all of our lives.
She's a lefty theist, (and fellow Mefite, hi Mom!). I'm a lefty non-theist. Our positions are generally close, but not identical: during 2016, she was for Bernie and I was for Hillary during the primaries, frex.
IMO, what happens is that when parents give their children a reason to agree with them, it'll happen. That can be for good or bad reasons: shitty authoritarian parents seem to show their children that everything is zero-sum and dog-eat-dog. I've seen plenty of abuse leading to abusers. Loving and supportive parents foster teamwork.
I respect my mother, and she had good reasons for her politics. My belief in all that was reaffirmed by my own life experience and education. However, I always found religion a personal non-starter, (pretty sure I was born a strict materialist), and left all formal expressions of it behind in high school despite her upbringing. There's no bitterness there, it all just means exactly nothing to me.
*shrugs*
In conclusion: I think a certain socioeconomic/cultural background of decent parent will tend to raise centrists, but I think the interaction there is mostly about the examples we see and how we perceive them: we tend to pull what appears to work from our parents, and reject the rest.
posted by mordax at 5:16 PM on June 19, 2019 [5 favorites]
Most of the gun-control activism today (March for Our Lives, Moms Demand Action, for example) aren't advocating overturning the 2A. At most, the standard position I hear against guns is that there should be universal background checks, and probably assault rifles should be banned. Both positions have been at one time or other supported by pro-gun lobbies. No one really believes any meaningful action on firearms is possible in the US.
posted by Kitty Stardust at 6:33 PM on June 19, 2019 [9 favorites]
posted by Kitty Stardust at 6:33 PM on June 19, 2019 [9 favorites]
Yeah, I think there's a huge difference between "pro-gun control" and "anti-gun". There's a LOT of space in between "constitutional carry" states where anything goes with no licensing required as long as you're compliant with federal law and, like, California. The conflation of those two positions is basically a successful PR campaign by the NRA.
posted by tobascodagama at 8:24 PM on June 19, 2019 [6 favorites]
posted by tobascodagama at 8:24 PM on June 19, 2019 [6 favorites]
One thing I find weird about the gun debate is how we (liberals) make a point of saying “nobody wants to take away your shotgun or hunting rifle,” and yet the minute someone says they like to go hunting or target shooting, we eye them with disdain. And it’s like, what gives? As long as you take care of your gun and keep it in a safe place, target shooting is an essentially harmless hobby. And I’m sorry, unless you are a vegetarian, you don’t get to look askance at hunters. That deer they’re hunting is about as free-range as it gets.
posted by panama joe at 10:23 PM on June 19, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by panama joe at 10:23 PM on June 19, 2019 [1 favorite]
Where does "there's a notable history of gun laws in the U.S. providing a pretext to harass and imprison racial minorities" fit into all this?
I'm actually a bit negative on the idea of having guns for self-defense on a personal - just don't think the stats are in the average gun owner's favor - and I'm all for treating the huge number of handguns just around as the public health problem it is. But it bugs me when people assume gun control defines the core of what it is to be on the left side of American politics. There is no amount of gun laws you are going to be able to trade me for a bad position on labor, or taxes, or criminal justice, or foreign policy.
posted by atoxyl at 1:14 AM on June 20, 2019 [4 favorites]
I'm actually a bit negative on the idea of having guns for self-defense on a personal - just don't think the stats are in the average gun owner's favor - and I'm all for treating the huge number of handguns just around as the public health problem it is. But it bugs me when people assume gun control defines the core of what it is to be on the left side of American politics. There is no amount of gun laws you are going to be able to trade me for a bad position on labor, or taxes, or criminal justice, or foreign policy.
posted by atoxyl at 1:14 AM on June 20, 2019 [4 favorites]
Strict gun control is uncontested law in large parts of the world, as is the theory of anthropogenic climate change, and, what the hell, the age of the Earth. America is weird, y'all. Political ideas don't cluster together because of some natural synergy; communities of people adopt the same ideas as one another in order to reduce conflict and then rationalize it after the fact.
posted by um at 3:49 AM on June 20, 2019 [8 favorites]
posted by um at 3:49 AM on June 20, 2019 [8 favorites]
the 28-year old from Spokane who thinks having kids is immoral
I volunteer with refugees and publicly advocate for refugee families in my area. In my experience, anti-natalist views allow people to justify at best indifference and more often aggressive hostility toward refugee families.
posted by Ptrin at 7:18 AM on June 20, 2019 [2 favorites]
I volunteer with refugees and publicly advocate for refugee families in my area. In my experience, anti-natalist views allow people to justify at best indifference and more often aggressive hostility toward refugee families.
posted by Ptrin at 7:18 AM on June 20, 2019 [2 favorites]
You're the one who stuck "mere" on there. Intangible externalities are very real.
My point is that they aren't only intangible externalities, and you have to be steeped in privilege not to see how those intangibles lead to tangible costs as well.
you're arguing that libertarians are stupid, which is fine, but the argument I'm making is not that libertarianism is the best political philosophy, it's that it's coherent with being pro-LGBTQ+ rights.
Fair enough on the first point, but there is a fundamental incompatibility with "everyone can do whatever they want" and "people shouldn't be discriminated against on the basis of [protected characteristic]." Libertarians want to reserve their right to be shitty to a group if they feel like it, and that doesn't work within a framework that fundamentally rejects the shittiness.
posted by praemunire at 8:16 AM on June 20, 2019
My point is that they aren't only intangible externalities, and you have to be steeped in privilege not to see how those intangibles lead to tangible costs as well.
you're arguing that libertarians are stupid, which is fine, but the argument I'm making is not that libertarianism is the best political philosophy, it's that it's coherent with being pro-LGBTQ+ rights.
Fair enough on the first point, but there is a fundamental incompatibility with "everyone can do whatever they want" and "people shouldn't be discriminated against on the basis of [protected characteristic]." Libertarians want to reserve their right to be shitty to a group if they feel like it, and that doesn't work within a framework that fundamentally rejects the shittiness.
posted by praemunire at 8:16 AM on June 20, 2019
Chinese systems, technocratic ones, invariably want to begin to "optimize" individual behaviour, treating people as game tokens, units with various values attached; economic, educational, social, behavioural, which the state can then use as it, the technocrats who run everything, sees fit.
oof, let's please not fall back on the old "the Chinese are robots" trope. The characterization of the population being a bunch of mindless automatons being shaped by faceless technocrats does a disservice to billions of people. I am not sure where you got your idea of "Chinese systems", but China represents a collection of diverse cultures that are literally thousands of years old, and if we can making any overarching assumptions then it would be more accurate to tie "Chinese systems" to Confucianism and an emphasis placed on social and familial ties than to whatever Behavioral Optimization Philosophy you're pinning on it. This is not a defense of the Chinese government or its policies, but a pushback against the stereotypes that are floating around your comment.
---
Regarding the series, I think it is a good reminder of how little connection there is between logic and political beliefs.
posted by Anonymous at 8:55 AM on June 20, 2019
oof, let's please not fall back on the old "the Chinese are robots" trope. The characterization of the population being a bunch of mindless automatons being shaped by faceless technocrats does a disservice to billions of people. I am not sure where you got your idea of "Chinese systems", but China represents a collection of diverse cultures that are literally thousands of years old, and if we can making any overarching assumptions then it would be more accurate to tie "Chinese systems" to Confucianism and an emphasis placed on social and familial ties than to whatever Behavioral Optimization Philosophy you're pinning on it. This is not a defense of the Chinese government or its policies, but a pushback against the stereotypes that are floating around your comment.
---
Regarding the series, I think it is a good reminder of how little connection there is between logic and political beliefs.
posted by Anonymous at 8:55 AM on June 20, 2019
we (liberals) make a point of saying “nobody wants to take away your shotgun or hunting rifle,” and yet
I mean, ideally I do want to take their guns. But we're not Australia. Gun culture here is...I mean. I'm not an expert on this. But my feeling, from watching my country through the increasingly horrified lens of someone who feels like she has very, very little in common with most of the country, is that it's inextricably tied to a sense of identity that is itself bound up in racism and toxic masculinity. So "taking their guns" means we have to do all that other stuff too. Which, yes! We should do that! but it's just not a simple policy fix. And the guns are already out there. So, so, so many of them. More than anywhere else in the world. Like, a gun per person, I think.
And if we're not going to be able to take their guns anytime soon...well, I keep thinking about Bosnia.
posted by schadenfrau at 8:57 AM on June 20, 2019 [2 favorites]
I mean, ideally I do want to take their guns. But we're not Australia. Gun culture here is...I mean. I'm not an expert on this. But my feeling, from watching my country through the increasingly horrified lens of someone who feels like she has very, very little in common with most of the country, is that it's inextricably tied to a sense of identity that is itself bound up in racism and toxic masculinity. So "taking their guns" means we have to do all that other stuff too. Which, yes! We should do that! but it's just not a simple policy fix. And the guns are already out there. So, so, so many of them. More than anywhere else in the world. Like, a gun per person, I think.
And if we're not going to be able to take their guns anytime soon...well, I keep thinking about Bosnia.
posted by schadenfrau at 8:57 AM on June 20, 2019 [2 favorites]
oof, let's please not fall back on the old "the Chinese are robots" trope.
Unfortunately, this is one of those cases where the adjective for a specific government and the adjective for a racial category are the same, but I read the comment you're responding to as a reference to the actions and policies (e.g. "social credit") of the government of the People's Republic of China.
posted by tobascodagama at 9:21 AM on June 20, 2019 [1 favorite]
Unfortunately, this is one of those cases where the adjective for a specific government and the adjective for a racial category are the same, but I read the comment you're responding to as a reference to the actions and policies (e.g. "social credit") of the government of the People's Republic of China.
posted by tobascodagama at 9:21 AM on June 20, 2019 [1 favorite]
I was so disappointed in the oligarchy dude, because I actually like hearing well-constructed arguments for things I find morally repellent. One time I heard an argument for monarchy that was basically: it is one of the oldest methods of organizing society, nearly every society on earth has or had some version of this, and it promotes periods of stability that could last for hundreds of years. (I think the person making the argument severely understated the periods of instability and war that occur during succession crises or the fall of dynasties.) But hell if it didn't make me go, you know what? Hmm.
posted by coffeeand at 9:56 AM on June 20, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by coffeeand at 9:56 AM on June 20, 2019 [2 favorites]
Of course, it helped that it was 2003, and the destructive consequences of the "we must spread Democracy and other Western Values to the oppressed people of Iraq" line of philosophy were undeniable, and also I was 13 when hearing this argument.
posted by coffeeand at 10:17 AM on June 20, 2019
posted by coffeeand at 10:17 AM on June 20, 2019
coffeeand: I actually like hearing well-constructed arguments for things I find morally repellent.
That reminds me of the recent Ben Shapiro interview in which he freaked out at being challenged on abortion laws, not realizing that his interviewer was a staunch British conservative who probably just wanted him to put together the kind of reasonable justification for barbarity that British conservatives have been perfecting for the past few centuries of empire.
posted by clawsoon at 12:26 PM on June 20, 2019 [1 favorite]
That reminds me of the recent Ben Shapiro interview in which he freaked out at being challenged on abortion laws, not realizing that his interviewer was a staunch British conservative who probably just wanted him to put together the kind of reasonable justification for barbarity that British conservatives have been perfecting for the past few centuries of empire.
posted by clawsoon at 12:26 PM on June 20, 2019 [1 favorite]
The characterization of the population being a bunch of mindless automatons being shaped by faceless technocrats does a disservice to billions of people
I'm not talking about Chinese culture in general, which, as you observe is one of the more diverse and longest-lasting in all of humanity. I'm talking about the very conscious and deliberate effort by the Communist Party of China in the past decade, decade and a half to implement a new kind of totalitarianism through hyper-invasive monitoring, both human and high-technology, and the quantization of that surveillance into "social currencies", used as a medium of trust and priviledge in that society.
How China Is Gaining Political Influence Through Social Management: The Chinese Communist Party is exploiting and exporting technological innovations to establish a panoptic form of governance—one through which it becomes possible for the state to constantly monitor individuals
and
How China’s Rulers Control Society: Opportunity, Nationalism, Fear
This is what oligarchy dude was talking about. The CCP is actually doing it. The people I know and work with deliberately left that to escape that form of totalitarianism.
posted by bonehead at 12:49 PM on June 20, 2019 [4 favorites]
I'm not talking about Chinese culture in general, which, as you observe is one of the more diverse and longest-lasting in all of humanity. I'm talking about the very conscious and deliberate effort by the Communist Party of China in the past decade, decade and a half to implement a new kind of totalitarianism through hyper-invasive monitoring, both human and high-technology, and the quantization of that surveillance into "social currencies", used as a medium of trust and priviledge in that society.
How China Is Gaining Political Influence Through Social Management: The Chinese Communist Party is exploiting and exporting technological innovations to establish a panoptic form of governance—one through which it becomes possible for the state to constantly monitor individuals
and
How China’s Rulers Control Society: Opportunity, Nationalism, Fear
This is what oligarchy dude was talking about. The CCP is actually doing it. The people I know and work with deliberately left that to escape that form of totalitarianism.
posted by bonehead at 12:49 PM on June 20, 2019 [4 favorites]
Emily may as well be from the same town I grew up in. I get her. I would think that others that grew up in Real America (tm) would understand it too.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 5:09 PM on June 20, 2019
posted by fluttering hellfire at 5:09 PM on June 20, 2019
Like, a gun per person, I think.
Current estimates are 1.2 guns per US citizen, but the percentage of households with guns is trending down even though total guns is trending up.
posted by BrotherCaine at 2:11 PM on June 21, 2019 [1 favorite]
Current estimates are 1.2 guns per US citizen, but the percentage of households with guns is trending down even though total guns is trending up.
posted by BrotherCaine at 2:11 PM on June 21, 2019 [1 favorite]
Guns per person in the US: Three percent of the population own half the country's firearms (link to Metafilter FPP). So it's not "you have a gun, and you have a gun, and EVERYONE has a gun!" but there are many people who might own a firearm or two and then there are the gun hoarders. It's the latter who are unhinged and dangerous and go around killing people, for the most part, not the person who owns a gun or two for hunting or target practice. (Besides, TBH, you want sustainable meat? Hunted wild meat fits that bill perfectly. I buy my cats food and treats with venison and wild boar.)
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 8:38 AM on June 22, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 8:38 AM on June 22, 2019 [2 favorites]
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Go ahead, vote Republican, Patricia; you know you wanna.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 9:28 AM on June 19, 2019 [22 favorites]