Things that are so obvious and ingrained that no one even thinks about them.
Here’s a few:
All US americans can go to Mexico EASILY. You’re supposed to have a passport but you don’t even need one (for car/foot crossing). Versus, it’s really hard for Mexicans, who aren’t wealthy, to secure a VISA to enter the US. I’m sure there are corollaries in other geo-regions.
Another one is wealthy countries having access to vaccines far ahead of “poor” countries.
In US, we might pay lip service to equal child-hood education but most of the funding pulls from local taxes so some kids might receive ~$10000 in spending while another receives $2000. I’m not looking it up at the moment, but I’m SURE there are strong racial stratas.
George Washington wearing dentures made of slave teeth is not “life experience.” Its a simple historical fact. I have no desire to base my beliefs on mythology. I base my beliefs on fact. I cannot have a discussion about Washington without mentioning the facts of his life. This includes talking about his crimes against humanity. You think I am immature and childish because I don’t value beliefs about washington unless they are based in the facts of his life. You value mythology and historical fact similarly. Serious discussion requires a foundation of fact. You are fundamentally unserious.
I love how you are so carefully avoiding committing any beliefs or assertions to this discussion. All you do is try and poke holes in what I say. When I respond you hide behind rudimentary, “everything is relative” arguments. You are the philosophical equivalent of, “I know you are but what am I?”
What is your political ideology?
I can’t really sum up my ideology or identity in a word or a political team, but in general I’m proud of my country while recognizing that we’ve had a dark past and we have plenty of work to do today as well, despite great strides and an overall very high quality of life. The fact that we have the luxury of dedicating so much time debating these issues alone is evidence of this.
Probably the single most important phrase in my life when it comes to debating controversial topics is that where there is understanding, there can be no hatred. Everyone has a different life experience, different challenges and trials, different education, different family and upbringing.
Some of my core values are independence, self reliance, charity, forgiveness, hard work, and prudence. I live very modestly but comfortably enough and I got this life because of my upbringing and my own hard work and believe that others can also despite probably having more challenging upbringings. My ancestors immigrated in the early 1900s looking for a better life, chasing the so called American dream, worked as miners in small company owned houses. The first generation was very poor, but subsequent generations have done ok.
I believe that we should live as though we control our own futures, and mostly we do. Our own happiness and contentment in life is at our control, and outside factors beyond our control are not worth compromising on that happiness. It’s very similar to ancient stoic philosophy.
I teach my kids the value of hard work, saving money, but giving to less fortunate people. I provide for them, but with few luxuries. If they want something, they need to earn it and get it for themselves. They cannot expect things from other people, but should be thankful and appreciative when others help them, which in turn should inspire them to want to help others.
It is my biggest and most important duty to provide for my family and instill in them my own core values.
I believe that the United States is a great place to raise a family, providing an environment where they can succeed and be free to pursue their own contentment in life.
At the moment I’m having a hard time finding a political team that fits these values, since politics is so focused on hot button issues that serve more to divide people than to actually improve everyone’s lives. I’d love it if there were more teams, but the system we have more or less works.
Your political ideology is ”liberal”, although an even more appropriate term would be ”bootlicker”. The only way you see the world is through the lens of ”memememememe fuck you got mine”, and thus you think the US is good because muh treats. You don’t stop to consider the butchered civilians or exploited global south residents necessary to get your treats and ”high quality of life”.
Don’t try to pretend like your way of thinking is somehow unique or can’t be put into a box, maaaaan, because I’ve seen it a million times before.
Let’s be real though, everyone except you are your little tribe is a liberal, which is like 99 percent of the country. So that doesn’t really mean much.
I’m not American, bucko.
Your political ideology is just the status quo. You have a life you’re ok with and you just want everyone else to calm down so you can enjoy it. The funny thing is that you have made zero effort to actually justify your ideology. Everyone else has written all these reasons why your line of thinking doesn’t work. All you can respond with is, “why can’t we all just get along??” Say what you will about my ideology, leftist, making me angrier or unhappy with our politicians and system. I don’t spend any energy deluding myself into anything. I’m not surprised when the system fails its people in the ways its intended to. It also helps me connect with many different kinds of people, because I care about their struggles.
the system is currently supporting two genocides, one in palestine and one in the congo. What part of your humanity do you have to sacrifice to not care about these atrocities? Are you even aware of how your denial of other’s humanity also compromises yours?
You have a cowards ideology.
It’s almost like we are speaking different languages, and I’m not surprised to be attacked coming in here. The reason I have a hard time responding to “facts” is that over the years I’ve spent countless hours researching various topics only to find that you get different answers depending on what you look for. Not only that but truth is different and history gets rewritten over the years. In my youth there were rallying cries to free tibet. People like you protested angrily, guilt tripped average folks about being callous and cruel for not caring. Now years later in this very thread I’m told that the Chinese did a great thing freeing tibetan slaves and so on. It’s hard not to be cynical when you can find evidence and justification for anything you want to. I’ve got right wing friends doing the same thing you are doing, trying to guilt trip me for not paying attention or not caring about the crimes committed by the left. They send me articles and facts all the time. How do you really know what the truth is? Change your algorithm and start looking for evidence to support the opposite perspective and you will start getting different facts. It all starts to feel arbitrary and the only real truth is right in front of you.
Revolutionaries like the people in here are always around. They can’t accept injustice and have no answer except to tear it all down and start over.
You can totally get different answers depending on what you’re looking for. That doesn’t mean they are equally valuable answers. Some evidence is shit. Have you tried vetting your sources? Its a fundamental part of research.
Have you ever taken a philosophy class? The first day is always spent debunking relativist arguments like the ones you make. Have you ever taken a history class? The whole point of the discipline is learning how to source information and piece it together. What about the physical sciences? Engineering? These all require someone to make decisions about how to move forward. Your attitude might help you avoid conflict, might absolve you of responsibility or whatever. But you can’t foster community, build bridges, or run tests on relativism. The only reason you believe relativism is because you start with the assumption that the system is good, because it is good for you. Its why the world seems so unintelligible to you. Your foundation is wrong so you can’t build anything on top of it.
Considering the amount of right wingers that want to throw me in an oven I’ll hold off on the facts aren’t real bit. I don’t want to be thrown in an oven, that’s a fucking fact bud. And the fact that you value their opinion, throw me in an oven, just as highly as my opinion, don’t throw in a fucking oven, I consider your relativism dangerous.
They don’t want to throw anyone in an oven, and that’s a fact. One of my best friends is one of those guys, who I grew up with. He doesn’t hate anyone besides “liberals”, having nothing to do with skin color or race. Also I have an engineering degree and took every one of those general education classes, economics, philosophy, psychology, etc, but also a master’s level elective class that literally was about interpreting and critiquing scientific journal articles. We spent a lot of time finding holes in published works and discussing retractions, enough to make me a little cynical even about “science” itself, let alone news stories. Maybe your “facts” aren’t quite as factual as you would like them to be and your truth isn’t quite that. But you will also grow less certain about things as you get older, just like I did.
Well, you had a good education. I’m also skeptical of science, but mostly because our science can’t be fully separated from capitalism and its incentives.
Why are you talking to me like I’m a teenager? Y’all always pretend to be the adults in the room, very cool very condescending.
So you aren’t always relativist. You get to side with your buddies against the minorities that their tribe hates. Lovely. I don’t give a fuck about your friends. Your friend isn’t conservatism, conservatism is conservatism. He’s aligned himself how he’s aligned himself. With people who want to throw me in a fucking oven you dumb motherfucker. Go peddle your dogshit cowardly ideology somewhere else. People saying they want to kill me is a fucking fact. You are cowardice incarnate.
Stop being such a victim, nobody wants to kill you, they just want to live their lives. I know lots of conservatives and not one of them wants to murder minorities, what are you even talking about?
Seriously, go talk to normal people about normal stuff and knock it off. Yeah there is injustice in the world and we should talk about that, but you can’t always live in that space or it will drive you crazy.
people will stop being victims as soon as other people stop being victimizers
stop being this guy:
let me guess, you’re one of the normal people. you have decided this for totally normal reasons, and your normality just exists in a vacuum and isn’t imposed by any kind of superstructure.
no, we shouldn’t talk about it. we should put an end to it.
people don’t choose whether they live in an unjust space or not. they are born into it, and it drives them crazy and kills them. Only people unaffected by it have the liberty of ignoring it.