I guess that kind of makes sense, at least for how it’s used in here.

Lol I don’t care about the cracker part, it’s more about the forced intern camps part.

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You people are absolutely deranged.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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I’ve been accused of being a centrist before. What makes you think that your world view, your life experience is worth more than mine? Whose experience is more real, more true? I think tribalism is when you think your world view is the only one that matters, that anyone who agrees with it is part of your tribe, and anyone who doesn’t see it that way is in a different tribe. Tribalism is instinctive and getting rid of it requires open minded exposure to people with different world views.

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The founding fathers do not represent an America that exists to serve landowning white men, at least not to the majority of the country. To many people, they symbolize something else entirely that is bigger and better than the men that they actually were, something noble, independent, freedom-loving, bold, courageous, and all that. Again, regardless of how true it is, they serve as an idea at this point.

But for you they serve as the opposite sort of symbol, one of oppression, greed, selfishness. The founding fathers were both of these, and what they represent to different people depends on perspective and world view.

You just jumped into the middle of a conversation between me and someone else, or maybe I responded to the wrong person. Anyway this particular thread was in response to machiabelly or something like that.

Yeah sorry about that, can’t keep track of everyone so I went back to assuming everyone on the internet is a guy. Anyway, do you deny that George Floyd has become larger than life, symbolic and important in a way that is bigger and more pure than he ever was in real life, despite his shortcomings as a person?

I don’t assume total symmetry, it’s just an analogy that mostly fits. They are all imperfect men who are elevated because of what they symbolize to some people.

Are you making the case that anyone who doesn’t view the founding fathers in the same way, who doesn’t passionately hate them without consideration of any good they accomplished, is therefore wrong about everything and incapable of having acceptable opinions on other topics? That sounds like tribalism and is what I was responding to. I mean, if you tell me straight up that my every opinion is wrong and advertise that you have no intention and feel no obligation to have a good faith discussion, then that makes you an extremist, a fanatic, and further dialog is pointless. I enjoy the discussion and challenge engaging with different views, but when my comments get deleted after being personally attacked, then the discussion has probably run it’s course.

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