51–60 of 92 posts
>51% of Democrats support a law that requires Americans use transgender people’s preferred gender pronouns. This one blows my mind. A law that punishes people if they don't use certain words? I just... I can't even... Wow.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well let's try to understand it. This view must be rooted in the idea that such people have chosen their gender, and therefore chosen their gender pronoun. To not use it then would be like refusing to call someone by their preferred name. I don't know of widespread cases where people refuse to call others by their name after a name change, but I can imagine that if I changed my name and people refused to use my new n…
I agree that I would also find it annoying. We also have social mechanics around asking people's names, and referring to them when we don't know their name. I think one of the big complaints about the gendered pronouns is that there's no established social path for this. How do you predetermine the preferred gender pronoun of people? You should try a social experiment--- you should ask the preferred pronoun of everyo…
I'd say that's definitely a complaint, but a minor one. The bigger complaint is the Orwellian implications of language policing, though the person complaining might not reach for the word "Orwellian" exactly.
>51% of Democrats support a law that requires Americans use transgender people’s preferred gender pronouns. This one blows my mind. A law that punishes people if they don't use certain words? I just... I can't even... Wow.
In case it's useful to anyone on HN working in/on politics, I've been with some Trump supporting and voting people lately, and my takeaways: - They hate the idea of getting in trouble for using the wrong pronouns for people. A few strongly disliked, and most somewhat disliked, having to use non-traditional pronouns at all. - They were very upset about stories of people being suspended from elementary school after usi…
> - "Don't force it down my throat and I won't force it down yours" > - They were concerned about the decline of religion, and worry that this will lead to more radical extremists (with the radical extremists converting people who feel disenfranchised and purposeless) I'm curious about how they envision remediation of the decline of religion without shoving it down people's throat.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
When you say "America has fallen into," it makes it sound like you believe that this is specific to America, and recent. Was there some historic golden-age that I'm unaware of when people didn't get emotional over political views? (consider the duel of our founding fathers)
I think there was, and it was pre-1990s. Something flipped after that. I feel like before the 90s, there was disagreement, but it didn't take on the extreme, vengeful tactics that it has today. This may be a result of the internet, or the 24hr news cycle, I honestly don't know. But something has changed. There's been a ratcheting up of attempts to silence dissent, and aggressively punish someone for disagreeing.
I don't understand this one. It's an aggression to tell an immigrant they speak good English? People have told me I speak good English, where they aggressive? I guess they could say it in a condescending or patronizing way. But then again if they wanted to be mean and offensive, they could probably find another way of being mean. A rule about not mentioning how well I speak English won't stop them.
It's also interesting that out of all the places it's universities that go out of their way ensuring nobody is offended about anything. How are they studying history, which is full of terrible things. Are their history departments rewriting ancient texts and manuscripts to excise any disagreeable stuff.
Looking at what happened to my university, it seems after tuition has increased to astronomical proportions, colleges have started to treat students as customers. If you are a customer and walk into a store, you expect to be treated like royalty, especially if you just shelled out a six figure check to them. "How dare they insult me" is a pretty rational, though shortsighted, comeback given the cost of attending the school. The interesting thing happens then after kids graduate. They expect to go through life without ever being offended. I mean, yeah, it's nice to never be offended, but it's also unrealistic.
>51% of Democrats support a law that requires Americans use transgender people’s preferred gender pronouns. This one blows my mind. A law that punishes people if they don't use certain words? I just... I can't even... Wow.
From the same report what White American's (Conservatives's) think/believe:
“The political climate is focused on repressing Caucasians, especially white males.”
“I believe that BLM and Antifa are terrorist groups and are as antithetical to the United States as any neo-Nazi group or white nationalist group.”
“I don’t believe climate change is happening because of humans.”
“I work in a totally PC environment and if I dare state that I feel homosexuality or sexual promiscuity is not in line with what the Bible teaches, I feel attacked and accused of being insensitive.”
“Blacks can have things that are just for them, but no one else can.”
>(53%) also agree that “colleges have an obligation to protect students from offensive speech and ideas that could create a difficult learning environment.” Yeah, but who decides what is offensive speech? If some Catholic students feels abortion or birth control are offensive ideas and discussing them are creating a difficult learning environment, should those ideas be banned from college to protect the students?
That being said, there are social norms that make discussion of abortion impolite. It's so advanced that political candidates largely avoid the issue even though voters still use it as a primary litmus test in the polling place.
>(53%) also agree that “colleges have an obligation to protect students from offensive speech and ideas that could create a difficult learning environment.” Yeah, but who decides what is offensive speech? If some Catholic students feels abortion or birth control are offensive ideas and discussing them are creating a difficult learning environment, should those ideas be banned from college to protect the students?
I think the larger point here (and I'm not sure if the authors themselves saw it) is that regardless of alignment, when people feel attacked they get more emotional and embrace increasingly extreme views.
Perhaps this should serve as a lesson to all of us that unchecked-emotion is the root of political conflict.
I'd be shocked if these numbers were anywhere nearly as skewed if this poll were taken, say, in the 1990s during the previous blowback against "PC culture."
If the government's role in controlling political speech continues to be a top-of-mind issue for independent or libertarian voters, as it seems to be on track to be given the acceleration of communication over the Internet, then my guess is that the Democratic party will continue to lose power.