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Preventing extreme polarization of political attitudes

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Re: Preventing extreme polarization of political attitudes

#171

Post by AnimalMuppet »

edmcnulty101 wrote: post #119

The media calling January 6th an 'insurrection' is a perfect example of the problem. It's pure sensationalism. There were no guns, there was no centralized organization to indicate an insurrection, the 4 people who died were all protestors, mostly from being dumbasses. Clearly those people who damaged the capitol should be punished, just like the Black Lives Matter protesters who damaged the Foley Federal Building. B…

Why were they there? To support overturning the results of the vote. That's at least in intent an insurrection.

Why did they bring a noose for Mike Pence? Isn't that insurrection? Or is it "merely" assassination? (Or just an over-the-top prop that they didn't intend to use?)

Re: Preventing extreme polarization of political attitudes

#172

Post by ShamelessC »

edmcnulty101 wrote: post #169
ShamelessC wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> WOW SUCH INSURRECTION Your emphasis here isn't helping at all. You just seem angry and unwilling to participate in civil debate when you do that. For what it's worth, I (and others, I assume) find you less convincing now, regardless of the claims you're making. This is a good example of the type of discourse social media (hacker news) can bring out when we talk about partisan subjects. At no point did you treat the…

The gish gallop of the person I was responding too, of numerous paragraphs and links, took time out of my life to parse... and turned out to be a SINGLE PERSON found with a gun on capitol grounds not even in the capitol. It's as disengenous, demonizing of a group, and sensational as it gets. This poster is also using the same single person as their data point for the motivations of the entire group of protesters. Thi…

No one forced you to fact check them and you still seem like you're a bit too frustrated to have a pleasant debate with. It seems if there's one thing we agree on, it's that social media encourages divisiveness. Consider taking some time away from commenting - this is my go-to strategy when I'm hot-headed.

Re: Preventing extreme polarization of political attitudes

#173

Post by Manuel_D »

throw0101a wrote: post #146
edmcnulty101 wrote: post #119

The media calling January 6th an 'insurrection' is a perfect example of the problem. It's pure sensationalism. There were no guns, there was no centralized organization to indicate an insurrection, the 4 people who died were all protestors, mostly from being dumbasses. Clearly those people who damaged the capitol should be punished, just like the Black Lives Matter protesters who damaged the Foley Federal Building. B…

> There were no guns Yes there were. Three examples of people charged: > Lonnie Coffman of Alabama: Police found multiple firearms and weapons in Coffman’s possession. Coffman’s truck, which he had parked in the vicinity of the Capitol on the morning of Jan. 6, was packed with weaponry including a handgun, a rifle and a shotgun, each loaded, according to court documents. In addition, the truck held hundreds of rounds…

So out of thousands of protesters, three were armed and none of which used their weapons during the supposed insurrection. As per your own definition, an insurrection is made "for the specific purpose of overthrowing the constituted government and seizing its powers". How does occupying the Capitol building translate into controlling the government? Are the military, the IRS, and all the other government institutions are just going to say, "Well, guess we're going to do what the shaman in the fur outfit says"?

I get that "there were no guns" is technically wrong, but ultimately you're demonstrating the above commenter's point. This mob at the capitol had zero chance of effecting any real political change, and had no real or tangible plan of seizing the government. It wasn't an insurrection any more than CHAZ was. Arguably the latter fits the bill even better: they drove out the government law enforcement, replaced it with their own security forces, and maintained independence for 3 weeks. The capitol rioters were driven out in 3 hours.

Re: Preventing extreme polarization of political attitudes

#174

Post by ilikecakeandpie »

brightball wrote: post #137
ilikecakeandpie wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If your political beliefs prevent you from associating with somebody because you have labeled them so firmly as to write them off entirely as a person, you have jumped the shark and become the problem. If someone is having their bodily autonomy threatened by legislation pushed and passed by a political party and a choice for potential partner actively supports and votes for those people to gain or retain power, it'…

You’re illustrating my point here. You’re assuming that everyone fully believes and supports anything in the party platform, especially the most extreme elements. This absolutely works both ways and erases people in favor of a label. I talk to a lot of conservatives. While many of them oppose abortion, the issue that sent so many of them over the edge is the lack of willingness of Democrats to agree on a limit. The b…

> You’re assuming that everyone fully believes and supports anything in the party platform, especially the most extreme elements.

I think it doesn't matter what one personally believes if they're enabling a party/company/base that mostly campaigns and executes on items that are opposite of their views. Claiming that one is in favor of abortion until a certain limit, but then supporting a party that says none at all is the way to go is pretty off base, yeah?

Also, there's just so much trolling/conversing in bad faith that people don't want to waste their time because they feel it's difficult to have reasonable discourse.

Re: Preventing extreme polarization of political attitudes

#175

Post by snovv_crash »

idontwantthis wrote: post #64
rmbyrro wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's how bad the situation is... To be fair, though, the left also has been associated with violent and anti-democratic behaviors.

“To be fair” nothing approaching the same ballpark has been committed by the left and the any “violent and anti democratic behaviors” you can give examples of have not been championed by the left establishment. One side wants to seize power for all time, and the other side wants democracy. If anyone on the left isn’t polarized by that fact then they aren’t paying attention.

> and the other side wants democracy

No they don't. They just happened to find a group of people who were likely to vote for them but couldn't. If they were likely to vote GOP (or Green, or Libertarian), they wouldn't be fighting this fight at all.

If you really want to see what someone believes, look at what they do when it isn't in their best interests.

Re: Preventing extreme polarization of political attitudes

#176

Post by brightball »

pjc50 wrote: post #157
brightball wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re illustrating my point here. You’re assuming that everyone fully believes and supports anything in the party platform, especially the most extreme elements. This absolutely works both ways and erases people in favor of a label. I talk to a lot of conservatives. While many of them oppose abortion, the issue that sent so many of them over the edge is the lack of willingness of Democrats to agree on a limit. The b…

> opposition is to late term abortions That's not what's actually happened in legislation though, is it? And there wasn't a huge "late term" abortion problem in the first place, was there? And what are you considering "late term"?

3rd trimester

Re: Preventing extreme polarization of political attitudes

#177

Post by snovv_crash »

buffalobuffalo wrote: post #112

I think one way to massively reduce polarization in the US at least is to mix up the parties. That is to say, get left leaning people into the republican party and right leaning people into the democratic party. (just having them vote in the primaries would be sufficient). This would at least dampen the political effect of extreme polarization. The funny thing is that from a game theory perspective, it seems like it…

If it was about getting legislation through that would make sense. If it's about getting certain individuals into positions of power, however, the opposite is true. /cynical

Re: Preventing extreme polarization of political attitudes

#178

Post by dragonwriter »

edmcnulty101 wrote: post #119

The media calling January 6th an 'insurrection' is a perfect example of the problem. It's pure sensationalism. There were no guns, there was no centralized organization to indicate an insurrection, the 4 people who died were all protestors, mostly from being dumbasses. Clearly those people who damaged the capitol should be punished, just like the Black Lives Matter protesters who damaged the Foley Federal Building. B…

> There were no guns,

There were guns; several firearms charges have been filed related to the Insurrection.

> there was no centralized organization to indicate an insurrection,

A single centralized organization is not required for an insurrection; there were various organized groups with common purpose as well as participants inspired by direct calls from influential leaders without participating in a formal organization.

> the 4 people who died were all protestors,

insurrections, especially unsuccessful ones, very often experience disproportionate casualties. Even beyond disputes about which deaths count as due to Jan. 6, not sure why you’d cite this since it doesn't even support your case.

> But calling it an INSURRECTION is just

Is just factually accurate; it was a violent, unlawful collective action aimed at using force and threat of force against officials as a means of overturning the election and keeping the loser in the paramount executive position; the particular official acts it sought to intimidate people into taking were advocate by the leader it sought to retain in power and the approach of intimidation was also at his direction; it was insurrection in support of an auto-coup.

That it was, perhaps, desperately and hurriedly assembled, poorly planned and organized, and certainly ultimately unsuccessful isn't an argument that it wasn't an insurrection.

Re: Preventing extreme polarization of political attitudes

#179

Post by edmcnulty101 »

Manuel_D wrote: post #173
throw0101a wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There were no guns Yes there were. Three examples of people charged: > Lonnie Coffman of Alabama: Police found multiple firearms and weapons in Coffman’s possession. Coffman’s truck, which he had parked in the vicinity of the Capitol on the morning of Jan. 6, was packed with weaponry including a handgun, a rifle and a shotgun, each loaded, according to court documents. In addition, the truck held hundreds of rounds…

So out of thousands of protesters, three were armed and none of which used their weapons during the supposed insurrection. As per your own definition, an insurrection is made "for the specific purpose of overthrowing the constituted government and seizing its powers". How does occupying the Capitol building translate into controlling the government? Are the military, the IRS, and all the other government institutions…

>> three were armed

Only one person was found with a gun on capitol grounds and not in the capitol.

So there were no known guns inside the capitol.

> Lonnie Coffman had the gun in his vehicle.

> Guy Refitt is being charged based on his son's testimony but claims he did not have it on him https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/zoetillman/capitol-riot...

It's literally sensationalism, inflating statistically insignificant facts in order to futher a narrative.

Re: Preventing extreme polarization of political attitudes

#180

Post by ilikecakeandpie »

JohnWhigham wrote: post #128
ilikecakeandpie wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If your political beliefs prevent you from associating with somebody because you have labeled them so firmly as to write them off entirely as a person, you have jumped the shark and become the problem. If someone is having their bodily autonomy threatened by legislation pushed and passed by a political party and a choice for potential partner actively supports and votes for those people to gain or retain power, it'…

OP presents a perfectly reasonable statement and your rebuttal is to strawman/argue in bad faith. You are exactly who they are talking about. You are part of the problem.

I'm not arguing in bad faith. I'm stating that it's not unreasonable to want to disassociate from a person who is actively supporting a movement/platform/party that actively works to harm/negatively affect them, especially when it's at a legislative level.

EDIT: Also, to be clear, my original comment was intended for the stat presented that people are saying they wouldn't date someone that voted Republican. I think it's even less unreasonable to not romantically pursue a stranger with political incompatibilities

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