5 ms·

I have switched from a life long moderate Republican to a moderate Democrat. I think most of my friends think I am now going to Hell and I am a Hillary lover. I

by baldfat 11y ago

I have switched from a life long moderate Republican to a moderate Democrat. I think most of my friends think I am now going to Hell and I am a Hillary lover. I tell them that Republicans have no room for moderates. They make the craziest things up about Common Core, Environment and the nation's Safety Net. They have no idea how crazy they sound.

mason240 11y ago
I did the reverse and found the same is true the other way.
- baldfat 11y ago
  I seriously would be interested on what topics you find the same thing. I FORGOT to say minimum wages I just find it crazy that we provide the safety net for low wages for large profitable corporations and that they want to continue supplying workers for them on the backs of tax dollars.
  - jcizzle 11y ago
    I think you should put some time and effort into researching who in America works for a minimum wage, how long they work for minimum wage, what economists think about minimum wage. I typically find that if I find something 'crazy', and can't believe that 'the other side' would have such an ignorant view, it just means I don't understand the problem.
    - baldfat 11y ago
      I see it all the time though that is anecdotal evidence. I use to be a librarian and I do a lot of statistical work and analysis but I am not an expert but everything I have looked at that is anti-minimum wage I can usually always trace back the money to corporations or some private entity that feels they benefit from low wages. The Pro-Wealth and down trodden the poor has been going on for centuries and we are doing a better job BUT we can do so much better. I fail to see the proper small government view of low wages. These people HAVE TO HAVE MONEY so instead of their job paying them tax payers are making up the slack. WIC,Health Care, Food Stamps would go away with higher wages but instead we continue to give the money to corporations.
      - jcizzle 11y ago
        It doesn't make much sense that I've provided you with anecdotal evidence, as I have not provided you with any evidence at all. My suggestion was that you do real research on the topic. You've made a number of generalizations that you should really research. Factor out just one of your statements and describe each item in it. 'These people HAVE TO HAVE MONEY' - who are these people and how much money should they have? How much are their jobs paying them and how much tax payer money is making up the slack? What is the slack? How do health care and food stamps go away with higher wages? What are 'higher wages' in this context? How are we giving money to the corporations? Who is we in this sentence? Once you start to answer those questions with real evidence, then you can come up with solutions to each of those problems, create models for how those solutions will impact other problems and existing solutions. I won't tell you what you'll find, and I doubt you'll actually follow through, but it is unlikely that you'll persuade anyone with the current form of your argument.
        redblacktree 11y ago
        I think you may have misinterpreted baldfat's first sentence. > I see it all the time though that is anecdotal evidence. He's saying that he "sees it all the time," but he recognizes that this is only "anecdotal evidence."
  - humanrebar 11y ago
    > I seriously would be interested on what topics you find the same thing. All the nation-wide issues that could easily be state issues.
humanrebar 11y ago
> I tell them that Republicans have no room for moderates. Consider that the Democrats want no restrictions on ultra-late-term abortions. I think there's plenty of blame to go around here.
- rwmurrayVT 11y ago
  I think you're looking at that very wrong. They want people to be able to decide what they do with their own bodies. That's leaves the maximum amount of room for everyone's opinion. You don't want it? Don't do it.
  - augb 11y ago
    Except that there are two bodies, one is just attached with an umbilical cord.
    - baldfat 11y ago
      You can rip that baby out (AKA C Section) and that baby lives. There has to be an issue when a 30+ week old fetus (Latin for little one) can be ripped apart piece by piece inside a mother's womb but if anyone did that to a new born outside the mother's womb that would be INSANE.
  - humanrebar 11y ago
    > They want people to be able to decide what they do with their own bodies. I actually understand the argument. For all the rest of you know, I actually wrote the above response myself (I didn't, but I could have). The counterargument is that there are absolutely two people involved if a woman decides to abort on her due date. Even in liberal Western Europe abortions must be performed before certain gestation dates. Now, this sort of absolutism makes a kind of logical sense. The kind that also makes legalization of heroin a defensible position. And there are smart, compassionate people who want to legalize heroin. Just not the President and every candidate in the Democratic primary. Point being, there's no room for compromise on the abortion issue from the left. We could be talking about eight months versus seven months, what counts as a "medical exception", what forms of enforcement are fair, etc. But we're not. There's absolutely no room for compromise.
golergka 11y ago
> They make the craziest things up about Common Core, Environment and the nation's Safety Net. I find your selection of topic really interesting. I'm not a US citizen, but I'm on good terms with a lot of smart and reasonable people in US from all the political spectrum, from Bernie to Trump, and I've noticed a curious thing: the issues these people are talking about are different. Even if they are sometimes related (like taxes and government spending), red/blue teams don't make the connection. When a friend of mine (highly intelligent developer at Facebook, btw) explains why he would vote for Trump, he doesn't mention any of these. He and others like him talk about gun laws, about foreign policy, macro-economics and capital flight. If both parties weren't as polarized, I think they would be able to come to some compromise about these issues, allowing the adversary to get his way on some stuff that is just not as important for them. But the rhetoric I see is always polarized and absolute. People aren't ready even to ask the question about why would the other side think otherwise and assume good will even for a second. Instead, they immediately conjure racist/anti-american/anti-poor/communist strawmen.
- mike_hearn 11y ago
  I think Thomas Sowell's "A conflict of visions" should be mandatory reading at high school for this sort of reason. And not just in America. In every democracy. The book really is that good. (it presents a very compelling theory as to why people separate into political left and right)
pakled_engineer 11y ago
I might be reading your posts incorrectly but you appear as highly ideological and combative as said Republicans you know who sound 'crazy'. This is the problem with politics, everybody has their ideology and anybody with different ideology is insane, a heathen, inhuman, ect. I've taken lately to becoming a Trump contrarian in social settings full of ideological group think which are students I hang out with for an Advanced Calculus by Sternberg and Loomis study group where afterwards the conversations always devolve into politics. Not that I would support any current politician let alone Trump but he was the easiest candidate to find blatant media misrepresentation, and I do find it an interesting social experiment to witness normally friendly people go into witch trial mode for daring to challenge their ideology.

by baldfat 11y ago

mason240 11y ago

I did the reverse and found the same is true the other way.

baldfat 11y ago
I seriously would be interested on what topics you find the same thing. I FORGOT to say minimum wages I just find it crazy that we provide the safety net for low wages for large profitable corporations and that they want to continue supplying workers for them on the backs of tax dollars.
- jcizzle 11y ago
  I think you should put some time and effort into researching who in America works for a minimum wage, how long they work for minimum wage, what economists think about minimum wage. I typically find that if I find something 'crazy', and can't believe that 'the other side' would have such an ignorant view, it just means I don't understand the problem.
  - baldfat 11y ago
    I see it all the time though that is anecdotal evidence. I use to be a librarian and I do a lot of statistical work and analysis but I am not an expert but everything I have looked at that is anti-minimum wage I can usually always trace back the money to corporations or some private entity that feels they benefit from low wages. The Pro-Wealth and down trodden the poor has been going on for centuries and we are doing a better job BUT we can do so much better. I fail to see the proper small government view of low wages. These people HAVE TO HAVE MONEY so instead of their job paying them tax payers are making up the slack. WIC,Health Care, Food Stamps would go away with higher wages but instead we continue to give the money to corporations.
    - jcizzle 11y ago
      It doesn't make much sense that I've provided you with anecdotal evidence, as I have not provided you with any evidence at all. My suggestion was that you do real research on the topic. You've made a number of generalizations that you should really research. Factor out just one of your statements and describe each item in it. 'These people HAVE TO HAVE MONEY' - who are these people and how much money should they have? How much are their jobs paying them and how much tax payer money is making up the slack? What is the slack? How do health care and food stamps go away with higher wages? What are 'higher wages' in this context? How are we giving money to the corporations? Who is we in this sentence? Once you start to answer those questions with real evidence, then you can come up with solutions to each of those problems, create models for how those solutions will impact other problems and existing solutions. I won't tell you what you'll find, and I doubt you'll actually follow through, but it is unlikely that you'll persuade anyone with the current form of your argument.
      - redblacktree 11y ago
        I think you may have misinterpreted baldfat's first sentence. > I see it all the time though that is anecdotal evidence. He's saying that he "sees it all the time," but he recognizes that this is only "anecdotal evidence."
- humanrebar 11y ago
  > I seriously would be interested on what topics you find the same thing. All the nation-wide issues that could easily be state issues.

humanrebar 11y ago

> I tell them that Republicans have no room for moderates. Consider that the Democrats want no restrictions on ultra-late-term abortions. I think there's plenty of blame to go around here.

rwmurrayVT 11y ago
I think you're looking at that very wrong. They want people to be able to decide what they do with their own bodies. That's leaves the maximum amount of room for everyone's opinion. You don't want it? Don't do it.
- augb 11y ago
  Except that there are two bodies, one is just attached with an umbilical cord.
  - baldfat 11y ago
    You can rip that baby out (AKA C Section) and that baby lives. There has to be an issue when a 30+ week old fetus (Latin for little one) can be ripped apart piece by piece inside a mother's womb but if anyone did that to a new born outside the mother's womb that would be INSANE.
- humanrebar 11y ago
  > They want people to be able to decide what they do with their own bodies. I actually understand the argument. For all the rest of you know, I actually wrote the above response myself (I didn't, but I could have). The counterargument is that there are absolutely two people involved if a woman decides to abort on her due date. Even in liberal Western Europe abortions must be performed before certain gestation dates. Now, this sort of absolutism makes a kind of logical sense. The kind that also makes legalization of heroin a defensible position. And there are smart, compassionate people who want to legalize heroin. Just not the President and every candidate in the Democratic primary. Point being, there's no room for compromise on the abortion issue from the left. We could be talking about eight months versus seven months, what counts as a "medical exception", what forms of enforcement are fair, etc. But we're not. There's absolutely no room for compromise.

golergka 11y ago

> They make the craziest things up about Common Core, Environment and the nation's Safety Net. I find your selection of topic really interesting. I'm not a US citizen, but I'm on good terms with a lot of smart and reasonable people in US from all the political spectrum, from Bernie to Trump, and I've noticed a curious thing: the issues these people are talking about are different. Even if they are sometimes related (like taxes and government spending), red/blue teams don't make the connection. When a friend of mine (highly intelligent developer at Facebook, btw) explains why he would vote for Trump, he doesn't mention any of these. He and others like him talk about gun laws, about foreign policy, macro-economics and capital flight. If both parties weren't as polarized, I think they would be able to come to some compromise about these issues, allowing the adversary to get his way on some stuff that is just not as important for them. But the rhetoric I see is always polarized and absolute. People aren't ready even to ask the question about why would the other side think otherwise and assume good will even for a second. Instead, they immediately conjure racist/anti-american/anti-poor/communist strawmen.

mike_hearn 11y ago
I think Thomas Sowell's "A conflict of visions" should be mandatory reading at high school for this sort of reason. And not just in America. In every democracy. The book really is that good. (it presents a very compelling theory as to why people separate into political left and right)

pakled_engineer 11y ago

I might be reading your posts incorrectly but you appear as highly ideological and combative as said Republicans you know who sound 'crazy'. This is the problem with politics, everybody has their ideology and anybody with different ideology is insane, a heathen, inhuman, ect. I've taken lately to becoming a Trump contrarian in social settings full of ideological group think which are students I hang out with for an Advanced Calculus by Sternberg and Loomis study group where afterwards the conversations always devolve into politics. Not that I would support any current politician let alone Trump but he was the easiest candidate to find blatant media misrepresentation, and I do find it an interesting social experiment to witness normally friendly people go into witch trial mode for daring to challenge their ideology.