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It sounds like you're genuinely interested in correcting mistakes made by the democratic party. To that end as an outsider looking in, it seems to me that the

It sounds like you're genuinely interested in correcting mistakes made by the democratic party. To that end as an outsider looking in, it seems to me that the biggest problem the democratic party has right now is the ability to openly discuss ideas in a rational manner free from the chains of political correctness and its inherent biases. If the left could openly discuss the relationship between islam and terrorism, the negative impacts of certain equal opportunity laws on the minorities they are trying to benefit, the conflict between gender pronoun legislation and free speech, etc. then the party itself would be on big path for improvement. Note: Your statements were about the Democratic Party so I gave you my opinion on it. The Republican Party is replete with its own flaws, but thats not the topic here. IMO I think most of the left/right dichotomy is a poor political model which leads to group think over rational contemplation of specific issues. EDIT: I understand a libertarian or non-conforming opinion is not popular on HN or in liberal circles, hence the down votes. The irony here and specifically with my statement above is that we should uphold debate and argument over exclusion and political correctness to "let the good ideas win in free debate" and the only counter is to downvote and silence. Disagreement is great but it leads to Trump if you batle with intimidation tactics and silencing instead of actual argument. This is the biggest problem currently with many on the left and so I stand by my statement.

woofyman 10y ago
What is "gender pronoun legislation"?
- mhogomchungu 10y ago
  https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2016/05/17/you-can-be-fined-for-not-calling-people-ze-or-hir-if-thats-the-pronoun-they-demand-that-you-use/?utm_term=.8aeccb6b5097 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/201...
- jfaucett 10y ago
  The idea (which is now becoming law in some places such as Canada [1]) is that some people do not identify as male and female but rather as something inbetween. So if you refer to them using the words 'he' or 'she' then that is an act of violence against them. The laws enacted then fine you if you refuse to use whatever pronoun they prefer in place of 'he' or 'she'. [2] Some examples are ze,them, zer, etc. 1. https://youtu.be/kasiov0ytEc https://youtu.be/kasiov0ytEc 2. http://nypost.com/2016/05/19/city-issues-new-guidelines-on-transgender-pronouns/ http://nypost.com/2016/05/19/city-issues-new-guidelines-on-t...
  - tjalfi 10y ago
    http://www1.nyc.gov/assets/cchr/downloads/pdf/publications/GenderID_Card2015.pdf http://www1.nyc.gov/assets/cchr/downloads/pdf/publications/G... has a list of pronouns.
kelukelugames 10y ago
There are tons of libertarian support on HN and other Internet forums. They are about as persecuted as Christians in the US.
- jfaucett 10y ago
  You might be right. I don't know. A better phrasing might have been "anti-left" or "left-critical" viewpoint.
  - eli_gottlieb 10y ago
    >A better phrasing might have been "anti-left" or "left-critical" viewpoint. Not really, considering that we on the radical left don't even consider the Democrats left-wing at all. They're just... liberals.
  - pdkl95 10y ago
    > "anti-left" You might want to address your concerns to the party that just screwed up badly in the election, not "the left". The Democratic Party has spent the last few decades moving away from left-wing politics, with Clinton supporting a more mixed set of political views. Blaming "the left" for recent(-ish) problems in government isn't accurate when there hasn't been a lot of representation of the actual left in a while. That may be changing with Bernie and other recent support for liberal and progressive positions, but the current party is still very centrist.
    - jfaucett 10y ago
      You're right. This is why I mentioned not liking the whole left/right terminology in the first place.
- moyta 10y ago
  Definitely, there are a ton of libertarians here, to the point that my prior comments in threads like this would fluctuate up & down by 5 to 10 points for a few hours after posting. Was quite fun to watch!
vermontdevil 10y ago
I agree. I'm annoyed the Dems seem to think they are okay if they just stay the course. Here's the scorecard: The Republicans will control the House, the Senate, and the presidency, have the chance to appoint at least one and probably several Supreme Court justices, run 68 out of 99 state legislative houses, and hold 31 gubernatorial seats. Sounds like to me the Dems are in deep trouble and they need to wake up. Good points above.
- shshhdhs 10y ago
  Wow, I had no idea Nebraska only had one legislative house. Very interesting. Now I feel the urge to read the history of why they decided on only one.
ufo 10y ago
Sorry but I think you are missing the point. Most of the time when people say they are doing objective analysis on islam or minorities what they actually do is just say a bunch of racist stuff. And then they complain that the people saying that they are being hateful and racist are censoring their right to free speech.
- jfaucett 10y ago
  Well, first Islam is a religion which has nothing to do with race. So if someone is criticizing Islam because perhaps it has some bad ideas how can that be racist? Are the societal critics of fundamentalist Christianity racists when they assert the moral badness of stoning gays to death or that a "womans place is in the home"?
adamlett 10y ago
To that end as an outsider looking in, it seems to me that the biggest problem the democratic party has right now is the ability to openly discuss ideas in a rational manner free from the chains of political correctness and its inherent biases. What you are proposing has already been tried in my home country of Denmark. It doesn't work, because it legitimizes the rhetoric of the extreme right, which strengthens them, and makes people who were sympathetic to the left apathic. It also doesn't move any voters who were already sympathetic to these ideas, because why would they vote for the a watered down version of the same platform?
- jfaucett 10y ago
  Care to back that up with any data, links, etc? It seems like you are saying that the freedom to speak about and openly discuss problems is not the most effective way for a society to learn about, discuss, and solve its own problems, but that by explicity silencing anything not conforming to vague and malleable rules of "political correctness" a more optimal or equi-optimal system can be achieved. My question here is genuine, it doesn't follow immediately for me that what you say is true and seems counterintuitive to my knowledge base, so I would welcome any data backing up your statements (I can read Danish too, if that helps).
eli_gottlieb 10y ago
>If the left could openly discuss the relationship between islam and terrorism, the negative impacts of certain equal opportunity laws on the minorities they are trying to benefit, the conflict between gender pronoun legislation and free speech, etc. then the party itself would be on big path for improvement. I disagree strongly. The problem is not that the Democratic Party says the "wrong" thing about minor cultural issues. The problem is that it fills its propaganda output up with minor cultural issues at all. The party platform this year had a lot of positions in it that were good for the country: rebuild infrastructure, improve the health-care system, cheap to free higher education, better vocational education, etc. The Clinton campaign mostly did not actually run on those issues at all; it ran on "our opponent is a very mean, irresponsible, and socially unjust person". Why? Because those progressive positions in the platform were Sanders' positions, not Clinton's. The Democratic Party needs to make one major change to be relevant again: care about the working class. Run on bread-and-butter issues of material well-being, not on which words people use on Twitter! But that can't happen until the Clintonist cancer is excised from the party.
- jfaucett 10y ago
  You make valid points. Still, what happens when someone brings up some of the most important issues of the moment i.e. Black Lives Matters or Islamic Terrorism? Surely, the Democratic Party should not refuse to listen or engage at all?
  - pessimizer 10y ago
    Those are not the most important issues of the moment to anyone but white fanatics. The idea that one of the most important issues is black people marching, and that it it is on a par with Islamic terrorism (although the chances of even that affecting any particular citizen in any way are infinitesimal) is absurd. Bridges are falling apart, health care costs are rising out of control, with the loss of the manufacturing sector there are no jobs for people who haven't gone to college, the country is out of its mind on oxycodone, and you're worried about black people walking. Unbelievably elitist attitude.
pron 10y ago
Your very framing of the subject as "political correctness" is already passing judgment. Why is what you believe to be "political correctness" considered exclusion while your categorization of those opinions as mere political correctness isn't? For what it's worth, I believe that all the subjects you brought up, while far from perfect (and sometimes exaggerated, usually among a very small, extremely young minority), are far better studied and discussed in earnest among those you'd call liberals (the vast majority of people who actually study Islam and terrorism, public policy and minority, history etc., are liberals), then among libertarians. You can find serious academic discussion of most of those subjects, and the reason conservatives/libertarians don't think it exists is merely because they lack the will to actually deep dive and study the subject, instead expressing opinions based on gut feeling or a piece of data they've seen on some blog. When they are criticized, they try to invalidate that criticism (that often stems from actually caring about and studying the subject for more than 30 minutes) by calling it silencing. The only subject that isn't discussed in earnest, which you didn't mention, and unlike those subjects you mentioned has probably had a real impact on the election result, is neolibearal capitalism.
CurtHagenlocher 10y ago
I'm curious; how do you think that "discussing the relationship between Islam and terrorism" can e.g. solve the problem of ISIS? To many of us, this kind of insistence is aimed solely at making it okay to discriminate against people based solely on their religious faith.
- jfaucett 10y ago
  Generaly, without going into great detail, in the same way being allowed to criticize the relationship between Christianity and the oppression of women, justification for slavery, anti-gay actions, etc. Has led to much more moderate and tolerable interpretations of Christianity over the past several hundred years.
  - CurtHagenlocher 10y ago
    But there are certainly lots of more moderate interpretations of Islam than ISIS, so I still don't see the connection. I know of at least one church where members were advised to pray for a Trump victory in hopes that he would appoint Supreme Court justices that would overturn decisions like Roe v Wade, Lawrence v Texas, United States v Windsor and Obergefell v Hodges. Apparently, years of criticism have done nothing to eliminate the less moderate and tolerant interpretations of Christianity. EDIT: to clarify slightly, the existence of more moderate interpretations of a given religion does not also mean that the more extreme interpretations will go away.
    - jfaucett 10y ago
      True. And now I suppose I will go into slightly more detail :) First though, I never suggested that discussing the issue would solve the problem of ISIS just to be clear. Discussion is the first step down a very long road. However, I do think debate and criticism will contribute to a diminishing of such ideology in the world. So, would you agree it would be better for one or a few churches to pray for removal of Roe v Wade than hundreds or thousands of Churches? If so then you must surely agree that one or a few dozen extreme interpretations is still better than several hundreds or thousands as is the case with the various terrorists groups of which ISIS is one. So the question of importance is not how to eliminate extreme interpretations in a world we know is imperfect, but how to minimize that number knowing we can never fully eliminate it. Now, there are several ways to achieve our goal. One way, that is also backed up by some of the experts and leading activists in this field such as Maajid Nawaz, John Azumah, Sam Harris, Ayaan Hirsi to name a few - which I would highly recommend those interested in reading - is that which I suggest i.e. open debate and discussion and a fostering of secularization within Islam by interacting with its leaders and its community and criticizing the ideas, not the people, where they are bad. And doing all of this in an open and honest, non-vehement manner, but still discussing and criticizing nonetheless. Now, there are likely other factors that play a role in Islamic terrorism besides extreme interpretation of religious texts such as socio-economic status, educational level, community values, etc. which may or may not play a role in extremism and we should openly discuss these as well.
fixxer 10y ago
Nothing would make me happier than if the Democratic party was able to capture my vote in the next general. In order to do that, they're going to need to start making some serious changes: 1. Become the party of free speech. What is happening on college campuses is not something I will ever support. No safe spaces, no shouting down someone who doesnt define racism as "prejudice plus power". The regressive left is killing your party. 2. Stop supporting foreign policies that are as bad as the neocons. We don't need to export democracy to Libya, Syria, Yemen, Egypt... We don't need to engage ourselves in civil wars in other countries. We are not the world police. Follow the money for this election and it is painfully obvious that HRC was the candidate for the military industrial complex as much as she was for transgender bathrooms. 3. Stop pushing for foreign trade deals that further depress domestic wages. HRC stopped supporting TPP because Bernie and Trump were against it. If we get wage growth, entitlement expansion isn't necessary to capture the electorate and left candidates will be able to advance all the LGBT social reforms they want without scaring the moderate right away with tax increases. HRC won the popular vote this time, but a lot of the GOP turnout effort was half assed because they never thought Trump would pull it off. Reorient the party towards blue collar, or keep doing the same old same old and lose. This election cost you the Supreme Court. You really don't have any choice other than to move to the middle.
- socialist_coder 10y ago
  2 & 3 are Bernie's basic platform. He should have been the nominee.
  - fixxer 10y ago
    Did he not also want to layer on entitlement expansion (free college? Who was going to pay for that?). I actually think Bernie would have lost. Interesting thought exercise though.
    - ghost-monk 10y ago
      I agree that the "free college" issue was not laid out clearly enough. In reality, many countries offer free public education at the college level, it's not a ridiculous proposition. It's a worthy cause as long as the programs being subsidized lead to more capable and, eventually, more affluent American work force that would boost the economy. Ideally, Bernie's platform would offset the cost of some free higher education by closing corporate tax loopholes, releasing non-violent drug offenders from tax-funded prisons and jails, and significantly reducing military spending.
pessimizer 10y ago
> If the left could openly discuss the relationship between islam and terrorism, the negative impacts of certain equal opportunity laws on the minorities they are trying to benefit, the conflict between gender pronoun legislation and free speech, etc. then the party itself would be on big path for improvement. That any of this made a difference is the fantasy of a right that got 60 million votes this election, 60 million votes in the last, and 60 million in the one before that. Democrats lost because they hitched their wagon to megadonors and didn't deliver on their promises to working people. They lost their own base, one that gave 72 million votes to a black man with a Arabic/Kenyan name who openly and aggressively advocated for the opposite of what you think (white) people crave. This election was not a victory for /pol/, it was yet another rejection of Clinton. Not only did Trump get fewer votes than Clinton, I think he got fewer votes that Romney and McCain, too.
threatofrain 10y ago
I don't think that any group in America is really ready to discuss things in a rational way that is beholden to evidence. Ron Paul was talking a long time ago about how Islamic violence should be framed as blowback -- side effects for decades or epochs of outside disruption. The GOP party body (whether you're looking only at media chatter or popular chatter) will not be able to coldly discuss factors to Islamic terrorism. In fact, I think you'll find that less than 1% of constituents of the GOP body have read any truly cold account on terrorism, probably found only in Maryland among young students aspiring to learn the poise and prose of a Washington analyst. Jokes aside, the internal values of the GOP prevent anyone from speaking ill of the military, and that's why the populous GOP response to Islamic political violence is more military, and a more imperialistic view of how spoils of Iraq should go to the winners. Are we even allowed to suggest that Islamic terrorism may be political terrorism, and not just religious terrorism? Maybe it's because the armed forces employs so many people, and people aren't ready for a discussion of what life outside the military means, especially now as Uber managed an automated delivery of beer by truck. Also, don't you find that as soon as you read for even a few hours on any subject matter, that you've already surpassed much of the nation in effort spent for comprehension? A lot of people have hot talk about the military, Christianity, welfare, terrorism, and immigration. But they're not willing to do the serious work for any one of these subjects. Try to find a Christian who even finds Christianity that fascinating. The problem is not more rational talk on these things. The problem is not better honest intellectual discussions. The problem is that people honestly don't give a shit about most things political. They want to have strong emotions, and they don't care to look for facts or models. That's why your parents voting behaviors is the single best (or 2nd best) predictor for your voting behavior, and that's why voting behavior remains predictable lifelong. It's not like the voters are watching the debates and going to the noisy person next to them, "Shhh! I need to hear more debate facts so I can decide how to vote!"
- socialist_coder 10y ago
  > The problem is not more rational talk on these things. The problem is not better honest intellectual discussions. The problem is that people honestly don't give a shit about most things political. They want to have strong emotions, and they don't care to look for facts or models. This is so true. I wish it was feasible to only allow educated people to vote =) Most people are just too stupid or lazy to truly understand what they're voting for.
andrepd 10y ago
>EDIT: I understand a libertarian or non-conforming opinion is not popular on HN or in liberal circles, hence the down votes. Nah. I'm downvoting you because you are complaining about downvotes in the reddit passive aggressive way that is specifically forbidden in the guidelines.
- jfaucett 10y ago
  Well, I disagree with you but appreciate that you took the time to give the reason for your downvote. I always try to do the same as well b/c I think if everyone did that we would never have a need for such EDITS as the one I made above.
- meowface 10y ago
  Ironically, I will take advantage of the annoying reddit tradition of announcing I've upvoted you despite your downvotes. I totally agree with his post, but whining about and rationalizing downvotes is petty and off-topic. Especially since it has the most points in the sub-thread.

woofyman 10y ago

What is "gender pronoun legislation"?

mhogomchungu 10y ago
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2016/05/17/you-can-be-fined-for-not-calling-people-ze-or-hir-if-thats-the-pronoun-they-demand-that-you-use/?utm_term=.8aeccb6b5097 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/201...
jfaucett 10y ago
The idea (which is now becoming law in some places such as Canada [1]) is that some people do not identify as male and female but rather as something inbetween. So if you refer to them using the words 'he' or 'she' then that is an act of violence against them. The laws enacted then fine you if you refuse to use whatever pronoun they prefer in place of 'he' or 'she'. [2] Some examples are ze,them, zer, etc. 1. https://youtu.be/kasiov0ytEc https://youtu.be/kasiov0ytEc 2. http://nypost.com/2016/05/19/city-issues-new-guidelines-on-transgender-pronouns/ http://nypost.com/2016/05/19/city-issues-new-guidelines-on-t...
- tjalfi 10y ago
  http://www1.nyc.gov/assets/cchr/downloads/pdf/publications/GenderID_Card2015.pdf http://www1.nyc.gov/assets/cchr/downloads/pdf/publications/G... has a list of pronouns.

kelukelugames 10y ago

There are tons of libertarian support on HN and other Internet forums. They are about as persecuted as Christians in the US.

jfaucett 10y ago
You might be right. I don't know. A better phrasing might have been "anti-left" or "left-critical" viewpoint.
- eli_gottlieb 10y ago
  >A better phrasing might have been "anti-left" or "left-critical" viewpoint. Not really, considering that we on the radical left don't even consider the Democrats left-wing at all. They're just... liberals.
- pdkl95 10y ago
  > "anti-left" You might want to address your concerns to the party that just screwed up badly in the election, not "the left". The Democratic Party has spent the last few decades moving away from left-wing politics, with Clinton supporting a more mixed set of political views. Blaming "the left" for recent(-ish) problems in government isn't accurate when there hasn't been a lot of representation of the actual left in a while. That may be changing with Bernie and other recent support for liberal and progressive positions, but the current party is still very centrist.
  - jfaucett 10y ago
    You're right. This is why I mentioned not liking the whole left/right terminology in the first place.
moyta 10y ago
Definitely, there are a ton of libertarians here, to the point that my prior comments in threads like this would fluctuate up & down by 5 to 10 points for a few hours after posting. Was quite fun to watch!

vermontdevil 10y ago

I agree. I'm annoyed the Dems seem to think they are okay if they just stay the course. Here's the scorecard: The Republicans will control the House, the Senate, and the presidency, have the chance to appoint at least one and probably several Supreme Court justices, run 68 out of 99 state legislative houses, and hold 31 gubernatorial seats. Sounds like to me the Dems are in deep trouble and they need to wake up. Good points above.

shshhdhs 10y ago
Wow, I had no idea Nebraska only had one legislative house. Very interesting. Now I feel the urge to read the history of why they decided on only one.

ufo 10y ago

Sorry but I think you are missing the point. Most of the time when people say they are doing objective analysis on islam or minorities what they actually do is just say a bunch of racist stuff. And then they complain that the people saying that they are being hateful and racist are censoring their right to free speech.

jfaucett 10y ago
Well, first Islam is a religion which has nothing to do with race. So if someone is criticizing Islam because perhaps it has some bad ideas how can that be racist? Are the societal critics of fundamentalist Christianity racists when they assert the moral badness of stoning gays to death or that a "womans place is in the home"?

adamlett 10y ago

To that end as an outsider looking in, it seems to me that the biggest problem the democratic party has right now is the ability to openly discuss ideas in a rational manner free from the chains of political correctness and its inherent biases. What you are proposing has already been tried in my home country of Denmark. It doesn't work, because it legitimizes the rhetoric of the extreme right, which strengthens them, and makes people who were sympathetic to the left apathic. It also doesn't move any voters who were already sympathetic to these ideas, because why would they vote for the a watered down version of the same platform?

jfaucett 10y ago
Care to back that up with any data, links, etc? It seems like you are saying that the freedom to speak about and openly discuss problems is not the most effective way for a society to learn about, discuss, and solve its own problems, but that by explicity silencing anything not conforming to vague and malleable rules of "political correctness" a more optimal or equi-optimal system can be achieved. My question here is genuine, it doesn't follow immediately for me that what you say is true and seems counterintuitive to my knowledge base, so I would welcome any data backing up your statements (I can read Danish too, if that helps).

eli_gottlieb 10y ago

>If the left could openly discuss the relationship between islam and terrorism, the negative impacts of certain equal opportunity laws on the minorities they are trying to benefit, the conflict between gender pronoun legislation and free speech, etc. then the party itself would be on big path for improvement. I disagree strongly. The problem is not that the Democratic Party says the "wrong" thing about minor cultural issues. The problem is that it fills its propaganda output up with minor cultural issues at all. The party platform this year had a lot of positions in it that were good for the country: rebuild infrastructure, improve the health-care system, cheap to free higher education, better vocational education, etc. The Clinton campaign mostly did not actually run on those issues at all; it ran on "our opponent is a very mean, irresponsible, and socially unjust person". Why? Because those progressive positions in the platform were Sanders' positions, not Clinton's. The Democratic Party needs to make one major change to be relevant again: care about the working class. Run on bread-and-butter issues of material well-being, not on which words people use on Twitter! But that can't happen until the Clintonist cancer is excised from the party.

jfaucett 10y ago
You make valid points. Still, what happens when someone brings up some of the most important issues of the moment i.e. Black Lives Matters or Islamic Terrorism? Surely, the Democratic Party should not refuse to listen or engage at all?
- pessimizer 10y ago
  Those are not the most important issues of the moment to anyone but white fanatics. The idea that one of the most important issues is black people marching, and that it it is on a par with Islamic terrorism (although the chances of even that affecting any particular citizen in any way are infinitesimal) is absurd. Bridges are falling apart, health care costs are rising out of control, with the loss of the manufacturing sector there are no jobs for people who haven't gone to college, the country is out of its mind on oxycodone, and you're worried about black people walking. Unbelievably elitist attitude.

pron 10y ago

Your very framing of the subject as "political correctness" is already passing judgment. Why is what you believe to be "political correctness" considered exclusion while your categorization of those opinions as mere political correctness isn't? For what it's worth, I believe that all the subjects you brought up, while far from perfect (and sometimes exaggerated, usually among a very small, extremely young minority), are far better studied and discussed in earnest among those you'd call liberals (the vast majority of people who actually study Islam and terrorism, public policy and minority, history etc., are liberals), then among libertarians. You can find serious academic discussion of most of those subjects, and the reason conservatives/libertarians don't think it exists is merely because they lack the will to actually deep dive and study the subject, instead expressing opinions based on gut feeling or a piece of data they've seen on some blog. When they are criticized, they try to invalidate that criticism (that often stems from actually caring about and studying the subject for more than 30 minutes) by calling it silencing. The only subject that isn't discussed in earnest, which you didn't mention, and unlike those subjects you mentioned has probably had a real impact on the election result, is neolibearal capitalism.

CurtHagenlocher 10y ago

I'm curious; how do you think that "discussing the relationship between Islam and terrorism" can e.g. solve the problem of ISIS? To many of us, this kind of insistence is aimed solely at making it okay to discriminate against people based solely on their religious faith.

jfaucett 10y ago
Generaly, without going into great detail, in the same way being allowed to criticize the relationship between Christianity and the oppression of women, justification for slavery, anti-gay actions, etc. Has led to much more moderate and tolerable interpretations of Christianity over the past several hundred years.
- CurtHagenlocher 10y ago
  But there are certainly lots of more moderate interpretations of Islam than ISIS, so I still don't see the connection. I know of at least one church where members were advised to pray for a Trump victory in hopes that he would appoint Supreme Court justices that would overturn decisions like Roe v Wade, Lawrence v Texas, United States v Windsor and Obergefell v Hodges. Apparently, years of criticism have done nothing to eliminate the less moderate and tolerant interpretations of Christianity. EDIT: to clarify slightly, the existence of more moderate interpretations of a given religion does not also mean that the more extreme interpretations will go away.
  - jfaucett 10y ago
    True. And now I suppose I will go into slightly more detail :) First though, I never suggested that discussing the issue would solve the problem of ISIS just to be clear. Discussion is the first step down a very long road. However, I do think debate and criticism will contribute to a diminishing of such ideology in the world. So, would you agree it would be better for one or a few churches to pray for removal of Roe v Wade than hundreds or thousands of Churches? If so then you must surely agree that one or a few dozen extreme interpretations is still better than several hundreds or thousands as is the case with the various terrorists groups of which ISIS is one. So the question of importance is not how to eliminate extreme interpretations in a world we know is imperfect, but how to minimize that number knowing we can never fully eliminate it. Now, there are several ways to achieve our goal. One way, that is also backed up by some of the experts and leading activists in this field such as Maajid Nawaz, John Azumah, Sam Harris, Ayaan Hirsi to name a few - which I would highly recommend those interested in reading - is that which I suggest i.e. open debate and discussion and a fostering of secularization within Islam by interacting with its leaders and its community and criticizing the ideas, not the people, where they are bad. And doing all of this in an open and honest, non-vehement manner, but still discussing and criticizing nonetheless. Now, there are likely other factors that play a role in Islamic terrorism besides extreme interpretation of religious texts such as socio-economic status, educational level, community values, etc. which may or may not play a role in extremism and we should openly discuss these as well.

fixxer 10y ago

Nothing would make me happier than if the Democratic party was able to capture my vote in the next general. In order to do that, they're going to need to start making some serious changes: 1. Become the party of free speech. What is happening on college campuses is not something I will ever support. No safe spaces, no shouting down someone who doesnt define racism as "prejudice plus power". The regressive left is killing your party. 2. Stop supporting foreign policies that are as bad as the neocons. We don't need to export democracy to Libya, Syria, Yemen, Egypt... We don't need to engage ourselves in civil wars in other countries. We are not the world police. Follow the money for this election and it is painfully obvious that HRC was the candidate for the military industrial complex as much as she was for transgender bathrooms. 3. Stop pushing for foreign trade deals that further depress domestic wages. HRC stopped supporting TPP because Bernie and Trump were against it. If we get wage growth, entitlement expansion isn't necessary to capture the electorate and left candidates will be able to advance all the LGBT social reforms they want without scaring the moderate right away with tax increases. HRC won the popular vote this time, but a lot of the GOP turnout effort was half assed because they never thought Trump would pull it off. Reorient the party towards blue collar, or keep doing the same old same old and lose. This election cost you the Supreme Court. You really don't have any choice other than to move to the middle.

socialist_coder 10y ago
2 & 3 are Bernie's basic platform. He should have been the nominee.
- fixxer 10y ago
  Did he not also want to layer on entitlement expansion (free college? Who was going to pay for that?). I actually think Bernie would have lost. Interesting thought exercise though.
  - ghost-monk 10y ago
    I agree that the "free college" issue was not laid out clearly enough. In reality, many countries offer free public education at the college level, it's not a ridiculous proposition. It's a worthy cause as long as the programs being subsidized lead to more capable and, eventually, more affluent American work force that would boost the economy. Ideally, Bernie's platform would offset the cost of some free higher education by closing corporate tax loopholes, releasing non-violent drug offenders from tax-funded prisons and jails, and significantly reducing military spending.

pessimizer 10y ago

> If the left could openly discuss the relationship between islam and terrorism, the negative impacts of certain equal opportunity laws on the minorities they are trying to benefit, the conflict between gender pronoun legislation and free speech, etc. then the party itself would be on big path for improvement. That any of this made a difference is the fantasy of a right that got 60 million votes this election, 60 million votes in the last, and 60 million in the one before that. Democrats lost because they hitched their wagon to megadonors and didn't deliver on their promises to working people. They lost their own base, one that gave 72 million votes to a black man with a Arabic/Kenyan name who openly and aggressively advocated for the opposite of what you think (white) people crave. This election was not a victory for /pol/, it was yet another rejection of Clinton. Not only did Trump get fewer votes than Clinton, I think he got fewer votes that Romney and McCain, too.

threatofrain 10y ago

I don't think that any group in America is really ready to discuss things in a rational way that is beholden to evidence. Ron Paul was talking a long time ago about how Islamic violence should be framed as blowback -- side effects for decades or epochs of outside disruption. The GOP party body (whether you're looking only at media chatter or popular chatter) will not be able to coldly discuss factors to Islamic terrorism. In fact, I think you'll find that less than 1% of constituents of the GOP body have read any truly cold account on terrorism, probably found only in Maryland among young students aspiring to learn the poise and prose of a Washington analyst. Jokes aside, the internal values of the GOP prevent anyone from speaking ill of the military, and that's why the populous GOP response to Islamic political violence is more military, and a more imperialistic view of how spoils of Iraq should go to the winners. Are we even allowed to suggest that Islamic terrorism may be political terrorism, and not just religious terrorism? Maybe it's because the armed forces employs so many people, and people aren't ready for a discussion of what life outside the military means, especially now as Uber managed an automated delivery of beer by truck. Also, don't you find that as soon as you read for even a few hours on any subject matter, that you've already surpassed much of the nation in effort spent for comprehension? A lot of people have hot talk about the military, Christianity, welfare, terrorism, and immigration. But they're not willing to do the serious work for any one of these subjects. Try to find a Christian who even finds Christianity that fascinating. The problem is not more rational talk on these things. The problem is not better honest intellectual discussions. The problem is that people honestly don't give a shit about most things political. They want to have strong emotions, and they don't care to look for facts or models. That's why your parents voting behaviors is the single best (or 2nd best) predictor for your voting behavior, and that's why voting behavior remains predictable lifelong. It's not like the voters are watching the debates and going to the noisy person next to them, "Shhh! I need to hear more debate facts so I can decide how to vote!"

socialist_coder 10y ago
> The problem is not more rational talk on these things. The problem is not better honest intellectual discussions. The problem is that people honestly don't give a shit about most things political. They want to have strong emotions, and they don't care to look for facts or models. This is so true. I wish it was feasible to only allow educated people to vote =) Most people are just too stupid or lazy to truly understand what they're voting for.

andrepd 10y ago

>EDIT: I understand a libertarian or non-conforming opinion is not popular on HN or in liberal circles, hence the down votes. Nah. I'm downvoting you because you are complaining about downvotes in the reddit passive aggressive way that is specifically forbidden in the guidelines.

jfaucett 10y ago
Well, I disagree with you but appreciate that you took the time to give the reason for your downvote. I always try to do the same as well b/c I think if everyone did that we would never have a need for such EDITS as the one I made above.
meowface 10y ago
Ironically, I will take advantage of the annoying reddit tradition of announcing I've upvoted you despite your downvotes. I totally agree with his post, but whining about and rationalizing downvotes is petty and off-topic. Especially since it has the most points in the sub-thread.