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>Majorities in both parties say it is very important that elected officials treat their opponents with respect. But while most Democrats (78%) say it is very im

by daenz 7y ago

>Majorities in both parties say it is very important that elected officials treat their opponents with respect. But while most Democrats (78%) say it is very important for Republican elected officials to treat Democratic officials with respect, only about half (47%) say it is very important for officials from their party to treat Republican politicians with respect. There is similar divide in the opinions of Republicans; 75% say Democrats should be respectful of GOP officials, while only 49% say the same about Republicans’ treatment of Democratic officials. If there's one thing that unites us all, it is intense and hypocritical tribalism.

umvi 7y ago
> If there's one thing that unites us all, it is intense and hypocritical tribalism. "You need to be tolerant of my beliefs, but I don't need to be tolerant of yours"
- chillwaves 7y ago
  Does the content of the beliefs matter? Is it easier to be tolerant of multiculturalism than Nazism?
  - threezero 7y ago
    Ah yes, the old “anyone who opposes immigration is a Nazi” argument.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - antidesitter 7y ago
    To give you an idea of what your comment sounds like: Does the content of the beliefs matter? Is it easier to be tolerant of free speech than Communism?
    - happytoexplain 7y ago
      I think this is a somewhat false equivalency. The number and extremity of alignment with catastrophic far-right ideology, while relatively small, is significantly larger than the same metrics for similarly catastrophic far-left ideologies in the US (in my opinion). While there are a lot of people who too-broadly level accusations of Naziism against conservatives, and vice versa for things like Communism, there is in fact a real issue at hand around the topic of far-left vs far-right ideologies, and I don't think it requires blind tribalism to have the opinion that one is much more rampant or destructive than the other. In my experience, most criticisms that are based around simply inverting the political sidedness of the claim at hand tend to unjustly ignore this.
      - antidesitter 7y ago
        > The number and extremity of alignment with catastrophic far-right ideology, while relatively small, is significantly larger than the same metrics for similarly catastrophic far-left ideologies in the US What makes you think that? > one is much more rampant or destructive than the other You’re right about that. Communists killed far more people than Nazis ever did, destructive as the latter were.
- blitmap 7y ago
  Some beliefs cannot be accommodated. One party wants to consider executing women who terminate pregnancies for their own safety. The other party can't get anything considered.
  - antidesitter 7y ago
    > One party wants to consider executing women who terminate pregnancies for their own safety. Source?
    - antidesitter 7y ago
      So no sources, just a downvote. As expected.
      - dang 7y ago
        Would you please stop posting dismissive, hostile, and/or unsubstantive comments to HN? You've been doing it a lot, and it goes against the site guidelines. So does complaining about downvotes. If you would please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and practice the spirit of this site more earnestly, we'd appreciate it. I know it isn't easy, but it isn't easy for any of us—and we've had to ask you this multiple times before.
        antidesitter 7y ago
        Don’t be ridiculous, dang. Requesting sources for an incredible and unsubstantiated claim is in no way “dismissive, hostile, and/or unsubstantive”. > You've been doing it a lot I don’t think so. Did you have some particular examples in mind?
        dang 7y ago
        I'm talking about your comments as a whole, which contain many examples of dismissiveness, hostility, and unsubstantiveness. Your first comment upthread was obviously unsubstantive, and the later one was unsubstantive, hostile, and broke the site guideline against going on about downvotes. >> we've had to ask you this multiple times before > Really? Name them. Here are some cases: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20067517 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20067517 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18580940 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18580940 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18581017 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18581017 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17832784 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17832784
- bcgraham 7y ago
  I can tolerate anything except the outgroup.
- mffnbs 7y ago
  Not all opinions are equal and there's no reason to treat them as such.
  - kolbe 7y ago
    True, but for some reason in the US we’ve decided that all/most people are equal sources of viable opinions when it comes to electing representatives. Whether or not you treat their opinions with respect matters little compared to their ability to vote their opinions into office.
  - rjf72 7y ago
    Your interpretation of his comment quite succinctly sums up the problems with society today. Being tolerant of something is not the same as treating it identically to other views. Imagine my neighbor is completely and absolutely convinced that 2+2=5. I'd be somewhat curious why somebody would believe such a peculiar thing. If we had the time I'd certainly be happy to indulge him and of course I'd also try to correct him. If, at the end of the day, we couldn't agree? That's fine. Of course I'm probably not going to be convinced that 2+2=5 and won't make a secret of it, but agreeing to disagree is okay. In practice this distinction of tolerance vs "all opinions are equal" is even more critical because many of the topics people love to get into heated arguments about have compelling, entirely factual, arguments supporting mutually exclusive conclusions. Life's fun that way. On these sort of topics - guns, migration, economic systems, etc - there are of course some completely unsupportable views, but there are no right answers. In fact they probably literally do not exist since even with omniscience, the answer would still be contingent on the state of a society and people at any given point in time and place. We all believe the things we believe because we, tautologically, think they're what we ought believe - what is most right, or most supported, or whatever our personal value system tells us is correct. The problem we face today is when we then start assuming that because our value system tells us this belief must be the most valid, that we start to treat other completely supportable views as invalid.
    - kolbe 7y ago
      I think deep down, most people agree with you. But it's not very practical to have a level-headed approach to political discourse, since most political topics of the day are not rooted in morality, but instead are economic agendas shrouded in morality. For example, no one really knows the systems effect of forgiving student loan debt, but politicians advocating for it are quite confident that that policy helps them win. So, being uncertain or open to discussion along the lines of whether or not that policy is good for the US isn't really the point. It's already known to be good for other, more palpable reasons, and any effort to shift the discussion into uncertainty about the effects of the US is only bad for the politician who already knows about the policy's effect on them personally.
save_ferris 7y ago
This feels like the prisoners dilemma scenario, where cooperation with the other side is riskier than ratting them out. Neither side is particularly incentivized to cooperate, so what’s to give?
smt88 7y ago
Being respectful of elected officials is totally different from being respectful of their supporters. For example, I can directly blame a senator for her votes. If her vote was for something I think is indefensible (like the Iraq War), showing disrespect is acceptable and deserved, as long as it's non-violent. However, not all of her voters might have expected or condoned that vote. Even if they did, their responsibility for the vote is a small fraction of the senator's. Joe Biden gave us a great example of this recently when he praised himself for getting along with segregationist colleagues. Treating them with respect was unwarranted because they didn't treat tens of millions of black Americans with respect.
- happytoexplain 7y ago
  This can't be overstated. I think the tendency to treat politics like sports and develop a strong emotional connection with a political figure that you will never have any personal knowledge of is a huge part of what leads us to the inability to stop feeling attacked by each other (and, in reaction, attacking each other). E.g. if I am making some broad criticism, I make it clear I'm talking about politicians, not constituents. I don't talk shit about "Republicans" in the abstract. The difference may seem small, but the point is that just because I think Trump is a stupid asshole doesn't mean I think people who voted for Trump are.

by daenz 7y ago

umvi 7y ago

> If there's one thing that unites us all, it is intense and hypocritical tribalism. "You need to be tolerant of my beliefs, but I don't need to be tolerant of yours"

chillwaves 7y ago
Does the content of the beliefs matter? Is it easier to be tolerant of multiculturalism than Nazism?
- threezero 7y ago
  Ah yes, the old “anyone who opposes immigration is a Nazi” argument.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- antidesitter 7y ago
  To give you an idea of what your comment sounds like: Does the content of the beliefs matter? Is it easier to be tolerant of free speech than Communism?
  - happytoexplain 7y ago
    I think this is a somewhat false equivalency. The number and extremity of alignment with catastrophic far-right ideology, while relatively small, is significantly larger than the same metrics for similarly catastrophic far-left ideologies in the US (in my opinion). While there are a lot of people who too-broadly level accusations of Naziism against conservatives, and vice versa for things like Communism, there is in fact a real issue at hand around the topic of far-left vs far-right ideologies, and I don't think it requires blind tribalism to have the opinion that one is much more rampant or destructive than the other. In my experience, most criticisms that are based around simply inverting the political sidedness of the claim at hand tend to unjustly ignore this.
    - antidesitter 7y ago
      > The number and extremity of alignment with catastrophic far-right ideology, while relatively small, is significantly larger than the same metrics for similarly catastrophic far-left ideologies in the US What makes you think that? > one is much more rampant or destructive than the other You’re right about that. Communists killed far more people than Nazis ever did, destructive as the latter were.
blitmap 7y ago
Some beliefs cannot be accommodated. One party wants to consider executing women who terminate pregnancies for their own safety. The other party can't get anything considered.
- antidesitter 7y ago
  > One party wants to consider executing women who terminate pregnancies for their own safety. Source?
  - antidesitter 7y ago
    So no sources, just a downvote. As expected.
    - dang 7y ago
      Would you please stop posting dismissive, hostile, and/or unsubstantive comments to HN? You've been doing it a lot, and it goes against the site guidelines. So does complaining about downvotes. If you would please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and practice the spirit of this site more earnestly, we'd appreciate it. I know it isn't easy, but it isn't easy for any of us—and we've had to ask you this multiple times before.
      - antidesitter 7y ago
        Don’t be ridiculous, dang. Requesting sources for an incredible and unsubstantiated claim is in no way “dismissive, hostile, and/or unsubstantive”. > You've been doing it a lot I don’t think so. Did you have some particular examples in mind?
        dang 7y ago
        I'm talking about your comments as a whole, which contain many examples of dismissiveness, hostility, and unsubstantiveness. Your first comment upthread was obviously unsubstantive, and the later one was unsubstantive, hostile, and broke the site guideline against going on about downvotes. >> we've had to ask you this multiple times before > Really? Name them. Here are some cases: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20067517 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20067517 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18580940 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18580940 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18581017 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18581017 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17832784 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17832784
bcgraham 7y ago
I can tolerate anything except the outgroup.
mffnbs 7y ago
Not all opinions are equal and there's no reason to treat them as such.
- kolbe 7y ago
  True, but for some reason in the US we’ve decided that all/most people are equal sources of viable opinions when it comes to electing representatives. Whether or not you treat their opinions with respect matters little compared to their ability to vote their opinions into office.
- rjf72 7y ago
  Your interpretation of his comment quite succinctly sums up the problems with society today. Being tolerant of something is not the same as treating it identically to other views. Imagine my neighbor is completely and absolutely convinced that 2+2=5. I'd be somewhat curious why somebody would believe such a peculiar thing. If we had the time I'd certainly be happy to indulge him and of course I'd also try to correct him. If, at the end of the day, we couldn't agree? That's fine. Of course I'm probably not going to be convinced that 2+2=5 and won't make a secret of it, but agreeing to disagree is okay. In practice this distinction of tolerance vs "all opinions are equal" is even more critical because many of the topics people love to get into heated arguments about have compelling, entirely factual, arguments supporting mutually exclusive conclusions. Life's fun that way. On these sort of topics - guns, migration, economic systems, etc - there are of course some completely unsupportable views, but there are no right answers. In fact they probably literally do not exist since even with omniscience, the answer would still be contingent on the state of a society and people at any given point in time and place. We all believe the things we believe because we, tautologically, think they're what we ought believe - what is most right, or most supported, or whatever our personal value system tells us is correct. The problem we face today is when we then start assuming that because our value system tells us this belief must be the most valid, that we start to treat other completely supportable views as invalid.
  - kolbe 7y ago
    I think deep down, most people agree with you. But it's not very practical to have a level-headed approach to political discourse, since most political topics of the day are not rooted in morality, but instead are economic agendas shrouded in morality. For example, no one really knows the systems effect of forgiving student loan debt, but politicians advocating for it are quite confident that that policy helps them win. So, being uncertain or open to discussion along the lines of whether or not that policy is good for the US isn't really the point. It's already known to be good for other, more palpable reasons, and any effort to shift the discussion into uncertainty about the effects of the US is only bad for the politician who already knows about the policy's effect on them personally.

save_ferris 7y ago

This feels like the prisoners dilemma scenario, where cooperation with the other side is riskier than ratting them out. Neither side is particularly incentivized to cooperate, so what’s to give?

smt88 7y ago

Being respectful of elected officials is totally different from being respectful of their supporters. For example, I can directly blame a senator for her votes. If her vote was for something I think is indefensible (like the Iraq War), showing disrespect is acceptable and deserved, as long as it's non-violent. However, not all of her voters might have expected or condoned that vote. Even if they did, their responsibility for the vote is a small fraction of the senator's. Joe Biden gave us a great example of this recently when he praised himself for getting along with segregationist colleagues. Treating them with respect was unwarranted because they didn't treat tens of millions of black Americans with respect.

happytoexplain 7y ago
This can't be overstated. I think the tendency to treat politics like sports and develop a strong emotional connection with a political figure that you will never have any personal knowledge of is a huge part of what leads us to the inability to stop feeling attacked by each other (and, in reaction, attacking each other). E.g. if I am making some broad criticism, I make it clear I'm talking about politicians, not constituents. I don't talk shit about "Republicans" in the abstract. The difference may seem small, but the point is that just because I think Trump is a stupid asshole doesn't mean I think people who voted for Trump are.