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This is because the party will ostracize you if you don't conform. You can't survive in a liberal environment if you don't support abortion and you can't surviv

This is because the party will ostracize you if you don't conform. You can't survive in a liberal environment if you don't support abortion and you can't survive in a conservative environment if you support gun control. Your friends will argue with you, you'll be surrounded by memes making fun of people who believe what you do. There's incredible social forces to conform to the exact set of beliefs espoused by political parties, which are mostly set by corporate interests. It's a huge part of what the Republican party has struggled with: There's both the clear vision of conservative values and ideals... and Donald Trump. You can practically see on people's faces trying to reconcile their beliefs with party platform. And there's a massive amount of pressure to stay in line with everyone else.

vkou 6y ago
> You can't survive in a liberal environment if you don't support abortion and you can't survive in a conservative environment if you support gun control. Would that explain why Catholics, who, ah, generally don't support abortion, are split ~50/50 between blue and red? [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_and_politics_in_the_United_States#Party_affiliation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_and_politics_i...
- Mountain_Skies 6y ago
  It's more complex than that but does work with the parent's comment. The official policy of the Catholic Church is that abortion is a terrible sin. Many other (but obviously not all) Christian churches have the same views. That does not mean that individual Catholics or their Christian brothers and sisters agree with the views of their churches on abortion or don't always agree that their religious views should be imposed on all of society. Abortion, while an important issue, is just one of thousands that church dogma preaches and there is no party that matches up to any of them completely. Some members of the church simply see the balance of other issues as being greater than the issue of abortion.
  - vkou 6y ago
    So, you are saying that when one social group you belong to (the church) has an inconsistent belief system with another social group you belong to (loose party affiliation), you pick the one that suits your personal opinion on other issues. This begs the question - why do people pick and choose their religious dogma, but not their political dogma? I feel that the answer to this question is 'The world is a little bit more complicated than the parent poster claims.' These claims have little predictive, or explanatory power, given this rather prominent counter-example.
    - Mountain_Skies 6y ago
      Probably because most people don't pick what church they belong to; their parents do that for them. While people do convert between religions, most will stay with what they grew up with and try to make things work within that framework. Sometimes that's not possible so they pick one or the other of their religion or their political ideology. Religion doesn't always lose out and my gut instinct is that it wins out more than politics does but that's more difficult to see since membership and public interaction for religion works differently than it does for political parties.
    - throwawayboise 6y ago
      People pick and choose both. What I have seen is that people generally start with what their parents taught them, but it's not that uncommon for them to end up completely different. And it changes over time. I was very much a "D" voter when I was young (as my parents were) but mostly vote "R" now. I've never been religous though (neither were my parents).
    - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
      > This begs the question - why do people pick and choose their religious dogma, but not their political dogma? Interesting possibility: Religion is a protected class, politics isn't. So people fear viewpoint discrimination (i.e. getting canceled) for diverging from the dominant political party, because that isn't protected, but not for diverging from any given religious doctrine, because that is protected. Maybe we just need to declare the political parties to be religions. In a way they are. And it's in the same way that caused religions to be protected to begin with, isn't it?
- Swizec 6y ago
  You can be culturally catholic and support abortion. There’s even atheist catolics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_atheism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_atheism
  - joecool1029 6y ago
    >You can be culturally catholic and support abortion. No actually, you can't. You can fit the broader definition of Christian but if you hold these views and profess to be a Catholic, you are in fact a heretic and can be excommunicated[1]. I see this fiction posted again and again on HN, and while it's not my intention to support or oppose the Church's viewpoint on this people should be educated and aware that they can't claim to be certain things if they aren't them. [1] https://www.vatican.va/archive/cod-iuris-canonici/eng/documents/cic_lib6-cann1364-1399_en.html https://www.vatican.va/archive/cod-iuris-canonici/eng/docume...
    - tomnipotent 6y ago
      This is for having an abortion, not supporting them. The later group is much larger than the former.
    - shadowgovt 6y ago
      This is technically correct (the best kind of correct! ;) ). In practice, there's a wide gulf between what the Church formally establishes as dogma and the adherence of individual Catholics. It's generally resolved as the Church holding the door open for forgiveness through a person's entire life, as long as penitence is a possibility. It's rare for the Church to excommunicate an individual Catholic (or even deprive them of communion) even for very public statements regarding their support of abortion. Sometimes, the door is held open so long the Church's view on the topic changes and forgiveness is no longer needed to align the practitioner with the Church's stance.
    - confidantlake 6y ago
      You don't even have to go to church to be culturally a catholic.
    - 6y ago
- thayne 6y ago
  I would guess most blue catholics who don't support abortion either avoid the topic or at least don't admit to their opinion to their blue friends.
  - Mountain_Skies 6y ago
    My mother is very anti-abortion while also being a die hard straight ticket Democrat. Not all Catholics in her social circle are the same but many are. I can't say she has a political social circle, so maybe she is able to balance her beliefs because she isn't called on them. The issues her and her friends care about tend to be about extending entitlement programs, public education, assistance to immigrants, and things of a similar nature. For these the Democrats are much more inline with their views than Republicans, which is probably how she and other Catholics like her justify supporting the pro-choice political party despite being strongly against abortion.
- throwawayboise 6y ago
  Two things come to mind. First (and I don't know how true it is), some contemporary Catholics are not hard-line anti-abortion; second, at the end of the day you usually have a choice of D or R. You go with what lines up best. Voting for either one does not mean you lockstep agree with their position on every issue.
- TylerE 6y ago
  A large portion of Catholics (about 35%) are Latino, who are often more socially conservative. The European Catholics (Primarily Irish, Italian, German ancestry) are often more liberal, perhaps because historically they've lived in the urban North East.
- ImprovedSilence 6y ago
  As a catholic, I would say that the catholic church has done a pretty decent job of not taking sides in politics. (Probably so as to not push anyone away from church, they dont suck people in and have growing memberships like some other denominations ). I have friends and extended family in those “newer hyper Christian” churches, and they all somehow manage to attach way more identity into their church life than any catholics I know. As well as pushing their beliefs on other people. Whereas the catholic view as I have experienced it is “you're different? Thats cool, lets be nice”. Theyre still super pro life, but i havent heard anything that makes me think the overarching catholic political stance is a one issue vote.
  - SV_BubbleTime 6y ago
    > As a catholic, I would say that the catholic church has done a pretty decent job of not taking sides in politics. Have you not seen the current Pope? Far more injecting in politics than the previous. Obvious in a historical perspective, this is still very hands off for the church.
    - mensetmanusman 6y ago
      I believe this view is due to social media. The pope isn’t that extreme, our world is
  - User23 6y ago
    For a Catholic, supporting abortion by knowingly voting for it is "formal cooperation"[1] with the taking of innocent human being's lives. This is why by Canon law, not that it's always followed, politicians who support abortion should not be given communion: they are manifestly in a state of mortal sin and giving them communion is desecrating the Eucharist and causing scandal[2]. Because of this, well catechized Catholics will oppose abortion. That said, it's unproductive to be a jerk about it and the correct response for those who don't have pastoral responsibility for the individuals in question is just to pray that they realize their error and repent. [1] https://www.consciencelaws.org/religion/religion002.aspx https://www.consciencelaws.org/religion/religion002.aspx [2] In this context, by scandal Catholics mean action that invites others to sin.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > Would that explain why Catholics, who, ah, generally don't support abortion, are split ~50/50 between blue and red? American Catholics support legal abortion at pretty similar rates to the general population. [0] The Church heirarchy may not, but that’s not the population of interest. [0] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/10/20/8-key-findings-about-catholics-and-abortion/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/10/20/8-key-findi...
kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
The Southern Baptist Convention was pro-abortion for a time. Things can change.
sk5t 6y ago
The core disagreements seem more moralistic and personal security issues rather than corporate pandering. The gun manufacturing industry is small and weakly compared to the real players--healthcare, finance, tech, MIC. While the left loves to paint the NRA as evil--and it is a bit, and grossly mismanaged--it is at its core a grassroots organization; rural people and some others will not consent to giving up 2A or being disarmed, full stop. Likewise there are no shadowy "Big Abortion" interests propping up that side of things, nor am I able to think of anyone poised to profit by forbidding it. That said, the no-compromise issues really do have the effect of shoving all the important stuff into the background...
- ARandomerDude 6y ago
  > Likewise there are no shadowy "Big Abortion" interests propping up that side of things, nor am I able to think of anyone poised to profit by forbidding it. In fact, there are numerous pro-life groups who directly benefit from moving the ball around but never actually winning the game. The same is true of race relations organizations, animal cruelty activists, the NRA, etc. With all of these, the spoken platform may or may not be a good thing, but the largest stakeholders would lose tremendous money and influence if they ever actually won.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - sk5t 6y ago
    You're describing pretty standard "mission creep." I.e. "if the problem this organization exists to address is fixed, fundraising efforts stop and staff must be fired. But we don't want to fire people, so we must perpetually move the goalposts to keep the momentum going." MADD is the classic example here.
  - koheripbal 6y ago
    > benefit from moving the ball around but never actually winning the game. This is exactly how you win elections. If you gain enough single-issue voters you never need to debate the complex issues that might split your base. It's important to portray the situation as if they are losing. Pro-Choice is a great example. Abortion-right are frequently portrayed as "under attack and imminently about to be destroyed" despite almost every SCOTUS judge publicly saying it's "settled law". It is a political form of George Orwell's endless war, and the ultimate distraction. Corporations don't need to fund them directly as politicians are happy to play this game so that corporations can fund THEM directly since the political attention is placed elsewhere.
binthis25 6y ago
I normally avoid these political threads on HN, so made another throwaway. I and friends have for a few years discussed the idea of freezing all gun and abortion laws in place for 20 years as a means to declawing the US parties' stranglehold on dialogue.
- ImprovedSilence 6y ago
  Thats a real interesting thought, it really is issues like these that basically make every other actual issue fade into the background fir many voters. Of course, good luck getting it passed...
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- ddingus 6y ago
  Points for genuine effort. Nice idea. It is very compelling. Sans wedge issues, there is a solid American consensus out there and it trends populist, and does so for simple economic reasons.
  - SV_BubbleTime 6y ago
    I agree, it’s a fun idea. Entirely entirely unrealistic and would go nowhere. Both sides love their wedges. They campaign on they both saber rattle with, they make their careers on them. When they have a chance to make movement, they usually don’t, if they fixed the issue it wouldn’t raise money anymore. Look how many people already say there is a UniParty when looking at pretty shitty things like both sides voting for Iraq war, Patriot Act, meager amounts of citizen Covid relief compared to corporate interests... so take away the wedge issues and the two parties may look far more similar. I’d like to see viable third and fourth party options. No decent person can be entirely red or blue.
    - ddingus 6y ago
      Uniparty is a bit over the top for me, but Washington Economic Consensus is near spot on. That said, you are plenty close to the mark. Subtract the wedges and it is awful bland. I have quit responding to labels directly and nearly always move to clarity first and foremost. Uniparty? Usually this is met with either righteous indignation, or a hard pass, or agreement of some kind. When I ask, "how so?", I tend to understand the other person better and have an opportunity to have a respectable, sometimes productive dialog. Re: more parties I agree with you. Sadly, I do not believe those party options make much sense in our current system. And it is the system, meaning changing it will require similar effort as it does to get anything else done, so... I feel factions, blocs, caucuses can serve a similar role. On the right, the Tea Party was quite effective. Not endorsement, just noting dynamics that apply here. The economic left is contemplating similar ways and means. The other tool we do have is collective action. Class type moves that can deliver very significant incentive to change.
gizmo686 6y ago
You still need to account for the leap from party to community. Unless you are active in politics in a capacity that needs party support (such as running for office), you don't really care if the party ostrizes you, as long as the community does not.
- ocdtrekkie 6y ago
  I've regularly found both issues retaining liberal and conservative friends because I don't fully support the party platform of either. As long as sharing political memes of your party to the community continues, many people are outright pushing away anyone in the middle. Bear in mind, many people's politics and values have become very aligned: If you don't support someone's views on identity issues, for instance, they may not feel they can be friends with you anymore. If you consider abortion to be literal murder, the color it places on someone who supports or has had an abortion, may make friendship similarly challenging.
  - omgwtfbyobbq 6y ago
    You really hit the nail on the head. I've had issues even outside of politics. For whatever reason, if you don't conform to certain beliefs in a group, other members will sooner or later think you're the nail and they're the hammer.
  - asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago
    Nobody (ed: I mean, "few people", as of course there are non-zero people who believe this) believes abortion is literal murder. They might say they do, but if there were buildings where actual literal murder were happening it wouldn't be long before people would destroy those places. Folks would lynch abortion providers -- not one or two, but en masse. Plenty of conservative women get abortions. If it were the type of thing that led to social ostracization as a general rule, you'd see articles being written about it. It doesn't. That's actually kind of the point of this article, as I read it: political opinions are very malleable. Tribal identification is one mechanism by which they can be changed. If the tribe decides we're cutting taxes, we change our opinion to favor cutting taxes. If the tribe decides that trans identity is extremely important, we do too. Not because of any overt pressure but simply because of natural herd and instincts. But self-interest is an even stronger hammer with which to shape political opinions. If it is strongly in my economic best interest to get an abortion, there's a pretty decent chance I'm gonna finagle my way to believing it's OK -- at least for me -- even if I "thought it was literal murder" before. It's easy enough to do because abortion has none of the physical hallmarks of literal murder (you know, struggling, screaming victims, blood everywhere, etc.) and society clearly treats it as a different thing, no matter where in the U.S. you live. I have noticed a similar pattern whereby rich liberal friends are slightly less in favor of eating the rich than poor liberal friends, even though the Twitter crowd has pretty much decided where they stand on this issue. Self-interest is a powerful motivator! Us rich folks like to talk about all the entitlements we support but we get a little less comfortable when it comes time to talk about who pays for them. This is just a general rule, it doesn't apply universally by any means. Even this article suggested that there's just a 15% shift in personal opinion directly after a tribe opinion change. But I guess the change grows over time too. I hadn't heard a damn thing about illegal immigrants from my conservative father until about 2016. Now sometimes it seems like every third article he sends me is on that subject. Hey, you know another interesting thing about this: everyone hates literal murder, but somehow murderers families often -- not always, but often -- come around to forgiving them. Sometimes they forgive the murderer so hard that they come to court to support them before they're even convicted, pay for lawyers, etc. You'd almost never do that for someone who wasn't family. Self-interest, family, and tribe are extremely powerful mutators of political and even moral opinion!
ericb 6y ago
> This is because the party will ostracize you if you don't conform. Is it? When I debate some partisans, I can't find bedrock logic under their opinions. It's like the opinions are pointers to beliefs they receive from an authority figure. They are unconvinceable--because the decision maker isn't in the room.
- mxcrossb 6y ago
  I agree. Many political topics are very complex, and it is hard to independently form opinions on them. Humans rely on fallacious shortcuts all the time when making decisions, otherwise we’d be paralyzed. We would see people switching their views even without social pressures.
- supersour 6y ago
  A book I always recommend on this topic is by Jonathan Haidt "The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion" Also, there is a page in there where Haidt hypothesized that the low agreeableness/asperger personality people actually do better in the startup world precisely because they don't fear being ostracized and thus don't engage in the groupthink showcased in the article. Peter Thiel type people. Of course that's hard to really test one way or another, but the narrative fits...
- throw0101a 6y ago
  Check out this book on the two major systems of thought (in the US): * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_Politics_(book) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_Politics_(book) Probably also worth nothing that our political view point(s) may, to a certain extent, be biologically determined: > Studies have found that subjects with conservative political views have larger amygdalae and are more prone to feeling disgust. Liberals have larger volume of grey matter in the anterior cingulate cortex and are better at detecting errors in recurring patterns. Conservatives have a stronger sympathetic nervous system response to threatening images and are more likely to interpret ambiguous facial expressions as threatening. In general, conservatives are more likely to report larger social networks, more happiness and better self-esteem than liberals. Liberals are more likely to report greater emotional distress, relationship dissatisfaction and experiential hardship and are more open to experience and tolerate uncertainty and disorder better. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biology_and_political_orientation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biology_and_political_orientat...
AntiImperialist 6y ago
Yes, it's very frustrating. Just because I'm anti-abortion, people automatically believe I'm "pro-life". I'm far from pro-life. For example, I believe in capital punishment, specially for abortionists.
colechristensen 6y ago
It’s not that hard to survive having thoughts of your own, you just have to surround yourself with people that think for themselves and are ok with differences of opinion. More succinctly, separate out intolerant followers from your life. Ok it’s not that easy.
throwawayboise 6y ago
> It's a huge part of what the Republican party has struggled with It is, but it's not just them. Mainstream Democrats are more center than the Party. "Defund the Police" did not play well with many centrist Dems.
- tstrimple 6y ago
  Defund the police wasn't a Democratic Party position no matter how much conservatives try to make it one.
jariel 6y ago
That's a different phenom entirely. People flip flop on policies because they are part of social groups, not coherent ideologies. They don't perceive themselves as flip flopping, because of course they have not changed groups. If a 'strong' leader of a group such as the President, characterizes something as positive, followers will buy it. Especially when there is a political divide, people tend to be 'against' ideas as well, much more so if 'the other side' approves or proposes them. If you gave any number of policy recommendations to a random group, and indicated at random they were proposed by either Republicans or Democrats, I suggest you'd get responses more consistent with group alignment than ideological alignment.
_qulr 6y ago
> There's both the clear vision of conservative values and ideals... and Donald Trump. I've lived long enough to see the terms "liberal" and "conservative" morph multiple times. (You will too eventually, just watch carefully.) They've long since lost any connection to their origin in classical European political philosophy and have now become merely placeholders to give the pretense that the two major US political parties have some kind of consistent ideological (as opposed to financial) backing, which they don't. There's a certain irony in Barry Goldwater being credited with launching the modern "conservative" movement in the US when Goldwater himself could be considered much more "libertarian" and was opposed to the policies and increasing influence of "conservative Christians" such as Pat Robertson. Scratch either of the two parties and underneath you'll see a very loose coalition of differing, sometimes opposing interests, not a clear set of consistent, unwavering beliefs. It's an ongoing power struggle, and the political labels just reflect the currently dominant group in the power struggle.

vkou 6y ago

> You can't survive in a liberal environment if you don't support abortion and you can't survive in a conservative environment if you support gun control. Would that explain why Catholics, who, ah, generally don't support abortion, are split ~50/50 between blue and red? [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_and_politics_in_the_United_States#Party_affiliation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_and_politics_i...

Mountain_Skies 6y ago
It's more complex than that but does work with the parent's comment. The official policy of the Catholic Church is that abortion is a terrible sin. Many other (but obviously not all) Christian churches have the same views. That does not mean that individual Catholics or their Christian brothers and sisters agree with the views of their churches on abortion or don't always agree that their religious views should be imposed on all of society. Abortion, while an important issue, is just one of thousands that church dogma preaches and there is no party that matches up to any of them completely. Some members of the church simply see the balance of other issues as being greater than the issue of abortion.
- vkou 6y ago
  So, you are saying that when one social group you belong to (the church) has an inconsistent belief system with another social group you belong to (loose party affiliation), you pick the one that suits your personal opinion on other issues. This begs the question - why do people pick and choose their religious dogma, but not their political dogma? I feel that the answer to this question is 'The world is a little bit more complicated than the parent poster claims.' These claims have little predictive, or explanatory power, given this rather prominent counter-example.
  - Mountain_Skies 6y ago
    Probably because most people don't pick what church they belong to; their parents do that for them. While people do convert between religions, most will stay with what they grew up with and try to make things work within that framework. Sometimes that's not possible so they pick one or the other of their religion or their political ideology. Religion doesn't always lose out and my gut instinct is that it wins out more than politics does but that's more difficult to see since membership and public interaction for religion works differently than it does for political parties.
  - throwawayboise 6y ago
    People pick and choose both. What I have seen is that people generally start with what their parents taught them, but it's not that uncommon for them to end up completely different. And it changes over time. I was very much a "D" voter when I was young (as my parents were) but mostly vote "R" now. I've never been religous though (neither were my parents).
  - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
    > This begs the question - why do people pick and choose their religious dogma, but not their political dogma? Interesting possibility: Religion is a protected class, politics isn't. So people fear viewpoint discrimination (i.e. getting canceled) for diverging from the dominant political party, because that isn't protected, but not for diverging from any given religious doctrine, because that is protected. Maybe we just need to declare the political parties to be religions. In a way they are. And it's in the same way that caused religions to be protected to begin with, isn't it?
Swizec 6y ago
You can be culturally catholic and support abortion. There’s even atheist catolics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_atheism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_atheism
- joecool1029 6y ago
  >You can be culturally catholic and support abortion. No actually, you can't. You can fit the broader definition of Christian but if you hold these views and profess to be a Catholic, you are in fact a heretic and can be excommunicated[1]. I see this fiction posted again and again on HN, and while it's not my intention to support or oppose the Church's viewpoint on this people should be educated and aware that they can't claim to be certain things if they aren't them. [1] https://www.vatican.va/archive/cod-iuris-canonici/eng/documents/cic_lib6-cann1364-1399_en.html https://www.vatican.va/archive/cod-iuris-canonici/eng/docume...
  - tomnipotent 6y ago
    This is for having an abortion, not supporting them. The later group is much larger than the former.
  - shadowgovt 6y ago
    This is technically correct (the best kind of correct! ;) ). In practice, there's a wide gulf between what the Church formally establishes as dogma and the adherence of individual Catholics. It's generally resolved as the Church holding the door open for forgiveness through a person's entire life, as long as penitence is a possibility. It's rare for the Church to excommunicate an individual Catholic (or even deprive them of communion) even for very public statements regarding their support of abortion. Sometimes, the door is held open so long the Church's view on the topic changes and forgiveness is no longer needed to align the practitioner with the Church's stance.
  - confidantlake 6y ago
    You don't even have to go to church to be culturally a catholic.
  - 6y ago
thayne 6y ago
I would guess most blue catholics who don't support abortion either avoid the topic or at least don't admit to their opinion to their blue friends.
- Mountain_Skies 6y ago
  My mother is very anti-abortion while also being a die hard straight ticket Democrat. Not all Catholics in her social circle are the same but many are. I can't say she has a political social circle, so maybe she is able to balance her beliefs because she isn't called on them. The issues her and her friends care about tend to be about extending entitlement programs, public education, assistance to immigrants, and things of a similar nature. For these the Democrats are much more inline with their views than Republicans, which is probably how she and other Catholics like her justify supporting the pro-choice political party despite being strongly against abortion.
throwawayboise 6y ago
Two things come to mind. First (and I don't know how true it is), some contemporary Catholics are not hard-line anti-abortion; second, at the end of the day you usually have a choice of D or R. You go with what lines up best. Voting for either one does not mean you lockstep agree with their position on every issue.
TylerE 6y ago
A large portion of Catholics (about 35%) are Latino, who are often more socially conservative. The European Catholics (Primarily Irish, Italian, German ancestry) are often more liberal, perhaps because historically they've lived in the urban North East.
ImprovedSilence 6y ago
As a catholic, I would say that the catholic church has done a pretty decent job of not taking sides in politics. (Probably so as to not push anyone away from church, they dont suck people in and have growing memberships like some other denominations ). I have friends and extended family in those “newer hyper Christian” churches, and they all somehow manage to attach way more identity into their church life than any catholics I know. As well as pushing their beliefs on other people. Whereas the catholic view as I have experienced it is “you're different? Thats cool, lets be nice”. Theyre still super pro life, but i havent heard anything that makes me think the overarching catholic political stance is a one issue vote.
- SV_BubbleTime 6y ago
  > As a catholic, I would say that the catholic church has done a pretty decent job of not taking sides in politics. Have you not seen the current Pope? Far more injecting in politics than the previous. Obvious in a historical perspective, this is still very hands off for the church.
  - mensetmanusman 6y ago
    I believe this view is due to social media. The pope isn’t that extreme, our world is
- User23 6y ago
  For a Catholic, supporting abortion by knowingly voting for it is "formal cooperation"[1] with the taking of innocent human being's lives. This is why by Canon law, not that it's always followed, politicians who support abortion should not be given communion: they are manifestly in a state of mortal sin and giving them communion is desecrating the Eucharist and causing scandal[2]. Because of this, well catechized Catholics will oppose abortion. That said, it's unproductive to be a jerk about it and the correct response for those who don't have pastoral responsibility for the individuals in question is just to pray that they realize their error and repent. [1] https://www.consciencelaws.org/religion/religion002.aspx https://www.consciencelaws.org/religion/religion002.aspx [2] In this context, by scandal Catholics mean action that invites others to sin.
dragonwriter 6y ago
> Would that explain why Catholics, who, ah, generally don't support abortion, are split ~50/50 between blue and red? American Catholics support legal abortion at pretty similar rates to the general population. [0] The Church heirarchy may not, but that’s not the population of interest. [0] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/10/20/8-key-findings-about-catholics-and-abortion/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/10/20/8-key-findi...

kevin_thibedeau 6y ago

The Southern Baptist Convention was pro-abortion for a time. Things can change.

sk5t 6y ago

The core disagreements seem more moralistic and personal security issues rather than corporate pandering. The gun manufacturing industry is small and weakly compared to the real players--healthcare, finance, tech, MIC. While the left loves to paint the NRA as evil--and it is a bit, and grossly mismanaged--it is at its core a grassroots organization; rural people and some others will not consent to giving up 2A or being disarmed, full stop. Likewise there are no shadowy "Big Abortion" interests propping up that side of things, nor am I able to think of anyone poised to profit by forbidding it. That said, the no-compromise issues really do have the effect of shoving all the important stuff into the background...

ARandomerDude 6y ago
> Likewise there are no shadowy "Big Abortion" interests propping up that side of things, nor am I able to think of anyone poised to profit by forbidding it. In fact, there are numerous pro-life groups who directly benefit from moving the ball around but never actually winning the game. The same is true of race relations organizations, animal cruelty activists, the NRA, etc. With all of these, the spoken platform may or may not be a good thing, but the largest stakeholders would lose tremendous money and influence if they ever actually won.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- sk5t 6y ago
  You're describing pretty standard "mission creep." I.e. "if the problem this organization exists to address is fixed, fundraising efforts stop and staff must be fired. But we don't want to fire people, so we must perpetually move the goalposts to keep the momentum going." MADD is the classic example here.
- koheripbal 6y ago
  > benefit from moving the ball around but never actually winning the game. This is exactly how you win elections. If you gain enough single-issue voters you never need to debate the complex issues that might split your base. It's important to portray the situation as if they are losing. Pro-Choice is a great example. Abortion-right are frequently portrayed as "under attack and imminently about to be destroyed" despite almost every SCOTUS judge publicly saying it's "settled law". It is a political form of George Orwell's endless war, and the ultimate distraction. Corporations don't need to fund them directly as politicians are happy to play this game so that corporations can fund THEM directly since the political attention is placed elsewhere.

binthis25 6y ago

I normally avoid these political threads on HN, so made another throwaway. I and friends have for a few years discussed the idea of freezing all gun and abortion laws in place for 20 years as a means to declawing the US parties' stranglehold on dialogue.

ImprovedSilence 6y ago
Thats a real interesting thought, it really is issues like these that basically make every other actual issue fade into the background fir many voters. Of course, good luck getting it passed...
- deleted 6y ago
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ddingus 6y ago
Points for genuine effort. Nice idea. It is very compelling. Sans wedge issues, there is a solid American consensus out there and it trends populist, and does so for simple economic reasons.
- SV_BubbleTime 6y ago
  I agree, it’s a fun idea. Entirely entirely unrealistic and would go nowhere. Both sides love their wedges. They campaign on they both saber rattle with, they make their careers on them. When they have a chance to make movement, they usually don’t, if they fixed the issue it wouldn’t raise money anymore. Look how many people already say there is a UniParty when looking at pretty shitty things like both sides voting for Iraq war, Patriot Act, meager amounts of citizen Covid relief compared to corporate interests... so take away the wedge issues and the two parties may look far more similar. I’d like to see viable third and fourth party options. No decent person can be entirely red or blue.
  - ddingus 6y ago
    Uniparty is a bit over the top for me, but Washington Economic Consensus is near spot on. That said, you are plenty close to the mark. Subtract the wedges and it is awful bland. I have quit responding to labels directly and nearly always move to clarity first and foremost. Uniparty? Usually this is met with either righteous indignation, or a hard pass, or agreement of some kind. When I ask, "how so?", I tend to understand the other person better and have an opportunity to have a respectable, sometimes productive dialog. Re: more parties I agree with you. Sadly, I do not believe those party options make much sense in our current system. And it is the system, meaning changing it will require similar effort as it does to get anything else done, so... I feel factions, blocs, caucuses can serve a similar role. On the right, the Tea Party was quite effective. Not endorsement, just noting dynamics that apply here. The economic left is contemplating similar ways and means. The other tool we do have is collective action. Class type moves that can deliver very significant incentive to change.

gizmo686 6y ago

You still need to account for the leap from party to community. Unless you are active in politics in a capacity that needs party support (such as running for office), you don't really care if the party ostrizes you, as long as the community does not.

ocdtrekkie 6y ago
I've regularly found both issues retaining liberal and conservative friends because I don't fully support the party platform of either. As long as sharing political memes of your party to the community continues, many people are outright pushing away anyone in the middle. Bear in mind, many people's politics and values have become very aligned: If you don't support someone's views on identity issues, for instance, they may not feel they can be friends with you anymore. If you consider abortion to be literal murder, the color it places on someone who supports or has had an abortion, may make friendship similarly challenging.
- omgwtfbyobbq 6y ago
  You really hit the nail on the head. I've had issues even outside of politics. For whatever reason, if you don't conform to certain beliefs in a group, other members will sooner or later think you're the nail and they're the hammer.
- asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago
  Nobody (ed: I mean, "few people", as of course there are non-zero people who believe this) believes abortion is literal murder. They might say they do, but if there were buildings where actual literal murder were happening it wouldn't be long before people would destroy those places. Folks would lynch abortion providers -- not one or two, but en masse. Plenty of conservative women get abortions. If it were the type of thing that led to social ostracization as a general rule, you'd see articles being written about it. It doesn't. That's actually kind of the point of this article, as I read it: political opinions are very malleable. Tribal identification is one mechanism by which they can be changed. If the tribe decides we're cutting taxes, we change our opinion to favor cutting taxes. If the tribe decides that trans identity is extremely important, we do too. Not because of any overt pressure but simply because of natural herd and instincts. But self-interest is an even stronger hammer with which to shape political opinions. If it is strongly in my economic best interest to get an abortion, there's a pretty decent chance I'm gonna finagle my way to believing it's OK -- at least for me -- even if I "thought it was literal murder" before. It's easy enough to do because abortion has none of the physical hallmarks of literal murder (you know, struggling, screaming victims, blood everywhere, etc.) and society clearly treats it as a different thing, no matter where in the U.S. you live. I have noticed a similar pattern whereby rich liberal friends are slightly less in favor of eating the rich than poor liberal friends, even though the Twitter crowd has pretty much decided where they stand on this issue. Self-interest is a powerful motivator! Us rich folks like to talk about all the entitlements we support but we get a little less comfortable when it comes time to talk about who pays for them. This is just a general rule, it doesn't apply universally by any means. Even this article suggested that there's just a 15% shift in personal opinion directly after a tribe opinion change. But I guess the change grows over time too. I hadn't heard a damn thing about illegal immigrants from my conservative father until about 2016. Now sometimes it seems like every third article he sends me is on that subject. Hey, you know another interesting thing about this: everyone hates literal murder, but somehow murderers families often -- not always, but often -- come around to forgiving them. Sometimes they forgive the murderer so hard that they come to court to support them before they're even convicted, pay for lawyers, etc. You'd almost never do that for someone who wasn't family. Self-interest, family, and tribe are extremely powerful mutators of political and even moral opinion!

ericb 6y ago

> This is because the party will ostracize you if you don't conform. Is it? When I debate some partisans, I can't find bedrock logic under their opinions. It's like the opinions are pointers to beliefs they receive from an authority figure. They are unconvinceable--because the decision maker isn't in the room.

mxcrossb 6y ago
I agree. Many political topics are very complex, and it is hard to independently form opinions on them. Humans rely on fallacious shortcuts all the time when making decisions, otherwise we’d be paralyzed. We would see people switching their views even without social pressures.
supersour 6y ago
A book I always recommend on this topic is by Jonathan Haidt "The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion" Also, there is a page in there where Haidt hypothesized that the low agreeableness/asperger personality people actually do better in the startup world precisely because they don't fear being ostracized and thus don't engage in the groupthink showcased in the article. Peter Thiel type people. Of course that's hard to really test one way or another, but the narrative fits...
throw0101a 6y ago
Check out this book on the two major systems of thought (in the US): * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_Politics_(book) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_Politics_(book) Probably also worth nothing that our political view point(s) may, to a certain extent, be biologically determined: > Studies have found that subjects with conservative political views have larger amygdalae and are more prone to feeling disgust. Liberals have larger volume of grey matter in the anterior cingulate cortex and are better at detecting errors in recurring patterns. Conservatives have a stronger sympathetic nervous system response to threatening images and are more likely to interpret ambiguous facial expressions as threatening. In general, conservatives are more likely to report larger social networks, more happiness and better self-esteem than liberals. Liberals are more likely to report greater emotional distress, relationship dissatisfaction and experiential hardship and are more open to experience and tolerate uncertainty and disorder better. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biology_and_political_orientation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biology_and_political_orientat...

AntiImperialist 6y ago

Yes, it's very frustrating. Just because I'm anti-abortion, people automatically believe I'm "pro-life". I'm far from pro-life. For example, I believe in capital punishment, specially for abortionists.

colechristensen 6y ago

It’s not that hard to survive having thoughts of your own, you just have to surround yourself with people that think for themselves and are ok with differences of opinion. More succinctly, separate out intolerant followers from your life. Ok it’s not that easy.

throwawayboise 6y ago

> It's a huge part of what the Republican party has struggled with It is, but it's not just them. Mainstream Democrats are more center than the Party. "Defund the Police" did not play well with many centrist Dems.

tstrimple 6y ago
Defund the police wasn't a Democratic Party position no matter how much conservatives try to make it one.

jariel 6y ago

That's a different phenom entirely. People flip flop on policies because they are part of social groups, not coherent ideologies. They don't perceive themselves as flip flopping, because of course they have not changed groups. If a 'strong' leader of a group such as the President, characterizes something as positive, followers will buy it. Especially when there is a political divide, people tend to be 'against' ideas as well, much more so if 'the other side' approves or proposes them. If you gave any number of policy recommendations to a random group, and indicated at random they were proposed by either Republicans or Democrats, I suggest you'd get responses more consistent with group alignment than ideological alignment.

_qulr 6y ago

> There's both the clear vision of conservative values and ideals... and Donald Trump. I've lived long enough to see the terms "liberal" and "conservative" morph multiple times. (You will too eventually, just watch carefully.) They've long since lost any connection to their origin in classical European political philosophy and have now become merely placeholders to give the pretense that the two major US political parties have some kind of consistent ideological (as opposed to financial) backing, which they don't. There's a certain irony in Barry Goldwater being credited with launching the modern "conservative" movement in the US when Goldwater himself could be considered much more "libertarian" and was opposed to the policies and increasing influence of "conservative Christians" such as Pat Robertson. Scratch either of the two parties and underneath you'll see a very loose coalition of differing, sometimes opposing interests, not a clear set of consistent, unwavering beliefs. It's an ongoing power struggle, and the political labels just reflect the currently dominant group in the power struggle.