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"The only explanation for allowing abortion is because they are evil and they want to kill babies. No other explanation exists." This view is widely considered

"The only explanation for allowing abortion is because they are evil and they want to kill babies. No other explanation exists." This view is widely considered to be a fringe one. No serious person espouses it. You don't hear it on Fox News, but Alex Jones will say it and his audience will mostly laugh at him. A small fraction of them agree. On the other hand: "The only explanation for limiting immigration is racism. No other explanation exists." "The only explanation for prioritizing action against illegal immigration is white supremacy. No other explanation exists" This interpretation of the "other side"'s policy is universal. You'll hear it on CNN, MSNBC, late night comedy. Celebrities will tweet about it. It is espoused by folks who say it seriously, framing it as some kind of serious battle of good versus evil. There is no room in the conversation for debating it, therefore you despise anyone who takes this kind of view. Anyone who tries to debate it will be labelled one of Skeletor's minions. In fact, one of the more charitable explanations of these points of view are things like "unconscious racism" like the evil spirits of old who would possess you and make you think evil things. After centuries of orthodoxy, in the west there used to be a culture of enlightenment and free enquiry. In the third world we have never really had a serious understanding of the importance of these topics, and the enlightenment movements had a relatively minor impact. There have been occasional spurts of it, but generally there is no mature understanding of freedom amongst the population. In my country a comedian was arrested for allegedly planning to tell a particular joke in his forthcoming standup set. This kind of authoritarianism is supported because there is widespread support for blasphemy laws, and it is a fairly mainstream position. It seems like western countries are regressing to this kind of worldview, embracing blasphemy laws and the culture of blasphemy where certain "haraam" topics are so unholy that they cannot even be debated, and any infidel who has these views must be removed from society, "by any means necessary". The only difference between this and previous attempts is that the pantheon is some bureaucrats and politicians. I'm reminded of a Stephen Colbert episode where he announced that the President had fired James Comey, and the crowd applauded, and he sprung into action to inform them that James Comey was now on the side of the angels. As a result of these systems, there is no question of beings friends with an infidel, you can only despise them. Even if one wants to challenge this prevailing orthodoxy, there is fear of being associated with infidels - so for self-preservation, one must go along with this point of view. There was a TV host - Ellen DeGeneres who is a friend of George W. Bush. When photos of them laughing together and enjoying a sporting event, were published, it became a national conversation about whether she should be held accountable for this friendship. She then had to make a public explanation as to why she was his friend. This kind of thing exists amongst Republicans too, but it falls flat most of the time. Every now and then there will be a story like Bill Clinton shook hands with Louis Farrakhan or some stupid outrage like that, but it (rightly) doesn't really get much traction and nobody gives it the time of day, because there ought to be freedom of association, and reducing a human being to who they shake hands with is a terrible way of thinking.

newby 5y ago
I am not an American and I do not live in the US. However, I try to keep up with what is happening in the US and I would not be so sure about what is universal and what is fringe. This is really hard to estimate without some serious data analysis because we all watch just tiny fraction of media space - when you say that you don't hear something on Fox News, my immediate reaction is that you cannot possibly know that. You maybe mean it is not common there, but the things you claim to be universal on the left side do not seem to me that common either. They certainly are not universal - I lean liberal, if I lived in the US and had the citizenship, I would probably vote democrats, but I noticed many liberals critiquing those views in left-leaning media like NYT. And I want to especially mention the celebrities - I think they do not represent left mainstream (or something that could be called universal); I believe it is the opposite, they are the fringe, they are the extreme living in their separate bubble totally disconnected from average people.
happytoexplain 5y ago
>"The only explanation for allowing abortion is because they are evil and they want to kill babies. No other explanation exists." ... is fringe >"The only explanation for limiting/acting against immigration is racism/white-supremacism. No other explanation exists." ... is universal This is wildly out of alignment with my personal experience, which is that of much closer parity between the commonness of these two extremes. Though it's only my personal experience, I think you're being overly generous in your interpretation of instances of the former and vice versa. This is not even to mention that, in reality, there certainly is a minority of people who overzealously oppose immigration due in significant part to racism, while the same is not true to the same degree (to put it mildly) of people who just enjoy killing babies. The two things are very different in various ways, and therefore it's difficult to usefully compare irrational attitudes about them.
- fareesh 5y ago
  Given the disparity in culture in the various US states, it's entirely possible for people living in one place to encounter typical attitudes which are vastly different from people living in another place, despite both belonging to the same country. There will always be a filter bubble effect around anecdotal experience. To get around this, one can just monitor the conversations taking place in the national news media and other popular media like late night comedy or some of the more reputable newspapers. You can also expand this to include the A-list "influencer" category of social media users - popular musicians and movie stars. All of these sources mirror the policy positions of the Democratic party. The overall picture is one of a grand moral struggle between good and evil, with all the heroes on the side of one party. In these echo chambers you will frequently find that many of the extreme interpretations of Republican party policies are highly amplified. The recent verdict against the fraudster Jussie Smollett is also proof of how slanted and devoid of rationality these spaces have become, where major media institutions and powerful individuals could not, or perhaps more insidiously, did not, perform the requisite critical thinking to be skeptical of the alleged crime, despite the extremely dubious fact pattern. Contemporaneous early accounts from more neutral observers were able to quickly deduce and point of the large number of improbable claims in the alleged assault. The prevalence of innuendo and rhetoric over facts and reason is common in political discourse, but it is unprecedented to see the vastly different standards applied for fact-checking and misinformation based on the partisan nature of the topic at hand. For young people who are new to these types of conversations, it's very easy to get caught up in this imbalance. There was an incident where a woman in a Gorilla mask threw an egg at the black candidate who was a frontrunner for the Republicans in the California Governor election. Contrasting the conversation around this incident with the former one is quite revealing about the way newcomers to these conversations will perceive the status quo - one that aggressively amplifies hate crimes with dubious claims, and apparently ignores hate crimes with clear and apparent evidence.

newby 5y ago

I am not an American and I do not live in the US. However, I try to keep up with what is happening in the US and I would not be so sure about what is universal and what is fringe. This is really hard to estimate without some serious data analysis because we all watch just tiny fraction of media space - when you say that you don't hear something on Fox News, my immediate reaction is that you cannot possibly know that. You maybe mean it is not common there, but the things you claim to be universal on the left side do not seem to me that common either. They certainly are not universal - I lean liberal, if I lived in the US and had the citizenship, I would probably vote democrats, but I noticed many liberals critiquing those views in left-leaning media like NYT. And I want to especially mention the celebrities - I think they do not represent left mainstream (or something that could be called universal); I believe it is the opposite, they are the fringe, they are the extreme living in their separate bubble totally disconnected from average people.

happytoexplain 5y ago

>"The only explanation for allowing abortion is because they are evil and they want to kill babies. No other explanation exists." ... is fringe >"The only explanation for limiting/acting against immigration is racism/white-supremacism. No other explanation exists." ... is universal This is wildly out of alignment with my personal experience, which is that of much closer parity between the commonness of these two extremes. Though it's only my personal experience, I think you're being overly generous in your interpretation of instances of the former and vice versa. This is not even to mention that, in reality, there certainly is a minority of people who overzealously oppose immigration due in significant part to racism, while the same is not true to the same degree (to put it mildly) of people who just enjoy killing babies. The two things are very different in various ways, and therefore it's difficult to usefully compare irrational attitudes about them.

fareesh 5y ago
Given the disparity in culture in the various US states, it's entirely possible for people living in one place to encounter typical attitudes which are vastly different from people living in another place, despite both belonging to the same country. There will always be a filter bubble effect around anecdotal experience. To get around this, one can just monitor the conversations taking place in the national news media and other popular media like late night comedy or some of the more reputable newspapers. You can also expand this to include the A-list "influencer" category of social media users - popular musicians and movie stars. All of these sources mirror the policy positions of the Democratic party. The overall picture is one of a grand moral struggle between good and evil, with all the heroes on the side of one party. In these echo chambers you will frequently find that many of the extreme interpretations of Republican party policies are highly amplified. The recent verdict against the fraudster Jussie Smollett is also proof of how slanted and devoid of rationality these spaces have become, where major media institutions and powerful individuals could not, or perhaps more insidiously, did not, perform the requisite critical thinking to be skeptical of the alleged crime, despite the extremely dubious fact pattern. Contemporaneous early accounts from more neutral observers were able to quickly deduce and point of the large number of improbable claims in the alleged assault. The prevalence of innuendo and rhetoric over facts and reason is common in political discourse, but it is unprecedented to see the vastly different standards applied for fact-checking and misinformation based on the partisan nature of the topic at hand. For young people who are new to these types of conversations, it's very easy to get caught up in this imbalance. There was an incident where a woman in a Gorilla mask threw an egg at the black candidate who was a frontrunner for the Republicans in the California Governor election. Contrasting the conversation around this incident with the former one is quite revealing about the way newcomers to these conversations will perceive the status quo - one that aggressively amplifies hate crimes with dubious claims, and apparently ignores hate crimes with clear and apparent evidence.