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>And, to keep stoking the fires of the culture wars. It's slimy and dishonest to pretend that only republicans are fighting a culture war when the bulk of the

>And, to keep stoking the fires of the culture wars. It's slimy and dishonest to pretend that only republicans are fighting a culture war when the bulk of the progressive platform is explicitly about changing US culture. It's like calling Ukraine the aggressor for defending against the Russian invasion.

bandyaboot 4y ago
It’s slimy and dishonest to pretend that I said something that I did not say.
mrzimmerman 4y ago
Cultures change constantly. They’re never in a sort of stasis. Culture is just the expressions of a group of humans, how they think, and how they interact. One could argue that rolling back abortion access (which has existed for decades and is part of US culture) is conservatives in America explicitly changing US culture. Same with bills like the one in Florida that disallow teachers from discussing human gender or human romantic relationships. Everyone is generally trying to affect the direction of the culture of the US at the political level at all times. It’s not a right va left thing it’s a humans exist thing.
- rayiner 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
    That's a very particular reading of a very particular poll. Contrast with a Gallup poll from more or less the same time frame: https://news.gallup.com/poll/1576/abortion.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/1576/abortion.aspx "Would you like to see the Supreme Court overturn its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision concerning abortion, or not?" No: 58% Yes: 32% No opinion: 10% You can slice and dice the court of public opinion many different ways to demonstrate support for your preferred position on abortion (as with many other things). That doesn't mean that "conservatives are trying to roll back the law to reflect the culture" (emphasis mine). It means that they have an idea of what the culture should be, and are trying to make it so (like everyone else who is trying to accomplish anything politically).
    - rayiner 4y ago
      Wait—who is “slicing and dicing” the polling here? The main political debate right now is over where to draw the line for elective abortions. Texas draws it at 8 weeks, Mississippi at 15, and Roe at 22-24. Asking people a question framed in terms of weeks or trimesters produces a much more accurate reflection of the culture than asking them about a legal decision that most people have never read. Most people think that “overturning Roe” means “banning abortion nationwide.” Maybe you think that’s where Republicans are headed with this. I think it would be equally fair to say, given recent laws passed in New York and Colorado, that Democrats want legal abortion until the moment of birth (and after that if the abortion was unsuccessful). But the actual legal issue in play right now are 8 weeks, 15 weeks, or 22-24 weeks. And public opinion is much closer to what republicans have enacted on those numbers than what Roe requires.
      - PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
        Your entire comment is slicing and dicing. Making claims about what is "a more accurate reflection of the culture" is slicing and dicing. Just stand up for what you believe in. Stop trying to speak on behalf of "the culture" which is in most ways not accurately knowable, and even if it was, is of dubious significance. Most major shifts in societies (not all, but most) occur in opposition to "the culture".
        rayiner 4y ago
        > Making claims about what is "a more accurate reflection of the culture" is slicing and dicing. You don't think it's possible to get a gist of what the public thinks generally? Most Americans (60%) think that abortion should be "generally legal" in the first trimester, while only 28% think that it should be "generally legal" in the second trimester: https://news.gallup.com/poll/235469/trimesters-key-abortion-views.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/235469/trimesters-key-abortion-... Insofar as Roe requires abortion to be "generally legal" in the second trimester--a position that 70% of Americans reject--it is a departure from the culture. > Just stand up for what you believe in. Stop trying to speak on behalf of "the culture" which is in most ways not accurately knowable, and even if it was, is of dubious significance. I believe in democratic values. I believe culture belongs to everyone, and cultural changes should be driven bottom-up, through social consensus, not top down by legal elites, big corporations, etc. > Most major shifts in societies (not all, but most) occur in opposition to "the culture". Much more so in the U.S. than in other developed countries, and that's a bad thing. Most European countries ended up making elective abortions available in the first trimester in response to changing social views. In the U.S., legal elites rammed through a second-trimester rule that decades later is still at odds with public opinion. Likewise, in 2015, the U.S. the Supreme Court found that the Constitution's implicit marriage right encompassed same-sex marriage. A year later, the European Court of Human Rights reached the exact opposite conclusion--finding that the express marriage right in the European Convention on Human Rights did not extend to same-sex marriage: https://eclj.org/marriage/the-echr-unanimously-confirms-the-non-existence-of-a-right-to-gay-marriage https://eclj.org/marriage/the-echr-unanimously-confirms-the-.... Accordingly, countries like Germany legalized same-sex marriage in 2017, through the ordinary legislative process, with the support of 73% of the population.
- twofornone 4y ago
  >Cultures change constantly. They’re never in a sort of stasis. Culture is just the expressions of a group of humans, how they think, and how they interact. That doesn't obligate a people to quietly accept a culture imposed onto them by out of touch urbanites/intellectuals/ivory tower elites. >Same with bills like the one in Florida that disallow teachers from discussing human gender or human romantic relationships. Human gender and normalcy of romantic relationships are culturally defined. This bill isn't about forbidding discussion of genders, its about resisting the imposition of progressive culture onto the children of moderate/conservative parents. This isn't about bigotry, this is a genuine concern that normalizing fundamentally abnormal behaviors can do more harm than good to individuals and society.
PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
The issue is not whether Republicans are the only ones fighting a culture war. It's about whether the Republicans are only fighting a culture war. What are their policies on healthcare? Infrastructure investment and repair? Climate change? Transportation policy? Childhood poverty? Topsoil depletion in the midwest? Extreme severe drought in the southwest? etc. etc. Why do they appear to spend so much time talking about things in the "culture war" realm and so little time advancing policy agendas about things that really matter (not that are no "culture war" issues that matter). Progressives are quite clear about the metrics by which they consider one state of a society to be better than another. More equality of opportunity. Less income/wealth inequality. A more even distribution of GDP between labor and capital. Reduced discrimination against protected classes. Improved health outcomes. Equal treatment under the law. Above all, the type of society you would choose to live in if you could not control who your parents were or where you would be born. It is far from clear what the conservative/Republican equivalent of this is.
- dtx1 4y ago
  > It is far from clear what the conservative/Republican equivalent of this is. Amount of brown people in their voters neighborhood
  - mbg721 4y ago
    This doesn't work in Florida.
- PolygonSheep 4y ago
  I'm not sure policies matter much in the end. If I went into a coma before election night 2016 and woke up today, how would I tell we just had four years of a hard-right authoritarian government and we are now about a year and three months into a moderate center-left government? I have to be honest it's not a night-and-day difference.
  - mbg721 4y ago
    Nobody could tell; that's why we have cloth masks to differentiate ourselves.

bandyaboot 4y ago

It’s slimy and dishonest to pretend that I said something that I did not say.

mrzimmerman 4y ago

Cultures change constantly. They’re never in a sort of stasis. Culture is just the expressions of a group of humans, how they think, and how they interact. One could argue that rolling back abortion access (which has existed for decades and is part of US culture) is conservatives in America explicitly changing US culture. Same with bills like the one in Florida that disallow teachers from discussing human gender or human romantic relationships. Everyone is generally trying to affect the direction of the culture of the US at the political level at all times. It’s not a right va left thing it’s a humans exist thing.

rayiner 4y ago
[flagged]
- PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
  That's a very particular reading of a very particular poll. Contrast with a Gallup poll from more or less the same time frame: https://news.gallup.com/poll/1576/abortion.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/1576/abortion.aspx "Would you like to see the Supreme Court overturn its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision concerning abortion, or not?" No: 58% Yes: 32% No opinion: 10% You can slice and dice the court of public opinion many different ways to demonstrate support for your preferred position on abortion (as with many other things). That doesn't mean that "conservatives are trying to roll back the law to reflect the culture" (emphasis mine). It means that they have an idea of what the culture should be, and are trying to make it so (like everyone else who is trying to accomplish anything politically).
  - rayiner 4y ago
    Wait—who is “slicing and dicing” the polling here? The main political debate right now is over where to draw the line for elective abortions. Texas draws it at 8 weeks, Mississippi at 15, and Roe at 22-24. Asking people a question framed in terms of weeks or trimesters produces a much more accurate reflection of the culture than asking them about a legal decision that most people have never read. Most people think that “overturning Roe” means “banning abortion nationwide.” Maybe you think that’s where Republicans are headed with this. I think it would be equally fair to say, given recent laws passed in New York and Colorado, that Democrats want legal abortion until the moment of birth (and after that if the abortion was unsuccessful). But the actual legal issue in play right now are 8 weeks, 15 weeks, or 22-24 weeks. And public opinion is much closer to what republicans have enacted on those numbers than what Roe requires.
    - PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
      Your entire comment is slicing and dicing. Making claims about what is "a more accurate reflection of the culture" is slicing and dicing. Just stand up for what you believe in. Stop trying to speak on behalf of "the culture" which is in most ways not accurately knowable, and even if it was, is of dubious significance. Most major shifts in societies (not all, but most) occur in opposition to "the culture".
      - rayiner 4y ago
        > Making claims about what is "a more accurate reflection of the culture" is slicing and dicing. You don't think it's possible to get a gist of what the public thinks generally? Most Americans (60%) think that abortion should be "generally legal" in the first trimester, while only 28% think that it should be "generally legal" in the second trimester: https://news.gallup.com/poll/235469/trimesters-key-abortion-views.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/235469/trimesters-key-abortion-... Insofar as Roe requires abortion to be "generally legal" in the second trimester--a position that 70% of Americans reject--it is a departure from the culture. > Just stand up for what you believe in. Stop trying to speak on behalf of "the culture" which is in most ways not accurately knowable, and even if it was, is of dubious significance. I believe in democratic values. I believe culture belongs to everyone, and cultural changes should be driven bottom-up, through social consensus, not top down by legal elites, big corporations, etc. > Most major shifts in societies (not all, but most) occur in opposition to "the culture". Much more so in the U.S. than in other developed countries, and that's a bad thing. Most European countries ended up making elective abortions available in the first trimester in response to changing social views. In the U.S., legal elites rammed through a second-trimester rule that decades later is still at odds with public opinion. Likewise, in 2015, the U.S. the Supreme Court found that the Constitution's implicit marriage right encompassed same-sex marriage. A year later, the European Court of Human Rights reached the exact opposite conclusion--finding that the express marriage right in the European Convention on Human Rights did not extend to same-sex marriage: https://eclj.org/marriage/the-echr-unanimously-confirms-the-non-existence-of-a-right-to-gay-marriage https://eclj.org/marriage/the-echr-unanimously-confirms-the-.... Accordingly, countries like Germany legalized same-sex marriage in 2017, through the ordinary legislative process, with the support of 73% of the population.
twofornone 4y ago
>Cultures change constantly. They’re never in a sort of stasis. Culture is just the expressions of a group of humans, how they think, and how they interact. That doesn't obligate a people to quietly accept a culture imposed onto them by out of touch urbanites/intellectuals/ivory tower elites. >Same with bills like the one in Florida that disallow teachers from discussing human gender or human romantic relationships. Human gender and normalcy of romantic relationships are culturally defined. This bill isn't about forbidding discussion of genders, its about resisting the imposition of progressive culture onto the children of moderate/conservative parents. This isn't about bigotry, this is a genuine concern that normalizing fundamentally abnormal behaviors can do more harm than good to individuals and society.

PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago

The issue is not whether Republicans are the only ones fighting a culture war. It's about whether the Republicans are only fighting a culture war. What are their policies on healthcare? Infrastructure investment and repair? Climate change? Transportation policy? Childhood poverty? Topsoil depletion in the midwest? Extreme severe drought in the southwest? etc. etc. Why do they appear to spend so much time talking about things in the "culture war" realm and so little time advancing policy agendas about things that really matter (not that are no "culture war" issues that matter). Progressives are quite clear about the metrics by which they consider one state of a society to be better than another. More equality of opportunity. Less income/wealth inequality. A more even distribution of GDP between labor and capital. Reduced discrimination against protected classes. Improved health outcomes. Equal treatment under the law. Above all, the type of society you would choose to live in if you could not control who your parents were or where you would be born. It is far from clear what the conservative/Republican equivalent of this is.

dtx1 4y ago
> It is far from clear what the conservative/Republican equivalent of this is. Amount of brown people in their voters neighborhood
- mbg721 4y ago
  This doesn't work in Florida.
PolygonSheep 4y ago
I'm not sure policies matter much in the end. If I went into a coma before election night 2016 and woke up today, how would I tell we just had four years of a hard-right authoritarian government and we are now about a year and three months into a moderate center-left government? I have to be honest it's not a night-and-day difference.
- mbg721 4y ago
  Nobody could tell; that's why we have cloth masks to differentiate ourselves.