Not defending any of your points and I agree with you on all of that is detestable. I might still have a little hope for my fellow Americans in that I would take that -providing it is genuine sentiment - to mean we can still talk about it and see where the common ground is. I don’t see this as a ‘friend’ that we can get to hug or even hangout with, but rather suggest that the lines of communication have not complete been abandoned. Kinda like a MAGA family member, I still love them, but I hope and try to get them to wake up, even if seems impossible.
Strong disagree, I want to be friends with people who genuinely care and follow what they believe. That doesn’t need mean they need to be right about everything. And people shouldn’t be bullied for being wrong(in my, or majority opinion) if its genuine. I prefer someone with totally different beliefs to me who genuinely cares about and follows what they believe in, to someone who just accepts what’s popular.
A-fucking-men
you know you can think all of those things and still disagree politically on the how right?
How children shouldn’t be fed
How the poor shouldn’t be housed
How the sick shouldn’t be cared for
How women shouldn’t control their bodies
How Americans can’t marry who they love
How certain people shouldn’t exist
Yeah, you’re not making the point you think you are…
youre proving my point by phrasing things that way. lets go with healthcare as thats an easy example. it’s obviously not how the sick shouldn’t be cared for as you stated, but how should they be cared for?
Maybe you think we should abolish the entire health insurance industry and have a single payer system.
Maybe you think we should require everyone buy health insurance and fine them if you don’t.
I’d prefer the former but if you oppose the latter people assume you think sick people shouldn’t be cared for.
That’s not actually how it is, though. Easy example is abortion.
People who say things like “you shouldn’t select your friends over politics” obviously have a basic misunderstanding. I don’t really want friends who are immoral, ignorant and can’t tell fact from fiction.
Very, VERY much depends on HOW we disagree politically.
The typical issue with people making these statements is that they tend to wildly exaggerate and straw man the positions of anyone who disagrees with them on anything.
Who out there is actually saying “children shouldn’t be fed”, for example? Fucking nobody, lol.
It’s rarely said in that exact manner because it sounds bad, but the policies they support amount to it.
“I know what they really mean!”
Perfect example of what I’m talking about, lol. Lazy ideologue tactics 101.
If you don’t realise how supporting a politician who defunds school lunches is an active statement that childen shouldn’t be fed, then your cause-and-effect detector is broken.
I’m not falling for that, I know the games legislators play with bundling shit into a bill so that anyone who votes for/against it based on one part is now declared as being firmly for/against everything in it, because ‘they voted for/against it’.
And what you’re saying here takes it a step further than that, by taking it beyond a bill to “supporting a politician”. So let’s say a politician makes it so that hospitals have to be more transparent about itemizing things on their bills. Okay, I support that, and say so. But now people like you come along and say that I’m “supporting a politician who” and then name all sorts of shit I said nothing about supporting.
No.
I’m not falling for that
Of course not, you’ve already fallen for something much worse.
- Vote for a politician who defunds school lunch programmes
- Children go hungry
- ???
- I did not vote for children to go hungry, Bill Riders said I’m not responsible
Yeah, your cause-and-effect detector is busted as fuck. Sorry little buddy, good luck fixing it.
Who out there is actually saying “children shouldn’t be fed”, for example? Fucking nobody, lol.
I’m not even American and I know that plenty of people are saying this 🙄
Congress ended the free-lunch-for-all program in June
The Republican Study Committee (of which some three-quarters of House Republicans are members) on Wednesday released its desired 2024 budget, in which the party boldly declares its priority to eliminate the Community Eligibility Provision, or CEP, from the School Lunch Program. Why? Because “CEP allows certain schools to provide free school lunches regardless of the individual eligibility of each student.”
Children who had access to food now don’t have the same access, thus “children shouldn’t be fed”.
Fucking nobody, lol.
You’re fucking callous.
“There are plenty of people saying this”
shows no one saying this, and does the exact kind of extrapolation and exaggeration I talked about
Thanks for making my point for me.
This here is why no one wants to be your friend.
Yeah, they’re referring to the old idiom ‘actions speak louder than words’.
When people pass laws saying kids don’t get lunch at school, that trans people can’t legally change their gender, that being homeless is a crime, and that women can’t have abortions, they are saying all those things.
And when people tell you who they are, believe them.
Yeah, they’re referring to the old idiom ‘actions speak louder than words’.
What actions? This is done most commonly toward strangers they don’t know at all.
If someone were to say, for example, “I’m okay with the government picking up the slack to keep a kid from starving, but it shouldn’t be treated like a solution. Instead, it should be seen as a temporary necessary measure while resources are put into solving the real problem, by preventing children from being in a position where their own parents aren’t capable of feeding them to begin with, since they’re the ones who should be doing it”, the people I’m talking about would happily contort it into “they want kids to starve”, because that requires no thought/effort, and you get to look morally superior to boot, since now that guy’s just evil, because what a horrible thing it is to want children to starve!
Fact is, almost nobody is willing to even take the majority of people at their word, much less actually steelman an argument, which is how you really end up with rock solid positions and arguments, instead of having to rely on stupid rhetorical and semantic maneuvers.
Oh for… that’s not the law they passed. The law they passed banned school lunches, and they did nothing to address child hunger to make up for it. I would say they most certainly want kids to starve.
And if your take overall is ‘that person’s actions/beliefs are fine as long as they only impact people they don’t know’ that’s… not great. To quote Calvin & Hobbes, ‘we’re all ‘someone else’ to someone else’.
they
The OP is talking about maintaining friendships with individual people. When was the last time you actually picked an individual person’s brain about where they stand on something, instead of just putting people in whatever stereotype bucket confirms your biases the best?
if your take overall is ‘that person’s actions/beliefs are fine as long as they only impact people they don’t know’
I have to say, in a comment chain about people uncharitably extrapolating and twisting viewpoints, this is very fitting, lol. What an absolutely ridiculous interpretation.
I’ve picked at coworkers brains on this frequently. They hedge, avoid, and misdirect about what they believe, or try to change the subject to something banal so as to avoid discussing their actual values.
In my experience, what Republican voters care about is personal wealth. The ones who will commit to values anyway. They feel like voting Republican makes more money for themselves and they don’t care about literally anything else. The ones who hedge and act like that’s what they care about usually give me the impression that they’re bigots of some kind and know better than to speak their bigoted views outside of people they already know to agree with them.
Part of the issue is, what we used to think of as “politics”, the discourse about what’s best for society and what will lead to happy lives for all, is rarely spoken about. What we have now is “RAGE-politics”, where people insert completely ridiculous non-sequitur concepts about who’s at fault into the minds of malleable victims and have them frame it as an identity.
Insurrection is not a political point of view.
It is appalling how divisive American politics is.
Both sides vibes over here. Did you do that on purpose?
yes, it is. And they don’t even think anything is wrong. I kind of wish they weren’t the most powerful country. But then I think of the alternatives and…
Everything Non-European is a nono (except maybe Taiwan, SK or JAP). France and Britain would absolutely get unbearably cocky, germany wouldn’t use its powers to better the world and instead insist on dialog, Poland would absolutely bully russia (actually that doesn’t sound too bad now (JK please read about the Treaty of versailles if you unironically think this is a good Idea))
Maybe one of the Baltics or the Nordics? Finland sounds responsible.
That’s your takeaway? How divisive!
How about a genocide? Can we still be friends if I can overlook a genocide?
Also, if your political opinion includes you posting bullshit on social media, that means we can’t be friends… I have just taken to muting those that I am family with.
We can’t be friends. Ok. But we can still fuck. Right?
They literally crashed grindr. So yes.
Of course you can have differing opinions and be friends. There are obviously scales of importance.
If you believe black people should be slaves, we don’t be friends.
If you believe Trans rights shouldn’t exist, we won’t be friends.
If you believe climate change is a world ending catastrophe and all cars should be baned we may be able to be friends because I disagree on the baning of cars.
If you think gun reform is required we will probably be friends but we will probably have different ideas of how to go about it.
that sounds good on paper but it would only work between people that don’t vote and never voiced who they would vote.
I would while heartedly disagree. Especially with the American system. With the 2 party system we have to pick the person that most aligns with our ideals. I have friends that voted for Trump because the were business owners and he had better policies for them but they hated other things he stood for.
I have friends that voted for Biden because he has better policies for the lower/middle classes.
I have friends that voted for Biden because they just hated Trump that much.
I have friends that voted 3rd party because ef it “my vote doesn’t matter”.
Doesn’t mean I can’t be friends with them. Everyone has reasons for voting the way they do.
My issue with your statement is “never voiced who they would vote for”. In my opinion it is the lack of ability to reasonably talk about why you are voting one way or another is a big issue with what is going on in the American political system.
I have friends that voted for Trump because the were business owners and he had better policies for them but they hated other things he stood for.
Sounds like some people I wouldn’t be friends with
That’s fine, not everyone needs to be friends with everyone. I kind of like them though
If you want to like people that vote against everyone’s interests, electing a wannabe dictator because it puts money in their own pocket, have at it man.
I kind of like them though
And that’s all that matters to you, the impact their (and your) choices have on the rest of society aren’t a factor to you, and it shows. You ignoring their vote for trump because you “kind of like them” is just as bad and selfish as them voting for him because they own a small business.
Which is exactly why I wouldn’t be friends not only with someone I don’t agree with politically, but also anyone who pretends like political leanings don’t matter - because you’re an enabler and actively complicit in making bigots feel safe and comfortable.
And that is perfectly fine. We are allowed to choose our friends and how we find them. If you want to live in an echo chamber where everyone agrees with you that’s fine. That’s just not for me. I’m friends with many people from all walks of life. From business owners to a someone that is surfing other people’s couches and sometimes not so lucky.
Depending on where they are at in life they change what is “important” to them. The stay at home mom isn’t against helping the homeless but it isn’t the top of her list of priorities. She cares more about the reproductive rights and Medicare.
She voted for Trump the first time and biden the second. Does that make her a terrible person I shouldn’t be friends with? I don’t think so
I have friends that voted for Trump because the were business owners and he had better policies for them but they hated other things he stood for.
Spoken like a true businessperson
I dunno, I’ve thought about this and genuinely think it doesn’t matter what your view on specific topics are. You could be the nicest person that only agrees with a few items on the Republican platform, but at the end of the day you support and empower them. Anyone deciding to vote Republican is essentially signing off on the entire platform. They can say they only want gun rights, but their vote still helps blocks medical access for women.
I live in a heavy Mormon area and think the same about them. I know many very nice Mormons who are ok with LGBT folks, but they still pay their tithe to the church and that money is used to fight against care for them. At the end of the day they are knowingly contributing to a system that hurts people, that’s the line for me.
Thanks for your thought out and well formed opinion. I can see where you are coming from and it makes sense.
What if that Mormon person thought that the church was overall good, disagrees with some things they are doing and are in the faith to try to change it from the inside via voicing their opinions, talking with leadership, etc?
That’s a great question. So if you look at all the good the church does and say “I like the idea of this” and but your pro LGBT so you don’t like that aspect of the church.
I think that’s a personal choice at that point. You have to weigh the good vs the bad. For me it’s a clear choice. Mormons mostly only help other Mormons and you lose that help if you stop paying your tithing. So to me it seems like a membership you pay to be part of a community that can help you. But that same community hurts people. So with the idea that it’s a paid club that helps each other, it doesn’t justify the harm it does. Especially when that harm is done by forcing their views on others.
As for changing it from the inside, I don’t see a lot of room for that. They have a living prophet selected by God. What they say goes, and the church is very big on rules. Historically the best way to force change for them has been external, social driven pressure around things like black priests and such.
and if Trump being a FELON And RAPIST isn’t enough to get you to overcome the Democrat bias you were raised with… you are a sad, disgusting person. No, we cannot be friends if you support him. Kamala: I want to support the working class and help people buy homes. Trump: I will immediately punish everyone who has opposed me. The two sides are not the same. Maybe before Trump you could pretend they were. They weren’t… but the GOP kinda pretended they weren’t fascist POSs. Project 2025 just fucking comes out and says it. They want to overthrow democracy.
They are saying two different things.
But why would you believe Kamala is radically different is beyond me. It’s lawful evil vs chaotic evil. Yes, with evil you’d prefer lawful.
All you’re saying is your entirely ignorant of the political outcomes of the last century, you aren’t smart or enlighten because you think ‘both sides’. If Hillary won we wouldn’t being dealing with a stuffed supreme court as well many other courts all over the country that have blatantly done all they can to give every action of Republicans the appearance of legality. We wouldn’t have lost over 1mil people in a pandemic. We wouldn’t be having courts openly consider resetting our entire legal system to the 1770s including full blown racist laws, we wouldn’t be fighting for our basic rights. The level to which you’re completely wrong is HIGH.
I don’t think “both sides”. I think they are the same side. That of establishment, or of elites, or of “the rich” if you like that rhetoric.
We wouldn’t be having courts openly consider resetting our entire legal system to the 1770s including full blown racist laws, we wouldn’t be fighting for our basic rights. The level to which you’re completely wrong is HIGH.
Yes, threatening you with “authoritarianism or barbarism” is more persuasive if barbarism is real. I’m not saying there’s anything else on the ballot.
One side: We are rich and hate poor people.
The other side: We are rich and hate poor people, and also want to kill minorities and the people we think are deviants.
You: wow, totally the same.
Since they can’t exist without each other - yes.
I’m pretty sure the world can exist without Nazis. In fact, it did for a long time. It’s only recent history.
I meant that Republicans and Democrats of today can’t exist without each other.
Also no, it didn’t.
The GOP under Trump is more ethical than it was under Bush. Fewer children killed and PATRIOT Acts signed
I am so sick of this kind of thinking. I am not strongly affiliated with wither party and I can not stand to be told that I stand for X if I don’t support Y. I do not have faith that the democrats will fight for the things they say that they will. In particular Adam Shiff and Gavin Newsom are deep into the pockets of the interests funding their campaigns. I can dislike Trump and I can dislike Schiff.
I do not owe loyalty to candidates selected by business and party elites. I understand that project 2025 is a threat to democracy but I do not understand how the democratic party decided to put Adam Schiff on the fucking ballot if the fight is so important. If the threat is severe can you all please choose candidates that don’t make my skin crawl?
I research every issue on my ballot a few weeks before the election. I choose the candidates based on their merits, their platform, and their fitness for the position. Frankly my vote for my school district supervisors matters a whole lot more and the party affiliation of the candidate should have no bearing. Their personal opinions and beliefs do matter a whole lot.
The tenor of their politics matters a lot to me. For example Katie Porter is among the best of us, kind, accurate, hard working, and well informed. Katie Porter would have my vote but I cannot bring myself to vote for Schiff. Not voting for Schiff does not make me a Nazi who hates my trans friends, it is because I honestly believe the way he conducts politics does more harm to my trans friends. Not all democratic candidates are good, some may even do more harm to the party than republicans they oppose.
