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Bridging the gap between left and right. I came across this clip showing Glenn Beck and Samantha Bee, and thought that this SoylentNews story / comment thread should be stickied till the new year so we have an ongoing conversation. It's a short clip from her show where Glenn Beck is a willing guest; the key point is they are trying to find common ground. Beck points out that Bee is following some of his own patterns of crying "catastrophe" but they really don't provide much insight beyond the significance of their little coming together moment.
The divide is clear and present on this site as most everywhere else, I would like to see a meta discussion where we fact check each other and drill down through the rhetoric until we get some straightforward lists and proposals on how we can move forward together. What are the fundamental blockers? Which ideas do we consider to be too outrageous for credibility? Many here are guilty of attacking each other — can we try and Spock it out for about a week?
I'll start us off with my supposition:
Climate change is real and human activity has an important effect on it. We must agree on this point in order to move forward, and social/economic issues must be handled after needed environmental changes."
If you post as AC — try and behave as if you were logged in — reduce the flames for better quality discussion.
(Score: 2) by Zz9zZ on Saturday December 24 2016, @12:52AM
That doesn't sound hateful to me, but I don't know who you're hanging around. I've never seen the walk/bike never eat meat crowd around here on SN, but then again its not a topic I pay much attention to.
Modifying your life where possible is already a huge step in the right direction, and I can only imagine you were called a hateful bigot because of whatever context the argument was in. Don't give in to
I suspect no matter what I do I will always be a biggot and ignorant
, call people out if they're unfairly characterizing you. What you just said wouldn't get praise from much of anyone, but I have a hard time imagining it would be met with scorn. Most people I know would say "at least you're doing something".
~Tilting at windmills~
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday December 24 2016, @01:16AM
You haven't been paying attention then. Serious progressives do not allow for the possibility of anything but guilt. Witness such in the phrase "white privilege".
Really? How exactly do you prove the negative that you're not a racist, for instance? Cause I guarantee you even if you come up with a thousand people testifying to your character, they'll simply change the definition of racism until you do fit it.
There's a really spot-on blog entry [blogspot.com] I read earlier today detailing exactly what people face from progressives every single day. Thankfully it also offers solutions on how to deal with said malevolent idiocy.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @01:39AM
That link has a strange obsession with"Milo", is that normal on political blogs these days?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday December 24 2016, @02:01AM
Possibly. Not reading them for the most part, I wouldn't know. I think the author's just a fan. He is pretty entertaining.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @02:36AM
Did you ever read this piece on the "outgroup"? Describes the phenomenon perfectly. It's a couple years old but more prescient than ever today.
http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anything-except-the-outgroup/ [slatestarcodex.com]
(Score: 2) by Sulla on Saturday December 24 2016, @06:20PM
I enjoyed the supposition. Before we move forward it is important that you give in and agree with my entire premise, then I can move on to the social issues and call my opinion common sense logical and if you would just agree with everything I say then we can move on.
Plays into the opinion that they don't want debate they want capitulation.
Debating is pointless when the opposition is unwilling to give ground, and every suggestion you try to make as a concession is not enough.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 2) by Zz9zZ on Saturday December 24 2016, @07:21PM
You're too stuck in the us vs. them mentality. I was not looking for capitulation. I am looking for a discussion of the issues so we can find a way to solve our problems that is agreeable enough to everyone concerned. I opened with my own supposition in order to get the discussion rolling and I made a comment about how there seems to be consensus about reducing fossil fuels. Therefore I don't care if you don't believe in AGW as long as we can agree on reducing fossil fuels.
Don't be a fatalist and move to your imagined "end" of the debate without even trying.
~Tilting at windmills~
(Score: 2) by Zz9zZ on Saturday December 24 2016, @07:30PM
My response is to agree with your statement about some progressives being insane but that same complaint goes the other way. The only way to handle crazy insane shit is to not react and as calmly as possible focus on the actual issues. If someone calls you racist you just say "nope, try getting a real point if you want to have a real discussion" or something to that effect.
I did something similar recently, went to a bar with a girl who wore a camo jacket and some old conservative dude was friendly to her and straight up insulting to me. I hadn't said anything and was laughing at what seemed like over the top characterizations until he really got serious about his insults. He characterized me based on my appearance and treated the camo jacket wearing girl as a compatriot. I stayed calm, and after we moved away he still wanted to get my attention so we had a brief, useless, but decent little conversation about the "fake news" problem. My takeaway from that was to be really REALLY worried that a lot of people will support violating the 1st amendment if it lets Trump "clean house". However, by staying calm enough I was able to move it from "likely bar fight" to "almost civil conversation".
Sometimes you just gotta ignore the assholes trying to start shit because they're upset at something and taking it out on you. Left / Right we're all human and have quite similar reactions.
~Tilting at windmills~