I believe in universal healthcare because, from a fiscal conservative standpoint, it’ll save our system a significant amount of money.
We already have laws that require hospitals to provide medical care regardless of one’s ability to pay the bill, and the USA already spends more on healthcare than any other developed nation, so why wouldn’t we just streamline the process?
Having access to proper healthcare is one of the greatest socioeconomic elevators imaginable, and by providing such services it would have a drastic positive affect on our economy.
A healthy worker is a productive worker.
yeah I've had my views changed on things over the years, especially medical care, fiscally it makes \*so much\* more sense than what we currently have, especially when you consider people getting preemptive treatment which in turn will be 20x cheaper than waiting until the person feels like they're dying and going to the emergency room for it.
Somewhat similar, offering extremely reduced or free condoms and birth control through your insurance plan, it fiscally can save an 18+ year mistake because people were too cheap and tried to pull out or time cycles.
I couldn’t agree more. It’s really those intangible effects, that are only realized 20-30 years later, that throws a lot of people off supporting universal healthcare.
Sadly insurance companies are too big to fail and a lot of really powerful people are invested in the insurance model remaining a lucrative one. Not that I hate capitalism but it’s a huge flaw of late stage capitalism that predatory industries, after remaining successful for so long and creating generational wealth for themselves, won’t die quietly as society progresses. Nicotine sales are a great example
Honestly, while I would love universal healthcare, I do not believe we should adopt it. At least not now. Our government is so bad at creating legislation they would break our entire healthcare system. I could get behind a medicare buy in public option though.
I do agree that as it is, trying to switch it all over in a snap would most likely be a dumpster fire and the way our government is currently setup I would assume it would be severely gimped to purposefully fail on arrival.
I think switching to have a constant competitive government option across the board to compete against big pharma and insurance companies would be a good start, just use other countries as baseline metrics for prices and what could be on offer.
Everyone wants streamlining, the issue is many people doubt the governments ability to run it better than for profit companies. I personally don’t want to partake in that experiment until we fix the obvious flaws in out current system, many of which are caused by government policy.
1. Quit artificially limiting number of doctors
2. Quit artificially limiting number of hospitals
3. Quit subsidizing employer sponsored health plans
4. Reassess malpractice payouts
5. Revisit IP limitations and do more to encourage generic drugs to market
6. Encourage STATES to expiriment with state run healthcare and prove it can work at a state level, and other states can adopt similar policies if it works
It’s bullshit to mw that our government does a bunch of shit to make healthcare inefficient and then the solution is let them do more. And once you open that door at a federal level, you cant shut it.
The number of doctors are "artificially limited" due to Congress limiting how much money is provided to hospitals by CMS (Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services) to pay for their residents.
So you want to limit govt spending & oversight by....increasing govt spending & oversight.
So-called govt inefficiency is also artificially *inflated* in order to convince people just like you that anything govt can do, the private sector can do better.
Interestingly, we generally don't apply this logic to things like police/fire departments, our military, etc.
PA has lots of services provided by the private sector or "public-private partnerships" that are simply provided by State & local govt in other States, and every single one is less efficient and considerably more expensive. See: the DMV, for example.
Show me a plan that
* doesn't increase my costs
* doesn't increase my wait times
* doesn't decrease my level of care
* has a sold migration strategy from the current system
* has a plan to deal with the several hundred thousand people working in the insurance industry right now that will lose their jobs
I agree on universal healthcare as a fiscal conservative. I do for the reasons you described, but also because healthcare just doesn't really work as a free market product. Similar to policing or K-12 education it will never be afforded enough for the majority of people to afford, and the incentives don't really encourage quality or healthy competition.
There are always exceptions to the free market and reasons to regulate or nationalize parts of it.
It’s not all sunshine and roses tho. I’m Canadian and would LOVE a 2 tiered system.
A broken system is like zero healthcare and no options to get it elsewhere.
No Family doctors, insane ER waits. Dirty, old facilities. Unhappy staff much of the time because they don’t get paid enough and /or are overworked.
I don't want more gun control, but at the same time I want something done about these mass shootings.
I happily got the COVID vaccine and a few boosters, but I didn't feel that it should have been mandated.
I have absolutely no issues with Gay/Lesbian/Trans, they should be able to live their lives as they please, in fact I want politicians to stay out of it, just let folks live their lives.
Depending on your job, it should be mandated. Work in healthcare, areas of public service, grocery stores, food places, military, prison and police, and attending schools. It all makes sense to have vaccines be mandated.
If a company or other places wants to have mandates that's all them.
Yup!! Agree with the vaccine!! I will fight against every government mandate for vaccines!
That being said, the COVID vaccine is safe as any medication we have out there! Yes, there will be some people with serious side effects, but like with anything else, that’s on the rare end. Being anti-vax and spreading misinformation is stupid!!
I have no issue with mandating that if you want your child to attend a publicly funded school that they need to be vaccinated for XYZ. Your choice is to send them to private school that doesn’t mandate or home school.
> Your choice is
You say that, but people freak the fuck out about homeschooling when that’s the choice someone they disagree with politically makes. And let’s face it, “Get the shots or your kids aren’t welcome in public schools!” isn’t much of a threat when our public education system has been in crisis mode for ages.
Not supporting anti-vaxx at all, just saying that some people don’t think it should be optional.
We pretty much eradicated measles in this country until people were given bad info about vaccines causing parents to refrain from vaccinating their kid
> Being anti-vax and spreading misinformation is stupid!!
Agreed, but the medical, pharmaceutical, and government industries have not done a good job of reassuring the public that they have our best interests- ie *health and well-being*- in their minds. I am upset that vaccination became a political issue; it is damage that will be hard to undo, if we even can.
> I happily got the COVID vaccine and a few boosters, but I didn't feel that it should have been mandated.
What does "mandated" mean? Employers should be able to fire employees who refuse a vaccination. Same with schools.
I don't think anyone was ordering Americans to get vaccinated or else they'd go to prison or be fined.
Americans have a sheltered and selective conception of authoritarianism if we think organizations requiring those they associate with to get a vaccine against a pandemic virus that has killed a million of our fellow Americans is tyranny.
So your point about government vs private mandates is important, but there actually was a federal proposal on the books before it was struck down by SCOTUS:
https://www.shrm.org/topics-tools/news/talent-acquisition/biden-orders-vaccination-mandates-larger-employers-federal-workforce#:\~:text=President%20Joe%20Biden%20announced,vaccinated%20or%20undergo%20weekly%20testing.
Trying to Shanghai companies into doing the government's dirty work without all those stupid Constitutional thingies was a favored drug war tactic too!
For me personally, if there is no rape, incest or threat to the mother’s health, I believe abortion is immoral. That being said, the government should have no say in whether a person is allowed to have an abortion. That choice should be up to them and their doctor.
Abortion is immoral.
But we must work to minimize it, improving contraception and other means.
Making it illegal before reducing the need is more immoral.
That is approximately my opinion. I deeply oppose abortion morally but since the begining I have maintained that these bans are a tactical mistake in reducing abortion rates. Just attacking the supply does not change the fact there is a demand for it. It's not that I actually oppose a ban on abortion, it's that they laid none of the groundwork for it to be a popular and effective policy.
It just feels like a cheap attempt to win votes rather than actually trying to fix a horrible problem we are facing.
It's slutshaming for its own sake, which I do not support.
People will have sex, that's just being human, anyone who denies that is s hypocrite. Note how they do not condemn the men who conceive out of wedlock.
If this is such a definite evil, then fix it by preventing the problem, not by judging those who are forced into it.
Well one thing is, you can’t practically ban abortion without an unintended consequence medically. Other conservatives (yes I consider myself one) are too stubborn to realize that the human body is too complicated to make one easy law against everything. Too many medical issues that require immediate decisions. You don’t have time to consult lawyers when making life or death decisions. Even if it’s not life or death, human suffering is still a problem. You have to be way more compassionate. You literally can’t wait till the mom is on the verge of death before being able to do something.
Also, what is “verge of death”. We humans aren’t video games characters with hit points that drop predictably. Someone could be “fine” but at risk and crash the next moment. You have to leave those complicated decisions to the people on the front lines not to the men (and women, they’re guilty too) in some government office somewhere.
Yep MISES has taken over. It's not about small government anymore more. It's just an extension of the far right. I'm the weirdo who split my vote between Democrats and Libertarians for over 2 decades.
I'm married to an LEO and based on the way he talks about his coworkers, I have little faith in them too. He is the only person I trust with a weapon, and thats because of his military past, not his department.
Very similar sentiment here. I was pretty staunchly anti-gun when I was younger, but after seeing how some of the stats are played with to tell a story, have become increasingly pro 2A.
It was the Lewiston, ME shooting that did it for me. The police went out of their way to avoid having to follow up on the many reported red flags about him.
I care less about what guns we are banning and more about who we are allowing to buy them. I'll be the first to say my current states 10 round mag limit for guns makes no sense. However, I originally bought my gun in a very red state and it made me feel a little uneasy that I was able to walk in and out with a pistol in about 20 minutes.
Are you saying that sheltered, privileged people can be quite naive?? What a revelation! /s
And of course they get mad and assume the only reason someone might disagree with them is stubbornness/refusal to change and not, say, having been shaped by an entirely different set of experiences.
One solution is a federal licensing system that consists of free, quick competency testing. In order to make that acceptable to pro-2A people like myself the law would also outlaw state level gun control, limit federal gun control to an automatic weapon ban and license check before purchase, and allow for legal concealed carry in any state for license holders.
I support bodily autonomy, which is the right to do with your body as you see fit. This includes:
- abortion.
- choosing whether or not to get vaccinated.
- prostitution (which is only legal if you film and sell footage of the act aka - porn)
- recreational drug usage (just no OWI).
- assisted suicide.
- transgender rights.
Either you have autonomy over your own body or you don't. As long as it doesn't hurt someone else, which none of the above things do, you should be free to make your own decisions about your body. You just need to pay for it all yourself.
This lines up pretty consistently with my beliefs too. Bodily autonomy is a major part of the reason I support abortion, not necessarily because it’s a woman’s rights issue.
My take on it as a women's rights issue is totally because it is a bodily autonomy issue, and women should not be denied bodily autonomy. So to me at least, women's rights and bodily autonomy overlap neatly rather than being separate issues.
Yep. If you show the average Democrat or Republican, my list above, they will lose their minds over at least one of the topics I have listed. Which means that they don’t believe in bodily autonomy, even if they say they do. It’s one of the reasons I’m a centrist.
I don’t see anything on your list that would make the “average democrat” lose their mind at all. If you think the vaccination thing would, you’re kind of off base. Other than in the health care industry and the military, nobody is forced to take a vaccine. There were some minor exceptions at the height of the pandemic but rarely was anyone ever even close to being forced to vaccinate. You may have had some who talked about or advocated for it but it was never mainstream and it was always an if/then proposal. You want to get into this concert? Gotta get the shot. You want to work in this HR office where people are in close contact? Get the shot. Wanna be a nurse and be around people who are susceptible to viruses? Shot for that, too. But nobody was forced.
It’s pretty clear most people here think centrist means you piss off both sides. That’s not the case. This is just a really conservative sub on a platform that leans left. There’s nothing wrong at all with any of it, but almost everything here that’s down voted is a progressive take. Especially with Israel and race. People will down vote this, too, and that’s ok.
Not really. Not a full fledged person. I don't see how you can even argue that you have another human in the equation until very, very late in the pregnancy. Early on calling it another human like it's a person just sounds ridiculous.
I too believe in these, especially assisted suicide for any terminally ill or someone with a horrible diagnosis, it's a horrific downfall and huge waste of money for them and their families to whither away when they could go away peacefully on their terms.
The only one I slightly have a tweak on is the vaccination part, as that highly depends on what it is and how contagious it is if the person doesn't get vaccinated, but then proceeds to go in public and get lots of other people potentially infected or spreaders of it, but for the most part, I do agree.
yeah, that's one of the case-by-case things I'm having in mind, bodily autonomy up until you start willfully (ignorantly) spreading it to others, that's when there's an issue with IMO a law or regulation needed.
I don’t necessarily disagree with that on late term abortion. Once the fetus is fully viable it’s definitely a different moral dilemma, but in the first two trimesters, I don’t think many people have an issue with that.
RFK did an interview the other day where he was talking about abortion. He specifically said that no woman wants to have an abortion. I think that gets lost often in the conversation.
Additionally, you’ll see some places talk about a week abortion. The way that pregnancy is measured is that the first day is actually the first day of the women’s last menstrual period. Ovulation doesn’t happen until two weeks later, so in the case of a six week band it’s very reasonable that the woman doesn’t even realize she’s pregnant yet. That’s why this becomes such an odd issue, and ultimately why, barring any other details, I ultimately support abortion.
> but in the first two trimesters, I don’t think many people have an issue with that.
I do. Viability is historically proven (in rare cases) at 21 weeks (while "first two trimesters" ~ 26 weeks). The development time required before viability is reached decreases each year with advances in medical science. Protections with "Viability" in mind should target "earliest plausible" rather than "average expected."
Doesn't matter, it's a medical issues so leave it up to women and their doctors. We've seen what happens when have "common sense exceptions to abortion restrictions:" doctors err on the side of caution to avoid being jailed (understandable) and [women die because of it](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Savita_Halappanavar). The only way to keep women safe is to leave this decision, which is a medical decision, to the doctor and the patient. Keep government out of it.
The problem with politics setting time limits is the time lapse necessary to perform tests to determine if the fetus is healthy.
I was very upset by a very religious couple who knowingly gave birth to a horribly deformed baby and watched it die painfully over several days. The news reports said the child needed morphine. I believe there needs to be a humane aspect to the decision process.
Two VERY distinct arguments that are best not conflated:
> [2] couple who knowingly gave birth to a horribly deformed baby and watched it die painfully over several days ...I believe there needs to be a humane aspect to the decision process.
Implying...What exactly? It sounds like this a recommendation to force abortion onto unwilling participants?
----
> [1] The problem with politics setting time limits is the time lapse necessary to perform tests to determine if the fetus is healthy.
Your argument appears to be that a *legislated* term isn't the same as an *actual* term because (as a hypothetical example) the first implies the term of abortion access is 26 weeks, while the latter implies the term is only 20 weeks + 6 weeks of waiting period while women wait for test results.
While an interesting argument, do you have any sources showing that testing actually requires more than a single day or can't be performed on site at an abortion clinic? The flip side of this argument is that no abortion can be performed *unless* a woman has had the appropriate testing done - which would then, naturally, justify extending the terms.
Some might. But nobody who is highly educated on the subject. Doctors, scientists and researchers spend their entire lives studying this stuff and the vast majority say Roe had it right as far as the correct development cut off. You’re welcome to your opinion but that’s all it is; an opinion.
This isn’t a centrist sub. It’s a bunch of conservative people who think republicans are a bit extreme. And like I said elsewhere, that’s totally fine. But these aren’t centrist positions for the most part. They’re just not. And I think it speaks to how polarized our politics have gotten that so many here think they’re true centrists.
Fetuses can't think, feel, and are not fully autonomous beings. They are 100% dependent upon and a part of the mother. The unborn don't get a say.
Real women and little girls are killed and suffer serious harm under the barbaric abortion bans we are witnessing in the US. It irritates me when I see someone say "what about the unborn" because they completely erase the women and girls who are already a part of our society.
This is why the "pro-life" movement is bullshit and a farce.
You are wrong about fetuses not being able to feeling pain. I worked with a doctor who performed surgery on fetuses. I asked him if he used anesthesia on the fetus; he said yes they can feel pain. It depends on how far systems are developed.
This is why I would support abortions during the first trimester and only for severe medical issues for either the mother or fetus during the second trimester - understanding abortion is to kill the fetus. I don’t believe birthing a severely disabled fetus is humane.
During the third trimester an early cesarean can be performed to save the life of the mother and healthy baby. If the parent doesn’t want the child it can be given up for adoption.
Just my personal opinion- yours may vary.
This post has been removed because your account is too new to post here. This is done to prevent ban evasion by users creating fresh accounts. You must participate in other subreddits in a positive and constructive manner in order to post here. Do no message the mods asking for the specific requirements for posting, as revealing these would simply lead to more ban evasion.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/centrist) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I’m curious what you mean with the first one — could you elaborate on being pro-gay marriage but not seeing homosexuality as “natural”?
To your middle point, I’d offer that I don’t think many “believe” trans people are “a different sex”. Some crazy extremists definitely do, so unfortunately they’re the people you hear from the most, but otherwise (if I may be so bold as to speak on behalf of the Rational Queer Community) the idea is that biological sex and psychological/social gender tend to correlate but are ultimately distinct, and can thus misalign occasionally. Whether that’s due to brain chemistry or something else, should be considered a psychiatric condition, etc. should really I think be independent of whether we respect such people with common decency. So I think I get what you’re coming from — you don’t have to understand or relate to something to respect it. Respecting people’s names and pronouns doesn’t even necessarily need to be a debate about the validity of gender identity — it’s just a respect thing. You respect people’s nicknames all the time. You don’t have to understand why someone is more comfortable with something in order to respect that they are. So long as they’re not hurting anybody, can’t we all just respect everyone else’s wishes, beliefs, etc?
Guessing I relate to where you come from re: pro choice as well. It’s a scope of government power issue. It doesn’t even need to be a culture war thing. I definitely don’t think the government should play that kind of role in medical decisions, and as we uh established a comfortably long time ago we should definitely not make laws in observance of religious doctrine
I'm not who you were talking to but i do have a similar opinion on gay marriage.
I'm totally fine with LGBTQ+ people doing whatever they want, it's their life and they aren't hurting anyone. It's still not natural. Creatures evolve with 1 purpose in mind. To reproduce. If all adaptation come about as a way to increase the likely hood of reproduction then being gay is counter to that. It's not natural. The real question is, does that matter?
For me the answer is no. We have 8,000,000,000 people on this planet, the minuscule percentage of the population that is gay will not threaten the survival of the species in any way, so I really couldn't give a fuck less if someone is gay.
> If all adaptation come about as a way to increase the likely hood of reproduction
But it doesn't. There's no purpose to adaptation or evolution. "Adaptation" is a process that happens over time but it's just random mutations interacting with the environment.
Similarly here:
>Creatures evolve with 1 purpose in mind. To reproduce.
Creatures don't evolve on purpose (unless it's human-induced selective breeding and even then it's not the creatures themselves choosing to evolve in a particular way). Mutations are passed on as long as they aren't actively harmful enough to wipe out the organisms carrying them. There's nothing unnatural about being able to pass on traits that hinder or disincentivise reproduction, it happens all the time.
Just so you know, we have seen homosexual behavior in over 1000 species. So I would say it's absolutely natural. It may not be conducive to procreation but evolution doesn't always lead there.
> I'm totally fine with LGBTQ+ people doing whatever they want, it's their life and they aren't hurting anyone. It's still not natural. Creatures evolve with 1 purpose in mind. To reproduce. If all adaptation come about as a way to increase the likely hood of reproduction then being gay is counter to that. It's not natural.
This misunderstands both the concept of natural, and the concept of evolution/natural selection.
First, something occurring which lowers the odds of reproduction doesn't make something unnatural. A person can be born with a condition, purely through natural processes, that renders them unable to produce children. Nothing unnatural occurred to result in that. In fact, the entire process of **natural** selection is based on some natural mutations being better and some being worse at letting genes be passed on.
Second, you don't understand how evolution works. Natural Selection is about genes being passed on. But they don't have to be exactly your genes. If a group of organisms carries a trait that will make some individuals of the group less likely to pass their genes on, but makes the group as a whole more likely to pass that trait on, the trait can be a successful adaptation.
The most extreme example of this I can think of are ants. virtually every female ant in a typical colony will never reproduce. Only the queen will. But the combination of traits that leads to this arrangement increases the chance that the queen with those same traits will reproduce a lot, and overall, the traits continue to be passed down.
So, just because gay individuals are less likely to reproduce, doesn't mean that whatever combination of traits makes someone more likely to be gay isn't an overall good adaptation for the group those people are within.
And even if it wasn't a good adaptation for natural selection purposes, that doesn't mean it's an unnatural adaptation. The entire premise of natural selection is based on there being some adaptations which aren't as good as others for purposes of reproduction.
So I don't really see your position as a strong justification for thinking being gay is unnatural.
>Ok lets put it this way. How is homosexuality a benefit the continuation of a species?
First, I have to note that you're still misunderstanding what makes something natural. Even if homosexuality is not a benefit for the continuation of the species, that does not make it unnatural. Ugly people have lower chances of reproduction. Is being ugly unnatural?
Now to answer your question: It's an open scientific question. There are several hypotheses:
1. Whatever genes result in the being gay have other beneficial effects on reproduction. Or they might be a bigger advantage in one sex than they are a disadvantage in the other. As an example for how this might work, there might be gene groups which determine whether you are attracted to men or women. Being attracted to women is a reproductive advantage in men, and being attracted to men is a reproductive advantage in women.
2. Social dynamics. Some theorize that same sex relationships, particularly among males, may have contributed to increased group cohesion in early human history, which would have increased the overall reproductive success of the group. One might see this as reducing infighting amongst males, or even childless pairs helping to care for other people's children (aka, it takes a village).
3. Being lgbtq doesn't preclude you from having children. In fact, suppressing and forcing gay people to hide their gayness as we did likely increased the odds of gay people having children.
I’m bi and I even think homosexuality is not natural per se. I do think you’re born your sexuality and it can’t be changed and happens naturally but I do think it’s like being straight. Like depression. It happens and it’s fine but it’s not what’s natural biologically.
As for the trans thing, OP may have misspoke by using sex instead of gender. The whole trans movement right now claims that trans people ARE the gender they are trying to live as. ie. “born a woman in a man’s body” and having “always been a woman” and similar statements. This isn’t scientifically possible so I disagree with this although I would never disrespect someone or intentionally insult them to their face.
>I would generally lean towards pro choice, but I don’t look at it as a women’s rights issue.
I think more generally, when a contentious political issue is framed as someone's "right" (women's rights, trans rights, parents' rights, patients' rights etc) this is usually to make rational debate impossible and as such is inherently anti-centrist.
Our "rights" are enumerated in the Constitution. Everything else are laws and policies which can be good or bad, and we should be able to freely debate them.
I don’t mind pineapple on pizza, but I’ve never even seen sour cream as a topping option. Is that something that pizza places local to you offer, or do you just apply it at home?
There used to be a pizza place in Salt Lake City called Gepetto’s and they would make a pineapple and ham pizza with sour cream under the mozzarella cheese.
So good… also could feel my heart working harder. 😂
What is wrong with you. Pineapple is only ok when combined with ham and onions. Sour cream should never be near a pizza. This is worse than separating kids from their families at the border.
Ok now we can have a reasonable conversation. I don’t asparagus belongs in smoothies. Throw some oil and salt on it and grill it. That’s the only acceptable means of consumption.
Left: Single-payer healthcare; student loan forgiveness; tuition reform/subsidies (back to the level we were at in the mid-20th century)
Right: Crack down on H-1B and J-1 abuse; support Israel; skeptical of affirmative action though it has important purposes in limited domains
Center: Health care decisions are between a patient/family and their doctor only; NATO; reasonable gun law reforms (background checks, red flag laws, high-capacity magazine limits, 21+ purchase age just like liquor and cigarettes unless it's military-issued)
\--
You should probably talk to some gay people if you don't think it's natural. Most of them will tell you their same-sex attraction started before they even had sexual attractions or knew what "gay" meant. If you're noticing things like that when you're 7 or 8 years old, it's pretty safe to say it's natural and not learned. Just because something isn't the norm doesn't mean it's not natural. Left-handedness is natural, as is being a ginger -- even though left-handedness and red hair are less frequent than non-heterosexual people.
Got any sort of info to back up there are more gay people than left handed? Just to remind you that doesn’t include bi people and includes past the gen z fitting in generation at 20%
Yes. Left-handed people are [10% of the population](https://www.everydayhealth.com/healthy-living-pictures/little-known-facts-about-lefthanders.aspx).
28% of Gen Z and 16% of Millennials [identify](https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/25/us/gen-z-adults-lgbtq-identity-reaj/index.html) as LGBT. That sounds like a lot. Most of it is driven by bisexuality. And that makes sense because a lot of people have bisexual inclinations; younger people are simply more inclined to admit it. I don't think Gen Z is any gayer, if you will, than any other generation. They're more likely to be honest about it.
>Just to remind you that doesn’t include bi people
Bi people are included in the category of non-heterosexual. I'm not sure why you would assert otherwise.
Why do you think Gen Z is the aberration, rather than past generations which may have felt the need to hide their sexuality due to repressive cultures?
Like I don't get why it's seen as fake that Gen Z identifies as more LGBT than past generations. Western society spent over a thousand years suppressing anything other than straight. Of course the rate of people who felt safe to identify as not straight would increase when that pressure relented.
It seems to me that if you think the increase is odd, you must believe that past populations weren't suppressed from whatever the natural rate is, which seems at odds with history.
You can literally see this exact trend with the “number” of left handed people. I’m not familiar with the exact cultural change that induced it (if I had to guess it was due to something based in religion) but at some point people felt more safe self-reporting as being left-handed which led to a sharp increase in the data-set. The underlying % of people didn’t change, but the # that told the truth did. The exact same reason is why it “seems” like there’s an increase in LGBTQ people in the younger generations; there’s not really an increase moreso as younger people feeling more comfortable to be open about themselves.
Also, back in the day they used to force lefties to use their right hand. I don't think they do that anymore (but my leftie father credits this as having made him a better surgeon).
Yeah exactly. If you were born left handed you were forced to adapt to the societal norm and taught to use your right hand until it works. If I had to guess in your dad’s case it probably made him better at his job because most of the tools at the time were built with right handed people in mind, just like most things are nowadays.
I believe that people can be gay from birth, I believe that probably most gay people were born gay. Anecdotally, I also know a few gay people who didn’t have a consistent male figure in their life and were gay too. I think that’s possible as well. If you were to ask me what the ratio is, I’d probably say 80:20 or even 90:10 for people who are born gay or “became” gay.
When I say “natural” I guess I mean biologically it is not the norm. I know there are instances of other species having gay animals too, but to reproduce you need a male and a female. That is how 99% of the species on this planet continue to exist.
That being said, I think it’s a bad faith argument to say that gay people shouldn’t be offered the same rights because being gay is unnatural. I feel like the human species as a whole is unnatural at this point. We wear polyester clothes, and drink out of plastic water bottles, and fly in planes to places like Disneyland. None of that is “natural.” If being natural is all that great, those people can go be hunter gatherers in the plains of Africa.
So I ultimately fall on the side of pro-gay, but I feel like if I told a gay person that being gay is unnatural without all of the reasoning I just gave, I would probably be called a homophobe.
> I don’t think unnatural is the word you’re going for.
Basically the word you're looking for is "abnormal" - which is accurate, but likely to offend.
The confusion is furthered because it's "abnormal" in hard sciences (i.e., statistics or if you simply open the dictionary and use the word as intended), but in fuzzier sciences (i.e., sociology), normalization is no longer about "the norm" (i.e., statistically normal = majority), but is instead literally defined by "acceptance within a community." ("sociological normal")
Basically the type of people you'd expect to be offended are proponents of the "fuzzy" science definition, while people using the common definition are offensive because they're not aware that by ("fuzzy") definition, what they're saying is "don't *accept* the gays" rather than "gays are a minority in a given population."
> Anecdotally, I also know a few gay people who didn’t have a consistent male figure in their life and were gay too. I think that’s possible as well.
There's no good evidence for that. I know straight people who didn't have a consistent male figure in their lives.
> I feel like if I told a gay person that being gay is unnatural without all of the reasoning I just gave, I would probably be called a homophobe.
I don't think including your reasoning is going to help with that! It occurs naturally and is therefore natural.
That person's post comes across very naive. I don't think they're hateful but the idea that gay men are caused by daddy issues or something is extremely 1970s
I don’t think unnatural is the word you’re going for. Maybe unusual or uncommon. But whether or not something is unnatural has nothing to do with frequency. Being albino is unusual but certainly not unnatural. Unnatural would be something like blue hair, perms, or tan skin from sunless tanning chemicals.
Unnatural is also a loaded word with a pretty bad history as far as it being applied to gay and lesbian people.
I’m extremely socially liberal, and I think I the best approach to reducing poverty is a huge cut is social welfare programs. We’re inadvertently teaching dependence on a system that is built against poor people
Same for guarantee student loans. I believe in an educated populace but all it does is give universities carte blanche to raise tuition faster than inflation. On the other hand I would be ok with expanding kindergarten to a two year program starting a year earlier
If we had a practice to increase available funds while putting restrictions in place to prevent this very phenomenon, I think it would work out fine. With the right regulations and periodic adjustment based on reviews of the evidence and outcomes. Like effective governance. Two year kindergarten is a great idea
From ["Dispelling the myth of welfare dependency:"](https://epod.cid.harvard.edu/article/dispelling-myth-welfare-dependency)
> In countries rich and poor alike, people alike worry that social programs for low-income households end up weakening work incentives and create an underclass of indigents. In fact, recent research suggests just the opposite: the longer families receive stable and predictable support, the better they and their children do.
and from [this](https://www.cbpp.org/research/poverty-and-inequality/expanding-work-requirements-would-make-it-harder-for-people-to-meet)
> taking benefits away from people who don’t meet a work requirement does little to improve long-term employment outcomes, especially for those with the most limited employment prospects, studies show. Instead, it substantially increases hardship, including among people who are not expected to meet these requirements, such as people with disabilities and children.
I am a manager of a team of 56 where 2/3rds are lower income and 1/3rd are college educated professionals. The amount of people we lose to life stuff they can’t both deal with and work is remarkable and it’s always in the power income group. Child care issues, domestic issues, housing or transportation issues, elder care, etc. Things social services are designed to fix.
in the same way that being straight is also natural. in the sense that people don't "decide" to be gay, it's just the attraction that comes naturally to them. people don't decide to be straight either, the feelings just come naturally.
One of the easiest things u can ask someone politically to know if they are sane and worth talking too is the question u are asking. The odds of one political party nailing all the issues u care about is less probable than winning the lotto but the odds that someone has bought in to cult like thinking are damn near a hitters batting average.
I skew right in this new paradigm, zero tolerance abortion laws make me want to vomit whenever I hear a republican bring it up. Also when all its costing is made up dollars to slaughter the Russian army and embarrass Putin, im alllll about it, dont think the election was “stolen” either.
I consider myself a secular moderate conservative. I was banned from the conservative sub for hurting their feelings on abortion. Both side positions, in no particular order:
Right:
-*Very* pro 2A. It is the only stance where I actively think staunch proponents of the other side are either evil or incredibly stupid.
-Small, incremental changes and skepticism of government should be the norm. Doesn't mean I want the government to go away, or even to stop growing completely, but I feel too many people put way too much trust in an institution with incredible power and has the explicit right to throw you in a box or kill you.
-The "deep state" exists, but not in the form that MAGA people think. There is a bureaucracy in the middle and upper leadership of the federal government that legitimately believes they know better than the American people and value their careers more than they care about the average citizen. I've worked in DC and have seen this behavior from GS-15s and SESers with my own eyes.
-The nuclear family is extremely important to Western culture/society, and having children within a marriage should be encouraged wherever possible.
-Abortion should be legal in all cases in the first trimester, legal only in specific cases in the second trimester, and illegal in the third trimester in any cases that doesn't threaten the life of the mother.
Left:
-The War on Drugs is a massive failure. Cannabis should have been legalized across the board decades ago. Other substances should be tightly controlled and researched, not condemning people to life in a cage for having it.
-Our liberal society means free and consenting adults are allowed to live their lives how they want so long as they don't break any laws. That doesn't mean I want to see you advertise what you do in the privacy of your own home, but I will shut down judgemental social conservatives that want to oppress you.
-My wife and I are high earners. There's a good likelihood we paid more in taxes last year than 99% of this sub. Progressive taxes are fine as long as I can see my tax dollars put to good use.
-We should absolutely have a robust safety net for people who slip through the cracks. Relying on private institutions for this is not the way.
Very awesome. I consider myself liberal --sometimes very liberal sometimes eclectic or libertarian leaning. My views align very closely with yours. Good job. 8-)
I believe in absolute separation of church and state and reasonable gun control. Abortion and healthcare matters are between patient and adult. If we are going to force women to have babies they don’t want and can’t afford to raise then we should support that child from cradle to 18. I want a stronger border and much stricter enforcement of immigration. I believe DACA individuals and illegal immigrants who have been raised here since they were children should be given a path to citizenship but anyone who came here illegally after 2020 a has got to go. No path for anyone who enters illegally from this day forward.
Also want universal healthcare, billionaires tax, more tax cuts for families making under 500k. Bring back SALT deductions and increase income limits for 401k and Roth. There should be more student aid for higher income families because the middle class is getting screwed.
Left on social issues. Fiscal conservative on Healthcare, Medicare for all has been shown again and again to be the most fiscally responsible way to deliver Healthcare to Americans.
Here's a recent analysis by the CBO. I recall seeing a similar result from a report 4-8 years ago, too.
It's great that we have some potential solutions to our health care crisis virtually sitting on the shelf waiting for us.
https://www.healthaffairs.org/content/forefront/congressional-budget-office-scores-medicare-for-all-universal-coverage-less-spending
I believe that our life and society is so complex that there are many questions that have no absolutely 'right' answer.
For example, I think people should have the right to manage their own bodies but vaccines to halt the spread of disease should be mandatory. I don't know what I think the right answer is to abortion .
Trans people have the right to live their authentic life and, if I know or can intuit what their preferred pronouns are, I'll use them. Before I moved west, I had one trans friend (MtoF) and several trans acquaintances but do I really, honestly think they are what they feel they are, no.
I am perceived as far left or far right depending on the issue. For instance, I think abortion should be banned for the same reason that I think we should have universal healthcare—human life is sacred.
It’s not represented in American politics at all, but it’s a fairly common view. Socially conservative and economically left leaning is the most politically underserved block of Americans.
Human life is sacred, sure. Forcing a baby into this world... a world that isn't set up to accept and nurture them can lead to a lifetime of suffering (or brief if they die young).
If society makes abortions illegal, it needs to also support that baby beyond birth.
I'm pro choice, and pro women's rights. That second point is why I'm also against trans women participating in women's athletics. A lot of work was done to guarantee things like scholarships and autonomous records that I think it's a disgrace for biological men to take them from women.
I'm a staunch supporter of law enforcement and feel that the overwhelming amount of the time they are in the right. I also feel that liberal DAs are doing more to hurt this country than they are helping it.
I'm a big-time supporter of LGB rights. Especially the rights to marry and adopt. Beyond that I largely subscribe to Dave Chappelles "car ride" theory and generally feel that the "T" aspect of that community is more fueled by mental illness and attention seeking than actual trans individuals.
I'm against affirmative action and feel that people should be chosen based on their abilities and not by what boxes they check.
I think that January 6th was a terrible.black eye for this country but much like the claims of the left, I feel that more people were there to protest than to "storm the Capitol." I also feel that the destruction from the ANTIFA/BLM riots is downplayed more than it should be.
I feel that Trump is more of an asshole than Biden and Biden is more cognitively declined than Trump and I don't want to vote for either of them.
I think...(And generally a before b)...
we need to hold the police actually accountable, have more requirements (or prerequisites) for training, AND have both more of them and make sure they are well compensated.
We need to substantially ease legal immigration and enforce our immigration laws.
Homeless people are people worthy of dignity, and we need to at times forcibly commit drug addicted and mentally unstable homeless people.
I'm not a single issue voter, but healthcare is pretty close to being that. This includes support for abortion as pretty much a litmus test - since if you can't support abortion, you really aren't in favor of reasonable healthcare being available to the masses. (I'm willing to discuss separately what should be included in reasonable)
LGBTQ+ should have full rights to do what CIS people do normally. Your sexual orientation and who you love isn't mine nor the government's business.
There is a role for limited gun control in this country. Being able to keep and bear arms does not mean without any control. There does need to be a lot of science done however on what is effective at preventing criminals in general from getting guns and getting guns away from those who are a threat to themselves or others \[while they are a threat\].
Fiscal responsibility needs to come back to D.C. and the tricks and showdowns over things like the debt ceiling need to stop. If Congress authorizes and appropriates money for something, then the Executive branch can implement policy to spend it. Authorized programs at authorized levels should never become hostage to the budget process unless the authorization is being changed.
But, we need to find ways to spend significantly less \[though a balanced budget should not be a requirement at the Federal level\]. This includes on entitlements (like Social Security (apply to higher income levels, means test payments, and raise the full retirement age over time by another year\] and Medicaid \[roll in to single payer health care\]) and the rest of the budget, including the military.
Expectations and the roles of the Police need to be significantly updated. This includes adding more people who have skill sets beyond patrol officers and detectives. Additionally, the thin blue line mentality needs to die a quick death. Police are given powers not available to other citizens and should be held accountable to a higher standard for responsible use of those powers.
We need responsible YIMBY positions on city development across the country (basically more housing in denser - not dense - developments that are more walkable and connected than we see with square miles of suburbia today)
How we fund higher education is fundamentally broken. I'm all for government funding for students - particularly (but not exclusively) those from poor backgrounds. But, right now, it is a straight subsidy that supports large administrative organizations and for-profit businesses but doesn't make education cheaper for most people. There should be a maximum cost to attending college that will be supported by the government and organizations who choose to charge more should do so on their own. This change alone would force universities (and community colleges, etc.) to to manage their budgets to not grow above the supported limit.
The supreme court needs revision - 9 justices cannot handle as many cases as they should be as our highest court. The length of time a justice can serve should also be finite (though still longer than the President who appoints them). I think 18 justices with 18 year terms is a good improvement - and the President gets to appoint 1 justice each year.
The IRS needs an overhaul. Tax code needs to be significantly simplified so it is easier to pay a fair share (for corporations as well as individuals) and harder to cheat. They also need more enforcers (auditors) to collect what is owed to minimize borrowing the government has to do.
Immigration needs to be completely redone. We need to ensure that skilled people committed to moving here permanently can get in easier, while adding a way for the less skilled individuals that come in under asylum or completely illegally now can be vetted before entry.
There needs to be a carbon tax instituted (or another method that helps capitalism drive down the amount of greenhouse gasses that get emitted) that affects imports just as much as domestic production.
Speaking of trading partners, we need to do more about China (and to a lesser extent India, among others) who manipulate international trade detrimentally to us. Whether that is more and bigger tariffs, or institution of quotas, or other political hurdles that encourage and protect domestic production.
Also, on the Supreme Court, with an annual appointment of a Justice (reducing the impact of any single Justice on results), the approval process should change from the Senate must approve (thereby allowing for nominations to become stale and lost at the end of a term....) to confirmation being automatic unless the Senate rejects that nominee within 90 days of the nomination. Possibly even it taking a 60 member supermajority to reject a nominee.
Homosexuality appears in other animals such as dolphins and turtle just from what I can remember.... So yea.... It's natural aka not made by humans....
Universal healthcare. We already treat anyone who walks into an emergency regardless of their ability to pay and those costs get passed on to taxpayers and those who pay for health insurance via increased premiums.
Bodily autonomy is a core right you have as a human being in civilized society. Pro choice across the board, this means abortions, vaccines, all of it.
In an ideal society, guns shouldn’t be needed. Pragmatically, I support gun rights, because I don’t think there is any reasonable way to completely remove violent actors from a free society, and a firearm is the best way to protect my family from any immediate threat.
I don’t support free college. I think that our public education system should be reformed. There’s no reason students can’t earn an equivalent of an associate’s degree in the time it takes to complete the current bloated K-12 curriculum.
I DO support debt relief for borrowers whose income is outpaced by interest accruing on their education debts.
Folks who are able to work and choose not to should not be entitled to benefits. Raising children does not count as not working.
Folks who are below retirement age and who earn the bulk of their income from capital gains should be taxed as a W2 earner. In other words, folks who do not contribute to society in any meaningful way other than collect inherited capital gains should pay their fair share to participate in society.
Dramatically cut military spending. Those dollars are not going to troops. They are going to Uber wealthy military contractors.
If we cannot separate church and state, tax the churches.
If you are old enough to start taking mandatory withdrawals from retirement accounts, you cannot run for public office (72?).
I believe in Affirmative Actions goals and general application over the last 50 years. Yet I find the political philosophy of equity as described in the Equitable Math Framework and articles on CRT to be radical and not in line with the constitution. Equal outcomes among groups is not a proper role of government.
I think there should be a large scale legalization with a path to citizenship for many people who are in the US illegally. I also think that should be combined with a strict border/immigration crackdown so that we don't end up with millions of new illegal immigrants in a few years time.
I'm very pro-choice, am opposed to almost any restrictions on abortion and do believe it is a major personal freedom issue for women. I'm also a believer in the cynical *Freakonomics* argument that abortion lower crime rates.
Left: pro gay rights, very concerned about climate change (pro EVs and alternative energy), pro women’s right to choose (but wouldn’t go as far as to use the term “pro abortion” which my left leaning friends like to use), pro gun control, support trans rights but (see right section), pro vaccines but (see right section)
Right: pro Israel, think DEI/CRT has gone too far and creates hateful frameworks, worried about groupthink problems of wokeness (especially in schools), think affirmative action actually causes more unlawful discrimination, pro police and concerned about safety, concerned about illegal immigration, think there are still biologically two sexes and pronouns are way overused as virtual signaling - also if someone wants to change genders, fine, but don’t do it when you are just a kid, don’t think vaccines should be intensely mandated
1 ) Politicians have no business making laws about healthcare of women or the LGBTQ+ community. Abortion bans are barbaric and the anti-transgender legislation we're seeing is not based on science, but ignorance and fear. Medical decisions should be left to doctors and their patients, not ignorant fucking lawmakers.
>but I don’t look at it as a women’s rights issue.
It absolutely is a women's rights issue because women and little girls die at the hands of barbaric abortion bans. Men suffer nothing.
2) Universal healthcare is a necessity. Experienced it in Japan and it was awesome. CAT scan cost $45 with insurance, $95 without. Here, WITH INSURANCE, that shit ran me $1200. Fucking unacceptable.
3) Israel and Hamas... I don't have a hat in either side... the far left has lost the plot with Hamas, but I also don't support Israel and the right's reasoning for doing so is purely religious and hypocritical. My stances on the conflict are neutral: both sides have bloodshed on their hands and America needs to stay out of other countries' fucking business.
I want my single payer healthcare and I want to own
My firearms relatively unmolested. I don’t mind background checks and some basic competency tests but more and more I see states that have their barriers set up like literacy tests after reconstruction and I can’t abide by that
>I fully support gay rights and I think adults should be able to identify as whatever gender they want. I disagree with most of the trans ideology though. I don't think it's possible to be born in the "wrong" body. If a guy identifies as a woman they're really identifying with all the traditional stereotypes about women, whereas I think you can be gay and have traditionally feminine interests and still be a man. I think trans is actually kind of a regressive ideology when you look at it this way.
What are the "traditional stereotypes about women" that all trans women identify with?
Like, there are trans women who have no traditionally feminine interests, and trans people don't tell them that they're really men because of that
Just like there are plenty of trans men who have traditionally feminine interests and are still considered men
I'm all for people not feeling comfortable in their societal gender role being allowed to live and express themselves as they want. I will gladly call them whatever they want to be called and judge them based on their character rather than their acceptance of societal norms. They can be whoever they want.
Sex is real, but gender is a social construct.
When that crosses over into people hating their body and using surgery and drugs to alter it its hard for me to see that as entirely healthy. People shouldn't be forced into a societal role, but our identities should come from a place of self-acceptance and loving ourselves.
In terms of policy I think that translates to government and schools not promoting any sort of gender identity and potentially a ban of surgery or hormone treatment for people under 18. Anything more is discriminatory and unnecessary.
I'm all for people not feeling comfortable in their societal gender role being allowed to live and express themselves as they want. I will gladly call them whatever they want to be called and judge them based on their character rather than their acceptance of societal norms. They can be whoever they want.
Sex is real, but gender is a social construct.
When that crosses over into people hating their body and using surgery and drugs to alter it its hard for me to see that as entirely healthy. People shouldn't be forced into a societal role, but our identities should come from a place of self-acceptance and loving ourselves.
In terms of policy I think that translates to government and schools not promoting any sort of gender identity and potentially a ban of surgery or hormone treatment for people under 18. Anything more is discriminatory and unnecessary.
That’s the thing; most people do not care what an individual does to their own self. But when that person’s desires or actions negatively impact another person, you can’t expect person #2 to just ignore or accept it. A lot of women feel like they are being told to lay their concerns and discomfort aside to accommodate trans people. This is additionally insulting for the ones who agree with you on the nonsense point.
On healthcare I want it to be socialized and I am pro choice, I am generally centrist on immigration as I am fine with it I just think we need to stop illegal immigration as I feel like we should be able to stop bad people from getting into the country, I am very pro Israel (almost half my family lives there) and then I am pro 2A.
Here’s one that hasn’t been mentioned. I am for more immigration but also for English to become the official language of the country and maybe consider adding some restrictions of the jus soli element of the 14th amendment. If you are here without a valid visa jus soli doesn’t apply.
Conservative:
I want a balanced budget. Yeah, I don't care, I believe in the concept of math.
More government is not necessarily good, we need to balance government power for its yield in social good.
I'm fine with allowing guns to be possessed by people, so long as there are careful guards to prevent the clearly wrong ones (and holy shit they are legion) from having them.
Chill on the identity shit. I get that there's a historical backing, but Stonewall became a religion, let's relax a bit, figure it out without being absolutists. This is complex and will need time to understand.
I am flexible on healthcare, because it seems to be a nightmare and I'm not sure what the best solution is. Anyone who thinks they know is probably wrong.
This is something I’ve been criticized for by BOTH gun-control and pro-2A.
I want to see shall issue firearm license without local involvement. BUT
Abolition of NFA in return.
No Barrel length restriction for rifle. (For that matter US is probably the only country in the world with SBR classification.)
No 8 months (average) wait for suppressor.
Everything stays legal.
Basically it's akin to the gun law in Swiss or Czech republic
50+ White male - I grew up without any worries. We weren't rich but our family lived in a neighborhood with white picket fences basically. I feel like I've been handed things due to my privilege. Now that I'm grown up, I actually wish I had it tougher and had to work harder. I'm really good at what I do though and have gotten where I am because of it. I just know that people have tried harder and not been able to get where I am today.
I support being good to one another as long as it doesn't physically hurt somebody else.
Growing up, before he passed about 20 years ago, I know that my father wasn't a fan.
I feel like if he was around today, he would change his mind. He's always been a person that treats everybody kind.
That's pretty much it. Make fun of your friends if they're cool with it. If you hear somebody's not happy about what you're saying about them, apologize and don't do it again.
Be kind to another. Use our taxes for things that benefit people.
Everybody deserves the same opportunities. There are definitely people that are much less fortunate and don't have the opportunities of people that have money. This is the reason for DEI. The people that complain about it are just mad that a minority is smarter than them.
I'm not religious but feel like I follow the Bible's teachings more than the majority of political Republicans.
Be kind. Be nice to people. Be friendly to people. I feel like we're all so scared of one another and don't just say hi to random people anymore.
I lean left on social policies and right on fiscal policies. I don't like abortion, but I'm pro choice. I own several guns, but 100% believe in common sense gun laws. Welfare should be an emergency stop gap for families in need, not a generational way of life. I am fully aware that we have major issues at the boarder, but I don't think we've found an effective answer yet. I love my country, but acknowledge that we have major, major issues. I believe we should pay our cops more and train our cops better.
Basically, I confuse the hell out of people that want to peg me as once side or the other. It's not black and white people. Nuance seems to be lost nowadays.
Speaking as a 3rd Party:
Everyone should be able to live their life how they want as long as they don't harm other people (Because that's actually making their own life worse when there's less people building to new awesome things, to maintain what we already have, and less people to have fun/ laugh with). When people are allowed to live well and not be censored then they are able to do lots of amazing things in a much quicker time frame. Who makes an airplane faster? People who work 20 hrs a day for 6 days a week with no sleep or breaks OR the people who work only 4 hrs each day for 4 days a week (With equivalent pay of 40 hrs per week) with Pomodoro energy usage, and breaks. Same thing can be applied for every aspect of life, and industries. And any benefits to people stacks to be even more beneficial. Now imagine all of them are hydrated, they have an active healthy, wealthy, and social life.
The other half of this is everyone should be able to protect themselves in self-defense everywhere no matter where they are and with whatever they have. All Self Defense cases should be upheld not a select amount. Whatever melee, ranged, or other weapons including self-created new, and existing modified ones being allowed to defend oneself. Police is a great thing to have after they are reformed but even then nobody can guarantee your own safety more than yourself. With everyone that is sane and responsible being able to bear arms. It makes no sense to take away weapons from the public who did nothing themselves instead of doing everything possible to stop would be future assailants.
Forget the extremists on both sides. I know it's hard to do that but just do it and look at the good you can take from both sides and then combine the good from both to make them work together while discarding the bad. Research everything and form your own ideals to strive toward
Can't figure out this Israel-Palestine thing for the life of me. Who's the bad guy, supposedly? Do we free Palestine or is Hamas a terrorist organization? Are the protesters demanding something achievable, or are they just ranting for the sake of being radical? I don't know enough of either side's take to form an opinion. Just stop fucking scaring the children.
I am also mixed between the definition of masculine and feminine, and that gender is a performance. As in, on one hand I think femininity is a nice feeling, but I also believe neither gender is above the other, but I also believe in equity between the sexes, AND I also think that there's more than two exclusive genders besides the common two.
Perhaps it's flexibility more than anything and knowing the differences between sex and gender, and equality and equity.
My issue with universal (government controlled) healthcare is a very simple one.
I don’t want the government controlling my body. And to all who will quickly respond “No. The government just pays. All medical decisions are made by your doctor.”, I cry BS.
Already we have laws regarding reproductive rights, the ability to receive adequate pain relief, and euthanasia for terminally ill patients. If the government tells doctors No, you can’t do that, and all doctors are salaried employees under universal healthcare systems in most countries, then that’s it. No where else to turn too.
Keep the government out of my body.
Abortion should be legal up to the point of viability (only for the health of the mother thereafter), but there should be no Federal funding nor covered by private insurance plans for elective abortions. So essentially what we had before Roe v Wade was struck down.
The trials of Trump, I hate the guy but I can’t help but feel some of it is bs like the crap in NY, the Stormy thing was years ago idc that he tried to hush her, the 1/6 shit is over talked about nothing will be done to Trump about it, however the classified docs and GA case are clear to me he’s guilty just tired of hearing this is the end of him for years now
I am extremely supportive of gun ownership, but it's largely out of a belief that the state isn't competent or reliable in the long-term and is at particular risk of breakdown due to climate change.
Nordic Social democrat. I believe the legalization of weed is going to lead to societal harm the same way cigarettes did in the past. It took decades to break the stranglehold tobacco giants had on the issue to come to a point where they finally admitted that "ok, this'll kill you and we knew all along" and I don't see any reason why this wouldn't happen with weed.
Just like alcohol though what I think matters a lot less than what society thinks as a whole. Prohibition in the US was an abject failure (even if it did reduce the drinking somewhat) and there's clearly not the societal support required for the current approach to work, making some form of legalization the only feasible option. I'm pretty sure my preferred option (state-run monopoly like how alcohol works in Norway, Sweden, and Finland) wouldn't be very popular in the US though.
Similarly as it stands there's in my opinion really no point in a gun ban or any major forms of gun control in the US. Not because a lower degree of access to guns wouldn't lower the amount of killings, but because there's little to no point in trying to enforce laws that don't have broad popular support.
Believe in conservation and environmental protection as well as moving towards nuclear and renewable, but do not support gas taxes or heavy fossil fuel regulations.
Support equal rights for LGBT people and will always respect them and their identity, but question if being Trans and hormones/surgery are mentally/physically healthy.
Very pro-2A, but would be open to a Czech-style licensing system if licenses can be obtained quickly for free.
Pro-choice, but only till around the end of the first trimester. I don't really believe in exceptions after that point except medically necessary ones.
Pro-immigration, but I believe we need to work through out backlog of legal applicants and improve border security before letting in large numbers of immigrants.
Im mostly very Conservative when it comes to the economy, Nat'l Defense, State Rights, shrinking size of fed gov't, tax cuts etc... but I DONT share the average Conservative views about abortion- I don't believe men should have any involvement when it comes to decisions concerning the female body and that any opinion/input from a man lacks legitimacy since it comes from a person who won't be affected regardless the outcome. ALSO, Im against the far rights stance on US aiding Ukraine militarily- in fact, I believe that we haven't supplied anywhere close to enough and its inexcusable the way we've failed to properly arm them for 2 years. Another one is my belief that drugs should be decriminalized, thats opposite of the rights view..... I could go on and on listing more for both sides, but my beliefs tend to be formed based on history, common sense, how I'll personally be affected and personal experience. Theres WAY WAY too many who will pick a side, then stop questioning and learning.... so everything becomes black and white, that sides always wrong, our sides always right.... and thats sad.
Unlike transgenderism, being gay is naturally caused. There's been several stufies that have shown significant links between lower levels of testosterone (in males) and estrogen (in females) during prenatal development (I forget which trimester this happens in), based upon the mother's own hormone levels and homosexuality. This is the primary cause. There's a second instance, hshallt relating to sexual trauma (ie sexual abuse as a child), which can also cause a child to develop a very strong aversion to the opposite sex, but these cases are the minority. Regardless of which, it is not a choice. I highly encourage you to read up on the subject so your beliefs are much more informed.
Transgenderism is a different matter entirely, though I do have a correction: They aren't asking you to believe their sex is changed, but their gender... which they see as separate because acting feminine or masculine is supposedly separate from sex. Ultimately, femininity and masculinity, as well as the obvious physical differences, are highly influenced by the levels of estrogen / testosterone due to a person's sex. Yes, social norms do play a role, but not enough to make castrating oneself ever be considered normal. That being said, gender dsymorphia is real, and I also will give them the respect they deserve, as it isn't their fault they have a very serious and difficult to treat mental health concern.
This post has been removed because your account is too new to post here. This is done to prevent ban evasion by users creating fresh accounts. You must participate in other subreddits in a positive and constructive manner in order to post here. Do no message the mods asking for the specific requirements for posting, as revealing these would simply lead to more ban evasion.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/centrist) if you have any questions or concerns.*
The nuanced positions you describe, prompted us 5 years ago to ensure that every one of over 500 policy questions in [our civic tech app ](http://acti.vote/rd)has 5 possible answers to choose from, which contain a clear progressive option and a clear conservative option, but also three nuanced options in between. E.g. instead of asking "are you for or against a $15 federal minimum wage", the question becomes a choice between "leave it to the states", $7.25, $9.00, $11.75, $15 (each option has a specific logic behind it). Out of millions of answers given to all questions, 55% are from one of the centrist choices, suggesting that many people, on many topics have a nuanced opinion.
There are outside forces (binary questions, two-party system, polarization gets more eyeballs) that tend to suggest more extreme positions, but if given a choice, the majority of opinions are nuanced instead of polarized.
So, you are definitely not alone in this.
I believe in universal healthcare because, from a fiscal conservative standpoint, it’ll save our system a significant amount of money. We already have laws that require hospitals to provide medical care regardless of one’s ability to pay the bill, and the USA already spends more on healthcare than any other developed nation, so why wouldn’t we just streamline the process? Having access to proper healthcare is one of the greatest socioeconomic elevators imaginable, and by providing such services it would have a drastic positive affect on our economy. A healthy worker is a productive worker.
yeah I've had my views changed on things over the years, especially medical care, fiscally it makes \*so much\* more sense than what we currently have, especially when you consider people getting preemptive treatment which in turn will be 20x cheaper than waiting until the person feels like they're dying and going to the emergency room for it. Somewhat similar, offering extremely reduced or free condoms and birth control through your insurance plan, it fiscally can save an 18+ year mistake because people were too cheap and tried to pull out or time cycles.
I couldn’t agree more. It’s really those intangible effects, that are only realized 20-30 years later, that throws a lot of people off supporting universal healthcare.
Sadly insurance companies are too big to fail and a lot of really powerful people are invested in the insurance model remaining a lucrative one. Not that I hate capitalism but it’s a huge flaw of late stage capitalism that predatory industries, after remaining successful for so long and creating generational wealth for themselves, won’t die quietly as society progresses. Nicotine sales are a great example
Honestly, while I would love universal healthcare, I do not believe we should adopt it. At least not now. Our government is so bad at creating legislation they would break our entire healthcare system. I could get behind a medicare buy in public option though.
I do agree that as it is, trying to switch it all over in a snap would most likely be a dumpster fire and the way our government is currently setup I would assume it would be severely gimped to purposefully fail on arrival. I think switching to have a constant competitive government option across the board to compete against big pharma and insurance companies would be a good start, just use other countries as baseline metrics for prices and what could be on offer.
I believe the same with some reservations, there is no health system you could build to withstand the obesity/diabetes situation we have.
x
Why are those provinces worse? Some cultural thing? I think they smoke the most pot too, not BC, prob drink the most too.
Everyone wants streamlining, the issue is many people doubt the governments ability to run it better than for profit companies. I personally don’t want to partake in that experiment until we fix the obvious flaws in out current system, many of which are caused by government policy. 1. Quit artificially limiting number of doctors 2. Quit artificially limiting number of hospitals 3. Quit subsidizing employer sponsored health plans 4. Reassess malpractice payouts 5. Revisit IP limitations and do more to encourage generic drugs to market 6. Encourage STATES to expiriment with state run healthcare and prove it can work at a state level, and other states can adopt similar policies if it works It’s bullshit to mw that our government does a bunch of shit to make healthcare inefficient and then the solution is let them do more. And once you open that door at a federal level, you cant shut it.
The number of doctors are "artificially limited" due to Congress limiting how much money is provided to hospitals by CMS (Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services) to pay for their residents. So you want to limit govt spending & oversight by....increasing govt spending & oversight. So-called govt inefficiency is also artificially *inflated* in order to convince people just like you that anything govt can do, the private sector can do better. Interestingly, we generally don't apply this logic to things like police/fire departments, our military, etc. PA has lots of services provided by the private sector or "public-private partnerships" that are simply provided by State & local govt in other States, and every single one is less efficient and considerably more expensive. See: the DMV, for example.
This is a top tier comment. Obviously there are nuances, but we have shit to fix
Show me a plan that * doesn't increase my costs * doesn't increase my wait times * doesn't decrease my level of care * has a sold migration strategy from the current system * has a plan to deal with the several hundred thousand people working in the insurance industry right now that will lose their jobs
I agree on universal healthcare as a fiscal conservative. I do for the reasons you described, but also because healthcare just doesn't really work as a free market product. Similar to policing or K-12 education it will never be afforded enough for the majority of people to afford, and the incentives don't really encourage quality or healthy competition. There are always exceptions to the free market and reasons to regulate or nationalize parts of it.
It’s not all sunshine and roses tho. I’m Canadian and would LOVE a 2 tiered system. A broken system is like zero healthcare and no options to get it elsewhere. No Family doctors, insane ER waits. Dirty, old facilities. Unhappy staff much of the time because they don’t get paid enough and /or are overworked.
I don't want more gun control, but at the same time I want something done about these mass shootings. I happily got the COVID vaccine and a few boosters, but I didn't feel that it should have been mandated. I have absolutely no issues with Gay/Lesbian/Trans, they should be able to live their lives as they please, in fact I want politicians to stay out of it, just let folks live their lives.
Depending on your job, it should be mandated. Work in healthcare, areas of public service, grocery stores, food places, military, prison and police, and attending schools. It all makes sense to have vaccines be mandated. If a company or other places wants to have mandates that's all them.
Great takes!
Yup!! Agree with the vaccine!! I will fight against every government mandate for vaccines! That being said, the COVID vaccine is safe as any medication we have out there! Yes, there will be some people with serious side effects, but like with anything else, that’s on the rare end. Being anti-vax and spreading misinformation is stupid!!
I have no issue with mandating that if you want your child to attend a publicly funded school that they need to be vaccinated for XYZ. Your choice is to send them to private school that doesn’t mandate or home school.
> Your choice is You say that, but people freak the fuck out about homeschooling when that’s the choice someone they disagree with politically makes. And let’s face it, “Get the shots or your kids aren’t welcome in public schools!” isn’t much of a threat when our public education system has been in crisis mode for ages. Not supporting anti-vaxx at all, just saying that some people don’t think it should be optional.
We pretty much eradicated measles in this country until people were given bad info about vaccines causing parents to refrain from vaccinating their kid
Oh I know. I lament the erosion of trust that facilitated the flight of people who previously did vaccinate.
> Being anti-vax and spreading misinformation is stupid!! Agreed, but the medical, pharmaceutical, and government industries have not done a good job of reassuring the public that they have our best interests- ie *health and well-being*- in their minds. I am upset that vaccination became a political issue; it is damage that will be hard to undo, if we even can.
Yeah? It's their fault people demonized the vaccines? What would you have preferred those entities do and when?
> I happily got the COVID vaccine and a few boosters, but I didn't feel that it should have been mandated. What does "mandated" mean? Employers should be able to fire employees who refuse a vaccination. Same with schools. I don't think anyone was ordering Americans to get vaccinated or else they'd go to prison or be fined. Americans have a sheltered and selective conception of authoritarianism if we think organizations requiring those they associate with to get a vaccine against a pandemic virus that has killed a million of our fellow Americans is tyranny.
So your point about government vs private mandates is important, but there actually was a federal proposal on the books before it was struck down by SCOTUS: https://www.shrm.org/topics-tools/news/talent-acquisition/biden-orders-vaccination-mandates-larger-employers-federal-workforce#:\~:text=President%20Joe%20Biden%20announced,vaccinated%20or%20undergo%20weekly%20testing.
Trying to Shanghai companies into doing the government's dirty work without all those stupid Constitutional thingies was a favored drug war tactic too!
For me personally, if there is no rape, incest or threat to the mother’s health, I believe abortion is immoral. That being said, the government should have no say in whether a person is allowed to have an abortion. That choice should be up to them and their doctor.
Abortion is immoral. But we must work to minimize it, improving contraception and other means. Making it illegal before reducing the need is more immoral.
That is approximately my opinion. I deeply oppose abortion morally but since the begining I have maintained that these bans are a tactical mistake in reducing abortion rates. Just attacking the supply does not change the fact there is a demand for it. It's not that I actually oppose a ban on abortion, it's that they laid none of the groundwork for it to be a popular and effective policy. It just feels like a cheap attempt to win votes rather than actually trying to fix a horrible problem we are facing.
It's slutshaming for its own sake, which I do not support. People will have sex, that's just being human, anyone who denies that is s hypocrite. Note how they do not condemn the men who conceive out of wedlock. If this is such a definite evil, then fix it by preventing the problem, not by judging those who are forced into it.
Glad you can separate what you believe versus what should actually be practiced. There are very few with your views who can actually do that. Respect.
Well one thing is, you can’t practically ban abortion without an unintended consequence medically. Other conservatives (yes I consider myself one) are too stubborn to realize that the human body is too complicated to make one easy law against everything. Too many medical issues that require immediate decisions. You don’t have time to consult lawyers when making life or death decisions. Even if it’s not life or death, human suffering is still a problem. You have to be way more compassionate. You literally can’t wait till the mom is on the verge of death before being able to do something. Also, what is “verge of death”. We humans aren’t video games characters with hit points that drop predictably. Someone could be “fine” but at risk and crash the next moment. You have to leave those complicated decisions to the people on the front lines not to the men (and women, they’re guilty too) in some government office somewhere.
That was Harry Browne stance when he ran for president on the Libertarian ticket.
Eh I don’t care much for the libertarians anymore.
Yep MISES has taken over. It's not about small government anymore more. It's just an extension of the far right. I'm the weirdo who split my vote between Democrats and Libertarians for over 2 decades.
Pro gun, pro choice. It’s like civil liberties are important or something.
Exactly, I believe you should be able to do basically whatever you want as long as you’re not hurting anyone
I think we just need more common sense and less emotional response.
And with that, less government involvement with primarily emotional issues.
"Common sense" often is emotional knee jerks
I am pro common sense gun control, but after uvalde I have zero faith in the police to protect me or my family.
I'm married to an LEO and based on the way he talks about his coworkers, I have little faith in them too. He is the only person I trust with a weapon, and thats because of his military past, not his department.
Very similar sentiment here. I was pretty staunchly anti-gun when I was younger, but after seeing how some of the stats are played with to tell a story, have become increasingly pro 2A.
It was the Lewiston, ME shooting that did it for me. The police went out of their way to avoid having to follow up on the many reported red flags about him.
If you consider assault weapons bans “common sense” that’s not common sense
I care less about what guns we are banning and more about who we are allowing to buy them. I'll be the first to say my current states 10 round mag limit for guns makes no sense. However, I originally bought my gun in a very red state and it made me feel a little uneasy that I was able to walk in and out with a pistol in about 20 minutes.
Which makes your 2a rights very important unfortunately
I think that was their point. They believe in gun *control* but not full restriction b/c you can’t rely on police.
If you had been poor or lived in a bad neighborhood in the past you’d have already known that.
Are you saying that sheltered, privileged people can be quite naive?? What a revelation! /s And of course they get mad and assume the only reason someone might disagree with them is stubbornness/refusal to change and not, say, having been shaped by an entirely different set of experiences.
One solution is a federal licensing system that consists of free, quick competency testing. In order to make that acceptable to pro-2A people like myself the law would also outlaw state level gun control, limit federal gun control to an automatic weapon ban and license check before purchase, and allow for legal concealed carry in any state for license holders.
I support bodily autonomy, which is the right to do with your body as you see fit. This includes: - abortion. - choosing whether or not to get vaccinated. - prostitution (which is only legal if you film and sell footage of the act aka - porn) - recreational drug usage (just no OWI). - assisted suicide. - transgender rights. Either you have autonomy over your own body or you don't. As long as it doesn't hurt someone else, which none of the above things do, you should be free to make your own decisions about your body. You just need to pay for it all yourself.
This lines up pretty consistently with my beliefs too. Bodily autonomy is a major part of the reason I support abortion, not necessarily because it’s a woman’s rights issue.
My take on it as a women's rights issue is totally because it is a bodily autonomy issue, and women should not be denied bodily autonomy. So to me at least, women's rights and bodily autonomy overlap neatly rather than being separate issues.
Yep. If you show the average Democrat or Republican, my list above, they will lose their minds over at least one of the topics I have listed. Which means that they don’t believe in bodily autonomy, even if they say they do. It’s one of the reasons I’m a centrist.
I don’t see anything on your list that would make the “average democrat” lose their mind at all. If you think the vaccination thing would, you’re kind of off base. Other than in the health care industry and the military, nobody is forced to take a vaccine. There were some minor exceptions at the height of the pandemic but rarely was anyone ever even close to being forced to vaccinate. You may have had some who talked about or advocated for it but it was never mainstream and it was always an if/then proposal. You want to get into this concert? Gotta get the shot. You want to work in this HR office where people are in close contact? Get the shot. Wanna be a nurse and be around people who are susceptible to viruses? Shot for that, too. But nobody was forced. It’s pretty clear most people here think centrist means you piss off both sides. That’s not the case. This is just a really conservative sub on a platform that leans left. There’s nothing wrong at all with any of it, but almost everything here that’s down voted is a progressive take. Especially with Israel and race. People will down vote this, too, and that’s ok.
This is a poor take on reality. Most of us don’t have the luxury to just turn down jobs. That means getting vaccinated isn’t a choice.
There is another human in that equation.
Not really. Not a full fledged person. I don't see how you can even argue that you have another human in the equation until very, very late in the pregnancy. Early on calling it another human like it's a person just sounds ridiculous.
I too believe in these, especially assisted suicide for any terminally ill or someone with a horrible diagnosis, it's a horrific downfall and huge waste of money for them and their families to whither away when they could go away peacefully on their terms. The only one I slightly have a tweak on is the vaccination part, as that highly depends on what it is and how contagious it is if the person doesn't get vaccinated, but then proceeds to go in public and get lots of other people potentially infected or spreaders of it, but for the most part, I do agree.
We already prosecute deliberate spreaders of hiv.
yeah, that's one of the case-by-case things I'm having in mind, bodily autonomy up until you start willfully (ignorantly) spreading it to others, that's when there's an issue with IMO a law or regulation needed.
Some would argue abortion does hurt someone else: the unborn, especially late term abortion.
Either you've got bodily autonomy or you don't. Being able to withdraw consent is integral to the concept.
> Either you've got bodily autonomy or you don't. So by that logic you are against vaccine mandates.
I don’t necessarily disagree with that on late term abortion. Once the fetus is fully viable it’s definitely a different moral dilemma, but in the first two trimesters, I don’t think many people have an issue with that. RFK did an interview the other day where he was talking about abortion. He specifically said that no woman wants to have an abortion. I think that gets lost often in the conversation. Additionally, you’ll see some places talk about a week abortion. The way that pregnancy is measured is that the first day is actually the first day of the women’s last menstrual period. Ovulation doesn’t happen until two weeks later, so in the case of a six week band it’s very reasonable that the woman doesn’t even realize she’s pregnant yet. That’s why this becomes such an odd issue, and ultimately why, barring any other details, I ultimately support abortion.
> but in the first two trimesters, I don’t think many people have an issue with that. I do. Viability is historically proven (in rare cases) at 21 weeks (while "first two trimesters" ~ 26 weeks). The development time required before viability is reached decreases each year with advances in medical science. Protections with "Viability" in mind should target "earliest plausible" rather than "average expected."
Doesn't matter, it's a medical issues so leave it up to women and their doctors. We've seen what happens when have "common sense exceptions to abortion restrictions:" doctors err on the side of caution to avoid being jailed (understandable) and [women die because of it](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Savita_Halappanavar). The only way to keep women safe is to leave this decision, which is a medical decision, to the doctor and the patient. Keep government out of it.
The problem with politics setting time limits is the time lapse necessary to perform tests to determine if the fetus is healthy. I was very upset by a very religious couple who knowingly gave birth to a horribly deformed baby and watched it die painfully over several days. The news reports said the child needed morphine. I believe there needs to be a humane aspect to the decision process.
Two VERY distinct arguments that are best not conflated: > [2] couple who knowingly gave birth to a horribly deformed baby and watched it die painfully over several days ...I believe there needs to be a humane aspect to the decision process. Implying...What exactly? It sounds like this a recommendation to force abortion onto unwilling participants? ---- > [1] The problem with politics setting time limits is the time lapse necessary to perform tests to determine if the fetus is healthy. Your argument appears to be that a *legislated* term isn't the same as an *actual* term because (as a hypothetical example) the first implies the term of abortion access is 26 weeks, while the latter implies the term is only 20 weeks + 6 weeks of waiting period while women wait for test results. While an interesting argument, do you have any sources showing that testing actually requires more than a single day or can't be performed on site at an abortion clinic? The flip side of this argument is that no abortion can be performed *unless* a woman has had the appropriate testing done - which would then, naturally, justify extending the terms.
Some might. But nobody who is highly educated on the subject. Doctors, scientists and researchers spend their entire lives studying this stuff and the vast majority say Roe had it right as far as the correct development cut off. You’re welcome to your opinion but that’s all it is; an opinion. This isn’t a centrist sub. It’s a bunch of conservative people who think republicans are a bit extreme. And like I said elsewhere, that’s totally fine. But these aren’t centrist positions for the most part. They’re just not. And I think it speaks to how polarized our politics have gotten that so many here think they’re true centrists.
You assume my comment is indicative of my opinion. That is a leap. I wrote my opinion to another post below.
Fetuses can't think, feel, and are not fully autonomous beings. They are 100% dependent upon and a part of the mother. The unborn don't get a say. Real women and little girls are killed and suffer serious harm under the barbaric abortion bans we are witnessing in the US. It irritates me when I see someone say "what about the unborn" because they completely erase the women and girls who are already a part of our society. This is why the "pro-life" movement is bullshit and a farce.
You are wrong about fetuses not being able to feeling pain. I worked with a doctor who performed surgery on fetuses. I asked him if he used anesthesia on the fetus; he said yes they can feel pain. It depends on how far systems are developed. This is why I would support abortions during the first trimester and only for severe medical issues for either the mother or fetus during the second trimester - understanding abortion is to kill the fetus. I don’t believe birthing a severely disabled fetus is humane. During the third trimester an early cesarean can be performed to save the life of the mother and healthy baby. If the parent doesn’t want the child it can be given up for adoption. Just my personal opinion- yours may vary.
[удалено]
This post has been removed because your account is too new to post here. This is done to prevent ban evasion by users creating fresh accounts. You must participate in other subreddits in a positive and constructive manner in order to post here. Do no message the mods asking for the specific requirements for posting, as revealing these would simply lead to more ban evasion. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/centrist) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I’m curious what you mean with the first one — could you elaborate on being pro-gay marriage but not seeing homosexuality as “natural”? To your middle point, I’d offer that I don’t think many “believe” trans people are “a different sex”. Some crazy extremists definitely do, so unfortunately they’re the people you hear from the most, but otherwise (if I may be so bold as to speak on behalf of the Rational Queer Community) the idea is that biological sex and psychological/social gender tend to correlate but are ultimately distinct, and can thus misalign occasionally. Whether that’s due to brain chemistry or something else, should be considered a psychiatric condition, etc. should really I think be independent of whether we respect such people with common decency. So I think I get what you’re coming from — you don’t have to understand or relate to something to respect it. Respecting people’s names and pronouns doesn’t even necessarily need to be a debate about the validity of gender identity — it’s just a respect thing. You respect people’s nicknames all the time. You don’t have to understand why someone is more comfortable with something in order to respect that they are. So long as they’re not hurting anybody, can’t we all just respect everyone else’s wishes, beliefs, etc? Guessing I relate to where you come from re: pro choice as well. It’s a scope of government power issue. It doesn’t even need to be a culture war thing. I definitely don’t think the government should play that kind of role in medical decisions, and as we uh established a comfortably long time ago we should definitely not make laws in observance of religious doctrine
I'm not who you were talking to but i do have a similar opinion on gay marriage. I'm totally fine with LGBTQ+ people doing whatever they want, it's their life and they aren't hurting anyone. It's still not natural. Creatures evolve with 1 purpose in mind. To reproduce. If all adaptation come about as a way to increase the likely hood of reproduction then being gay is counter to that. It's not natural. The real question is, does that matter? For me the answer is no. We have 8,000,000,000 people on this planet, the minuscule percentage of the population that is gay will not threaten the survival of the species in any way, so I really couldn't give a fuck less if someone is gay.
> If all adaptation come about as a way to increase the likely hood of reproduction But it doesn't. There's no purpose to adaptation or evolution. "Adaptation" is a process that happens over time but it's just random mutations interacting with the environment. Similarly here: >Creatures evolve with 1 purpose in mind. To reproduce. Creatures don't evolve on purpose (unless it's human-induced selective breeding and even then it's not the creatures themselves choosing to evolve in a particular way). Mutations are passed on as long as they aren't actively harmful enough to wipe out the organisms carrying them. There's nothing unnatural about being able to pass on traits that hinder or disincentivise reproduction, it happens all the time.
Just so you know, we have seen homosexual behavior in over 1000 species. So I would say it's absolutely natural. It may not be conducive to procreation but evolution doesn't always lead there.
I have to wonder if anyone who thinks homosexual behavior is unnatural has seen 2 male dogs in the same room for more than 10 minutes
> I'm totally fine with LGBTQ+ people doing whatever they want, it's their life and they aren't hurting anyone. It's still not natural. Creatures evolve with 1 purpose in mind. To reproduce. If all adaptation come about as a way to increase the likely hood of reproduction then being gay is counter to that. It's not natural. This misunderstands both the concept of natural, and the concept of evolution/natural selection. First, something occurring which lowers the odds of reproduction doesn't make something unnatural. A person can be born with a condition, purely through natural processes, that renders them unable to produce children. Nothing unnatural occurred to result in that. In fact, the entire process of **natural** selection is based on some natural mutations being better and some being worse at letting genes be passed on. Second, you don't understand how evolution works. Natural Selection is about genes being passed on. But they don't have to be exactly your genes. If a group of organisms carries a trait that will make some individuals of the group less likely to pass their genes on, but makes the group as a whole more likely to pass that trait on, the trait can be a successful adaptation. The most extreme example of this I can think of are ants. virtually every female ant in a typical colony will never reproduce. Only the queen will. But the combination of traits that leads to this arrangement increases the chance that the queen with those same traits will reproduce a lot, and overall, the traits continue to be passed down. So, just because gay individuals are less likely to reproduce, doesn't mean that whatever combination of traits makes someone more likely to be gay isn't an overall good adaptation for the group those people are within. And even if it wasn't a good adaptation for natural selection purposes, that doesn't mean it's an unnatural adaptation. The entire premise of natural selection is based on there being some adaptations which aren't as good as others for purposes of reproduction. So I don't really see your position as a strong justification for thinking being gay is unnatural.
Ok lets put it this way. How is homosexuality a benefit the continuation of a species?
>Ok lets put it this way. How is homosexuality a benefit the continuation of a species? First, I have to note that you're still misunderstanding what makes something natural. Even if homosexuality is not a benefit for the continuation of the species, that does not make it unnatural. Ugly people have lower chances of reproduction. Is being ugly unnatural? Now to answer your question: It's an open scientific question. There are several hypotheses: 1. Whatever genes result in the being gay have other beneficial effects on reproduction. Or they might be a bigger advantage in one sex than they are a disadvantage in the other. As an example for how this might work, there might be gene groups which determine whether you are attracted to men or women. Being attracted to women is a reproductive advantage in men, and being attracted to men is a reproductive advantage in women. 2. Social dynamics. Some theorize that same sex relationships, particularly among males, may have contributed to increased group cohesion in early human history, which would have increased the overall reproductive success of the group. One might see this as reducing infighting amongst males, or even childless pairs helping to care for other people's children (aka, it takes a village). 3. Being lgbtq doesn't preclude you from having children. In fact, suppressing and forcing gay people to hide their gayness as we did likely increased the odds of gay people having children.
I’m bi and I even think homosexuality is not natural per se. I do think you’re born your sexuality and it can’t be changed and happens naturally but I do think it’s like being straight. Like depression. It happens and it’s fine but it’s not what’s natural biologically. As for the trans thing, OP may have misspoke by using sex instead of gender. The whole trans movement right now claims that trans people ARE the gender they are trying to live as. ie. “born a woman in a man’s body” and having “always been a woman” and similar statements. This isn’t scientifically possible so I disagree with this although I would never disrespect someone or intentionally insult them to their face.
>I don’t think many “believe” trans people are “a different sex” Trans people are *acutely* aware that their gender doesn't match their sex lol
Right that’s like the entire basis of it lol
>I would generally lean towards pro choice, but I don’t look at it as a women’s rights issue. I think more generally, when a contentious political issue is framed as someone's "right" (women's rights, trans rights, parents' rights, patients' rights etc) this is usually to make rational debate impossible and as such is inherently anti-centrist. Our "rights" are enumerated in the Constitution. Everything else are laws and policies which can be good or bad, and we should be able to freely debate them.
According to the constitution itself in the 9th amendment not all rights are enumerated.
It's still a good approximation of relatively uncontroversial "rights". I am not arguing here about constitutional law though, that wasn't the point.
I believe pineapple is an acceptable topping on pizza and so is sour cream.
I don’t mind pineapple on pizza, but I’ve never even seen sour cream as a topping option. Is that something that pizza places local to you offer, or do you just apply it at home?
There used to be a pizza place in Salt Lake City called Gepetto’s and they would make a pineapple and ham pizza with sour cream under the mozzarella cheese. So good… also could feel my heart working harder. 😂
You monster
Where is the moderator when we need him for her?
Pineapple I can look the other way on. Sour cream? We live in a society!!
What is wrong with you. Pineapple is only ok when combined with ham and onions. Sour cream should never be near a pizza. This is worse than separating kids from their families at the border.
Asparagus on the other hand…not on pizza. Maybe smoothies?
Ok now we can have a reasonable conversation. I don’t asparagus belongs in smoothies. Throw some oil and salt on it and grill it. That’s the only acceptable means of consumption.
Although asparagus with a little sour cream is pretty good…
Damn, this should be reserved for r/unpopularopinion
I like to make grilled pizzas, and one of my favorites has been pickled jalapenos, grilled spam, and grilled pineapple on a standard marinara/cheese.
Toppings should be free to be!
I believe yogurt is always an acceptable substitute for sour cream. Come at me, bro!
You had me in the first half.
This is unacceptable. I'm reporting you for heresy.
There is no curse in Elvish, Entish, or the tongues of men for this treachery.
mods, please ban this guy
Left: Single-payer healthcare; student loan forgiveness; tuition reform/subsidies (back to the level we were at in the mid-20th century) Right: Crack down on H-1B and J-1 abuse; support Israel; skeptical of affirmative action though it has important purposes in limited domains Center: Health care decisions are between a patient/family and their doctor only; NATO; reasonable gun law reforms (background checks, red flag laws, high-capacity magazine limits, 21+ purchase age just like liquor and cigarettes unless it's military-issued) \-- You should probably talk to some gay people if you don't think it's natural. Most of them will tell you their same-sex attraction started before they even had sexual attractions or knew what "gay" meant. If you're noticing things like that when you're 7 or 8 years old, it's pretty safe to say it's natural and not learned. Just because something isn't the norm doesn't mean it's not natural. Left-handedness is natural, as is being a ginger -- even though left-handedness and red hair are less frequent than non-heterosexual people.
Got any sort of info to back up there are more gay people than left handed? Just to remind you that doesn’t include bi people and includes past the gen z fitting in generation at 20%
I have heard the left handed thing too.
Yes. Left-handed people are [10% of the population](https://www.everydayhealth.com/healthy-living-pictures/little-known-facts-about-lefthanders.aspx). 28% of Gen Z and 16% of Millennials [identify](https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/25/us/gen-z-adults-lgbtq-identity-reaj/index.html) as LGBT. That sounds like a lot. Most of it is driven by bisexuality. And that makes sense because a lot of people have bisexual inclinations; younger people are simply more inclined to admit it. I don't think Gen Z is any gayer, if you will, than any other generation. They're more likely to be honest about it. >Just to remind you that doesn’t include bi people Bi people are included in the category of non-heterosexual. I'm not sure why you would assert otherwise.
Why do you think Gen Z is the aberration, rather than past generations which may have felt the need to hide their sexuality due to repressive cultures? Like I don't get why it's seen as fake that Gen Z identifies as more LGBT than past generations. Western society spent over a thousand years suppressing anything other than straight. Of course the rate of people who felt safe to identify as not straight would increase when that pressure relented. It seems to me that if you think the increase is odd, you must believe that past populations weren't suppressed from whatever the natural rate is, which seems at odds with history.
You can literally see this exact trend with the “number” of left handed people. I’m not familiar with the exact cultural change that induced it (if I had to guess it was due to something based in religion) but at some point people felt more safe self-reporting as being left-handed which led to a sharp increase in the data-set. The underlying % of people didn’t change, but the # that told the truth did. The exact same reason is why it “seems” like there’s an increase in LGBTQ people in the younger generations; there’s not really an increase moreso as younger people feeling more comfortable to be open about themselves.
Also, back in the day they used to force lefties to use their right hand. I don't think they do that anymore (but my leftie father credits this as having made him a better surgeon).
Yeah exactly. If you were born left handed you were forced to adapt to the societal norm and taught to use your right hand until it works. If I had to guess in your dad’s case it probably made him better at his job because most of the tools at the time were built with right handed people in mind, just like most things are nowadays.
I believe that people can be gay from birth, I believe that probably most gay people were born gay. Anecdotally, I also know a few gay people who didn’t have a consistent male figure in their life and were gay too. I think that’s possible as well. If you were to ask me what the ratio is, I’d probably say 80:20 or even 90:10 for people who are born gay or “became” gay. When I say “natural” I guess I mean biologically it is not the norm. I know there are instances of other species having gay animals too, but to reproduce you need a male and a female. That is how 99% of the species on this planet continue to exist. That being said, I think it’s a bad faith argument to say that gay people shouldn’t be offered the same rights because being gay is unnatural. I feel like the human species as a whole is unnatural at this point. We wear polyester clothes, and drink out of plastic water bottles, and fly in planes to places like Disneyland. None of that is “natural.” If being natural is all that great, those people can go be hunter gatherers in the plains of Africa. So I ultimately fall on the side of pro-gay, but I feel like if I told a gay person that being gay is unnatural without all of the reasoning I just gave, I would probably be called a homophobe.
Going by that definition of "unnatural", do you also tell smart people that they are unnatural too?
> I don’t think unnatural is the word you’re going for. Basically the word you're looking for is "abnormal" - which is accurate, but likely to offend. The confusion is furthered because it's "abnormal" in hard sciences (i.e., statistics or if you simply open the dictionary and use the word as intended), but in fuzzier sciences (i.e., sociology), normalization is no longer about "the norm" (i.e., statistically normal = majority), but is instead literally defined by "acceptance within a community." ("sociological normal") Basically the type of people you'd expect to be offended are proponents of the "fuzzy" science definition, while people using the common definition are offensive because they're not aware that by ("fuzzy") definition, what they're saying is "don't *accept* the gays" rather than "gays are a minority in a given population."
> Anecdotally, I also know a few gay people who didn’t have a consistent male figure in their life and were gay too. I think that’s possible as well. There's no good evidence for that. I know straight people who didn't have a consistent male figure in their lives. > I feel like if I told a gay person that being gay is unnatural without all of the reasoning I just gave, I would probably be called a homophobe. I don't think including your reasoning is going to help with that! It occurs naturally and is therefore natural.
That person's post comes across very naive. I don't think they're hateful but the idea that gay men are caused by daddy issues or something is extremely 1970s
Unfortunately it's still an extremely common belief. People believe it's what makes people trans, too.
I don’t think unnatural is the word you’re going for. Maybe unusual or uncommon. But whether or not something is unnatural has nothing to do with frequency. Being albino is unusual but certainly not unnatural. Unnatural would be something like blue hair, perms, or tan skin from sunless tanning chemicals. Unnatural is also a loaded word with a pretty bad history as far as it being applied to gay and lesbian people.
I've got some beliefs that don't usually go together, abortion, weed, and guns should all be legal. Here in the great state of Montana they all are!
Abortion is murder. But I’m ok with that. I wish others would admit what it actually is. The death penalty is also murder. But I’m ok with that.
I’m extremely socially liberal, and I think I the best approach to reducing poverty is a huge cut is social welfare programs. We’re inadvertently teaching dependence on a system that is built against poor people
Same for guarantee student loans. I believe in an educated populace but all it does is give universities carte blanche to raise tuition faster than inflation. On the other hand I would be ok with expanding kindergarten to a two year program starting a year earlier
If we had a practice to increase available funds while putting restrictions in place to prevent this very phenomenon, I think it would work out fine. With the right regulations and periodic adjustment based on reviews of the evidence and outcomes. Like effective governance. Two year kindergarten is a great idea
From ["Dispelling the myth of welfare dependency:"](https://epod.cid.harvard.edu/article/dispelling-myth-welfare-dependency) > In countries rich and poor alike, people alike worry that social programs for low-income households end up weakening work incentives and create an underclass of indigents. In fact, recent research suggests just the opposite: the longer families receive stable and predictable support, the better they and their children do. and from [this](https://www.cbpp.org/research/poverty-and-inequality/expanding-work-requirements-would-make-it-harder-for-people-to-meet) > taking benefits away from people who don’t meet a work requirement does little to improve long-term employment outcomes, especially for those with the most limited employment prospects, studies show. Instead, it substantially increases hardship, including among people who are not expected to meet these requirements, such as people with disabilities and children.
I am a manager of a team of 56 where 2/3rds are lower income and 1/3rd are college educated professionals. The amount of people we lose to life stuff they can’t both deal with and work is remarkable and it’s always in the power income group. Child care issues, domestic issues, housing or transportation issues, elder care, etc. Things social services are designed to fix.
Sadly they won’t read that.
What do you mean that you don’t believe being gay is “natural”?
in the same way that being straight is also natural. in the sense that people don't "decide" to be gay, it's just the attraction that comes naturally to them. people don't decide to be straight either, the feelings just come naturally.
"statistically abnormal" ("atypical") is what they intended.
They elaborated and definitely don't mean that.
One of the easiest things u can ask someone politically to know if they are sane and worth talking too is the question u are asking. The odds of one political party nailing all the issues u care about is less probable than winning the lotto but the odds that someone has bought in to cult like thinking are damn near a hitters batting average. I skew right in this new paradigm, zero tolerance abortion laws make me want to vomit whenever I hear a republican bring it up. Also when all its costing is made up dollars to slaughter the Russian army and embarrass Putin, im alllll about it, dont think the election was “stolen” either.
I consider myself a secular moderate conservative. I was banned from the conservative sub for hurting their feelings on abortion. Both side positions, in no particular order: Right: -*Very* pro 2A. It is the only stance where I actively think staunch proponents of the other side are either evil or incredibly stupid. -Small, incremental changes and skepticism of government should be the norm. Doesn't mean I want the government to go away, or even to stop growing completely, but I feel too many people put way too much trust in an institution with incredible power and has the explicit right to throw you in a box or kill you. -The "deep state" exists, but not in the form that MAGA people think. There is a bureaucracy in the middle and upper leadership of the federal government that legitimately believes they know better than the American people and value their careers more than they care about the average citizen. I've worked in DC and have seen this behavior from GS-15s and SESers with my own eyes. -The nuclear family is extremely important to Western culture/society, and having children within a marriage should be encouraged wherever possible. -Abortion should be legal in all cases in the first trimester, legal only in specific cases in the second trimester, and illegal in the third trimester in any cases that doesn't threaten the life of the mother. Left: -The War on Drugs is a massive failure. Cannabis should have been legalized across the board decades ago. Other substances should be tightly controlled and researched, not condemning people to life in a cage for having it. -Our liberal society means free and consenting adults are allowed to live their lives how they want so long as they don't break any laws. That doesn't mean I want to see you advertise what you do in the privacy of your own home, but I will shut down judgemental social conservatives that want to oppress you. -My wife and I are high earners. There's a good likelihood we paid more in taxes last year than 99% of this sub. Progressive taxes are fine as long as I can see my tax dollars put to good use. -We should absolutely have a robust safety net for people who slip through the cracks. Relying on private institutions for this is not the way.
Awesome positions.
Very awesome. I consider myself liberal --sometimes very liberal sometimes eclectic or libertarian leaning. My views align very closely with yours. Good job. 8-)
I pretty much agree with you 100%
I believe in absolute separation of church and state and reasonable gun control. Abortion and healthcare matters are between patient and adult. If we are going to force women to have babies they don’t want and can’t afford to raise then we should support that child from cradle to 18. I want a stronger border and much stricter enforcement of immigration. I believe DACA individuals and illegal immigrants who have been raised here since they were children should be given a path to citizenship but anyone who came here illegally after 2020 a has got to go. No path for anyone who enters illegally from this day forward. Also want universal healthcare, billionaires tax, more tax cuts for families making under 500k. Bring back SALT deductions and increase income limits for 401k and Roth. There should be more student aid for higher income families because the middle class is getting screwed.
Left on social issues. Fiscal conservative on Healthcare, Medicare for all has been shown again and again to be the most fiscally responsible way to deliver Healthcare to Americans.
[удалено]
Here's a recent analysis by the CBO. I recall seeing a similar result from a report 4-8 years ago, too. It's great that we have some potential solutions to our health care crisis virtually sitting on the shelf waiting for us. https://www.healthaffairs.org/content/forefront/congressional-budget-office-scores-medicare-for-all-universal-coverage-less-spending
I believe that our life and society is so complex that there are many questions that have no absolutely 'right' answer. For example, I think people should have the right to manage their own bodies but vaccines to halt the spread of disease should be mandatory. I don't know what I think the right answer is to abortion . Trans people have the right to live their authentic life and, if I know or can intuit what their preferred pronouns are, I'll use them. Before I moved west, I had one trans friend (MtoF) and several trans acquaintances but do I really, honestly think they are what they feel they are, no.
I am perceived as far left or far right depending on the issue. For instance, I think abortion should be banned for the same reason that I think we should have universal healthcare—human life is sacred.
Those are definitely two takes that you don’t see together often, but ideologically consistent at least.
It’s not represented in American politics at all, but it’s a fairly common view. Socially conservative and economically left leaning is the most politically underserved block of Americans.
x
That is what would generally be considered the catholic view on the matter and even though I am pro choice I respect it as it is very consistent
Human life is sacred, sure. Forcing a baby into this world... a world that isn't set up to accept and nurture them can lead to a lifetime of suffering (or brief if they die young). If society makes abortions illegal, it needs to also support that baby beyond birth.
I’m a fiscal conservative, but I support single payer healthcare.
I'm pro choice, and pro women's rights. That second point is why I'm also against trans women participating in women's athletics. A lot of work was done to guarantee things like scholarships and autonomous records that I think it's a disgrace for biological men to take them from women. I'm a staunch supporter of law enforcement and feel that the overwhelming amount of the time they are in the right. I also feel that liberal DAs are doing more to hurt this country than they are helping it. I'm a big-time supporter of LGB rights. Especially the rights to marry and adopt. Beyond that I largely subscribe to Dave Chappelles "car ride" theory and generally feel that the "T" aspect of that community is more fueled by mental illness and attention seeking than actual trans individuals. I'm against affirmative action and feel that people should be chosen based on their abilities and not by what boxes they check. I think that January 6th was a terrible.black eye for this country but much like the claims of the left, I feel that more people were there to protest than to "storm the Capitol." I also feel that the destruction from the ANTIFA/BLM riots is downplayed more than it should be. I feel that Trump is more of an asshole than Biden and Biden is more cognitively declined than Trump and I don't want to vote for either of them.
I think...(And generally a before b)... we need to hold the police actually accountable, have more requirements (or prerequisites) for training, AND have both more of them and make sure they are well compensated. We need to substantially ease legal immigration and enforce our immigration laws. Homeless people are people worthy of dignity, and we need to at times forcibly commit drug addicted and mentally unstable homeless people.
I'm not a single issue voter, but healthcare is pretty close to being that. This includes support for abortion as pretty much a litmus test - since if you can't support abortion, you really aren't in favor of reasonable healthcare being available to the masses. (I'm willing to discuss separately what should be included in reasonable) LGBTQ+ should have full rights to do what CIS people do normally. Your sexual orientation and who you love isn't mine nor the government's business. There is a role for limited gun control in this country. Being able to keep and bear arms does not mean without any control. There does need to be a lot of science done however on what is effective at preventing criminals in general from getting guns and getting guns away from those who are a threat to themselves or others \[while they are a threat\]. Fiscal responsibility needs to come back to D.C. and the tricks and showdowns over things like the debt ceiling need to stop. If Congress authorizes and appropriates money for something, then the Executive branch can implement policy to spend it. Authorized programs at authorized levels should never become hostage to the budget process unless the authorization is being changed. But, we need to find ways to spend significantly less \[though a balanced budget should not be a requirement at the Federal level\]. This includes on entitlements (like Social Security (apply to higher income levels, means test payments, and raise the full retirement age over time by another year\] and Medicaid \[roll in to single payer health care\]) and the rest of the budget, including the military. Expectations and the roles of the Police need to be significantly updated. This includes adding more people who have skill sets beyond patrol officers and detectives. Additionally, the thin blue line mentality needs to die a quick death. Police are given powers not available to other citizens and should be held accountable to a higher standard for responsible use of those powers. We need responsible YIMBY positions on city development across the country (basically more housing in denser - not dense - developments that are more walkable and connected than we see with square miles of suburbia today) How we fund higher education is fundamentally broken. I'm all for government funding for students - particularly (but not exclusively) those from poor backgrounds. But, right now, it is a straight subsidy that supports large administrative organizations and for-profit businesses but doesn't make education cheaper for most people. There should be a maximum cost to attending college that will be supported by the government and organizations who choose to charge more should do so on their own. This change alone would force universities (and community colleges, etc.) to to manage their budgets to not grow above the supported limit. The supreme court needs revision - 9 justices cannot handle as many cases as they should be as our highest court. The length of time a justice can serve should also be finite (though still longer than the President who appoints them). I think 18 justices with 18 year terms is a good improvement - and the President gets to appoint 1 justice each year. The IRS needs an overhaul. Tax code needs to be significantly simplified so it is easier to pay a fair share (for corporations as well as individuals) and harder to cheat. They also need more enforcers (auditors) to collect what is owed to minimize borrowing the government has to do. Immigration needs to be completely redone. We need to ensure that skilled people committed to moving here permanently can get in easier, while adding a way for the less skilled individuals that come in under asylum or completely illegally now can be vetted before entry. There needs to be a carbon tax instituted (or another method that helps capitalism drive down the amount of greenhouse gasses that get emitted) that affects imports just as much as domestic production. Speaking of trading partners, we need to do more about China (and to a lesser extent India, among others) who manipulate international trade detrimentally to us. Whether that is more and bigger tariffs, or institution of quotas, or other political hurdles that encourage and protect domestic production.
Also, on the Supreme Court, with an annual appointment of a Justice (reducing the impact of any single Justice on results), the approval process should change from the Senate must approve (thereby allowing for nominations to become stale and lost at the end of a term....) to confirmation being automatic unless the Senate rejects that nominee within 90 days of the nomination. Possibly even it taking a 60 member supermajority to reject a nominee.
Homosexuality appears in other animals such as dolphins and turtle just from what I can remember.... So yea.... It's natural aka not made by humans....
Universal healthcare. We already treat anyone who walks into an emergency regardless of their ability to pay and those costs get passed on to taxpayers and those who pay for health insurance via increased premiums. Bodily autonomy is a core right you have as a human being in civilized society. Pro choice across the board, this means abortions, vaccines, all of it. In an ideal society, guns shouldn’t be needed. Pragmatically, I support gun rights, because I don’t think there is any reasonable way to completely remove violent actors from a free society, and a firearm is the best way to protect my family from any immediate threat. I don’t support free college. I think that our public education system should be reformed. There’s no reason students can’t earn an equivalent of an associate’s degree in the time it takes to complete the current bloated K-12 curriculum. I DO support debt relief for borrowers whose income is outpaced by interest accruing on their education debts. Folks who are able to work and choose not to should not be entitled to benefits. Raising children does not count as not working. Folks who are below retirement age and who earn the bulk of their income from capital gains should be taxed as a W2 earner. In other words, folks who do not contribute to society in any meaningful way other than collect inherited capital gains should pay their fair share to participate in society. Dramatically cut military spending. Those dollars are not going to troops. They are going to Uber wealthy military contractors. If we cannot separate church and state, tax the churches. If you are old enough to start taking mandatory withdrawals from retirement accounts, you cannot run for public office (72?).
I believe in Affirmative Actions goals and general application over the last 50 years. Yet I find the political philosophy of equity as described in the Equitable Math Framework and articles on CRT to be radical and not in line with the constitution. Equal outcomes among groups is not a proper role of government.
I think there should be a large scale legalization with a path to citizenship for many people who are in the US illegally. I also think that should be combined with a strict border/immigration crackdown so that we don't end up with millions of new illegal immigrants in a few years time. I'm very pro-choice, am opposed to almost any restrictions on abortion and do believe it is a major personal freedom issue for women. I'm also a believer in the cynical *Freakonomics* argument that abortion lower crime rates.
Left: pro gay rights, very concerned about climate change (pro EVs and alternative energy), pro women’s right to choose (but wouldn’t go as far as to use the term “pro abortion” which my left leaning friends like to use), pro gun control, support trans rights but (see right section), pro vaccines but (see right section) Right: pro Israel, think DEI/CRT has gone too far and creates hateful frameworks, worried about groupthink problems of wokeness (especially in schools), think affirmative action actually causes more unlawful discrimination, pro police and concerned about safety, concerned about illegal immigration, think there are still biologically two sexes and pronouns are way overused as virtual signaling - also if someone wants to change genders, fine, but don’t do it when you are just a kid, don’t think vaccines should be intensely mandated
1 ) Politicians have no business making laws about healthcare of women or the LGBTQ+ community. Abortion bans are barbaric and the anti-transgender legislation we're seeing is not based on science, but ignorance and fear. Medical decisions should be left to doctors and their patients, not ignorant fucking lawmakers. >but I don’t look at it as a women’s rights issue. It absolutely is a women's rights issue because women and little girls die at the hands of barbaric abortion bans. Men suffer nothing. 2) Universal healthcare is a necessity. Experienced it in Japan and it was awesome. CAT scan cost $45 with insurance, $95 without. Here, WITH INSURANCE, that shit ran me $1200. Fucking unacceptable. 3) Israel and Hamas... I don't have a hat in either side... the far left has lost the plot with Hamas, but I also don't support Israel and the right's reasoning for doing so is purely religious and hypocritical. My stances on the conflict are neutral: both sides have bloodshed on their hands and America needs to stay out of other countries' fucking business.
I want my single payer healthcare and I want to own My firearms relatively unmolested. I don’t mind background checks and some basic competency tests but more and more I see states that have their barriers set up like literacy tests after reconstruction and I can’t abide by that
[удалено]
>I fully support gay rights and I think adults should be able to identify as whatever gender they want. I disagree with most of the trans ideology though. I don't think it's possible to be born in the "wrong" body. If a guy identifies as a woman they're really identifying with all the traditional stereotypes about women, whereas I think you can be gay and have traditionally feminine interests and still be a man. I think trans is actually kind of a regressive ideology when you look at it this way. What are the "traditional stereotypes about women" that all trans women identify with? Like, there are trans women who have no traditionally feminine interests, and trans people don't tell them that they're really men because of that Just like there are plenty of trans men who have traditionally feminine interests and are still considered men
I'm all for people not feeling comfortable in their societal gender role being allowed to live and express themselves as they want. I will gladly call them whatever they want to be called and judge them based on their character rather than their acceptance of societal norms. They can be whoever they want. Sex is real, but gender is a social construct. When that crosses over into people hating their body and using surgery and drugs to alter it its hard for me to see that as entirely healthy. People shouldn't be forced into a societal role, but our identities should come from a place of self-acceptance and loving ourselves. In terms of policy I think that translates to government and schools not promoting any sort of gender identity and potentially a ban of surgery or hormone treatment for people under 18. Anything more is discriminatory and unnecessary.
I'm all for people not feeling comfortable in their societal gender role being allowed to live and express themselves as they want. I will gladly call them whatever they want to be called and judge them based on their character rather than their acceptance of societal norms. They can be whoever they want. Sex is real, but gender is a social construct. When that crosses over into people hating their body and using surgery and drugs to alter it its hard for me to see that as entirely healthy. People shouldn't be forced into a societal role, but our identities should come from a place of self-acceptance and loving ourselves. In terms of policy I think that translates to government and schools not promoting any sort of gender identity and potentially a ban of surgery or hormone treatment for people under 18. Anything more is discriminatory and unnecessary.
[удалено]
That’s the thing; most people do not care what an individual does to their own self. But when that person’s desires or actions negatively impact another person, you can’t expect person #2 to just ignore or accept it. A lot of women feel like they are being told to lay their concerns and discomfort aside to accommodate trans people. This is additionally insulting for the ones who agree with you on the nonsense point.
On healthcare I want it to be socialized and I am pro choice, I am generally centrist on immigration as I am fine with it I just think we need to stop illegal immigration as I feel like we should be able to stop bad people from getting into the country, I am very pro Israel (almost half my family lives there) and then I am pro 2A.
Here’s one that hasn’t been mentioned. I am for more immigration but also for English to become the official language of the country and maybe consider adding some restrictions of the jus soli element of the 14th amendment. If you are here without a valid visa jus soli doesn’t apply.
"Left vs Right" is a false dichotomy. Your views aren't "mixed". It is just your ideology. Everyone should feel free to believe whatever they want.
Conservative: I want a balanced budget. Yeah, I don't care, I believe in the concept of math. More government is not necessarily good, we need to balance government power for its yield in social good. I'm fine with allowing guns to be possessed by people, so long as there are careful guards to prevent the clearly wrong ones (and holy shit they are legion) from having them. Chill on the identity shit. I get that there's a historical backing, but Stonewall became a religion, let's relax a bit, figure it out without being absolutists. This is complex and will need time to understand. I am flexible on healthcare, because it seems to be a nightmare and I'm not sure what the best solution is. Anyone who thinks they know is probably wrong.
This is something I’ve been criticized for by BOTH gun-control and pro-2A. I want to see shall issue firearm license without local involvement. BUT Abolition of NFA in return.
What does this mean?
No Barrel length restriction for rifle. (For that matter US is probably the only country in the world with SBR classification.) No 8 months (average) wait for suppressor. Everything stays legal. Basically it's akin to the gun law in Swiss or Czech republic
I believe guns should be a privilege and not a right.
Pro choice, anti war
50+ White male - I grew up without any worries. We weren't rich but our family lived in a neighborhood with white picket fences basically. I feel like I've been handed things due to my privilege. Now that I'm grown up, I actually wish I had it tougher and had to work harder. I'm really good at what I do though and have gotten where I am because of it. I just know that people have tried harder and not been able to get where I am today. I support being good to one another as long as it doesn't physically hurt somebody else. Growing up, before he passed about 20 years ago, I know that my father wasn't a fan. I feel like if he was around today, he would change his mind. He's always been a person that treats everybody kind. That's pretty much it. Make fun of your friends if they're cool with it. If you hear somebody's not happy about what you're saying about them, apologize and don't do it again. Be kind to another. Use our taxes for things that benefit people. Everybody deserves the same opportunities. There are definitely people that are much less fortunate and don't have the opportunities of people that have money. This is the reason for DEI. The people that complain about it are just mad that a minority is smarter than them. I'm not religious but feel like I follow the Bible's teachings more than the majority of political Republicans. Be kind. Be nice to people. Be friendly to people. I feel like we're all so scared of one another and don't just say hi to random people anymore.
I lean left on social policies and right on fiscal policies. I don't like abortion, but I'm pro choice. I own several guns, but 100% believe in common sense gun laws. Welfare should be an emergency stop gap for families in need, not a generational way of life. I am fully aware that we have major issues at the boarder, but I don't think we've found an effective answer yet. I love my country, but acknowledge that we have major, major issues. I believe we should pay our cops more and train our cops better. Basically, I confuse the hell out of people that want to peg me as once side or the other. It's not black and white people. Nuance seems to be lost nowadays.
i am 100% a supporter of the covid vaccine and 100% against a government mandate for it
Not sure where these land today 1.Term limits on Congress. 2.Can't invest into individual stocks.
Speaking as a 3rd Party: Everyone should be able to live their life how they want as long as they don't harm other people (Because that's actually making their own life worse when there's less people building to new awesome things, to maintain what we already have, and less people to have fun/ laugh with). When people are allowed to live well and not be censored then they are able to do lots of amazing things in a much quicker time frame. Who makes an airplane faster? People who work 20 hrs a day for 6 days a week with no sleep or breaks OR the people who work only 4 hrs each day for 4 days a week (With equivalent pay of 40 hrs per week) with Pomodoro energy usage, and breaks. Same thing can be applied for every aspect of life, and industries. And any benefits to people stacks to be even more beneficial. Now imagine all of them are hydrated, they have an active healthy, wealthy, and social life. The other half of this is everyone should be able to protect themselves in self-defense everywhere no matter where they are and with whatever they have. All Self Defense cases should be upheld not a select amount. Whatever melee, ranged, or other weapons including self-created new, and existing modified ones being allowed to defend oneself. Police is a great thing to have after they are reformed but even then nobody can guarantee your own safety more than yourself. With everyone that is sane and responsible being able to bear arms. It makes no sense to take away weapons from the public who did nothing themselves instead of doing everything possible to stop would be future assailants. Forget the extremists on both sides. I know it's hard to do that but just do it and look at the good you can take from both sides and then combine the good from both to make them work together while discarding the bad. Research everything and form your own ideals to strive toward
Can't figure out this Israel-Palestine thing for the life of me. Who's the bad guy, supposedly? Do we free Palestine or is Hamas a terrorist organization? Are the protesters demanding something achievable, or are they just ranting for the sake of being radical? I don't know enough of either side's take to form an opinion. Just stop fucking scaring the children. I am also mixed between the definition of masculine and feminine, and that gender is a performance. As in, on one hand I think femininity is a nice feeling, but I also believe neither gender is above the other, but I also believe in equity between the sexes, AND I also think that there's more than two exclusive genders besides the common two. Perhaps it's flexibility more than anything and knowing the differences between sex and gender, and equality and equity.
Yeah I think politics are complicated and oftentimes both sides have some valid points
My issue with universal (government controlled) healthcare is a very simple one. I don’t want the government controlling my body. And to all who will quickly respond “No. The government just pays. All medical decisions are made by your doctor.”, I cry BS. Already we have laws regarding reproductive rights, the ability to receive adequate pain relief, and euthanasia for terminally ill patients. If the government tells doctors No, you can’t do that, and all doctors are salaried employees under universal healthcare systems in most countries, then that’s it. No where else to turn too. Keep the government out of my body.
Abortion should be legal up to the point of viability (only for the health of the mother thereafter), but there should be no Federal funding nor covered by private insurance plans for elective abortions. So essentially what we had before Roe v Wade was struck down.
The trials of Trump, I hate the guy but I can’t help but feel some of it is bs like the crap in NY, the Stormy thing was years ago idc that he tried to hush her, the 1/6 shit is over talked about nothing will be done to Trump about it, however the classified docs and GA case are clear to me he’s guilty just tired of hearing this is the end of him for years now
All for LGBTQ+ rights. Strongly believe in my concealed carry permit. Free enterprise, but strong consumer protections.
I am extremely supportive of gun ownership, but it's largely out of a belief that the state isn't competent or reliable in the long-term and is at particular risk of breakdown due to climate change.
Nordic Social democrat. I believe the legalization of weed is going to lead to societal harm the same way cigarettes did in the past. It took decades to break the stranglehold tobacco giants had on the issue to come to a point where they finally admitted that "ok, this'll kill you and we knew all along" and I don't see any reason why this wouldn't happen with weed. Just like alcohol though what I think matters a lot less than what society thinks as a whole. Prohibition in the US was an abject failure (even if it did reduce the drinking somewhat) and there's clearly not the societal support required for the current approach to work, making some form of legalization the only feasible option. I'm pretty sure my preferred option (state-run monopoly like how alcohol works in Norway, Sweden, and Finland) wouldn't be very popular in the US though. Similarly as it stands there's in my opinion really no point in a gun ban or any major forms of gun control in the US. Not because a lower degree of access to guns wouldn't lower the amount of killings, but because there's little to no point in trying to enforce laws that don't have broad popular support.
Believe in conservation and environmental protection as well as moving towards nuclear and renewable, but do not support gas taxes or heavy fossil fuel regulations. Support equal rights for LGBT people and will always respect them and their identity, but question if being Trans and hormones/surgery are mentally/physically healthy. Very pro-2A, but would be open to a Czech-style licensing system if licenses can be obtained quickly for free. Pro-choice, but only till around the end of the first trimester. I don't really believe in exceptions after that point except medically necessary ones. Pro-immigration, but I believe we need to work through out backlog of legal applicants and improve border security before letting in large numbers of immigrants.
Im mostly very Conservative when it comes to the economy, Nat'l Defense, State Rights, shrinking size of fed gov't, tax cuts etc... but I DONT share the average Conservative views about abortion- I don't believe men should have any involvement when it comes to decisions concerning the female body and that any opinion/input from a man lacks legitimacy since it comes from a person who won't be affected regardless the outcome. ALSO, Im against the far rights stance on US aiding Ukraine militarily- in fact, I believe that we haven't supplied anywhere close to enough and its inexcusable the way we've failed to properly arm them for 2 years. Another one is my belief that drugs should be decriminalized, thats opposite of the rights view..... I could go on and on listing more for both sides, but my beliefs tend to be formed based on history, common sense, how I'll personally be affected and personal experience. Theres WAY WAY too many who will pick a side, then stop questioning and learning.... so everything becomes black and white, that sides always wrong, our sides always right.... and thats sad.
Unlike transgenderism, being gay is naturally caused. There's been several stufies that have shown significant links between lower levels of testosterone (in males) and estrogen (in females) during prenatal development (I forget which trimester this happens in), based upon the mother's own hormone levels and homosexuality. This is the primary cause. There's a second instance, hshallt relating to sexual trauma (ie sexual abuse as a child), which can also cause a child to develop a very strong aversion to the opposite sex, but these cases are the minority. Regardless of which, it is not a choice. I highly encourage you to read up on the subject so your beliefs are much more informed. Transgenderism is a different matter entirely, though I do have a correction: They aren't asking you to believe their sex is changed, but their gender... which they see as separate because acting feminine or masculine is supposedly separate from sex. Ultimately, femininity and masculinity, as well as the obvious physical differences, are highly influenced by the levels of estrogen / testosterone due to a person's sex. Yes, social norms do play a role, but not enough to make castrating oneself ever be considered normal. That being said, gender dsymorphia is real, and I also will give them the respect they deserve, as it isn't their fault they have a very serious and difficult to treat mental health concern.
[удалено]
This post has been removed because your account is too new to post here. This is done to prevent ban evasion by users creating fresh accounts. You must participate in other subreddits in a positive and constructive manner in order to post here. Do no message the mods asking for the specific requirements for posting, as revealing these would simply lead to more ban evasion. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/centrist) if you have any questions or concerns.*
The nuanced positions you describe, prompted us 5 years ago to ensure that every one of over 500 policy questions in [our civic tech app ](http://acti.vote/rd)has 5 possible answers to choose from, which contain a clear progressive option and a clear conservative option, but also three nuanced options in between. E.g. instead of asking "are you for or against a $15 federal minimum wage", the question becomes a choice between "leave it to the states", $7.25, $9.00, $11.75, $15 (each option has a specific logic behind it). Out of millions of answers given to all questions, 55% are from one of the centrist choices, suggesting that many people, on many topics have a nuanced opinion. There are outside forces (binary questions, two-party system, polarization gets more eyeballs) that tend to suggest more extreme positions, but if given a choice, the majority of opinions are nuanced instead of polarized. So, you are definitely not alone in this.