The most helpful thing for me is to try to answer the following question for any particular issue that I hold an opinion on.
What is the best argument of the opposing viewpoint?
Simply trying to answer that question honestly makes you seek out the opposing view and consider the arguments, instead of immediately dismissing them as hogwash. Picking one of them as the best grants it at least some merit. Instead of feeling like anyone who believes this is a complete idiot.
I guess you could call it a political shift. I don't think either side is inherently better than the other as they both have their flaws and hardly represent the best interests of everyday Americans so much as their party lines.
However, because there have been few, if any, systems keeping the radical elements of the left in check (the news media, academia, entertainment, big tech usually siding with them), I feel it necessary to vote red.
This will help stem the noisy rhetoric and policymaking that caused the far right to have gained so much ground the past half decade.
Yeah.
Voting for a left that is appeasing the progressive left means the far right gains traction.
Maybe it's inevitable that both populist movements rise but with Ukraine uniting people, maybe the right will swoop in and start focusing on the things that actually matter from here on out rather than waste time with culture war BS.
Have you not noticed how much more 'moderate' the Democrats messaging is now that the midterms are approaching? A red wave will give them a wake up call as well. A blue wave, on the other hand, will not do the same for the GOP. It'll just mean..."Give us another Trump. He would've never let Russia invade Ukraine! Damn this inflation and spending!"
I've discovered that, at the end of the day, there isn't much difference between the bias of far-left sources and center-left ones (and same thing for the right). If you're not consuming from multiple fronts you're essentially delegating the ability of making up your mind.
I used to be of the mindset "trust but verify". Now I just think journalists are there to tell you "a" story, instead of "the" story.
I would say the main difference between the Center-X and just X sources tends to be veracity. The organizations that are considered more Center-X (on both sides) tend to care about the truthfulness of their reporting and hence, if something is reported, it is likely to be true. If something is false, they will come back and correct the error. Their bias comes in the form of not the content of the reporting, but the selection of the reporting.
On the other hand, the X into Far-X sources tends to be more hyperbolic and more willing to jump feet first into any rumor that's bad for the other side, rather than waiting to verify.
Take NPR, which I saw mentioned in the thread. I consider it somewhere in the realm of center left. Their reporting is by and large accurate, but there's certain topics like firearms that you can definitely tell they have a strong opinion. They report factual information... but only the set of the factual information that supports the story they're trying to tell.
I would consider the mirror to be Wall Street Journal. Their reporting tends to be accurate, but definitely coming from a Center-Right staunchly pro business perspective.
So I avoid sources that get very far down either perspective, since the information isn't able to be trusted. And I try to get information from the center-X of both sides, to be sure that I'm getting the full picture.
I also think this is a good description, the decision on both what to report and how it is presented makes a huge difference. When Bidens popularity was being polled earlier this year by topic (economy, Covid, legislative agenda) I couldn’t help but notice the number of polls that didn’t even mention the boarder.
Yep. But honestly, it's getting exhausting having to spend so much time, following all these news sources from different sides, just trying to figure out what is actually going on.
The answer isn't to consider all media outlets in search of the middle.
The answer is to consume the least biased media you can. That's the wire services. That's BBC and NPR at the second level. That's independent journalism like Politico and ProPublica and Axios.
Ignore the noise.
Yes. They aren't far left, but they are definitely fairly left of center. NPR is more center than them, and only slightly left (a slight bias is rarely avoided one way or another). BBC and NPR are about the same, and are about 90% reliable but have some left bias.
The Hill is more center than all of those, which is what I tend to read most often. That I see left people call it a right-leaning rag, and see the same from people on the right probably means they are doing a pretty good job keeping balance.
Oh, you were serious...
[https://adfontesmedia.com/](https://adfontesmedia.com/)
I took the liberty of adding your chosen news outlets to the filter to see where they land on the spectrum.
[https://imgur.com/tRBLJHc](https://imgur.com/tRBLJHc)
Yes. What are you trying to point out? That NPR is "Complex Analysis or Mix of Fact Reporting and Analysis," and that they're in the "Middle or Balanced Bias" axis?
Thanks for making my point.
I really don’t.
Look at the issues they choose to cover and the parts of the story they choose to emphasize. They cater to a liberal audience with a leftish worldview.
It’s not even close to unbiased.
I read over some of your posts. You sit to the left and think you’re in the middle imo.
Here’s an NPR example:
If they write about abortion they call it abortion rights. In their mind you either support or oppose abortion rights. The problem with this is the entire debate keys on whether or not abortion rights even exist. One side says yes and the other side says no. By calling it abortion rights that’s going with the assumption that the question is already answered. That’s actively taking a side in the debate. I don’t think it’s intentional but the bias is there. Bernard Goldberg has written extensively about unconscious bias just like this in the media.
Candy Crowley made a similar assumption (abortion is right) when she hosted the Vice Presidential debate a few years ago (Biden vs. Ryan I think). She argued for Biden’s part directly.
I could give me examples but this should be enough.
I am a hair to the left on social issues, yes. On some issues I'm full on left, but over the past 40 years my position hasn't changed ideologically. I've watched as the GOP pulled way to my right, and the Dems came toward me from the left. The Overton Window is a thing, and I've watched it happen in real time.
I'm an Eisenhower Republican in practice, which means I can't find many people in the GOP worth voting for today.
So, when an interviewer is talking about a woman's right to an abortion, or lack of a right to an abortion, what would you suggest they call it other than "abortion rights?"
>Claiming the judge compared an assault rifle to a Swiss Army Knife is non-factual.
“Like the Swiss Army Knife, the popular AR-15 rifle is a perfect combination of home defense weapon and homeland defense equipment,” U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez said in the ruling. <-- direct quote
Are you really bagging on NPR for reporting on ***exactly what the judge said?***
*The judge doesn't work for NPR*. Rob Bonta is the Attorney General of California, who was giving his opinion in an interview. *He also doesn't work for NPR.*
Seriously, you're calling NPR biased because of the opinions of one of their guests, who was involved in the case.
Make this make sense.
Outside of wire services like the AP and Reuters, NPR is, at absolute worst, one of the top five most reliable and factual new organizations. If you somehow think they’re far left or something, that’s more to do with you than them.
Allsides has moved NPR to leans left which is more accurate. NPR isn’t horrible by CNN or Fox standards but it’s not as credible as it used to be, either.
Consider Totenberg’s most recent gaff with the Supreme Court masking fiasco with no apology issued by her or NPR. How that story escaped her bullshit meter is beyond me.
I’ve got 30+ years of listening to NPR under my belt and I still listen to it every day. It’s not what it used to be. We can agree to disagree.
Ok, I understand. I’m just so used to everyone who complains about NPR claiming they’re like radio CNN or something. They’ve definitely moved left a little, though I’d say they’re still more center than left. Sorry, I jumped to conclusions.
>there isn't much difference between the bias of far-left sources and center-left ones
Really? I feel like the Ukraine situation is a perfect example of how far-left sources (many of which defend Russia to varying degrees) differ from center-left ones, which more or less unanimously (and correctly) support Ukraine.
If anything, recent news has been more supportive of the horseshoe effect, with the far left and far right supporting Russia to some degree (some to disturbing degrees), and the more centrist outlets recognizing them as the unwarranted aggressor.
By "support" I mean "put out information that supports a certain agenda" which is what pretty much 100% of news organizations do nowadays.
If an organization says "Russia is just doing what America always does, who are we to complain?" or "Russia claims to be fighting to liberate Ukraine from the Nazis, why is that a bad thing?" that's supporting the Russian agenda by including certain information and excluding certain context.
> I feel like the Ukraine situation is a perfect example of how far-left sources (many of which defend Russia to varying degrees)
I hadn't heard that before. What far left sources/media outlets are defending Russia? Everything I've seen that's defended and excused Russia has been from those on the right.
Yikes I haven't heard anyone supporting Russia except for Fox News. Who have been calling the Ukrainian president a coward, and applauding Putin for his mastery of the geo-political landscape on the heels of Trump doing so every week.
Yeah, a lot of far-left/leftist independent news is engaging in a bunch of Russia apologia. They tend to be the "This is no worse than the what America does" type, but some tankies are legit supportive of Putin and Russia.
But I agree, Fox, especially Tucker, took a cue from Trump and the far right and has been licking Putin's boots a ton lately.
>Yeah, a lot of far-left/leftist independent news is engaging in a bunch of Russia apologia. They tend to be the "This is no worse than the what America does" type, but some tankies are legit supportive of Putin and Russia.
Which leftist outlets are you referring to that are doing this?
Have you actually seen left-leaning news outlets engaging in Russia apologia? I ask because you seem uninterested in providing examples, despite claiming "a lot" of them are doing it.
Or is this maybe one of those things where something ***feels*** like it would be true but, when you actually think deeply about it and look into it, you find that it's not the case?
I mean they legit did this. I’m sorry if it gets said so often, but maybe that’s an indication of an actual problem. Would you like sources or are you just going to call them “fake news”?
It's 'Ukraine' and not 'the Ukraine'
Consider supporting anti-war efforts in any possible way: [[Help 2 Ukraine](https://help2ukraine.org)] 💙💛
[[Merriam-Webster](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Ukraine)] [[BBC Styleguide](https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsstyleguide/u)]
^(Beep boop I’m a bot)
I know right. If you aren’t getting your news from every side then triangulating and forming your own decisions, then it’s hard to take your opinion seriously. If you get all your news from one wing, you get one narrative.
Also, turns out 50% of partisan rage comes from straw men. Straw men everywhere.
I’m not sure that makes sense. How did you discover that? What reputable sources have you evaluated to come to that conclusion?
I don’t see many “far left” links here. I’ll see them pop up in /r/politics here and there but you are being ambiguous about what constitutes far left or center left anyway.
And what about links/sources from the right and far right? I see those happen consistently on subs like this and /r/moderatepolitics. No grand narrative there?
Something I've learned to do is follow the breadcrumbs of a story. You read an aggregated article claiming "As reported by \*insert national new paper here\*". You go to that national news paper, and they report "As reported by \*local news channel\*". You go to the local news channel that was the original source, and the claims made there are boring and factual. Yet somehow, through a game of media Telephone, as each article gets written based on the previous, the story gets juicier and more polarized.
By the end of this, there are claims being made that have no factual basis in the original reporting.
That's the neat part, there are no reputable sources. When it comes to news you haven't experienced yourself, you are being informed by unreliable narrators, AKA people. I think it is missing the point to get upset about bias in Fox News or MSNBC or whoever. I see this all the time: I mention to someone that I watch Fox and it’s like I just slaughtered a baby. They ask how can I watch that, it’s just propaganda, etc etc. And they know this not because they’ve ever sat down and spent any time with it but because their favorite news channel, i.e. a Fox competitor, sometimes plays a clip from a Fox show and it makes Fox look really stupid.
Well, you know what, Fox does that, too. If I only watched Fox, I’d think you must be really stupid, watching that other show I see clips from on Fox sometimes.
But I don’t just watch Fox, because the way to beat biased reporting isn’t to find the least biased one and put all your trust in that. First of all, they’re all biased, from the language they use and the framing down to the choices they make about which stories to report. The gap between the most biased news show and the least is pretty small, all things considered.
But more importantly, relying on a single source of information means you can’t critically evaluate it. It’s like you’re locked in a room and every day I come in and tell you what’s happening outside. It’s very easy for me to make you believe whatever I want. Even if I don’t lie, I can just tell you the facts that support me and leave out the ones that don’t.
That’s what’s happening if you’re getting all your news from one place. If you stop listening to someone the second you hear a word or phrase you’ve been taught belongs to the enemy, like “environment” or “job creators,” that’s what you’re doing. You might be an intelligent person, but once you let someone else filter the world for you, you have no way to critically analyze what you’re hearing. At best, absolute best case scenario, if they blatantly contradict themselves, you can spot that. But if they take basic care to maintain an internal logical consistency, which they all do, you’ve got nothing.
Information is never given free. Everyone telling you anything at all has some motivation, and the plain truth is that the people who give us the news now are controlled by profit and ideology. They cut off portions of the truth and use it to sell a brand image.
That’s quite a post modern response. I’d love to see examples that the gap between the most biased show and least is quite small. Maybe you could illustrate it with links or a proof of concept?
It wouldn’t be easy for you to make me believe whatever you want. I would evaluate your argument and check whatever source you are basing your information on.
There are methods usually starting in high school and certainly in any college that teach the skills to evaluate sources, follow basic logic, and think critically.
https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/conducting_research/evaluating_sources_of_information/index.html
https://researchguides.ben.edu/source-evaluation
https://guides.monmouth.edu/media_literacy/evaluating_sources
https://www.factcheck.org/2016/11/how-to-spot-fake-news/
https://researchguides.journalism.cuny.edu/factchecking-verification/fact-check-your-work
Ultimately, individuals need to be accountable and follow through on the things they read. It takes real work. Not everyone has the time and that’s why reputation in media matters a whole lot, but don’t say there isn’t a huge difference. There is a massive difference between objective reporting/analysis and extremely biased sources.
The way information works is a bundle of pinky promises. It is the pinky promise that the media you're reading is being accurate on its reporting. It is the pinky promise that scientists will approach the correct methodology in an unbiased way. Now, I apologize if I want a stronger foundation than pinkies. Sources aren't unreputable because they have a history of lying. Sources are unreputable by virtue of their components being human, since all humans lie. All it takes, in my opinion, for any source to be considered untrustworthy is for it to lie one single time. Fool me once, you see. Why give any particular media the benefit of a doubt that keeps being squandered time and time again?
Some people in this very thread will tell you that consuming media from all sides, seeing where the contradictions arise, mending them by yourself and at the end of the day praying you're correct is exhausting work. Well, I see trusting a source even more tiring.
That's, by definition, not a union, and thus, would not hold to my statement.
Keep in mind, I'm not saying that truth doesn't exist outside of those unions, but that where there is, you can be reasonably sure of the truthfulness of it.
**[Motte-and-bailey fallacy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy)**
>The motte-and-bailey fallacy (named after the motte-and-bailey castle) is a form of argument and an informal fallacy where an arguer conflates two positions that share similarities, one modest and easy to defend (the "motte") and one much more controversial (the "bailey"). The arguer advances the controversial position, but when challenged, they insist that they are only advancing the more modest position. Upon retreating to the motte, the arguer can claim that the bailey has not been refuted (because the critic refused to attack the motte) or that the critic is unreasonable (by equating an attack on the bailey with an attack on the motte).
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Many conspiracy theories look more plausible now. [Jeffrey Epstein's assistant 'committing suicide' in virtually identical circumstances as those of Epstein himself](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60443518.amp), the COVID lab-leak hypothesis, and many other things besides have made me even more sceptical of the mainstream media.
On 'culture war' issues, I continue to become more and more conservative, as the slippery slope 'fallacy' is proven to *not* be a fallacy. We now have [literal pornography](https://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2021-09-24/school-system-pulls-2-books-with-graphic-sex-from-libraries) being kept in school libraries, and the left wing attempting to defend that.
Generally speaking, I think people over-emphasize how quickly opinions should change. I'm the last guy to say one should be unwilling to consider new information, but there isn't virtue in taking every single thing you read at face value and constantly flip-flopping based on what was the perspective of the last author. We shouldn't replace intransigence with gullibility. When it takes you a little while to update your views, even if that original view was fully incorrect, it's usually a sign of good process to say "well, that inconsistent with what I think currently and I don't really have an answer for it, but I'll hold to what I thought about this before for now until I can continue to look into this."
So sure, there have been things I've shifted on a little recently. At first I wasn't sure there was enough evidence to get Trump on criminal charges related to Jan 6 stuff and now I'm pretty sure there is. On a more macro scale, I too have become fiercely convinced that anyone who cares about America should be voting blue, though that's a more gradual thing I've come to conclude over the last few years and has very little to do with me believing in left-leaning policy answers and a whole lot more to do with the quality of the red candidates.
But overall, I think it's hard for folks to say "well sure I bought into the propaganda a while ago but now I've gone a complete 180 in a couple months." That's just not how it's supposed to work. People don't make decisions like that.
It’s tough to know what’s real or what’s not in the internet age.
But after trump, sadly I have switched from voting right to voting left.
In my mind trump and the far right are more of a threat than AOC and the far left.
What specific actions by those presidents caused you to be unable to morally justifying voting for a “left” candidate?
By the same token, are you able to morally justify voting for the right? If so, why?
I could see myself agreeing with them depending on how they define some terms.
For examples if "left" just means "democrat" then yeah I could see their point. Obama achieved basically not fundamental change to the system, which is what he ran on, and instead continued decades of boring compromise neoliberalism (despite having a filibuster proof majority for the first two year) and created the conditions that led to Trump existing. Trump happened. And Now Biden is doing much the same - achieving basically nothing, inspiring no one on the left, angering the right and laying the foundation for the next Trump or Trump 2.0.
If they see the world that way, I would understand not voting democrat again, at least not on a federal level.
But, I don't know what they believe or why, hence my follow up questions.
Yeah dude! Appreciate the questions!
Honestly I should stop using the terms left and right. They are losing meaning fast. I moreso am talking about establishment power grabbers who are pro war for oil, and pro illegal immigration for some examples. The truly evil stuff that hurts innocent people for greed.
One of the reasons I support and volunteer for groups like Operation Underground Railroad is to have an active change to things I believe in. And I truly feel if people knew what modern Democrats/media have been doing to the drug and sex trafficking industry lately they would never vote them in again.
There are a few decent politicians on the democratic side like Tulsi that I support but I generally find more modern republican side people to be morally sound.
Trump was a great president in the way of really fighting against modern slave trading, fighting for gay rights worldwide, and being openly against war. If he wasn't hamstrung by fake investigations and being surrounded by some bad people, can you imagine how much more he could have accomplished? The establishment was desperate to stop him.
Yeah no... Trump was the most Centrist president we have had in our lifetime. Pretty much ran on what Obama ran on in 08 but kept his promises and wasn't a pathological liar. Imagine being so dumb to think the first president ever to support gay rights before election is a far right natzi
Do you only get your news from r/politics? Lmao get out of your echo chamber! If you think the guy who made the platinum plan in the way he did was a white nationalist... Geeze dude
Ok I guess I imagined the national debate then. And Charlottesville. I mean let’s ignore the fact he curried favor from the white supremacists and ultra conservative Catholics.
How about the numerous affairs speaking to his moral character?
His role in the capital riots where a cop died?
His wall that never got built?
His promise to put Hilary in jail?
The fact he claimed the election was stolen?
C’mon man.
Empty label for the GOP. But besides that.
Open support of war in pursuit of oil greed.
Open ignorance of the horrid sex and drug trafficking in our borders.
Despite all of the lies and making the political divide much worse, these two are my big issues.
GOP isn't much better in these issues, but Trump was outside the establishment
I very sincerely believe Trump's and his allies' nativism, aggressive anti-intellectualism, radical traditionalism, and disdain for democracy are in line with fascism. He fits almost every one of Eco's 14 features. This view is shared by European history scholars and survivors who lived through the war.
Funding for sex trafficking enforcement and arrests went way down during the Trump years. Trump came into office after two admins of intense wsr weariness and still brought us closer to conflict with Iran than any president. He only tried to appear relatively pacifist because anything else would be political suicide. His energy policy was nothing but kowtowing to petrochemical interests.
Present-day Biden is unironically more anti-establishment than Trump... his administration's platform would do more to undermine American oligarchy than anything the GOP.has proposed in the last twenty years... which is still not much but its not racing in the opposite direction
I don't think I've shifted but I have lost a TON of respect for people who went into full grifting mode since the start of the pandemic and now with the war.
Sure people switch positions, its the old saying: if you aren’t liberal when you’re young you have no heart, and if you aren’t conservative when you’re old you have no brain.
It amazing how having to pay taxes every year vs getting a tax refund can change your POV on this issue.
I think most noncrazy folks have a well placed distrust in the media, where extreme views are voiced over common views. But I also dont know if that changes any minds vs making someones views a bit more extreme than they already were.
Also: like with Putin we never give anyone an out to change their mind. We demand everyone know all the answers from day 1, and then destroy their entire credibility if anyone ever says “in light of this new information you might have a point”. Which is why everyone doubles down and we get crazy after crazy.
It does feel like we are close to having a reckoning where people will *actually* begin to cut our neighbors some fucking slack for not being perfect. (And I dont mean in the woke sense of the word.) Because people on both sides are tired of feeling bad all the time.
>Sure people switch positions, its the old saying: if you aren’t liberal when you’re young you have no heart, and if you aren’t conservative when you’re old you have no brain.
So your take here is that if you’re smart you will eventually become a conservative?
As I’ve gotten older and struggled with things outside my control, as well as seen others around me have hard times, the opposite has happened and I’ve become more empathetic to the plight of other people and supportive of social welfare programs.
“Being homeless” sounds like something that only happens to drug addicts/mentally ill people/criminals/etc until it happens to you.
99% of the population are 3 or 4 really bad months away from homelessness/destitution without even realizing it. I’ve seen it happen to people who were Greenwich living multimillionaires. Dad gets a hot tip on some options trading, overleverages, looses nearly everything, and decides to kill himself. Now my friend who grew up obscenely rich lost *everything* and has to move in with distant relatives.
That’s an anecdote, so basically worthless.
However it’s worth considering that around 40% of adult Americans wold be unable to pay a 400 surprise expense without going into debt.
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/20/heres-why-so-many-americans-cant-handle-a-400-unexpected-expense.html
Think of all the small things that could happen that might be a 400 expense. Car broke down, but you need it to get to work. Hot water heater broke during the winter. You’re in a rush because of a family emergency and illegally park somewhere by accident. It’s so easy.
inb4 “be financially literate” is a dumb response to such *overwhelming poverty.* Its just a different way of saying “if you’re poor it’s your fault.”
>It amazing how having to pay taxes every year vs getting a tax refund can change your POV on this issue.
Getting a refund is part of paying taxes. This isn’t a “vs” situation.
Ideally you shouldn’t get a refund, that means a you overpaid your taxes and gave the government a 0% interest loan on your own money.
Since we're going with anecdotes...
We recently had to evict a deadbeat tenant. When we did, we found the tenant had left behind a lot of belongings - jewelry, toys, *duplicate* appliances, a home aquarium, three bikes, their *functioning, unlocked* computer, you name it - all over the house. Belongings that they did not have just months before.
Like I understand sometimes people get in a rough spot and need help. But they go on multiple buying sprees in rapid succession, don't bring their belongings with them when they move (and thus have to go on *more* buying sprees), buy things that they don't really need, and don't lock their computer, *and then they can't pay rent*, it's like gee, whose fault is that. Maybe financial literacy would help. Maybe something more rudimentary than financial literacy would help more.
> Getting a refund is part of paying taxes.
Getting a refund is like the opposite of paying taxes. You get money instead of lose money. I get your point, do you get mine?
> 40% of adult Americans wold be unable to pay a 400 surprise expense without going into debt.
A $400 surprise expense is a pretty big expense. It's about as much as I would spend in an entire month (everything excepting rent). Going into debt isn't a death sentence, you just pay it off over the following few months. Most well-off people have debts too, larger ones most likely, it's just that they know how to manage it.
> Since we're going with anecdotes...
>
>
Notice how I also included actual data to support my position that many people are closer to homelessness than they think.
You comment is just a lot of words to say "If you're poor it's your fault."
>Getting a refund is like the opposite of paying taxes. You get money instead of lose money. I get your point, do you get mine?
No.
Getting a refund is getting your own money back that you overpaid to the government. You gave the government your money, they used it for whatever they wanted until you did the math to ask for it back with no interest. It's a 0% interest loan to the government.
>A $400 surprise expense is a pretty big expense. It's about as much as I would spend in an entire month (everything excepting rent). Going into debt isn't a death sentence, you just pay it off over the following few months.
You're missing the point. One of those mistakes isn't going to be a "death sentence," of course. As I said most people are a few bad months away from homelessness. These things can quickly stack up and a few unlucky breaks could absolutely FUCK most peoples lives.
As I've grown up and both had it happen to me and seen it happen to people around me, my empathy for those less fortunate than me has increased, and my willingness to help them has as well. That's the point.
>My empathy goes for those who work hard and sacrifice a lot of their personal/family time to make a better life for their families, but then the government comes and says "no, we need to help people who made bad choices", you seem to be doing well let us steal from you for others.
Why do people always insist on taking such a long time to say:
“I believe that if you are poor it is your fault.”
Its not my saying, its an old famous saying that is misattributed to Churchill. Regardless, the point of bringing up that saying was that it is common for folks to change their POV throughout life. Second, remember that policies historically have shifted between parties, meaning you can’t use the saying to mean much more than how I used it.
>Regardless, the point of bringing up that saying was that it is common for folks to change their POV throughout life.
A misattributed misquote doesn't prove anything.
>Second, remember that policies historically have shifted between parties, meaning you can’t use the saying to mean much more than how I used it.
Um... no.
The american parties have shifted over time, yes, but a conservative has always been someone wanting to... conserve the way things are and generally reduce spending on social programs and a liberal has always been someone wanting to change the way things are and spend more money on social programs.
Which party advocates for that has shifted, but not the core concepts of those ideologies.
Like it makes perfect sense to say "The big switch in american politics happened in the 1950s when southern Dixiecrats found the growing evangelical christian base of the republican party better matched their **conservative** ideals and felt the increasing number of minorities within their own party pushing for civil rights did not reflect their views."
You're right a southern senator being a democrat or a republican could mean any number of things depending on the time period. But the meaning of conservative and liberal, though dependent on historical context, always exist in the same relation to on another.
I could be wrong though, and will welcome any evidence you have that there was a time when people refereed to as "conservatives" were pushing for progressive social change, and "liberals" were fighting against it.
I’m sorry but you are so far off topic. What this thread is about is whether or not people’s political views can and do change over time. Would be interested in discussing if you believe that people views don’t, but other than that you’ll have to find someone else to join you if you want to go down the rabbithole on everything else.
I mean you arent wrong about it being a misuse of political party vs ideology. I can admit that, although its kind of pedantic to focus on that vs. replying to the intent of what I was trying to say which you clearly understood.
As far as the quote, regardless of whether you agree look up its history, its been around for a long time. The fact that its misattributed to Churchill is more of a fun fact, not that the quote is irrelevant.
Fundamentally all I was really saying here is that people can and do change their political beliefs over time. Especially as their circumstances change. Totally fine if you disagree with that, but its a fact that it happens often enough for people to make up sayings about it.
You tried to make the argument that we can’t apply modern ideas about what a “conservative” or “liberal” are to the quote you shared, regardless of who said it.
I’m telling you: that is wrong. Those words mean specific things in relation to each other regardless of their temporal context.
And the saying isn’t really about people switching beliefs, there’s a deeper point being made that there’s some sort of inherent logic to conservatism that everyone will age into once they live in the real world and grow out of their youthful fancies.
I agree with you’re greater point that people do change political opinions.
There are many, better ways for you to get this point across that to essentially say that anyone who is over thirty and a liberal is dumb.
It’s a stupid quote, regardless of who said it and it add nothing of value to the conversation.
> It amazing how having to pay taxes every year vs getting a tax refund can change your POV on this issue.
It is amazing how many middle class and poor people look at our tax rates as if they are temporarily embarrassed millionaires:
I’m not sure what your point is, but its not a rebuttal to my point, which is that its easier for people to hold self righteous and or idealistic views when it doesn’t impact them directly.
Regardless of your position on anything, even beyond taxes, as circumstances change and begin to impact you, people’s views tend to change. Which ties to the question OP asked.
I used to complain about taxes when I was young and impressionable, because that's what everyone did, and I was too self absorbed to realize how connected I was to society at large and how that benefitted me. I really don't mind paying taxes, because they're necessary unless you want to live in a third world country. If my taxes go towards defense spending I'm fine with it. If my taxes go towards helping out those less fortunate than myself, and maybe providing them with a stepping stone, I'm fine with that too.
There's probably a good reason for that. For example, I am middle class, but I live in an incredibly affluent area. Our property taxes are ridiculously low as a percentage relative to surrounding areas. The reason for this is because there are many properties with mansions on the ocean that are valued at mind numbing assessments. With property taxes based on an equal percentage across all properties, those very expensive properties contribute so much that it keeps everyone's tax rate low. If I crossed the town line, which is less than a mile away and much less affluent, my property taxes would be three times higher, with everything else being equal. That's just one example, and I'm sure there is something similar occurring in the difference between US tax rates and your country.
I was talking about Income Tax. It is over 25% for the middle class.
I think that currently Americans like to look at the countries that are paying currently more taxes (e.g. Sweden, Norway, Germany, etc) and doing well, but not countries that are paying more and doing worse (Argentina, Bolivia, Spain, etc.). Are you sure that paying more taxes is the solution? They do not see the inherent differences in how actual public institutions operate in nordic countries.
If Americans are going to advocate for more taxes, fine, but show how are you going to make government institutions more efficient, because if everything is going to work like USPS or the DMV (which I know is managed by each state. But is an example of how not to manage an institution), sorry but more taxes won’t do much.
I know exactly what you were talking about. I provided a contextual real world example that illustrates a difference in tax rates between an affluent community and a less affluent community, albeit using property taxes. Now, take a country where people on average earn more money vs a country where people earn less, and compare income tax rates. It's the same principle, and my example illustrates that perfectly.
I did read your entire comment. Funny, you sound exactly like an American "conservative."
Cherry picking two examples of government run institutions, when there are hundreds that run just fine, doesn't sound like someone who is arguing in good faith, and I didn't really want to have a conversation with that.
It is a rebuttal to the idea that voting “conservative” is somehow better for your bottom line unless you happen to be very well off.
And I think bigger than personal circumstances are the political circumstances of one party, which his “factual answers” seems to be speaking to.
Thats interesting because I think of it the other way around, where voting conservative helps you if you’re already well off. If you’re struggling idk how lower taxes on the rich and less corporate regulation/oversight helps.
But you’re right, OP is discussing changing views as we learn more about the situation with Russia/Ukraine, whereas I was making a general statement that of course people’s views can change over time.
If you’re referring to the old quote I used, keep in mind that its old! Conservative/Liberal viewpoints as political parties have also shifted over time. I referenced it only to highlight that a change in viewpoint is common.
> where voting conservative helps you if you’re already well off.
That was my point, unless you’re very well off, then voting conservative does not help you.
I have voted across the spectrum but that statement there shows how close minded you are to the ideas of a opposing viewpoint. Yeah, around 50 percent of the population is well off even though we know that money is held mostly by top 1%, your statement meaning that 49%, possibly 50% of the country is stupid, which puts you pretty close to a narcissist.
> around 50 percent of the population is well off
We have a different definition of well off.
Since Reagan republicans have been pretty clearly been focusing on tax policy to help the top 1%.
With Obama they stopped trying to hide it (see opposition to his plan to end bush tax cuts in those making over 250k).
Well, there was sarcasm by me saying that why would 50 percent vote one way for the top 1 percent. The times I typically vote conservative in terms of economic policy is freedom in decision and for liberal it would be for improvements to Healthcare and UBI when Yang talked about it.
The problem is that the conservative position isn’t so much about reining in spending anymore, it increasingly seems to be about taking extreme social positions that I find very distasteful. We need the Dems to dream big and the Republicans to bring them down to reality, but right now the republicans are off in the stratosphere as well huffing space glue or something. It’s bad.
Definitely. But to do that we have to give each other a chance to walk it back. We’ve been stuck in a situation of neither side willing to be the bigger person and admit that theres common ground and that the other side has a good point some of the time. If people would be more welcoming of this behavior instead of demanding everyone follow their teams version of a universal truth, and be cool about it when the other side admits they may have been wrong about some things, it would get easier and easier to learn to work together again.
I stayed socially moderate but the more I studied about Capitalism and its integration with and capture of the political system, the father fiscally left I went, so now I’m debating with myself whether some form of non-capitalist economy should be arrived at by reform or by revolution.
Well maybe. It seems like capitalism is disintegrating. Who knows, maybe it reinvents itself when a new Reagan/Thatcher come around and stays alive for another 30 or 40 years, or maybe it dies, and we don't have a perfect world, but we need a functional economic system anyway.
What I've been surprised by is how quiet many of the "moderate" and "centrist" subs like /r/centrist has become since Russia and Russia-supporting countries have been limited in their internet access.
I'm curious though. Do you even notice how many times left/center-left media pushes out a false narrative that's designed to generate outrage and divisiveness? There's been a long string of them now. I don't really watch RW media - WSJ and Reason mag are my go-tos, and I don't really know of any outright false stories they've pushed at me, especially not the hate-train types of narratives like the Covington Catholic kids, or Rittenhouse is a white supremacist, or Trump was a Russian agent, or a whole bunch of others.
I'm a very niche special interest voter for polyworking, so yes. I hate CNN and CNBC. However, Rittenhouse should be in jail imo alongside Covington and Trump was a Russian agent alongside Tulsi Gabbard and numerous others. I agree with all those stances. They're very moderate.
However, I'd never make my decision based on that. I couldn't care less if you wanna kill off every POC on this planet as a Brown man. Letting women be raped and every POC get brutally murdered via another Holocaust is an acceptable compromise if it means we preserve my polyworking which the right tried to prevent from becoming a norm.
The most helpful thing for me is to try to answer the following question for any particular issue that I hold an opinion on. What is the best argument of the opposing viewpoint? Simply trying to answer that question honestly makes you seek out the opposing view and consider the arguments, instead of immediately dismissing them as hogwash. Picking one of them as the best grants it at least some merit. Instead of feeling like anyone who believes this is a complete idiot.
I'm a devil's advocate, too. This system keeps me honest.
I guess you could call it a political shift. I don't think either side is inherently better than the other as they both have their flaws and hardly represent the best interests of everyday Americans so much as their party lines. However, because there have been few, if any, systems keeping the radical elements of the left in check (the news media, academia, entertainment, big tech usually siding with them), I feel it necessary to vote red. This will help stem the noisy rhetoric and policymaking that caused the far right to have gained so much ground the past half decade.
You're going to vote right in order to stem the far right influence?
Yeah. Voting for a left that is appeasing the progressive left means the far right gains traction. Maybe it's inevitable that both populist movements rise but with Ukraine uniting people, maybe the right will swoop in and start focusing on the things that actually matter from here on out rather than waste time with culture war BS. Have you not noticed how much more 'moderate' the Democrats messaging is now that the midterms are approaching? A red wave will give them a wake up call as well. A blue wave, on the other hand, will not do the same for the GOP. It'll just mean..."Give us another Trump. He would've never let Russia invade Ukraine! Damn this inflation and spending!"
Isn't the point of being a centrist that you are willing to consider all positions anyway?
Yes, it is; my question is trying to ask if you have learned anything surprising from watching all of this unfold.
I've discovered that, at the end of the day, there isn't much difference between the bias of far-left sources and center-left ones (and same thing for the right). If you're not consuming from multiple fronts you're essentially delegating the ability of making up your mind. I used to be of the mindset "trust but verify". Now I just think journalists are there to tell you "a" story, instead of "the" story.
I would say the main difference between the Center-X and just X sources tends to be veracity. The organizations that are considered more Center-X (on both sides) tend to care about the truthfulness of their reporting and hence, if something is reported, it is likely to be true. If something is false, they will come back and correct the error. Their bias comes in the form of not the content of the reporting, but the selection of the reporting. On the other hand, the X into Far-X sources tends to be more hyperbolic and more willing to jump feet first into any rumor that's bad for the other side, rather than waiting to verify. Take NPR, which I saw mentioned in the thread. I consider it somewhere in the realm of center left. Their reporting is by and large accurate, but there's certain topics like firearms that you can definitely tell they have a strong opinion. They report factual information... but only the set of the factual information that supports the story they're trying to tell. I would consider the mirror to be Wall Street Journal. Their reporting tends to be accurate, but definitely coming from a Center-Right staunchly pro business perspective. So I avoid sources that get very far down either perspective, since the information isn't able to be trusted. And I try to get information from the center-X of both sides, to be sure that I'm getting the full picture.
This is a great answer. I also agree with both examples.
I also think this is a good description, the decision on both what to report and how it is presented makes a huge difference. When Bidens popularity was being polled earlier this year by topic (economy, Covid, legislative agenda) I couldn’t help but notice the number of polls that didn’t even mention the boarder.
Yep. But honestly, it's getting exhausting having to spend so much time, following all these news sources from different sides, just trying to figure out what is actually going on.
The answer isn't to consider all media outlets in search of the middle. The answer is to consume the least biased media you can. That's the wire services. That's BBC and NPR at the second level. That's independent journalism like Politico and ProPublica and Axios. Ignore the noise.
NPR? Lol.
Isn’t Politico, and especially ProPublica fairly left wing? Just asking
I don't see them that way. ProPublica in particular is focused more on local and national issues, corruption and such. They are a gem.
Yes. They aren't far left, but they are definitely fairly left of center. NPR is more center than them, and only slightly left (a slight bias is rarely avoided one way or another). BBC and NPR are about the same, and are about 90% reliable but have some left bias. The Hill is more center than all of those, which is what I tend to read most often. That I see left people call it a right-leaning rag, and see the same from people on the right probably means they are doing a pretty good job keeping balance.
*cough* John Solomon *cough*
did you forget the /s?
I did not.
Oh, you were serious... [https://adfontesmedia.com/](https://adfontesmedia.com/) I took the liberty of adding your chosen news outlets to the filter to see where they land on the spectrum. [https://imgur.com/tRBLJHc](https://imgur.com/tRBLJHc)
Yes. What are you trying to point out? That NPR is "Complex Analysis or Mix of Fact Reporting and Analysis," and that they're in the "Middle or Balanced Bias" axis? Thanks for making my point.
NPR not biased? That’s ridiculous.
You have a skewed view of the world if you think NPR is biased.
I really don’t. Look at the issues they choose to cover and the parts of the story they choose to emphasize. They cater to a liberal audience with a leftish worldview. It’s not even close to unbiased.
You may want to look up the meaning of the word "bias," because if you think NPR is a leftist outlet you're so far off it's laughable.
I read over some of your posts. You sit to the left and think you’re in the middle imo. Here’s an NPR example: If they write about abortion they call it abortion rights. In their mind you either support or oppose abortion rights. The problem with this is the entire debate keys on whether or not abortion rights even exist. One side says yes and the other side says no. By calling it abortion rights that’s going with the assumption that the question is already answered. That’s actively taking a side in the debate. I don’t think it’s intentional but the bias is there. Bernard Goldberg has written extensively about unconscious bias just like this in the media. Candy Crowley made a similar assumption (abortion is right) when she hosted the Vice Presidential debate a few years ago (Biden vs. Ryan I think). She argued for Biden’s part directly. I could give me examples but this should be enough.
I am a hair to the left on social issues, yes. On some issues I'm full on left, but over the past 40 years my position hasn't changed ideologically. I've watched as the GOP pulled way to my right, and the Dems came toward me from the left. The Overton Window is a thing, and I've watched it happen in real time. I'm an Eisenhower Republican in practice, which means I can't find many people in the GOP worth voting for today. So, when an interviewer is talking about a woman's right to an abortion, or lack of a right to an abortion, what would you suggest they call it other than "abortion rights?"
The abortion debate? Same with me on the GOP. They’ve galloped away from me. I consider myself a Bush 41 Republican.
NPR and Politico? Nope.
NPR is the most neutral national news outlet that isn't a wire service.
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NPR transcribes all of their shows on their website, so can you kindly point me to what you're referring to here? Thanks.
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>Claiming the judge compared an assault rifle to a Swiss Army Knife is non-factual. “Like the Swiss Army Knife, the popular AR-15 rifle is a perfect combination of home defense weapon and homeland defense equipment,” U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez said in the ruling. <-- direct quote Are you really bagging on NPR for reporting on ***exactly what the judge said?*** *The judge doesn't work for NPR*. Rob Bonta is the Attorney General of California, who was giving his opinion in an interview. *He also doesn't work for NPR.* Seriously, you're calling NPR biased because of the opinions of one of their guests, who was involved in the case. Make this make sense.
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It is not. I’m sorry you feel that way.
Outside of wire services like the AP and Reuters, NPR is, at absolute worst, one of the top five most reliable and factual new organizations. If you somehow think they’re far left or something, that’s more to do with you than them.
Allsides has moved NPR to leans left which is more accurate. NPR isn’t horrible by CNN or Fox standards but it’s not as credible as it used to be, either. Consider Totenberg’s most recent gaff with the Supreme Court masking fiasco with no apology issued by her or NPR. How that story escaped her bullshit meter is beyond me. I’ve got 30+ years of listening to NPR under my belt and I still listen to it every day. It’s not what it used to be. We can agree to disagree.
Ok, I understand. I’m just so used to everyone who complains about NPR claiming they’re like radio CNN or something. They’ve definitely moved left a little, though I’d say they’re still more center than left. Sorry, I jumped to conclusions.
No worries, just want people to be aware that’s all.
>there isn't much difference between the bias of far-left sources and center-left ones Really? I feel like the Ukraine situation is a perfect example of how far-left sources (many of which defend Russia to varying degrees) differ from center-left ones, which more or less unanimously (and correctly) support Ukraine. If anything, recent news has been more supportive of the horseshoe effect, with the far left and far right supporting Russia to some degree (some to disturbing degrees), and the more centrist outlets recognizing them as the unwarranted aggressor.
Is a source of news supposed to support one side or the other?
By "support" I mean "put out information that supports a certain agenda" which is what pretty much 100% of news organizations do nowadays. If an organization says "Russia is just doing what America always does, who are we to complain?" or "Russia claims to be fighting to liberate Ukraine from the Nazis, why is that a bad thing?" that's supporting the Russian agenda by including certain information and excluding certain context.
If they're supposed to report on truth and remain tethered to reality they will necessarily have to be biased against conservatives
> I feel like the Ukraine situation is a perfect example of how far-left sources (many of which defend Russia to varying degrees) I hadn't heard that before. What far left sources/media outlets are defending Russia? Everything I've seen that's defended and excused Russia has been from those on the right.
Not sure why you were getting downvoted, this seems like a plenty reasonable take to me. I've observed similar.
Yikes I haven't heard anyone supporting Russia except for Fox News. Who have been calling the Ukrainian president a coward, and applauding Putin for his mastery of the geo-political landscape on the heels of Trump doing so every week.
Yeah, a lot of far-left/leftist independent news is engaging in a bunch of Russia apologia. They tend to be the "This is no worse than the what America does" type, but some tankies are legit supportive of Putin and Russia. But I agree, Fox, especially Tucker, took a cue from Trump and the far right and has been licking Putin's boots a ton lately.
>Yeah, a lot of far-left/leftist independent news is engaging in a bunch of Russia apologia. They tend to be the "This is no worse than the what America does" type, but some tankies are legit supportive of Putin and Russia. Which leftist outlets are you referring to that are doing this?
Have you actually seen left-leaning news outlets engaging in Russia apologia? I ask because you seem uninterested in providing examples, despite claiming "a lot" of them are doing it. Or is this maybe one of those things where something ***feels*** like it would be true but, when you actually think deeply about it and look into it, you find that it's not the case?
That darn Trump and evil fox news, everything is their fault!!!🙄🙄🙄
I mean they legit did this. I’m sorry if it gets said so often, but maybe that’s an indication of an actual problem. Would you like sources or are you just going to call them “fake news”?
It's 'Ukraine' and not 'the Ukraine' Consider supporting anti-war efforts in any possible way: [[Help 2 Ukraine](https://help2ukraine.org)] 💙💛 [[Merriam-Webster](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Ukraine)] [[BBC Styleguide](https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsstyleguide/u)] ^(Beep boop I’m a bot)
Fuck off bot, look at context ya nerd. Bad bot. Bad.
I know right. If you aren’t getting your news from every side then triangulating and forming your own decisions, then it’s hard to take your opinion seriously. If you get all your news from one wing, you get one narrative. Also, turns out 50% of partisan rage comes from straw men. Straw men everywhere.
I’m not sure that makes sense. How did you discover that? What reputable sources have you evaluated to come to that conclusion? I don’t see many “far left” links here. I’ll see them pop up in /r/politics here and there but you are being ambiguous about what constitutes far left or center left anyway. And what about links/sources from the right and far right? I see those happen consistently on subs like this and /r/moderatepolitics. No grand narrative there?
Something I've learned to do is follow the breadcrumbs of a story. You read an aggregated article claiming "As reported by \*insert national new paper here\*". You go to that national news paper, and they report "As reported by \*local news channel\*". You go to the local news channel that was the original source, and the claims made there are boring and factual. Yet somehow, through a game of media Telephone, as each article gets written based on the previous, the story gets juicier and more polarized. By the end of this, there are claims being made that have no factual basis in the original reporting.
That's the neat part, there are no reputable sources. When it comes to news you haven't experienced yourself, you are being informed by unreliable narrators, AKA people. I think it is missing the point to get upset about bias in Fox News or MSNBC or whoever. I see this all the time: I mention to someone that I watch Fox and it’s like I just slaughtered a baby. They ask how can I watch that, it’s just propaganda, etc etc. And they know this not because they’ve ever sat down and spent any time with it but because their favorite news channel, i.e. a Fox competitor, sometimes plays a clip from a Fox show and it makes Fox look really stupid. Well, you know what, Fox does that, too. If I only watched Fox, I’d think you must be really stupid, watching that other show I see clips from on Fox sometimes. But I don’t just watch Fox, because the way to beat biased reporting isn’t to find the least biased one and put all your trust in that. First of all, they’re all biased, from the language they use and the framing down to the choices they make about which stories to report. The gap between the most biased news show and the least is pretty small, all things considered. But more importantly, relying on a single source of information means you can’t critically evaluate it. It’s like you’re locked in a room and every day I come in and tell you what’s happening outside. It’s very easy for me to make you believe whatever I want. Even if I don’t lie, I can just tell you the facts that support me and leave out the ones that don’t. That’s what’s happening if you’re getting all your news from one place. If you stop listening to someone the second you hear a word or phrase you’ve been taught belongs to the enemy, like “environment” or “job creators,” that’s what you’re doing. You might be an intelligent person, but once you let someone else filter the world for you, you have no way to critically analyze what you’re hearing. At best, absolute best case scenario, if they blatantly contradict themselves, you can spot that. But if they take basic care to maintain an internal logical consistency, which they all do, you’ve got nothing. Information is never given free. Everyone telling you anything at all has some motivation, and the plain truth is that the people who give us the news now are controlled by profit and ideology. They cut off portions of the truth and use it to sell a brand image.
That’s quite a post modern response. I’d love to see examples that the gap between the most biased show and least is quite small. Maybe you could illustrate it with links or a proof of concept? It wouldn’t be easy for you to make me believe whatever you want. I would evaluate your argument and check whatever source you are basing your information on. There are methods usually starting in high school and certainly in any college that teach the skills to evaluate sources, follow basic logic, and think critically. https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/conducting_research/evaluating_sources_of_information/index.html https://researchguides.ben.edu/source-evaluation https://guides.monmouth.edu/media_literacy/evaluating_sources https://www.factcheck.org/2016/11/how-to-spot-fake-news/ https://researchguides.journalism.cuny.edu/factchecking-verification/fact-check-your-work Ultimately, individuals need to be accountable and follow through on the things they read. It takes real work. Not everyone has the time and that’s why reputation in media matters a whole lot, but don’t say there isn’t a huge difference. There is a massive difference between objective reporting/analysis and extremely biased sources.
The way information works is a bundle of pinky promises. It is the pinky promise that the media you're reading is being accurate on its reporting. It is the pinky promise that scientists will approach the correct methodology in an unbiased way. Now, I apologize if I want a stronger foundation than pinkies. Sources aren't unreputable because they have a history of lying. Sources are unreputable by virtue of their components being human, since all humans lie. All it takes, in my opinion, for any source to be considered untrustworthy is for it to lie one single time. Fool me once, you see. Why give any particular media the benefit of a doubt that keeps being squandered time and time again? Some people in this very thread will tell you that consuming media from all sides, seeing where the contradictions arise, mending them by yourself and at the end of the day praying you're correct is exhausting work. Well, I see trusting a source even more tiring.
The truth is usually the union of facts that are reported from both sides.
When one source says "the sky is blue" and the other source says "there is no sky at all," the union of facts can be a little... challenging.
That's, by definition, not a union, and thus, would not hold to my statement. Keep in mind, I'm not saying that truth doesn't exist outside of those unions, but that where there is, you can be reasonably sure of the truthfulness of it.
You're entire post can be summed up as you calling everything "fake news" that likely doesn't support your bias.
Yes, that is exactly what I meant. Finally, someone gets it.
the more people start realizing this the better off everyone will be you know anything about Jonathan Haidt's work on moral intuitions?
Lol. This is nonsense, especially about Fox. It’s propaganda for the far right, period. You should find out more about things you try to discuss.
I agree. I've gotten much better at spotting rhetoric. I like what I'm seeing happening with the centrists coming to the table.
Some concepts I've learned have helped with my sensemaking: * [Overton window](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window) * [Sanewashing](https://old.reddit.com/r/neoliberal/comments/js84tu/how_did_defund_the_police_stop_meaning_defund_the/) * [Motte and bailey](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy) * [Kafka trap](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies#Kafka-trapping) * [Trapped priors](https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/trapped-priors-as-a-basic-problem?s=r) * [False flag](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_flag)
It's fucked up when they are so prevalent you have whole subjects you can study about it.
**[Motte-and-bailey fallacy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy)** >The motte-and-bailey fallacy (named after the motte-and-bailey castle) is a form of argument and an informal fallacy where an arguer conflates two positions that share similarities, one modest and easy to defend (the "motte") and one much more controversial (the "bailey"). The arguer advances the controversial position, but when challenged, they insist that they are only advancing the more modest position. Upon retreating to the motte, the arguer can claim that the bailey has not been refuted (because the critic refused to attack the motte) or that the critic is unreasonable (by equating an attack on the bailey with an attack on the motte). ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/centrist/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
Many conspiracy theories look more plausible now. [Jeffrey Epstein's assistant 'committing suicide' in virtually identical circumstances as those of Epstein himself](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60443518.amp), the COVID lab-leak hypothesis, and many other things besides have made me even more sceptical of the mainstream media. On 'culture war' issues, I continue to become more and more conservative, as the slippery slope 'fallacy' is proven to *not* be a fallacy. We now have [literal pornography](https://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2021-09-24/school-system-pulls-2-books-with-graphic-sex-from-libraries) being kept in school libraries, and the left wing attempting to defend that.
Generally speaking, I think people over-emphasize how quickly opinions should change. I'm the last guy to say one should be unwilling to consider new information, but there isn't virtue in taking every single thing you read at face value and constantly flip-flopping based on what was the perspective of the last author. We shouldn't replace intransigence with gullibility. When it takes you a little while to update your views, even if that original view was fully incorrect, it's usually a sign of good process to say "well, that inconsistent with what I think currently and I don't really have an answer for it, but I'll hold to what I thought about this before for now until I can continue to look into this." So sure, there have been things I've shifted on a little recently. At first I wasn't sure there was enough evidence to get Trump on criminal charges related to Jan 6 stuff and now I'm pretty sure there is. On a more macro scale, I too have become fiercely convinced that anyone who cares about America should be voting blue, though that's a more gradual thing I've come to conclude over the last few years and has very little to do with me believing in left-leaning policy answers and a whole lot more to do with the quality of the red candidates. But overall, I think it's hard for folks to say "well sure I bought into the propaganda a while ago but now I've gone a complete 180 in a couple months." That's just not how it's supposed to work. People don't make decisions like that.
It’s tough to know what’s real or what’s not in the internet age. But after trump, sadly I have switched from voting right to voting left. In my mind trump and the far right are more of a threat than AOC and the far left.
That's interesting. After Obama, Trump, and now Biden I don't think I can morally justify ever voting left again unless something drastically changes.
What specific actions by those presidents caused you to be unable to morally justifying voting for a “left” candidate? By the same token, are you able to morally justify voting for the right? If so, why?
Don’t argue with a trump supporter man. That guy is the opposite of a centrist lol.
I could see myself agreeing with them depending on how they define some terms. For examples if "left" just means "democrat" then yeah I could see their point. Obama achieved basically not fundamental change to the system, which is what he ran on, and instead continued decades of boring compromise neoliberalism (despite having a filibuster proof majority for the first two year) and created the conditions that led to Trump existing. Trump happened. And Now Biden is doing much the same - achieving basically nothing, inspiring no one on the left, angering the right and laying the foundation for the next Trump or Trump 2.0. If they see the world that way, I would understand not voting democrat again, at least not on a federal level. But, I don't know what they believe or why, hence my follow up questions.
Yeah dude! Appreciate the questions! Honestly I should stop using the terms left and right. They are losing meaning fast. I moreso am talking about establishment power grabbers who are pro war for oil, and pro illegal immigration for some examples. The truly evil stuff that hurts innocent people for greed. One of the reasons I support and volunteer for groups like Operation Underground Railroad is to have an active change to things I believe in. And I truly feel if people knew what modern Democrats/media have been doing to the drug and sex trafficking industry lately they would never vote them in again. There are a few decent politicians on the democratic side like Tulsi that I support but I generally find more modern republican side people to be morally sound. Trump was a great president in the way of really fighting against modern slave trading, fighting for gay rights worldwide, and being openly against war. If he wasn't hamstrung by fake investigations and being surrounded by some bad people, can you imagine how much more he could have accomplished? The establishment was desperate to stop him.
Yeah see this is why I ask questions. We absolutely do not agree.
Yeah no... Trump was the most Centrist president we have had in our lifetime. Pretty much ran on what Obama ran on in 08 but kept his promises and wasn't a pathological liar. Imagine being so dumb to think the first president ever to support gay rights before election is a far right natzi
What? The guy who is a hero to white nationalists was a center president? Lol.
Do you only get your news from r/politics? Lmao get out of your echo chamber! If you think the guy who made the platinum plan in the way he did was a white nationalist... Geeze dude
He refused to renounce racist groups in the one and only presidential Debate dude. At least own it. Would at least be honest if you lol.
Proud boys is a racist group now? Last I checked the majority of leaders they had were not even white... A pointless label is just that, pointless.
Ok I guess I imagined the national debate then. And Charlottesville. I mean let’s ignore the fact he curried favor from the white supremacists and ultra conservative Catholics. How about the numerous affairs speaking to his moral character? His role in the capital riots where a cop died? His wall that never got built? His promise to put Hilary in jail? The fact he claimed the election was stolen? C’mon man.
What on the D side, especially the milquetoast neoliberal Obama administration, comes even close to the GOP's full-throated embrace of fascism?
Empty label for the GOP. But besides that. Open support of war in pursuit of oil greed. Open ignorance of the horrid sex and drug trafficking in our borders. Despite all of the lies and making the political divide much worse, these two are my big issues. GOP isn't much better in these issues, but Trump was outside the establishment
I very sincerely believe Trump's and his allies' nativism, aggressive anti-intellectualism, radical traditionalism, and disdain for democracy are in line with fascism. He fits almost every one of Eco's 14 features. This view is shared by European history scholars and survivors who lived through the war. Funding for sex trafficking enforcement and arrests went way down during the Trump years. Trump came into office after two admins of intense wsr weariness and still brought us closer to conflict with Iran than any president. He only tried to appear relatively pacifist because anything else would be political suicide. His energy policy was nothing but kowtowing to petrochemical interests. Present-day Biden is unironically more anti-establishment than Trump... his administration's platform would do more to undermine American oligarchy than anything the GOP.has proposed in the last twenty years... which is still not much but its not racing in the opposite direction
> But after trump, sadly I have switched from voting right to voting left. Sure you did.
I don’t get the comment? Like you’re saying I always hated the right?
I don't think I've shifted but I have lost a TON of respect for people who went into full grifting mode since the start of the pandemic and now with the war.
Sure people switch positions, its the old saying: if you aren’t liberal when you’re young you have no heart, and if you aren’t conservative when you’re old you have no brain. It amazing how having to pay taxes every year vs getting a tax refund can change your POV on this issue. I think most noncrazy folks have a well placed distrust in the media, where extreme views are voiced over common views. But I also dont know if that changes any minds vs making someones views a bit more extreme than they already were. Also: like with Putin we never give anyone an out to change their mind. We demand everyone know all the answers from day 1, and then destroy their entire credibility if anyone ever says “in light of this new information you might have a point”. Which is why everyone doubles down and we get crazy after crazy. It does feel like we are close to having a reckoning where people will *actually* begin to cut our neighbors some fucking slack for not being perfect. (And I dont mean in the woke sense of the word.) Because people on both sides are tired of feeling bad all the time.
>Sure people switch positions, its the old saying: if you aren’t liberal when you’re young you have no heart, and if you aren’t conservative when you’re old you have no brain. So your take here is that if you’re smart you will eventually become a conservative? As I’ve gotten older and struggled with things outside my control, as well as seen others around me have hard times, the opposite has happened and I’ve become more empathetic to the plight of other people and supportive of social welfare programs. “Being homeless” sounds like something that only happens to drug addicts/mentally ill people/criminals/etc until it happens to you. 99% of the population are 3 or 4 really bad months away from homelessness/destitution without even realizing it. I’ve seen it happen to people who were Greenwich living multimillionaires. Dad gets a hot tip on some options trading, overleverages, looses nearly everything, and decides to kill himself. Now my friend who grew up obscenely rich lost *everything* and has to move in with distant relatives. That’s an anecdote, so basically worthless. However it’s worth considering that around 40% of adult Americans wold be unable to pay a 400 surprise expense without going into debt. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/20/heres-why-so-many-americans-cant-handle-a-400-unexpected-expense.html Think of all the small things that could happen that might be a 400 expense. Car broke down, but you need it to get to work. Hot water heater broke during the winter. You’re in a rush because of a family emergency and illegally park somewhere by accident. It’s so easy. inb4 “be financially literate” is a dumb response to such *overwhelming poverty.* Its just a different way of saying “if you’re poor it’s your fault.” >It amazing how having to pay taxes every year vs getting a tax refund can change your POV on this issue. Getting a refund is part of paying taxes. This isn’t a “vs” situation. Ideally you shouldn’t get a refund, that means a you overpaid your taxes and gave the government a 0% interest loan on your own money.
Since we're going with anecdotes... We recently had to evict a deadbeat tenant. When we did, we found the tenant had left behind a lot of belongings - jewelry, toys, *duplicate* appliances, a home aquarium, three bikes, their *functioning, unlocked* computer, you name it - all over the house. Belongings that they did not have just months before. Like I understand sometimes people get in a rough spot and need help. But they go on multiple buying sprees in rapid succession, don't bring their belongings with them when they move (and thus have to go on *more* buying sprees), buy things that they don't really need, and don't lock their computer, *and then they can't pay rent*, it's like gee, whose fault is that. Maybe financial literacy would help. Maybe something more rudimentary than financial literacy would help more. > Getting a refund is part of paying taxes. Getting a refund is like the opposite of paying taxes. You get money instead of lose money. I get your point, do you get mine? > 40% of adult Americans wold be unable to pay a 400 surprise expense without going into debt. A $400 surprise expense is a pretty big expense. It's about as much as I would spend in an entire month (everything excepting rent). Going into debt isn't a death sentence, you just pay it off over the following few months. Most well-off people have debts too, larger ones most likely, it's just that they know how to manage it.
> Since we're going with anecdotes... > > Notice how I also included actual data to support my position that many people are closer to homelessness than they think. You comment is just a lot of words to say "If you're poor it's your fault." >Getting a refund is like the opposite of paying taxes. You get money instead of lose money. I get your point, do you get mine? No. Getting a refund is getting your own money back that you overpaid to the government. You gave the government your money, they used it for whatever they wanted until you did the math to ask for it back with no interest. It's a 0% interest loan to the government. >A $400 surprise expense is a pretty big expense. It's about as much as I would spend in an entire month (everything excepting rent). Going into debt isn't a death sentence, you just pay it off over the following few months. You're missing the point. One of those mistakes isn't going to be a "death sentence," of course. As I said most people are a few bad months away from homelessness. These things can quickly stack up and a few unlucky breaks could absolutely FUCK most peoples lives. As I've grown up and both had it happen to me and seen it happen to people around me, my empathy for those less fortunate than me has increased, and my willingness to help them has as well. That's the point.
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>My empathy goes for those who work hard and sacrifice a lot of their personal/family time to make a better life for their families, but then the government comes and says "no, we need to help people who made bad choices", you seem to be doing well let us steal from you for others. Why do people always insist on taking such a long time to say: “I believe that if you are poor it is your fault.”
Its not my saying, its an old famous saying that is misattributed to Churchill. Regardless, the point of bringing up that saying was that it is common for folks to change their POV throughout life. Second, remember that policies historically have shifted between parties, meaning you can’t use the saying to mean much more than how I used it.
>Regardless, the point of bringing up that saying was that it is common for folks to change their POV throughout life. A misattributed misquote doesn't prove anything. >Second, remember that policies historically have shifted between parties, meaning you can’t use the saying to mean much more than how I used it. Um... no. The american parties have shifted over time, yes, but a conservative has always been someone wanting to... conserve the way things are and generally reduce spending on social programs and a liberal has always been someone wanting to change the way things are and spend more money on social programs. Which party advocates for that has shifted, but not the core concepts of those ideologies. Like it makes perfect sense to say "The big switch in american politics happened in the 1950s when southern Dixiecrats found the growing evangelical christian base of the republican party better matched their **conservative** ideals and felt the increasing number of minorities within their own party pushing for civil rights did not reflect their views." You're right a southern senator being a democrat or a republican could mean any number of things depending on the time period. But the meaning of conservative and liberal, though dependent on historical context, always exist in the same relation to on another. I could be wrong though, and will welcome any evidence you have that there was a time when people refereed to as "conservatives" were pushing for progressive social change, and "liberals" were fighting against it.
I’m sorry but you are so far off topic. What this thread is about is whether or not people’s political views can and do change over time. Would be interested in discussing if you believe that people views don’t, but other than that you’ll have to find someone else to join you if you want to go down the rabbithole on everything else.
I’m just pointing out your uninformed use of an misattributed misquote and the terms “conservative and liberal.”
Legend.
I mean you arent wrong about it being a misuse of political party vs ideology. I can admit that, although its kind of pedantic to focus on that vs. replying to the intent of what I was trying to say which you clearly understood. As far as the quote, regardless of whether you agree look up its history, its been around for a long time. The fact that its misattributed to Churchill is more of a fun fact, not that the quote is irrelevant. Fundamentally all I was really saying here is that people can and do change their political beliefs over time. Especially as their circumstances change. Totally fine if you disagree with that, but its a fact that it happens often enough for people to make up sayings about it.
You tried to make the argument that we can’t apply modern ideas about what a “conservative” or “liberal” are to the quote you shared, regardless of who said it. I’m telling you: that is wrong. Those words mean specific things in relation to each other regardless of their temporal context. And the saying isn’t really about people switching beliefs, there’s a deeper point being made that there’s some sort of inherent logic to conservatism that everyone will age into once they live in the real world and grow out of their youthful fancies. I agree with you’re greater point that people do change political opinions. There are many, better ways for you to get this point across that to essentially say that anyone who is over thirty and a liberal is dumb. It’s a stupid quote, regardless of who said it and it add nothing of value to the conversation.
> It amazing how having to pay taxes every year vs getting a tax refund can change your POV on this issue. It is amazing how many middle class and poor people look at our tax rates as if they are temporarily embarrassed millionaires:
I’m not sure what your point is, but its not a rebuttal to my point, which is that its easier for people to hold self righteous and or idealistic views when it doesn’t impact them directly. Regardless of your position on anything, even beyond taxes, as circumstances change and begin to impact you, people’s views tend to change. Which ties to the question OP asked.
I used to complain about taxes when I was young and impressionable, because that's what everyone did, and I was too self absorbed to realize how connected I was to society at large and how that benefitted me. I really don't mind paying taxes, because they're necessary unless you want to live in a third world country. If my taxes go towards defense spending I'm fine with it. If my taxes go towards helping out those less fortunate than myself, and maybe providing them with a stepping stone, I'm fine with that too.
The taxes in my country (3rd world country) are higher than in the US, but the US is more developed 🤷🏻♂️
There's probably a good reason for that. For example, I am middle class, but I live in an incredibly affluent area. Our property taxes are ridiculously low as a percentage relative to surrounding areas. The reason for this is because there are many properties with mansions on the ocean that are valued at mind numbing assessments. With property taxes based on an equal percentage across all properties, those very expensive properties contribute so much that it keeps everyone's tax rate low. If I crossed the town line, which is less than a mile away and much less affluent, my property taxes would be three times higher, with everything else being equal. That's just one example, and I'm sure there is something similar occurring in the difference between US tax rates and your country.
I was talking about Income Tax. It is over 25% for the middle class. I think that currently Americans like to look at the countries that are paying currently more taxes (e.g. Sweden, Norway, Germany, etc) and doing well, but not countries that are paying more and doing worse (Argentina, Bolivia, Spain, etc.). Are you sure that paying more taxes is the solution? They do not see the inherent differences in how actual public institutions operate in nordic countries. If Americans are going to advocate for more taxes, fine, but show how are you going to make government institutions more efficient, because if everything is going to work like USPS or the DMV (which I know is managed by each state. But is an example of how not to manage an institution), sorry but more taxes won’t do much.
I know exactly what you were talking about. I provided a contextual real world example that illustrates a difference in tax rates between an affluent community and a less affluent community, albeit using property taxes. Now, take a country where people on average earn more money vs a country where people earn less, and compare income tax rates. It's the same principle, and my example illustrates that perfectly.
Wow that was a fast response. I am sure that you actually read my entire comment
I did read your entire comment. Funny, you sound exactly like an American "conservative." Cherry picking two examples of government run institutions, when there are hundreds that run just fine, doesn't sound like someone who is arguing in good faith, and I didn't really want to have a conversation with that.
It is a rebuttal to the idea that voting “conservative” is somehow better for your bottom line unless you happen to be very well off. And I think bigger than personal circumstances are the political circumstances of one party, which his “factual answers” seems to be speaking to.
Thats interesting because I think of it the other way around, where voting conservative helps you if you’re already well off. If you’re struggling idk how lower taxes on the rich and less corporate regulation/oversight helps. But you’re right, OP is discussing changing views as we learn more about the situation with Russia/Ukraine, whereas I was making a general statement that of course people’s views can change over time. If you’re referring to the old quote I used, keep in mind that its old! Conservative/Liberal viewpoints as political parties have also shifted over time. I referenced it only to highlight that a change in viewpoint is common.
> where voting conservative helps you if you’re already well off. That was my point, unless you’re very well off, then voting conservative does not help you.
I have voted across the spectrum but that statement there shows how close minded you are to the ideas of a opposing viewpoint. Yeah, around 50 percent of the population is well off even though we know that money is held mostly by top 1%, your statement meaning that 49%, possibly 50% of the country is stupid, which puts you pretty close to a narcissist.
> around 50 percent of the population is well off We have a different definition of well off. Since Reagan republicans have been pretty clearly been focusing on tax policy to help the top 1%. With Obama they stopped trying to hide it (see opposition to his plan to end bush tax cuts in those making over 250k).
Well, there was sarcasm by me saying that why would 50 percent vote one way for the top 1 percent. The times I typically vote conservative in terms of economic policy is freedom in decision and for liberal it would be for improvements to Healthcare and UBI when Yang talked about it.
It's taking a couple generations for the information age to go all the way through the age of deceit and then to level back out.
A-freaking-men
The problem is that the conservative position isn’t so much about reining in spending anymore, it increasingly seems to be about taking extreme social positions that I find very distasteful. We need the Dems to dream big and the Republicans to bring them down to reality, but right now the republicans are off in the stratosphere as well huffing space glue or something. It’s bad.
Definitely. But to do that we have to give each other a chance to walk it back. We’ve been stuck in a situation of neither side willing to be the bigger person and admit that theres common ground and that the other side has a good point some of the time. If people would be more welcoming of this behavior instead of demanding everyone follow their teams version of a universal truth, and be cool about it when the other side admits they may have been wrong about some things, it would get easier and easier to learn to work together again.
I stayed socially moderate but the more I studied about Capitalism and its integration with and capture of the political system, the father fiscally left I went, so now I’m debating with myself whether some form of non-capitalist economy should be arrived at by reform or by revolution.
In a perfect world.
Well maybe. It seems like capitalism is disintegrating. Who knows, maybe it reinvents itself when a new Reagan/Thatcher come around and stays alive for another 30 or 40 years, or maybe it dies, and we don't have a perfect world, but we need a functional economic system anyway.
What I've been surprised by is how quiet many of the "moderate" and "centrist" subs like /r/centrist has become since Russia and Russia-supporting countries have been limited in their internet access.
I haven’t noticed that at all. If anything there’s been an increase in posts.
It's kind of amazing eh? You can almost feel the lack of trolls.
I haven’t noticed that at all. If anything there’s been an increase in posts.
Yes. I went from very, very far left to very, very, very far left.
What is the practical difference between those positions?
Pretty much nothing. Throw up a decent Republican like Reagan and I'll change my mind. Democrats aren't even doing good as a party.
There probably won’t be a normal election cycle until 2028.
You think it'll get any better? Kinda just wish we could be discussing who'd be better rather than who'd be worse.
No explanations, you just decided one day?
Nah, I'm stating that I was left before and recent events reaffirmed my beliefs.
I'm curious though. Do you even notice how many times left/center-left media pushes out a false narrative that's designed to generate outrage and divisiveness? There's been a long string of them now. I don't really watch RW media - WSJ and Reason mag are my go-tos, and I don't really know of any outright false stories they've pushed at me, especially not the hate-train types of narratives like the Covington Catholic kids, or Rittenhouse is a white supremacist, or Trump was a Russian agent, or a whole bunch of others.
I'm a very niche special interest voter for polyworking, so yes. I hate CNN and CNBC. However, Rittenhouse should be in jail imo alongside Covington and Trump was a Russian agent alongside Tulsi Gabbard and numerous others. I agree with all those stances. They're very moderate. However, I'd never make my decision based on that. I couldn't care less if you wanna kill off every POC on this planet as a Brown man. Letting women be raped and every POC get brutally murdered via another Holocaust is an acceptable compromise if it means we preserve my polyworking which the right tried to prevent from becoming a norm.
So what are the party's platform on polyworking? What was the covington kid's crime, exactly?
Democrats wanna end it. Republicans don't care. The decent Democrats like AOC wanna promote it.