Media Bias

[Mountain Man]

I am not seeing a disconnect between what Bannon said, what has happened since, and what I posted.

Yeah, well, I never expected to be able to overcome your confirmation bias.

[EvoUK]

We're going to start that again?

Well, I can tell you what MY centrist position looks like, but if you are right-leaning you'll call me a leftist, and if you are left-leaning you will call me a rightist.

I believe that the abortion issue is the ultimate catch-22 issue. On one side, you have a living being in the form of an unborn child, and to end its life is wrong. On the other you have the state telling a mature, independent woman what she can or cannot do with her own body. The right likes to characterize the former as "murder," and the left characterizes the latter as inappropriate government intrusion on a woman's own person - her own body. I have used the term "temporary slavery" to characterize it, which the right (predictably) absolutely rejects. I see the right as focused on the child to the exclusion of the woman, and the left as focused on the woman to the exclusion of the child - but neither side wants to acknowledge that reality. The left accomplishes this by denying that the fetus is actually a person - a child. The right does this by placing the innocence of the child above the sovereignty of a woman over her own body.

I believe there is no tractable legal approach to this. First of all, it is incredibly unlikely that existing laws will be over-turned in the face of existing precedence. If these laws WERE over-turned, the left would arise en-mass to displace the politicians in question and, within a few years, the laws would likely re-assert. Meanwhile, the same-old-same-old approach is resulting in only a VERY slow reduction in annual abortion rates. So I believe the only viable approach to reducing abortions is to act BEFORE that decision has to be made. If the two sides worked together to do joint messaging on the impact of unwanted pregnancies, provide ALL alternatives for avoiding them (abstinence, birth control options, etc.), and really engaged on a campaign to change this as a joint message of the value of both the woman AND the child, much could be accomplished.

Neither side wants to be "immoral" and both sides have a consistent position IF you accept their presuppositions. So the question is, how do we work together despite those presuppositions? We can always keep challenging the presuppositions - but I do not think we should be letting them get in the way of finding practical solutions that can (finally) make a difference in the abortion rate.

To me - THAT's what a centrist position looks like. But it makes me look like a flaming liberal to the folks on the right, and like a flaming conservative to the folks on the left. More than anything else, that dynamics is what leads me to think I'm somewhere near the middle.

[carpedm9587]

And I AM guilty of repeating myself...

Edited to add: About the term "slavery," I realized when I used it that it would be provocative. One of my reasons for using it was to underscore the fact that "murder" is also a provocative term. The left soundly rejects that they are committing murder, and from the perspective of their presuppositions, they are correct. The right is equally vociferous at rejecting the use of the word "slavery," and from the perspective of their presuppositions, I think they are also right. I don't think either word should be used. I think the right approach is to reach across the aisle and look for viable solutions - and legal solutions have been shown, for 50 years now, to simply not be viable. We are having the exact same arguments in 2017 that I was having with my classmates in middle and high school in 1968-1974. Same-old-same-old is simply not going to change anything. It is long past time we ask ourselves "how else could we approach this that would actually make a difference?"

One definition of insanity is, "repeatedly engaging in the same actions, expecting a different outcome." Our collective approach to abortion, IMO, has long since passed into the realm of "insane."

[EvoUK]

[Juvenal]

Here is mine:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]25554[/ATTACH]

Commie.

[Cow Poke]

Commie.

That's why I won't post mine.

[Juvenal]

That's why I won't post mine.

My guy card requires me to notify all future dating prospects that I am not available for internet polls and questionnaires.

[Terraceth]

You seem a bit further than slightly left. Have you ever taken a political survey to place yourself? Something like this maybe: https://www.politicalcompass.org/test/ or this:
http://www.people-press.org/quiz/political-typology/ (here's another popular one: https://www.theadvocates.org/quiz/quiz.php).

I'm not sure how good the first one really is. There are a few issues:
1) No "neutral" option. For statements where my reaction is "I don't really have an opinion one way or the other" I'm still forced to choose agree or disagree which isn't really representative of my viewpoint.
2) No way of weighting the importance of issues. This is something I think really needs to be weighted. You might lean in left on a lot of issues you don't care much about, but feel extremely strongly on one issue that's right-wing, which tends to guide your voting decisions. But without weighing them, you'd end up mostly in the left despite the fact you'd vote for right-wing candidates due to that one issue. And there's a good number of people who are single issue voters.
3) Some weirdly worded questions.

Still took it anyway. I'm slightly into the right-wing/libertarian quadrant.

I feel https://www.isidewith.com handled the issues I outlined above (for example, if you're neutral, you can leave a question blank), but unfortunately is geared towards presidential candidates or political parties rather than a general axis.

[Mountain Man]

I'm not sure how good the first one really is. There are a few issues:
1) No "neutral" option. For statements where my reaction is "I don't really have an opinion one way or the other" I'm still forced to choose agree or disagree which isn't really representative of my viewpoint.
2) No way of weighting the importance of issues. This is something I think really needs to be weighted. You might lean in left on a lot of issues you don't care much about, but feel extremely strongly on one issue that's right-wing, which tends to guide your voting decisions. But without weighing them, you'd end up mostly in the left despite the fact you'd vote for right-wing candidates due to that one issue. And there's a good number of people who are single issue voters.
3) Some weirdly worded questions.

Still took it anyway. I'm slightly into the right-wing/libertarian quadrant.

I feel https://www.isidewith.com handled the issues I outlined above (for example, if you're neutral, you can leave a question blank), but unfortunately is geared towards presidential candidates or political parties rather than a general axis.

I found the Political Compass quiz useless for similar reasons. There were a number of questions that I wished I could answer "I don't care" or "It depends on the situation". There were also some strange questions like "Sex outside of marriage is usually immoral", which I can neither agree nor disagree with because I believe that sex outside of marriage is always immoral.

Trying to distill something as complex as personal and political beliefs down to a single point on a graph is a silly exercise on the face of it.

[Sparko]

Commie.

I have let down my fellow alt-right-wing bigots.

[Sparko]

That's why I won't post mine.

wait. You said you did. and you were in the center.

LIAR!!!!! SATAN!!!!

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[Sparko]

I found the Political Compass quiz useless for similar reasons. There were a number of questions that I wished I could answer "I don't care" or "It depends on the situation". There were also some strange questions like "Sex outside of marriage is usually immoral", which I can neither agree nor disagree with because I believe that sex outside of marriage is always immoral.

Trying to distill something as complex as personal and political beliefs down to a single point on a graph is a silly exercise on the face of it.

I put you in the center of the blue square.

[carpedm9587]

I put you in the center of the blue square.

I put him in the far upper right corner...

[Sparko]

I put him in the far upper right corner...

That would be Demi-conservative.

[Mountain Man]

I put you in the center of the blue square.

Actually, I came out slightly to the right and slightly below center, which I don't think is an accurate representation of who I am at all socially or politically. I might lean libertarian depending on how that term is defined, but a slightly-right leaning centrist? No way. According to Political Compass, I'm considerably to the left of where they think Obama was in 2012.