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Tales of Good Discussions

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  • Tales of Good Discussions

    I invite you all to tell us about good discussions you've had on public policy issues in the last year or so. Maybe you got a point across to someone, maybe you came to understand someone else's position better. Maybe a third party came up and thanked you for what they overheard. This can be online or offline.

    This is a thread for counting the hits, not the frustrating misses. Please create spin-off threads for any critical discussions, thanks!

    ***

    For example, I had an email dialogue with a friend last year about vaccinations. Her primary reason for not vaccinating her kids had to do with an objection to using materials grown in a culture derived from cell lines from aborted fetuses. I found her a resource on ingredients, which had been put together by a Catholic group. She was still ambivalent until the recent news about outbreaks. She overheard a discussion I was having about how unvaccinated kids are a risk to vaccinated kids (and people who can't vaccinate) then told me she has decided to go ahead with all vaccinations both to protect her kids and because she sees it as a moral thing to do with respect to other people. She said she was appreciative that I had listened and treated her with respect throughout instead of berating her like others had done.

  • #2
    Originally posted by seasanctuary View Post
    I invite you all to tell us about good discussions you've had on public policy issues in the last year or so. Maybe you got a point across to someone, maybe you came to understand someone else's position better. Maybe a third party came up and thanked you for what they overheard. This can be online or offline.

    This is a thread for counting the hits, not the frustrating misses. Please create spin-off threads for any critical discussions, thanks!

    ***

    For example, I had an email dialogue with a friend last year about vaccinations. Her primary reason for not vaccinating her kids had to do with an objection to using materials grown in a culture derived from cell lines from aborted fetuses. I found her a resource on ingredients, which had been put together by a Catholic group. She was still ambivalent until the recent news about outbreaks. She overheard a discussion I was having about how unvaccinated kids are a risk to vaccinated kids (and people who can't vaccinate) then told me she has decided to go ahead with all vaccinations both to protect her kids and because she sees it as a moral thing to do with respect to other people. She said she was appreciative that I had listened and treated her with respect throughout instead of berating her like others had done.

    Probably the best policy discussion I had in the last year was dealing with the Hobby Lobby decision and the idea of corporate religious identity. Pretty long Facebook discussion that went over what the legal fiction of corporate personhood entailed, the role of the judiciary in defining corporate personhood and the logical implications (and how the Court might decline to pursue fully-logical implications) of carving out a corporate niche in the RFRA. Didn't change minds or hearts on either side, I think, but I came away from it with a better sense of how deep and multi-faceted the underlying issue is.

    —Sam
    "I wonder about the trees. / Why do we wish to bear / Forever the noise of these / More than another noise / So close to our dwelling place?" — Robert Frost, "The Sound of Trees"

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