jerseyhoya wrote:I'm just saying milquetoast solutions are dumb in a lot of issues, abortion among the dumbest. Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice, moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue and all that.

I actually think this is dangerous stuff. Perfectionism, or being guided by some ideological construct (whether of Hayek or Mao) is bad bad stuff. Democracy's strength is that it always subjects principles to the will of the people.

There's a difference between politics and morality--our moral values are not subject to compromise, but in politics, we have no choice but to from time to time live with compromises. We shouldn't of course exclude moral considerations from political deliberation, but we must be prepared to make compromises.

If you read Sophocles' Antigone, this is clear. Creon and Antigone are both right. That is, Creon is right to enforce laws intended to end political instability, and Antigone has obligations to her family. This isn't some hippie dippy relativist bs. This is two absolute moral values coming into irreconcilable conflict. Perhaps Creon should have looked the other way. Perhaps Antigone should have let her brother rot. But any political compromise would have resulted in immorality. But an immoral act is surely preferable to political collapse and chaos.

In short, there are no answers. There is only enduring human imperfection.

I've been thinking about the title of this thread, and I think I'll actually reply, even if not directly answering the original question.

I think in terms of politics, I'm not a big fan of the party system, and never have been. This was something I debated by poli sci professors on constantly in college. The party system really seems antiquated in this day, and maybe its been unnecessary from day 1.

I think its really weird that people can pigeonhole themselves into one of the 2 major parties (or the other minor parties) when there are thousands of issues that are addressed in every aspect of life.

That said, I basically evaluate politicians on an issue by issue basis. Instead f subscribing to a party ideology as a whole, I have specific beliefs and dealbreakers. Such as, I could never vote for a pro-life politician, simply because that is an issue that I care about, from a historical perspective and for what it means to other issues that don't seem related on the surface, but very much are. That makes me, I suppose, a liberal. Yet I think I'm much more conservative when it comes to economic issues. Unlike a lot of liberals, I'm not waving a global warming flag, so a candidate's stance there does't mean quite as much to me.

I basically can't see myself ever voting for someone who is pro-life or anti-gay marriage. Those two issues seem very straightforward to ME. Its my personal feeling and my personal stance, and I think it gets down to the core of personal rights, equal rights IF YOU WILL.

I don't know how I can see anything changing my politics, whatever that means. 9/11 didn't make me feel different about personal liberties and rights. What else could happen that could make me change my mind if that didn't? What could make me change my views on abortion or gay marriage?

Whatever, I'm rambling. This is why I avoid the politics threads. sigh.

And the thing is, I can get along fine with people who have very divergent views from me, because there are lots of things to talk about that don't center around this hot button issues. But that doesn't mean I want to elect people to office who have divergent views from me on important issues.

FTN wrote:I basically can't see myself ever voting for someone who is pro-life or anti-gay marriage. Those two issues seem very straightforward to ME. Its my personal feeling and my personal stance, and I think it gets down to the core of personal rights, equal rights IF YOU WILL.

What I find interesting about this is that these two issues--abortion and gay rights--are often lumped in together, but I view them very, very differently.

Abortion is an agonizing subject for me because, as Paul alluded to with his Antigone example, two principles at the core of our national identity--let's call them "life" versus "liberty"--are in irreconcilable conflict. I personally incline toward the pro-choice position, but when the subject comes up, my (technocratic) inclination is to try to minimize the extent of the problem (or is it "change the subject"?) by urging steps to minimize the number of unwanted pregnancies through open discussion of the physical and emotional consequences of sexual activity early in life/outside of marriage AND the easy and non-stigmatized availability of contraception for those who are gonna do it anyway.

Thus, I'm fine voting for "pro-life" politicians so long as they take a common-sense approach to policymaking on the issue--or to put it another way, if they're anti-abortion rather than anti-sex, which I believe to be the case of many on the Christianist Right.

Gay marriage, OTOH, is the single easiest issue for me to draw an opinion on: so long as two people are competent to make life decisions for themselves, and they wish to enter into an institution adjudged to have social value, who the fuck cares what kind of genital equipment they have? Add in that the social definition of and norms around marriage have been only slightly more constant and unchanging through history than the Yankees managerial role from the mid-'70s to the mid-'90s and what we see is a thinly veiled and totally irrational bigotry at work.

Well, I guess I didn't phrase it quite right or expound on it, but I wasn't really intending to.

My big issue is, I haven't come across many pro life politicians who take a nuanced view on the matter. And really, if we start to discuss the specifics of abortion (Roe, Casey, etc etc), we could be here all day.

To be honest, its an issue completely dominated by extremists on both sides. And that kind of bothers me, because I hate extremism in either direction. Abortion is a nuanced issue, but its been pulled to the extremes by both parties.

I think the rational view, and one a lot of people would agree with, is an abortion in the 8th month of pregnancy isn't a good idea. But I haven't heard a lot of smart pro-choice people advocating that it is. Awareness and prevention are obviously huge factors and things that should be stressed. I personally just can't get with the extremists on the pro life end of the spectrum, and from my readings, I've maybe just encountered more of that.

Someone should come right out and say it--and it's barely disguised at all in the rhetoric--much of pro-life movement is about punishing women for sex. They went after Texas Gov Rick Perry for making the HPV vaccine mandatory (like vaccines for Measles and such) because women who engage in sex ought to be at risk for cervical cancer.

"There is a difference between the chicken pox and HPV," Klepacki explained. "The four types of HPV covered by the vaccine are sexually transmitted. You can get chicken pox by sitting in the classroom. You cannot contract or transmit HPV in the classroom unless you are engaging in sexual activity. Therefore, there is no reason to mandate this."

TenuredVulture wrote:Someone should come right out and say it--and it's barely disguised at all in the rhetoric--much of pro-life movement is about punishing women for sex. They went after Texas Gov Rick Perry for making the HPV vaccine mandatory (like vaccines for Measles and such) because women who engage in sex ought to be at risk for cervical cancer.

"There is a difference between the chicken pox and HPV," Klepacki explained. "The four types of HPV covered by the vaccine are sexually transmitted. You can get chicken pox by sitting in the classroom. You cannot contract or transmit HPV in the classroom unless you are engaging in sexual activity. Therefore, there is no reason to mandate this."

I was going to include the phrase "objectively pro-cervical cancer" in my earlier post, but figured it might be a bit too inflammatory...

A couple things --

I appreciate the coherence of Vox's comments, I'm not sure I agree with all of it, but it's coherent.

The original point of this thread was to raise the question -- "why discuss/debate" if people will never really change their basic views. And if that is the case (it may not be), is there any strategy to work on that? Is it of value for people to be more open and look at why and how they form their views?

My last post in this thread, I began to suggest a vague possible strategy, (if you believe (which Vox clearly doesn't) that consensus might ever be achieved) -- and that was to not look at cultural and class and religious issues that are so inflammatory and pull back out to 30K foot view and see if there is a place that the majority of people in the world could gain consensus.

For instance, could we assert that the majority of the people of the world would agree that it would be good to not destroy the planet, so that we could continue to live our lives? Could we agree that all human beings need food, air, water to survive? Start with super stupid obvious stuff. Then step back perhaps and ask a question like, shouldn't everyone be able to live a life without having violence done to them? Could we get consensus of that? I don't know exactly -- but it strikes me that there are some basic generalized notions that are so broad and fairly universal that they could cut across all the dividing lines. And if THAT IS possible, then perhaps by starting in that space, we could filter down and find a way to get people to talk to each other in new ways?

See, if Vox is correct -- then I'm not sure how to proceed. It's not just about me believing "i'm right", because honestly on MANY things I have no idea. I have an opinion, smoe I think more informed than others -- but I don't know... in many spheres of life, I do think I know and I would pull the "common sense" card on a lot of those issues. Saying, that it's common sense to me. But that's neither here nor there. I'm interested in how to create a way for people to dialog that can actually lead to deeper understanding, and perhaps actually allow people to shift views.

Since abortion came up -- I'll say that my views have changed quite a bit in my lifetime in the sense that I was raised in a environment that just stated" Pro Choice" is what's right. I took that as obvious and of course, and I noted who I saw as the kind of people who were against it (which I saw as Christian fundamentalists, and people of limited intellectual chops, and people who wanted to control others) -- as the years went on though, and i began to open my thinking and get in to more of the nuances I found myself troubled in some places.

For example the science side of me, sort of believe that life had begun at inception. I hadn't thought of it like that for a long time. When I was younger, I felt that until that fetus left the womb and breathed air without a connection to the mother it wasn't its own person. I don't think I really feel that way anymore. I have changed my views. As well, I'm troubled by the notion of rights? Does a fetus at any stage of the life cycle have rights? I sort of think it does in some ways. On the other hand I would always put the mother's rights first. But what are those rights? Where I struggle the most, is anyone being able to tell anyone else what they can and can't do around this? I'm ok with free speech and views -- if people believe its wrong to terminate a fetus at any point for any reason -- that's fine. But I'm not ok with them telling someone else who doesn't beleive that -- "too bad", I can force you to do things my way and or punish you if you don't.

I of course find it very troubling that the fanatics on the Pro Life side don't care much about class or race issues, or mitigating teen pregnancy or creating more resources for young people who do give birth. That they want to demand a law of the land, but aren't as vocal or willing to support it to its fullest.

Anyway -- my point wasn't to go in to the details of abortion, just to say that in my lifetime, I've come to stop, take pause and realize that a lot of things I thought were my views were poorly formed or inherited from others or my environment. And that I don't think about it all the same way as I did years ago. And I'm still open.

I would say that's true on matters like Israel-Palestine. And many other areas.

To Vox who felt I was thinly veiled in trying to find a way to be able to make people believe what I beleive, or to use the word "facts" when I meant interpretations...

I've said many times that Chomsky said once in a lecture there are facts, assertions and interpretations and I try to be very careful in all conversations to think about whether I'm asserting or interpreting something, or whether something just simply is a fact.

I am writing this post in this thread now. I can refer to its time stamp tomorrow. That's a fact. (other than some existentsial or quantumm theory) but in the Newtonian world it's a fact. And I do believe that we live in society that is filled with mis-information and distortions of fact and out and out falsehoods and that many people form opinions and debate issues on false premises.