I'm not scared of being divisive. Anyone who takes a position on one side of a polarizing issue is inherently being divisive. If my views are informed by any sort of "rhetoric," then so are your opposing views. I don't identify as a Republican, because I am much more demanding than the average bitch sell-out Republican. (And as I've said, I am a non-interventionist) I want the left to be fought and destroyed before they can inflict any more damage to our liberty through their collectivist pipe dreams.
And you
shouldn't be scared of being divisive in the general sense of the word. And yes, everyone is to some degree influenced by rhetoric from people or entities they align with. My criticism of republican rhetoric in specific is that it is divisive in the sense that its main goal is to amplify anger (from however genuine a place it might come) and then direct that anger at a specific group they consider undesirable. Some of it may come from a genuine place of disagreement, criticism, or dissatisfaction, but it is amplified beyond anything reasonable so that it can be used to push people further apart.
A genuine belief in the second amendment becomes a belief that it is irrefutable, becomes a belief that gun control is not acceptable in any form, becomes a belief that research into gun violence is not acceptable, becomes a belief that research has malicious intentions, becomes a belief that democrats want to take away your guns, becomes a belief that democrats are driven by malicious intent in almost everything they do, becomes a belief that 'the left' must be destroyed.
It misrepresents and dehumanizes any opposition and removes any possibility of discussion, compromise or understanding. You are actively pushing any possible opposition away,
because you have already determined that any opposition must be malicious or ignorant of how they are secretly malicious. The opposition then has no choice but to call you extreme, which just results in you being pushed even further away and likely pushing them farther to the left, making the caricature that the rhetoric made of them seem more accurate, which pushes you further away, which pushes them further away, et cetera. Do you not see that this specific type of rhetoric, pushed mainly by the republican party and their political supporters, is by its design intended to exploit the weaknesses of your already highly partisan political system in order to accelerate political polarization in your country?
Also, I can't worry too much about how someone left of center feels about conservatism in any form, or even my particular brand of anti-statism. I don't expect them to like it. I am quite sure they think I am just as wacked out as I think they are.
Of course, I am right and they are wrong.
Problem being that you have already decided beforehand that they are 'wacked out', preventing any actual discussion, understanding, compromise, or cooperation. But I've already explained that. There are plenty of discussions I could have with conservatives across the political spectrum about many conservative issues and where I fall on those issues, and though I may disagree with many conservative policies, sometimes vehemently, there will almost always be room for some form of reflection, a gaining of insight into what drives the other, and in rare cases, a compromise. Those opportunities just do not seem to be present in our current discussion.
My issue isn't with conservatism. My issue is with political entities pushing conservative standpoints to their extremes and their attempts to create and / or amplify anger so that they can turn it against political opponents and minorities, all purely because it gives them more political power. Digging even deeper, my issue isn't even with the republican party per se, but the in my view broken political system that drives them. That broken political system is also what I see as a significant cause of the issues within / with the democratic party.
I don't mind discussion at all, but I just feel like we are talking past each other on the immigration issue. I recognize that immigration is a reality of human existence, especially in this era of transportation and communication. I also think we need to have control of our own borders in the interest of our own citizens. I think the current assumption of the left is that all immigration is presumed to be valuable and justified and that the burden of proof is on opponents to justify why it should not happen, oh...and also to justify why they are not "racists." I just want the base presumption to be the opposite, that immigration of any particular group or even individual to the United States should have to be justified in the interests of our citizens.
Both the expansion of immigration and the restriction of immigration should be (and are) discussed in the context of the effects they would have. You can't just say that restrictions should without question take place and then turn around and say that any sort of expansion needs to be justified.
Both need to be justified. This is not a question of one or the other. You cannot simply without justification scrap all current policy and then demand people compromise with you, especially not when your views prevent any significant compromise from happening. That is not a viable policy.
It is not just 'presumed' to be valuable; there are arguments and statistics and studies that inform that view, just like there are arguments and statistics and studies to inform the view that it has negative effects. We exchange those arguments to determine acceptable compromises or to find areas of agreement. The resulting policy can later be challenged if its effects are different from what was expected or if changes take place that would affect the policy.
The presumption that immigration is valuable and the presumption that immigration has certain negative economic effects are in no way mutually exclusive. Both are true. People just hold different views on how they should be balanced. Those views can be discussed,
but if you come into that discussion with the belief that everyone should align their view with yours instead of any interest in self-reflection, understanding, or compromise, then you will never ever make any progress.
In a more practical sense, it is clear that increasing the size of the labor force cannot be good for wages, particularly at the low end. Borjas from Harvard has written on this, and he is predisposed to favoring immigration overall, but he notes that it HAS reduced real wages at the lower end of the American workforce. And it is why groups on the "right" like the Chamber of Commerce love immigration so much, they want cheap labor. It is also why labor unions have traditionally opposed mass immigration, because all the benefit of the new cheap labor accrues to the bosses and owners.
As I have said many times now, the things you are describing here are not the things I am disputing. I agree that we are clearly talking past each other and I sadly see no way for us to be able to move past that. I don't think further discussion would be much productive, though I'd understand if you want to respond to some things said above before we drop the discussion.
Your posts are very good and I appreciate them. I just feel like it gets sorta crazy repeating the standard rightist critiques of leftist positions.
I agree that it is getting repetitive. We are evidently stuck in a loop that I see no way of breaking out of.
