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[Frumple]

I was "Treated like a right-winger?" and "Forced to defend positions I don't believe in?" regarding None's accusation that I'm Peddling '"masks are authoritarian tyranny' bullshit"

That... wasn't an accusation, you literally called republican intransigent regarding pandemic response, specifically the mask mandate, fighting Authoritarianism.

Yep.

In Wisconsin they objected to how the Democratic governor was dealing with the pandemic when it became a big deal in 2020, particularly over mask mandates and how the state health secretary (or whatever it was called) extended the first one since they claimed they didn’t have the power to do that so took them to court… rather than organize a vote in the Republican-controlled state senate to vote it down.

So apparently fighting Authoritarianism is a Bad Thing. Except when the Republicans do it. Got it.

If that's not what you were intending to communicate, you made some remarkably poor word choices, because the words you chose were peddling exactly what was claimed.

[EuchreJack]

I was "Treated like a right-winger?" and "Forced to defend positions I don't believe in?" regarding None's accusation that I'm Peddling '"masks are authoritarian tyranny' bullshit"

That... wasn't an accusation, you literally called republican intransigent regarding pandemic response, specifically the mask mandate, fighting Authoritarianism.

Yep.

In Wisconsin they objected to how the Democratic governor was dealing with the pandemic when it became a big deal in 2020, particularly over mask mandates and how the state health secretary (or whatever it was called) extended the first one since they claimed they didn’t have the power to do that so took them to court… rather than organize a vote in the Republican-controlled state senate to vote it down.

So apparently fighting Authoritarianism is a Bad Thing. Except when the Republicans do it. Got it.

If that's not what you were intending to communicate, you made some remarkably poor word choices, because the words you chose were peddling exactly what was claimed.

1 against 3, got it.  Nice.

I don't suppose you care what I actually think, do you?

[Loud Whispers]

My guy, they are trying their best to understand what you think. You can have faith in this forum, and you must have faith in your fellow man, that if you articulate your beliefs clearly they will respond in good faith. No one's trying to score points or upboats or clout here, it isn't clear what your thoughts are besides a disatisfaction with American 2 party politics, and people are trying to understand where you're at

[EuchreJack]

Fine.

My beliefs are that the mask mandate was originally quite necessary, yet over time was needlessly extended in private matters to exert greater government control over the populace. This perpetrated a climate of fear in which the average voter was more easily manipulated.

My belief on mask mandates at this point in time is that they should be necessary in what I deem "necessary locations" when the numbers exceed a certain threshold.  A "necessary location" is a place that people go without much choice, such as government buildings.  A location where a mask mandate should not be permissible at this time is bars, restaurants, and other businesses where people are going of their own free will.

My belief, overall, is that the political process has largely worked in this issue.  On both sides, Governors are proceeding at least sensitive to the needs and desires of the majority of their populace.  And by majority, I mean 51%.  Governors that are less sensitive to the needs and desires of the populace are more likely to be voted out.

My belief, finally, is that COVID itself has changed the Average Person's brain chemistry to be more angry and divisive. 
The prevalent atmosphere of loss doesn't help. I have to put up with it every day, and I'm in no way immune to it.  We're basically a society where everyone has minor brain damage, and we're trying to keep going.

[McTraveller]

The polarization - at least in the US - started long before COVID-19.  I'd say it's the inevitable consequence of decades of post-modernism and "what makes the individual feel right, is right" philosophy rather than any kind of "right is right, sorry if you don't feel that way" or "united we stand, divided we fall."  This is also coupled with "if we scream louder, we must be right" or "I'm going to use force to demonstrate my position is right."

[nenjin]

"Winning is what matters. The cost doesn't matter."

The voter base has said as much, and it really became prominent in the early 2000s to me. The moral decay they scream about, they've watched happen to their own morals. (Conservative moralizing goes way further back then that, but the early 2000s is where I feel like it started to hit a fever pitch and entered the mainstream of the party.)

I feel like older politicians would be careful not to get too shrill because throwing stones from glass houses used to be considered a losing strategy. But lately, when politicians have convinced themselves everyone is just as guilt as they are, what's the point in acting ashamed? Don't back down, double down! If you're going to lose anyways, why not Hail Mary? Forget the damage that does to the political body and mentality of the United States! Winning is what matters, not consequences! Consequences are for losers to figure out.

[Max™]

I wonder if I'm one of the last holdouts to fall, managed to avoid it until the start of october.

We finally got covid after the father-in-law brought it home, then he masked/isolated dutifully for a couple days before deciding that was enough since he was feeling better due to vaccinations and dropped all pretense of caring about it, so despite //us// masking/avoiding any contact with him, when you can't completely control the airflow in a household it is really fucking hard to avoid when someone stops caring about infecting others.

Note that this is the same dumbfuck I started completely avoiding after he rushed into the room to defend the orange moron TWO AND A HALF YEARS AGO when I was trying to inform his wife that she should ignore anyone--especially said orange moron--saying "it's just the flu" or "it's over don't worry about it" so he comes in demanding to know when the orange moron said that, what my sources are, and I pointed out 'any sources, YOUR sources' before he walked off muttering "idiot" at me.

To be fair, I was very, very, VERY wrong when I said 'he's going to get tens of thousands of people killed' back then, by several orders of magnitude, but yeah... the angry divisive brainrot was already present before everybody got covid.

The fact that we had the absolute worst person possible in office instead of the most qualified candidate ever meant instead of early detection/containment systems being in place/funded/heeded we had them dismantled and ignored and what might have been quashed before it fucking left China¹ has now killed what... 15 to 25 million people? Left WHO KNOWS how many long haulers? Did literally unimaginable damage which will only become fully visible in a few decades?

...but no, asking people to endure a trivial inconvenience² and pretend to care about the wellbeing of those around them³ in order to take part in society is terrible, how dare we?

[1]Having someone with previous pandemic-stomping experience, who knew how to fully leverage federal and international power, who understood the importance of providing a unified response locally and globally may literally have stopped this back in Jan 2020, arguably it may have been identified in late 2019 HAD THE PANDEMIC COOPERATION TEAMS BETWEEN CHINA AND THE US NOT BEEN DISMANTLED BY REPUBLICANS FOR FUCK'S SAKE!
[2]I've slept in a goddamn mask and gaiter when she started recovering first and I felt guilty coughing/breathing on her at night, I haven't been in public without one in years, fuck off with this "I can't breathe it's too stuffy" bullshit you big babies.
[3]My mask protects YOU, your mask protects ME, together we can keep each other safe.

[None]

Scott Walker and the state conservatives flexed the power of the governor as much as they wanted until his term was over, then they limited the power of the governor as much as they could, since Evers is not a conservative.

I have no reason to doubt this, as that is what any party does.  I'm sure that is in the future for New York and the democrats.

What you feel will happen is not equivalent to what did happen, given that the future isn't here yet. I need you to demonstrate where this has happened in New York or from the democrats if you want to stand on this point.

With the pandemic, Evers was making mandates and requesting voting extensions at recommendation of medical experts, but the state supreme court was choosing not to hear his requests, stating that they cannot make judgments being that they are not medical experts instead of, y'know, listening to experts. Also, there were lawsuits because the medical experts in question were not elected officials.

There is a definite legal argument to be made that only elected officials can make decisions. Although I don't know the specific nature of the lawsuit.
Not all mandates are bad, and not all mandates are good.

There is, but the place was not 'with the immunocompromised on the line,' particularly when the rest of the nation was also applying mandates. If we want to get into the legalese, per this website,

Under State Statute 323.10: “If the governor determines that a public health emergency exists, he or she may issue an executive order declaring a state of emergency related to public health for the state or any portion of the state and may designate the department of health services as the lead state agency to respond to that emergency.” The Statute continues: “A state of emergency shall not exceed 60 days, unless the state of emergency is extended by joint resolution of the legislature [underline added].”

Which wasn't happening because the republican legislature wouldn't give Evers what they saw as a 'win,' opposing him cut off SNAP funding (leverage) since the state of emergency he declared was revoked by said legislature, which was done because he hadn't involved the legislature. The legislature wouldn't agree to a mask mandate because police officers wouldn't enforce it (largely because of political affiliation), so it wasn't going to happen anyways.

Looking specifically at this article, it looks like the mask mandate itself began August 1st 2020 and extended into January 2021, prompting the lawsuit. This is still before vaccines were available at all.

Conservatives also blocked every measure to distribute absentee ballots to all registered voters

This mostly sucks. All registered voters should have gotten absentee ballots.  Because they're registered voters.

You'll remember The Big Lie was a rallying point at this point.

, or extend or delay the election in early 2020

This I agree with.  I'm generally opposed to moving election dates around, as it is hard enough to get people to show up even when they know what day the election occurs.  Moving it around just means less voters.

The extensions, too? Better access to voting was blocked.

to when people would a) know more about the pandemic, b) have more poll workers available, c) give voters more time to figure out absentee voting. Here's what Green Bay, Wisconsin thought about it, along with about thirty links about it

And speaking for Milwaukee, it reduced voting turnout by a third.

There are some valid concerns here.  I personally don't think they're enough, but this is 2 years later with all knowledge of COVID available.  COVID killed the brain cells that remembered a lot of the 2020 election.

We didn't have vaccines at this point, and Milwaukee/Green Bay went from some 50+ polling places each to two. People were in line for hours to vote. Pandemic or not, some special circumstance removed 95% of the places people could place votes and reduces total voter turnout by a third as a result. That's unacceptable for a healthy democracy. Already less than half the nation votes; that is an enormous margin of difference when victory counts on single-digit percentage leads.

one party was specifically opposing science and opposing the rights of people to vote safely during the pandemic. That was conservatives. Rebecca Kleefisch, who's running for governor, literally campaigned in her ads about "Tyrannical Evers" while soliciting donations a la Donald Trump's "It's not too late! Donate $50 this week (weekly) to stop the Democrats! We'll triple your donation if you do it before 10pm, our donation bonus is activated!"

Calls to safety are how we get tyranny.
Emergency Powers have to end sometime. I'm not arguing that they should have never been wielded, but rather that they were welded too long.

Stop treating me like the Right Wingers that you hate, and maybe we can engage in actual dialog instead of constantly forcing me to defend positions I don't believe in.

You'll remember the lawsuits came before vaccines were even readily available. Emergency powers do have to end some time, presumably with legislature, but legislature wouldn't do the safety part even before it was 'safe' to dismiss the mask mandate safety part.

In counties where county mandates were strongly enforced, sidestepping the statewide requirements (Dane County, site of the capitol), outcomes were much better.

[Max™]

Saw someone point out something interesting regarding mindsets.

I'm liberal and progressive because I genuinely want things to be easier for others than they were for me, I can't imagine seriously holding a position like "my childhood was shit and things were hard afterwards ...so why can't everyone just overcome their troubles" much less "...so everyone should have to struggle like I did" because it's wrong.

When I hear about conservative stances it offends me deeply to imagine myself telling someone they have to abide by my arbitrary beliefs and ideas, especially about things which don't actually affect me.

Saying someone shouldn't be allowed to control how someone acts just because they feel like it isn't based on an arbitrary belief, it's simply about fairness, and to be honest it is also a statement about how I want to be treated: I refuse to demand you go along with my whims, as I refuse to go along with any such demands, though I prefer they not be made at all because doing that is wrong.


Liberals often act like a conservative position is based on some principled and well researched belief that others don't deserve bodily autonomy, that an old storybook should be the last say on all sorts of things, and government should do as little as possible.

Trying to argue against those positions based on that assumption is pointless, and it is never going to do anything but waste time.


A more accurate description of the thought process behind essentially all conservative positions can usually be described as rooted in distrust.

The assumption that others will take advantage of things, that of course anyone given an inch is going to take a mile, that any justification given regarding concern or altruism is just concealing some true motivation for any actions or suggestions.

This is why the "it's always projection" thing keeps seeming such an apt description of events: it wasn't projection at all, it's how they think everyone thinks.

"The only reason I can imagine someone would say we should do [A] is if they secretly wanted to do [B] and anyone who wanted to do [B] is a terrible person so anyone who says we should do [A] is a terrible person."

[McTraveller]

It's not just fear. Some people really do believe that certain behaviors are abhorrent.

I think there is danger both in incorrectly identifying what behaviors are socially and individually destructive and in abusing power when people behave in an "unacceptable" manner.

Basically - society will suffer if it accepts things that shouldn't be accepted (either in what is accepted without "punishment" or if excessive punishment is accepted) and if it doesn't accept things that should be accepted.

There's also a massive shift in the concepts of individual vs. collective "acceptable" behaviors.  Basically the whole needs of the many vs. the needs of the few, or the needs of the present against the needs of the future types of arguments.

[MrRoboto75]

When I hear about conservative stances it offends me deeply to imagine myself telling someone they have to abide by my arbitrary beliefs and ideas, especially about things which don't actually affect me.

it's because you possess empathy

[hector13]

It's not just fear. Some people really do believe that certain behaviors are abhorrent.

I think there is danger both in incorrectly identifying what behaviors are socially and individually destructive and in abusing power when people behave in an "unacceptable" manner.

Basically - society will suffer if it accepts things that shouldn't be accepted (either in what is accepted without "punishment" or if excessive punishment is accepted) and if it doesn't accept things that should be accepted.

There's also a massive shift in the concepts of individual vs. collective "acceptable" behaviors.  Basically the whole needs of the many vs. the needs of the few, or the needs of the present against the needs of the future types of arguments.

Therein lies the problem: the two parties fundamentally disagree on what’s acceptable and what isn’t, so when one gains control of the reins, the other excoriates them as the bearers of chaos and destruction that will bring about Armageddon, which basically means that “anything goes” so far as politicking.

Which is sad because the Republicans are much better at doing that than the Democrats.

[Micro102]

I believe the republican party has gone past just disagreeing with what is acceptable or not. They have rejected science, calling covid and global warming a hoax. Millions will die because of this. They have declared their support for veterans in speeches, but vote against them getting healthcare for the wars they send them to. They vote against bills for various types of welfare, then blatantly lie to their voters that they brought that money in. They target minorities, be it through immigration, voting, or medical rights, they aim to punish them. They refuse to punish Greene for her insane jewish space lasers claim, among other Qanon beliefs. They tried to completely remove the ACA without replacement, again, which would kill countless people. They recently dumped money into the hands of the wealthiest with tax breaks all while talking about how the elites are trying to take over the country. They house pedophiles like Moore and Gaetz and hundreds of other republican sex offenders. And they attempted a coup, and some are to this day still, denying that Joe Biden is president. All without consequences. Just about every thing they claim democrats do, they have been caught doing.

Now, point this out to their base and what do you get? "Something something, the democrats are secretly doing just as bad stuff". An endless river of conspiracy theories that just grow and grow until they are as big as they need to be until they can explain away everything. Apparently Google, Hollywood, all of TV news except FOX (actually, I recall some conservatives saying FOX news has become too liberal after OANN appeared) and OANN, nearly all scientists and colleges, China, George Soros, and all social media platforms are conspiring together to crush conservatives...

But it's unreasonable to believe this right? So I find these actions to be similar to the cognitive dissonance you find in cults. They know it's bullshit, but some of them are so invested in it that they cannot just admit "I was wrong about my life choices, it was all a mistake", and some of them want the suffering the republican party brings. They want a hierarchy where they are on top of others, just like the various caste systems we have had throughout history. And some of them just haven't had the opportunity to hear the endless examples of hypocrisy and corruption that exist, but if they have a phone and has so much as glanced at social media, they should have the inclination to look these atrocities up.

All this tribalism, divisiveness, and doomsaying, is all coming from the republican party. They went further and further right and are simply lying to try and convince people that equal fault lies with the democrats and the left.

[nenjin]

The Republican House unveiled its Stop the Sexualization of Children Act.

Proposes to end federal funding for any entity which mentions sexual identity to children under 10. That's a pretty gross oversimplification. The bill equates discussion of sexual identity as exposing children to sexually explicit material. (And goes on to state that "library systems, museums and other educational facilities that receive federal funding have purchased sexually-oriented material that targets preadolsecent children and teaches them about concepts like masturbation, pornography, sexual acts and gender transition."

Mmhhhmm. I'll bet they did. Because if you subtracted the first 3 things before that, you'd look like a complete asshole and be telling the truth at the same time. Instead it tries to associate gender-transitioning to showing children pornography.

I wonder if they actually have to provide any facts as part of their bill's raison d'etre, or if proposing bills in Congress has a lower bar of proof that you're not full of shit than an internet forum.

[Lord Shonus]

Any Representative can introduce any bill at any time. That's why hundreds are introduced in every session, a pretty large proportion of which go nowhere.

This bill is a pretty typical example of performative nonsense. It has only 32 co-sponsors (almost as many signed on to a "stop pulling oil out of the strategic oil reserve!" bill) and will die in committee. It exists solely so that the people proposing it can use "proposed the stop sexualizing children act" in their final-stretch campaign ads.