- Half of the US wants their country, traditions and values
- Half of the US doesn't want a country (no border), upended traditions and no values
There are two countries and will destroy each other.
One country believes the world is going to end from climate change; that COVID19 is 10-100x more deadly than it actually is; that men can transition to women; that abortion is not murder.. I can go on.
The other believes the climate is always changing, but humans can adapt over years; that COVID19 is only 5x-10x more deadly than it actually is; and that a man can be a eunuch and dress like a woman, but still is not a woman; that abortion is murder... again, I can go on.
The polarization isn't really mend-able.
Both sides believe in polar opposites. Only one side believes this is the land of the free where anything is possible. The other side wants believes it needs to impose it's will to "stop climate change", "stop the spread", "stop the hate".
Don't you see it!? The hypocrisy of it?
Only one side wants to take away peoples ability to work, to travel, to raise a family, to educate your children, even your bodily autonomy.
This polarization is driven by hate. Hatred of traditions and of a history.
> “With those three words—‘very fine people’—the president showed that he was sympathetic to the men who staged the most highly publicized march for racism and antisemitism in the United States in many decades.”
Yes, because there were "many 'very fine people' on both sides", the omitted words are important. "There's no excuse for what happened" indeed.
This stops when both sides can admit that last years riots which left at least 38 dead were not "mostly peaceful", but a deadly riot. Similarly, that "January 6" was not an "insurrection", but a deadly riot (as the FBI already stated).
Yes, there were and are 'very fine people' on both sides, but the extremes on both sides are violent. We as a free people should not oppress our neighbors and that collaboration is required for us to continue as a civilization ... if we can even agree we want a civilization any more.
But disagreement is not equivalent to polarization. Polarization means that the middle grounds are not inhabited and everyone takes shelter at the poles. They grow too far apart to even hear each other. Most people can still remember a time when this wasn't the case, in fact the most interesting thing about politics was listening to people arguing and trying to convince each other.
You are the kind of person the authors are talking about. You're getting way too much of your information from social media. You think the people who are not in your defined tribe take cartoonishly extreme positions and therefore they must be stopped at all costs.
Well, nowadays even a lot of the “conventional” news just repeats what was already reported in social media (usually in an even much worse state of condition), so I dunno if you’re going to escape this after quitting social media. (Also understand that you’re posting on HN which is another social media with its own bubble, and a lot of the takes people post here are either unimaginable or even heinous in various other parts of the Internet.)
The real issue is that, people began to understand that they have no reason to blindly receive pre-manufactured truth from above, so they began to manufacture their own instead. Your position of “these tribal people must be stopped at all costs” only accelerates this phenomenon, since that makes you more “part of the elite that wants to control the narrative”. The ultimate problem is not truth, it’s about trust: “why should we believe in those officials when they have ransacked our people?”
Millions of people are losing their ability to work. Can't be hired unless they have an irreversible medical procedure, can't be hired based on quotes for race, banned from social media, etc
Do you understand?
This is cartoonishly extreme and it is reality; I know multiple people living this experience today. Lost their job and can't get another one in the field of their expertise.
People are in their own bubbles and not listening to those outside of their class / social circles. IMO this is the impact of having half of the views being censored on social media.
>Can't be hired unless they have an irreversible medical procedure
How can something be extreme if it has been the status quo everywhere on the planet for 50 years? Something extreme is, by definition, unusual.
You can think compulsory vaccinations are wrong, but there were compulsory vaccinations ten years ago. It has always been difficult for antivaxxers to find work, particularly in healthcare or education.
> there were compulsory vaccinations ten years ago
That’s simply not true. People didn’t used to need to show papers to go inside McDonald’s in NYC.
Similarly, there are many many laws against discriminating based on medical status and they always had religious exemptions. Employers are ignoring that at the moment and there are hundreds to thousands of ongoing lawsuits atm.
And I know many people who were and are working in healthcare without vaccines. Some of whom have lost their ability to work only the past 6 months.
Anyway, it appears pretty unusual. There weren’t many of these issues 4-5 years ago. So clearly something extreme happened.
It frankly doesn’t matter if it’s an excuse no one has a say in a persons beliefs.
Theres also a lot more legal background than meets the eye. For instance, the sanctity of bodily autonomy falls under that umbrella. Meaning, you can object to literally anything going into your body for any reason, even if that’s just “I want the autonomy to do so — my body is my temple and I don’t want xxx inside as I want to be pure blood” literally what ever.
There’s a lot of legal precedent to that. Now that only means you need “reasonable accommodations” which could be testing, masks, w.e. Depending on what’s being challenged.
Historically, only ~1% objected to vaccines, but given the push a lot more people have done research and are concerned. I know many people who are now entirely anti-vaccine after reviewing data, others who are more bullish than ever. At the end of the day though...
We have never had a mandate barring people from exercise facilities, restaurants, etc based on vaccines. Even the historic attempts have had mixed results and the Supreme Court cases only covered minor fines ($5 in 1920 kinda deal).
This is far more extreme than a historic context. And for reference only schools have really mandated vaccines and they’re required by law to have exemptions, which courts have ruled can generally not be questioned all that thoroughly.
> It has always been difficult for antivaxxers to find work, particularly in healthcare or education.
This is incorrect.
In the U.S., there have never been any nationwide employment requirements for vaccination before the (currently blocked) Executive Order. During some pandemics, there were brief requirements at some local and municipal levels, but these were not nationwide or particularly widespread.
Mandatory vaccinations have existed for students, but not teachers, and certainly not healthcare workers. And certainly not workers in general.
Moreover the ease of getting exemptions meant that in some areas - like Marin County - more than 50% of students were not vaccinated against things like measles during the height of the anti-vaccine movement in the 2000-2015 period. However this was primarily limited to a few wealthy, coastal counties and was not a nationwide phenomena.
The fact of the matter is that there was never a big movement to not get vaccinations up until now either. Except for some hippie areas and perhaps some small religious groups like the Amish, vaccines were not a political thing or a contentious thing. Thus there was no point to even having big mandates.
But retconning this to just pretend that mandatory vaccines for employment were common in the past is incorrect. It's just not the case that the debate was already settled -- it was only settled for vaccines for school kids with a generous opt-out policy.
Not knowing what the parent wrote one question I'd have would be: At which point is it legitimate to hammer a political movement for things they have done?
As someone living in Germany, I know that the original Nazis deployed self-victimization as an strategy as well, claiming the other side has no legitimate interest to defend, but only critizises them because they dislike them. Then they set the Reichstag on fire, claimed it was the communists, declared an state of emergency and that was that.
I think we are too assuming that such a thing would be impossible in this day and age. It isn't.
* I'll leave a trigger warning *
Let's have a real conversation.
- Half of the US wants their country, traditions and values
- Half of the US doesn't want a country (no border), upended traditions and no values
There are two countries and will destroy each other.
One country believes the world is going to end from climate change; that COVID19 is 10-100x more deadly than it actually is; that men can transition to women; that abortion is not murder.. I can go on.
The other believes the climate is always changing, but humans can adapt over years; that COVID19 is only 5x-10x more deadly than it actually is; and that a man can be a eunuch and dress like a woman, but still is not a woman; that abortion is murder... again, I can go on.
The polarization isn't really mend-able.
Both sides believe in polar opposites. Only one side believes this is the land of the free where anything is possible. The other side wants believes it needs to impose it's will to "stop climate change", "stop the spread", "stop the hate".
Don't you see it!? The hypocrisy of it?
Only one side wants to take away peoples ability to work, to travel, to raise a family, to educate your children, even your bodily autonomy.
This polarization is driven by hate. Hatred of traditions and of a history.
> “With those three words—‘very fine people’—the president showed that he was sympathetic to the men who staged the most highly publicized march for racism and antisemitism in the United States in many decades.”
Yes, because there were "many 'very fine people' on both sides", the omitted words are important. "There's no excuse for what happened" indeed.
This stops when both sides can admit that last years riots which left at least 38 dead were not "mostly peaceful", but a deadly riot. Similarly, that "January 6" was not an "insurrection", but a deadly riot (as the FBI already stated).
Yes, there were and are 'very fine people' on both sides, but the extremes on both sides are violent. We as a free people should not oppress our neighbors and that collaboration is required for us to continue as a civilization ... if we can even agree we want a civilization any more.