To be clear “don’t take away my health insurance and replace it with something shittier” was never “fuck you, I got mine.”
Jman -
Welcome Comrade
I’m willing to bet that I’m one of the few on these boards who actually attended a Bernie Sanders rally in 2016, in addition to voting for him in the primary.
Going there to protest single payer doesn’t really count as “attending.”
Sorry, couldn’t resist.
I think the strong reaction was due to how you worded it. I legit thought you were trolling.
Yeah, so after reasoned debate you have convinced me of the error of my position. But holy shit at the posters calling me an enemy of the people because I favored public option over single payer.
For the sake of you’re children or grandchildren or great grandchildren you have made a wise choice to fight for M4A…
I won’t apologise for the digs though, I ain’t got that in me but one day you’ll realise that those digs was for your extended family’s benifit.
You took a lot of heat here over the past few days, plenty of it deserved, some a bit excessive. I respect you reflecting on your position and making an effort to understand why we were so upset. Not many people are capable of that, good on you and thank you for updating us
And the way Jman was treated would cause the average person to dig in even more. We have to do a better job of understanding other people’s perspectives.
A lot of union workers are paycheck to paycheck like the rest of us. You can’t blame them for at least being hesitant on giving up something that protects them and their families. Especially when the propaganda machine is working against them.
I am trying to get a really smart political commentator/blogger to start posting here and I would be horrified if he read that exchange. Eventually numbers will dwindle and this will become an echo chamber. Which is fine if that’s what you guys want, but I think plenty do not.
Not everyone who holds an opposite view to you is evil. That’s black and white thinking and what fascists do. Don’t be a fascist. if I could implement any rule on the site, that would be it.
I don’t agree. Healthcare is a basic human right. Opposing UHC is an evil thing to do. “Medicare for all who want it” makes true UHC impossible, or at the very least more difficult and is also, imo, an evil thing.
There is no way I would ever even remotely consider recommending this place to anyone other than a BernieBro.
I don’t think you’re right that incremental change necessarily forestalls further change. A, cSe can be, made that Obamacare, shitty solution as it is, opened the door rhetorically for M4A.
So yeah, not evil, decent people can have a difference of opinion on the best way to ensure that human right. Also, not everybody has fully developed opinions on everything. Being wrong isn’t the same as being evil. Cut some people some slack man. We can argue why someone is, wrong without being so judgemental.
I don’t agree. We’re talking human rights. You’re going to have a reasonable discussion with someone who thinks blacks shouldn’t be able to vote?
Many countries have UHC without single payer. It might just be semantics but Jman was not against UHC. He had concerns about single payer.
My mistake, replace single payer for UHC. And I definitely could have misunderstood his position.
I could be wrong too looking back. Is a public option UHC?
Sure, just like the ACA is. Access!
We’re talking human rights. You’re going to have a reasonable discussion with someone who thinks blacks shouldn’t be able to vote?
Let’s not conflate issues like that. I’m still talking in the context of Jman’s kerfuffle up the thread. He was wrong, but clearly out of ignorance rather than malice.
Even so, to answer your question, yes. People can be radicalised, they can also be deradicalized. This is not to say that I believe in the West Wing fantasy of good intentioned oligarchs talking things out and the best argument becoming policy. At that level the only relevant thing is the accumulation and exercise of power.
But at this level here, between people who only have power when acting as an organized collective, conversations and personal connections matter. So imo the name calling has been more liberal than optimal if what we want is good conversation.
That said, this, doesn’t go for everybody. Some guys need calling a crypto-nazi until they punch you in the face.