(no subject)

[dragonlady7]

from spacellama:

This article in SFGate by Joan Ryan sums up very neatly a lot of what I have been trying to say and what i have heard my friends trying to say.

We Barely Recognize Each Other

Our country has always included a mix of religious and political beliefs. But we shared a foundation of certain "truths to be self-evident'' that allowed us to meet on common ground. Today, I don't know. Our belief systems - - what is right and wrong, what is patriotic and what is not, what is truth and what is not -- are so different and so dramatically shape how we interpret news and information that we seem no longer to be living within the same culture.

I liked the snappy ending, though it's hard for me to share her conviction-- I would've thought it was already self-evident, but I was obviously wrong. I wish I could understand the opposite point of view, but I really can't, and that makes me sad.

Faith and flags won this election. But I haven't lost my belief in another f-word -- facts. They're bound to come back into fashion sooner or later.

As an author of fiction, I've gotten into the heads of a lot of characters. I've used that as an exercise in real life, to understand the motivations of real people too. I do pretty well, generally. But I can't understand the average Bush voter, i just can't. I've been criticized, told I shouldn't dismiss the other point of view, told that the losers of arguments always discredit their opponents by saying they're ignorant, arrogant, or stupid, but... I can't understand them. I've understood all kinds of people whose viewpoints are in actuality pretty repulsive to me, but I can't wrap my heads around 51% of this nation.

Pretty damn sad.

Comments

[mother2012.livejournal.com]

All I can do is agree with you. I understand Bush himself, he's a religious fanatic/megalomaniac. I can understand some of the Bush voters - people like my sister who are so overwhelmingly bible-beaters that they really believe that the whole country should conform to that. The rest of them are beyond me.

And yes, we are becoming a country divided. And that's scary.

[spacellama.livejournal.com]

Maybe you don't have to understand them, but just respect their different choices? I don't know.

Also, I'm not sure there is such a thing as an average Bush voter. Two people I know who voted for Bush did so for wildly different reasons. One saw his taxes go down in a big way and pretty much based his decision on that. The other was terrified of Kerry and what he sees as a wave of secularist oppression. Neither of them minded giving me their reasons when I asked. It was enlightening.

Asking people why they voted for Kerry was equally enlightening, once I got past the inevitable "because he's not Bush!" bit.

Right now, I see people on both sides being hurt and hurting each other, even if they aren't aware they're doing it, all in the name of political differences. It just can't be worth this.

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

What upsets me is that it's almost impossible to discuss either side without encountering immediate hostility.
And it bothers me.

That article-- even she was leaning a little bit, obviously upset and using slightly, slightly stronger language than I quite wanted to see. I can't send that link to people I know voted for Bush-- they will see that first paragraph of reasons not to vote for Bush ("Somehow, as Bush and his party cut taxes to the rich, sent young Americans to their deaths in a war based on untruths") and say "this is leftist claptrap" and not read it.

It is *impossible* to discuss these issues neutrally. I have tried my best, Lord knows, but you can't even bring up *facts* without people dismissing you as partisan. Certain facts are denied by one side or the other, and if you mention that fact, you are aligning yourself with a side.

It's really sad.

And the bit about "secularist oppression" really bothers me-- I have never heard of an atheist preventing anyone from worshipping, but I have often heard of a church member preventing others from worshipping other churches. Where do they get that? But see-- the very fact that I say that aligns me firmly with a party.

You know, it was a big deal when Kennedy ran that he was a Catholic. My father remembers everyone voting for him because he was "one of them".
He is the only President *ever* not to be one of a very narrow spectrum of flavors of Protestant.

And Ohio Catholics?
Voted overwhelmingly for Bush.
Even though his church is responsible for, in the past, denying Catholics civil rights.

Way to have a sense of history.

See that? Partisan.

I can't do it. I can't come up with a way to discuss this neutrally. Thanksgiving is going to be agonizing.

[spacellama.livejournal.com]

I have never heard of an atheist preventing anyone from worshipping

An atheist gentleman recently sued all the way to the Supreme Court to keep his daughter from saying "under God" when she recited the Pledge of Allegiance at school. When asked, the kid said she had no problem with religion or God and that in fact she liked going to church with her mother.

In Europe recently, EU folks declined the nomination of an Italian person who was fully qualified for the job. During confirmation hearings, even though his post had nothing to do with cultural issues and the line of questioning was utterly irrelevant, they asked him if he believed that homosexuality was a sin. He's a Roman Catholic. He said that yes, he thought it was sinful, but that he had never and would never allow that private opinion affect his public policy decisions. He was denied the post because of his beliefs.

Here in Texas, it's customary to have a prayer or moment of silence before football games, asking a vague deity to keep the players safe regardless who wins the game. Very recently, a court here determined that even a moment of silence where no deity was mentioned was an infringement on the rights of atheists and therefore was illegal.

Yes, I've heard of quite a few incidents where atheists are trying to overlay their views on everyone else. Doesn't mean they aren't entitled to their religion, it just means that they, like many other religions, are fiercely evangelical.

It is *impossible* to discuss these issues neutrally. I have tried my best, Lord knows, but you can't even bring up *facts* without people dismissing you as partisan.

I don't think you're partisan; I think you're concerned, which is understandable. But we're doing a good job of talking about issues, aren't we? :)

I think you may have had some bad interactions with bizarre conservatives. I debate these things with my husband a lot, and when two people who respect each other debate, it's not frustrating or vicious. It's liberating.

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

I attended a high school that was aggressively a-religious. So I spent my formative years being carefully non-exclusive when discussing matters of religion. It's become such a habit with me, despite the fact that I myself am a practicing Christian, that it jars me when others do not exercise this courtesy. I am "politically correct" by habit, but what I mean by that is that I use language deliberately, say what I mean, don't say "man" when I mean "person", don't say a word without taking its connotations into account, and don't misuse words for the sake of misleading people. (Moral Values my foot-- what the hell does that even mean?)

I agree with the "under God" fellow, by the way-- the words were not original to the pledge, and were added during the Communist scare. His particular case is stupid, but at all times, it is best to err on the side of the non-specific. The Church and the State were meant to be separate, and it is dangerous to combine them, especially when it is not necessary. It's a throwaway line in that pledge. It doesn't add anything. And it alienates people from something that should be a wonderfully unifying thing. Whether his daughter cared or not is immaterial; logically, he's right.

I am firmly of the belief that no religion should ever be forced upon anyone. Any evangelical atheists I knew usually had been forced to attend church and were of the bitter-troublemaker sort. (Yes, I wanted to smack them. But logically, they were right. Well, sometimes.)

As far as debates...
I grew up debating things with my father. He likes to debate, almost for fun. He loves nothing more than a rousing conversation, and if the conversation is failing he will switch over to argue the other side, irrespective of what he believes, simply for the thrill of the debate. There is something almost physically satisfying in the correct deployment of logic, and the subtle intricacies of manoevering that take place in debates.

I love this, and it was a great moment for me when, at about fifteen years of age, I argued the contrary position on gay rights, and got him to admit that, well, yes, the gay rights movement was obnoxious and confrontational, but the underlying issues were valid ones. I have never forgotten how triumphant I felt, knowing that I had managed to get him to consider an argument he hadn't really thought of. And he was proud of me.

It really upsets me that I can't do that with everyone. Though, even growing up, I knew you couldn't always do that. My mom hates it, and won't argue with Dad at all unless she has to. They always disagree in politics, and always go to vote in the knowledge that they're going to cancel one another out. (I can argue freely with Dave, but we agree on just about everything, so it's kind of stupid and a waste of time and rapidly degenerates into, "yes, you don't have to tell me that".)

But I haven't discussed this election with my father. I know he didn't like John Kerry. Given the beliefs I know he holds, he should have disliked Bush as well or more. I don't know how he voted. I'm almost afraid to ask.

[spacellama.livejournal.com]

I had a very similar experience with my dad. He thought I was nuts for a while when I was a kid going through my socialist phase. Now he thinks I'm a nut for backing the legalization of pot. I think he's a nut for holding onto the AFL-CIO with both arms. But it's wild fun to debate with him.

I have the very vivid suspicion that Dad and I voted differently in this election. But I think he's also proud of me for giving a shit.

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

>don't have to understand them, but just respect


But that's where I get stuck. I can't just say "I don't get it but they're good". I have to understand, in order to respect. I don't know how to respect something without having thought it over first. I would feel that was devaluing my "respect", if I just handed it out because I had no choice.

I could just accept it, but that's not at all the same. I have to understand, or I'll never be happy with it at all.