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1/ So in today's civic lesson, this is a good example why there are indeed two sides to the debates that divide us.
2/ The first lesson is orthodoxy. I clearly believe in manmade climate change and the efficacy/safety of vaccines, but any deviation from orthodoxy means you think I'm secretly dogwhistling for antivaxxers, climate deniers, and neonazis.
3/ Yes, "vaccines work", but that largely doesn't divide us. Hardcore antivaxxers are fringe. However, the issue that does divide us is whether the government can mandate vaccines. There are a lot of pro-vaccine civil libertarians who oppose such mandates.
4/ So what you do is paint your reasonable opponent as a crazy antivaxxer. A good example is this story on Chris Christy, where he makes perfectly reasonable statements that the media painted as antivax.
cnn.com/2015/02/02/pol…
cnn.com/2015/02/02/pol…
5/ What's ironic is that Christy was more on the side of government mandates than his opponents. Most politicians support the idea that it's parent's choice to vaccinate kids, Christy was saying that in some cases (like measles) government can override parental choice.
6/ Now let's talk climate. It's clear mankind's activities are warming the globe, but every much as the Republicans downplay/deny this, the Democrats exaggerate this. E.g. "Weather is not climate" when it's cold, but it is when it's hot.
7/ Democrats are doing as little as Republicans to address this. They are exploiting the issue to drive political goals, such as union jobs. The "Green New Deal" isn't "Green", but almost solely a "New Deal".
8/ The reason Democrats are inactive is because necessary fixes would be unpopular, such as raising gasoline taxes to the levels they have in Europe. Everyone becomes a science denier when US starts paying $6/gallon for gas like they do in Europe.
9/ Now let's talk about "everyone deserves human rights". That's a nonsense statement, because reasonable people disagree on what are human rights.
10/ Do I have rights to my body? Or does the government have the right to take one of my kidneys to give to somebody who needs it. Or harvest my bone marrow, which is harmless to me. Or deny a woman's choice over her body to have an abortion.
11/ ...or, force a vaccine on me. Somehow what constitutes a "fundamental human right" is more malleable than people claim, and really depends on politics. Every "human right" depends upon the "greater good", e.g. the widespread censorship of white supremacists.
12/ In all the issues that divide us, there are reasonable people on both sides. When you've divided the issue between the reasonable (your side) and the unreasonable, you've become part of the problem of our increasingly polarized society.
13/ Yes, the other side can be "wrong". Nobody is asking you to believe the other side. Instead, it's about tolerating their wrongness.
