CMV and ELI5 also have decent political discussion at times I think; askHistorians often seems to provide insight into current political issues; there's probably more I don't know.
For all the good and enjoyment I get out of Reddit, sometimes it seems like it's just various angry mobs that coalesce and split as needed to maximize the amount of angry voices present at any one time for any one topic.
I'm an avid gamer, but honestly I can't read popular gaming subreddit (wow and halo for game specific sub), it's almost depressing. There's so much flames and complaints that you can even appreciate something without getting a lot of flake.
Leave subreddits that are just as lousy with shills as Twitter, there are subs for a decent political conversation (at least, as decent as is possible in 2019).
Personally I've found lots of quality discussion outside the usual places. /r/europe tends to have nice debates every now and then. I'm sure other regions or subjects have nice communities where people discuss things without insulting each other.
/r/politics is fairly left-leaning by US standards, while The_Donald and /r/conservative are hardly about politics anymore. Furthermore, I'd say on a global scale /r/politics is pretty much dead middle, while subreddits like /r/latestagecapitalism represent the far left.
Frankly, Democrats are being pulled to the left by the progressives and Republicans went hard right years ago with the tea party, so the reason there's no middle-of-the-road discussion is because there isn't one anymore. Luxuries of a two-party system.
The most common topics there are higher taxes on the wealthy and universal healthcare. Neither of these things are far left on a global scale: they are standard in most industrialized countries.
Interestingly, the GOP probably contains the conservative and right wing impulses of the base. And it certainly feels that way, among my friends, we hate that illegal aliens are entitled to health care at ERs. I want to see their countries billed for the care / or I want to see the illegals dumped at the embassy rather than hooked up to medicine. I'm certainly not going to get my wish granted by the GOP. However, should the party fail, there's a chance I could get the representation I want.
I really think "The illegals" needs to be erased from the discourse. Unless they have a distinct species moniker, they're still human beings located in the wrong place politically (in the geographical sense).
Probably not. There's an invisible order that underpins burning man - the United States' rule of law. If acts at burning man didn't invite the scrutiny of US Law Enforcement, it'd be a very different place.
'But there are drugs at burning man' - if it were truly a land onto its own, they'd be synthesizing the drugs at burning man.
You don't think language has an impact on perception? You think the Nazi effort to dehumanize jews with rhetoric didn't work? What a simple world you must live in.
> I want to see the illegals dumped at the embassy rather than hooked up to medicine.
That is a horrible, near sociopathic, line of thinking. You seem to have gotten to a point where you can't even recognize illegal immigrants as human beings.
I don't see it as any more or less sociopathic than saying "you need to pay for these people's medicine or else I'll sic the authorities on you".
If I saw illegals as non-human, I'd advocate for the local DNR to hand out hunting permits for illegals.
Don't you see my humanity? I bust my ass to earn my keep, I don't demand access to things others have, if that attitude were reciprocated and people took care of themselves, their livelihood wouldn't depend on my opinion of them.
As long as you coerce others to provide for those who are unwilling to do so for themselves, you're going to have this tension.
My borders my choice. If I can't advocate for my hard work and sacrifices to be invested as I see fit, what autonomy do I have? Do you tell women they have to spread their legs for the less fortunate or else they're sociopaths?
You can see people as less than human without thinking it is okay for you to hunt them as animals. Advocating to let people die, instead of treat them, because they aren't here legally is putting their immigration status above them as a person and to me absolutely lessening their humanity.
If someone is hurt and comes to me for help, I don't ask to see their papers.
>You can see people as less than human without thinking it is okay for you to hunt them as animals.
Please keep reading my mind - why do I think this way? What status do I think illegals have if I want to treat them better than animals but worse than fellow citizens?
>Advocating to let people die, instead of treat them, because they aren't here illegal is putting their immigration status above them as a person and to me absolutely lessening their humanity.
Then why don't you advocate for a voluntary system to take care of illegals rather than tell me I'm a sociopath for exercising challenging but important fiscal discipline?
For the record I'd be fine treating illegals if someone else paid for it voluntarily - billionaire philanthropists, DSA chapters, the countries that these people remit their earnings to, etc. I'm not saying they don't deserve health care, I'm saying that I don't want to pay for it and I'd rather they suffer than I do.
Please address: My borders my choice. If I can't advocate for my hard work and sacrifices to be invested as I see fit, what autonomy do I have? Do you tell women they have to spread their legs for the less fortunate or else they're sociopaths?
> I'm saying that I don't want to pay for it and I'd rather they suffer than I do.
Glad to hear you admit it. Money > humanity.
You can advocate for whatever you want, just like I'm free to tell you that it's a horrible idea that's only justification is to "punish" people you think deserve it.
My humanity is more important to me than others. I have to take care of myself because I know others would resent me if they had to take care of me. I'm sure you wouldn't be thrilled to provide for me if I came to your house with my hat in hand.
And you feel the same way - we're just arguing over where to draw the line. If you save any money that could be donated to those in need, you've also put money above humanity. Have you ever bought a Mcflurry? Did you really need that sweet treat more badly than someone needed a malaria net?
So where's the line of sociopathy? What's the permissible amount of money to put above humanity?
If you come to my house I'll happily call an ambulance for you. We have enough collective resources to treat the life-threatening illness of everyone within our borders, legally or not. We can worry about fixing immigration separately. Even when someone isn't a citizen, you should do your best to help people in reach not be sick. And this doesn't mean you have to give them an income for free.
And as a society-level thing it makes sense to fund with the general tax fund. Charging the countries of origin does sound like it should be attempted though!
Trying to fix every problem in the world is more fraught. We probably should be trying harder, but there are severe issues where throwing resources at a poor country invites corruption and can be worse than doing nothing at all.
>If you come to my house I'll happily call an ambulance for you.
And I'd do the same. My objection is that my tax obligation is roughly the GDP per capita - that's well above and beyond calling an ambulance. What are the limits of what you'd do for me? Could I come into your kitchen and eat until I'm full? Could I play your video games if I were bored? Could I ask for a sexual favor?
>We have enough collective resources to treat the life-threatening illness of everyone within our borders
Why stop at the borders? Is the inside the border / outside the border distinction more ethical than the illegal vs non-illegal distinction?
You don't get to come in my house unless it's an emergency. I'll help pay for things you need, but if you keep coming for food and shelter and you're not a citizen then we can get on deportation proceedings. (I don't want to tie deportation to medical attention because it can lead to people getting sicker, likely costing more, and definitely dying more. But for other things we can.) If you want niceties then here is the library and you can use the resources inside to search for a job.
Food for the starving would be a negligible part of taxes.
> Why stop at the borders? Is the inside the border / outside the border distinction more ethical than the illegal vs non-illegal distinction?
I think I addressed that fine in the last paragraph of my previous post.
But also this is what we have control of, and we should make the best of it!
If we could pay some single-digit percentage of GDP and provide basic health care to the entire world, I'd suggest that we have a pretty strong moral imperative to do so. But I don't believe that's the world we're in.
Centrism has fallen out of favor in our political discourse, largely because of the polarization of the current administration and culture.
Maintaining a centrist position can't work when both parties see the other as actively undermining/destroying the fabric of our system (i.e. Trump packing the courts with activist judges, dems raising taxes to Vietnam era levels.)
Identity politics largely doesn't permit nuanced political opinion because you're cast out if you don't subscribe to all of the major tenants of the party you're trying to loosely align with.
Politics on Reddit seems to fall into either The_Donald or "Orange man bad" with very little objectivity in the middle in my experience.