@gourimoko, several part request:
1. Give me the most absurd political argument you can think of and then defend it
The most absurd? Hmm...
I should be protected by the government, so that I do not need to serve gay people in any capacity in my business. It is my right as a free person, in my private business on private property to determine for myself who I will and will not serve.
By forcing me as a free person on my property and in my establishment, to do something that I find repugnant or against my religious beliefs; the government is imposing itself and it's policy of social engineering onto me, my family, and my beliefs.
This form of encroachment violates my fundamental and inalienable right to speech, property, religious belief and creed. Moreover, it damages, irreparably, my ability as a parent to instill what I perceive as proper values, traditional Christian values, in my children who will see a society, led by left-wing government-driven social engineering, as correct and their father as wholly wrong.
Such encroachment will be compounded by schools which will reinforce and reeducate children, generation by generation, literally destroying traditional Christianity and the values we as Christians have held for 2,000 years.
At this point, we as Christians require laws to protect us from such government encroachment. That's why I support the RFRA laws across the various states.
(none of the above is true -Gourimoko).
2. Can you come up with situations that cause strict adherence to a political ideology collapse on its face? Example, a week ago someone said don't ever do drugs, ever (right wing) and I came up with a hypothetical where a war vet is prescribed meds for injury or ptsd, gets hooked.. I made some quip about guns and war being awesome, just shoot them all, I forget and it sounds stupid now, but hopefully you get my point?
Surely....
Most obvious for any conservative right-winger:
1) Abortion. We talk about this all the time, what if the life or health of the mother is at risk? OR, what if the child is a product of incest?
If the ethical argument is that abortion = murder, in all respects; than neither of these two conditions would generally warrant the "murder" of a "baby."
What mother would "murder" her "baby" rather than say, take a 40% chance at surviving cancer? I'm a father of 3 and I'd take a bullet to the face before I'd "murder" my "babies."
In the case of incest; there is no ethical counterpoint. How does incest justify murdering an innocent child?
Thus, if a person is "pro-life" upon the basis that abortion is murder, then this must be true in ALL instances,
without exception.
2) Climate change...
This one is obvious.
We're literally killing ourselves. The argument is that we need to protect the economy over the Earth.
It's a strange argument considering there won't be an economy if we continue down this road. It's a self-contradictory argument, and is thus irrational. How can you protect stability and economic growth over literal survival?
For liberals, there's one that comes up most often for me:
1) Gun bans.
Would you rather your family be raped and murdered in your home while you were powerless to protect them; or would you rather yourself and your wife be armed and ready to defend yourselves?
If the answer to that question is armed and not raped; then the conversation is over.
They might respond that crime goes down as a result of gun bans, but implementation is a different question entirely since there are various degrees to which gun bans work based largely on their ability to control their own borders. See Mexico as a perfect example of this.
- I got close earlier with a liberal situation.. "acknowledging Any difference between sexes is sexist, so a guy that transitions entering the mma without hormone therapy can't be discussed because it acknowledges guys are biologically stronger, so a trans guy can't be questioned.. which somehow turned into "if Caitlyn Jenner is actually a female, he has to give up all of his Olympic medals because he competed in the wrong class.. he's actually female.. but, by admitting there's a difference is sexist to a lot of uninformed left"
^just silly stuff, not being serious here
Yea, that's pretty silly, and the argument that acknowledging differences in sexes is sexist is wrong on it's face; that's an argument for an asexual society; which we do not live in. Feminism has never called for asexuality, but instead the exact opposite; an embracing of femininity as
normative and acceptable. A move from a male-oriented and patriarchal society and a move into one that is equally accepting of both genders.
Trans issues make this a more complex question as gender is no longer binary but is now treated as a spectrum.
Trans-gendered women are not "cis women," by definition; so, there is an obvious difference here. No one wants to ignore those differences unless they are delusional. I say that as someone who gladly advocates for transgendered rights and acceptance into society.
3. Any statistics on how much people are more invested in politics today than Normal? It seems like fucking everybody has an opinion today..
I recall reading that it's actually lower today than it was in the 90s; but, I would suspect that the problem is that in the 90s not everyone was so willing to offer their opinion as a correct.
Today, due to social media, opinions have become the new fact.. And since everyone is entitled to their opinions, then, by consequence, everyone is entitled to their facts. Start sharing facts they don't like, and they'll move on.
We're now living in a swipe left/right society. It's very Fahrenheit 451...
4. I had another, let me think..