General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsOn which issues, if any, do you respect some of the people who disagree with you?
An attitude I see an awful lot on DU is that "if you disagree me then you are scum".
That's not directly a problem when it's applied to issues that pretty much all DUer's disagree about, but because people are in the habit of thinking that way, it makes discussions of issues where DUers actually do disagree (c.f. the list of issues banned from GD) rather heated.
So can you list some issues where you think that there is legitimate room for debate and where there are at least some valid arguments and some well-meaning people on the other side?
cthulu2016
(10,960 posts)I could, if pressed, argue both sides of those issues... not equally well on both sides, but I have sympathy for some arguments on both sides. (Even if having no respect for most people on a given side, because their view is not driven by those difficult naunces.)
Other issues like whether there is a god... I couldn't plausibly have no respect for every one of 80% of human beings so I don't consider theism and absolute deal-breaker... within limits.
hollysmom
(5,946 posts)feel they have the right to change my life to match their beliefs. Like I don't think that pro-war people should feel that people who are pacifists must fight war or that people who are against abortion don't feel that others have to be either. These things should be personal. i.e. You can fight in a war without demanding everyone else do so or You can not have an abortion without forbidding it for other people.
in other words as long as you don't feel your right supersedes mine, we can disagree and we can disagree on small budget things, but usually not on large ones.
Donald Ian Rankin
(13,598 posts)hollysmom
(5,946 posts)It isn't that I won't disagree with them, I just won't hate them if they think differently. The idea in my mind is I can chip away at those beliefs if we are talking facts rather than FOX talk. I do think most republican politicians greed put themselves above their constituents, but for individual people, I don't see many as evil, just misinformed.
egduj
(805 posts)BlueJazz
(25,348 posts)I'm hard core nasty about that. (of course, FOR)
I'm a little snobby about music. (having PP can cause that.)
PLUS..if you don't like Chocolate, there's something very wrong with you.
Donald Ian Rankin
(13,598 posts)I think I probably pass on women's rights, but I may well fail on music - I play the melodeon, badly.
BlueJazz
(25,348 posts)geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)If people agree that providing health care to all Americans is a laudable goal, then there's room for respectable debate on how we get there.
Whereas with the "stay healthy or die quickly" crowd, there is no respectable disagreement possible.
LittleBlue
(10,362 posts)I can respect anyone, no matter how crazy, if they truly believe what they're saying and aren't hypocrites. I may disagree, but I won't lose respect for them if they believe it and live it.
In some cases, I won't lose respect for them if I know they are otherwise decent people who are misguided due to being products of a bad environment.
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)Last edited Sun Dec 15, 2013, 06:06 PM - Edit history (1)
does not warrant respect.
The corporate one percent controlling our government now has a propaganda machine in place. It has disrupted and destroyed traditional spaces for conversation and political organizing and activism. It is the equivalent of pepper spray at Occupy gatherings, but deployed online to divert and pollute and destroy liberal communities.
Every government that turns to authoritarianism finds people who are willing to do this sort of work. Some of them may eventually find their consciences and regret being complicit in an agenda that is destroying this nation and millions of lives. However, I suspect that this type of work tends to attract those who rarely struggle with such internal voices in the first place.
ZombieHorde
(29,047 posts)If I believe the argument is based in good will, then I will generally respect it, even if I strongly disagree with it. I say "generally" because sometimes I am grumpy or whatever, and make snooty comments.
sibelian
(7,804 posts)Respect, as far as I'm concerned, is an emotion, not some kind of resource that people have a right to. If I don't feel it, I don't give it.
Igel
(35,197 posts)One is rooted in esteem and honor. I can hold somebody I profoundly dislike and whom I think is pretty much a fool in esteem for what he does that's good. Nobody's all good or bad, so keeping the two separate isn't hard.
The other is rooted in civility and courtesy. I can accept their argument--not agree with it--as something a reasonable person could hold. Often it's because there are different sets of facts, and we can't agree on them. Sometimes it's because there are different values involved, and arguments over morals and values are often as pointless as arguments over tastes.
msongs
(67,199 posts)etherealtruth
(22,165 posts)Obviously I have no patience for or interest in racists, sexists, homophobes or those that have no empathy or compassion for the impoverished ... with that said I look for common ground with most.
Guns are probably the most obvious example ... I am as stridently anti-gun as a person can be. The "gun posters" I can't find common ground with are those that appear to be here solely to extoll the virtues of guns ... those that post almost (if not) exclusively about about "gun rights" and don't seem to engage on any other subject are not folk that I have any common ground to find.
Those liberals that hold generally progressive ideas on a multitude of subjects and also support guns are folk that I may never find common ground with on the subject of guns ... but they are people I can find much common ground an a wealth of other subjects.
MFM008
(19,782 posts)and some wiggle room on abortion. My absolute no gives are on global warming /environment /Ocean stuff. Your abortion doesnt affect me, you polluting my air does.
Beringia
(4,314 posts)I also sort of understand when people are stuck in an old way of thinking, and that I probably have many old ways of thinking.