You know how we always complain about most people not caring about politics?

[Smith_3]

Well, sometimes I'm glad that this is the case. If everyone was as interested in politics as DU and various right-wing sites, we would be having a civil war over abortion and gay marriage right now. Sometimes I'm glad that the majority of people fails to get worked up over stuff.

[Fumesucker]

1. Yes, it's *good* that people are complacent sheep..

:eyes:

[Selatius]

2. Actually, it would probably be a very good thing if everybody got involved in politics.

It's what democracy is all about, and I hardly doubt ordinary people would want to wage a civil war over abortion and gay marriage. The last civil war was over the economic issue of slavery, and there was a war simply because southern elites stood to lose, in today's dollars, hundreds of billions of dollars in "property" if the government declared slavery illegal and freed the Blacks.

If abortion were a 300 billion dollar/year industry, yeah, I could see there being a lot of people wanting to fight a war to protect all that money, but it's not.

Besides, if there is another civil war in America's future, it would probably be between people who want to push current economic policies against those who are being driven into poverty by those same policies. It'd be a war between the poor and the rich.

[armyowalgreens]

3. We have civil wars because of those ignorant people who "do not care about politics"

So you are glad that we have a large portion of the population that doesn't know what's going on?

Lots of the stuff that is going on wouldn't BE going on if the population was politically wise.

[Smith_3]

4. Just because someone is informed, does that mean they will have the same opinion as you?

I wouldn't classify many of the Freepers as "uninformed".

[Fumesucker]

5. Misinformed doesn't count.. n/t

[armyowalgreens]

6. If someone has the wrong information, they aren't informed. Freepers know nothing.

[Smith_3]

8. How do you "inform" someone into agreeing with gay marriage and abortion?

You can inform someone into the benefits of single payer health care. But abortion and gay marriage are non-rational issues from the outset. If someone wants to take the "OMG the poor babies" or "I think being gay is gross" stance, I doubt that there is much to do to convince this person otherwise. Those people don't know more or less about those issues then I do. I just think it's none of my business and don't have a problem with it. They do. You can tell them to shut up and mind their own business but I don't think you can "inform" them into agreeing with you. You can talk about the suffering of young women, they will talk about dead babies. You will talk about how gay people commit suicide, they will talk about how the bible forbids it. There is no ground for discussion.

[armyowalgreens]

9. Exposure leads to acceptance.

It was done during the civil rights movement. By desegregating schools, they affectively helped people become desensitized to race.

It certainly wasn't an easy task and blood was shed. And gay rights and abortion will be no different.


By constantly exposing people you know to gay rights and abortion topics, many will eventually change their beliefs. Most of those fundies have lived their entire lives in the dark. All it takes is someone to turn on the lights, and after their eyes adjust, they'll see clearly enough.

I'm currently working on my family. It's my project.


I'm not saying that everyone will change their mind. But a lot will. I sometimes think we shortchange peoples intelligence on here. Most people aren't stupid, they're just completely ignorant and no one has ever tried to help them.

[Selatius]

10. Most people, in frank truth, don't give a damn about those issues. They give a damn about their jobs

And they're losing them by the lot. If people were even half aware of the economic policies currently in place that are hurting them, even half aware of the history of labor struggle in America, of the origin of many of the laws we take for granted that were designed to protect workers, many of these politicians who are "pro-business" be they Democrat or Republican would be obliterated and swept out of Congress like the storm surge of Katrina.

Politics revolves around a lot of things, like abortion and gay marriage. That much is true, but the simple truth is when the rubber meets the road, when a person's wallet is involved, everything else is secondary. A person could not give a damn about whether a gay person can get married on their street when he has no job and is facing hunger or is at risk of losing his job because his employer screwed him over and looted the company coffers.

[Fumesucker]

11. Actually they are misinformed about those issues too..

Particularly abortion.

Late term abortions are about severely malformed fetuses and extreme danger to the mother, not "convenience".

Every single time I've asked a freeper when they chose heterosexuality over homosexuality I've gotten a completely incoherent response when I've gotten any response at all. I get lots of chances to ask these sorts of questions because I live in the deep south and am surrounded by freepers.

As a long term atheist I'm far better versed in scripture than virtually any freeper I've ever encountered, I welcome the chance to argue scripture with freepers because they do not have the scriptural chops to respond, again I leave them sucking wind every time since they have not actually read the Bible and I have.

The thing you have to realize about freepers is that they are hypocrites, expose and pinpoint their hypocrisy and they have nothing, point out that the sin Jesus the Christ most often and vociferously condemned was that of hypocrisy and they are speechless since even they know it's true.

[tavalon]

13. Not entirely true

They filter their information through an entirely different set of filters than we do but many of them are highly informed. We all come to the table with biases. I happen to think that this sides biases make more sense, but of course, I would...........

[bobburgster]

7. A little "informed" is the worst of all!

IMO minimal information about what is going on seems to cause more problems. Too many rely on little snippets to form opinions.....as well as a biased source leading to all kinds of crapettes in our lovely world.

[tavalon]

12. Are you sure about that one?

Sometimes I shoot from the hip here and realize I've come up with an indefensible position.

[Smith_3]

14. Yeah, me too.

;)

[90-percent]

15. democracy

I think there should be 100% citizen involvement in the running of our democracy.

Democracy depends on an INFORMED POPULOUS, which requires GOOD information from news sources.

The current dilemma with democracy is that there is so much MSM BULLSHIT floating around mucking up the debate with DELIBERATE MISINFORMATION AND LIES AND OUTRIGHT BULLSHIT.

Our only hope is the citizenry getting on the internet and becoming well informed by that route.

However, if my fellow citizens are like me, they will gravitate to areas of the internet they agree with only.

Does this mean that I must go to free republic to be a completely well rounded citizen?

I'm confused.

-90% jimmy