[roenxi]

> that are liable to cause big arguments that leave everyone involved feeling bitter and not change anyone's mind.

Then go with a really fun topic. Why are the professional politicians consistently talking about things that cause big arguments that leave everyone feeling bitter and stubborn? Are they actually leading people to discuss the important political issues, or are they trying to stir up division and a fanatic voter base? Is the nature political discourse going to lead to a good outcome for either side of the argument? How should fair compromises be achieved?

If the call here is for interesting discourse then sure, all for it. Good list. But the title shows a confusion. Arguing politics isn't going down a list of talking points. Anyone doing that with their own family just isn't acting like a smart cookie and needs to understand that they are really bad at politics to the point where they might be damaging their own community.

[Kamq]

A lot of people have family that can't handle discussions adjacent to politics without moving into politics.

The point of the list is not to generate interesting discussion. It is to generate interesting enough discussion while minimizing the chance of the discussion blowing up at a family gathering.

[MarkPNeyer]

Any disagreement, if you pursue it long enough, reveals one of two things. :

If participants are skilled communicators and can stay calm and listen to each other, what gets revealed is a different set of lives experiences. This is rare and exremwlr valuable.

If participants are not skilled and do not stay calm (as is most often the case when talking about things we care deeply about, cannot experience directly, and cannot control, ie most of the world), what gets revealed is a bunch of anger and hurt feelings.

[scarface74]

That’s the issue, what’s important to some people aren’t important to others.

I could care less about what consenting adults do that don’t affect others. But some people have a really deep seated religious beliefs that I can’t for the life of me emotionally understand.

I don’t care about illegal immigration because it doesn’t affect me. They aren’t competing for my job or the job of anyone in my social circle.

I haven’t spoken to him in awhile because…life. But there is someone I consider a friend who is the polar opposite of me. I’m a Black guy working remotely in BigTech, came from an upper middle class family, and if I were 20 years younger, I would be considered your typical “tech bro”. He is your stereo typical “MAGA” (no insult intended) - white, army veteran, anti illegal immigration, gun enthusiasts, grew up in rural America and had to take care of himself since he was 17.

What he is not is racist. He is the only White guy at a predominantly Black church. He’s married to a Vietnamese lady who he loves dearly and is all for supporting anyone who goes through the immigration process legally.

We don’t agree on some things. But I can understand where he is coming from.

[elhudy]

> I don’t care about illegal immigration because it doesn’t affect me. They aren’t competing for my job or the job of anyone in my social circle.

This seems like kind of a naive take. Illegal immigration affects your country>state>community>social circle>family>personal well being in that order. You might be several orders of magnitude removed from its effects on a personal level but that doesn’t mean it isn’t affecting you. E.g. simply the fact that illegal immigration is happening in your country means it IS influencing nationwide politics which in effect influences voters and your local politics. Your anecdote about your friend is testament to this.

Your opinion on illegal immigration matters, man, whether it affects you directly or not!

[scarface74]

How is that argument any different than arguing that the country supporting gay marriage will lead to the “eternal damnation of this great country?”. Of course I don’t believe that. But for conservative Christians the order is

<h1>YOUR IMMORTAL SOUL</h1> > country>state>community>social circle>family>personal.

They have a deep emotional belief that supersedes everything else.

They think that anything that doesn’t put “God first” is “naive”

Yes I know HN doesn’t support HTML markup.

[elhudy]

I’m not following…

What i am saying is that regardless of whether or not you take a stance on illegal immigration, the fact that the issue is ingrained in our political system means that it does in fact affect you albeit indirectly. It follows that you should probably have an opinion on the matter and be open to discussing that opinion even if you are not directly affected by it.

[feet]

It never really effected american jobs, we have had migrant farm workers for such a long time but only recently has one side of the political spectrum decided to make a big deal about it. It's fear mongering nonsense

[elhudy]

I feel like I’m being misunderstood and talking in circles here, and maybe that’s my fault. it’s tough to keep track of this conversation on mobile in between holiday activities.

I’m going to chalk this one up as an L and move on.

[boppo1]

>What he is not is racist. He is the only White guy at a predominantly Black church. He’s married to a Vietnamese lady who he loves dearly and is all for supporting anyone who goes through the immigration process legally.

I think there's a real problem right now that these people are often represented as strictly being racists / their beliefs being strictly the result of racism. It is often true, but, as in your case, it is often not true. But that heuristic has become pretty absolute among anyone who believes themselves to be "on the right side of history".

I'm glad you don't have that knee-jerk reaction.

[scarface74]

I wish I could say that I was always so open minded. But he really opened my eyes about my own “isms”. I never had any reason to interact with that demographic. I grew up middle class and knew poorer Black people. Spent half my time going to a predominantly White private school - by definition with people that were at least middle income families - and when I graduated from college I worked in tech. When would I ever interact with anyone from “rural White America” on a day to day basis.

Ironically, until last month, I lived in not only one of the least diverse counties in GA, it was a famous “sundown town” until the mid 80s. It would be really easy to make assumptions here - none of which are generally accurate from my experience.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WErjPmFulQ0

[MarkPNeyer]

How do you determine what does and doesn’t affect other people?

At some level, everything anyone does affects everyone they interact with. You and I are affecting each other right now, in some small way.

It seems like what lots of people do is say, “some of these causal effects are unimportant to me, and so I can approximate them as being zero.”

[bombcar]

It’s also very interesting how everyone apparently agrees one side is perfectly correct and never wrong and the other side is always wrong and abject evil.

Perhaps politics changes us more than we want to admit?

[boppo1]

That side believes the other side is mostly made up of people like this:

https://youtu.be/Hdk3a9pI_jA

And frankly, that's a pretty big problem for a side to have. I think a good question that isn't being asked in earnest is "why would those people, who seem to have a stable income and lifestyle, subscribe to such a radical view of reality?"

There are legitimate views from the side viewed as 'evil', but most of those people seem to have gone silent since no one is listening.

[feet]

When the Q adjacent views and white supremacy ideas are gaining popularity and nobody on the same side of the aisle with the Q people and white supremacists are saying "hey that stuff isn't right, we don't agree or believe that" I think it's safe to assume that they're saying "hey we are actually okay with Q believers and white supremacists"

[SQueeeeeL]

If you still believe that either political party in America has any real differences (besides caring slightly more or less what people do with their private parts) I'm kinda surprised you bother to browse this particular forum, there's a lot of better places where people read simpler books you should probably be hanging out digitally