(06-02-2020, 10:44 AM)mikesez Wrote:

(06-02-2020, 07:40 AM)Last42min Wrote: Rational dialogue must first be held internally. I can't change those people who argue in bad faith. I can only try to argue in good faith. There are actors on this board that are going to represent the extreme sides of issues (and those points need to be addressed), but they should be ignored. Why hold them up as examples of each party's ideology? Most people in this world are followers and simpletons. People have a way of reducing complex issues to their most reductionist form because they don't care enough about the topic to investigate it with an open mind. When I see intelligent people doing this, it blows my mind. This is not to say I am not guilty of it. I am sure there are times when I suffer from this myself. How would I even know? There are also times emotions get the better of us, but, we need to take a step back, recommit to finding the truth and having rational discourse, and move forward. 

The problem is that a narrative is created, and there is a lie that is told, then people repeat it, then the facts come out that contradict the lie, then people justify the lie, then they go on repeating the lie. How can you have rational discourse if there aren't at least SOME people from each side that stick to the facts and have civil dialogue. To make matters worse, there are people who are intentionally creating that narrative to feed it to the masses. They know they are distorting the truth and they don't care. I have fallen victim to this many times from sources I have trusted. So much so, that I have just started believing everything is a lie. A LOT of people feel this way right now. However, since I have the time, I spend a lot of it looking up information and trying to find multiple sources with different perspectives so I can get some semblance of the truth. Other people don't or can't do that, so we live in a world where you just end up picking a side because the other side is worse. 

I agree that the dialogue has long been devolving in the US. I just don't want to see our intelligent people reduce themselves to bruh's and one liners. It doesn't help that internet message boards are probably the worst possible venue for finding mutual understanding. They are great for people with shared interests, though.

A better response would be, "I never worried about FEMA death camps, and I'm not going to defend the people who did.  I'd like to have a friendly dialogue, us two, but let's be careful not to bring the supposed opinions of others into it."

Be more personal and specific.  If you just come here to speak your own opinion, instead of defending someone else's, or instead of defending an entire "worldview", you might be less frustrated.  Certainly your posts would get shorter.

Another thing to keep in mind is that all posts here are addressed to everyone. It might entertain me more to try to crack a joke for everyone to read than to get down to brass tacks with just you.  There is a time and place to use the private message feature if you want more control of who responds to your ideas.