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Not at all. I'm not Blue Tribe. I just live with them and educate their kids. Academic justifications follow belief systems not the other way round. What you're talking about are the rationalizations being used. But almost everyone is not reasoned into a position, they rationalize their beliefs post hoc. If you refute their academic arguments it won't change their minds, because that isn't how they got to that position. As the saying goes you can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into.
Just to be clear when I am talking here I am just giving my opinion and experiences, there is no reason for you to be believe some random guy on the internet. Having said that hydroacetylene also said the same thing above and he is a Red Tribe conservative (as far as I recollect), so someone in a very different milieu than I am is seeing the same things.
Cool, thanks for sharing your experience, but I have my own, and I see no reason to accept yours over mine.
Saying "I'm deeply familiar with the Blue Tribe, and that's not what I've seen" makes sense as an argument, but I don't see how "this guy is Red Tribe, and he agrees with me" makes any sense in the context. I think he's also wrong, and responded to him. The bottom-up vs. top-down view of society is a disagreement that's (literally) orthogonal to left vs. right.
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