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Can you date folks with different politics?
I watch this stream yesterday and i find it quite interesting. Im actually kinda in this situation now, i took a girl on a date, she made it obvious she was a progressive. I often dont share my own views on these things in real life, due to how toxic these conversations can be, so i just try to listen and empathize with where the person is coming from. Though im planning to open my mouth a little more about things on the 2nd go round, as to not give a misleading representation of who i am.
Whats interesting is that the streamer in question distinct "politics" from "human rights", she gives a pretty weak example with Roe V Wade. However i think the distinction between "politics" and "human rights" is shaky to begin with. No one really agrees on what human rights even are, per her roe example, gun control (constitutional arguably, but still) being another one, & there are still societies/people that arent accepting of LGBT although thats been on the decline over some decades. My guess is she is taking this to mean, "you probably shouldnt date a nazi", which is perfectly fine. But there arent a lot of those guys around in this day and age. For myself, i dont really believe any idea is above criticism, so i dont see how having a different idea of what constitutes human rights is much different from just having different politics.
According to pew research, most people, (myself included) are fine with dating people across the political aisle {note that many people wouldnt date a trump voter, but many would date a republican, but i suspect many people might view trump as a fundamentally immoral individual, and thus that makes him distinct from just mere disagreement}. I also find that peoples political beliefs arent good measures of how moral they are in real life. There are many progressives ive seen who were cheaters, liars, lazy, ect & conservatives who were kind hearted, hard working, & loving ect (& vice versa). But i want to know what you guys think.
I'm married to someone who is pretty progressive. It's very hard, but you can make it work, if both people are committed. We can each talk with each other and understand where the other person is coming from, even if we don't agree. Some progressives would simply write off anyone who thinks differently, and if you were with someone like that, it may never be able to work.
While the ability to talk is important, probably the most important thing is to understand that people are compartmentalized, and to learn to compartmentalized politics. Sure, it'll come up every now and again, and it should, but for years the wife and I just argued at each other over and over until we were both sick of it and miserable. We've been much happier since we both agreed to just not talk about politics as much anymore.
I really really hate the progressive messaging over the past half decade trying to imply that anyone who thinks differently is evil, and you can't get along with them. I think it's so illiberal and probably doing lots of damage to society. But these memes, like the "human rights are not politics, so therefore if you disagree on what I think are human rights than you're human garbage," are pervasive. There are others like this, too, trying to, if you ask me, unfairly change the rules of politics in society. If the person you're seeing cannot understand that these memes are probably not accurate, and that you can be a good person despite holding different viewpoints, then no matter how much effort you put in, it sadly would be unlikely to work out.
It's annoying, but I have yet to encounter any good counter-argument to this.
I wouldn't say it's perfect, but "thinking people are human garbage is itself a human rights violation" is usually the train of thought I go with.
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