Ask Lemmy

The problem here, what do you mean by compromise?

Like, those may be comparatively low on your personal agenda, which is fine. But there's still going to be some end result of a compromise.

Personally, I find the Democratic more-restrictive position on firearms to be one of the biggest turn-offs about the party. I think that there's constant pressure to try to erode a constitutional right there in a way that wouldn't be tolerated for other rights. My own view is that if the goal is to restrict the Second Amendment, you have to do so via constitutional amendment, and you have to have a serious conversation about the design and intent of the thing that's a lot deeper and inclusive of the reasons that the right was written into the Constitution than something like "you don't need a large magazine to hunt deer" or some other really shallow stuff like that. It hasn't been particularly prominent at the national level for a couple of decades, but it's always there at a low level, and "if the Democrats get enough political power, are they going to go adopt gun policy that I find highly objectionable" is one of my major personal concerns. So, okay, I'm with you on saying that in my personal ideal world, there'd be more concessions on firearms policy.

But...there are also policies that I wouldn't agree with as to firearms.

So...when one says "compromise", what are you looking to see compromise on? Like, it makes a big difference.

Like, I'd probably be at least willing to at least discuss having a ban on handguns, as long as it went through via constitutional amendment. Handguns are the most-commonly-owned form of firearm in the US, represent over half of the firearms in the US. Canada does something like this, is more-restrictive of handguns. Handguns are associated with a lot of crime, and probably the least-useful for the sort of concerns that the Founders had; ensuring that political power remained with the public. On the other hand, I think that the GCA requiring a (deniable) federal license for automatic weapons should not have passed constitutional examination. I would personally be willing to swap the two policies. I am also very confident that there are people who feel the exact opposite way about the two policies and favor the status quo, would be worried about wider availability of automatic weapons but are determined to have the ability to carry a comfortable-to-keep-with-oneself weapon at hand.

Or take climate change. I think that there's a pretty good case that the world is better off with less carbon emissions. I also think that a lot of number of objectionable policies have been passed using "climate change" as a really broad defense. To take one example, corn ethanol probably doesn't do much to reduce carbon emissions. It does mean that some states in the central US that benefit more from agriculture can get subsidies that one can sell to people on the coasts who are worried about climate change. I don't think that corn ethanol is really defensible, at least on the grounds on which it was sold, and I am generally not really happy with people hauling out "climate change" as a magic wand to defend a lot of policies when people start asking about the economics or other issues. But I also don't think that just ignoring carbon emissions is going to be a good move, not unless we have very solid and successful geoengineering work done and believe that it's just more-efficient to pull carbon out of the atmosphere, one way or another, via iron fertilization of plankton or what-have-you. So...sure, there are concessions in the area of climate change that I'd like to see made. But I don't know if I can say that I'd like to see concessions in all areas of climate change made.

In general, on the topics you listed:

• Gun rights. I'm generally more-in-line with the Republican position on this. I think that most gun control moves bump up against constitutionality concerns. I think that it's rare that I'd favor a position popular with the Democratic side of the aisle than the Republican side of the aisle, and on some points, I'd probably push more towards gun rights side of the spectrum than the Republican mainstream would.

• Abortion rights. Personally, I think that the ability to have an abortion is probably a good idea. I'm concerned about the fertility rate dropping to the levels that it has, but I'm skeptical that restricting abortions is anywhere near the top of the list as to how one might address that. I'd support having abortions be an option. On the other hand, I don't feel that Roe v. Wade was defensible on constitutional grounds; I think that it was driven by SCOTUS at the time feeling that it was a good policy, rather than that it was legitimately a right guaranteed by the Constitution. I think that that's the wrong way to go about adding rights -- you need an amendment for that -- and I'm fine with it having been overturned. I also think that restricting abortion smashes into practicality grounds even if one felt that it was a desirable policy; it's just too easy to cross state boundaries. I kind of feel that maybe the father should have some kind of say as to abortions; while the mother has the physical impact of giving birth, both parents have very large legal obligations to raise a child and I think that that outweighs the bearing and birthing. Maybe if either parent wants to have an abortion, an abortion should be done, which would be an even lower bar for abortions than is the case today.

• Climate change. I think that carbon emissions are a real issue that can't be ignored, but, as I said above, can also list a number of policies that were put through using "climate change" as a rationale that I don't think are defensible.

• Immigration. I think that more immigration is virtually always a win for the US. There may be a limit, but it's higher than what the US has experienced and certainly higher than present-day levels, which are historically low as a percentage of population. Immigration has been a colossal reason for the US's rise in the world. I think that the concerns about immigration are not new, have been replayed for centuries, and are not really defensible given historical evidence. I also don't think that the Republican Party is particularly interested in dramatically bringing down immigration, though Republican voters might be and the GOP might be very interested in visibly flailing away at it for political points.

• Culture war. I very rarely agree with conservative positions on culture issues, but I also have a great dislike for using the government to promote progressive positions, and have quite a bit of sympathy when I hear conservatives complain that someone is trying to leverage the government to do so. I think that the government shouldn't really act as a cultural arbiter. One of my strongest disagreements with some people on some Lemmy communities that I frequent has been people who think that they need to use the government to just make people think "correctly" on some matters. I'd ask them, if they want to institutionalize that, what exactly they think is going to happen if someone who they disagree with comes into power?

• Trump. I don't like Trump. However, I am not at all worried about national policy in a second Trump administration; I think that there are a lot of folks on the left side of the aisle who have worked themselves into an absolute frenzy completely disconnected from reality over that, and I'm constantly rolling my eyeballs when I see someone get frantic about a "fascist takeover" or the like. We've seen Trump in office for four years. From a policy standpoint, it isn't all that exciting. Hell, if Biden were still running, we'd have one of the most unsurprising elections in American history -- two people who have a four-year track record as President and are very much known quantities running against each other. No, my objections to Trump are to him as an individual...first and foremost, he personally tried to leverage undermining the political legitimacy of an election where he had no grounds to stand on at all to try to score points in the next election. Even absent everything else, for me, that alone should disqualify the guy from holding office. I don't want to start a trend of people doing that. I am unhappy with all of the messages he puts out, don't think that they're a good look for the country. I am not happy with his practice of being totally self-inconsistent as to policy. I want there to be dialog on positions, and Trump doesn't bother to maintain a coherent set of positions. That makes it really hard for democratic dialog to happen, if you can't pin down what someone is actually proposing doing. I am not happy with some of his actions in office, like Comey being dismissed.

  However, I also don't think that asking for concessions on Trump makes much sense. Trump ain't the problem here. Trump is the symptom. If our electoral system, mechanisms of political discourse, media, stuff like that permit for the actions he's taken to work and to appeal to the public, that's where the problem lies and that's where change needs to happen. Removing Trump from the picture is a one-off. If what Trump has done works well, someone else can do the same thing. I don't particularly want some other guy to do the same thing that Trump has and get into office.

Not everyone is gonna agree with my personal positions. But I think that virtually everyone out there has a more nuanced position on most policy matters than just "pro" or "con". So it's hard to just say "concede" on a broad policy area like that.