Conservatives Ask Liberals Questions!

            So, this post is long. Really, really, really long. To do a brief intro: I wanted to create a space where people with opposing political ideologies could ask questions that might be met with hostility on social media.

I asked conservative friends to send me questions they would love to ask liberals, and to make sure these questions are as neutral as possible. My goal for this post was to provide answers to these questions that were even-toned, polite, and neutral. My conservative friends delivered the questions, but were a tad…iffy…on their neutrality. As such, my liberal friends who volunteered to be responders delivered their responses, but their levels of politeness and neutrality…varied. Given the hot-button issues discussed and the amount of energy everyone has collectively spent debating these issues in their lives, especially online, I think this is the best everyone could do by way of politeness.

Without further ado, let’s meet our responders! For the purpose of this blog, I did ask my responders to give themselves a general ‘level’ of liberalness in order to illustrate the wide range of beliefs that exist even in seemingly homogeneous circles.

Enjoy!

LEFT LEVELS for the purpose of this blog.

Level 1: Center-left
Level 2: Solidly Democrat
Level 3: Mostly Democrat, but leaning a bit more to the left
Level 4: Totes Liberal
Level 5: Democratic Socialist/Socialist
Level 6: Communism Could Work
Level 7: Eat The Rich

OUR RESPONDERS:

Responder A: White, straight, middle class, married male in early middle age. New father, goes to school online while staying home and caring for his daughter. Considers himself a feminist, social justice warrior. Supports the welfare state and government regulation. Finds the idea of communism as unsettling as true fascism. Level 4 liberal.

Responder B: Registered Democrat (reluctantly, would be Independent if not for primary requirements). Somewhere between liberal and socialist. Minority Male.

Responder C: White woman, Level 3 liberal.

Responder D: Master’s Degree in History, focusing on U.S. Foreign Policy and Political History, minor in political science, including comparative and domestic courses. Well-read in political theory and political history and a decidedly Hobbesian view of the nature of people (life is “nasty, brutish, and short” – so we need social contracts in order to better society).  Conservation of the environment is my top political and social issue.  Registered Democrat, generally Level 5, but sometimes Level 7.

Responder E: Depending on the day I’m anywhere between 3.2-4.8 on the scale.  I’m extremely socially liberal and somewhat financially liberal.  I believe in less spending on Defense and almost a complete end to corporate tax loopholes and an increase to social programs and education.  I’m 30 years old African American man, born and raised in Detroit, Michigan and have been in BG since graduating high school.  My father is retired military, my grandmother is a retired police officer and I’ve also been a recipient of social welfare programs in my childhood.

Responder F: My political leanings are varied but I'd say on your scale between a 4 and a 7. Generally I think of myself as empathic and wish for that for others to be too. I'm a straight, white male, with a Judeo-Christian (literally: raised Jewish and catholic) with current beliefs in an agnostic/pagan realm.

Responder G: Left Level 4-5. Immigrant. Natural born American citizen, dual citizenship Canada (think: Ted Cruz). I’m a feminist and have considered myself once since childhood. I have two biracial children and I am divorced. I consider my sexuality fluid (if you don’t know what that means, you can consider me bisexual, doesn’t bug me.) I have a bachelor’s degree in Biology, attended some post grad.

Responder H: Overall liberal, not comfortable labeling further.

Responder I: Level 1-ish, I consider myself politically diverse.

Responder J: I am a 30 year old white male who works as a business analytics analyst. While I was raised in rural Ohio in a middle class family, I now live in South Carolina with my wife and two puppies. I was raised in a Catholic family that tended to vote democratic. I attended private Catholic schools through high school, and then graduated from a liberal arts college with a degree in public health.

THE QUESTIONS!

1.      Why do you support abortion?/How can you morally support abortion?

RESPONDER A: First things first. I do not like abortion. It is invasive and emotionally draining. I want a world with as few abortions as necessary. But as long as the world has unwanted pregnancies for any reason, we should not force women to go through the life changing act that is childbirth if they do not want to or are not ready to. A woman cannot go through pregnancy unchanged, and it is incredibly difficult. There is another aspect to this.  I consider this a woman’s health issue. Women’s voices carry much more weight on this issue than mine, and I wish legislation would follow suit.

When it comes to the morality of abortion, I do not consider a fetus a human being until it can survive outside the womb. Until then I consider it a potential life, much like eggs and sperm.

RESPONDER B: I believe that the existence of abortion is unfortunate, but ultimately necessary at times. Though it may be an “evil” to end the potential for life prematurely, it is also an “evil” to willingly bring life into an untenable situation. Medical concerns surrounding the birth, as well as rape, coercion, etc. are a given. But, some people cannot be trusted to take care of and raise children. We already have a number of children whom are never adopted and resources to take care of these children are far too low. Giving birth is a great responsibility, an unending responsibility. And sometimes, bringing a pregnancy to term means willingly consigning a child to life of undue hardship. It’s a significant moral quandary to bring life into the world knowing that they won’t be properly cared for.

Now, the framing of the question almost relies upon the idea that abortion decisions are taken lightly and women use abortion as a kind of “post-contraception”. While I’m sure statistically it’d be wrong to speak in absolutes, it’s a harrowing situation to be in. And we know that late-term abortions are incredibly rare. The vast number are carried out before any sort of consciousness is formed. It’s better to let those most affected by the situation make the decisions.

RESPONDER C: I don’t support abortion, I support the rights for women to choose what they want to do with their bodies.

RESPONDER D: This is not a typical answer, but the world is over-populated with humans.  Better birth control, including a woman’s right to choose abortion helps keep the population from becoming so large that we destroy the planet as we know it.  We, as humans, have decided that we play god and are superior to nature.  We have sought, myself included, to become insulated from things like natural disasters such as famine, disease, and dangerous animals in order to feel “safe.”   It seems nice, but it is not in line with the laws of nature, which dictate that negative things must happen in order to maintain balance in the ecosystem.  We have destroyed that balance.  Therefore, if abortions help with over-population, then it is necessary.

However, if a child is to be born into this world, it deserves the best life possible.  Many women who have abortions do not have the means to provide such a life for a child and our political system in the U.S. right now does not support life.  It only supports birth.  Let the woman decide if she feels that she can bring a baby into a successful life, as she is most likely going to be the primary caretaker.

RESPONDER E: I support abortion because I have always supported a woman’s right to choose what goes on in her body.  I believe if you’re like myself and believe that life only starts at birth then there is no moral issue when supporting abortion. 

RESPONDER F: I knew this one was coming, I didn't expect it to be number one. Short answer: it's not my body. I'm a man. What I think doesn't matter with abortion. But to answer it directly because I support bodily autonomy of women to control what happens to them. A human life or not, it doesn't matter. Psychology speaking fetus aren't people. They're not. They will become people in several years. They're not children they haven't experienced anything yet. They're a Schrodinger’s box of what they'll be. So far be it from me to stop a woman or judge a woman who wants to have an abortion should she feel that is the best option available to her. It doesn't need the consent of the father in my honest opinion because he doesn't have to carry it. That being said, abortion should not be birth control unless there are extenuating circumstances. Like the worry for the health of the mother to continue to carry or give birth or a disease is contracted. As examples.

            As for how I can morally support it? Easy, my morals say it's ok. The thing about morals is that they are purely subjective to the group one belongs in. My morals tell me that disparaging women, threatening the death of women, assaulting women, are morally contemptible things but those are things that women encounter even contemplating abortion. Morally speaking I find it much more right to let a woman choose than force her, her family, and the child itself, to live when they're not equipped for it or want it at all. With bloated adoption system that is furthering restricting availability and ability at all for people to adopt, abortion is a natural recourse. I would not want a child to be born and forced to grow up in extreme poverty or what have you if the mother wants to have an abortion and can have one. It alleviates difficulty on all sides, so she can have a child later when she's ready.

            To sum it up abortion is not my say one way or the other and morals have nothing to do with it because they're subjective, but I do support abortion and most importantly a woman's right to choose one way or another.

RESPONDER G: Abortion for me comes down to two main things. Autonomy and safety. Autonomy means you have the freedom and independence to make your own choices about your body. Dead bodies have autonomy: we cannot take organs from a deceased person unless they have consent before their death, even if it would save another life. We also cannot force people to donate blood to save another person’s life. So yes, you may view the fetus as another human being, if that’s what you believe, BUT the woman still had autonomy and she has the right to make decisions about her own body and we can’t force her to do anything to save another person.

Second, there is the safety. Abortion will still happen if it was illegal. (Um hi, Dirty Dancing.) According to the Guttmacher Institute, 23,000 women die every year worldwide from an unsafe abortion and 17 MILLION unsafe procedures takes place. This means that making abortion illegal would never actually make abortions stop. It would just mean a lot more women would die. The safety of any medical procedure can only be controlled when it is legal. The morality of it for me is simple: I don’t want more deaths, and I want to keep people safe.

RESPONDER H: I support the right to access safe and legal abortions for many reasons. The chief among them is that making them illegal and unsafe will not end them. Abortion has existed for as long as pregnancy has, and women have gone to great and deadly lengths to procure them for a myriad or reasons. For me, the reason is less important than valuing the life of the woman who wants it. If abortion were outlawed in this country women would die. That’s a fact. Whether it’s from complications in pregnancy or from the actual procedures, they will die.

RESPONDER I: To support the right to choose does not necessarily mean you support abortion.  I personally wouldn't have one, unless my life depended.  However it's not my place to tell another woman if they should or should not.  I don't know their story or their circumstances and I don't have to live with the consequences of their actions.

RESPONDER J: Personally, I think of it less as supporting abortion and more as supporting a woman’s rights to control her body and her life. As someone who was raised Catholic, I understand the church’s teaching that a human life begins at the moment of conception. In this modern day and age, I think that the answer is a little more complicated. In an ideal world, I would say that abortions are only a symptom of a bigger problem in our society resulting from a lack of access to contraceptives and other healthcare options that would otherwise prevent the fertilization of an egg with sperm at an inconvenient time in a woman’s life.

2.      Why do you support abortion but oppose the death penalty?

RESPONDER A: I do not oppose the death penalty. I think there are many cases where it is appropriate after due process has been fully explored.

RESPONDER B: The increasing number of death row exonerations makes it hard to make the case for something so final. There is also the angle that the costs involved in capital punishment, such as exhausting appeals for the convict and the drugs involved, actually make capital punishment more expensive than just housing a convict for life. Forgetting about the moral ideas, it’s just not very practical. The drugs we currently are using for capital punishment also don’t seem to be very effective, in fact, quite torturous. Insofar as we can’t resolve these issues, capital punishment shouldn’t be on the table. A further question is whether or not it’s even helpful as a deterrent and are we dealing out the death penalty unfairly to differing groups of people. As for the abortion comparison, it can be said that there is the possibility of killing an “innocent” unwittingly. However, I can’t place a zygote on the same level as a conscious human being.

RESPONDER C: There have been a lot of victims who were exonerated of their crimes after they had already been murdered by the state.

RESPONDER D: The death penalty is deliberately inefficient, with costs to put a person to death exceeding the cost of life in prison.  This allows appeals for the victim, which should be granted, as we know statistically that many people are imprisoned for crimes that they did not commit.

RESPONDER E: Personally I support the death penalty but only in the most severe cases, serial killers, child rapists, mass shooters, etc.

RESPONDER F: This one is easy: I support both. However, the death penalty has to be recourse for those that are incontrovertibly guilty of extremely heinous crimes. I have no problem with removing repeat offenders of murder or rape or horrible crimes from this earth where they can no longer do harm. That being said I said repeat. There must be ACTIVE attempts to correct their behavior and that doesn't mean locking them in a cell that means operant conditioning of rewarding good behavior and working to the bottom of their problems. If at that point it fails and they deteriorate yes, end them. The death of an adult that can make choices, and have to live or not live with those choices is vastly different than a fetus that can't even breathe on its own let alone have the capacity to consciously make choices for years.

RESPONDER G: This is a false equivalence. I think if you are anti-abortion and pro-death penalty, then you already agree they are two separate things... for your own reasons. So if you can separate the two, then please understand so can anyone on the left. Our justice system is a mess, a hot mess, that can certainly find innocent people guilty (and does). Then when you think about due process and our constitutional rights, our government executing someone is stealing their right to an appeal away from them. Capital punishment is revenge, it is not justice.

RESPONDER H: I don’t is the short answer. The long answer is, of course, a bit more involved. I don’t believe that people cannot be rehabilitated. I do believe that prison does nothing to rehabilitate people. There is a top down problem in our justice system that can’t be solved by removing single parts of it. There are those who, and I hesitate to use this term, who are so neurodivergent from the rest of us that they can never be safe in society. Psychopaths and sociopaths are among these people. For me, I’d rather have them in a cage so we can learn from them rather that extermination. I do understand the very human reaction of wanting to kill a monster, but that monsters death teaches us nothing.

RESPONDER I: I'm not the best person to answer this one, because I have an odd stance on the death penalty.  There is no justice in murdering somebody, even if that person is a murder.  However, I feel that life in prison is cruel and unusual punishment and euthanasia is a more humane option.

RESPONDER J: I don’t universally oppose the death penalty. I believe that the death penalty should be reserved for only the most extreme crimes. In many cases, I would say that the death penalty is a mercy. I would prefer that people who consider committing these acts weigh the consequences not against the possibility of a quick end afterword, but against a lifetime of imprisonment. Additionally, many studies point to race and gender bias playing a role in which people do and do not receive the death penalty.

3.      Why do you believe in more than two genders and what's the point?/wtf is 'nonbinary?'

RESPONDER A: There are more than two genders. That is science. We see it all over the place in nature, and it is fully explained by observation. Nonbinary simply explains that not everyone’s gender falls directly into male/female.

RESPONDER B: I’m not well-versed on human psychology or brain physiology. But, it seems to me that we place a lot of credence to their being a “manly” or “womanly” way of acting when everyone knows that it’s all behaviors that only kind of trend in certain ways with significant overlap in preferences, actions, desires, expectations, etc. We created two categories out of simplicity and not really out of accuracy. Many societal systems created early on had to be revised as time went on. Not to mention things don’t often quite track between countries. Indeed, some places classify colors completely differently from America. Whether something fits more with “blue” or “green” or another word entirely. Since a lot of gender norms change over time and certainly come with gradations, we’ve just been arbitrarily setting a dividing line. Why not more dividing lines? I don’t know what the “right” amount of classifications or genders are. But, we shouldn’t be so sure that the ones we’re using are “right” just because we’ve been using them for a long time.

RESPONDER C: People choosing to identify as any gender they feel connected to is none of my business.

RESPONDER E: Nonbinary gender is not a subject I’m too well versed in.  I believe in it for a simple reason, people want to be accepted and based on the hate that people in this community have received over the years it’s hard for me to believe it’s a choice, and much easier to believe people were born  this way and don’t identify with the 2 genders that are usually assigned.

RESPONDER F: I believe in more than one gender because not even biological sex is black and white. Behavior is fluid between emotion as is femininity and masculinity. Man and Woman being the extreme ends with no gender being in the middle. Sort of. I see it as opening your mind and accepting change, even if it conflicts with your world views. That's hard but it lets us grow as people. I was resistant at first too.

RESPONDER G: “Gender” is not the same as sex. Sex is biological and gender is a social construct. I have a BS in biology, and in reality, the only thing that determines sex is, basically, does this animal have testes or ovaries? We often include genitalia in this as well, because it’s easier than cutting something open to find out for sure. Now, gender is social. For example, pink and blue is not something related to our biological sex at all, our society labeled these colors to their respective genders. Society decided girls wear dresses and boys do not, again, it has nothing to do with our biology. A person with a vagina can relate more to what society has dictated as the male gender (short hair, suits, etc.), and that’s okay with me. Because gender is social, there is no reason for it to be binary. Biological sex isn’t binary either. “What’s the point?” Who are they hurting, really? Does a person with a vagina wearing a suit really have any impact on your life at all? Nope. Non-binary is simple, they don’t identify with either boy or girl gender expression. Again, who are they hurting? Now finally, I just want to say, my children have never been forced into their respective gender roles and my daughter is drawn to glitter and bows. My son loves cars and trains. They made these choices for themselves. No one told them what to be. They identify with the gender related to their sex naturally and on their own, which tells me a lot about how much people aren’t just “doing it”, we are naturally drawn to one, or the other, or neither.

RESPONDER H: It’s easy to believe what you see. That may be a very glib retort, but when you see someone you love begin to live their full life as who they’ve always been it is so truly beautiful. It’s like seeing your child find a talent, or a friend find a dream job. The point is that these people aren’t hurting anyone by living their truth.

RESPONDER I: Gender is a social construct.  It is a role that you are expected to play.  Why should your genitals dictate your interest?

RESPONDER J: As with most things, I think that saying all humans must fall into one of two groups is naïve. Pick any two diametrically opposed groups, and you will find people who do not identify with either group. Binary is an absolutism of two groups. It is the ultimate dichotomy. Humans are more complex than this. Even if we are defining gender as the absence or presence of genitals, there are people who do not clearly fall into one group or the other. Taking that one step further, if you were to examine the DNA of some people, it would not clearly present as either male or female. To be clear, when we are speaking about gender, most of the time we are not referring to physical attributes, but with which group of socially defined descriptors of gender we identify with. With the combination of all of these factors, it seems unreasonable for humans to exclusively fall into one of two groups.

4.      Why do you think masculinity is toxic? How can it be dangerous and fragile at the same time?/why do you hate men being men?

RESPONDER A: Masculinity is not toxic in and of itself, but it CAN be toxic. When men withhold emotion, or are overly aggressive, or any other behavior that is destructive and traditionally “male”, it maintains stereotypes in society and retards efforts for men to grow beyond the traditional roles we are “supposed” to have. You can easily be masculine but not fall into destructive traps like bullying, belittling, or supporting patriarchal systems.

            Toxic masculinity is fragile in that when it feels attacked, it gets very defensive and lashes out. Which is one of the ways it can be dangerous.  Example: “Real men don’t need to bully to feel strong.” “You think what I was doing was bullying? That was teasing. It’s not my fault they cried. Grow a pair, fag.”

            What does “men being men” mean? If it means thinking they are better than women, or better than bookworms, that the handsome jock is the pinnacle of achievement, then yeah, there are some issues there.  If it is eating a steak and being honest with themselves and the world around them, well, I can seriously get behind that.

RESPONDER B: I don’t think masculinity is toxic by default. It’s something that can definitely become toxic if left unchecked. There are plenty of things associated with masculinity that are lauded, such as being protective and valiant. But the effects of testosterone are well-documented. Unchecked aggression is a destructive problem and learning to deal with problems in non-destructive manner is something that everyone should learn. Indeed, as a man, I find the notion that being overly violent, rigid, and controlling to just be “how it works” for men to be quite insulting.

Masculinity can also be fragile. Some people can’t take losses or challenges to their authority without turning to anger or throwing a tantrum. Or sometimes they’ll go to ridiculous lengths to mask how they really feel and not acknowledge any emotion. It’s not healthy and it’s usually to protect some sense of bravado that no one else really cares about.

RESPONDER D: Big question, so I’m going to go in perhaps a different direction than some.

Masculinity has created a world that is systemically oppressive and degrading to everyone – even to other men.  Are you a man who is interested in clothes? You must be gay.  Oh, but you love football, so you must be straight.  Wait, now I don’t know how to think of you, in which box you fit, and I don’t actually have time to get to know you.  Please excuse the sarcasm, but a society which forces people to act in a certain way to fit into a box created by others is morally wrong because it does not allow the person to be the individual that he or she is.

As for everyone else, toxic masculinity allows men to degrade women and other men who don’t fit their stereotypes.  “Men being men” makes this unacceptable behavior acceptable by changing the narrative from “everyone deserves respect” to “it’s ok.  All men do x.”

RESPONDER E: Masculinity can be toxic but I don’t believe it is inherently.  The toxicity of masculinity comes in the form of not showing emotion or the whole boys don’t cry thing.  Because humans are emotional creatures this not show emotion thing leads unacceptable behaviors, mental unstableness and the like.  It’s dangerous because it usually is too forgiving in behaviors that should not be acceptable (i.e. If the boy hits the girl at recess, he must like her) this begins a pattern of boys not being to show emotion in the correct way and then they become fragile later on in life by not being able to deal with rejection from the opposite sex.

RESPONDER F: Masculinity is toxic when it's masculinity at the expense of humanity and other people. Think of the big uber muscular, jock person that laughs at people’s pain and has no regard for the feelings of others especially women, and treat women as prizes. That's toxic masculinity. They're tough but that masculinity is fragile in that if you question it, motives behind it, sincerity behind it they become enraged or violent. To be that level of masculine they are taught to repress human emotions. Sadness leading to tears, happiness from flowers or feminine things. "Men being men" is a taught status not a natural one. Watch children play. Boys and girls don't see a difference between them. They don't care if there is. THEY'RE TAUGHT THERE IS BY THEIR PARENTS AND THE WORLD. Let them be human, let them be caring and soft and gentle.

 RESPONDER G: Masculinity is not toxic! Saying it again: masculinity is not toxic! I don’t believe that for a second. Toxic masculinity is a term that describes the socially constructed idea that men should be aggressive, violent and lack emotion. It’s toxic because we spend so much time telling little boys they can’t be sad, they can’t do this or that. “That’s not manly.” “Boys do not cry.” These things are just plain harmful. Not only to men, but to women as well. But the reality is: toxic masculinity hurts men a lot. An example, teenage boys who are not hypersexual are often looked down upon for their lack of “conquests” or “inability to perform”. They then at ostracized or called names, and bullied. Every relationship these teenage boys have from this point on is affected. So, that’s what makes it toxic. Fragile masculinity, in short, describes men who overcompensate their masculinity. You know the guy, trying way too hard to prove he’s one of the “bro’s”. The greatest example for me to help you understand is toothpaste that says “For men”. There’s no need for you to use a different toothpaste than your girlfriend/wife and if you think you have to for whatever reason, I’m sorry to inform you, ya fragile my friend. Finally, I love me a man. A good, decent, strong man who is secure in himself. That’s the kinda masculinity I love and would gladly get on my knees for. Food for thought.

RESPONDER H: I believe that masculinity is toxic because I have experienced it. I tried so hard to be the kind of “man” that I was expected to be. But I’m not. I’m a sensitive boy who feels hurt deeply and loudly. Feeling this way caused my father to want much less to do with me in my adolescence. When I finally had an interest in sports my father cared. He cared a lot so a lot was expected of me. I had to play even if I was hurt. I was chastised for limping. Chastised for being dizzy while suffering from a concussion. I was too talented to behave like a “pussy”. I was too good at my sport of choice to be hurt. When I decided to focus on performance art at quit my sport of choice I was nothing again. Knowing men has showed me that it’s hard to express any kind of feelings beyond a surface level. Intimacy is almost unheard of in circles of straight men. Showing it makes you seem less than. You are treated less than. Not having these outlets of honest, forward-facing expression hurts men of all ages.

RESPONDER I: Men being men is fine, as long as it's not at the expense of somebody else or their own well-being.  Dominating and suppressing women isn't okay.  Suppressing your emotions to the point of mental illness or dangerous outburst is not okay.  I don't hate men being men, I hate men being assholes.

RESPONDER J: As a male, I have had a front row seat to this my entire life. Toxic masculinity takes many forms, but the one I am most familiar with would be bullying. As someone who has never been terribly interested in the stereotypical male pastimes of athletics and sports, I have frequently encountered toxic masculinity firsthand. At its core, I identify toxic masculinity as a sense of entitlement. It is a belief that I deserve this thing that I want, and therefore the means that I use to get it are justified. At its most obvious it can take the form of objectifying women, and resulting in things such as the “friend zone” mentality where a man feels entitled to a woman’s affection because he has met criteria that he has determined should entitle him to it. In its more subtle forms, it can manifest as gender bias, where a man doesn’t consider the wants, needs, and desires of women in all aspects of life, because they cannot relate to those needs.

As for its fragility, this is similar to how bullies are fragile. These beliefs in an entitlement aren’t deeply held, they are just taken for granted. They persist mostly by never being challenged. When someone does challenge toxic masculinity, the response is frequently one of indignation and bewilderment because no one has ever questioned their world view, including themselves.

Finally, I find the idea that a man has to exhibit these characteristics to be considered a man to be completely abhorrent. As a man, I know plenty of men who have questioned the entitlement mentality of toxic masculinity and rejected it, and it does not make them any less masculine. While I am not a practicing Catholic anymore, I know from my upbringing in the faith that the church does not espouse these toxic ideas of masculinity, and that to be a good Christian man of faith you must respect all people. To believe that other people owe you something or that you are entitled to something from other people is to disrespect those people.

5. Why don't you support border security?

RESPONDER A: This drives me CRAZY. What makes you think that because I want to allow families and refugees in more easily that I don’t want some sort of screening process. I just want it to be easier for innocents to live a better life. This does mean that there is a possibility of nefarious things to have more access, yes, but it also means that we are helping more people, which I think we should.

RESPONDER B: What does this “border security” entail? If it’s “the wall” that Mexico is(n’t) going to pay for then the reasons why that’s a terrible, terrible idea are legion. Any wall could be circumvented and it doesn’t do anything to address the real problem. And there are a number of larger and more immediate problems that require more resources. I want drug dealers and other riff-raff to be caught and prosecuted. But, studies show that Americans just don’t take certain types of jobs that undocumented workers will take. And that, for the obvious reasons such as not wanting to bring attention to themselves, criminality is very low among undocumented people in comparison. And the amount of tax-funded benefits they could even access is very minimal compared to how much they end up paying into the economy. There is a lot of surrounding issues that need to be addressed. But to spend such outsized resources and trying to round up all these individuals, jail them, use punitive measures to try to dissuade people from coming in the first place, etc. is wasteful.

RESPONDER C: Unless a person is Native American, we are all 1-5^th Generation (at most) immigrants.

RESPONDER D: We live in a global society.  The world is much smaller now than it was in terms of trade and cultural exchange/appropriation.  Letting different cultures get to know each other and work together will lead to more peace.

As to “the wall,” it would destroy the environment.  Animals don’t know national boundaries.  Jaguars, already endangered, traverse the U.S./Mexico border in order to find enough habitat to survive.  Creating a barrier to that will further endanger the survival of that species, along with many others.

RESPONDER E: I support border security for the simple idea of keeping drug trafficking and human smuggling down.  But I also support a much easier path to citizenship in this country, If someone wants to immigrate to this country for a better life it should be SIMPLE and I also believe we should abolish ICE and reunite these families who want nothing more but to live a better life in this country.

RESPONDER F: I do support border security. But a wall is useless and a vast waste of tax payer dollars because it is a giant scape goat ploy. The easiest way to distract a populace from the real causes of problems is to find a group of people that are different from yourselves and point at them and say that they're outsiders and they're the cause of all our problems. They steal and connive to undermine who we are. But it's a ruse to fool you and play you as fools as they continue to rob you blind. Those from south of the border merely want to be safe and secure in their lives just like us. The southern border has never resulted in terrorism on our soil. The 9/11 men came from Canada, and had passports. We should embrace them and encourage them to ingratiate them into our culture and way of life instead of treating them as outsiders. Besides if the cartels and gangs are a worry that is caused by the war on drugs, and gun running from America to central and south America. They get their money from smuggling, thus can pay people and get weapons to force control in their home countries. Our border security won't stop that. It won't. A wall can be climbed, or dug under. And staffing a 2000 mile wall would cost a fortune, and we already can't afford roads and bridges. Fix the real problems and the border will not need secured.

RESPONDER G: Before I respond, I want you to read my blurb if you didn’t. I say this because I want you to understand that 1) immigration is not just something I googled or read about on Vice and 2) my opinion on this issue comes my knowledge and simply because legislation has a direct impact on me and my family. Some of my favorite products I can’t buy here in the US (Tylenol with codeine is everything and OTC in Canada) and feeling like a criminal over Tylenol is beyond irritating.

I want to say first, if we have to have borders, I want them secure but not at the expense of human life. They are imaginary, arbitrary lines some men hundreds of years ago decided on. So on one hand, the concept of borders is lost on me, on the other hand, I GET IT. It’s a definite line that dictates governance which has helped create order. What irritates me is denying people the right the cross these borders. I watch babies being torn from their mothers arms because of a LINE, and I want to scream. I see people spend all their money to leave their homes because of violence and war, just to be shot or arrested at a border crossing, or left to drown in the water and I don’t see security. I see humans losing their lives over a relatively insignificant thing. Secure borders do not mean deadly borders. Period.

RESPONDER H: I do. Just not the manner in which the United States has executed it. I grew up and lived for a long time in Michigan. I had an open border to my north that I could cross at will, be it for work or play. Now that same border requires much heavier documents than it ever did. The EU has open borders to any resident of a member state and it has had excellent effects on their economy and social structure.

RESPONDER I: Border security is fine.   Closed borders are not.  Internment camps are not.  Persecuting a specific group of people for being in our country is not okay.  There are illegal immigrants here from other places.  Why is it only the brown ones that we have an issue with?

RESPONDER J: I disagree with the premise of this question. There is a huge difference between supporting traditional methods of securing our borders and supporting actual security of our borders. If for example you believe that the threat that we must secure our borders against is due to illegal immigration, you must ask yourself why people are trying to immigrate illegally. If we wanted to increase our border security, what can we do to decrease the pressure on people to leave where they are? Traditionally when we speak of border security, there is only one border that people speak about. Have you stopped to consider why that is? Why doesn’t Trump want to build a wall between the United States and Canada?

Let’s look at security a little differently. Clearly stopping people at the border is treating a symptom without addressing a cause.

6. Why do you think socialism is better than what we have?/Why does the Left hate capitalism?

RESPONDER A: Again, this drives me crazy. I do not hate capitalism. I hate laissez faire capitalism where there are no regulations or oversight, because then there is no protection of the common person from the excesses of capitalism. The main reason I am such a huge supporter of unions. I think that capitalism and socialism get together and have a baby called the welfare state, where we make sure that everyone in our society has the basics of what they need to be full members of that society.  This means that everyone should have shelter, health care, food, and education.

            Two questions I usually get on this. “What about freeloaders?” Yeah, they will happen, but it also means that innocents get what they need, so it is worth it for me. “What about dependency culture?” This is also going to happen in some cases, but not that many. If people want a better life than the basics that welfare provides, they will need to work for it.

            AND, if you don’t need any welfare because you are succeeding, you don’t get any. It is that easy.

RESPONDER B: Capitalism has its uses. But, it far too often incentivizes destructive behavior. There have to be more concerns than how much money you can make in the short term for sustainability reasons.

What America has as a system is definitely not a pure form of capitalism regardless. Certain industries are subsidized or disincentivized by the government. Resources are pulled through taxes to pay for a number of widespread societal maintenance. Having everything be privatized means that a number of citizens are going to be left out in the cold if there not enough profit in it. For example, the mail system. Without USPS, it’s going to be more trouble than it’s worth to get access to certain areas.  Companies would rarely spend resources to do so because there wouldn’t be a huge return on investment.

Society has to be a mix of both capitalistic and socialist methods. They balance each other out.

RESPONDER C: We are supposed to be a Constitutional Republic, but there is so much corruption (gerrymandering, electoral college selections, and under-handed tactics) in politics today our government is not finding solutions, they are only compounding the problem.

RESPONDER D: The left doesn’t generally hate capitalism.  The left wants regulated capitalism that actually respects the rights of individuals rather than corporations and wealthy investment bankers. 

I hate capitalism because it has led to the rise of our disposable, consumer culture where everyone is obsessed with the next best thing and throws away the old thing with no thought to its environmental impact. 

RESPONDER E: Capitalism has no checks and balances for extreme greed.  I don’t believe socialism is the complete answer but it has value.  In socialism no one starves and everyone has access to healthcare and education.  Capitalism in this country has led to this country basically being the haves and the have nots.  The left doesn’t hate capitalism, the left just recognizes the flaws.

RESPONDER F: The left hates capitalism because capitalism rewards greed and selfishness. That's the bottom line. The few rich will only get richer as they can play with more money, thus squeezing the remainder out of everyone else. Nickel and diming. Those of the older generation can attest to that. More fees, higher prices, stagnant wages. All because the shareholders and executives want to make more money. Capitalism birthed big business, corporations that crush people in the pursuit of more money. and most importantly CAPITALISM UNCHECKED CREATED COMPANY MINING TOWNS. Socialism is an economic system too. Not a political system as many would believe though it has the guise of it. It's the people in control of money. Commoditizing many things and having the all pay for it. Socialized medicine, everyone pays so no one needs to, roads, police, military, schools, INTERNET (Nashville already has the Gig, socialized internet and the speeds are crazy high). Socialism is about giving back and helping others. When you have nothing but can make money, you're more likely to give back. Because you know what it's like to not have anything. The fear of takers abusing socialism is based on takers who struggle every day and STILL HAVE nothing so they have to take. That's their only recourse. Socialism will rectify that by ensuring everyone can live comfortably.

RESPONDER G: Capitalism is not a saving grace. It’s not. Let’s just get that out of the way. Americans have some idealistic view of capitalism, like it makes us somehow better than the countries that don’t have capitalism. And it’s just not the case. My ideal economy would be democratic socialist, which is not the same as socialism, by the way. Capitalism would still be part of the economy, but we would socialize a lot of aspects to help our citizens. Healthcare would be socialized but you can still have your Amazon Prime for the goods you choose. Capitalism has no place in areas like healthcare because people DIE as a result. Capitalism has no place in education, because we should want to educate our citizens.

RESPONDER H: I hate capitalism because it’s a game I can’t win. Those at the top stay there and those at my level remain. As a cook, I take a lot of pride in my job. It’s not a job that “anyone” can do. There is a short list of people in my town who can do what I do at the level I do it. Yet, somehow, I am paid as though I am completely expendable. Any system that treats me and my crew as though we are another cog in the machine, as opposed to the highly skilled experts that we are, isn’t worth propping up.

RESPONDER I: Why is it that people love our social programs, like public education, public roads,  snow removal from said roads, etc., but object to ones that don't personally benefit from?  Would you not want food, shelter, and healthcare if you weren't financial capable of obtaining it?  Would you want to watch your child die because you can't afford a treatment they need? And why must public education end at grade 12?

RESPONDER J: The biggest problem that I see with capitalism is that it assumes that if you don’t have money, it is your fault and if you do have money it is because you have earned it. Based on this belief it is therefore justified to mistreat the poor and benefit the rich. I don’t specifically believe that an entirely socialist government is the answer to the problem, however I do believe that there are aspects of socialism that are strong, and to reject adopting the strengths of a system just because other parts of the system have weaknesses is foolishness.

7. What's wrong with traditional values?

RESPONDER A: Nothing, as long as you don’t try to force them on others. Believe whatever you want for yourself personally, just do not interfere with other people living theirs.

RESPONDER B: A rather vague question. I can only make some assumptions as to what traditional values might be. How I really feel about “tradition” goes back to an earlier answer. Just because something has been done for a long time doesn’t necessarily meant it’s the only or the best way to do it. Who are being harmed by these values? In what ways are these values oppressive to those that adhere to them? Clinging to something because it’s tradition while not taking anything else into consideration is ill-advised.

RESPONDER C: There’s nothing wrong with living with traditional values, but please include love and acceptance for those who choose not to live with traditional values. (It depends on which traditional values.)

RESPONDER D: Traditional values protect the status quo.  We know that the status quo is wrong on many issues, such as reproductive rights, gender, foreign policy, and the economy.  These need to change in order to be more inclusive.  For example, I argue that no one in the U.S. should be barely making it.  The idea that everyone needs to “just get a job” is unhelpful because it presumes that what that person is doing at home (raising a family, taking care of elderly parents, etc.) is worthless from the monetary standpoint, but this should not be the case.  That person who is changing bedpans for her dad doesn’t get paid for that, but gets paid when she works in a nursing home doing the same thing simply because in the nursing home someone is paying for it.  That is wrong.  That person should not have to choose between taking care of mom or dad and working enough to keep the lights on.

RESPONDER E: There’s absolutely nothing wrong with traditional values.  The problem is when you believe your traditional values should be how the rest of us live. Honestly I’d love to be a stay at home dad, play video games all day and hang out with the kids (sounds awesome) and I also love my current bachelor lifestyle, neither of which is traditional.

But if this question is geared more towards the marriage argument.  You can believe whatever you want as what marriage should be defined as but in all honesty marriage in this country is much more of an economic decision more than anything.  And honestly who marries who doesn’t affect me, so I truthfully don’t care.

RESPONDER F: Traditional Values are not traditional, they're instituted values that aren't even that old. The society we're aiming for today, on the left, is more in line with the ancient world before Christianity took over. Athens had more freedom than we do, and is considered a model of democracy. As is Rome. Traditional values repress women, encourage one religion that's been twisted and perverted to teach hate. Traditional values as they're nostalgically viewed today don't even reflect the actual values of the 40s and 50s pre cold war which was America is a melting pot of acceptance of people of all races, creeds, and origin. That if they're different that's ok. That's TRUE traditional American values. But the cold-war communism fear broke that. That's when In God We Trust was added to everything and hate and fear reigned. So yeah, traditional values are instituted and aren't that old and should not be celebrated because they promote intolerance. We should value people for who they are, especially if they're different, as long as they do right by themselves and others there's no problem.

RESPONDER G: I am genuinely curious what you consider “traditional values”. That’s a very general term that at its basic definition means values that have a long history. I believe that there are some traditional values that are dangerous. For example, no divorce. Anyone should be able to leave an abusive, toxic, unsafe situation. I believe some traditional values uphold patriarchy. For example, women not working. (Caveat: if a woman consent to being home and not working, she should be allowed to. Women being forced to stay home is not okay.) I believe some traditional values are old fashioned and don’t take into account the current reality of our society. For example, abstinence only education. Teenagers are going to have sex, and we should teach them safety. There are other traditional values that are good: honesty and charity. I take no issue with the types of traditional values that don’t harm anyone.

RESPONDER H: I’m not sure which values those are. I’d love for someone to explain that to me. The “traditional values” I experienced mostly consisted of me dating within my own race. Which I find deeply repugnant.

RESPONDER I: Traditional or conservative?  Traditions change.   What is “traditional” now wasn't 100 years ago. Times are changing.  Let go of the past and make some new traditions.

RESPONDER J: The biggest problem I see with traditional values is where these values come from. If you only value these beliefs because it is traditional, then you aren’t questioning and thinking for yourself. To cling to an ideology in spite of evidence to the contrary is foolishness. An unquestioned value is a weak value.

8. What’s with “safe spaces?”/Don’t safe spaces shelter people so they don’t have to hear differing opinions?

RESPONDER A: No, safe spaces are just a place where people can go take a breath and collect themselves if they get overwhelmed by something.  I have never used a “safe space”, but I have used a bathroom for this purpose, as I bet a lot of people have. Safe spaces are just a formal version of that.

RESPONDER B: I’m not fully versed on safe spaces as a political term. But, as I understand them, it’s a place or group where someone can feel they won’t be attacked for who they are and can be supported. In a sense, there are all sorts of different spaces that fill that void that don’t draw any particular ire. A club, a bar, a support group, etc. I don’t think that people should only live in those “safe spaces” and I’d find it hard to believe that anyone actually does.

RESPONDER C: Why would someone not want to go somewhere that is not negative, quality of living is very important.

RESPONDER E: Safe spaces are places where people with shared experiences or views can be themselves without fear of persecution having to be the token amongst a group of people.  Safe spaces can be detrimental if people stay in them at all times and don’t integrate into the rest of society.  But as the show Cheers taught “sometimes you wanna go where everybody knows your name”

So I’ll tell the story going in my 2nd year of college me and my friends organized to all live on the same floor of a dorm and we didn’t know that another group of black students was doing the same thing and we ended up with a safe space where the floor was 90% black and it was a place where we could be us and didn’t have to represent the entire race amongst our other friends and classmates who were not black.

RESPONDER F: Safe spaces were an infrequent thing but yes they do shelter people- from persecution. It helps those who feel threatened feel safe and secure in their own being. The same can be said for small town America and churches- they can very easily be considered safe spaces themselves. They protect your beliefs, but also shelter you from hearing differing opinions. The difference here being, the safe spaces established for colleges was for those who were being threatened with dangerous ideals and hate, which should not be encouraged let alone celebrated as a "differing opinion". Churches teach love and acceptance while simultaneously protecting people from differing views of even their own religion. Things perceived as threats. Safe spaces are all over the place.

RESPONDER G: The basic definition of a safe space is this: a place where someone can relax and self-express without fear of being unwelcome, uncomfortable or challenged based on sex, race, sexual orientation, culture, gender expression, etc. So let’s break that down. A safe space means someone can be who they are and will never have to fear. For white cis men, the country is your safe space. You never have to fear about being who you are (unless being who you are is a serial killer or something). For marginalized people, who are constantly in fear of being harassed, assaulted or worse, they now have a place to go where they don’t have to worry. Isn’t that wonderful? Shouldn’t everyone be able to feel safe sometimes? It really isn’t about differing opinions... it’s about helping people who are statistically unsafe, be safe. People in safe spaces can and do have differing opinions on things, but they are safe to have those opinions. That’s the point.

RESPONDER H: There are people who have endured so much. Those people would like a break. In my experience it’s not those wishing to take a platform away from others but rather to have one that’s just for them. If you, like me, have found yourself on the outside of that do not despair. There are so very many spots in this world for you and I. Don’t be mad that we can’t have that specific one.

RESPONDER I: Safe spaces aren't for sheltering people from opposing views, they are places to escape mental, physical, and verbal abuse.  While the things people find triggering might seem silly or obsolete to one they could be traumatizing to another.

RESPONDER J: Safe spaces are about respecting people.

9. Why do college campuses silence voices on the right?

RESPONDER A: That has never been my experience. I have been exposed to many right viewpoints, and I studied theatre!  If I had to guess why liberal thought is more prevalent in schools, it would be a combination of the overall kind heartedness of young people, and the attraction of education as a career to liberal minds. Those two things combine to make liberal voices seem much louder and more prevalent on campuses. 

RESPONDER B: There’s a difference between silencing “right-wing” voices and silencing views that may be considered hate speech, etc. I’d rather take it on a case-by-case basis than paint such a broad brush because it’s inconceivable that any and all right-wing views or persons aren’t given air time or debated on college campuses.

RESPONDER C: Mental illness should be treated, not celebrated. Just kidding, I think that everyone is entitled to their own opinions but it’s probably to prevent violence from occurring. Hate-fueled ignorance can easily manifest into violence.

RESPONDER D: They don’t.  They silence racist, sexist, and unhealthily conservative ideas that cause harm.  However, most people forget that the right does exist in academia.  There are plenty of Ivy League professors who are conservative (see Henry Kissinger for a big name that everyone will know).  The difference is that the conservatives in academia are conservative based upon the nature of their research and actually use data to support themselves rather than cherry pick ideas.  There are plenty of conservative historians and economists who have had successful careers as professors and authors.

RESPONDER E: Voices on the right are not silenced on college campuses.  Students on the right choose not be heard because they are usually looped in with the leaders on the right who are being exposed as racist, sexist, only favoring large companies or some combination of the 3.

RESPONDER F: More often than not colleges silence "voices on the right" because they propagate intolerance, and hate- closed minded thinking. Where colleges are supposed to be beacons of acceptance, knowledge, and open-mindedness, encouraging the opposite defeats that entire purpose. Furthermore, they don't silence all right voices. Right leaning speakers do get opportunities to speak, but as I said above many on the right promote intolerance and close-mindedness. But that's conjecture based on observation, I have not done much digging into it.

RESPONDER G: My honest opinion is that students are allowed to protest and not listen if they don’t want to. The injuries, the riots, are not okay. The reality is college speakers should be about educating and facts only. Period. Anyone coming to a college to speak who has a history of being inciting, has no intent of educating. I went to a college that had speakers all the time, but they were never controversial... they were always educational. Yes, colleges should promote ideals like freedom of speech and expression, but not at the cost of facts and education. To clarify, I’m not saying speakers on the right don’t educate, but Milo, for example, was not there to educate anyone. He is controversial for the sake of being controversial. That’s not education.

RESPONDER H: The right to say anything you want does not require people to give you a platform or listen to you. You don’t have to keep pushing rocks up unending hills. Make your own spots.

RESPONDER I: I haven't witness this first hand, so I'm not sure what you're referencing.   However, I come from a conservative, Catholic community and from what I've seen, when locals go to college they aren't shunned for their conservative ways they are just educated on the way others live, are treated, etc.  As their awareness increases their views tend to become more liberal.

RESPONDER J: I think this is more of a natural result of the ideologies at play, and which ones align with the purpose of a college or university. At the core of higher education is the ability to think critically about things and to question the world around you. Therefore an ideology that tends toward an unquestioning attitude towards the world and instead relies on traditions to supply all of the answers is not very compatible with the principles of higher education.

10. Why when the government so clearly does a horrible job effectively and efficiently managing large programs does it make sense to give them more control? Do you think that more control will cause all programs to be more effective or is that not an issue because the current state of affairs is, from the right point of view, lacking eloquent phrasing- completely fucked?

RESPONDER A: For me, the answer to this question is that if the government sacrifices control to the private sphere, the richest and most corrupt people would be able to do as they would and we would be far more fucked. The government constantly needs revamping and corruption is always present, but without it the vast majority of people would have much more terrible lives.

RESPONDER B: While the government doesn’t always get things correct, the alternative, likely private entities, quite often get things horribly wrong as well and even cause widespread damage in the same fashion. The trick is to get knowledgeable people without conflicts of interest at the helm of these programs either way. There do seem to be popular widespread government programs, such as Medicare. And having a unified system for certain aspects of the country is a must, like my USPS example earlier, as opposed to having so many citizens fall through the cracks. Ideally, if the government is doing something harmful, the redress can come through elections. But it can also be extra problematic when people who think the government can help actually get into government. They then have an active incentive for the government to not do things properly.

But, in the end, it comes down to what it is whether the government is most suited to handling it or not.

RESPONDER D: We know that the private sector is also inefficient.  Look at the Iraq War.  The private security that was hired to aid military forces and to build weapons were twice as expensive as when those programs were run by the government.  The government is not nearly as bad at running programs as people think it is.

RESPONDER F: I firmly believe that it's not the GOVERNMENT itself's problem it's those placed into it that cause the problems. For far too long the government has been over burdened by people who don't know what they're doing and have not had proper oversight. And that goes especially for congress, who create many of these departments in the first place. It's slap dashedly done for power or ego. That's not the government's fault. It's people's fault. Many programs, like Affordable Care Act, also fail by sabotage by the opponents of it. The republicans made many amendments to the program and limited its full scope from the beginning and have only worked against since while simultaneously blaming the democrats for its failure. Admittedly even the original document wasn't perfect because it HAD to be forced through congress because otherwise it wouldn't pass due to the inability to compromise. That's just congress. many programs also go underfunded- thus they perform poorly- because of the inability to pass a proper budget. That can be rectified with an audit of the federal government outright, especially the military and it's ponderously bloated budget. Where is the money going- is a question that needs asked more and answered finally. That way programs can be properly funded, organized, and those that implement them can do so together and successfully. The current state of affairs is most definitely fucked for a multitude of different reasons, but all is not lost as long as we as a people can get off our asses and give a shit about what's going on.

RESPONDER G: I would love an example a large program the government is doing a horrible job on to better answer this question. But, since there is no example, I’m going to go ahead and say first that no one knows bureaucracy better than an immigrant. I was also married to a soldier, who then became a veteran. I have a lot of experience in government programs and bureaucratic process. It’s frustrating, and at times completely infuriating. But... have you ever had a problem with your cable provider? How about with your insurance company? Were those not frustrating and infuriating experiences too? Believe me, nobody is doing anything perfectly.

RESPONDER H: In my experience government programs work and work well. Once we place massive limitations on them they struggle to find anyone to actually help and help effectively. When I was jobless and homeless my options were limitless. When I got a minimum wage job those options dropped substantially. When I was promoted and made ten cents above minimum wage I was deemed a “success” and no longer needed any help, despite the fact that I still made less a month than my regions minimum rent.

RESPONDER I: I guess this is a matter of a difference of opinion.   I don't think that government programs are horribly run.  I think they are underfunded and inadequate, but that's a managerial issue that's a budgeting issue higher up.

RESPONDER J: I think it is important to keep in mind that there are a number of things that the government does well. I’m not saying that they couldn’t be improved upon, but that would suffer if they were privatized.

11. If a conservative moderate who leaned slightly conservative financially but socially liberal ran against a very left-winged liberal, would you consider the conservative or automatically vote against him because of the current state of affairs with the Republican Party majority?

RESPONDER A: If the only thing we disagreed on was fiscal issues, and even then they were not terribly far apart, and they were running against a communist, I would probably vote for the first person. But I always explore every candidate, even though I vote Democrat about 85% of the time.

RESPONDER B: I base the majority of my voting decisions on individual policy positions. Though, I fully admit that conservatives don’t usually want the same things I want. If you’re asking whether I’d vote against a Republican just because “that side needs to be taught a lesson” and not take anything else into account, then no.

RESPONDER D: Depends on the candidate.  Would I vote for Michael Bloomberg over Jill Stein? Yes.  Would I vote for Bloomberg over Bernie Sanders? No.  I evaluate each candidate and each race and then make my decision based on that. 

RESPONDER E: I wouldn’t automatically vote against the moderate.  In this case I would look deeply at each issue that matters to me and both candidates track record and what they pledged to do and vote based on the most information possible.  Now the liberal would get my vote if I thought they were 50/50 because of the current state of affairs.

RESPONDER G: It would depend on the issues. I spend a lot of time researching candidates and their views on literally everything. I vote for who I think is better for the job and will do the things I want to get done. Not because they have a D next to their name. Not gonna lie, it would probably end up being the super left wing person because I am pretty left wing myself. But I always consider both candidates. Always.

RESPONDER H: Given our current trend for politicians to vote strictly along party lines regardless of personal feelings, I can’t trust any republican (or really any politician) to keep their word.

RESPONDER I: It depends who they are and who they are running against.  I would take Kasich over Trump any day and I actually registered republican in 2016 to vote for Kasich.  Had he been up against Hilary, I probably would have voted for him over her, if for no other reason than because I know that the right would never have left her to do her job.  Heck, she lost the election is still brought up and blamed daily.

RESPONDER J: While I tend to vote liberal, I consider each candidate based on their history and to what degree I agree with their platform. The fact that I tend to vote along party lines is more indicative of which party tends to run candidates that I can agree with their platform.

12. You believe that a gun ban would be a way to solve the shootings in this county. However, how does your gun ban prevent 1. People from procuring them illegally and doing the same thing. 2. How the evolution of 3D printers and technology will be advanced enough in the next few years that anyone could print a gun “ghost gun” with no tracking numbers or accountability. What are your solutions to these two issues?

RESPONDER A: Well, if there is a gun ban, there will be a lot fewer guns and it will be harder for illegal guns to be procured. There is data to back that up. I do not have an answer to the 3d printer issue. I simply have not done the research.

RESPONDER B: I actually don’t believe in a “gun ban”, as in no guns for anyone anywhere. And functionally, many guns are already banned. I do believe that you should have to acquire specific licenses for specific weaponry, with regular psycho-evaluative and training requirements. As many recent mass shootings were carried out by legal gun owners, clearly our vetting process needs some work.

As for the procurement of illegal weapons, there has to be a concerted effort to stem black market distribution and round up any guns that people aren’t supposed to have. While this is clearly a daunting task, things like guilt-free buybacks and tip lines have helped in other countries.

In order for 3D printed weapons to become a real problem, a number of things would have to happen. Now, as far as I know, only certain parts of guns can be feasibly printed, meaning some parts can still be tracked. And even then, the gun is hilariously fragile. They would be good for perhaps a one-time use, as in one or two bullets firing, and thus at the very least not good for mass shootings. Also having the equipment required to create them on a large scale or even repeatedly would be somewhat prohibitive, even if the technology improves. We may also have to start registering 3D printers, or force them to include some kind of signifier in its creations so things created by them can be tracked. I’d defer to people in criminology that have more info on the situation.

RESPONDER C: Australia outlawed guns after their last mass shooting, and they were quite successful. Look at the crime statistics of other countries that have eradicated guns.

RESPONDER D: The real answer is making the registered owner of the gun responsible for any crimes committed using that weapon and requiring that each gun be registered.  That would drive the price of a gun black market so high that no one would likely be able to afford a gun. 

Pass on the 3d technology, as I know virtually nothing on it.

RESPONDER E: I don’t believe in a complete gun ban, but they need to be way more difficult to purchase and do believe those that don’t follow those rules should be held responsible.  A gun ban wouldn’t prevent those from purchasing them illegally from doing it and there is no solution for that outside of the laws that are currently on the books.  I don’t have a solution to the 3D printer problem to be honest.

I can say though being from the inner city I know a lot of people who have purchased firearms illegally and those are not the people I’m worried about being shot by.  It’s the staunch defenders of the 2nd amendment who I fear being shot by first.  Make of that what you will.

RESPONDER G: Okay. I DO NOT believe in a gun ban. Most liberals do not want to ban all guns. Please understand that. I hope that since you asked this question, you will read the answers and you’ll see that a “gun ban” is not something the majority of us want and therefore, in the future, you’ll listen to what left minded/liberal people are saying and consider their opinions rather than blow them off. Again, I’m from Canada... you can count their mass shootings in the last thirty years on one hand. You can also own an AR-15 in Canada. Totally allowed. What’s the difference? Licensing and education. Also, magazine size. I could spend an hour explaining the laws in Canada, but you can google these. I want our laws to be similar to Canada’s. I just think they have it right. They also share a border with the country with the most privately owned guns, and they still don’t have people dying from gun violence. The argument that people will get them illegally and it won’t change anything just isn’t supported by reality. Yes. Black market gun sales probably happen, but the amount of gun violence will still decrease significantly as evidenced by literally every other country with common sense gun legislation. As for 3D guns, do you know how much a 3D printer costs? The guy who wants to rob a house isn’t getting a 3D printer. He just isn’t. Also, the government was super-fast on passing legislation against these guns... so seriously if your argument about being doing it illegally anyway was upheld by reality, those laws wouldn’t have passed. Right?

RESPONDER H: I don’t want to ban guns at all. I simply want it to be as hard for someone to purchase a gun as it is to get a driver’s license. This is especially relevant since it’s incredibly difficult to vote in my state without state ID but really, really easy to get a gun.

RESPONDER I: I am unaware of anybody that actually wants to ban guns.  Regulate, yes.  Ban, no.  Criminals are going to do criminal things; putting barriers in place can slow them down though.

As for printing guns… people have been able to build guns for years.  It's not an unheard of skill.  Hell, my neighbor has tools in his garage that could easily be used to build a gun.  Effort tends to be a pretty good deterrent though.  Just because a 3D printer could print a gun doesn't mean most people would be ambitious enough to print and assemble them.

Though, on the subject of gun control, Chris Rock has a great skit about bullet control, which I think actually has some validity.  Guns themselves are relatively harmless with bullets.

RESPONDER J: While I do not believe that a gun ban is the answer to all of our troubles, I think that the answer is easier said than done. The obvious answer is to legislate. The rebuttal to this is always that if someone wants to commit a crime with a gun, they will find a way to get a gun. The major flaw with this reasoning is that it somehow implies that just because it won’t fix the problem all by itself, it isn’t worth doing. The cause of the whole gun control debate is that no one is willing to take any steps because one step all by itself won’t fix the problem. Create a digital Federal database that tracks all guns and who owns them? Can’t do it because it won’t fix the problem. Mandate a cooling off period between when you apply for a gun and when you actually get a gun? That won’t fix the problem all by itself, so it isn’t worth considering. There are dozens of things that we could do to improve the situation, but there is no incentive to try anything because the people who make the laws are being lobbied not to try to fix the problem.

13. Why do you think healthcare and college should be free?/what about personal responsibility?

RESPONDER A: It would not be free. It would be paid for by taxes. If you have a job, you help every single American be healthy and educated, if they want to be. Free healthcare and college does not mean that jobs go away. You want stuff, you want a “good life”, get a job. Healthcare and education make our whole country better.

RESPONDER B: The way our healthcare system is set up is laden with problems. Looking worldwide, the most efficient systems are single-payer or “government-run” health care, cutting out these middleman health care providers. Just as a public health issue and preventing the spread of diseases, it does no one any good if certain people can’t or afraid to go to the doctor due to the cost. One of the reasons health care costs have ballooned is that people have to wait until things get to be life-threatening before they’ll address it. And at current costs, pretty much no one can have enough excess cash to address something like a sudden cancer for themselves or even their children.

Along with health care, education is a great equalizer. The idea that youth have their potential bound by how much money their parents have or their willingness to go into debt is not only a moral issue, it’s a practical one. We already are seeing the economic effects of having so many people with student loan debt. In order to be competitive with other countries, it’s something that has to be addressed. As for being personally responsible, we are basically asking today’s youth to be hundreds and thousands of times more successful or responsible with money compared to the costs of attending college in the past, creating a generational disadvantage. It’s in America’s best interest to correct this.

RESPONDER D: Education is good in and of itself.  It allows a person to grow, which is worth the cost on its own.  It should not be tied purely to business and dollar signs.  Our obsession with dollars and value has destroyed the idea of learning and personal growth. 

Assuming that we keep it tied to value measured in dollars, then education can become an equalizer.  The rich are far more likely to send their kids to college than the poor because the rich can afford it while the poor can’t, which creates a cycle of poverty.  Let’s actually give people the opportunity to improve themselves.

RESPONDER E: Healthcare should be free; no one should have to die because they can’t afford medication or costly procedures.  College on the other hand shouldn’t be free but should be much more affordable.  You shouldn’t have to go hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt to pursue your career passion.

RESPONDER G: It’s my personal responsibility to pay taxes to help my fellow Americans. Period. End of discussion. So like, I want my taxes to seriously HELP someone. Help someone get an education and take care of their family. Help a child with leukemia. Help a suicidal person get help. That’s what I feel is my personal responsibility.

RESPONDER H: I don’t want them to be free, I simply want them to be easily afforded on a minimum wage existence. Since my parents went to school tuition rates have risen 600% while the minimum wage has risen less than 4%. That increase in cost has not resulted in increase in quality.

RESPONDER I: I didn't realize we were personally responsible for our genetics?  But seriously… firstly, it wouldn't be free.  It would be funded through our tax dollars.  So, everybody would be paying their share. Also, a sickly population doesn't contribute and is actually financially draining on a society.  Providing everybody basic care would save everybody money.

RESPONDER J: Let’s be clear that nothing is free. Every citizen pays taxes, and those taxes pay for the government and all government programs. I don’t think that police and fire programs are free. I don’t think that libraries and grade schools are free. I think that these are the services that we are paying for when we pay our taxes. It’s like buying a cable subscription. There are lots of available options and prices associated with them. I’m just suggesting that these are services that should be included or at least subsidized by the tax dollars I am spending. I think that as a society, we have a responsibility to ensure that every member of our society has access to these things, regardless of things such as how much money their parents have.

14. Why do you support a $15 (or high) minimum wage when it will cause inflation?

RESPONDER A: It will only cause inflation if the highest level of money holders does not adjust their earnings. If Jeff Bezos sacrifices an amount of money that will not affect his lifestyle, every single one of his employees could have a better than living wage.

            The other side of this is, why do you think that someone working a full-time job does not deserve enough money to live off of?

RESPONDER B: It won’t cause inflation if implemented correctly. There are a lot of economic moving parts that have fall into place. But, again, we are far worse off in economic disparity compared to the past and many problems can be solved by giving the general populace more buying power.

RESPONDER D: Inflation has outstripped minimum wage since it was instated.  Let’s get minimum wage back to being a living wage.  We know that most people earning minimum wage are not high school kids, but adults trying to make their way in life.

Also, fears of inflation are overrated.  Australia has a $16 dollar minimum wage.  Is life more expensive there than here? A bit, but not enough to make a real difference.  Besides, if we were not so obsessed in this country with cheap crap and keeping up with the Joneses, we might be a bit better about caring for one another and our environment. 

RESPONDER E: The minimum wage should be much higher because that is what is what designed for.  The minimum wage was supposed to be what you should be able to live on in whatever city you live in.  The inflation predicted by a minimum wage hike is exaggerated by those who don’t want people to climb the economic class.

RESPONDER G: It wouldn’t cause inflation. The minimum wage has not followed the trend of inflation at all. That’s why I support a higher minimum wage: there is no reason for it to have not followed the trends of the economy. Companies like Walmart and Amazon have CEO’s who are some of the wealthiest people in the world. They can afford to pay their employees more without raising costs: and they both did. Walmart pays $11 minimum since January, Amazon recently decided a few days ago to pay $15 minimum. Their prices have not and will not increase. Target pays $12, Costco pays $14. You probably haven’t even noticed a change, am I right?

RESPONDER H: As a country our output has increased exponentially compared to the wages paid for that output. Paying someone the federal minimum wage tells them one thing, that you would pay them less if it were legal. We want all of the services that are currently being provided, we simply think that those people deserve less money. And before you ask, yes, jobs that are more difficult deserve more money, but so do those doing something you think is easy.

RESPONDER I: Inflation has already happened.  We're just trying to catch back up.

RESPONDER J: I believe that every employer should be required to pay a living wage. The idea that increasing the minimum wage will drive up inflation has thus far been shown to be a whimsy. This has been studied by multiple groups as the practice catches on, and it just hasn’t happened.

15. Why should private companies provide birth control for their employees?

RESPONDER A: Because if you are the source of their health care, your beliefs should not dictate how they live their lives. That is actually un-American in my view.  Supplying birth control does not actually affect how you live your life, but it does place your moral code on someone else to their detriment. 

RESPONDER B: Birth control has a number of medical applications outside of contraception. In addition, I would assume that it’d be in a company’s interest to make sure that its female workers aren’t ham-stringed by unplanned pregnancies.

RESPONDER C: They would be preventing the temporary loss of an employee for next to nothing.

RESPONDER D: See above answer to abortion.  People will have sex.  Let’s not bring unwanted babies into the world because we force someone to choose between having unprotected sex because they can’t afford birth control (if the company doesn’t provide it) and running the risk of having a baby for which they cannot provide proper care.

RESPONDER E: If companies pay for men’s ED medication then they should pay for birth control plain and simple.

RESPONDER H: This one is easy, private companies already provide Viagra. If they are willing to pay for men to fuck however they want then they can’t deny women that same thing.

RESPONDER I: The bigger question for me is, why wouldn't they want to?! In my eyes it's financially beneficial.  Pregnancy isn't only expensive for the parents, it's also expensive for employers and insurance companies.  It should be considered preventative healthcare.

RESPONDER J: As a logic puzzle, this seems like an obvious solution to one of the biggest conservative arguments in favor of discriminating against women in the workplace, namely that of the argument that women should get paid less because their maternity cuts into the productivity of their employers. As a practical issue however, I believe that all healthcare should be provided to all people regardless of what types of healthcare it is. Prescription contraceptives should be no different than beta blockers or antidepressants.

16. Why did/do you support Obamacare when it often doubled or tripled payments for people in the middle class tax bracket, single 20-somethings who made too much for subsidiaries, or retirees who retire before 65, as examples?

RESPONDER A: If the ideas of single payer healthcare were fully embraced, everyone’s health costs would get lower and lower. So the idea of it is a very good one. As to why I support the Affordable Care Act is that while it was not perfect and it needs time to get better, MILLIONS more people were insured than before it. That is worth it to me, even if I end up paying more.

RESPONDER B: Obamacare as it was at the end had a number of problems. And in some cases, the problems stemmed from individual state governors refusing stipends and not wanting to play ball for political reasons. If there is something that can be proven to be more effective, I’m all for it. From what I’ve seen, many in Congress were not interested in coming up with something better that would help more people.

RESPONDER C: I support the original idea and intentions behind Obamacare but I was disappointed by how many external factors butchered it.

RESPONDER D: I’m not crazy about Obamacare as enacted.  The federal buyer option was killed before the bill was passed, which meant that it did not have any teeth.  The federal buyer option was the only way to keep prices low by creating an avenue for people to get cheap health care from the government, which would control prices by its immense buying power (see England’s healthcare system for an example of cost control).  However, no one should be denied healthcare because of pre-existing conditions.  The individual mandate is a way to keep costs down because it spreads the risk.

Any insurance runs on risks being spread out so that the company will not collapse when it has to make a payment on a claim.  Take auto insurance.  People who haven’t had accidents get upset because they often feel that they did not get any value because they paid premiums on which they never saw a return.  However, if insurance carriers only covered people who had losses, the premiums would skyrocket, becoming unaffordable for many.  Spreading the risk through individual mandates (everyone in all but two states is required to have auto insurance) allows prices to remain affordable for everyone. 

RESPONDER E: I support Obamacare as a means to an end.  His goal was universal healthcare for all Americans but because of all opposition it received and everything that needed to be taken out of it for it pass, this is what we got.  So if we have to deal with this current Obamacare to get free healthcare for all citizens then I am fine with that.

RESPONDER G: I didn’t fully support the ACA (“Obamacare”). I supported parts of it, i.e. it covered more veterans and people with pre-existing conditions. And what makes me angry is losing those things that helped so many Americans. The ACA dropped the level of uninsured veterans by 40%. The cuts have the potential to take that healthcare away from all of them. That’s not okay, and I would hope people on the right can understand that was a very good thing about the ACA, and you should see why we didn’t want it slashed apart. Right?  Hopefully.

RESPONDER H: I have to tap out on this on. The Medicare expansions under the Affordable Care Act literally saved my life. Without that I wouldn’t have even known that I had cancer, let alone survived it.

RESPONDER I: Why is your anger directed at the act and not the insurance companies.  They are the ones that raised premiums.  They just used the ACA as an excuse to do so.  With more participants premiums should have decreased, since there were more people to share the financial burden.  Insurance companies took advantage of the mandate to extort citizens.

RESPONDER J: This goes back to a trend that I have noticed of people arguing against a new system just because it isn’t perfect and therefore preferring the old system that was even more broken. It might not be the perfect solution, but it was a step in the right direction.

17. Why don’t rich people deserve to keep the money they’ve worked for/why do you support more taxes on the wealthy?/why do you want the rich to pay for everything?

RESPONDER A: I want everyone in America to have a basic level of living so they have the opportunity to thrive. Rich people have so much of the nation’s wealth that it becomes close to impossible to change anyone else’s situation. I don’t want to pauper rich people, but once a certain level of wealth is reached, there should be a social responsibility to help society rise as a whole.

RESPONDER B: Many wealthy people simply inherited money and did not work for it. But for those that did, I would say that there does indeed come a point when you’re not realistically using the money and just don’t need it. A lot of problems with the tax code is that people find ways to get around paying anything at all, such as off-shore accounts. There may be less of a need to increase taxes on the wealthy if so many loopholes weren’t being exploited. If these people want to be a part of American society, they shouldn’t just be leeching off of it and taking money out of economic circulation. It depresses the economy as a whole. It’s somewhat immoral, even. Especially given the exploitation involved to get to certain levels of wealth.

RESPONDER C: Paying more will not decrease their quality of life or livelihood.

RESPONDER D: Does anyone actually need a billion dollars?  Do they need to afford things the rest of us could never even dream to have?  Peter Singer made a great argument in favor of giving disposable income to the less fortunate from a utilitarian perspective.  Essentially, social services and bringing the less fortunate up help society as a whole, which will then even help the wealthy.  I think everyone wants a healthy society.

RESPONDER E: We don’t want the rich to pay for everything, we simply want the rich to pay their fair share of taxes and want corporate loop holes eliminated.

RESPONDER G: This is a tough question because it’s seriously just a difference of opinion on what people deserve, right? I believe no one deserves to make more money than they, their children and their children’s children collectively can spend in their lifetimes. That’s greedy AF. I don’t care what it was that you did in your life, what you invented or whatever, you don’t deserve THAT. Joseph Salk created the polio vaccine and refused to make money off of it. I believe he deserved some serious compensation because he saved so many lives, but I don’t think he deserved to be wealthier than the other 98% of the country combined. But you know, he chose to be kind and cared about saving people over his own finances, and I think that’s more than admirable. If we are going to live in a capitalist society where people do make those kinds of significant amounts of money, then it’s their personal responsibility to their country to assist in things like education for our children, infrastructure, etc. The country’s laws and people allowed them to be as rich as they are, they should seriously contribute. Period.

RESPONDER H: Because, despite being slightly inconvenienced, they will stay far wealthier than you or I will ever be. The Estate Tax is often called the Death Tax, but it effects only the deeply wealthy. If your parents want to leave you a business you will probably get every penny of it. Unless that business is Exon-Mobil.

RESPONDER I: Taxing the rich is a symptom of another, bigger problem.  If the rich distributed wealth fairly and equally amongst those that earned it (think: profit sharing or employee owned businesses) government intervention wouldn't be necessary.

RESPONDER J: The problem with this question is that you assume that the rich have worked for their wealth, and that they benefit from taxes only the same amount as other people. Let’s set aside inheritance, and take the CEO of Amazon as an example. Where did his $155 billion net worth come from? Amazon is successful because it can get packages from its warehouses to customers. How many more miles do you think are driven on highways by Amazon delivery trucks than by average citizens? The point is that the rich benefit much more from government services than poor people, so they should naturally pay a larger share.

18. Why does the left overall have such a bad opinion for people who live in rural areas?

RESPONDER A: Rural areas tend to be behind the curve on a lot of things. Life is old-fashioned and just moves at an easier pace.  There is something to be said about that, but, and this is a total prejudice of mine, I find that to be true about social and political issues. Things like racism, sexism and homophobia tend to be found more readily in rural areas than urban areas, in my own personal experience.

RESPONDER B: I would say that if there is any animus toward rural people from the left, it’s because the assumption is that they are uneducated and easily manipulated. And that the relative isolation and homogeneity lend to more bigoted views on average. That certainly isn’t true across the board. And to what extent “the left” has a bad opinion of rural areas could just be an extension of “red vs. blue”. Rural areas are usually staunchly red.

RESPONDER D: Rural people tend to be racist, sexist, and homophobic.  They tend to have no respect for nature and often want to take more land and destroy more natural habitat. Most vote for politicians who want things that the left opposes.  I would argue that there is a similar sentiment from the rural residents having a bad opinion of city dwellers because city dwellers oppose the values of those in rural areas. 

RESPONDER E: Because generally people in rural areas are extremely socially conservative and want to govern everyone based “traditional values.”

RESPONDER G: I live in a rural area. I know you. I went to school with you. I listened to you talk for the last 20 years of my life and never said a word bad about you. I don’t have a bad opinion of you. You were my friends, my teachers, my community. But I will say this: there is a whole world out there outside of your rural community, and you need to explore it. You need to talk to people who had a different upbringing than you. You need to be kind and less judgmental of people who differ from you. Everyone in your life is the same, and unfortunately, it has shrunk your worldview. That’s all. You’re wonderful, and I’m not asking you to change what you believe or who you are... I’m just asking you to explore what you don’t understand.

RESPONDER H: Mostly I don’t. Just the people who treat people different from them poorly. I’ve been called a faggot and had bottles throw at me enough that I’m continually afraid and on the lookout. Even in my “Liberal College Town” I’m treated as a second class citizen.

RESPONDER I: I don't think that it is the case.  I think they object to a minority of the population having so much control in our political system for no other reason than because of their location.

RESPONDER J: As someone who grew up in a very rural area, I suspect that it is correlated with higher education. When you work in agriculture or other occupations that involve working with your hands which are more common in rural areas, you don’t have as much exposure to higher education and the scientific disciplines. What you do have are communities of people with strong traditions. I’m not saying that there is anything wrong with this. However it does account for a difference in values. Higher education isn’t going to get your fields planted any faster.

19. How do you factor in the so-called income inequality between men and women with the fact that women are the ones who choose to leave work to have children, which definitely factors into those numbers?

RESPONDER A: It does not factor in, though.  When we talk about the wage gap, we are talking about men and women, in the same type of job with the same type of experience. Also, since I am a stay at home dad with a hard-working wife, this question kinda pisses me off.

RESPONDER B: From what I’ve read, it’s kind of a dubious statement to say that women choose to leave work and have children and thus the disparity is a myth. We have to address factors of women being pushed out due to being pregnant, what support there is if any if a woman decides she wants to return to work after having kids, if she’ll even have her job after taking leave, etc. But, just from anecdotal reporting and investigations, women don’t seem to be treated very well in many business settings. Promotions denied, being fired for reporting harassment, etc. All of these have to be considered when studying income disparities, not just whether or not the baseline salaries are equal.

RESPONDER C: The entire system is flawed, and I think men should get parental leave just like women. Many companies only give a few days of maternity leave and many do not give any at all if the couple is not married.

RESPONDER G: “Women are the ones who choose to leave work to have children.” Not always. Sometimes their husbands force them to. (Hi.) Sometimes it’s the income inequality itself that forces the woman to be the one who stays home. I’ll give you example, a good friend of mine is a child psychiatrist. She is an MD. She spent years and money getting to where she is as a professional. Her husband worked as a delivery driver. There was not even a discussion about him staying home with the kids, it was the logical choice and he did. Would you agree? The income inequality is often why women stay home. She makes less money, the family can afford to lose her income over his. Your logic of the situation is completely backwards. Income inequality is well studied by the DOL. I work in payroll and I have had many courses on it. It’s real.

RESPONDER H: Because we can’t assume that these “choices” are a solely female decision. Presumably, she will still be great at her job when she has a child. We assume that of men. In a committed relationship it must be assumed that the partner also wanted a child. Why should one of them be punished financially? In an ideal world both parents would receive the same amount of PTO for having a child.

RESPONDER I: Women do not create children on their own.  Men are equality responsible for the production of babies, women just bare the physical burden of it.  Spreading the financial burden across both men and women in the workplace isn't favoring women, it's holding men accountable for their part in the process.

RESPONDER J: As a bio-statistician, it’s actually not terribly hard. Numbers on this are not difficult to calculate. These numbers clearly show that even if a woman never has children, she still makes less money than a man in the same position.

20. Why should we automatically believe rape claims when our justice system is built on the premise of “innocent until proven guilty?”

RESPONDER A: We should automatically give credence to rape claims. That is a LOT different than throwing someone in jail based only on a claim. All claims should be given their due, and if it goes to court, that is when due process and innocent until proven guilty come into play.

RESPONDER B: You shouldn’t automatically believe rape claims, but they should be investigated seriously. Many people outright dismiss claims out of hand, even law enforcement. Contrary to popular belief, there can be many downsides to coming forward about a rape, especially if the accused is of significant status or well-connected. There isn’t any real fame involved, at least not any that would pay dividends. And many rape victims full-well know that physical evidence would be hard to come by. It’s a very rough road to try and press charges. And it might all be for nothing if they still go free.

As for coming forward without going to the police, I think that the solution for that is creating a better support base for victims and making sure law enforcement is doing their job properly. You’d think everyone would like to make sure rapists are properly prosecuted, but the number of untested rape kits just lying on shelves in America is astronomical. Why would any victim have faith in the system to bring justice as long as things like this are going on? If there appears to be more value in going to the authorities, more victims will.

RESPONDER D: I struggle with this as a man.  I generally believe that there is no reason for a woman to make up a rape claim.  We know that it happens and often doesn’t get reported.  Given the recent high-profile case, why would Dr. Ford make up her allegation against Kavanaugh? She destroyed her life (she gets death threats, etc.) for no reason since he ended up being confirmed and she received no benefit, financial or otherwise, of which I am aware. 

Generally though, I always wonder what I would do if a woman accused me of sexual assault when I was innocent.  I would certainly want a fair trial that would exonerate me.  Maybe my answer is best viewed in the sense that “the left” is not perfect.  We struggle with some issues that are championed by many of our similarly minded friends.  This is one of those for me.  My answer is that I have a lot of jumbled thoughts that don’t always make sense and often contradict each other on this issue.

My final point, not directly related to any of these questions, is that the left is not one group who all think the same way on every issue here.  I am sure that many of my answers would bother others on the left just as much as they would bother conservatives.  Rather than lumping everyone into giant groups with no appreciation for nuance and with no desire to get to know individual humans, we are left with little hope for making the country and world a better place.

RESPONDER E: I think the answer in this question has to do with how difficult many women find it to come forward with rape allegations for a myriad of reasons.  Women weren’t believed for so long or it wasn’t a crime or victim blamed for so long that unfortunately this is where we are.  In the decades to follow hopefully we get to a place where women feel safe to come forward immediately.

RESPONDER G: Hold on. You all do believe victims: you believe MEN who say they were raped. You believe children who said they were molested. You don’t believe WOMEN. Let’s get that straight. So I want to ask you... why do you believe men, but not women? No one is asking you to believe guilt on the accused, we’re asking you to believe that SHE WAS RAPED/ASSAULTED. There is a difference. Let the courts decide if he is guilty, like they are designed to, it’s your job as part of the public to support a victim. Also, false accusations are incredibly rare. So chances are... she’s telling the truth.

RESPONDER H: I have believed people who were lying and dismissed people who weren’t. In my life I’ve only ever regretted one of those kinds of things. If we are talking about our justice system, it operates on the assumption that both things are true. The accused is innocent and the accuser is telling the truth. That’s why we MUST believe these people.

RESPONDER I: Quite simply, we shouldn't, but that does not mean that the person making the claim should be ignored or disrespected.  It is totally possible to acknowledge somebody's claim without presuming guilt.  However, our system also calls for a fair and speedy trial.  For those in positions of power, it is only appropriate for them to stand aside while an investigation is completed.

RESPONDER J: We should believe someone who claims that they have been raped exactly the same as someone who claims that they were robbed. To be clear, there is a difference between believing that a person has a valid grievance and believing that the other party is at fault. The social outcry is because people who claim to have been sexually assaulted aren’t even given the attention that would be expected if they had been robbed. It’s like if you went to the police and told them that your neighbor had stolen your wallet, and the police didn’t do anything. When you tell other people, they tell you either that it was your fault for leaving your wallet sitting on your kitchen table, or that you shouldn’t say such nasty things about your neighbor. The problem is that people somehow assume that because we take a rape allegation seriously, we are saying that we believe the accusation is true.

See you next time, my dear invisible/imaginary readers! I will definitely be doing the reverse of this...just need to find a few more Conservatives to answer any questions Liberals may have for them. Next week, I'm going to answer these questions from Conservatives, because I'm just ITCHING to after reading so many responses!