The left loves to eat their own, but I think we need to draw a line between discussions of policy and discussions of persuasiveness. I am more than willing to talk about whether a line or strategy of argumentation is the best practice for winning elections. I have had that conversation numerous times (often arguing against or criticizing those on the far left).

But if we are having a discussion of policy and someone starts saying that my method of argumentation isn't ideal for winning elections, they have just ended the discussion on policy. The two things really shouldn't be mixed unless you want the argument to turn into unintelligible mush.

So, if you want to have a discussion about the policy of trans rights, go for it. If you want to have a discussion about the best political action to advocate for (or against) trans rights, go for it. I don't think you can have both at the same time (imo). 

So what do you want to talk about. The policy regarding of trans rights, or how leftists being mean about it impacts the politics of others on the subject?

I called it a gotcha because it seemed like you were fishing for a contradiction with my stance. I never said anything like more left=better or anybody to the right of me is selfish.

I also don’t feel like I’ve been “hurling insults”, I said one of his arguments was hypocritical and that he displayed a “fuck you, got mine” mentality. That’s really not that extreme.

As for good faith arguments, I’m not sure the person who generalizes people struggling with student debt as getting dumb degrees and lacking personal responsibility is really open to persuasion to begin with.

This all just comes off as overly sensitive tone policing.

All I'm saying is taking on student debt that is equal to your salary of course will be crippling....  because duh.  

Personally I think every college should be mandated to provide total costs, graduation rate, employment percent in field and average starting salary for every degree they offer. I don't believe students are aware of what they are signing up for and should be armed with the data to make informed decisions.

I wasn't fishing for a contradiction, I actually think it's healthy to have an opinion or two that don't fit the consensus of a person's particular political group as it shows they're critically thinking about each individual topic, rather than just subscribing wholesale to the stance of whatever 'tribe' they see themselves as part of.

I'm not saying this applies to you btw, I'm just explaining that I wasn't trying to catch you out in any way.

I believe you also used 'selfish', but fair play, maybe 'hurling insults' is a bit on the hyperbolic side.

I think you're conflating 'bad faith' with what what you would perceive as 'uninformed'. If you think Chrkeller's stance is wrong then why not just provide evidence to the contrary or a counter argument, without the aspersions?

Anyway, I don't see much road left in this particular convo. As you can see from my post history, I'm not going around tut-tut'ing everyone for being mean or 'tone policing'. If someone is using unconstructive language in a debate about what process node the Switch 2 GPU will be manufactured on I don't really care.

However, I see politics as much more important & it truly terrifies me that the US could feasibly elect Trump again. I obviously don't live in the US but the UK is very much down-stream from a lot of what happens in the States. I'd love to see the left trying in general to be a bit more charitable/tolerant of divergent views (within reason of course) and bring people over, rather than condescend & risk driving people to MAGA.

If you started out with statements like this, I think our conversation would have evolved a whole lot differently. My main issue with your stance from the beginning was that it came off like you were implying people struggling with student debt are just a bunch of idiots who knew they were choosing poor degrees but just didn’t care and did it anyway rather than people not really understanding that their degree wasn’t going to be very lucrative.

I think many people just don’t truly understand how far/little certain amounts of money go, especially young people or people who have never had much money.

I’ll use my sister as an example, she just got promoted to manager at the store she works at and for the first time in her life she is going to be making decent money, nothing amazing but a big increase from what she has ever made, but you would think she’s making way more based on the types of purchases she talks about wanting to make.

She told me the vehicle and house she wants to buy in the next 1-2 years and they are completely out of her price range, just doing some quick math in my head, her mortgage and car payment would be like 75% of her take home earnings.

Now take an 18 year old kid who has never worked or at most had a part time, minimum wage job and has little to no financial responsibilities, tell them a degree in a field they are interested in will give them a $30-40k/year job, that’s going to sound awesome. “Wow, I get to make the big bucks doing a job I enjoy!” Then they enter the real world and find out that really isn’t a lot of money and shit costs a lot more than they thought.

I think it was someone else who said selfish but maybe it was me lol

Multiple users did that exact thing, tried to explain that there is a lot of nuance in this topic and a variety of reasons that people may find themselves struggling to pay off student debt, yet they seemingly doubled down on the “poor choices/personal responsibility” argument which is when the “insults” started.

I agree that we shouldn’t be pushing people away but if someone votes for Trump, 3rd party or sits out because a Biden voter said something mean online then that person probably wasn’t voting for Biden to begin with.

I feel it’s a massive stretch to think someone can be like, “Trump is awful and I don’t like his policies……but a Biden voter did call me a hypocrite on a video game forum that one time so now I’m conflicted on who to vote for!”

I'm wholly aligned, as a country, we do a piss poor job at explaining financial reality to kids.  It feels intentional and systematic at this point.

I also think colleges should have partial liability for loan defaults, so they think twice about the programs they offer.

I'm not against helping people.  My problem with loan forgiveness is doesn't fix anything.  Forgiving loans yearly because we are not taking the problem head on isn't sustainable.

I'm with you.  My friends and family make considerable less than I do.  And yet I have the cheapest car, smallest house and oldest phone.  

The people whose quality of life was greatly improved by loan forgiveness say "hello"

Yes.... but in 2025 there will be people with the same problem...  and im 2026.  And in 2027, 2028, etc.  Loan forgiveness, like it or not, isn't sustainable.  That is the point. 

How about colleges with over a 10% default rate pay it back for the students they didn't take care of?