strange times!

If people weren't so fucking reactionary to everything they read, see, hear and experience, we wouldn't be in this mess and rational discourse might have a chance. As it stands, people are so easily offended, there isn't any space for an actual discussion.

As someone who considers myself an Independent, I spend hours every day reading articles on both sides and then attempt to form a cohesive thought process on where I stand. Do you have any idea how exhausting that can be with the amount of misleading and straight up false reporting there is these days? Nobody cares about the facts anymore, "journalists" just want to frame their stories in a political meaningful way for people to reinforce their "filter bubbles" they live.

We're not encouraging dialect on topics by simply providing the facts, we're actively and purposefully dividing people.

> I spend hours every day reading articles on both sides

I have pretty much stopped reading any of these things. You can pretty much read the title and 99% of the time you pretty much know where the argument is gone go. Just stick to books and papers that are about a focused subject. That will isolate you and you will disagree with everyone because people don't actually know or care what happened in the economic crisis of 1893 or any other historical event and they also don't care.

If news sites prioritize view counts over maintaining an unbiased viewpoint, Roy Moore is what results. Republicans did not trust liberal news organizations to tell the truth.

African-Americans, in this time and place (America in this decade), commit more crime when compared to Europeans and Asians as a percentage breakdown by race.

Women and minorities have plenty of public resources (facilities, social programs, and information) to succeed academically and enter white collar professions.

Income taxes, which are currently near or above 50% at the higher/highest brackets is plenty and whose rates do not need to be raised. Governments need to cut or curb spending instead of raising the income tax higher.

Stand your ground law is needed to protect a citizen's civil rights and the political arguments made in the wake of Travon Martin's death have been insufficient in changing that status.

These are what I consider to be right wing statements or facts that conservatives don't ignore/insulate themselves from. This is all relative to American politics - in Europe the political climate is much different. Hacker news, from what I've seen, seems to be very left-wing. Also, left wing tends to be cruelly and irrationally/coldly dismissive/patronizing towards rural Christian conservatives - which is more than disturbing to me, but some of the arguments made from them (in my opinion) are not wholly incorrect. I have arguments/beliefs in both sides, but find that most media besides Fox push progressive agendas (i.e. even the 'impartial' reports will use rhetoric and facts which fit in well with progressive agendas).

That is the problem we're facing.