Referring to "the citizen's best interest" is a tautology; political dialogue fundamentally arises from differing perspectives on how those interests are best served. In a free country, political discourse and representative government is the process by which "the citizen's best interest" is determined.
But I want to avoid the nitpicks. The issue is that when we hear coherent, valid perspectives that don't align with our own, we feel "not only insulted, but [endangered]". That's the sentiment we have to get away from.
I feel like I spent a pretty good amount of effort fulfilling your request. I presented reasonable perspectives that describe how the policies you mentioned can be interpreted to benefit the average citizen. That doesn't prove they're perfect or that they have no downsides, and it definitely doesn't mean that you'll agree. But as a society, we need to be able to engage in this dialogue without name-calling, threatening, or berating -- without condescension -- if we want to be able to stay stable and unified.
This is obviously not a simple task. What things could help us improve the mutual toleration and respect for actually-different POVs and the people who hold them? How can we refrain from hyperbolizing issues (e.g., pretending that a change to the current insurance regulations will leave scores dying in the streets, or conversely the confiscation of private medical facilities and destruction of all private medical industry) and present them in a way that allows each other to acknowledge the middle ground and agree to disagree?
No you haven't and that's the amazing part. You have spent hundreds of words contending a position that I never posited in the firs place. I have repeatedly states it wasn't about partisan politics but it was an issue with a system that increasingly only works for moneyed interests. It doesn't matter whether that money is from the left or for the right.
Yet for all of your talk about understanding and respect and toleration you have chosen to completely ignore my original and repeated premise. The irony is incredible.
No, taking important things like health care away from people and not presenting any kind of a replacement is a huge deal.
>"Net neutrality is an example of polarization run amok, because I think that there would be a lot more bipartisan support for a real solution if there wasn't a sentiment that agreeing with "the other side" was an automatic stain."
Again all you can do is reframe reality into people being led astray by cable news pundits. Do you believe the majority of the population in the US are dummies? Where was the solution that was posited? Oh wait, there was none. Another subtractive, zero sum motion.
>"These are subjective perspectives informed by individual life experiences, and it's necessarily colored by our private biases,"
Again with the "there's no real issue here" - this is just people being led astray by the political media. Plenty of people with good critical thinking skills believe that their governments are representing moneyed interests ahead of them. I find your whole reductionist view that this is all just a big misunderstanding brought on by biased news media to be not only insulting but dangerous.
Again, this isn't about "left vs right" or "blue vs red" its about governments that prioritize the will of moneyed interests over people. The "other side" that people are worried about isn't a democrat or a republican the "other side" is a government that is not acting in their citizen best interests.