I'm not on either side. I don't even live in the United States.

But one side, the Republican side, is batshitinsane and believes things that are provably untrue - Obama is a Muslim, climate change is a Chinese hoax, COVID-19 is the flu, that sort of thing.

The Democrats are just run-of-the-mill, low-energy centrist politicians.

I have a hard time lumping in swathes of people into these tiny slivers of beliefs. How is it not obvious that one side did a better job of demonizing the other? I'm pretty sure I can comment 'And would like to be able to eat babies' and I will be seeing it on similar posts as yours by tomorrow.

The media did one hell of a job this past election cycle, I wonder what batshitinsane things we will be allowed to talk about on the next one. I doubt much.

Now that we haved moved censorship officially online as well, I can only hope some wonderful people are busy building the next workaround medium.

Ha, ha! Let me tell you what I think the Democrats believe. For one, that men can carry babies like in that Schwarzenegger movie!

Generalizations are useful until they aren't! Let's put our thinking hats for a sec don't you think?

I'm sympathetic to that, but by 'Then I hope I win' I certainly wasn't thinking in those terms. The 'side' I was thinking of is reasonable people, not all of whom are left-wingers, let alone Democrats.

Yes, as a general thing saying the other side is wrong and my side is right is just silly, because the other side is saying they're right and your side is wrong, but in the specific case where one side is demonstrably wrong then it isn't silly anymore.

But the other side believes they are demonstrably right too, just as strongly as you do. The way to "win" is to argue against the opponent's viewpoint and persuade the general population of the strength of your argument. To do that you need a platform for open speech. This is Democracy 101.

What you are arguing for is not democracy but "safetyism". You seek a shortcut whereby you can persuade a powerful gatekeeper to silence your oppositon and make you feel better.

The point I had in mind is that ideology is well and good, but sometimes pragmatism is better.

If a desire for free speech, to pick a contemporary example, leads to defending the 'right' of the Myanmar military to use Facebook for their coup to oppress the Burmese, pragmatism is probably better.

Consider Qanon people, or NeoNazis, or Boogaloo Boys, etc. It is impossible to prove beyond any doubt that are more dangerous or more wrong than 'normal' people. But if we're being pragmatic, there isn't a reasonable doubt.

I agree democracy is messy, but the alternative you suggest is worse.

There isn't enough substance in that comment for me to rebut. People often spout platitudes about liberty and democracy without understanding either. With apologies, I will assume that is the case here.

Apology accepted.