I appreciate your note regarding an appreciation for a "thoughtful conversation." I believe we are on the same page in that regard, that is generally what I would be pleading for when I am bleating "good faith" as there tends to be a severe lack of such anywhere anymore.

This being said I will stand by my belief I could argue why I consider myself conservative, and also be able to say I will try to anticipate any tendency I might normally feel a touch of incivility would be in order, as often I lose the self-awareness that in my desire to accurately relate my feeling on whatever regard, that I have become inappropriately emphatic and over-assertive. And all that being said, I think it would be fairly accurate to note that you and I can be about as opposite in terms of viewpoint as can be, at least on the surface, and not in every way.

The other day I did a little reflecting on why I was seeing less downvotes and I think it may be that I've learned to regard downvotes to mean I myself fucked up somewhere. What you noted about people being unable to defend their position may be true, but I don't see that as such a huge gigantic deal as, if you can't tell, I love typing. I love articulating the 13 points of idiotic nuance I might have tearing me in all sorts of directions but in general one way, and I will keep this under one comment limit for your sake as I don't know if it drives you nuts or not. There are people it drives bonkers and it makes me feel bad as I hate being perceived as someone more interested in sounding all knowitall or showoff but anyways. I’m sure you can understand sometimes I feel like having a random number generator spinning in my head is defi more a disability than a boon, and in communication it is often an absolute roadblock. Some people simply do not like to write, and that’s freaking great too. Everyone has their strengths and differences. It bothers me when such a person would mock me, but I have to remember they have a absolutely valid point and I do fail people in my attempt to communicate, often.

I am not blowing smoke up my own tailgate, which honestly would make me feel uncomfortable at any time, but let's face it. Many people either do lack the practice, time, desire, focus, knowledge of recent happenings, or even coherence to articulate a defense for their opinion. For this reason, I am frankly grateful that many people would simply downvote me, instead of throwing up a "UR MANY WORDS MAKE MY HEAD HURT, SO U ARE STUPID AND YOUR ARGUMENT SUCKS." You may be shocked to hear I have gotten that in many more realms than in politics. I have learned to consider my audience. I have learned to try to anticipate or at least be aware of when I am being an absolute asshole in the first place, and should have just not posted instead of deleting it an hour or days later, as I no longer can stand by my own now defunct opinion. In any case, just because someone can't articulately defend their position, or have the means or time to, they are still entitled to their opinion, again, I'm not trying to change how you feel, just offer you perhaps some other possible reasons I may get downvotes. I also firmly believe that after decade of abusing my brain, mostly with whiskey, that people have the right to feel negatively about my inability to get on the same level as they prefer to communicate.

I literally had to break my comment up into 3 comments the other night as I wrote enough on the topic regarding the absurdity of the two party system and how ridiculous it seems to me to shoehorn maybe 700 of 1100 general ideas or tendencies into one single party, maybe 600 of those 1100 into the other, perhaps of 1100 maybe in general people are all over the place, maybe at any time there would only be 50 or 100 in play but in any case, trying to make everyone identify as one team or the other is pretty much the root of all this hostility or what you note as tribalism. On that we certainly can agree. I live in a severely GOP dominated state, and I know firsthand that most people who vote GOP wouldn't be bad people at all. I just feel saddened we have to feel like we have to support one party or one line of propaganda over another, just to feel relevant. In general I think it's great people would vote third party but in the election this fall, I feel too much is on the line and I think most people understand that. I don't know how you feel about ranked voice voting systems, but I really like the idea of being able to rank however many candidates, maybe putting someone in "your" party lower than an opposing candidate because they simply have opinions you don't like or for whatever reason. There simply are too many issues for the two party system to be anything but arbitrarily divisive.

I do sincerely appreciate being proven wrong and enlightened as I hate considering I would consciously choose to believe something that is outright wrong or the result of having been manipulated, and just between you and I, I freaking love it when I realize that I've been totally wrong on something extremely obvious, which happens a lot as you probably may have guessed already, and finally, as you say, someone came along and took the time to show me how I could understand I was wrong without blowing up all my alarm systems and finally I'm like, how did I live 4 decades not realizing I was so wrong.

I will try not to be inflammatory, as I don't think how I feel on this is particularly offensive. That being said, the thought process of many valid people draws a complete blank from my natural tendency to try to put myself in another's shoes, so I won't go balls out where ordinarily I made toss a little shade.

The tribalism we're seeing these days, especially from progressive subs, is unhealthy and unproductive.

If this blows up your bullshit meter, I’m not trying to create negative emotion for you, but I have grown to loathe fox news and Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity and so on, ever since I listened to Rush Daily on my commute almost 20 years ago, for about three years until my current opinion on right-leaning news channels and sources pretty much solidified. The thing that makes me almost irate is how every single problem, every single thoughtless and mean and uncaring person, the ones who hate our country, the one being a jerk to you in almost any given random human interaction is a “liberal.” I can’t stand it. I don’t even know what a “liberal” is besides a derogatory slur for anyone not buying in on whole hog and sink line and sinker again with anything such a news source would proclaim the one correct and unbiased “fair and balanced” n-e-w-s valid viewpoint.

I do keep up on that point of view as I not only am driven to absorb all points of view and all opinions in play and I just can’t help it. I want to figure out why things are what they are, how things came to play and be as they are. This would be why I jumped on your case for a rather pointlessly long comment in reply, as I recognized exactly what you were you trying to communicate, and I know this is a GIGANTIC divide between your and my points of view, but I don’t understand how every single other of the 100’s of news stations and newspapers and everything can all be wrong, can all be lying in unison, when the only dissenting station is Fox News and those guys, and why it is such a absurd notion that maybe, your source of information and which opinion to use as your own argument shouldn’t be from that one news source always blowing it’s own horn about being the only station you can trust, all the while having gone to court to defend it’s right to not be accurate with the news.

I don’t get my news from that media at all. It’s all online, from aggregates like reddit but rss feeds, subreddit hopping, constant utilization of google over what I admit are stupidly simple things I don’t remember or want to learn more about.

In this, if you could explain how you view this thing I said, and I feel like an asshole for bringing it up, I would be extremely appreciative about that. I simply do not understand. I wish I did. Don’t touch this topic with a 10 foot pole if you don’t want to. It’s a terrifying dichotomy, and I don’t know how we are going to get rid of this hatred from both camps regarding the other’s news sources, or anyways.

Thank you for your time and hope your rest of your weekend is good, and hope I didn’t write enough to prove I am a complete idiot as well as an asshole this time, again. All I have done since I got up was type on my keyboard, and I’ve just deleted a lot, honestly. Words are just words and mine are nothing special. Thank you for your time, patience, and consideration.