Talking polyticks

It's not all bad. It can even be good.

I’ve been on a mission to have political conversations with people. With women in particular. Men and women communicate differently and we assess our conversational partners differently. Being female, I’m more likely to accomplish this goal with women.

But why would I want to do that? Isn’t there enough enmity? Isn’t our discourse toxic enough without me being pushy? Well, I’m not always pushy. Most of the time I’m not. Back to the question. When I was a kid, and [I think] for a long time before that, Americans [and I suspect people in other Western countries as well] didn’t talk about polyticks or religion because people just got into fights. Dinners were ruined. Women were unhappy with their men.

That was fine as long as we could all agree that we were Americans [Or Brits, or Canadians, etc.] and that we had more in common than we had differences. Especially in America, we were able to tolerate a wide variety of views as long as we agreed we should have the options of free speech, the right to defend ourselves, and a few other important rights enumerated in our Constitution.

It’s not fine anymore.

During covid I saw people posting on Facebook about how upset they were that the neighbors were having a gathering and how they were going to call the local hotline and tell on them. I saw people pleading for others to get the shot and wear masks.

When I first engaged with social media FB had been around for a few years and was just displacing MySpace. I thought it would be a nifty public forum and I cheerfully dove in and argued economics with Marxists. I learned a lot about economics and I don’t regret that. But I can’t think of a single time when anyone conceded a point, myself included. At least I was free to make the points that I wanted then. During covid, if one said anything that disagreed with the ‘correct thinking,’ the post got removed. I posted a study on why masks weren’t effective, FB took it down, and then gave me warnings when I posted others.

Mark Zuckerberg recently admitted that Facebook and Meta had been asked by the Biden administration to censor certain posts about covid 19. Because we were all told to isolate in our houses, it was difficult to talk to people in person. Not that I had that habit. Even before covid, my life had been so frenetic and exhausting that I didn’t have the habit of just hanging out with friends. I don’t think I was alone in this.

But we need to talk with other humans. Preferably in person.

When having conversations with other people, we might find what it looks like when two irreconcilable positions meet each other. At this point, a person might have those conversations in their head. The value in being able to do this is immeasurable

The ability to argue with one’s self facilitates uncovering truth.

Paradox is what we see when we stand in the wrong place processing with a faulty model - Heather Heying

I felt pretty fringe in how I was dealing with covid. When I heard about the vaccines, I was skeptical. I know how long it takes to approve a new drug. I knew that vaccines aren’t without risk even though they’ve done a lot of good. I knew I had treated respiratory illnesses many times before. I knew that neither I nor my husband had high blood pressure or diabetes, and we weren’t in the high-risk age range. I knew that vitamin D status mattered a great deal when trying to prevent such viruses. I knew those things because I read a wide variety of literature and have an ongoing interest in health.

And I had questions. What proof was there that wearing masks would stop the spread? How could being 6 feet apart possibly matter? Why weren’t the people in charge talking about getting healthy?

Even questioning this made me fringe and even if anyone saw my posts on FB, my voice was strange and easy to ignore.

However, all forward motion starts from the fringe. While many fringe ideas are wrong, such ideas are always worth exploring either for their potential for truth or for the mental exercise of removing them from consideration. Without the ability to talk about fringe ideas, we sink into a hole we can’t get out of.

It turns out I wasn’t alone. People with far more education and audience than I, paid high prices for disagreeing with the covid pandemic narrative. Facebook wasn’t alone either. "The Virality Project in 2021 worked with the government to launch a pan-industry monitoring plan for Covid-related content,' tweeted independent journalist Matt Taibbi." At least six major Internet platforms were 'onboarded' ... daily sending millions of items for review.”

YouTube removed or de-monetized videos that didn’t agree with the covid narrative. Both Jordan Peterson and the Darkhorse podcast, to which I listened to throughout the pandemic, lost substantial income because they asked questions instead of nodding and agreeing.

I got some personal pushback on my thought processes via text and direct messages. I wrote back. Perhaps because of this I only lost one friend over my differing opinions. [She told me to my face that I was immoral for not taking the shot.] My husband lost several. After covid, conversations on Facebook didn’t improve but became increasingly vitriolic. I realized that people were saying things there that they would never say to people’s faces. People I knew would never raise a hand in anger were wishing death to people who disagreed with [opinion A] It was vile.

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I realized I was going to have to talk to people the old-fashioned way. Ideally, face to face. But video chat or phone would work too. We need to see grief and fear, to hear the tremor of anguish in a voice. So I started collecting phone numbers from people on FB who wanted to be in touch off the platform and making dates both with them and others. I’ve been talking to women two to three times a week now. It’s been good.

I always start with questions, ideally, about something that my conversational partner is already interested in.

I’ve learned things.

The first thing is that sometimes people agree with me when I didn’t expect them to. Even though someone is a member of a particular demographic does not mean that they believe absolutely everything that is attributed to them. I’ve been very pleasantly surprised in several cases. In particular, at least four women I know agreed with me that children should not be medically transitioned. One of them thanked me for being a stand on this.

The second thing is that I find out someone else’s worldview. Sometimes there’s valuable information there or something that I already knew of but that I needed to be reminded of. One of my friends reminded me that there is only so much we can do to change things. I don’t know when to let go [and I don’t think that time has come] but I need to take breaks.

The third thing is where I might be able to offer a solution or an answer to a politically stated problem they were unaware of. One of my friends had never heard of permaculture and was thrilled when I shared how these methods can revitalize damaged environments, even deserts.

One of the things I’ve seen consistently when discussing polyticks is that the people I speak with who don’t agree with me all have a sincere belief that politicians are there to help and have their best interests in mind.

I don’t believe that. No one who has our best interests in mind would stifle the free exchange of ideas.

It turns out all my ‘fringe’ ideas were correct.

• Masks didn’t stop covid.

• The 6 foot distancing rule was arbitrary

• The shot didn’t make one less likely to die of covid-19

In addition, evolutionary biologists Heather Heying and Bret Weinstein publicly found major flaws in the studies that claimed no benefit was to be had from either Hydroxychloroquine [which I took when I got covid] or Ivermectin.

Would we have stayed locked down so long if we hadn’t had a narrative forced on us? Would children have had developmental delays? Would we have lost myriad small business and trillions of dollars?

So no, I don’t think that politicians have our best interests in mind.

But my friend is right. I can only do so much. I can’t stop Russia from dropping bombs, I can’t make FEMA stop obstructing volunteers and denying it. Do I believe FEMA or the people on the ground posting their experiences? As the same friend said about Israel and Gaza, ‘How do we know?’

I don’t. I can’t know for sure. However, I have decisions to make and I know the entire narrative was wrong about covid and that there was collusion to keep us from talking about it. That’s a trust issue there. A big one.

So, I’m going to do what I CAN do. I’m going to talk to people. In-person, on video, or on the phone. I’m going to ask questions about polyticks and listen to the answers. And I’m going to say [politely] what I believe to be true and why. If we don’t talk about it we can’t get to what’s real.

I deleted my FB account on Oct 6. There wasn’t going to be any communication happening there.

I’ve looked for and found guidance in making my life better. Here are some newsletters that might make yours better.

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Tim Ebl fights back against the steamroller of health issues with how to restore what we’ve lost to 21th-century food and habits.

Unskool offers insights and alternatives to the sucking pit of our education system

Bobby Dimitrov and Healthy Farming, Healthy Food share their journey on how to build a food production system that is better for humans and better for the planet.

Selina Rifkin, M.S. [Nutrition], LMT, has been to Hades in a handbasket. More than once. This has given her some opinions. Like most of her generation [X] she’s okay with snark. Most days she tries for good writing. But the snark, and side comments creep in. She lives with her husband, and is Mother of Cats; three boyz. Selina has written The Young Woman’s Goodlife Guide: Things I Wish I’d Known When I Was 20. Or… Learn From My Pain, and How to Train Your Cat: Using a Clicker and Leash to Keep Your Indoor Cat Happy and Healthy, the Goodlife Guide to Nutrition, and The Storytellers: a Journey of Discovery.