I have a bit of a conundrum. Lately, I have been feeling increasingly sympathetic toward French secularism because I have noticed the growing influence of certain religious groups in my country, particularly evangelical Christians, as well as in other nearby countries in the region.

My concern is whether a secular liberal democracy can function when a significant portion of the population holds socially conservative views and might seek to impose them on everyone else. I sometimes have similar concerns about Muslim immigration to secular countries, but I know that in many cases they can assimilate. I want to be careful not to come across as bigoted or prejudiced against any religious group. If I have any misconceptions, I would genuinely appreciate being corrected.

What worries me is the possibility that religious groups could use their political influence to pass legislation that restricts individual rights and freedoms. For example, if it were up to evangelical Christians in my country, same-sex marriage would not be legalized, and, in fact, it still isn't. As these groups continue to grow, I find myself becoming less hopeful that LGBTQ+ people will eventually achieve equal rights.

This leaves me wondering: How can I reconcile my belief in freedom of religion with my concerns about the political consequences of certain religious beliefs? I believe people should be free to practice their religion, but I also worry when religious convictions are used to justify restricting the rights and freedoms of others.

I am trying so hard to resist being negatively polarized against religion in general.

So I’ve been listening lately to a lot of different pundits talking about how we should perceive the conflict between the center and progressives. And specifically who does and does not count on either side.

Like people will point to a figure like Buttigieg as this ideal centrist and el Sayad as this unelected leftists. Or make the opposite point with the boring centrist or the inspiring progressive.

But both men have in practice pretty similar policy positions. There are differences sure, but they are small by most measures. So I tried to really dig down and see what were the arguments these two camps were making and it seems like the argument isn’t actually about ideology at all but how they see the other side.

The left views the center as sell outs. They simply disbelieve the good intentions of the center and believe them to be serving a corporate master.

The center views the left as bullies. They see them as mindless zealots lashing out and attacking anyone else. And see themselves as put upon adults in the room.

Basically both sides fundamentally distrust the motives of the other, not their ideas. Does that seem right?

So not sure how best to word it but like... in regards to the Paris protests, they have gotten extremely out of hand and now im seeing people seeing people saying continued support of the protest is support for the riots going on as the riots have completely eclipsed the protests at this point. Between the public destruction, looting, vandalism, and straight up assaults, the protests have completely spiraled.

We a similar thing happen with BLM protests in the US where many of the high profile ones devolved in riots and arson.

So I gotta wonder, like... at point do we say enough is enough i guess?

I am on the left and not religious but I personally do believe religion provides a net benefit to society.

There is certainly a lot of negative, especially within the Christian nationalist group, but I feel like this group is an extremely loud minority.

Overall, I think religion provides regular people with a moral framework and is a net benefit for society.

It seems that countries that are praised by liberals for their social safety nets (e.g. Canada, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Western Europe, Japan, etc.) have stricter immigration policies/enforcement than the USA and exclude undocumented immigrants from the benefits system.

Some liberals support sanctuary states/cities and giving social welfare to undocumented immigrants. Are there any countries that you feel do this successfully?

The protests in France have got me thinking about how to go about making social security (particularly pensions) sustainable long term.

To use my France example, the country already has very high taxes (40-50% ranges) and generous pension systems (retire at 62).

If the government raises taxes, people riot, if they cut pensions or raise the retirement age, they riot, if they cut from other services (like schools, which is what the protests are about), they riot. It's hard to see what can be done in the French situation.

In America, uncapping the social security tax would go a long way, and I support such measures, but it still dosent answer the birth rate question.

It's no secret that western nations have some of the lowest birth rates in the world, which means less money that must be distributed to a growing elderly population. Mass migration is unsustainable and creates far right backlash.

What would you do in order to keep a reasonable retirement system and also adjust for the demographic shift?

Speaking from a strictly American perspective, one characteristic dividing line seems to be how people on different sides of the political spectrum seem trust the system; on the left side there seems to be a consensus that the State will make things better, while on the right there generally is a very low level of trust. Why do you believe that is?

I’m aware that the current situation has almost flipped my premise on its head, though I suspect this is more of a fluke with Trump rather than the status quo, but what do all of you think?

Hello

In light of events in France, one thing I have noticed is that Americans cannot be bothered to protest anything. In France you have protests regarding cost of living, education, etc. In America we have the same issues and more with the massive corruption involving Trump.

It seems like here in America as long people have their cheeseburgers, Netflix shows and football games people will take anything.

Am I missing something?

• I'm 28 years old, and the only reason I am considering joining law enforcement is that it is one of the few jobs I feel like I can make a good living out of with my level of education(AA Degree in Liberal Arts), as well as one that always seems to be hiring and will not be getting replaced by AI anytime soon. All my previous job experience has been in either customer service or sales, and I've had no luck finding a good career path through either.
• To be clear, when I talk about becoming a law enforcement officer, I'm not talking about joining something like ICE, which I strongly dislike for a variety of reasons, but rather becoming something like a police officer for a village/town/city, deputy sheriff, or even a university police officer.

I recently came across the story of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author Nikole Hannah-Jones:

"Choosing a School for My Daughter in a Segregated City" (June 2016): She detailed her deliberate decision to bypass private schools and highly rated, predominantly white public schools in New York City to enroll her daughter, Najya, in a high-poverty, segregated public school in Brooklyn. She argued that middle-class and affluent families who choose to "opt out" of struggling local public schools perpetuate educational inequality and racial segregation.

YIKES. My immediate thought is this is a form of child abuse. I mean, is this any different than, say, a refugee parent who is now rich sending their children back to their war torn country, all so the children can experience struggle and not be spoiled by the rich American life?

I find this unconscionable. Yet, I feel that many Black parents, actually agree with this. And in some ways, this is why Blacks are left behind. Because Black parents are so intent on "keeping it real" they do things like not give their children a leg up in life. They say, the rich get richer (due to advantages). But it seems like for many Black parents, they don't want this. They got rich but don't want to give their children a leg up and the advantages of being rich.

Honestly, this absolutely blows my mind that any parent would do this. Is this a sickness of liberal ideology? Where you would deliberate abuse your child in the name of some ideology?

If you ask a liberal, they will often cite FDR as one of the best, most influential democratic/left wing presidents that the US has ever had, with New Deal legislation being the driving factor behind such an assessment.

However, FDR did some pretty bad things, like locking up over 100,000 people, the majority of them US citizens, in camps based on their ancestry alone. Obviously, this wouldn't fly today, and if anyone did something like this, it would immediately be branded Nazi-like, and for good reason.

But, again, this really, really bad policy seemingly does not impact the assessment of FDR in the mind of a liberal.

How and why can liberals so easily dismiss FDR's actions?

I see people here whose positions frequently surprise me, given their flair.

Ideological terminology is famously soft through time and geography, and each individual has (at least to *some* degree) different opinions on *something* political.

Why did you choose your flair? What about your beliefs or opinions makes that flair align for you?

Please also include some context about locations - obviously there’s a political terminology gap among different broad regions (East and west Europeans, northern and southern Africans, US Americans, Latin Americans, etc) - and scope (did you consider your flair in terms of where you stand on a global spectrum, national spectrum, etc.)

I see a lot of discussion about friendship compatibilities in regards to domestic politics, but one thing I am also curious about is friendship compatibility over foreign policy and world affairs.

As someone who supports Ukraine's right to fight back against Russian forces and pursue it's own foreign policy decisions, for instance, I have found many individuals whom I can sit down and have good discussions over why we think Ukraine is in the situation it is now, but at the same time I've found myself trying to consistently correct debunked or false information pertaining to Ukrainian history and society with others. a pretty frustrating experience to put it mildly.

By local I mean county, city, village, hamlet, unincorporated area or similar.

There's an interesting dynamic happening with the place of shame in our society, and I want a perspective from folks who aren't conservatives.

I went to Catholic school and grew up around conservatives, I like many others have been driven to the left by the absolute insanity of the modern Republicans, but I still feel that my basic mindset is somewhat different than the people I known find myself in political agreement with.

One interesting thing to me is the fact that I see so many left leaning people saying "we need to stop shaming," "shame is harmful," and things like that. Statements that put the feeling of shame into an entirely negative category. I seem to recall hearing some people say something to the effect of shame is a purely negative emotion and we shouldn't use it.

On the other hand, we have utterly shameless politicians and people criticizing them for their lack of shame.

In my view, Shame is actually a very important aspect of social cohesion. We can't and shouldn't make every negative behavior illegal, but we could shame people who behave in anti-social ways.

Billionaires for example should be made to feel shame when the companies they earn money off of don't have healthcare and good benefits for the workers but they buy another house.

A low stakes non-political example is that I'm a bit fat right now. I know it's not healthy for me. It's not the worst thing in the world but I know it's bad for me and I don't look as good as I did when I didn't have the weight on. I do feel some shame for that. When someone says "youre getting pretty big" they're right, and I don't see it as an entirely negative thing that they say that even if I or someone else feels bad about it.

I'm curious to hear your perspectives on shame. Mainly, am I missing something about the perspectives of people left of center on the utility of shame. Is it really all bad? Do you think its mostly bad and we shouldn't use it?

Do you think we need. Great Shame Renaissance to bring back some kind of embarrassment at leas for political types and powerful people who abuse that power.

This article in The Free Press argues that the reason youth are rioting in France is because they live worse than the elderly, and the political system ensures that there will be no entitlement reform. That, it argues, means what while the elderly live fairly well off of elderly spending, life is worse and worse for young people. It points out that much or most of Western budgets are devoted to pensions/Social Security/etc.

Here in the U.S. we've long talked about how much money Medicare and Social Security cost out of our budget.

How would you fix this issue? A variety of measures - raising the retirement age, means testing, raising the cap on income taxed, etc. - have been proposed. Which would you endorse, if any? To me, it seems like taxing the rich more might help, but it doesn't seem like it would be enough.