Sorry for the delayed response! I appreciate your reply. I think our general point of divergence is that, while I also roll my eyes at lots of the noise coming out of the left-wing community these days, that nonetheless doesn't have the slightest sway on my ideals. It wouldn't matter if everyone on the right wing were angels and everyone on the left wing were Alec Baldwin - my political philosophy isn't a function of how much I personally like other people who also hold X or Y beliefs.

> However, there are absolutely people who are assaulting their views upon. They wish to force upon us.

There are certainly people doing this - I would say a majority of people IME - on both sides.

I'm a Rawlsian pluralist and I believe in giving everyone the maximum liberty consistent with the same for others (e.g. no right to enslave because others have a right not to be enslaved), but it's indisputable that there are certain issues where there is no "don't impose your views on others" option.

For instance, abortion. If I believe foetus are human beings (or. rather, persons), then the "don't impose your views on others" option would entail not murdering those human beings, as I would hypothetically see it. If I believe foetus are not persons, then the "don't impose your views on others" option is not to forbid women to control their reproductive cycles. Etc etc. The Millian/Rawlsian view falls apart when you start considering fundamental disagreements about the definitions of liberty and of human beings themselves.

> Imagine they don't trust my words but they see nytimes and cnn admitting to their echo chamber. That they see the evil.

This seems to be a mainstay of your comments: echo chambers and tendentious reporting are "evil" for one side, but par for the course for the other (incidentally, your own) side. I would consider them par for the course for both sides. It doesn't surprise me and (for the reasons stated above inter alia) doesn't influence my political philosophy.

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Anyway, thanks for an interesting discussion. I may not agree with your political philosophy, but I wish disagreements about political philosophy could be discussed as soberly and rationally as we'd discuss economic theory or music theory.

I'm exhausted by how polarised the atmosphere has got - and that certainly includes my own side (which more of us need to be able to admit), and also admittedly includes your own side (my exhaustion with the left wing doesn't cancel out my incomprehension at how utterly batshit most of the right wing has got recently - I mean, disagreeing with COVID lockdowns is fine and arguable and I would actually agree to a large extent, but whinging about being suffocated by fucking masks?? and fucking graven idols of fucking Donald Trump??? some of the people in your tribe are absolutely self-sabotagingly nutballs).

For me, it all comes back to the Rawlsian framing of the veil of ignorance. That's the fundamental political question. We need to stop screaming at silly caricatured bogeymen of one another on the internet, but just sit down – as friends and family and colleagues and neighbours – and ask ourselves: "If, before I was born, with no knowledge of who I would become, I had to decide what the rules of my society should be: what would they be?" That's all there is, really.