>51% of Democrats support a law that requires Americans use transgender people’s preferred gender pronouns.

This one blows my mind. A law that punishes people if they don't use certain words? I just... I can't even... Wow.

This the reason why services like Gab are on the rise. They guarantee your freedom of speech - which includes "hate speech" - http://wapo.st/2yl0MBP, confirmed by SCOTUS to be legal (http://bit.ly/1V8FdH3).

The reason Google, Facebook, Twitter, Cloudflare are able to get away with outright censorship of what is legally deemed to be free speech, however unpopular or distasteful it may be, is because of archaic laws that do not fit very well with speech over a medium like the internet - the above bad actors all claim private property rights and use those to trump (no pun intended to POTUS :) our constitutionally guaranteed right to (legal) free speech. The scariest/most extreme example of this was Cloudflare's example of its CEO waking up on the wrong foot one day and deciding to remove Daily Stormer's DDOS protections because he felt like it. DS is about as politically incorrect as they get, topping even 4chan's /pol/, IMHO, but it is protected speech.

Until the laws are changed to say that your ownership of a server that hosts my public speech has no right to abridge my expression, this is going to continue ad nauseum... usually through the proliferation of so called "community standards", which is basically another way of saying, "we get to determine what you can say."

I think an interesting takeaway for me is that people aren't principled. And of course it's obvious in hindsight, but the scatterbrained nature of this data puts the sheer reality of it right in your face. There's no admonishment intended, this is entirely my err. It's so easy lose touch with humanity on the Internet: discussions are formal, responses are picked apart word-by-word, contradictions are jumped on. But it's so out of touch of how we think -- we're a bundle of feelings and contradictory opinions trying to create structure and order in a world of chaotic discourse. It's silly to think that a person's opinion about something is the a rote application of abstract principles or vice versa.

So dammit, I'm going to try and do better.

>(53%) also agree that “colleges have an obligation to protect students from offensive speech and ideas that could create a difficult learning environment.”

Yeah, but who decides what is offensive speech? If some Catholic students feels abortion or birth control are offensive ideas and discussing them are creating a difficult learning environment, should those ideas be banned from college to protect the students?

In my humble opinion, America has fallen into a mindset of righteous indignation. This can be defined as simply one person's opinion is believed to be superior over another, but instead of an understanding that this can be true, or false, or neither, there is an overwhelming compulsion for people to demand their opinion reign supreme, even if it harms the other person. This goes beyond simple disagreement, and takes on a malicious form to silence disagreement, force acquiescence, and punish dissenters.

I don't have an issue with PC culture. It's a way for us to be trained to show empathy and respect for others. "PC Culture" online gradually trained me to not be homophobic and to become accepting of the LGBT community civil right fight. That's just one of several examples that have helped me evolve in the last decade. If the objections to my speech/actions were silenced or discredited it's a good chance I'd still have those myopic views

I really want to know about the 9% that believe that MSNBC has a conservative bias and the 8% that believe that Fox has a liberal bias. Are they just trolling the interviewer, or are they so far to the left/right that anything and everything looks conservative/liberal.

> 51% of Democrats support a law that requires Americans use transgender people’s preferred gender pronouns.

That is pretty absurd.

> 65% of Republicans say NFL players should be fired if they refuse to stand for the anthem.

This more absurd.

EDIT: maybe I got the order of absurdness wrong.

> The survey finds that many microaggressions colleges and universities advise faculty and students to avoid aren’t considered offensive by most people of color. [...] Telling a recent immigrant: “You speak good English”.

I don't understand this one. It's an aggression to tell an immigrant they speak good English? People have told me I speak good English, where they aggressive? I guess they could say it in a condescending or patronizing way. But then again if they wanted to be mean and offensive, they could probably find another way of being mean. A rule about not mentioning how well I speak English won't stop them.

It's also interesting that out of all the places it's universities that go out of their way ensuring nobody is offended about anything. How are they studying history, which is full of terrible things. Are their history departments rewriting ancient texts and manuscripts to excise any disagreeable stuff.

Looking at what happened to my university, it seems after tuition has increased to astronomical proportions, colleges have started to treat students as customers. If you are a customer and walk into a store, you expect to be treated like royalty, especially if you just shelled out a six figure check to them. "How dare they insult me" is a pretty rational, though shortsighted, comeback given the cost of attending the school. The interesting thing happens then after kids graduate. They expect to go through life without ever being offended. I mean, yeah, it's nice to never be offended, but it's also unrealistic.

In case it's useful to anyone on HN working in/on politics, I've been with some Trump supporting and voting people lately, and my takeaways:

- They hate the idea of getting in trouble for using the wrong pronouns for people. A few strongly disliked, and most somewhat disliked, having to use non-traditional pronouns at all.

- They were very upset about stories of people being suspended from elementary school after using the wrong pronoun

- They were upset about a professor getting in trouble for wanting to only use male and female pronouns based on biological gender

- "Don't force it down my throat and I won't force it down yours"

- They feel like they cannot express their views without being attacked. In response, they now express their views much more aggressively and will attack others (sadly).

- They hate hate hate many things that they associate with social justice warriors, e.g. political correctness, "safe spaces," etc.

- They like Trump's outwardly strong stance on terrorism

- They were concerned about the decline of religion, and worry that this will lead to more radical extremists (with the radical extremists converting people who feel disenfranchised and purposeless)

- They support gay marriage but were upset at a story of a store keeper who got in trouble for refusing to serve a gay couple

- They (as former legal immigrants) hate the idea of illegal immigrants skipping the queue

- Extreme distrust of the mainstream media

- Extreme distrust and disliking of Hillary Clinton

- Strong distrust and disliking of Obama (will update if I recall their stated reasoning)

- Generally seemed pretty anti-politicians

I'm not intending to invite a discussion as to whether their opinions are right or wrong. I'm just posting these here because I think that for anyone on HN working in politics, it may be important to know why your opponents dislike (their image of) you.

See also: http://blog.samaltman.com/what-i-heard-from-trump-supporters

And on changing opinions:

https://psmag.com/news/why-even-your-best-arguments-never-wo...

https://twitter.com/csallen/status/914926162379460609

https://ozanvarol.com/how-to-change-a-mind-yours-or-someone-...

Though published by Cato, an institution with a clear leaning, for me at least these statistics seem to broker an overdue potential peace.

By offering a better understanding of another party's views, it opens up the opportunity to draw parallels that lessen tension.

I will have a nice chuckle if (when?) this post gets flagged... ;-)

I found it outstanding that Republicans view the Wall Street Journal as having a liberal bias. A business-focused, capitalist-centric paper, with a liberal bias. I suppose if that's your definition, of course you'll see journalists having a liberal bias as a whole...

Assuming this study is legitimate (which may be a major assumption given the source) it seems to imply the average self-identifying Democrat's views on speech have shifted radically away from the center over the last 10 years.

I'd be shocked if these numbers were anywhere nearly as skewed if this poll were taken, say, in the 1990s during the previous blowback against "PC culture."

If the government's role in controlling political speech continues to be a top-of-mind issue for independent or libertarian voters, as it seems to be on track to be given the acceleration of communication over the Internet, then my guess is that the Democratic party will continue to lose power.

I have learned over many years, that polling data is rarely ever correct and usually contains a severe bias. This same poll can be conducted by a different organization with the exact same sample population and the finding will be "71% of Americans Say Political Correctness Has Enhanced Discussions." Both will have data to back up their claim. And that's why polls are one of the worst ways to obtain information

There were a lot of questions along the lines of:

> ...it’s hateful or offensive to say...

I would like to see more specific responses to this. It seems like people might say yes because:

- they are offended

- they think members of specific groups would be offended

- they think specific people they know would be offended

- they think people generally would be offended

Hateful seems a little more objective, but for many people, hate is a subjective feeling as well, so the above questions could just as easily be reworded about 'hate' instead of 'offense'.

I think breaking things down like that a bit more might help with better understanding. I can't say how many times I've seen people verbally kick sand at each other over what hypothetical third parties think or feel (veterans, immigrants, children, 'the poor', etc.).

It does maybe makes it harder for certain people who have difficulty expressing their thoughts and don't master the language as well to express themselves. But for most people, I think its just intellectual lazyness.

In the Information Age most people with an interest in an issue will have already heard “your” opinion on it, because most people have off-the-shelf opinions that have already been widely circulated.

Until etiquette and discourse norms evolve to incorporate this understanding conversations will be frustrating for everyone!

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I'm surprised its only 71%

according to cato

This post is @ 40pts and only 31 minutes old with 2 comments. Seems to me that the poll's outcome is rather predictive.