Controversial opinions

Everyone has beliefs which they think are simple and obvious. In 2017, I have become aware that some of mine are a lot more controversial than I imagined. Back in February I started assembling a list. Here’s what I have so far.

Apparently controversial opinions in 2017:

  • Everyone should have healthcare covering essential treatment. What counts as essential should be decided by panels of trained medical professionals.

  • Everyone should vote.

  • Slave labor is wrong. Always. Even if it’s convicted prisoners doing it.

  • Contraception is a good thing and should be legal.

  • Torture is bad. It is always morally wrong and it doesn’t work.

  • All Nazis are bad.

  • Adult men trying to have sex with underage teens is bad.

  • Science is good. It is the best way we know to learn about the world we live in.

  • Facts and non-facts are different. Fact is not just a matter of opinion; we can determine which things are facts, and which are not facts. We can do this using science; see above.

  • Art is good. Everyone should make art and appreciate art.

  • Immigrants are good for America. The entire nation is an experiment in whether you can have a nation of immigrants held together by principles.

  • Everyone should have enough food to eat.

  • Everyone should have a place to live.

  • Compassion for others is good. A person who cries because they feel bad for what is going to be done to others, is a better person than one who feels nothing.

  • Diversity is good. Meeting people of other races and other faiths and getting to know them is good for everyone involved.

2018 additions

  • Children should never be kept in cages.

  • Seeking refugee status is not a crime.

2019 additions

  • A place where large numbers of people, especially prisoners or minorities, are imprisoned in a relatively small area with inadequate facilities, is correctly called a concentration camp. Not all concentration camps are death camps where people are deliberately mass murdered.

  • Children should not be separated from their parents and placed in concentration camps.

  • Children should not be placed in solitary confinement.

  • Children who do not speak English cannot represent themselves in a US court of law.