Justin Mohn, a 32-year-old Pennsylvania man, is in police custody after allegedly murdering and decapitating his father, claiming the latter was a “federal employee” and a “traitor.” Before his arrest, Mohn posted a 14-minute video to YouTube in which he displayed his father’s severed head, proclaiming: "This is the head of Mike Mohn, a federal
While I’ve seen many binary choice questions that are loaded questions, I think the above is a good example. A follow up (or two) if the person balks at the question itself is the following:
Do you know what fascism is and how to spot it?
Do you think antifa is a single entity and not a general ideology?
If it’s an entity, can you name or even lookup it’s leadership?
Do you believe everyone who espouses an anti fascist value system is a member of that org?
Good binary questions can help guide a discussion and expose biases and misunderstandings held by each side in the discussion. Seemingly paradoxically, nailing down specific stances using those types of questions, you can explore the nuance of certain positions.
Ex: on abortion
Question 1 may just be a way to reframe the stances from “pro-life” / “anti-life”
Q2 helps bring the reality of what enforcement of that person’s stance may entail.
Q3 shows that big companies go unpunished for the same (or worse) violations of restrictive abortion laws and other laws that are used to punish women who miscarry.
Q4 helps bring focus on the fact that anti-abortion laws that are currently being passed and enforced are written so poorly that they are forcing doctors (through threat of imprisonment) to deny what would be routine procedures which would otherwise prevent suffering and permanent injury to women.
These are all excellent questions to lead into a good discussion. Assuming you have someone who is open to approaching in good faith and who trusts you to do the same. I have a friend who I try to have similar dialogs with.
I don’t suppose you have looked at street epistemology. Sort of the same vibe of exploring beliefs in a less/not confrontational way.
Just an anecdote about this: I once asked a pro-lifer question 4a and their response was that there’s no such thing as an ectopic pregnancy (said it was made up nonsense/propaganda) 🤷
At that point I stopped viewing them as a rational being… Forever (I still know them). Now when I think about them… “were they like this from birth or did some combination of events lead to this insanity?” And sometimes even, “should they be committed? There is definitely something wrong with this person.”
Then I remember that a great many humans have been like this for thousands of years. Rational thought and critical thinking are probably the outliers in our evolution and maybe rather than trying to somehow teach everyone how to research things and examine evidence properly we should instead focus on taking away sources of misinformation (by force, if necessary).
I’m in favor of the corporate death penalty for any media company that is caught intentionally lying or misleading their audience. For example, the day Fox News admitted under oath that they intentionally lied to and misled their audience should have resulted in that entire organization being shuttered forever.
“But that would eventually take down many news organizations!” To that I say, “yep.” Let new ones into the market that can keep their shit together and tell the truth.
Then the question could have simply have been phrased as “are you for pr against fascism.” Everyone know that Anti Fascism is a political ideology that goes beyond just simply being against fascism. And that’s why people don’t want to identify with that term