zlacker

>>notion+(OP)
Im not sure why citizens of representative democracies would want to inhibit political discussion. Presumably one of the benefits of living in such a regime is the ability to participate in policy formulation through voting, political campaigns and various forms of public service. As a result, would it not be reasonable to assume that most of these individuals are very knowledgeable about a variety of aspects of public policy? Therefore the majority of political discussion would be rigorous, fact based and consider a wide variety of points of view.

Analogously it would seem that citizens of dictatorship-based regimes don’t have to worry about these details (hopefully the dictator and their lieutenants have taken care of everything) and can focus on enjoying their lives.

>>baseme+K9
At 41, I'm not sure I'm old enough to comment on "how things were", and I'm not enough a student of history as I should be. But I believe the current trend across the globe is from democracy to autocracy[0], and toxic political polarization[1] is moving opinions so far apart as to effectively eliminate meaningful discussion about compromise or allowing yourself to change your opinion closer to what you believe to be a wholly terrible if not blatantly false perspective.

To rephrase, I don't think most discussions around policy involve providing peer-reviewed studies with relatively conclusive evidence in regards to a potential policy change, or objective evaluation of the communication, legislation and vote records of politicians. It is too easily converted into ad hominem attacks, bold assertions that one might believe have evidence but if (quite) thoroughly investigated might be disproven. More regularly each side dismisses the other based on strongly held beliefs formed on very shallow investigation.

[0] https://www.v-dem.net/en/publications/democracy-reports/ (specifically https://www.v-dem.net/media/filer_public/de/39/de39af54-0bc5... PDF)

[1] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/00027162188187...