Also, there is a definite increase in gun related deaths for women as the result of domestic violence when more guns are added into the equation. More guns is NOT the solution. Sorry if this is political but I felt obliged to comment on this.
Our founding fathers certainly thought guns were the solution in environments like we find ourselves today, when you are opposing tyrannical forces. I don't see a notable difference between tyranny and mob justice. The 2nd amendment is still law of the land, and there is still wisdom in it. Sorry if this is political.
Also, there is a definite increase in gun related deaths for women as the result of domestic violence when more guns are added into the equation. More guns is NOT the solution. Sorry if this is political but I felt obliged to comment on this.
I'm not saying suicides aren't correlated with gun ownership. I'm saying comparing gun deaths by violent crime with gun deaths by accident and suicide is not making a valid comparison. If someone decides to take their own life, that is an issue that is unrelated to the means with which they choose to follow through. Not owning a gun does not correlate with not committing suicide.
I'm also not saying I'm against all forms of gun control. If we're going to pursue some gun control measures, we should focus on the ones that are a. Most likely to get passed with bipartisan support b. Not a rallying cry for the votes the Dems are actively courting. (They basically abandoned the liberal wing to court republicans, then they all but guaranteed a loss in multiple swing states by taking a stance against assault weapons!) C. Wait until the opportunity is right, like not in the middle of a pandemic where our population is on the brink of insurgency.
I think there are a lot of people on the left who are waking up to the fact that they might need the 2A in the near future in ways they've previously decried.
If you don't want to buy a gun right now, I fully support that decision. I don't think it's very smart to fight that particular fight right now when facing a campaign that has and will continue to lie as much as possible about the "socialist Biden campaign" that wants "lawless violent rioters to tear down our cities" and "abolish our suburbs" when we are ACTIVELY COURTING THEIR VOTES AT THE EXPENSE OF THE LIBERAL WING OF THE PARTY! (Uppercaer for emphasis, not shouting.)
I mean police have guns and they're killing citizens in the streets. The right wing extremists have guns and they're also killing people in the streets. I AM NOT advocating for the left to do the same. When Biden wins and Trump rallies his base to take to the streets to reclaim our democracy that was stolen by the radical left, I don't want to see everyone make it easy for them.
They have to be met with resistance. They have to see that the people they are trying to overthrow aren't just the gun-hating liberal characters they believe them to be, but are actual humans. Friends. Neighbors. Activists.
I'm not advocating for violence. I think my track record here on these forums speaking out against violence, even against people who have been branded racists and Nazis can speak to that.
I'm advocating preparedness, caution, and non-violent resistance. If you do buy a gun and go out protesting. Leave it at home, properly locked up. When the protests turn violent, GTFO and go home.
There is no shame in running away. There is no shame in losing things. There is shame in losing people. We need to wake up to the fact that is more of a possibility now than it has been since the succession.
I’m not trying to get into a gun control argument. I’m just saying that suicide rates ARE impacted by gun ownership and that I believe this statement to be false:
“ Not owning a gun does not correlate with not committing suicide. ”
It absolutely does. 89% of firearm related suicides are fatal compared to 13% of the most common method which is drug poisoning. My point being, if someone does choose to attempt, the last thing you want is a gun laying around. Once again, not trying to debate here, was really just trying to inform.
I follow you. Would it be more clear if I said "Not owning a gun does not correlate with a lesser likelihood of attempting suicide?" Sure, suicide by gun is the most effective means. Sure, poisoning gives you a much greater chance of survival and getting help. I'm not making a point against those things. My point is that lumping gun related suicides in against gun related murders is disingenuous. It plays well to tell the story you are more likely to die by your own gun statistically than someone else's. If you remove the suicide statistics, does that claim still hold true?
I would argue of you struggle with thoughts of suicide, depression, or self-harm, you probably shouldn't own a gun. You certainly should reach out to some official resources for help with those feelings.
My argument still stands that if you want to commit suicide, and you don't have access to a gun, there are still many means with which to succeed. This is evidenced by the large number of gun-unrelated suicides we see every year. The title of your source says guns are used in less than 5% of suicides every year.
Maybe I have a special german mindset about this but no frantic mob is going to coerce me to lift my right arm and shout their paroles any time soon for anything.
Maybe I have a special german mindset about this but no frantic mob is going to coerce me to lift my right arm and shout their paroles any time soon for anything.
It did give me pause. How to deal with a racist mob? (Ie, they were chanting "white silence is violence") I would 100% raise my fist, and then I would get the hell out of there once they had moved on. I'm not sure if the video was included where the man was screaming right into the woman's face, but I see that sort of thing more and more regularly. Men getting a pass for their misogyny as long as they are espousing certain "correct" talking points, and so enjoying their field day to bully women. And their comrades are blind to those urges.
Maybe if I were a man it would be different, and I would resist the mob -- but as the objectively weaker sex, I can't afford principles these days.
Maybe I have a special german mindset about this but no frantic mob is going to coerce me to lift my right arm and shout their paroles any time soon for anything.
Hey @Schlupp are you German? That's cool. I'm 6th gen Texan German myself.
I have to admit my immediate visceral reaction to seeing that video was...."god damn stupid fucking white kids. y'all are fucking this up for everyone." It's not a good look. They're just giving free video footage to the alt-right to make propaganda to stoke stochastic terrorism against BLM. If you see a bunch of white kids looking like they're about to go to some goth burning man, then it's probably smart to get the fuck out and find a better BLM march.
@cdrive How many of these incidents would you need to see to say they aren't isolated but a problem with the whole? 20? 50? Is it infinite? Mine is pretty low; it might be like 10, but that comes of having major reservations with the less public rhetoric.
Another inviting incident last night. This time in Portland. This time it appears a protestor killed a right-wing agitator.
Looks a lot like a back and forth. Tit for tat.
We're not going to make it to the election without a lot more death and violence. The door to civil war is wide open and we're staring at our phones not paying attention to the fact we're heading right through it.
Civil war as in a war between citizens of the same country.
I've never been a prepper. I've never been taken by conspiracy theories. I recommend everyone start to stock up on dry goods (beans, rice, etc), canned goods, paper goods, and medical supplies. If you only have electric cooking equipment, get a small camp stove and some propane. Life straw, water purification tablets, a good solid hunting-style survival knife. Maybe some bulk seeds to plant some vegetables. We are closer to things getting very ugly than we have been in over 150 years
How did we get here? We've spent the past few decades ramping up the rhetoric and demonizing the other side. "Everyone who votes for Trump is a racist and a nazi." "The liberals are destroying this country and need to be put down in the streets." etc. etc. I'm not equating the rhetoric on each side here. I think it's pretty clear that there is more violence and rage on the right, but it's long past time to quit pretending it doesn't exist on our side too. We chased off most of the right wing voices here in the forums with OUR rhetoric. We've spent years demonizing one another, dehumanizing one another, and building resentment. This is where it's brought us. Go and TALK with some people with Trump signs in their yards. Ask them how they feel about the unrest. Ask them what they think a fair wage should be. Ask them how they would want us to solve the terrible system of healthcare in america. We need to be finding common ground, not ramping up the division. I guarantee you, there is more common ground than you think there is.
This is how it starts. Unrest and protests met with a security clampdown. (Portland, with the DHS officials. Kenosha with police allowing right wing armed "protection" squads.) Multiple inciting incidents like the kid in Kenosha shooting two protestors, and the shooting last night in Portland. Surely more will follow. The clampdown brings more people to the protestors cause leading to more unrest. The inciting incidents bring more people to both sides of the conflict, and will lead to more tightening of security, pushing the conflict underground. It becomes an insurrection. Insurrection is likely to target supply chains, and places that will cause the most pain for the general public in hopes it will upset more peoples daily lives, forcing them to take sides.
The US military is not prepared to battle insurgency in America's megacities (population over 10m. Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, D.C./Baltimore.. More reading: https://www.army.mil/article/205817/warfare_in_megacities_a_new_frontier_in_military_operations). The tactics the military has become accustomed to in the deserts of the middle east are do not translate to fighting in megacities. If the U.S. military is deployed in America, there will be defections. As the conflict continues, more and more will defect.
Look at how long conflict raged on in Iraq and Afghanistan. An insurgency here would likely outnumber the insurgency there, and we've been fighting it down there for going on 20 years. An insurgency doesn't need numbers. It doesn't need a massive armory. The Taliban engineered modular, easy to produce explosives, mortars, and weaponry. They would pay children to sit up on a cliff, fire off a dozen bullets from a bolt action rifle at a base, and then leave.
Yes. I see a role for the U. S. military. They will probably be fighting on both sides in pretty short order if this thing starts off.
I recommend giving the podcast "It Could Happen Here" a listen. It's 9 episodes, with an additional mini episode in the middle. It ran from March through May of 2019, but listening to it today it sounds more prescient than ever.
Back when the shit hit the fan(July) my niece(13) wanted to get involved. Her mom let her post a sign that said “Black lives matter” in the yard. A couple weeks back the sign disappeared. My brother used security cam and saw the guy who did it. He posted pic on a local neighborhood watch site. Later that afternoon the guy showed up. I was inside and my brother was telling the guy to leave or he would call the police. I ran out saying “what the fuck is wrong with you?” I know. He was half trying to calm things down half ranting about we are responsible for anything that might happen. he finally left. What I hadn’t known that my niece was walking up when he showed up. On the security cam is the guy ranting at my niece while she is trying to get in. I really don’t know what I would’ve done if I knew that. I had a bat before I walked out . Anyway I told my brother to consult police see what they said. They wanted to take a report. Nothing has happened since but it was a bad scene. But I have lost hope in humanity.
Unless someone is about to kill you, in which case you should kill them first, there is so much commonality to find with others. We are all human animals. We have 100,000,000 things in common, but others have convinced us that the 1-12 dissimilarities overcome all that. They have especially convinced us that other people's attitudes have much bearing on our lives. They don't. You can have a reasonably comfortable life even with a lot of people having incorrect beliefs about you.
Now, sometimes we choose to take up other people's battles (which they may or may not want you to take up), like your niece putting a sign in your yard. That's fine; that's a choice. How much is that actually taking up someone else's battle? I don't know; I'll leave that to you.
But I would argue that if it's come to the point where you are losing faith in humanity, you should step back and not take up other people's battles. You should focus on your own struggles and whether they are so bad that you need to emotionally seclude yourself from your species. It's more likely that your emotional state right now is due to estranging yourself from other humans, not from anything other humans have done to you personally.
I'd just like to point out that without taking on other's battles, humankind wouldn't make much progress towards equality. There have always been allies to the oppressed from among the non-oppressed, and they are almost always necessary. As for whether it's worth finding common ground with bigots, well, I'll leave that to people wiser than me.
Until we derive a system of determining people are irredeemable with near-perfect certainty, I'm not sure how anyone could say you shouldn't find common ground with everyone -- even people we (imperfectly) deem to be bigots.
Your first sentence seems a non-sequitur, @asmallcat. Or do you think people should fight others' battles to the point where they lose hope in humanity? How would they have any moral intuition at that point? How would they know the battle is done, or if it's gone sour, etc? The airplane analogy about masks applies.
I hear the word bigot a lot and so I looked it up. I've been doing that a lot lately with words.
Definition: "a person who is intolerant toward those holding different opinions."
Ironically being intolerant of bigots makes you a bigot. So yes, we should rise above that. Dialogue is essential to defeating bigoted ideas, and finding common ground is essential to dialogue.
Until we derive a system of determining people are irredeemable with near-perfect certainty, I'm not sure how anyone could say you shouldn't find common ground with everyone -- even people we (imperfectly) deem to be bigots.
Your first sentence seems a non-sequitur, @asmallcat. Or do you think people should fight others' battles to the point where they lose hope in humanity? How would they have any moral intuition at that point? How would they know the battle is done, or if it's gone sour, etc? The airplane analogy about masks applies.
I don't mean to speak for @asmallcat, but I think the idea is that oppressed people always want change but by virtue of the fact that they are oppressed they aren't in a position to obtain change...they require allies. It's not a matter of fighting other people's battles for them, but rather with them. Here's an example...
African Americans have (presumably!) wanted equality for hundreds of years to no effect, but meaningful change started to happen during the Civil Rights movement of the 60's because others got on board with them. I want to be careful, I'm not saying that white people in the 60's were the saviours of the Civil Rights movement - I don't mean that at all. I'm saying that hundreds of years of African American struggles formed, over time, the conditions that allowed white people (and others) to get on board with them, to fall in line behind the leadership of people like MLK and become allies. We can see similar patterns in other movements...the suffragists, the labour movement etc.
A more contemporary example might be the trans rights movement. There aren't enough trans people to wield political power unto themselves, without allies they can make all the demands they want and be ignored. Change comes when the rest of us say "I don't care which washroom a trans person wants to use' (for example). Again, we're not the heroes of their stories - they fought the fight, won us over, and gained the allies they needed to overcome their relatively small numbers to achieve their goals.
Absolutely @CretanBull. My point was what I'm arguing doesn't exclude any of that. It exists in my framework. And so it seems like a hostile political game when I say, for instance (let's use a similar example):
Me: It's important to have a good work/life balance. A healthy personal life allows us to recharge and give work our best energy.
Employer: Jaimie doesn't think work is very important.
Me: What? No! That's not what I said at all! Sorry, did I misspeak?
Employer 2: (outlines reasons work is important)
It's a dishonest rebuttal. It forces me to play defense on a claim I didn't even make, or else look anti-work. I don't think @asmallcat is trying to be dishonest, and so I was giving him a chance to clarify. I wasn't asking for the Civil Rights movement to be explained to me, Jesus Christ
Until we derive a system of determining people are irredeemable with near-perfect certainty, I'm not sure how anyone could say you shouldn't find common ground with everyone -- even people we (imperfectly) deem to be bigots.
Your first sentence seems a non-sequitur, @asmallcat. Or do you think people should fight others' battles to the point where they lose hope in humanity? How would they have any moral intuition at that point? How would they know the battle is done, or if it's gone sour, etc? The airplane analogy about masks applies.
As to the first question, if you're (the general you, not you specifically of course) still a racist in 2020, I don't know how you can be redeemable TBQH. Maybe you can be, but it's been obvious for decades that racism is a moral evil and that the color of a person's skin doesn't determine their value that I honestly don't see the point in trying to find "common ground" there. I have no interest in hanging out with a racist just cause they also like the detroit lions. Different people can disagree, of course. And I use the term bigot because there's no better catchall terms for racists, people who hate the LGBTQ community, misogynists, etc.
And yes, if you believe it is morally correct, you should fight people's battles even if you lose faith in humanity (which I assume in this context means that you're disappointed in your fellow humans, or don't think your cause will ever succeed). I'm sure lots of non-slave abolitionists lost faith in humanity over the course of their fight, as did supporters of every other cause that we now take as obviously morally correct. Now I'm not saying you should never take a step back and take some time for yourself if you're getting burned out. Of course you should. But that doesn't mean you give up completely, or that the fight was wrong, or that it was wrong for you not to fight on behalf of others.
The reason I pointed this out was because you seemed to be saying that unless a person's evil was impacting you specifically, it's fine to simply ignore it and get along to get along. I disagree.
This is further complicated by the fact that in the US there is almost no one who isn't impacted by the actions of the GOP. Even if you are white, straight, upper middle class, climate change is STILL going to fuck you if left unchecked, as are constant reductions in government services. And sort of everything gets caught up in the tumbling snowball of politics - health care, racism, wealth inequality, climate change, wearing a mask, etc, so it becomes essentially impossible to say "well this issue doesn't effect me."
And it's not good! I'm sure that being bombarded with bad news is bad for people's mental health. I'm sure that the divisiveness that has been pushed on our country by politicians of a certain party is not good for the country as a whole. But I don't think the answer is to disengage, because all this stuff is true. I think the answer is to push through these bad times so that we can make it better in the future. Because drastic changes ARE needed.
Edit - on re-read this sounds kind of attacking, and I honestly don't mean it to be. Living in the US is a depressing thing right now, and we all need to get through it however we can. This is just my opinion of course, not saying it's the only right one.
Absolutely @CretanBull. My point was what I'm arguing doesn't exclude any of that. It exists in my framework. And so it seems like a hostile political game when I say, for instance (let's use a similar example):
Me: It's important to have a good work/life balance. A healthy personal life allows us to recharge and give work our best energy.
Employer: Jaimie doesn't think work is very important.
Me: What? No! That's not what I said at all! Sorry, did I misspeak?
Employer 2: (outlines reasons work is important)
It's a dishonest rebuttal. It forces me to play defense on a claim I didn't even make, or else look anti-work. I don't think @asmallcat is trying to be dishonest, and so I was giving him a chance to clarify. I wasn't asking for the Civil Rights movement to be explained to me, Jesus Christ
I probably shouldn't have stuck my nose in it and let @asmallcat reply for themselves because now I feel like I'm arguing their point when I have no business to. I'll just say this - and I could be entirely wrong - but I didn't read their reply to you as a rebuttal at all, I took it more as a 'side-note' that expanded the conversation. With that being the context in my head, your reply read as if it was questioning the value or importance of allyship - as if you were weighing the personal costs of being an ally vs the outcome for someone else. Your reply here makes me realize that we read and interpreted @asmallcat's comment differently and you were replying in the context of the original conversation. Sorry
@asmallcat Cool, I don't disagree with any of that. I expect we'd approach helping others a little differently, to different degrees, but that's to be expected.
I think it's helpful not only to be skeptical of whether people are racist, but specifically skeptical of your determination of whether they are racist. It's easy to think of this in empirical certainties for an internet discussion, but in real life the individual brain is utterlyunreliable at reasoning and observation of this kind. Having an open mind is a good policy.
I think it's helpful not only to be skeptical of whether people are racist, but specifically skeptical of your determination of whether they are racist. It's easy to think of this in empirical certainties for an internet discussion, but in real life the individual brain is utterlyunreliable at reasoning and observation of this kind. Having an open mind is a good policy.
This is completely fair and certainly something I struggle with.
Insane that someone is saying this out loud in 2018 and still has a job 2 years later (this is the sheriff of the country that Kenosha is in and these remarks are from 2 years ago).
I don't think it's good policy to write anyone off as irredeemable. Hate is learned, and hate can be unlearned.
You don't win against hate by changing their minds. You win against hate by changing their hearts. People are often radicalized because they feel they don't belong. The far-right groups prey on that by offering acceptance while preaching hate against others. The way to deprogram has to be similar. ACCEPTANCE and preaching love and acceptance of others. Just as it took time to turn them into a bigot, it will take time to turn them from it. It's important to NOT attack them, but to respond with compassion. i.e Instead of "That was racist. You're a bigot." Try "That really hasn't been my experience at all. I'm sorry you feel that way."
I'm not saying its your job to deprogram every skinhead you meet, or any at all really. It is your job to realize that they are a human being that has been brought to believe in some terrible ideals. Writing them off is just playing into the hate. It's part of the evil genius of it. It's part of the problem. Kindness, acceptance, and compassion are part of the solution.
Here is a great 43-minute interview with Christian Picciolini. (Former neo-nazi, now the co-founder of Life After Hate, a nonprofit that helps people disengage from hate groups.)
There's also a great documentary from 2017 called "White Right: Meeting The Enemy" that appears to have basically disappeared. The only legal means of watching it is on kanopy which requires a library card of university login. It probably exists in the sorts of places J&A occasionally mention on their podcasts when they've exhausted all options to pay for content.
Comments
https://www.mja.com.au/journal/2010/192/8/suicide-australia-meta-analysis-rates-and-methods-suicide-between-1988-and-2007
Also, there is a definite increase in gun related deaths for women as the result of domestic violence when more guns are added into the equation. More guns is NOT the solution. Sorry if this is political but I felt obliged to comment on this.
I'm also not saying I'm against all forms of gun control. If we're going to pursue some gun control measures, we should focus on the ones that are a. Most likely to get passed with bipartisan support b. Not a rallying cry for the votes the Dems are actively courting. (They basically abandoned the liberal wing to court republicans, then they all but guaranteed a loss in multiple swing states by taking a stance against assault weapons!) C. Wait until the opportunity is right, like not in the middle of a pandemic where our population is on the brink of insurgency.
I think there are a lot of people on the left who are waking up to the fact that they might need the 2A in the near future in ways they've previously decried.
If you don't want to buy a gun right now, I fully support that decision. I don't think it's very smart to fight that particular fight right now when facing a campaign that has and will continue to lie as much as possible about the "socialist Biden campaign" that wants "lawless violent rioters to tear down our cities" and "abolish our suburbs" when we are ACTIVELY COURTING THEIR VOTES AT THE EXPENSE OF THE LIBERAL WING OF THE PARTY! (Uppercaer for emphasis, not shouting.)
They have to be met with resistance. They have to see that the people they are trying to overthrow aren't just the gun-hating liberal characters they believe them to be, but are actual humans. Friends. Neighbors. Activists.
I'm not advocating for violence. I think my track record here on these forums speaking out against violence, even against people who have been branded racists and Nazis can speak to that.
I'm advocating preparedness, caution, and non-violent resistance. If you do buy a gun and go out protesting. Leave it at home, properly locked up. When the protests turn violent, GTFO and go home.
There is no shame in running away. There is no shame in losing things. There is shame in losing people. We need to wake up to the fact that is more of a possibility now than it has been since the succession.
It absolutely does. 89% of firearm related suicides are fatal compared to 13% of the most common method which is drug poisoning. My point being, if someone does choose to attempt, the last thing you want is a gun laying around. Once again, not trying to debate here, was really just trying to inform.
https://www.medpagetoday.com/psychiatry/generalpsychiatry/83665
I would argue of you struggle with thoughts of suicide, depression, or self-harm, you probably shouldn't own a gun. You certainly should reach out to some official resources for help with those feelings.
My argument still stands that if you want to commit suicide, and you don't have access to a gun, there are still many means with which to succeed. This is evidenced by the large number of gun-unrelated suicides we see every year. The title of your source says guns are used in less than 5% of suicides every year.
a highly educated and intelligent populace and government.
It did give me pause. How to deal with a racist mob? (Ie, they were chanting "white silence is violence") I would 100% raise my fist, and then I would get the hell out of there once they had moved on. I'm not sure if the video was included where the man was screaming right into the woman's face, but I see that sort of thing more and more regularly. Men getting a pass for their misogyny as long as they are espousing certain "correct" talking points, and so enjoying their field day to bully women. And their comrades are blind to those urges.
Maybe if I were a man it would be different, and I would resist the mob -- but as the objectively weaker sex, I can't afford principles these days.
I have to admit my immediate visceral reaction to seeing that video was...."god damn stupid fucking white kids. y'all are fucking this up for everyone." It's not a good look. They're just giving free video footage to the alt-right to make propaganda to stoke stochastic terrorism against BLM. If you see a bunch of white kids looking like they're about to go to some goth burning man, then it's probably smart to get the fuck out and find a better BLM march.
Looks a lot like a back and forth. Tit for tat.
We're not going to make it to the election without a lot more death and violence. The door to civil war is wide open and we're staring at our phones not paying attention to the fact we're heading right through it.
I've never been a prepper. I've never been taken by conspiracy theories. I recommend everyone start to stock up on dry goods (beans, rice, etc), canned goods, paper goods, and medical supplies. If you only have electric cooking equipment, get a small camp stove and some propane. Life straw, water purification tablets, a good solid hunting-style survival knife. Maybe some bulk seeds to plant some vegetables. We are closer to things getting very ugly than we have been in over 150 years
How did we get here? We've spent the past few decades ramping up the rhetoric and demonizing the other side. "Everyone who votes for Trump is a racist and a nazi." "The liberals are destroying this country and need to be put down in the streets." etc. etc. I'm not equating the rhetoric on each side here. I think it's pretty clear that there is more violence and rage on the right, but it's long past time to quit pretending it doesn't exist on our side too. We chased off most of the right wing voices here in the forums with OUR rhetoric. We've spent years demonizing one another, dehumanizing one another, and building resentment. This is where it's brought us. Go and TALK with some people with Trump signs in their yards. Ask them how they feel about the unrest. Ask them what they think a fair wage should be. Ask them how they would want us to solve the terrible system of healthcare in america. We need to be finding common ground, not ramping up the division. I guarantee you, there is more common ground than you think there is.
The US military is not prepared to battle insurgency in America's megacities (population over 10m. Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, D.C./Baltimore.. More reading: https://www.army.mil/article/205817/warfare_in_megacities_a_new_frontier_in_military_operations). The tactics the military has become accustomed to in the deserts of the middle east are do not translate to fighting in megacities. If the U.S. military is deployed in America, there will be defections. As the conflict continues, more and more will defect.
Look at how long conflict raged on in Iraq and Afghanistan. An insurgency here would likely outnumber the insurgency there, and we've been fighting it down there for going on 20 years. An insurgency doesn't need numbers. It doesn't need a massive armory. The Taliban engineered modular, easy to produce explosives, mortars, and weaponry. They would pay children to sit up on a cliff, fire off a dozen bullets from a bolt action rifle at a base, and then leave.
Yes. I see a role for the U. S. military. They will probably be fighting on both sides in pretty short order if this thing starts off.
I recommend giving the podcast "It Could Happen Here" a listen. It's 9 episodes, with an additional mini episode in the middle. It ran from March through May of 2019, but listening to it today it sounds more prescient than ever.
he finally left. What I hadn’t known that my niece was walking up when he showed up. On the security cam is the guy ranting at my niece while she is trying to get in. I really don’t know what I would’ve done if I knew that. I had a bat before I walked out . Anyway I told my brother to consult police see what they said. They wanted to take a report. Nothing has happened since but it was a bad scene. But I have lost hope in humanity.
Now, sometimes we choose to take up other people's battles (which they may or may not want you to take up), like your niece putting a sign in your yard. That's fine; that's a choice. How much is that actually taking up someone else's battle? I don't know; I'll leave that to you.
But I would argue that if it's come to the point where you are losing faith in humanity, you should step back and not take up other people's battles. You should focus on your own struggles and whether they are so bad that you need to emotionally seclude yourself from your species. It's more likely that your emotional state right now is due to estranging yourself from other humans, not from anything other humans have done to you personally.
Your first sentence seems a non-sequitur, @asmallcat. Or do you think people should fight others' battles to the point where they lose hope in humanity? How would they have any moral intuition at that point? How would they know the battle is done, or if it's gone sour, etc? The airplane analogy about masks applies.
Definition: "a person who is intolerant toward those holding different opinions."
Ironically being intolerant of bigots makes you a bigot.
African Americans have (presumably!) wanted equality for hundreds of years to no effect, but meaningful change started to happen during the Civil Rights movement of the 60's because others got on board with them. I want to be careful, I'm not saying that white people in the 60's were the saviours of the Civil Rights movement - I don't mean that at all. I'm saying that hundreds of years of African American struggles formed, over time, the conditions that allowed white people (and others) to get on board with them, to fall in line behind the leadership of people like MLK and become allies. We can see similar patterns in other movements...the suffragists, the labour movement etc.
A more contemporary example might be the trans rights movement. There aren't enough trans people to wield political power unto themselves, without allies they can make all the demands they want and be ignored. Change comes when the rest of us say "I don't care which washroom a trans person wants to use' (for example). Again, we're not the heroes of their stories - they fought the fight, won us over, and gained the allies they needed to overcome their relatively small numbers to achieve their goals.
Me: It's important to have a good work/life balance. A healthy personal life allows us to recharge and give work our best energy.
Employer: Jaimie doesn't think work is very important.
Me: What? No! That's not what I said at all! Sorry, did I misspeak?
Employer 2: (outlines reasons work is important)
It's a dishonest rebuttal. It forces me to play defense on a claim I didn't even make, or else look anti-work. I don't think @asmallcat is trying to be dishonest, and so I was giving him a chance to clarify. I wasn't asking for the Civil Rights movement to be explained to me, Jesus Christ
And yes, if you believe it is morally correct, you should fight people's battles even if you lose faith in humanity (which I assume in this context means that you're disappointed in your fellow humans, or don't think your cause will ever succeed). I'm sure lots of non-slave abolitionists lost faith in humanity over the course of their fight, as did supporters of every other cause that we now take as obviously morally correct. Now I'm not saying you should never take a step back and take some time for yourself if you're getting burned out. Of course you should. But that doesn't mean you give up completely, or that the fight was wrong, or that it was wrong for you not to fight on behalf of others.
The reason I pointed this out was because you seemed to be saying that unless a person's evil was impacting you specifically, it's fine to simply ignore it and get along to get along. I disagree.
This is further complicated by the fact that in the US there is almost no one who isn't impacted by the actions of the GOP. Even if you are white, straight, upper middle class, climate change is STILL going to fuck you if left unchecked, as are constant reductions in government services. And sort of everything gets caught up in the tumbling snowball of politics - health care, racism, wealth inequality, climate change, wearing a mask, etc, so it becomes essentially impossible to say "well this issue doesn't effect me."
And it's not good! I'm sure that being bombarded with bad news is bad for people's mental health. I'm sure that the divisiveness that has been pushed on our country by politicians of a certain party is not good for the country as a whole. But I don't think the answer is to disengage, because all this stuff is true. I think the answer is to push through these bad times so that we can make it better in the future. Because drastic changes ARE needed.
Edit - on re-read this sounds kind of attacking, and I honestly don't mean it to be. Living in the US is a depressing thing right now, and we all need to get through it however we can. This is just my opinion of course, not saying it's the only right one.
I think it's helpful not only to be skeptical of whether people are racist, but specifically skeptical of your determination of whether they are racist. It's easy to think of this in empirical certainties for an internet discussion, but in real life the individual brain is utterly unreliable at reasoning and observation of this kind. Having an open mind is a good policy.
You don't win against hate by changing their minds. You win against hate by changing their hearts. People are often radicalized because they feel they don't belong. The far-right groups prey on that by offering acceptance while preaching hate against others. The way to deprogram has to be similar. ACCEPTANCE and preaching love and acceptance of others. Just as it took time to turn them into a bigot, it will take time to turn them from it. It's important to NOT attack them, but to respond with compassion. i.e Instead of "That was racist. You're a bigot." Try "That really hasn't been my experience at all. I'm sorry you feel that way."
I'm not saying its your job to deprogram every skinhead you meet, or any at all really. It is your job to realize that they are a human being that has been brought to believe in some terrible ideals. Writing them off is just playing into the hate. It's part of the evil genius of it. It's part of the problem. Kindness, acceptance, and compassion are part of the solution.
Here is a great 43-minute interview with Christian Picciolini. (Former neo-nazi, now the co-founder of Life After Hate, a nonprofit that helps people disengage from hate groups.)
There's also a great documentary from 2017 called "White Right: Meeting The Enemy" that appears to have basically disappeared. The only legal means of watching it is on kanopy which requires a library card of university login. It probably exists in the sorts of places J&A occasionally mention on their podcasts when they've exhausted all options to pay for content.