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DeadlyMuffin posted:Is anybody actually saying this? Yes Trazz has been saying literally this all month and that's the reason we're having this dumb discussion in the first place
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Nov 22, 2021 21:34
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Best Friends posted:Most dems supported Obama's foreign policy, which has been torturing and starving the people of Yemen ever since, and killed who knows how many innocent people by our drones and kill teams. Why should a reasonable, moral person not cut all the dems out of their lives just as they've surely cut out republicans? One thing that blew my mind a few years back, since I'd assumed much the same, was looking up some of the details and seeing how much of Obama's aggressive foreign policy was more popular with Republicans than with Democrats, even while they were shouting how he was a lily-livered coward that was afraid to bomb all those terrorists. Sole exception was Syria where Democrats were a bit more pro-interventionist than Republicans. Up until Trump took over and Democratic support for intervention dropped from like 35% to 30% and Republican support lept from 30% to 80%. It's definitely a thing that bombs and sanctions and whatever else has a sad amount of bipartisan consensus, but I hadn't really realized how far right Obama was of the Democratic base, vs. just of leftists.
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Nov 22, 2021 21:35
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F_Shit_Fitzgerald posted:One of the problems with the American left is that we allow ourselves - in general, not just people in this thread - to get drawn into theoretical, navel gaze-y arguments like "Dems bad?". That's not a criticism of anyone in particular but an observation. What is actually being done to advance leftism and leftist ideas? You can be the "purest" leftist with no GOP friends and family in the world, but that doesn't matter a happy goddamn if leftism isn't getting exposure in the real world. It's the easiest option that makes you feel good. Changing the government is hard and depressing so it's just easier to be mad at the symptoms, all the individuals in your life with lovely opinions, and act like they're the cause. You can't fist fight Joe Biden or Mitch McConnell but you sure can fight your uncle who voted for Mitch.
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Nov 22, 2021 21:37
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If Bernie Sanders was benevolent dictator of America and ruled and good things happened then everybody would be ok with it for a while until they got bored and turned on him for stuff The problem is people are human
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Nov 22, 2021 21:41
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There goes an easy D pickup. Real Estate Developer Jeff Bartos and Oprah's friend Dr. Oz are now the leading the candidates. https://twitter.com/JakeSherman/status/1462881934363836420 Leon Trotsky 2012 fucked around with this message at 21:45 on Nov 22, 2021 |
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Nov 22, 2021 21:42
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TheDisreputableDog posted:It’s all just ridiculous posturing. “I refuse to eat turkey with my racist Uncle,” I smugly type on my cell phone made from slave labor. “I’m helping!” I prefer to spend a happy evening with people who I like rather than breathe the same as as my unvaccinated aunt and uncle. I prefer not to tiptoe around all night avoiding any topic that might launch my thought-poisoned aunt into some insane drivel about how the COVID vaccines I recommend to my patients are filled with secret satanic microchips. I mean I might be missing out on my insanely racist, armed-to-the-teeth-at-all-times cousin showing up post-shift from his Baton Rouge, Louisiana job as a cop going over his loadout of daily carry knives and guns again. It's not posturing, it's avoiding normalized mental illness and choosing people you want to spend time with rather than those you're supposed to spend time with.
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Nov 22, 2021 21:44
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TheIncredulousHulk posted:Yes Trazz has been saying literally this all month and that's the reason we're having this dumb discussion in the first place I mean, I'd love to hear your explanation as to why conservatives are being ostracized from their families while liberals aren't. Spoiler alert: It has nothing to do with "policy."
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Nov 22, 2021 21:53
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I feel like it could save a lot of time and confusion if people clarified if they mean "I cut out literally every single person who I know voted Republican." Seeing a lot of statements about severing with people for directly saying or doing something reprehensible (besides voting). It doesn't imply the previous statement necessarily, which I think is a bigger source of disagreement and vitriol.
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Nov 22, 2021 21:55
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So suppose you had a good family, one who took good care of you, raised you well never hurt you or emotionally abused you. Lets say they paid off your college education, are saving a nest egg that they plan to leave behind for you when they pass and generally have always encouraged and supported your goals. But for a myriad of reasons they voted for republicans, perhaps due to cultural associations, blind conviction or some other reason. Like their piddly few votes are going to do you way less harm than the total amount of good they've done for you over your lifetime.
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Nov 22, 2021 22:03
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Bear Enthusiast posted:I feel like it could save a lot of time and confusion if people clarified if they mean Well that's why I always try to establish whether they're voting Republican out of stupidity, or out of malice. Spoiler alert: Most of them really aren't that stupid.
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Nov 22, 2021 22:04
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Kraftwerk posted:So suppose you had a good family, one who took good care of you, raised you well never hurt you or emotionally abused you. Lets say they paid off your college education, are saving a nest egg that they plan to leave behind for you when they pass and generally have always encouraged and supported your goals. Sounds like that nice hypothetical family of yours are possibly reasonable enough people to be convinced to vote in a better way. Maybe the hypothetical child in this scenario could explain how voting Republican is harmful and fascist, and the hypothetical family members who vote Republican could see the error of their ways. If they didn't, tho, well I imagine the hypothetical child would want to know the reasons why. And then the hypothetical child could weight for themselves whether those reasons were worth severing? And, if the hypothetical child didn't want to sever because then they wouldn't get cash money when their parents finally go, well that's their decision to make. They should own it tho.
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Nov 22, 2021 22:07
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Everybody's personal situations and moral calculus are different and I don't get what's so goddamn difficult for people to accept about that. If you sever from a chud relative, ok cool, good for you. If you don't, fine, that's your choice. If you want to but can't, I'm sorry to hear that and I hope you're able to asap.
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Nov 22, 2021 22:09
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Kraftwerk posted:So suppose you had a good family, one who took good care of you, raised you well never hurt you or emotionally abused you. Lets say they paid off your college education, are saving a nest egg that they plan to leave behind for you when they pass and generally have always encouraged and supported your goals. Again, if they're voting Republican, then they are either ignorant as to the true nature of the GOP(which is forgivable, but they still have to stop voting GOP) or they know what they've been doing for years if not decades(this happens to be the case in the vast majority of these situations btw!)
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Nov 22, 2021 22:15
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Trazz posted:I mean, I'd love to hear your explanation as to why conservatives are being ostracized from their families while liberals aren't. Spoiler alert: It has nothing to do with "policy." Are you talking about a specific situation you want me to comment on or what? If you have one you should provide it, because otherwise like just clicking the little question mark under your name reveals a month of weird fantasizing about igniting a social retaliation movement and if that's what you're talking about I'm not sure what you want me to say
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Nov 22, 2021 22:16
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Jesus Christ can we please move the "should I sever from my republican family" chat to something that isn't the current events thread.
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Nov 22, 2021 22:24
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TheIncredulousHulk posted:Are you talking about a specific situation you want me to comment on or what? If you have one you should provide it, because otherwise like just clicking the little question mark under your name reveals a month of weird fantasizing about igniting a social retaliation movement and if that's what you're talking about I'm not sure what you want me to say I want you to answer why conservatives are increasingly becoming severed from their relationships, and I also want you to stop making this about me. I'm getting real tired of being held responsible for the increasing radicalization of right-wingers.
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Nov 22, 2021 22:25
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Trazz posted:I want you to answer why conservatives are increasingly becoming severed from their relationships, and I also want you to stop making this about me. I'm getting real tired of being held responsible for the increasing radicalization of right-wingers. Is there actually empirical evidence this is happening at an accelerating rate beyond "qanon guys eating thanksgiving alone on facebook" collages? Also lol at "don't make this about me!!" when your initial response to me asking you to provide some concrete standards for voting-based shunning was to ask if I was a shunned right-winger rather than answering Heck Yes! Loam! posted:Jesus Christ can we please move the "should I sever from my republican family" chat to something that isn't the current events thread. That would be nice. The obvious goalposting moving just proves it's E/N poo poo and has been the whole time
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Nov 22, 2021 22:33
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Trazz posted:Again, if they're voting Republican, then they are either ignorant as to the true nature of the GOP(which is forgivable, but they still have to stop voting GOP) or they know what they've been doing for years if not decades(this happens to be the case in the vast majority of these situations btw!) I don't disagree. But some people have zero trust in the government making people's lives better so when they get to choose between vague promises for improved services and lower taxes + higher 401ks they'll prioritize their immediate self interest forever and always because it's all they understand or care about. I understand that most CHUDs are not like this and that they've been ideologically primed to dislike minorities, LGBT people and are basically abusive folks who shouldn't be associated with. But there are families out there whose sole interest is perpetuating their financial wellbeing and existence and have been blackpilled into believing that the government cannot assist them in this and that they're on their own. Which creates a nasty feedback loop of suburban GOP voters who occasionally swing to the Democrats when a guy like Trump comes along! I can't blame them sometimes. The Democratic party has been loving up since Jimmy Carter and it's easy to see how a lot of people might have fully internalized Reagan's " Worst thing you can hear: I'm from the government and I'm here to help" spiel. I think we should always leave the door open for people to turn away from fascism, white supremacy and the GOP in general. We do have stories of rehabilitated skinheads giving up their old way of life and helping others stop being that way. I'm not saying it's common or that we can expect that from everyone. But the left needs all the help it can get and I'm not as keen to shun people as others are unless they're die hard fanatics to fascist and white supremacist ideals.
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Nov 22, 2021 22:40
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Did Great Falls, Montana just steal the very noticeable nickname of a much older and more famous city? I expected better of Montana. Also, if you are going to steal another city's culture, then there are surely much better targets than Scranton, Pennsylvania. https://twitter.com/SenatorTester/status/1462893516124835842
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Nov 22, 2021 22:44
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TheIncredulousHulk posted:Is there actually empirical evidence this is happening at an accelerating rate beyond "qanon guys eating thanksgiving alone on facebook" collages? https://www.npr.org/2020/10/27/928209548/dude-i-m-done-when-politics-tears-families-and-friendships-apart Here is a relatively empirical article, but on an anecdotal level, I already know lots of people who are ending friendships over the Rittenhouse verdict, and it's not like right-wingers are going to get any less crazy either.
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Nov 22, 2021 22:44
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I can definitely blame them if these voters can't look at what the people they are voting for do in the world and want to do in the world. Either they're deeply ignorant and haven't heard of the bad things, in which case you can inform them and they'll change their voting habit, or they don't care, in which case they're immoral awful people. Democrats ain't perfect, but at least some of them want to do good things and save the world, and others can be hauled along the way to doing good things. Show me the moderate Republicans who want to do anything good at all. They no longer exist. They are fascists to their very core. If your family member in the year 2021 cannot see what's happened to the Republican party then sorry, they're a fascist too.
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Nov 22, 2021 22:44
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Trazz posted:https://www.npr.org/2020/10/27/928209548/dude-i-m-done-when-politics-tears-families-and-friendships-apart Okay so your answer to whether you've got empirical evidence is "no"
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Nov 22, 2021 22:45
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Trazz posted:https://www.npr.org/2020/10/27/928209548/dude-i-m-done-when-politics-tears-families-and-friendships-apart Did you even read that? quote:Indeed, experts said it's more conversation — not less — that's needed, if the nation is to heal its blistering divide. But it has to be healthy, productive conversation. And Israel, who runs the workshops on civil discourse, said the first step must be to take it off social media and talk in person instead.
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Nov 22, 2021 22:48
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Really, the dilemma of “do i invite my conservative family members to thanksgiving?/do i attend thanksgiving hosted by conservative family members?” isn’t that difficult to solve anyway. Stop celebrating Thanksgiving, it’s a fascist holiday.
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Nov 22, 2021 22:51
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Then call me Mussolini cuz I'm gonna dive into some turkey
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Nov 22, 2021 22:52
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Trazz posted:https://www.npr.org/2020/10/27/928209548/dude-i-m-done-when-politics-tears-families-and-friendships-apart The part where you don't understand the term "empirical evidence" would be a great time for you to drop this whole conversation! Uncle Boogeyman posted:Really, the dilemma of “do i invite my conservative family members to thanksgiving?/do i attend thanksgiving hosted by conservative family members?” isn’t that difficult to solve anyway. Stop celebrating Thanksgiving, it’s a fascist holiday. 
Jaxyon fucked around with this message at 22:56 on Nov 22, 2021 |
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Nov 22, 2021 22:53
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Gumball Gumption posted:Did you even read that? "Just talk it out, kumbaya!" Yeah that part of the article is nonsense but at least it acknowledges that there is a growing problem here, and it was written prior to 1/6 as well! BTW, 1/6 has made it impossible to ever have a serious conversation with the average conservative.
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Nov 22, 2021 22:55
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Trazz posted:"Just talk it out, kumbaya!" Yeah that part of the article is nonsense but at least it acknowledges that there is a growing problem here, and it was written prior to 1/6 as well! BTW, 1/6 has made it impossible to ever have a serious conversation with the average conservative. Ok, thanks for the evidence except for the parts where the experts giving you your evidence disagree with you, I'll make sure to listen to you and not them.
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Nov 22, 2021 22:59
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Edit: misread
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Nov 22, 2021 23:00
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Uncle Boogeyman posted:Really, the dilemma of “do i invite my conservative family members to thanksgiving?/do i attend thanksgiving hosted by conservative family members?” isn’t that difficult to solve anyway. Stop celebrating Thanksgiving, it’s a fascist holiday. MLK Day is good. Good Friday is kinda meh. Memorial Day is ok. July 4th is glorious but celebrates the success of terrorism. Labor Day is awesome, komrade. Halloween is great, actually. Thanksgiving celebrates betrayal of the Native Americans and genocide Christmas is a Capitalistic Holiday but presents are good so it is a land of contrasts, who is to say it is good or bad. EDIT: January 1st is my birthday so it is awesome. Second best holiday besides Halloween. Gatts fucked around with this message at 23:05 on Nov 22, 2021 |
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Nov 22, 2021 23:02
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Trazz posted:"Just talk it out, kumbaya!" Yeah that part of the article is nonsense but at least it acknowledges that there is a growing problem here, and it was written prior to 1/6 as well! BTW, 1/6 has made it impossible to ever have a serious conversation with the average conservative. There is an increasing atomization among the various groups of people in the US, but it doesn't imply that it's becoming impossible to reach people. What you're pointing at is that it's much, much easier for people to simply ignore one another and focus on found groups that validate their opinions than it has been prior to social media, and the conflation of brand, social identity, and monetary possibilities heavily incents people to playing roles rather than engaging with each other directly, and that is definitely a growing problem. But [hot-take] there's no actual point of no return. People can change course from anywhere in their lives, it's just up to whether or not there's anyone willing to give them that chance. It's hard, and may be undeserved, but it's not impossible. It's not comfortable and probably really hard to do this sort of thing, but even the nazis (the ones who weren't killed) were mostly reformed. People are hosed up. We get bent into terrible positions, and we can be bent back. It's ugly, but it's important to realize that it can (and does) happen to anyone. Essentialism is like shame. It feels good to do to people who you don't like, but ultimately it's not helpful.
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Nov 22, 2021 23:05
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Uncle Boogeyman posted:Really, the dilemma of “do i invite my conservative family members to thanksgiving?/do i attend thanksgiving hosted by conservative family members?” isn’t that difficult to solve anyway. Stop celebrating Thanksgiving, it’s a fascist holiday. This is like telling people to stop using the gregorian calendar because it was in service to a state religion or something. Thanksgiving is a holiday period we often have to work with and represents one of the few times it's generally possible to get as much of the family together for a lot of working families.
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Nov 22, 2021 23:09
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Lincoln made Thanksgiving a holiday to celebrate Northern prosperity while crushing the Confederacy.
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Nov 22, 2021 23:10
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Gumball Gumption posted:Ok, thanks for the evidence except for the parts where the experts giving you your evidence disagree with you, I'll make sure to listen to you and not them. Ershalim posted:There is an increasing atomization among the various groups of people in the US, but it doesn't imply that it's becoming impossible to reach people. Right, obviously no one has tried to reach out and reason with these people before... Psst! That's the reason we're severing ties with them! Because trying to reach these people is as frustrating as it is futile. Also, conservatives are not increasingly atomized, they are increasingly monolithic; they have extremely coordinated talking-points that they are trained to repeat.
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Nov 22, 2021 23:15
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Trazz posted:Right, obviously no one has tried to reach out and reason with these people before... Psst! That's the reason we're severing ties with them! Because trying to reach these people is as frustrating as it is futile. Experts disagree. You should provide evidence as to why they're wrong.
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Nov 22, 2021 23:18
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Trazz posted:Right, obviously no one has tried to reach out and reason with these people before... Psst! That's the reason we're severing ties with them! Because trying to reach these people is as frustrating as it is futile. The atomization is societal, not of republicans. That's why they're able to be coordinated in such a way, because being able to self-select has become so easy that you can simply mainline whatever your opinion of choice is now in a way that wasn't possible before. And ... I mean, I know that it's frustrating. I'm just pointing out that even the worst people in the worst situations aren't suddenly not people any more. It's important to remember that anyone can suck and be a monster to other people, and anyone can be made to stop. Thinking that it's impossible in either direction is just failing to understand the malleability of human nature.
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Nov 22, 2021 23:21
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Gumball Gumption posted:Experts disagree. You should provide evidence as to why they're wrong. Conservatives have only gotten MORE radicalized in the year since that article was written; they're less likely to be vaccinated and more likely to die of Covid, and any attempts to convince them that they should take precautions during a pandemic has caused them to double-down out of spite. It turns out that trying to talk it out with spiteful contrarians who are specifically looking to do the opposite of anything you tell them is an exercise in futility.
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Nov 22, 2021 23:25
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Trazz posted:Conservatives have only gotten MORE radicalized in the year since that article was written; they're less likely to be vaccinated and more likely to die of Covid, and any attempts to convince them that they should take precautions during a pandemic has caused them to double-down out of spite. I've noticed that boomers seem to have this tendency to believe stupid poo poo with absolute 100% conviction. My parents for example consume their own parallel media sources (typically stuff out of Serbia) and while they aren't right wingers by any means they have fallen victim to stupid conspiracy theories like chemtrails. No matter what I tell them, they cannot be convinced of reality. In their minds, emotionally or otherwise, the behavior of jet contrails and how they appear in the sky coincides with what they believe to be a shortage of civil disobedience, a rise in covid cases and a change in weather patterns. I try to explain that attempting to disperse any kind of liquid from that high up will just cause it to vaporize into nothingness before it hits the ground or affects the area, and that this is why crop dusters and mosquito sprays have to fly at low altitudes to achieve anything. But nope... doesn't work. It's like the information just bounces off their heads. I consider myself lucky my parents aren't right wingers and instead just believe stupid (mostly harmless) conspiracy theories that keep them from opening their windows every time they notice a jet flying overhead. But logic just doesn't work when a boomer sets their mind to something. It's just true and nothing you say will convince them otherwise. Like think about how many people at airports, airlines and other stuff you'd have to pay just to keep something like this a secret? Even the Manhattan project couldn't stay secret for very long. In this era of internet, camera phones and everything else it's basically impossible to keep any widespread conspiracy a secret for too long... In fact you can simply invent one and people will believe it!
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Nov 22, 2021 23:37
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Ershalim posted:So, couple things about this: first is that it seems you were already working on yourself when that happened, so someone poking you for failing is directly in line with what I'm suggesting needs to happen. The other important aspect to this is that kindness doesn't mean dishonesty; working with someone to deprogram their bigotry requires honesty and trust above basically all other things. "Kindness" in the sense I'm using it isn't "coddle them until they do what you want," it's "treat them as if they're human and they matter and are making a mistake, rather than treating them as if they're scum to be scorned." Just want to say I appreciated this response and how thoughtful it was. You make some good points and I'll need to do some reconsidering as a result. That being said, it's not all that great a comparison in hindsight anyway, because as bad as I was, I was never the type that would cheer for Kyle Rittenhouse or refuse a life saving vaccine purely out of spite. FLIPADELPHIA fucked around with this message at 23:40 on Nov 22, 2021 |
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Nov 22, 2021 23:37
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Trazz posted:Conservatives have only gotten MORE radicalized in the year since that article was written; they're less likely to be vaccinated and more likely to die of Covid, and any attempts to convince them that they should take precautions during a pandemic has caused them to double-down out of spite. Actually talking to family members is one of the few ways you can make a difference. You can absolutely talk people out of white supremacy, white nationalism, conservativism, etc, and pretty much only if you have an existing close relationship. It's a lot of work but it can and does work. People do this with their internet-radicalized children. Having said that, nobody owes anyone that work and it's entirely voluntary. If your family is abusive to you you don't owe them anything. But that's not to say they're unreachable.
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Nov 22, 2021 23:38
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