Days like this I wonder what Phant and Steltek are up to

[dexeron]

Do you know the worst part about getting more tuned-in to leftism/feminism/skepticism/whatever-the-fuckism?

You learn about all these issues. You start to realize things you never realized before. You start to empathize with groups you never understood before. You realize that the world isn't as simple as you used to think, that few things can be simplified in black-or-white, good-vs-evil dimensions, that nuance exists. You start to wonder what you can do about some of the things going on in the world.

And then someone you know who's not really in-touch with any of that shit, and who probably hasn't through deeply about any of it and just lazily accepts whatever some PragerU video says about any issue, posts some idiotic strawman meme about some issue you do know about, that you've taken the time to really learn about, and instead of smacking them in the face and saying "what the fuck is wrong with you, you ignorant piece of shit?!" you have to explain the nuance and history of what's really going on with that picture/video/quote but they keep posting idiotic stuff all day long and you wonder if you really should spend that much time arguing with someone who can't grasp something so freaking obvious (except it's not obvious probably; you just have more exposure to the topic; but then again we're talking basic human rights and decency and maybe it should be obvious is smacking them in the face still an option?)

(Also when someone posts Pascal's Wager in reply to a post you make about atheism, as if you've never heard that argument before OMG how compelling, this totally wasn't already well and fully responded to and eviscerated over 300 years ago at all!)

[shadowmimiiru]

[dexeron]

I know, right?

[dexeron]

(More seriously though, I was trying to be a bit self-mocking up there. It was about 50% venting and 50% making fun of myself for being a "latte-sipping liberal elitist" who doesn't even like lattes. But it is still frustrating, because some of the time it isn't "Oh look at how much more enlightened I am than you, you plebeian." Sometimes - and nowadays WAAAAY too much of the time, it's "holy shit - what you just posted is actually fucking racist as fuck. Wait. What do you mean 'how is that racist?' It's fucking 2018, how can you be so ignorant that I have to hold your hand through all of this?")


(And I maintain that anyone who seriously, unironically posts Pascal's Wager as an argument in a religious discussion must live under a fucking rock.)

[Rip]

[shadowmimiiru]

As I said to a co-worker recently (much to her poor, hurt feelings). The two most intolerant groups I have ever met are Alt-Right nutjobs, and Liberals.

[Rip]

Hurt feelings, of course, being the sole domain of people who do their best not to come off as racist.

I'll bite your continued bait tho, why not? Please enlighten us, dear Mim, as to how Dex's (and those dirty intolerant liberals!) attempts to maintain a lifestyle that strives to keep cognizant of history and the rights of all people to be treated equally are "intolerant" to you?

Are--are you really defending a lifestyle of ignorance, and advocating that you should be allowed to spew racism in public..? Because that's what those shitty shitty liberals are trying to stop, y'know. It's kinda the whole point, you see, and the whole crux of Dex's post, that his new(er)found sense of how crapsack the world has been to everyone who doesn't look like him has made it harder to handle the words of intolerant racists without looking at them like the backwards animals history will show them to be.

Is this because you had someone else tell you that eating meat is bad again, or something? Your whole "liberals are intolerant because one of them judged me buying Bill O'Reilly's latest bundle of used toilet paper bound in hardback" thing..? If so I'll try to gently remind you that assholes (read: anyone who acts like that unprovoked) come in every single flavor, and that "alt-right" is not the similarly opposite end of the spectrum as "just liberal".

You, and our delightful president, seem to like to equate "we will not be replaced by Jews" with "you should really buy a hybrid". Please stop doing that, unless you are perfectly okay with coming off as a Nazi. Trump seems to be!

[shadowmimiiru]

[Sage]

I'm glad you've got the luxury of not caring, mim. Happy that you're in a position where you don't have to worry about things, because your situation is pretty good and probably not going anywhere.

The reason I think a lot of this sounds like "my way or the highway" is because that's the position of the opposition. They would rather I don't exist, and when that party is in power they actively take steps to wipe me and my rights out. "Not caring" is not a luxury I have, not a luxury a lot of people have. If enough people don't care about that, don't find my issue important, then it takes a group of people more powerful than me very little time and effort to make my existence unsustainable. When you don't care, or say that you're "neutral," or designate a compromise as being the exact equivalent point between the two craziest views in the room without giving any weight to who or how many are saying them, then you've chosen the side of whoever is already in power.

And this isn't really JUST a conservative problem. Liberals maybe don't want me dead but they also don't really give a shit as long as I toss a vote their way. It's a very performative ideology, since they're just approaching the same corporate mindset from a different angle. The endgame, of commodifying human life and breaking it down into a packaged little program is the same for both sides, its just the conservatives want Amazon to deliver it and the Liberals would rather have it come from the government. They got high on their own horseshit and made deals and broke faith with their actual base instead of listening to the people they claimed to be supporting. It's that mindset, the lack of a real position and the idea that any loss was because their base was tricked, that is the height of arrogance and the biggest failing of the Democrats right now. They pay lip service to the idea that you should be ashamed of who you aren't without actually just trying to make it right. That's all it takes. A few hard-line steps in the right direction.

But I'm still going to keep voting for the group that doesn't want me dead, even if I hate them. Until something better happens, I've gotta be on board with that because I really don't think the situation is really going to improve if the right keeps doing whatever they want to do, which mostly means sending gay kids to electro shock therapy and protecting poor, defenseless billionaires from being prosecuted for overworking their employees. I don't get to drop out of the system because I don't like my options. I have to face the reality that's in front of me until I can help mold it into something that works for me, or die.

[Rip]

"I suffered, so don't tell me I have to care about anyone else suffering ever again."

Hey man, it's cool, you don't have to care about anyone else but yourself. Hell, I certainly don't care about anyone else as much as I do myself and my own brood; when the chips are down, I'm going to hit a motherfucker with a shovel to protect me and mine regardless of race or creed.

But awareness is free. Not acting like a dickbag doesn't cost anything. Voting to ensure that Sage doesn't get shipped off to the re-education camps in a generation is just as easy as voting the opposite way, and only slightly more complicated than not voting at all.

The world, and especially this country, is full of white people right now who are sick and tired of being told that other people suffered, mostly because they suffer too. They suffer every single day, and many of them are my relatives. They've allowed that suffering to harden their hearts, and want to use it to twist a knife, ANY knife, to feel better about themselves when the Golden Globes keeps telling them that all the rac(p)ists look like what they see in the mirror.

Well, all of humanity suffers, old chum. In the face of that, do you turn your back and withdraw inward, work only on yourself, put your rights first, champion your own cause, call others who do not do so fools or worse? Laugh at the pain of others and say they are naive if they didn't think their pain was inevitable? Wallow in the muck of schadenfreude? Scoff at any suggestion that change might come one day, if people just stopped being so fucking cynical?

Well the 80s taught me a name for people like that.



You know who would get pretty upset at people like that, tho? Superman. Why wouldn't you want to do what Superman would do? Even the shitty Snyder version would at LEAST say something about hope.

You know who else has suffered, even though I've been a white male for almost my entire life? Totes me. Broken home, dirt poor, trailer you could crawl underneath, yadda yadda yadda. Even my rather well-off wife has suffered the loss of family members, physical trauma, etc. etc., because life sucks sometimes. I couldn't fathom looking at sage, or ANYone, asking for help or a little awareness of their plight, and having my reaction be "fuck off, I got beat with a belt and my mom threw boiling water on my father once." It just doesn't make any sense to me.

But hey, you don't HAVE to care! People who tell you that you have to do ANYthing are wrong and, as I've said multiple times, just assholes. Life is short. Do what you want. All us shitty shitty liberals are REALLY asking you to do, as per the entire political philosophy, is just tolerate some others. Be aware of the shit you say and post. Vote to let people be treated the way you want to be treated. Shoulder yet another burden on your poor white shoulders, and the rest of the United States (read: brown people) will feel a little bit better about THEIR position.

Oh shit, it was that last part, wasn't it..? I'm sorry if it was. You can take a little heart though: if you never actually interact with any people of color in your day-to-day, then you don't really have to change hardly ANYTHING AT ALL. Unless you like spewing racist shit online or otherwise, I guess. You should probably stop doing that. But as for helping everyone who suffers AND wasn't born into the lucky white lottery?

Then all it takes is a little, free, awareness <3