You think 8 years is a long time to try to change people’s basic beliefs. That’s so cute.
Oh, and I’m not talking about being nice. I’m talking about a long-term, rational and reasonable effort to actually attempt to change the minds of people pretty much one person at a time. I’m talking about emotional non-violence over a long period of time. This takes dedication and determination and grit. Nothing nice about it.
I know it’s not as emotional satisfying as stamping up and down about how horrible those other people are. But ask yourself, just exactly what is it that makes you better than them? Is it just that you have better opinions? That you are right and they are wrong? Don’t you think everyone in the bloody goddamn world thinks that? The alternatives always seem to boil down to shooting or talking. I choose talking.
Being right or wrong is not always a matter of opinion. You said you don’t want to compromise with evil. Well, that’s what you’re doing here in this statement.
Being a Nazi is wrong.
Oppressing women is wrong.
Celebrating slavery in the name of racism is wrong.
The United States president being a foreign agent is wrong.
Criminalizing transgender people visiting the bathroom is wrong.
Gutting healthcare from the people for personal monetary gain is wong.
These actions are wrong. Objectively. Factually.
And the important point about them is that they are actual, concrete, actions. This is not a theoretical discussion between philosophy majors on the implications of ahimsa. These are actual people and actual events. We don’t have a hundred years to convince them that we care about their feelings so maybe they should put down their torches.
And just so we’re clear - I don’t care what political party you claim to belong to. I care about your actions. I care about the fact that there’s a torchwaving bunch of Nazis rallying in support of Donald Trump’s white supremacy - and you’re not condemning them. You’re standing here tut-ing at us about the vehemence of our denunciations.
Let’s be clear about this, too: The Nazis weren’t just the guys in black uniforms. All the people who stood on the side, too afraid to take a stand, were Nazis, too.
So talk. What are the actual words that you would use to persuade the torch waving Nazis to drop their advocacy for white supremacy and Trump’s collusion with Russia? You don’t have a hundred years for this. Pretend you’re Atticus and you need to stop the lynch mob right now.
Give us your actual speech to de-Nazify Richard Spencer.
“As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining… …to terrorism and airline flight safety. Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism.”
It actually follows the pattern, right? WH sends surrogates (McMaster, Spicer, and Tillerson in this case) to deny what the President did, and, next day, the President confirms what he sent his team out the night before to deny.
Trump’s Razor: the dumbest explanation is probably the right one. (Courtesy of John Scalzi)
It does. I’m guessing it’s only because he’s been so busy incriminating himself in other arenas that he hasn’t tweeted, “Yes, I have tapes, and no I don’t have to show them to you, because I’m President and anyway I’m not really sure how tapes work it’s a digital thing.”
True, but I don’t suppose that Roderick Femm could shame Richard Spencer into abandoning Nazism on the strength of being schoolmates with Spencer’s child.
[QUOTE=Trump on Twitter]
I have been asking Director Comey & others, from the beginning of my administration, to find the LEAKERS in the intelligence community…
[/QUOTE]
… and what do you know all the fingers are pointing at me.
I have no interest in talking to Nazis, because I consider them fringe and also hopeless. Your insistence that Nazis are the core of the problem reminds me of the way that many right-wingers want to argue that Islam is bad because there are radical Islamic terrorists. Nazis are not the problem; the problem is the host of less-far-right people who nevertheless voted for Trump, and are still supporting him. These are the people whom we need to work on.
Please also note that it is possible to be wrong without being evil. People can be misguided and mistaken, they can be confused, they can have values that are radically different from yours (again, not talking about Nazis). What you need to ask yourself is how you want to deal with people who have these issues. What are the options? There’s education and persuasion in various forms, or there’s force. What doesn’t work is shouting at them and telling them that they are evil. What doesn’t work is mimicking the worst tactics of their worst fringes and telling them they are scum who don’t deserve to live. Again, not talking about Nazis. By all means, push back against things that are wrong, but do it intelligently. Ask questions, listen more than you talk, and when you talk, do it with as much understanding and respect as you can muster. Please note that “understanding” doesn’t mean sympathy with their views. It means understanding as deeply as you can what is behind those views, and pushing back at the root causes. Nobody on either side is doing this much these days, there’s too much anger going on (viz. this thread).
Again, I’m not talking about Nazis. Please try to understand that I’m not talking about Nazis. If you can’t get that much then I don’t see much point in continuing this conversation.
The reason we can’t continue this conversation is because you’ve got jack and shit to support your premise that the real problem is that liberals are being mean to Republicans.
Just as you point out that not all republican are nazis, and therefore republicans do not need to take responsibility for their actions, I will point out that not all liberals are being mean to trump voters, and therefore, all liberals should not need to take responsibility for their actions.
But, it is pretty difficult, when the republicans actively hide the nazis in their ranks, so that if a liberal points out a person who is wearing a swastika, carrying a torch, and chanting “blood and soil”, then the republican standing next to the nazi gets offended.
Pro tip: if you don’t want to be associated with nazis, don’t associate with nazis.
If you believe that rational discussion with Trumpniks is possible and might lead to greater understanding on both sides, I invite you to look at the last 20 or so posts in the “Clusterfuck” thread wherein several people are attempting to have a rational exchange with the poster named Okrahoma. Note the reasonably civil tone and yet the utter futility of this effort.
Today on the NPR program “Here & Now,” Robin Young interviewed two loyal Trump supporters and asked them, in a kind and rational spirit of interested inquiry, how they feel about his behavior so far as President. One of them was a gay Latino man, who said (in these words), “I don’t look at the facts, but I trust him and think he will do what he says.” He’s FOR the wall with Mexico because he worked in the criminal justice system in California and saw offenders released and then re-arrested repeatedly for the same offenses. He said, “We should just send them back to Mexico and build the wall.” I wanted to ask, Um… what about the thousands of non-criminals, or the people who cross the border every day (both ways) to work? The other Trumpnik was just as adamantly supportive in the face of all the President’s behavior that all of us have witnessed. She trusts him and believes in him.
Effectively, you’re asking us to use words, logic and calm rationality to argue the Trump supporters out of positions that they arrived at by using emotion, fear and hatred of “others”.
That is not my premise at all, and you are willfully misrepresenting what I said. You have not presented a single positive suggestion of any kind in this thread.
This is a moronic misrepresentation and non sequitur. What I am saying is that there is one way to win this struggle in the long term, and that is to win the hearts and minds of enough of the people who voted for 45 so that we don’t face this sort of thing again. I have no idea what you think “republicans taking responsibility for their actions” would entail, but I suspect it would mean all of them going out in the street, rending their clothes, pouring ashes on their heads and shrieking for forgiveness. Go ahead and indulge your fantasies, while continuing to think that I am unrealistic. You putz.
No. I am suggesting that we look at their fear and hatred and try to overcome that. First you have to understand what it is and where it comes from. This is not an overnight process; it can take generations.
No thanks. I get it that you hate 45 and all his supporters, I don’t need to look at individual anecdotal cases.
To repeat what I wrote above: ask neutrally worded questions, listen more than you speak, and when you speak, do it with as much understanding (not sympathy, but understanding) and respect as you can muster. Leave your self-righteousness at home, because if there is something that doesn’t work, that’s it.
It might do you folks some good to stop and look at your own values. You take it for granted that the things you believe in are self-evidently right. Can you understand that other people, who think differently from you, have exactly the same attitude towards their own values? Do you think there is any chance to change their minds? If not, what do you propose to do about them? If there is a chance, what do you think that best chance is? Answer these last two questions in your own heart, and you will understand what I am trying to say here.
You don’t get rid of hatred and oppression by meekly sitting back down at the back of the bus and having a “discussion” with the nutbars who are telling you that you are a lower form of human. Just be patient. It will take generations to convince them not to lynch you.
It seems that you snipped a large part of my post. I assume that means that you did not read it either. It wasn’t a non-sequitur, it was an analogy. As far as moronic misrepresentation, you are the one who has taken a single line of my post out of context in a failed attempt to criticize it.
Let’s try again…
You are blaming all liberals for the actions of a few. You expect all liberals to take responsibility for the words or actions of all liberals, but refuse to accept the same for your own party. If one liberal anywhere says anything slightly mean to any of your delicate conservative comrades, then you are all up in arms complaining about all liberal need to be nicer to conservatives.
Your envisioning of what it would entail for republicans to take responsibility for the nazis that use them for cover would be to stop giving them cover, to call them out when you see them. I am not sure where your idea of rending clothes and all came from, but it came from your fevered imagination, not mine own.
Stay classy, dude.
For instance, can you point out in my post where I was insulting to you or even to your post, other than disagreeing with it? No, then why the insults? It is almost as if you are giving advice that the other side should be nice and kind to you, but that you have absolutely no responsibility to reciprocate.
Did that for over a year. It hasn’t worked. Why should I continue to play nice while my opponent keeps spitting in my eye? If liberals being mean upsets you…well, you’re a snowflake. A whiny, petulant snowflake - and the temperature just keeps a’risin’.
I don’t know how you got to that conclusion from up on your high horse, but that was not my point. However, you have inadvertently and brilliantly illustrated that reasonable statements can be radically misunderstood if the listener’s/reader’s head is full of prior assumptions. Thank you for that. Carry on.