So recently I came across a tweet that was rather disheartening.
Republican Rep. John Carter made the statement “a lot of attractive children are not making it to the border” and the tweet was intentionally implying what he said implied pedophilia. This twitter page is pretty left leaning, majority of the responses were definitely from leftist. Yet they all purposely misinterpreted the context of what was said to imply he was making pedophilia remarks even though it was obviously not what he said, and definitely didn’t intend to say.
Now this has brought up one of the major issues I have, political correctness. Both the left and right are factors in this, but it just so happen to be “my people” making this idiotic case.
From what I know, a few decades ago adults would interact and talk to children without a single thought about pedophilia, many adults would engage with children like they do other adults. Being rough with them, talking to them like they’re adults, treating them like adults, etc… However later in my generation things changed. A daycare lady can no longer “play with children” or even “touch children”, in fact just saying that appears to imply pedophilia now. I’m a victim of this too, when I hear someone say “I like to play with children” I’d think that sounds pedo-ish too. But I understand the context, however that first thought does pop in my head which I’m assuming back in most of yalls day, that image wasnt the first thing to pop in.
I suppose what I’m trying to get here is that by misinterpreting the context of certain things we’re essentially hurting the good intention of being cautious. I’m actually so diluted by modern political correctness, that back when I wrestled in HS we had some younger kids come in to train with us, I remember putting one of those kids in a banana split and then I started thinking to myself “well damn, if I did this in real life people would probably think I’m a pedophile or trying to rape the kid” and I felt awkward about wrestling little kids. Of course nobody thought that because of the environment, but that was a thought I remember having.
Our society has been diluted by this fear of pedophiles, to the extent we’ve demonized certain things and ways of talking, and diluted multiple generations of people, myself included.
Oh sorry I didn’t give any information.
I only watched a snippet, but it appears he was talking about the rapists and murders coming into the country while all the good kids with potential for great things are stuck back home.
I don’t agree with that at all, but I disagree more with how the left has reacted to his statement. Instead of addressing the substance, they decided to deal with the pettiness of the context of what he said.
which by all means, attractive was the correct word to use. It’s just modern political correctness made it less appropriate to say for most idiots who can’t think for themselves.
I don’t think the problem you’re getting at is specific to pedophilia - I think those accusations of pedophilia are just one obvious example of a wider problem. People who are shrieking “Pedophile!” are doing the same as people who are shrieking “I need guns!” or “Muslims out!”, or even “Don’t buy Chinese products!”. It’s all based on people fearing and hating each other.
That’s a pretty good point, I hadn’t thought about hatred being the reason. I figured it was just fear, but hatred plays a pretty critical role in it as well.
This. It beats constructing an actual argument about the content of what he is saying, you get to deflect the argument onto whether or not he is a pedophile.
Which is stupid, because his actual argument (as reported by the OP) is insupportable by any extant evidence. Which only goes to prove that there are idiots all along the political spectrum.
In isolation, the phrasing does sound unusual. So unusual, in fact, that I’d want to know the context before jumping to a conclusion.
But, yeah, people with an ax to grind will take the fragment and freak out about it, without caring about the context. Same thing happened with “you didn’t build that.” It just demonstrates that politically convenient disingenuity and occasional outright stupidity is not limited by ideology.
I’d argue it’s a problematic thing to say in any context. I wouldn’t say for sure he’s a pedophile. It could just be a weird way of talking, or a brain fart where you pulled up the wrong word when going through your list of synonyms. But I do think that the default interpretation of “attractive” is “sexually attractive,” and this is only negated by having the the word it is describing giving further context (e.g. attractive buyer). It just sounds wrong to say “attractive children.” If I had said it, I would definitely feel the need to clarify when it was brought to my attention.
I think there is a tendency these days to see someone getting upset about something that you aren’t upset about, and then just assume these are bad people doing bad things. Rather than treat people as mistaken, we treat them as bad because they got angry. We come up with stories about them choosing to be upset or choosing to misinterpret. And, while that happens to some people at some times, I don’t think it’s a fruitful way of responding.
I’m still trying to figure out what exactly he did mean. Excluding pedophilia, how can a child be unattractive?
He’s saying the people with potential to do great things are not coming into this country, but instead all the bad guys are coming in here instead. I think it’s an easy scape goat utilizing peoples ignorance, fear, and arguable “hatred”. That’s why trump was so successful, that’s why republicans continue to attempt to spin the issue of illegal immigration as a security risk or a financial burden.
I disagree with what his point was 100%. He’s intentionally attempting to propagate falsehoods. However he does acknowledge the world is positive sum, because he understands the higher quality of life someone has, the more potential for innovation. He ignores the fact this is the case for the masses to spin this in the direction of we need tighter security. He either benefits from it financially or through appeal. Either way he’s arguably more disgusting and harmful than a pedophile is, mainly because he’s in a position of power, but also because he’s an democratic citizen with this kind of bullshit thinking.
The hatred is not arguable, there are certainly people who have it, though of course not all people. The issue is how they acquired it, which IMO has been through intentionally-manufactured and carefully-groomed irrational fear.
To be fair, even though I don’t agree with a lot of Rep. John Carter’s positions I think he was referencing the sex trafficking trade.
Here is one story:
Of course the GOP is quite busy passing laws that will actually increase the amount of sex traffic in the US and neighboring countries, so it is a bit hypocritical as they were talking about reducing protections for unaccompanied children.
There’s no actual reason to be scared of “them” from “there” any more than scared of “us” from “here” - but people can be convinced by unscrupulous politicians. See the famous explanation by Hermann Göring or whoever it was, of how easy it is to stir up hate for political purposes.
If someone comes up to you and says you have an attractive child, how exactly are you supposed to interpret their meaning? Attractive is not a descriptor that should be used with children. If he meant children with potential that is what he should have said. But that would mean a Republican politician believing that a brown-skinned person can come into the US and make something of themselves provided they pass some undefined but non-sexual measure of attractiveness. It’s too bad there’s no legislation about such individuals that the Republicans could have passed if this issue was important to them. They could have called it Deferred Action for Children who are Attractive or something.
When I look at these dreamers I see young persons, already having a basic western standard education, who speak the language, are fully acclimated to life in the West and are brimming with drive and ambition. The big chip on their shoulders, from having something to prove, ought to make them almost unstoppable achievement wise.
Personally I think Canada should offer to take them all. Because they seem to have much better backgrounds, than many of our immigrants.(Such as refugees, who face many culture differences, traumas associated with conflict, and language challenges, on arrival!) Whereas Dreamers are ready to hit the ground running and get on with building great lives for themselves. They probably require less services like ESL, and other supports.
It seems to me they each possess the potential to be economic dynamos given an opportunity, and their back grounds. Of all the migrants currently in motion on our little planet, these dreamers would appear to be the best adjusted and requiring the least social service support.
It seems ridiculous that America will put them out, but if they do, Canada should consider taking all of them, I think.
Eh, I say “brainfart” on the “attractive” bit. It just renders the statement utterly confusing.
ISTM the word he was looking for would have been “promising” or “aspiring”, but his language cortex search function had already discarded “desirable” and went for what was next.
As for the ease with which accusations of pedophilia and sex trafficking fly, that’s just a function of the general horribleness of humanity.