# I Feel As If The Families Of Some Of These Jan 6 Rioters Are Playing A Dangerous Game **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [August 22, 2022, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-feel-as-if-the-families-of-some-of-these-jan-6-rioters-are-playing-a-dangerous-game/970121 "2022-08-22T22:21:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2022, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-feel-as-if-the-families-of-some-of-these-jan-6-rioters-are-playing-a-dangerous-game/970121/21 "2022-08-29T01:54:48Z")
> [@HeyHomie](#): > > I just meant that their actions are (or seem) risky. You know what’s risky? Being related to assholes like this. If they’re anything less than full accomplices, that could be interpreted as betrayal, and result in violence against them. And if they do act as full accomplices, that brings other risks. There is no non-risky move available to them. So they might as well choose the risky move that also happens to be the right move. ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2022, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-feel-as-if-the-families-of-some-of-these-jan-6-rioters-are-playing-a-dangerous-game/970121/22 "2022-08-29T04:23:00Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > if they do act as full accomplices, that brings other risks. OP apparently thinks that silence (about a relative’s commission of a crime) is the preferred standard of conduct in these cases. You know, the morally wishy-washy approach. Neither totally good nor totally evil, just kind of gray, but _safe_. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2022, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-feel-as-if-the-families-of-some-of-these-jan-6-rioters-are-playing-a-dangerous-game/970121/23 "2022-08-29T04:30:08Z")
I concur. > [@Typo\_Negative](#): > > Which is saying that criminals use to keep people (victims) quiet. > > Keeping quiet protects the criminals, not the neighborhood. Yep. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2022, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-feel-as-if-the-families-of-some-of-these-jan-6-rioters-are-playing-a-dangerous-game/970121/24 "2022-08-29T05:01:04Z")
> [@Roderick\_Femm](#): > > This is kind of an odd take to me, but then I’m not a teenager. Families are potentially vulnerable from a lot of directions: medical problems, addiction, mental illness, environmental factors like job loss and inflation. I don’t think I’ve seen “propaganda and misinformation” included as a breaker-up of families before. I guess it’s a sign of the times. A lot of families are have been feeling the strain of political difference over the last few years, and some people have even cut off relatives, sometimes parents, _not_ because they’re harmful or abusive, but because they disagree so vehemently on political issues. My own relationship with my mother has been heavily strained over the last few years as she’s fallen down a rabbit hole of Trump and QAnon baloney. I can’t really talk to her about anything of substance, so when we visit I feel like I’m making polite smalltalk with someone I used to know a long time ago. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2022, 7:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-feel-as-if-the-families-of-some-of-these-jan-6-rioters-are-playing-a-dangerous-game/970121/25 "2022-08-29T07:46:10Z")
I mean, being a QAnon conspiracy theorist is kind of like being in a cult, isn’t it? I would characterize that as something more serious, and certainly more “harmful or abusive”, than mere “political difference”. Having different opinions about politics is one thing, but when people have such widely divergent views on basic facts that, as you say, they can’t even talk “about anything of substance”, that’s really alienating. ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2022, 8:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-feel-as-if-the-families-of-some-of-these-jan-6-rioters-are-playing-a-dangerous-game/970121/26 "2022-08-29T08:03:01Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > So they might as well choose the risky move that also happens to be the right move. Seems to me that the fact that it’s risky is a moral failure that should weigh on everyone else. In a healthy society, someone who does the right thing, legally and ethically, despite its emotional difficulty, should be widely celebrated, and supported through and protected from any potential blowback arising from that choice. Instead, the reaction is: “Good on you for doing the right thing. Best of luck. (pulls down blinds)” I don’t have an answer or a solution. Just an observation. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2022, 8:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-feel-as-if-the-families-of-some-of-these-jan-6-rioters-are-playing-a-dangerous-game/970121/27 "2022-08-29T08:14:58Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > The Father has been convicted. What are his children accomplishing by commenting afterwards? IIRC, they want the man whom they hold responsible for their father’s dance with the devil, Trump, to be held to account and prosecuted. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2022, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-feel-as-if-the-families-of-some-of-these-jan-6-rioters-are-playing-a-dangerous-game/970121/28 "2022-08-29T12:36:42Z")
> [@Odesio](#): > > My own relationship with my mother has been heavily strained over the last few years as she’s fallen down a rabbit hole of Trump and QAnon baloney. I can’t really talk to her about anything of substance, so when we visit I feel like I’m making polite smalltalk with someone I used to know a long time ago. My Mom died in 2003. For her last 10-ish years (so from ~1993) she had increasingly fallen down the Limbaugh / Hannity / Tea Party reality distortion field. Like you I felt I was talking to a stranger. Whatever I mentioned that was connected to current world events or even decade-ago history, her reflexive response was “What about the [rightist buzzword]??!” where the buzzword was how the Distortion Field had blamed 100% of the whatever on evil libs & Ds. Her comprehension of the world was reduced to spouting buzzwords. And she was neither senile, stupid, nor ill-educated. Just utterly lied to until she lost contact with the truth. We are now 20 _years_ downtrack from that point in the history of the vandalization of our society for RW mediasphere profit. Compared to your Mom, my Mom’s affliction is like the sniffles compared to cancer. I shudder to imagine what your situation must be like. Much less the millions of other Americans whose lives are blighted by this cancer upon our society. ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2022, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-feel-as-if-the-families-of-some-of-these-jan-6-rioters-are-playing-a-dangerous-game/970121/29 "2022-08-29T12:44:52Z")
> [@Roderick\_Femm](#): > > You know, the morally wishy-washy approach. Neither totally good nor totally evil, just kind of gray, but _safe_. I’ll never complain about people facing risks from massive social events doing what they think they have to, to remain safe. But at the same time, we need people who aren’t willing to stay safe, who will be the ones to win out over these problems. Not everyone is cut out to be a hero, which is why we revere heroes. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2022, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-feel-as-if-the-families-of-some-of-these-jan-6-rioters-are-playing-a-dangerous-game/970121/30 "2022-08-29T13:42:35Z")
> [@Roderick\_Femm](#): > > OP apparently thinks that silence (about a relative’s commission of a crime) is the preferred standard of conduct in these cases. You know, the morally wishy-washy approach. Neither totally good nor totally evil, just kind of gray, but _safe_. Short-term safe? Maybe. Long-term safe? Highly dubious. Both the specific politics of the Jan 6 people, and the general attitude that everybody should keep quiet about wrongdoing, will make absolutely everybody far less safe the more they catch on. ---
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2022, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-feel-as-if-the-families-of-some-of-these-jan-6-rioters-are-playing-a-dangerous-game/970121/31 "2022-08-29T15:59:18Z")
I wouldn’t blame anyone related to these idiots for keeping their heads down and themselves out of the media, but someone who describes those speaking up in the words of the OP needs to have their moral compass examined. It could be broken. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2022, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-feel-as-if-the-families-of-some-of-these-jan-6-rioters-are-playing-a-dangerous-game/970121/32 "2022-08-29T16:08:17Z")
My sister and her husband voted for Trump. In the last conversation I probably will ever have with her, I told her that I refuse to normalize fascism, by pretending that being in a violent white supremacist movement is just a difference of opinion. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2022, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-feel-as-if-the-families-of-some-of-these-jan-6-rioters-are-playing-a-dangerous-game/970121/33 "2022-08-29T16:13:13Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > I mean, being a QAnon conspiracy theorist is kind of like being in a cult, isn’t it? I would characterize that as something more serious, and certainly more “harmful or abusive”, than mere “political difference”. While my mother has fallen down a rabbit hole, I wouldn’t characterize her behavior as abusive towards family members or even others. She knows that I disagree with her about almost everything from the “fradulent” 2020 presidential election to the “unfair” FBI raid of Mar-a-Lago, but she hasn’t treated me or my sister poorly because of it. If I ever needed something, I know my mother would be there to help. > [@Kimstu](#): > > Having different opinions about politics is one thing, but when people have such widely divergent views on basic facts that, as you say, they can’t even talk “about anything of substance”, that’s really alienating. And that’s exactly the problem, it’s alienating. But that’s not the same as abusive. ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2022, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-feel-as-if-the-families-of-some-of-these-jan-6-rioters-are-playing-a-dangerous-game/970121/34 "2022-08-29T17:24:07Z")
> [@Odesio](#): > > > [@Roderick\_Femm](#): > > > > This is kind of an odd take to me, but then I’m not a teenager. Families are potentially vulnerable from a lot of directions: medical problems, addiction, mental illness, environmental factors like job loss and inflation. I don’t think I’ve seen “propaganda and misinformation” included as a breaker-up of families before. I guess it’s a sign of the times. > > A lot of families are have been feeling the strain of political difference over the last few years, and some people have even cut off relatives, sometimes parents, _not_ because they’re harmful or abusive, but because they disagree so vehemently on political issues. My own relationship with my mother has been heavily strained over the last few years as she’s fallen down a rabbit hole of Trump and QAnon baloney. I can’t really talk to her about anything of substance, so when we visit I feel like I’m making polite smalltalk with someone I used to know a long time ago. This is the part that I didn’t connect with: > “There is not enough protecting American families from the effect of propaganda and misinformation.” Did she, or does anyone, have an idea about how “protecting families” in this context might work? It sounds like she expects some sort of formal process, probably by the government, to convince people like her father how wrong they are (if only!). What is she hoping for? Does she even know? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-feel-as-if-the-families-of-some-of-these-jan-6-rioters-are-playing-a-dangerous-game/970121.md?page=1)