Are you under the impression that same-sex marriage is not legal in the United States? Because this is the second time you’ve listed it as a reason why Americans are inferior.
It’s legal but even so was anyone brave enough to stand up to that bigoted woman who was breaking the law? Um, no, actually. They just made a weasely work around specifically for her! Because: Christian!
Sorry, not brave.
Um, yes, actually. The reason she was in the news is because people were standing up to her. In court, the purpose of which is literally for people to go and stand up against each other.
Give those conservatives and a 200 year old song Hell, elbows!
We can disagree with it, but claiming 1st amendment protection for your actions isn’t really a cowardly act. It’s not a brave act either, although having a 1st amendment is pretty brave and defending it when you don’t like the person invoking it is pretty brave too.
Free speech, religious freedom, etc. don’t enjoy nearly as much defense from people who don’t agree with you in other places as in America. We are actually a very brave country when it comes to defending our rights.
Dude, she spent several days in jail. You made a really stupid statement that the majority of Americans are “afraid of SSM”. Factually incorrect. Now you’re trying to shift the subject to one nut in one state who wasn’t treated exactly the you wanted her to be treated.
Frankly, I’m not very impressed by the “bravery” of not being admit an error.
Fear is the sense that something bad will happen. Nearly all the Americans I know believe that “something bad will happen” unless steps are taken to mitigate he effects of most of the phenomena itemized by the OP.
But I think is a leap to assume that a person is not “brave” merely because he feels or expresses fear, and it is a misdirection to make that link. The truly brave stand up in the face of their fears, rather than ask a helicopter society to address them nanny-fashion.
What is happening in America is, a) a person perceives a threat, b) allows his imagination to exaggerate the risk of that threat, and c) calls for a social order reducing that threat to zero, at whatever cost. Such a person is lacking in many affirmative attributes, Bravery only one of them.
You wouldn’t happen to have one of them-there cite thingies handy to support that assertion, would you? And by “nearly all”, we can let you off with just 90% agreeing with you.
It’s a mistake to tie the pro-life position to religious affiliation. A friend of mine is a very vocal and committed atheist, and he is strongly opposed to abortion.
Moreover, people who are opposed to abortion aren’t afraid of it; they are standing up for the rights of (what they believe to be) a human being who merits the same protection from the law as the rest of us.
Actually, if your definition of “extremist” includes “people who want to implement sharia law and support the killing of muslim apostates,” then the percentage of muslim extremists is troublingly large.
As was already pointed out, I don’t think these are particularly representative of the majority of Americans, but even for those that they do represent, I have a hard time seeing fear as the motivating factor. Then again
This seems to me like it’s primarily an ideological difference than anything. Sure, some people see socialism as a scary word, but plenty of others just don’t agree with it. Even if socialism works fine in other countries, that doesn’t mean it’s something that people ideologically agree with. For a tangentially related example, the reason the US doesn’t use metric even though isn’t because it’s scary, it’s because we’re used to what we have and the effort of changing it for everyday use doesn’t seem worth it. Socialism, at least to some people, isn’t about whether or not it works, it’s about whether or not it’s right or fair to have the government redistribute resources. There’s moral and efficacy arguments to be had on both sides of that, but I don’t really see fear as a significant motivating factor for either side.
Certainly, there are those who are afraid of homosexuality that it will corrupt or contaminate, or that it’s generally just icky. To that point, and yes fear probably is a motivating factor for a significant number of those opposed to gay marriage, however, I think a key aspect to look at here is why swiftly public opinion has shifted on this. In the 90s, pretty much every mainstream politician was in favor of anti-gay legislation, DOMA and DADT were passed during the Clinton administration. The first state to legalize it was Massachusetts in 2004, and it was legalized nationwide in 2015 just 11 years later. Considering how scared people were of the idea even just a decade ago, I’d make the argument that OVERCOMING fear is pretty much the definition of bravery.
Fair enough, most resistance to immigration seems rooted in fear of them taking jobs or fear of loss of identity or terrorism. However, it’s more specifically fear of certain immigrants. I don’t see too many people arguing that Canadians or Europeans or most Asians or Africans are bad, it seems largely aimed at Hispanic, primarily Mexican but the rest, unfortunately, get lumped in, and vaguely Arab “potential terrorists”. So, yes, definitely some fear here, but it’s not as broad as you make it look.
I really don’t see how this is fear at all. Again, this strikes me more as an ideological difference. Yes, it’s legal, not quite sure “fully legal” is a fair way to state it, or even sure exactly what that would mean in this context. It’s a horribly exaggerated debate, but those who oppose it aren’t “afraid” as much as they simply argue that the fetus is alive and has rights. One can counter that by arguing the fetus isn’t alive or that the woman’s rights supersede, but I don’t see gun motivation here.
Frankly, it seems to me that it’s gun control advocates that are motivated by fear; they’re afraid of guns. Yes, there’s people who own guns and are afraid of a totalitarian government that will take it from them. But I know plenty who own guns, and none of them fear that that is imminent. Quite the contrary, when I’ve had conversations with anti-gun people, they often have unrealistic ideas of how dangerous guns are, like they’ll randomly go off, they can mow down dozens of people easily with pinpoint accuracy, seemingly infinitely rounds without changing magazines, etc.
The real fear, it seems to me, arises when we have a mass shooting. The anti-gun people freak out and want to ban guns and the pro-gun people freak out that their guns are going to get taken. So, sure, guns have fear involved in the legislation, but at least for me (and I don’t even own a gun) and most people I know, they’re just things, not meaningfully different from anything else one might own.
This seems to be a point of contention in a lot of countries, not just the US. Terrorism is something that’s been part of the public consciousness since 9/11 and recent events haven’t helped. So, yes, people are unfortunately afraid of Muslims as a whole, but it seems like that’s true in much of the Western world.
And as for refugees, I’m unsure how prevalent this attitude is, but at least in those I’ve talked to that oppose bringing in refugees, it seems like the primary motivating factor isn’t as much fear of terrorists sneaking in, and more one of pragmatism and cost. As in, when countries that are much closer are unwilling to bring in refugees, whether it’s fear of terror, or even lack of resources, why does it have to fall on the US, particularly when they feel those resources might be better spent on our own problems.
For instance, one of the memes I saw going around facebook relevant to it was a cost comparison between bringing in one refugee family vs. providing shelter for homeless veterans. I cannot verify whether or not any of those stats are even remotely accurate, but I’d have a hard time buying that, at least those people, are motivated by fear rather than just thinking it’s an argument that our priorities aren’t in order.
But even in all of that, as I touched on above, I don’t think fear is the opposite of bravery, it’s being paralyzed by fear, cowardice, that is. As Nelson Mandela said: “I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.” So, I don’t think that even if some of the issues and disagreements we have are the result of fear that it means Americans aren’t brave. I absolutely think the stance we’ve taken on gay marriage is a sign of bravery. On the other hand, I think our stance on guns, as a nation, is a sign of cowardice, as we’re failing to take any meaningful action, whether it’s legislation (pro or anti-gun), mental health, social, whatever, to address the issue; hell, even an ultimately BAD action that’s motivated to fix it would maybe not be brave, but at least wouldn’t be cowardice.
Other than that, I don’t see just plain disagreement on how to address an issue as fear. Hell, standing up for unpopular opinions, knowing that one will be disparaged by the media takes courage. It’s stupid and bigoted, but people who peacefully demonstrate for racist ideals at least can’t be called cowards.
Word.
If anything, it’s abortion *supporters *who make arguments out of fear. They frequently claim that outlawing abortion will lead to women resorting to so-called back-alley or coat-hanger abortions.
Let me sum up your entire attitude in this thread: *“Anyone who holds different political beliefs than I do is a coward who won’t stand for what’s right.”
*
I’m not attacking you, just to be clear. I’m just pointing out that this is what’s underpinning your assumption and belief views.
Personally, I’m baffled by how it’s relevant that abortion is legal. Yes, it’s legal. We all know that. But the point is that some people think it shouldn’t be legal, and want to change the laws so it’s not. Saying “it’s legal” should never be the end of the argument, because laws are both fallible and mutable. If you want to argue against the anti-abortion position, then you need to say why it should be legal, not just whether it is.
Yup. It’s much, much easier to dismiss opposing views as cowardice, or stupidity, or ignorance, or brainwashing, or the consequence of being old or young or whatever than it is to actually engage with, understand, and negotiate with people on the other side of a debate. Dismissiveness means you don’t have to take them seriously or extend them any sort of respect, and you can just sit there happily in your own little bubble, safe from disagreement and secure in your own rightness about everything.
Your logic in the bolded text is self-contradictory between these two points. If ‘It’s legal.’ and ‘the war was won, for crikey’s sake’ are reasonable to apply to abortion, then they’re reasonable to apply to gun control, and the ‘war’ was won for guns being legal much, much longer ago than the ‘war’ for abortion. If you think that because abortion was declared legal that those who oppose it should be quiet and not bother anyone about it anymore, then that same line of thought should be applied to the ownership of weapons.
Not to express agreement or disagreement on the actual issues, mind you, but this particular bit of using one justification for one topic and then ignoring it for another topic really, really jumped out at me.
TL;DR:
-
Oh my, people hold opinions different from mine.
-
I assert that these differences arise out of fear (because my views are necessarily correct, the possibility that they might arise from anything else is not to be countenanced).
-
I provide a bunch of straw man examples to support my lazy assertion.
This sort of genuinely ignorant “America sucks” nonsense (ironically coming from a person who thinks Orientals are incapable of such Western practices as liberal democracy and freedom of speech) is why I hope Trump decides to anschluss Canada once he is elected President.
While we’re at it, shouldn’t we condemn all those people who got up and went to work today? Surely they’re only motivated by fear that they’ll become homeless, thereby proving that communism is the one true path for happiness.
I can’t tell when you’re joking any more.