I’ve got a whole book full of big words and I pull ‘em out whenever the time seems appurtenant to the situation!
Stranger
In the Futile Lecturing Designed To Backfire category,
I recall the time I was traveling in Oregon and had to show ID at a supermarket checkout (I was living in Ohio at the time). The cashier felt it was her duty to give me snark about Ohio voting patterns.
I forget exactly what my response was, but it was something to do with advice about stuffing it up her jumper.
Some people get a charge out of admonishing others regardless of how offensive and ineffective such behavior generally is.
When I worked at a museum here in Little Rock, we had some visitors from Minnesota who insulted the state. She asked me a reasonable history question, and before I could even answer, followed it up with “Arkansas isn’t known to be a progressive state, is it?” in a voice dripping with condescension. I had to bite back my immediate reply of, “No, but we’re progressive enough to know not to go to someone else’s state and be fucking rude about it.”
I did have a group of visitors from New Jersey which I had just visited earlier that year. They were really surprised when I said, “I just visited your state, and I don’t know why everyone makes fun of it. New Jersey was great!”
I have a hypothesis as to why everyone makes fun of NJ. To get to NJ from New York, you drive through an area full of some really stinky and ugly industrial stuff. I think it might be oil refineries. Anyway, it smells bad. Before that industry developed, that land was used for hog farming, which also smells bad.
So New Yorkers associate NJ with bad odors. And New Yorkers are responsible for a disproportionate share of media. (News, TV, advertising, literature) so their opinions get a lot of exposure.
I have heard ( although I don’t know if it’s true ) that it’s because the area of NJ closest to Philadelphia is the same - so you have the residents of the two largest cities on the East Coast associating NJ. with bad odors and making fun of the state.
I would say that “Jersey Shore” didn’t do the state any favors either.
Even though all the main characters were from Staten Island… once again New Yorkers ruining the reputation of the state.
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…she lives in fear because of people like that, and she even has a bug out bag in case she has to flee the United States suddenly.
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I know this isn’t the point of your post, but I find this remarkable & am very curious. Do you know if her preparations are unusual, or do a lot of LGBTQ people feel they need to be ready to go? What do they pack in their bug-out bags? Where do they plan to go? How do they plan to get there? And are there certain triggers they are watching for to tell them when it’s time to get out? Is leaving a first or last resort? Etc
Several people have called her fears irrational, but the current climate is certainly ugly toward a lot of ‘other’ groups & getting worse, so her paranoia is perfectly rational, but bugging-out is a response I hadn’t thought of, or heard about. So I’m wondering about the logistics & also whether an ‘underground railroad’ should be put in place for when it may be needed. Or maybe it already is.
I don’t have my finger on the pulse of the LGBTQ community. I know some trans individuals and their families are currently moving to or planning on moving out of states passing bigoted laws targeting them to more friendly states, but I don’t believe plans to bug out of the country are common.
I think that degree is very unusual. A certain degree of fear / lack of safety in everyday society is pretty normal. A lot of LGBT people take care not to be visibly so outside of safe spaces. It’s easy for most to blend, especially individually.
Well, let’s be clear; for most of Western history, LGBTQ+ people have had a legitimate degree of fear and lack of safety outside of very narrow and usually ‘underground’ safe spaces, and it is only recently they’ve been able to speak out as a group. That certain political personalities have created threatening environments despite the general broad acceptance it certainly something to be fearful about. As a point of reference, circa 1920s Berlin was about the safest place on the planet to be queer, and there was a vast and well-tolerated subculture that celebrated diversity. A decade later would see gays, lesbians, and transgender people openly persecuted, and shortly thereafter sent to ‘concentration camps’ where they would be murdered along side Jews, Communists, and Roma. So being fearful of reactionary hatefulness is scarcely without historical basis.
Stranger
I have a gay male friend who lives in Indiana who has arranged to get Portuguese legal residency (with an end goal of citizenship.) I know a trans women in Massachusetts who has Canadian family and has plans to move there after she finishes her transition surgery, which is easier to get in Massachusetts. But in general, most people don’t really have anyplace to go.
This history is one reason this seems important. As the right imposes more & more of their insane “moral” code across the country, sane people often ask “When is it time to take to the streets?”. Maybe the answer is “When people who were average citizens yesterday need bug-out bags/plans.”
Right, so it is January 2025, DeSantis is being sworn in, being supported by majorities in both houses, and obviously the SCOTUS.
It’s probably too late to bug out.
From a legislative standpoint it’ll take them at least a few weeks to get organized and start passing laws, and if the 115th Congress is a taster, they’ll spend most of their effort getting in their own way. Unfettered executive autocracy, on the other hand, can start day of inauguration, and judicial appointments in the federal courts have been heavily skewed toward the far right end of the spectrum.
Stranger
I don’t know if it is. You know the aphorism that the less the stakes, the more vicious the fighting. The 115th Congress is not going to do anything with an opposed senate and president, so nothing they does really matters.
If they take the presidency and senate next time around, the adults will quiet the children, as they get down to the work of recreating our nation by their values. The “moderates” will actually see this as a good sign, that the Republicans have controlled the clown car caucus, and ignore what it is that they are doing with that power.
OTOH, I think that everyone should have a bug-out bag. It’s not just political issues, but a whole host of natural or manmade disasters that may need you to leave your home on short notice, and having already packed the essentials that you will need to at least get situated can save time and frustration when an emergency occurs.
Don’t think you need one? The people of East Palestine probably didn’t think so either.
I think a big factor is what is a person’s goal in speaking. Are they trying to inform people in an effort to change their views (and presumably actions)? Or are they making sure that everyone around them knows what their beliefs are?
“This is why people shouldn’t support an organization like Chick-Fil-A” and “I want everyone to know I don’t support Chick-Fil-A” are two related but distinct messages and a person is going to communicate them differently.
That doesn’t necessarily mean that those hearing it see any difference.
Criticism is criticism, and almost everyone will take it in the worst possible way, no matter how delicately it is offered. All they hear is you telling them how to live their life, and not getting the irony, take offense.
I disagree. I feel it’s possible to identify an outside opponent (Chick-Fil-A) and ask a person to join the cause against that opponent without it being seen as a criticism of the person.
I’ll grant that there are some people who see themselves as perfect and see any suggestion that they might change anything about their behavior as a criticism but most people aren’t that way.
Unless the reason that it is brought up is because that person is currently consuming Chick-fil-a products. Then it is a criticism of what they are doing. That’s just specifically what it is.
I mean, it literally is a criticism, so if they don’t see it that way, then they don’t know what criticism actually is.
But, you have more faith in humanity than I, as I don’t think most people take suggestions, no matter how polite, as to how they may change their behavior very well.