# On vitriol and the state of America **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 10, 2019, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-vitriol-and-the-state-of-america/835295 "2019-06-10T13:11:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2019, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-vitriol-and-the-state-of-america/835295/121 "2019-06-11T19:59:45Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > Which of Trump’s policies could result in harm or death to you or someone you love? > > And I mean the policies, not what some third party idiot does in misguided reverence to what he believes is the policy. If we go down that road, then every policy could cause harm or death. Putting migrant kids in cages (with substandard care) and purposefully separating families; kicking transgender folks out of the military; fanning the flames of war with Iran; trying to end the ACA with no replacement; just to start with. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2019, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-vitriol-and-the-state-of-america/835295/122 "2019-06-11T20:02:34Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Putting migrant kids in cages (with substandard care) and purposefully separating families; kicking transgender folks out of the military; fanning the flames of war with Iran; trying to end the ACA with no replacement; just to start with. Again, if we are going that far down the line, then we can point to analogues on the other side that would cause “harm or death.” Almost any policy position taken by anyone helps some and harms others. If those are your issues then I submit that you are, respectfully, substituting hate for mere political disagreement. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2019, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-vitriol-and-the-state-of-america/835295/123 "2019-06-11T20:07:36Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > There is a whole lot of majority privilege on display in opposition to my very modest and practical advice. > > In each of the examples there are places where the person in question would not be oppressed. Not only that, but fleeing would be very simple and relatively inexpensive. They may just need to move to the burbs in some cases, or the city or country in others. So no, it is not dumb to escape state predation. People have been doing it for centuries. People have uprooted their entire way of life to escape state predation I know that if I had a good chance of being locked up for some BS I’d flee in a minute. > > People move to escape less onerous state predation all the time. Many people move to Texas and other states like Florida, Delaware and Tennessee to escape a few percentage points in taxes. Yet it is dumb to escape state-enforced bigotry? You lack coherence. > > So no. Not dumb. Staying and stamping an indignant foot at injustice is dumb. Of course as I said, if your goal is to martyr yourself, it is totally rational. This, of course, is just bullshit. There are, of course, people who move to escape oppression. Those people tend to be the very wealthy who can afford it or those who are so poor they must do it to survive. The majority of middle class people with ties to family and jobs make such moves only with an amount of burden that is greater than the amount of so-called “predation” that you posit. Moving back to your initial claims, people persecuted for ethnicity or religion or sexuality may not actually have any place they may move, even if they had the resources. Proposing that sort of solution as a counter to "political disruption is not a good faith argument, but I am glad that you have exposed your actual beliefs, here. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2019, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-vitriol-and-the-state-of-america/835295/124 "2019-06-11T20:10:49Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > Again, if we are going that far down the line, then we can point to analogues on the other side that would cause “harm or death.” Almost any policy position taken by anyone helps some and harms others. > > If those are your issues then I submit that you are, respectfully, substituting hate for mere political disagreement. I’m not talking about my feelings - my feelings come from the racism and sexual assault stuff. I understand those issues aren’t as big a deal for many folks as they are for me (and there are vice versa issues, I’m sure). I thought about it and couldn’t come up with an analog on the other side for these policies that could cause harm or death to one’s self or loved ones. No analog to locking up kids, separating families, booting trans military folks; etc. Maybe you can? ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2019, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-vitriol-and-the-state-of-america/835295/125 "2019-06-11T20:16:02Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > … I thought about it and couldn’t come up with an analog on the other side for these policies that could cause harm or death to one’s self or loved ones. No analog to locking up kids, separating families, booting trans military folks; etc. Maybe you can? Gary Willis was recently killed by the police while they were serving one of the left’s new-fangled “red flag” ERPO’s ([source](https://wamu.org/story/19/02/07/marylands-red-flag-law-seeks-to-balance-safety-with-due-process/)). That’s an example of a left-wing policy that has & will get people literally killed. ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2019, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-vitriol-and-the-state-of-america/835295/126 "2019-06-11T20:28:02Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > Gary Willis was recently killed by the police while they were serving one of the left’s new-fangled “red flag” ERPO’s ([source](https://wamu.org/story/19/02/07/marylands-red-flag-law-seeks-to-balance-safety-with-due-process/)). That’s an example of a left-wing policy that has & will get people literally killed. Kind of hard to blame a law for a death when the guy killed was deliberately NOT following the law. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2019, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-vitriol-and-the-state-of-america/835295/127 "2019-06-11T20:28:05Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > Gary Willis was recently killed by the police while they were serving one of the left’s new-fangled “red flag” ERPO’s ([source](https://wamu.org/story/19/02/07/marylands-red-flag-law-seeks-to-balance-safety-with-due-process/)). That’s an example of a left-wing policy that has & will get people literally killed. I have no idea what this policy is, I’m unaware of any prominent Democrats who support it (presumably some in Maryland), and your link gives no information about how this policy resulted in someone’s death. ---
**Author:** ![Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slow_moving_vehicle/32/291_2.png) [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slow_Moving_Vehicle)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2019, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-vitriol-and-the-state-of-america/835295/128 "2019-06-11T20:32:19Z")
> [@Icarus](#): > > From my perspective, the Right has been engaged in a decades long project to re-frame the Left from “opposition” or “adversaries” into “enemies”. To the result that the garden variety FOX view / AM radio listener only hears the word “liberal” as a sneer word. > > Whereas, the Left, over the same period was still playing the game of the Right being the “loyal opposition”, without a co-comitant decades long project to re-frame the language (and consequently, the belief system). > > IMHO, however, the past couple of years, and antics on the Right, have pushed more mainstream Left into a similar level of enmity that has been the traditional purview of the Right. I agree, and I think I know exactly how and when this began – in the 1980s, when Ronald Reagan and the conservative Republicans got in bed with the evangelical Christian right. Because religion (at least, their sort of religion) isn’t about right and wrong; it’s about good and evil. The culture warriors of the Christian right don’t have opponents who are wrong-headed or misguided; no, they war with enemies who are debased, corrupt, and evil. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2019, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-vitriol-and-the-state-of-america/835295/129 "2019-06-11T20:39:43Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > Kind of hard to blame a law for a death when the guy killed was deliberately NOT following the law. The guy was killed as a result of enforcement action undertaken by law enforcement officers in service of Maryland’s ERPO law. I don’t think it’s all that different from, for example, [blaming NY’s ban on selling “loosies” for Eric Garner’s death.](https://www.thedailybeast.com/eric-garner-was-choked-to-death-for-selling-loosies) Certainly there is some amount of blame that can be laid at the dead men’s feet in both cases, but I don’t think the law enforcement effort was exactly up to the level of competence we’d prefer to see in either case, too. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2019, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-vitriol-and-the-state-of-america/835295/130 "2019-06-11T20:41:01Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > I have no idea what this policy is, I’m unaware of any prominent Democrats who support it (presumably some in Maryland), and your link gives no information about how this policy resulted in someone’s death. Seriously? It’s right there in the first paragraph: > [@](#): > > When an attempt to carry out a gun removal in Anne Arundel County left a Maryland man dead, opponents of the state’s red flag law were incensed. If that’s not enough detail, the words “left a Maryland man dead” in that paragraph are a link to another story that goes into more details about the events that lead up to Gary Willis’ death. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2019, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-vitriol-and-the-state-of-america/835295/131 "2019-06-11T20:42:08Z")
It goes back much further than Reagan (Barry Goldwater in 1994: “Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they’re sure trying to do so, it’s going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can’t and won’t compromise. I know, I’ve tried to deal with them.”). The good vs. evil stuff, based on simplistic religiosity, drove the Commie scare in the Fifties and Sixties, the earlier anti-immigrant scare in the 1930’s (and earlier waves), every war … every time a tinhorn needs some support, he can do so by fanning worry into fear, fear into hate, and hate into votes. A religion that peddles certainty and chosen-ness and righteousness, without bothering adherents with the burden of actual thought, goes right along with that sort of political manipulation. ---
**Author:** ![Pantastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3bc359/32.png) [@Pantastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pantastic)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2019, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-vitriol-and-the-state-of-america/835295/132 "2019-06-11T21:10:48Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > Not helping someone is not the same as killing someone? Dispute? When you’re a medical provider who is supposed to be providing them medical care, yes. It’s utterly amazing to me that someone can read of horrific cruelty like that and just shrug it off, while whining that people who condemn it are engaging in ‘vitriol’. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2019, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-vitriol-and-the-state-of-america/835295/133 "2019-06-11T21:14:40Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > I understand politics is about compromise on so many things, but I haven’t figured out how someone who truly values women, or truly thinks racism and bigotry are abominable, can support and make excuses for Trump. > [@UltraVires](#): > > 1. Women: Just because he is a womanizing heel in his personal life does not mean that translates into public issues. See Bill Clinton. > > 2. Racism and bigotry. I’ve never understood this charge leveled at Trump. One can be against illegal immigration and support enforcing these laws without be bigoted. We’ve been through this in other threads. > > I find it disturbing that your side has descended into outright hatred of the other side because of political differences. But it is not political differences you say, it is about hatred of gays and other minorities. Lemme ask you this: you voted for Obama in 2008 when he expressed an opposition to same sex marriage. Why the bigotry? In his first three months in office, Trump had: 1. Made efforts imposing burdens on women, either exclusively or primarily either through Executive Order or by submitting Budget Cuts or by nominating people to Federal positions who have endorsed some of the following positions: Slashed support for military caregivers Eliminated child care for military families Slashed nutrition assistance for WIC Removed Official Information on Sexual Violence and More from Government Websites Shifted Funding from Evidence-Based Teen Pregnancy Prevention Programs to Abstinence-Only Cut violence against women programs Cut after-school programs Denied women reproductive, educational, and counseling services by limiting Title X availability Attacked Planned Parenthood and Defended lies about Planned Parenthood Brought back the Global Gag Rule and Halted family planning funds abroad Threatened maternity coverage by nominating Seema Verma Cut funding for teen pregnancy prevention Cut the National Domestic Violence Hotline Defended accused sexual harassers Cut violence against women programs 1. Racism and Bigotry: Violated Fair Housing Act in 1970s and continues to deny he did Birther lies (that he continued to mention after he claimed to have found evidence it was not true). Actively promoted hatred toward the Central Park Five and continues to publicly claim they were guilty after evidence demonstrated that they were innocent Sparked an increase in bullying with support for racists such as happened in Charlottesville Opened his 2016 campaign with slurs on Mexicans Earliest Executive Orders attempted bans on Muslims Claimed he could not get a fair trial in his Trump University lawsuit because a(n Indiana) judge was “Mexican” Referred to Haiti and most of Africa as “shithole countries” Lied that he had not made the comment’ Since his first three months, he has gotten worse. For example, he promotes the change to the Census to exclude non-citizens even though the numbers represented by the Electoral College are Constitutionally based on persons, not citizens and money distributed by Congress goes to states based on population, not citizenship. I lament and have opposed the expressions of hatred toward Trump and his administration. However, to the extent that they have involved hatred (as opposed to simple mockery which I endorse), they began after he expressed contempt for physically disabled people, contempt for women, contempt for Sen. McCain, engaged in persistent name-calling and persistent lies in support of Birtherism, expressed of violence against other citizens, (telling his crowds to beat up protestors, telling police to manhandle arrested persons), etc. Do you ever actually read or listen to or watch news stories regarding his actions? ---
**Author:** ![Pantastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3bc359/32.png) [@Pantastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pantastic)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2019, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-vitriol-and-the-state-of-america/835295/134 "2019-06-11T21:15:49Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > There is no reason you cannot disagree yet still be friendly. Get back to me when your brother wants to protect an Emergency Room staff who, upon encuntering someone like you, will simply let you bleed out instead of providing actual medical care. Or when he wears a symbol that says that people like you are inferior by blood and should be enslaved for the betterment of people like him. Or when he wears another symbol that means he thinks people like you should be rounded up and exterminated. “This person wants to kill me, enslave me, or otherwise cause me great harm” is a great reason to disagree and not be friendly. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2019, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-vitriol-and-the-state-of-america/835295/135 "2019-06-11T21:17:24Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > There is a whole lot of majority privilege on display in opposition to my very modest and practical advice. > > In each of the examples there are places where the person in question would not be oppressed. Not only that, but fleeing would be very simple and relatively inexpensive. They may just need to move to the burbs in some cases, or the city or country in others. So no, it is not dumb to escape state predation. People have been doing it for centuries. People have uprooted their entire way of life to escape state predation I know that if I had a good chance of being locked up for some BS I’d flee in a minute. > > People move to escape less onerous state predation all the time. Many people move to Texas and other states like Florida, Delaware and Tennessee to escape a few percentage points in taxes. Yet it is dumb to escape state-enforced bigotry? You lack coherence. > > So no. Not dumb. Staying and stamping an indignant foot at injustice is dumb. Of course as I said, if your goal is to martyr yourself, it is totally rational. Millions are on the move globally doing what you suggest. Isn’t it 4 million who have fled from the socialist paradise of Venezuela to date? If you have to move then move. However, it would be nice if those who were doing the predation could be removed. ---
**Author:** ![FlikTheBlue](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fliktheblue/32/10972_2.png) [@FlikTheBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlikTheBlue)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2019, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-vitriol-and-the-state-of-america/835295/136 "2019-06-11T21:19:30Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > It goes back much further than Reagan (Barry Goldwater in 1994: “Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they’re sure trying to do so, it’s going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can’t and won’t compromise. I know, I’ve tried to deal with them.”). The good vs. evil stuff, based on simplistic religiosity, drove the Commie scare in the Fifties and Sixties, the earlier anti-immigrant scare in the 1930’s (and earlier waves), every war … every time a tinhorn needs some support, he can do so by fanning worry into fear, fear into hate, and hate into votes. A religion that peddles certainty and chosen-ness and righteousness, without bothering adherents with the burden of actual thought, goes right along with that sort of political manipulation. 1994 was before Reagan? 😛 ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2019, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-vitriol-and-the-state-of-america/835295/137 "2019-06-11T21:20:22Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Thank you for this weird, content-free pontificating. You’re welcome to actually engage and discuss, and respond to questions (and ask your own), if this interests you. His post is an example of what would have been sneeringly dismissed as pointless tone policing 3-4 short years ago. In other words, leftist condescension, as has been pointed out several times by a multitude of people, is actually counterproductive. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2019, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-vitriol-and-the-state-of-america/835295/138 "2019-06-11T21:21:48Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > … he promotes the change to the Census to exclude non-citizens even though the numbers represented by the Electoral College are Constitutionally based on persons, not citizens and money distributed by Congress goes to states based on population, not citizenship. … The “change to the Census” is merely to ask if people are citizens. His administration is not proposing that we “exclude non-citizens” from the census count or population totals. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2019, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-vitriol-and-the-state-of-america/835295/139 "2019-06-11T22:11:19Z")
> [@Pantastic](#): > > Get back to me when your brother wants to protect an Emergency Room staff who, upon encuntering someone like you, will simply let you bleed out instead of providing actual medical care. Or when he wears a symbol that says that people like you are inferior by blood and should be enslaved for the betterment of people like him. Or when he wears another symbol that means he thinks people like you should be rounded up and exterminated. “This person wants to kill me, enslave me, or otherwise cause me great harm” is a great reason to disagree and not be friendly. Jesus H.W. Where in America does this happen? Was this in a movie you watched recently? If so, it was not a documentary. ---
**Author:** ![bobot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobot/32/21622_2.png) [@bobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobot)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2019, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-vitriol-and-the-state-of-america/835295/140 "2019-06-11T22:44:38Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > The “change to the Census” is merely to ask if people are citizens. His administration is not proposing that we “exclude non-citizens” from the census count or population totals. With a straight face, eh? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-vitriol-and-the-state-of-america/835295.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-vitriol-and-the-state-of-america/835295.md?page=8)