Interesting that you have absolutely no criticism of Leftist economics.
And the purpose of Pride parades isn’t to change hearts and minds . . . we have the rest of the year for that. The purpose is simply to celebrate who and what we are. For our own benefit. And if you don’t like it, stay home.
This. I don’t recognize the people on the left described by the OP. I live in the Pacific Norhtwest, we have lots of lefties. We don’t have these kinds of problems.
This can happen, but is something most of us grew out of in our 20s and 30s.
What a pointless and sweeping generalization (the OP).
Some liberals are assholes and have reacted improperly. If/when you see this occur, address it and challenge it. But not most liberals, and not most liberal reactions.
It’s not “vitriol” when a gay person says he doesn’t give a shit about your opinion of gay pride parades, any more than it’d be vitriol if a rapper says he doesn’t give a shit if you don’t like rap, or if a soccer player said he didn’t give a shit if you didn’t like soccer. That’s just people speaking their mind, bluntly, to you.
At no point in this thread have I called you a homophobe, you pea-brained dipshit.
The fact that you agree with my politics doesn’t mean I have to like you. You marking down all the “right” answers on the ballot doesn’t make you any less of an asshole.
If you didn’t want your OP to be met with hostility, maybe you shouldn’t have opened it up by calling people cunts. And no, I don’t care that you include yourself in the group you’re insulting. Call yourself a self-righteous cunt if that’s what floats your boat. Don’t drag me into it.
That’s certainly true of some sections of the Left. The Regressive Left, with their trigger-warnings and their safe-spaces, their oppression olympics and their micro-aggressions, their identity politics and their obsession with privilege, really are the most tiresome self-righteous cunts imaginable. They’re some of the most cosseted people on Earth, yet they exist in a state of perpetual high-dudgeon. They give the entire Left a bad name. They’re just awful.
I’m not left-wing (or right-wing), but I think I can give you some perspective on this nonetheless.
Exposure to different ideas, cultures, beliefs, etc. is all well and good, but there’s a difference between seeing different cultures and just thinking of them as different and associating with them for the sake of diversity, and just seeing them as variations and associating with them as human beings. The problem here is that he is your “gay friend” not just your friend. It’s akin to someone saying “I’m not racist, I have many black friends”. By all means, have friends that are gay or black or whatever, but you need to see them through the lens of their humanity, and as your friends first.
And giving you the benefit of the the doubt on that, if someone hates on you for associating with someone that’s gay… who cares? There are plenty of hypocrites out there, and as such, I think it damages their credibility on those issues. For instance, I used to know someone who was very liberal and all pro-gay rights but then freaked out when she was concerned her new roommate might be gay and didn’t want him having gay sex in the house. I eventually got her to realize the hypocrisy of that position and she relaxed. The point is, some people have contradictory beliefs and they don’t even realize it until they actually come to face it. I think for some people, they love to believe in equal rights IN THEORY, but actually facing that in real life creates a state of cognitive dissonance. I’m not sure where you are in that; hell, other than situations where I’ve directly face my beliefs am I aware how strongly I apply it. Sometimes I’ve been on point, other times I realized I still needed more work.
Regardless of what makes someone an ally, it doesn’t mean we have to like them. I know plenty of people with similar political beliefs that I find to be detestable. Similarly, I know people that I strongly disagree with on many points, and we’re very close friends. The reason he responded to you the way you did is because you said something pretty darn offensive to him, and I think that reason is pretty apparent in the context of the above.
The point is, it’s not the race, as a group, that has responded to it, and yet you specifically say “they” in your response, referring to the group as a whole. Yes, people of that race may have responded negatively to it, and perhaps statistically at a higher ratio than other races, but you can’t paint a race based on statistics like that. This is exactly why it’s not racist to point out, that there is a higher rate of crime among blacks than whites, but to argue that that makes blacks criminals, or that a given black person is more likely to be a criminal because he’s black is when it becomes racist. That implies that somehow it is the color of someone’s skin that is causing them to behave in a certain way, rather than any number of other factors, many of which have a much stronger correlation, that are involved.
Similarly, it’s racist against white people. Even if most or all of the bad things that have happened were white, it doesn’t somehow make someone who is white responsible for the actions of another white guy who actually did oppress them. How in the hell am I responsible for any actions taken by some guy I’ve never met in a place I’ve never been just because we have similar skin colors?
I couldn’t disagree more. Plenty of people are shit on constantly and they have the fortitude to rise above it. We should have some reasonable measure of understanding based upon the circumstances for an individual, whether those circumstances are due to race, gender, orientation, poverty, whatever. But overwhelmingly, people of various classes are just that… people. I think having an expectation that people who are consistently shit on will live down to it rather than up is missing the point. The point isn’t to sit around and make excuses, the point is to have make an effort to understand their circumstances and find the best way to help them.
Frankly, the only person that really seems to have a holier-than-thou attitude in this thread, is you.
Hyper-sensitivity to micro-aggressions, political correctness - these are been flies in the left-wing ointment for a while. They bug me, too.
It helps to keep them in perspective. How do these mistakes compare with those of our ideological opponents? Motes to their beams.
It also helps, when someone seems to be overreacting to some minor linguistic slight, to take the other person’s point of view. For example: Why would someone take such great offense at my offhand comment that their flaming gay behavior is outrageous and counterproductive? Why would they lash out at me, a 99% ally, for something so trivial? I deliberately won’t try to answer that - the whole point is to think about why this person is being so overly sensitive, so defensive, so wrong. And then examine your (our) own defensiveness critically, too.
Be the change you want to see; if you want a bunch of changes, focus on the main ones. Making people a little less hyper-sensitive is - for me - a much lower priority than getting bigots to stop bigotting.
I would dispute that. There are plenty of important current issues like same-sex marriages and racial profiling that are not part of wealth inequality.
You also have to remember that a lot of what you hear being said about topics like micro-aggressions and political correctness are exaggerated complaints from the other side. The ratio of conservatives attacking how outrageous the idea of micro-aggressions is to liberals actually supporting the idea is probably is around 100 to 1. It’s a trivial ripple that the right wing is trying to make a tsunami out of.