Huh? I’m saying YOU shouldn’t be encouraging anyone to start shooting people. Not even tongue in cheek.
Thanks for the link; that was a good article.
Emotionally there is a part of me that wants to … Eliminate … Republicans and Trump supporters. Sometimes I even fantasize about this, I must admit. There’s an anger inside me that wants to lash out.
But the notion of actually putting this into practice is completely untenable to me. We can’t actually fucking do that! It’s wrong. Just wrong.
Oh, they certainly were. They were just getting it from different sources than today. The bigots still had their bigot on; they still managed to get together and swap false stories and accusations against minorities and political opponents. And they had no qualms about standing up and telling people that a Catholic can’t be president or Blacks can’t go to school with whites, or races cannot inter-marry. Oh, they definitely had their [del]sources[/del] echo chambers then. Today, they have those but they also have Fox News, Breitbart, and various scum sites and social media platforms. My point is that those sources are not the reason for Trump and attendant political disasters as someone asserted upthread; those sites, as Trump and attendant political disasters, are symptoms of the disease, not the cause. The symptoms are more prevalent now because of the state of today’s technology; the disease is still the same.
I’m 59 right now and grew up with those same folks. And I grew up in the South. Care to guess how often I heard all of them called communist, anti-American, traitors?
I tend to think educating them would be more beneficial. But, then, I work with an American (a trumper) who is super proud of himself for getting a master’s degree in education although he dismisses every single thing he learned in the master’s program because “all those professors are liberal commies”, so I guess education just may not be the solution in the end.
What was his thesis?
“Post-Liberal Cuck’s Teary Fallout Over Hillary Election Loss, and its Snowflake Ramifications”?
That’s one of the greatest disappointments of my lifetime. I was an awkward kid who wasn’t great at social life and was among the first generation of heavy internet users. And on the net social life was great ; it was going to be great the more people glommed onto it because suddenly it wouldn’t matter what you look like, where you come from, people were going to talk to people from all walks of life and eco-social boundaries were going to crumble and borders wouldn’t mean fuck all anymore and it would just be one great melting pot. Racism and tribalism would be a thing of the past !
Instead it’s just an increasingly large pool of increasingly small, closed off tribal echo chambers. I guess the problem is that people just suck, and anything that involves them in any capacity is going to just suck :(.
Wanting the Republicans gone isn’t wrong. It’s patriotic.
The Republican Party is a cancer on this Republic. The Republican Party’s platform is white supremacy, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, Christian theocracy, anarcho-capitalism, ethnic cleansing, and slavery.
Their vision of America is a white ethno-state with a permanent aristocracy that controls the means and benefits of production, where the vast majority of the population are chattel with no free agency or protection under the law, who live and die by the whims of their employers/owners, who have Divine Right to do whatever they want to whoever they want and can exercise mob violence to enforce their will.
“Make America Great Again” doesn’t mean bringing us back to the 1950s - it means bringing us back to the 1350s.
The Republican Party has nothing of value to offer to our body politic, and its continued existence is not only antithetical to everything this country stands for, but an existential threat to all life on this planet.
The sooner this evil philosophy is exterminated, the better.
I really wouldn’t know, mainly because I simply don’t care as, IMHO, he’s a horrible teacher. He spends the majority of his time (a) bragging about how good of a teacher he is, (b) smoking outside of the office, and (c) (a) plus (b).
“Post-Liberal Cuck’s Teary Fallout Over Hillary Election Loss, and its Snowflake Ramifications in Education!”
Why? Why does s/he need to chill out? I support frothing over shooting.
This is the Pit, and this is a thread pitting the Trump administration, which is a Republican administration, so why shouldn’t asahi let loose here, especially if doing so makes IRL interactions a bit more peaceful? Even safer.
Well said! I heartily concur. Get off the man’s back.
He repeatedly calls people we disagree with sub-human Nazis, who need to be flushed down the toilet, eliminated, imprisoned. This is either unhinged, or a call to arms. If it was a one-off post venting about something in the news, whatever. It’s venting. But this is a regular thing with him. In one breath he expects us to trust him, that he’s one of the smartest people here, that he has some dazzling understanding of geopolitics and world history, then in the next breath he’s telling us to lock Republican voters up in re-education camps and flush these animals down the toilet.
The last time we had Nazis running things, we shot the fuck out of them. If he keeps calling Republicans actual Nazis, and directly compares Republican electeds to Hitler, what does he want us to do about it? Vote Hitler out? Cast our ballot against Adolph Hitler? Make a cash donation to Hitler’s opponent? Write a strongly-worded letter to the editor speaking out against Hitler’s policies? According to asahi, the Nazis are already here and in charge! Our nation is beyond hope! For fuck’s sake, he’s becoming left-wing Alex Jones without the audience or fish-people conspiracies.
And I say this as someone who hates Trump and the spineless, gutless Republicans as much as anyone here.
The problem is, it seems to me that there have been numerous cases where such frothing has eventually turned into shooting. I don’t see where encouraging this ALL CAPS MULTI-EXCLAMATION POINT!!! crap is at all worthwhile.
I’m as disgusted by Trump and his clown car-load of Republican enablers as anyone here, and probably more than most, but calling Republicans “bacteria” and ranting about sending them to re-education camps or worse is where I step off the train.
All are perfectly free to ignore the above, of course. Carry on.
I’m reading Hunter Thompsons book Hells Angels right now. In a nut shell, he imbedded and became friends with many Hells Angles in the '60’s. They knew he was writing about them. It was a love hate relationship, which in it self sort of describes the HA’s.
Stay with me here.
In the 60’s, the HA’s saw themselves as righteous losers. And if ANYONE dared to question, contradict or challenge them, the whole group would and MUST attack as one. No questions asked. It was literally in the code (yep, they actually had a written code) of the Hell’s Angels that if one Angel got in a fight, the entire group MUST defend him with fists and broken beer bottles. No questions asked. This is one if not the main reason they where (are?) so frightening. Try to arrest one Angel and you WILL have 20 guys come at you.
A tribe.
This is what we are seeing from the Republican Party today. It’s really a hive mind of desperation. And oddly, the republican party comes from completely two different sides of the tracks. Those that have and want to keep their status, and those that have nothing. Two groups that would not normally give each other the time of day are actually supporting ideals that will ultimately bring them all down.
I myself have been Highly critical of the GOP. I even designed this satirical VOTE GOP 2018 poster. It’s pretty mean, pretty negative, possible ill-considered and/or in bad taste. However, I think it can be defended as a valid criticism of GOP hypocrisy and their lack of normal values.
Even from there though, I think calling them Nazis and suggesting they be locked up or worse is going much too far. “Your proclaimed values are bullshit” is one thing. “You lose all your rights because of how you voted” violates everything- the 1st Amendment, Due Process, Habeas Corpus, liberty and the pursuit of happiness… it is just beyond what it means to be an American, even admitting that there are bad or wrong Americans.
I don’t want him to go away though. I hope he’ll keep talking, let us point out where he’s gone off the rails and discuss where he hasn’t. It’s the pit- it is fun when people absolutely boil over and lose it. I just hope the extreme talk doesn’t turn into crazy, real life actions.
That’s a valid point. asahi probably shouldn’t be in a positive feedback loop. I don’t think aggressive responses are negative feedback, though.
S/he didn’t bring up arms here, though; that was you.
My outlook might be based on my personal experiences. I’m dealing with open racists for about the first time in my life, certainly the first time in my adult life. If I didn’t have this place to let loose occasionally, the world, or at least my little corner of it, would be a much uglier place.
So, fuck yeah, let some of the bile out here, so Real Life can be a little bit less divisive and more productive.
My negative feedback was meant to do what you’re doing-- say “Whoa, that’s too far.” Because too many people read asahi’s escalating words and nod along, become righteously angered, become fearful, and then become mobilized. And how do you think he suggests we become mobilized against sub-human Nazi animals who have invaded our country? My comment was meant to be a mirror on his increasingly incendiary language.
You don’t think words written on the Internet can have Real Life consequences? Asahi has repeatedly established himself as an expert in geopolitical affairs, world history, American history and sociology, he tells us he’s studied these situations, he has a deep understanding. He then uses language like “Trust me,” and “Deep down you know I’m right,” and “You’ll see…” He claims he hasn’t been wrong in any of his predictions yet. Not a one. He very badly wants us to trust him as an authority figure on what’s happening in the world politically and culturally and sociologically. He’s actually come out and said he’s the smartest person at the SDMB.
He’s gotten people to nod along with him and post “Hear, hear!” and “Let him speak!” They trust his authority, his insight, his knowledge, he’s on “our side,” so he can’t be bad, he’s just angry, like all of us, right? He hits the right notes politically. People hate Trump, they hate the Republicans, but then he stokes that anger and creates fear with wild predictions.
And now he’s calling Republican voters and electeds sub-human, animals, in-need of being locked up and “re-educated.” Nazis.
THIS is the incendiary language we need to call out. What the fuck does he expect people to do to Nazis? Didn’t our grandfathers shoot them when they tried taking over the world last century? Just what the fuck is asahi saying when he posts about animals being flushed down the toilet? Put people in camps? Are you fucking kidding me? What’s he doing when he dehumanizes Republicans? Exactly what Alex Jones did with Hillary and Obama and Democrats in general. “But, asahi’s on *our *side!” So that makes it better? We call out right-wing dehumanization of Democrats, but for asahi, we just say “Oh, let our guy speak because he hates the same people I hate!” Fuck that.
I get it, people are mad, they’re worried, and they often look to “experts” for guidance, people they know and trust and “haven’t been wrong yet.”
But then when those “experts” start calling for action against their political enemies, who they label sub-human Nazis and bacteria, people just say, “Oh, let him speak. This isn’t real life.” Fuck that.
Asahi is testing the waters around violence against his political enemies, with just enough plausible deniability to say “What? Who? Me? No!” when called on it. Fuck that. Either that or he’s posting drunk, or he’s mentally unstable.
My dad’s not a Nazi; he’s not sub-human; he doesn’t deserve to go to prison for who he voted for. My in-laws aren’t Nazis. My neighbors aren’t animals. And fuck anyone for saying otherwise. Some of you are lucky enough to insulate yourselves from actual Republican voters? Bully for you. Here’s a newsflash: At the end of the day they’re just like you, just shamefully misinformed on a lot of shit.
In all seriousness, I’m glad that you have not until recently had to have contact with open racists, given that historically, open, endemic racism was an integral part of the American experience for most parts of the country until at least the late 1970s. Just one example, amongst many: from 1974 to 1981 I worked for a railroad in my home city in Pennsylvania. Although the city’s population at the time was about 30% non-white, out of about 500 employees of that railroad, only two were non-white (and no women at all, of course). I vividly recall one union meeting where a written request for a donation to the NAACP came up for discussion. The meeting chair theatrically crumpled up the request, to audible snickers from his audience.
I guess what I’m saying is that while there is still some ways to go there has been serious improvement in that situation in the past couple decades, and that I am compelled to believe Trump and his ilk, odious as they are, are a last gasp of the old reactionary racism, and that, anything short of suspension of the electoral process, we will soon be rid of them.
No, they are not like me.
I don’t tolerated racism.
I don’t tolerated sexual assault.
I don’t hate immigrants.
But that’s not the issue. The issue is “Start shooting!” != “Whoa, that’s too far”. You did not tell asahi to calm down, you said “Put up or shut up” to someone you think is unstable and violent, and you think asahi is the incendiary one?
I am not calling you a liar, but I have trouble believing anyone would think people on this board blindly listen to and believe other posters; that’s just not a valid argument.
And I don’t insulated myself from Republicans. I just think they are shameless cowards now.
OK, I skimmed some, but I want to interject the same thought I offer to the conservatives who think all liberals should be killed because they are the enemy: as far off track as the Republicans are now, our system is predicated on more than one party. The system needs both sides to have a “loyal opposition”. (Yes, I know the conservatives are cheating every chance they get). I still think, in the end, we do better with the high road and being a stark contrast to Trumper BS. In real life, I try to pity stupid and afraid people - they can’t help being stupid, it’s not like they chose it.* Ignorance* is a choice, but social psych will tell you that environment has a huge impact upon our opinions. Who knows what my beliefs would be, were I born of conservative parents in Ft. Worth, instead of liberal parents on the Coast?
“I’m not calling you a liar but…” Wait, is that Asshole for “I disagree with you”? You think I’m lying about what I think?
And you really find it hard to believe that people here don’t build and change their opinions based on what they read here, especially from posters they know and trust? There’s no “blind listening,” we have usernames. Why express opinions and debate if we don’t think others will believe us or change their opinion? You telling me we’re not supposed to “believe other posters?” Then why are you here if you don’t “believe” anyone?