A liberal, like myself, hears the words ‘social justice warrior,’ and assumes there is nothing wrong with wanting ‘justice.’ I can’t comprehend what it is about ‘justice’ that you find so terrible. I thought that everyone would want to live in a society that is inherently just. Are you saying that you prefer ‘injustice?’ Do you really want to live in an unjust society?
And the claim that people are ‘encouraging a new form of racism against whites’ is plain old bullshit. There’s no such thing. The only people who notice this are the bigots who assume everything in life is zero sum. I swear to Christ, I have met people who noticed a black character in a comic book and threw themselves into a frothing rage over ‘social justice warriors,’ in the assumption that every step that advances minority inclusion must be taking something away from those hard-workin’ God-fearin’ white people.
Every time I hear someone complain about ‘social justice warriors,’ I know they are (A) a racist clown, (B) terrified of losing their position of privilege and (C) not worth the effort it would take to tell them the time of day.
“Social Justice Warrior” now means something other than the literal meaning of the words. Your comment about SJWs just wanting social justice is as absurd as someone who tries to pretend that “race realist” is just someone who is realistic about race.
When I refer to SJWs, I mean a specific type of leftist authoritarian who is obsessed with categorizing everyone by identity labels such as race, gender, and sexual identity, expresses hateful ideas against “privileged” groups such as white people or men, and cannot handle honest disagreement.
Twitter openly allows people to say things like “I hate white people” and just recently a woman who tweeted such sentiments was unapologetically hired by the NY Times. What do you call that if it is not racism against whites? My rule of thumb is that if you replace the term “white people” with any other race and a comment is racist, it’s still racist when you use it against white people. If it makes you feel better (since I know a lot of leftists nowadays have redefined racism as only being possible if you have some kind of “institutional power”), we can call it anti-white bigotry. Still doesn’t make it okay. If the left had any sense and truly WANTED racial equality, they would call this out instead of trying to pretend it is not possible to be racist against white people.
I prefer to reserve the title racist for people who actually express racist ideas against another race, rather than just people who disagree with liberals. The fact that liberals use “Racist” so freely has made a lot of people just stop taking it seriously at all, which no doubt is to the benefit of actual racists.
Yes, SJW doesn’t have its literal meaning. But you are wrong about the direction. SJW now means anyone who cares about social justice at all, or often even anyone who is further left than the speaker. The things you are describing are just you giving negative attributes to those people. You even mentioned the “authoritarian left,” which largely doesn’t exist. It’s a right wing buzzword to attack any left leaning person for saying what should and shouldn’t be done.
The authoritarian left doesn’t exist? Have you ever heard of communism? Most people in America don’t take it that far at this point, but there are absolutely plenty of leftists who feel it is justified to use the government to mandate certain behaviors/ideas and punish other behaviors/ideas. It is just a question of degree.
Why didn’t you address the phrase “social justice”? What specifically does that mean to you (at least) in practice? The problem arises when one person uses a definition of a word and the listener incorrectly assumes your definition is the same as his own. As Orwell wrote, sometimes the one person knows that and intentionally does not correct the listener.
I’m Canadian, and I get tired of a few people I know who continually rant about “too many damn immigrants” or “lazy aboriginals who are always looking for a hand-out” to the extent of wanting to avoid such people. I’m not an expert on Australia, but I suspect you have one or two such people as well.
I hope this thread answers the OP’s question. Yes we are that divided. What’s unusual about the SDMB is that it is one of the few places where Democrats and Republicans interact. In real life we try our best to avoid each other.
I live in an area that’s very integrated politically. A lot of my friends and associates are all over the spectrum.
Demonizing either side doesn’t help anyone. The vitriol on both sides is tedious.
I hate Trump, I hate his blind followers. I also hate the left that are just as insane. Screaming how insane the other side is doesn’t really help your case, nor improve my opinion of you.
Rational discourse would be highly appreciated. Frothing at the mouth should be shameful, akin to peeing your pants. But that doesn’t sell, or elicit an emotional reaction.
Most of us, believe it or not, have more in common with each other. Finding that commonality is the only way to make progress. Unfortunately I don’t think anyone wants to make progress, they just want to score points.
Talk to other people outside your echo chamber. Everyone. Yes, even you.
There is ample data that our communities are Balkanized and getting worse, follow some of the links in this thread. I also disagree that we have more in common than not, when you have a party that is actively trying to block mitagation of climate change, the biggest problem facing the planet, any commonality is trivial compared to our differences.
Climate change. Immigration. Abortion. Confirmation hearings. Net neutrality. Ad nauseum.
The other side is evil. My side is the only side. If you don’t agree with me, die.
I had a real eye opener when Trump was elected. How did half of the country think that was a good idea? Reasonable friends of mine, relatives.
You will never have a productive conversation with anyone by telling them how wrong they are. And the democratic/republican response is fuck them, they’re evil.
I often lose hope. Too many Americans have come to represent everything I despise. I don’t see a way forward. I can understand supporting Bush or Romney, and even Reagan, but Trump? It doesn’t make any sense and I can’t find a charitable way to understand it.
This thread isn’t about having a productive conversation. The OP asked if the US was actually as divided as it seems on the sdmb. I provided links with data that shows we are in fact divided. Increasingly, we don’t live in the same neighborhoods, we don’t watch the same TV and we don’t want our children marrying people from the other party. Actual data that supports this in the links. I know that facts can be unpleasant, but they are still facts.
Let’s be honest, those who are saying that it is possible to coexist are talking about straight white Christians being able to coexist across party lines. If you’re a person of color, Muslim, gay, or in any other of the groups that the GOP has targeted to have your civil rights rolled back, getting along is not really an option.
