“If we allow gays to marry, who knows what other perversions will come flooding in?”
“It being really cold proves global warming doesn’t exist.”
Whenever I see someone assert something like that, there are times I get frustrated and, frankly, sad that these arguments are still being seriously brought up. Maybe I shouldn’t go where I know I’ll have to read them, but that doesn’t change the fact that they’re out there, and while I can fight the urge to just scream at these people, it can make me feel kind of impotent.
What arguments do it for you? How do you deal with them (either the arguments or the people making them)?
Misogynist arguments make me see red. Mysandry pisses me off too but it’s not as personal and I don’t lose my temper as easily. I don’t associate with people that ignorant in real life so my solution online is not to read threads that are likely to degenerate into gender bashing. If I read them the next thing I know I’m posting vicious scathing comments at some kid that are way below the belt and that I’m ashamed of later.
We can’t let felons vote…
Whatever is said all I hear is “because we must hold everyone’s mistakes against them for all time.”
I guess I just feel like Rodney Dangerfield and shake my head. I try to convince people that all felons are not created equal, but unless someone knows a felon, I never make headway.
I was shocked a few years ago, not at the fact that there were some posters who said that life doesn’t have inherent value, but by the number of posters who believe that.
I’m also upset when some people say that a father isn’t important in a child’s life and that it’s OK for a woman to get pregnant without planning on involving the child’s father.
As for how I deal with it. It rarely comes up in real life conversations, and since my beliefs are in the minority here on the board, I simply try to stay away from such topics.
I actually don’t think this is as stupid as it’s commonly made out to be. If you really do see gay marriage as wrong, then this seems like a reasonable argument. Consider another version…
“If we allow torture of terrorists, it’s only a matter of time before we torture our own citizens”.
I happen to think both these arguments are flawed, but many people will accept one whilst denouncing the other as the highest idiocy.
The way I deal with these things is to remember a lot of research from psychology which points to the following picture: people don’t come to conclusions by reasoned argument, people (in general) come to conclusions emotionally and then rationalise with argument. It just seems to be the way we’re built.
The ways to deal with it are, I think
realise that I do it too, it’s part of being human
try not to get too invested
realised that there’s a lot of people out there to whom I look as stupid as these idiots do to me.
All that said, some that get me…
any ignorant linguistic prescriptivist ranting: “I don’t care if it’s common, Shakespeare himself used it, and it’s in the dictionary … it’s still wrong.” Makes me want to bash someone over the head.
any statement like “Americans are all …” or “Iranians are all …” stated by someone with minimal knowledge of the country in question, without any hedging… A 2 week holiday to Florida doesn’t mean you know about America, and watching CNN doesn’t mean you know about Iran.
Well, that’s not exactly true, it’s just that you have so many things going on from week to week, (backache because of heavy lifting that I can do for you; eyes tearing up due to leaving your contacts in too long, a really bronchial cough due to your smoking; depression which leads to fighting with me.) that I never know which ailment to address.
In short, there isn’t a week that goes by when you’re NOT feeling bad, and when I ask you to go to the doctor, you refuse. Or if you do go, you’re non-compliant.
Hard to have any sympathy for you under those circumstances, Honey.