The Official ANTI-WOKE anti-lgbt conservaterrorist mob thread!

[MrSquished]

what exactly are you proposing as an alternative?
Have you seen change in your lifetime? Have you witnessed somebody changing their positions?

I have seen change in my lifetime and it was fought for tooth and nail by people. And now we are LITERALLY MOVING BACKWARDS! Nothing but dialogue has only created these people to become more terrible. Women's rights, minorities rights, LGBT rights, working people's rights - they are all under attack by the GQP. It's time to start calling these positions and actions out more clearly, more bluntly. People need to start to realize like just as has happened with many populations in history, that this group of people will support horrific leaders and support horrific things done to other people, just like has happened countless times before. They need to start to realize that yes, these people are that shitty, are that capable - nothing about today makes us immune to this happening again. To understand that there are battle lines being drawn, to simply be prepared, and not be taken by surprise by yet another repeat of history - a large group of shitty people taking over and oppressing the shit out of everybody else in horrific dictatorial ethnically and religiously and nationalistic ways. In our case - white nationalist Christian fascists. This has to happen with non GQP politicians at the top, grass roots, there have to be plans drawn up by those in power to prevent a coup, and us, the people, need to start to understand the enemy, the urgency to vote even more, and to arm ourselves.

 

[Jaskalas]

For one thing... I already know you simply can not argue with these Q people, with these maga people because it is impossible to reason with them. IMPOSSIBLE! You can not make them see any other point of view or even listen to a different opinion. They won't.
...
You know.... none of this was as bad as it is now before 2015. Before Donald Trump came along with spreading his hate and his intolerance. None of what we see today hardly existed until Donald Trump came along. Never to this extreme.

Humans do not listen to reason. It is not in our DNA. We respond primarily to indoctrination, to propaganda to illicit feelings of group identity for those we like... and hatred for the other. We are told of threats and the need to eliminate them. Those threats are other people.

This is where I think open societies have failed. Especially ours, where in our hubris we did not foresee a need to guard against human nature. We thought better of ourselves, as if we were more evolved or above it all. If not before 2016, then it should be abundantly clear today that we were horribly wrong about ourselves. Our culture placed far too much faith into truth, justice, and the "American way". We underestimated the consequences of leaving ourselves defenseless. To not ensure we raised our kids better. We did not properly indoctrinate our people into seeing reason from madness.

People CAN listen to reason, but like a feral animal they must first be trained to do so. Of critical importance is that they identify with others who also adhere to our institutions. Any counter culture against education, against science, will lead people back to our baser instincts. Towards ignoring the rule of law and returning to tribal violence. That we have had to endure the march of such a movement designed to tear down our institutions, to poison the minds of our people.... we have become divided and in our division we have become vulnerable.

It is human nature to go backwards. Progress requires maintenance that we have long ignored at our own peril.

 

[sandorski]

Education is where those values need to be instilled.

 

[SMOGZINN]

Wow, this thread shot past Godwin's law so fast that it was red shifted past the visible spectrum and no one even saw it.

 

[zinfamous]

show me the lessons where you reply to hate with hate and it does anything.
Crickets.
"I hate you"
"No, I hate you"
the dialog is over.
Hearts and minds man. you cannot win over hearts and minds if you cut off the access.
That language is the wedge. My practice is to keep pulling the wedge out. Loosen the wedge.
Step around it.
Ignore the wedge and keep the dialog going.

Sure.

but what do you do with:

"I will kill you now!"?

 

[zinfamous]

Wow, this thread shot past Godwin's law so fast that it was red shifted past the visible spectrum and no one even saw it.

Again, Godwin's Law no longer has any relevance in our current world, because the accusation is actually true--and fairly dispensed--most of the time:

It was once, briefly, useful as a means for maintaining civility and keeping hyperbole out of honest conversation, but these accusations are no longer hyperbolic. They are very much accurate. Now, the invocation of Godwin's Law in, essentially the very same discussions we have in 2017-today compared to what may have been happening up until about 2015, is essentially a crutch for the very unmistakable fascist movement of young, weakly-educated republicans and old, wakened white supremacists that want their virulent toxicity to spread unimpeded by fair and honest criticism about the things they are literally saying and defending. The above asshole wants to euphamize the concentration camps that Miller and Trump set up to tear asylum-seeking families apart because the fact of what they absolutely and undeniably are--concentration camps--is something that they absolutely know they can't honestly argue in favor of. They are desperate to change the narrative away from reality, thus they feel that if some "internet law" allows them a safe space away from criticism, they can continue their false, small-minded "intellectual crusade" about how a bit of fascism is maybe a good thing.

Something like Godwin's law is a useful tool for honest people engaged in honest debate, when the threat of Nazis isn't real. We no longer live in that world--honest debates with people that are, well, actually Nazis. They get mad when called what they are, because their brains are no longer engaging with themselves honestly. It's therefore important to remind them what they are.

 

[skyking]

Sure.

but what do you do with:

"I will kill you now!"?

That's a completely different dialogue than I'm prepared to engage in.
If anybody's really that naive to announce their intentions like that, It will be too late for them.

 

[mikeymikec]

show me the lessons where you reply to hate with hate and it does anything.

A big problem in countering hate is the text format. When encountering someone face-to-face, there's a lot more to go on to gauge the situation and decide how to respond. The fact of the matter is that public shaming does work in some scenarios, like if Schrödinger's Douchebag gets a unanimous negative reaction, then they'll likely not pull that stunt again; many people are cowards and will test their douchebaggery out in public and will grow bolder if they get away with it.

In text format I think whether you actually get through to someone is largely a lottery because you don't have the extra in-person cues to get a feel for whether they're receptive to your arguments.

My way throughout my life has always been to confront problems and be pretty direct about it, and I don't claim to be any kind of success story, however I've seen on enough occasions the damage that not confronting does. In recent years I've been tempering my approach with people online because I do agree with you to some extent that laying on the insults is unlikely to help, nor is trying to unanimously win an online argument.

Another problem with the online text discussion format is the amount of people who come here to post but they don't come here to discuss; for many the idea of conceding even a single point in an online discussion seems tantamount to allowing their opponent to teabag them in public for 'winning'.

 

[zinfamous]

A big problem in countering hate is the text format. When encountering someone face-to-face, there's a lot more to go on to gauge the situation and decide how to respond. The fact of the matter is that public shaming does work in some scenarios, like if Schrödinger's Douchebag gets a unanimous negative reaction, then they'll likely not pull that stunt again; many people are cowards and will test their douchebaggery out in public and will grow bolder if they get away with it.

In text format I think whether you actually get through to someone is largely a lottery because you don't have the extra in-person cues to get a feel for whether they're receptive to your arguments.

My way throughout my life has always been to confront problems and be pretty direct about it, and I don't claim to be any kind of success story, however I've seen on enough occasions the damage that not confronting does. In recent years I've been tempering my approach with people online because I do agree with you to some extent that laying on the insults is unlikely to help, nor is trying to unanimously win an online argument.

Another problem with the online text discussion format is the amount of people who come here to post but they don't come here to discuss; for many the idea of conceding even a single point in an online discussion seems tantamount to allowing their opponent to teabag them in public for 'winning'.

agreed. my overarching thesis of the impending downfall of modern human societies (which I started thinking would be a thing ~1999), was that we've co-opted our ~1 million year evolution of communication into a text-based, remote and social media format over the course of (then) 5 years to now 25 years.

This doesn't work for us, because none of this is how humans communicate. We let the soulless ghouls determine how humans should communicate, and somehow not enough of us ever cared if that was a good idea or not.....oh because the right ~dozen people were going to become astronomically wealthy over the proposition of ending human communication and replacing it with a monetized, data-driven profit stream.

I started with learning to distrust AOL instant messenger, SMS seemed useful but a bit dangerous. MySpace seemed kind of harmless but also rife for abuse. Facebook and soon after Twitter appeared downright demonic to me when they pooped into the world. I recall being shown Facebook when it was still locked to a University email address, and thought "well this is a downright horrifying thing."

 

[skyking]

A big problem in countering hate is the text format. When encountering someone face-to-face, there's a lot more to go on to gauge the situation and decide how to respond. The fact of the matter is that public shaming does work in some scenarios, like if Schrödinger's Douchebag gets a unanimous negative reaction, then they'll likely not pull that stunt again; many people are cowards and will test their douchebaggery out in public and will grow bolder if they get away with it.

In text format I think whether you actually get through to someone is largely a lottery because you don't have the extra in-person cues to get a feel for whether they're receptive to your arguments.

My way throughout my life has always been to confront problems and be pretty direct about it, and I don't claim to be any kind of success story, however I've seen on enough occasions the damage that not confronting does. In recent years I've been tempering my approach with people online because I do agree with you to some extent that laying on the insults is unlikely to help, nor is trying to unanimously win an online argument.

Another problem with the online text discussion format is the amount of people who come here to post but they don't come here to discuss; for many the idea of conceding even a single point in an online discussion seems tantamount to allowing their opponent to teabag them in public for 'winning'.

I think the internet thing is a gigantic waste of time. Out in the real world the changes are so subtle that you have to be there, as you pointed out.
I live in a MAGA microclimate on the blue side of a relatively blue state. I have one neighbor who I have also worked with and known 20 years, who has a son in federal prison from the January 6 event. He has put away his MAGA hats for now, and just maybe he has figured out who really victimized him and his family.
Our former neighbor is a Viet Nam vet who used to casually drop N-bombs. I have watched both of them change their behaviors. For my part I just wear them down.
He has quit his Public Displays of Racism (PDR) and also ditched his hateful choirboy due to finally recognizing him as an abuser.
The guy who moved into his house is a closeted Trumper. I went into his shop and saw a big Trump 2020 banner inside where you would only see it if you were right there. I have not started chipping away at that guy because we don't talk much, but it is in the back of my mind.
He is already a proven chickenshit
I'm not going to get anywhere with them if I shout them down and insult them, a-la internet.
I could do that and remove all access and declare victory, but in terms of effecting change, it would be a pyrrhic one.
Do I occasionally have to hold my nose and my tongue? You bet I do. I pick the battles I can win.

 

[pmv]

Fucking hell, you've really gone off the deep end.

In answer to your question, no, I don't believe that it's in any way a reasonable solution to exterminate all Trump supporters and other wannabe fascists. Such an act would open the door to exterminating all instances of 'wrongthink'.

The other point is that not only are not all Trump supporters irremediable (granted, by this point many of those remaining probably are), but there are some who are not Trump supporters who can't be trusted either. And if you round up and shoot all the Trump supporters, you'll be left alone with those guys.

IMO it would be an extreme punishment even for all of those who participated in Jan 6th, despite the fact that they attempted to overthrow the government. However, if say a minigun was mounted on the Capitol building and the rioters were sufficiently warned that if they pass a certain point then they will be fired upon, I wouldn't feel sorry for anyone who decided to press on anyway. It's one of the few appropriate times where such an extreme response was warranted. Democracy on that day should have been far more aggressively defended.

The defense should have occurred much earlier, and in a non-lethal way. Stronger efforts taken earlier would have obviated the need to shoot anyone. The trouble with your minigun concept is it's not hard to guess who such tactics would be used against next, and with less restraint shown. Seems quite significant that there were cops on both sides of those barricades. Those who would be employing the minigun are not entirely unrelated to the rioters.

 

[mikeymikec]

The defense should have occurred much earlier, and in a non-lethal way. Stronger efforts taken earlier would have obviated the need to shoot anyone. The trouble with your minigun concept is it's not hard to guess who such tactics would be used against next, and with less restraint shown. Seems quite significant that there were cops on both sides of those barricades. Those who would be employing the minigun are not entirely unrelated to the rioters.

A lot of things should have happened far sooner. Basically, Trump should have been reined in by his own party, and if that failed, he should have been impeached. I'm not saying my minigun idea is a GOOD idea, it blatantly isn't.

I think if you worry too much about setting a precedent in extreme circumstances, by doing so you're enabling the overall problem to snowball until your only options that will be left will be far more extreme than the precedents you worried about setting: Civil war, atrocity, an entire generation afflicted with PTSD, trillions of dollars spent rebuilding that should have been spent on civilisation making progress.

Trump and his ilk don't bat an eyelid at "setting precedents". If the GQP had succeeded in its coup, what do you suppose would have happened next. IMO at the very least the entire Democratic party and its appointees in the supreme court would be under indefinite house arrest, at least until all records pointing towards the factual election result had been doctored or destroyed as appropriate. Who would stand in their way, someone who worries about "setting precedent"?

"Setting precedent" is only a valid argument when you and your opponent are playing according to the same rulebook. The GQP has no rulebook.

 

[pmv]

"Setting precedent" is only a valid argument when you and your opponent are playing according to the same rulebook. The GQP has no rulebook.

I think you miss the last part of my point. The cops who would be operating such a minigun (or whatever other 'firm measures' that's a metaphor for) are closely related to the GQP mob. Some of their number were literally part of that mob. It's not about 'precedent' its whether you are sure you want to cheer on and empower a state apparatus that to a large degree actively sympathises with the GQP and shares their aims.

 

[nakedfrog]

Kansas making sure they don't lose their shithole state status.

Kansas must undo gender changes for trans people in state records, attorney general says

The conservative Republican attorney general of Kansas says a new Kansas law requires the state to reverse any previous gender changes in its records for trans people’s birth certificates and driver’s licenses while also preventing such changes going forward.

apnews.com

 

[brycejones]

Kansas making sure they don't lose their shithole state status.

Kansas must undo gender changes for trans people in state records, attorney general says

The conservative Republican attorney general of Kansas says a new Kansas law requires the state to reverse any previous gender changes in its records for trans people’s birth certificates and driver’s licenses while also preventing such changes going forward.

apnews.com

This is mostly a Kobach is the most horrible Kansan move. Before he used to beat up on immigrants now he wants to beat up on people based on their gender and sexual identity. His primary talent is raising millions for lawsuits he loses.

 

[kitkat22]

I love these "let's define male and female" focusing on reproductive ability.

There's so many problems with this narrow definition and excludes people straight out of the gate. Intersex people are excluded by this definition.

These defining laws are easily broken. The stupid thing is we have to go through it.

 

[Jaskalas]

I love these "let's define male and female" focusing on reproductive ability.

There is a not so insignificant portion of the population that continues to view Sex and Gender as one in the same.
You mention intersex because it is the sole exception that merits some flexibility, or at least a genetic test to confirm.
It also applies to so very few people as to not merit sweeping societal changes and redefinition of basic terms.

 

[kitkat22]

So, I have to prove to the government my medical concerns?

Over the past 4 months I have diagnosed 4 individuals as intersex/disorder of sexual development. Each one has had a longstanding history of gender dysphoria. Over that time frame they are accused of being fake, frauds, "get over it," going to hell, freaks, monsters, perverts, pedophiles, groomers, liers, mental illness and so on. Their parents have been accused of being sick, wrong, horrible parents, "I'm calling CPS" and so on.

Turns out one has Swyers, 2 have Kallmans (including myself) and a CAIS. These are individuals assigned female at birth and it wasn't until they get results back on gene studies that they find out they are XY.

Oh, and each one menstrautes and one was surgically confirmed to have ovaries. (They had a bicornate uterus.)

So, everyone should get a genetic test? Mine was over a $1000. Most people don't have a thousand and insurance doesn't pay for it. They only consider testing if you are clearly intersex at birth or there are problems with puberty. Funny how there are those that fly under that radar.

Sex and gender ARE more complicated than male and female and man and woman.

 

[pmv]

There is a not so insignificant portion of the population that continues to view Sex and Gender as one in the same.
You mention intersex because it is the sole exception that merits some flexibility, or at least a genetic test to confirm.
It also applies to so very few people as to not merit sweeping societal changes and redefinition of basic terms.

I think that one exception is a problem for the idea that it's a pure binary. It only takes one counter-example to disprove a general rule.

And it seems to me it highlights the fact that we don't, in reality, have a particularly deep understanding of what 'gender' is, and what the relation is between the physical body and people's subjective internal experiences - thus everyone needs to show a bit of humility in the context of that lack of knowledge. Hence I find myself with a bit of a "why can't we all just get along?" attitude to the whole issue. Just find some compromises and workarounds for the practical issues that come up, as the data doesn't justify absolutist positions of any kind.

 

[mikeymikec]

I think you miss the last part of my point. The cops who would be operating such a minigun (or whatever other 'firm measures' that's a metaphor for) are closely related to the GQP mob. Some of their number were literally part of that mob. It's not about 'precedent' its whether you are sure you want to cheer on and empower a state apparatus that to a large degree actively sympathises with the GQP and shares their aims.

Re your first point here, surely that's a question of picking the right people for the job. Re 'cheer on and empower' - this seems like a generalised "law enforcement is right wing and will be against you" argument, which if it's an accurate generalisation of virtually the entirety of all law enforcement / national guard / military in America, then America has already lost against the fascists, it's just a question of when the fascists will stop playing with their food.

 

[nakedfrog]

There is a not so insignificant portion of the population that continues to view Sex and Gender as one in the same.
You mention intersex because it is the sole exception that merits some flexibility, or at least a genetic test to confirm.
It also applies to so very few people as to not merit sweeping societal changes and redefinition of basic terms.

We don't have good statistics on it, but it's estimated that there are as many people with DSD as there are redheads.
Why am I, in your eyes, essentially unworthy of being treated in a way that's greatly beneficial to both my mental and physical well-being? Is there some great harm being done to society by making small changes to society and definitions? We've already had these changes in many, many places in the US for years and years, surely there would be evidence to show the harm you're trying to avoid?

 

[kitkat22]

We don't have good statistics on it, but it's estimated that there are as many people with DSD as there are redheads.
Why am I, in your eyes, essentially unworthy of being treated in a way that's greatly beneficial to both my mental and physical well-being? Is there some great harm being done to society by making small changes to society and definitions? We've already had these changes in many, many places in the US for years and years, surely there would be evidence to show the harm you're trying to avoid?

From my anecdotal experience helping people understand their genetic testing, DSD is very much underestimated.

Disorders of sex development - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

One of the estimated more common conditions, Klinefelter's, is estimated at 1 in 500 based on a study in 1991 looking at chromosome abnormalities in about 35000 newborns in Denmark. However, if you look at the full details it mentions the combined incidence of sex chromosome and autosomal abnormalities was 1 per 118 children. That, of course, was in 1991. Since then, we can can likely repeat the study with more of our current understanding and add a lot more. Shoot, SRY wasn't even discovered until 1996!

 

[nakedfrog]

From my anecdotal experience helping people understand their genetic testing, DSD is very much underestimated.

Disorders of sex development - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

One of the estimated more common conditions, Klinefelter's, is estimated at 1 in 500 based on a study in 1991 looking at chromosome abnormalities in about 35000 newborns in Denmark. However, if you look at the full details it mentions the combined incidence of sex chromosome and autosomal abnormalities was 1 per 118 children. That, of course, was in 1991. Since then, we can can likely repeat the study with more of our current understanding and add a lot more. Shoot, SRY wasn't even discovered until 1996!

I think it is indeed incredibly likely that we don't have an accurate understanding of the impact and scope of DSD.
I do suspect that even if we were able to do a simple test to define whether someone is trans, @Jaskalas would still insist we try to "fix" the person rather than apply the already well-supported approach that modern medicine has already identified, because he doesn't agree with it. Despite him not being qualified to offer an alternative, just sort of opining that "there must be some other method", maybe the classic "just learn to love yourself as you are", which is approximately as helpful as suggesting people with clinical depression "just not be so depressed, try being happier".

 

[Greenman]

I love these "let's define male and female" focusing on reproductive ability.

There's so many problems with this narrow definition and excludes people straight out of the gate. Intersex people are excluded by this definition.

These defining laws are easily broken. The stupid thing is we have to go through it.

Isn't the entire animal kingdom divided into male/female based on reproductive ability? Parthenogenesis doesn't often occur in the higher life forms.

 

[hal2kilo]

This is a wonderful article that spells out clearly the state of modern conservatism and it's scary foundations.

A short history of the conservative intellectual: They don't exist

From Burke to Buckley to Patrick Deneen, we've seen a 200-year history of defending the indefensible

www.salon.com

However much modern theorists have elaborated upon the ideas inherent in conservatism during the two centuries since Maistre, they all seem to me to boil down to three simple points:

1. A desire for hierarchy and human inequality. This belief derives from the medieval religious notion of the Great Chain of Being, whereby there is a place for everybody and everybody must know his place. It justifies economic exploitation and denial of political rights. Conservative writers propagandize on its behalf with a straw-man argument: Any gain in equality costs society an equal or greater loss in freedom; egalitarianism is the mere soulless equality of the gulag, where we cannot own property and must share toothbrushes. This sentiment pops up consistently in the works of American conservative theorists, from Buckley's "Unless you have freedom to be unequal, there is no such thing as freedom," to David Brooks' hankering for rule by a wise elite. American-style laissez-faire economics and libertarianism are largely based on this idea.
2. The only acceptable society is based on Christianity. Never mind the establishment clause of the First Amendment; conservatives will forever try to smuggle in more and more official endorsement of religion until the United States is effectively a theocracy. The rationale is that some sort of divine or transcendental dispensation is the sole basis for a just temporal order. Translated into the bumper-sticker mentality of American Christian fundamentalism, that means that if people don't believe in God, there's nothing to stop them from running amok and killing people. This thesis would have been news to medieval crusaders, the Holy Inquisition, Francisco Franco's Falangists or the Russian Archbishop Kyrill, who has blessed Putin's invasion of Ukraine and the resulting carnage.
3. We must obey tradition. For some unexplained reason, our ancestors were infinitely wiser than us, and apparently they get a vote on present affairs. To paraphrase Edmund Burke, if we're going to have democracy, let's extend it to the dead. Scratch someone who fancies himself an educated conservative and you will often find a person who reveres the past; unfortunately they leave out details like slavery, witch burning and childbed fever. Many psychologists consider this mentality to be a cognitive bias in brain function, but whatever its source, the political utility of the attitude is obvious: Utopia only exists in an ever-receding past, progress is impossible, and future generations shall profess bygone superstitions. And tradition, in this case, means the folkways of a specific, favored culture, thus denying the universality of the human spirit. The idea is well expressed by Buckley's statement that conservatives must "stand athwart history yelling 'stop.'"

One can grasp that the three precepts dovetail together in that they all rely on dogmatic assertion, denial of a scientific or empirical basis of reality and reactionary nostalgia. They are also pretty thin gruel for founding an intellectual tradition: there are simply too many departments of knowledge, for instance, much of science, that must be declared off limits to prevent them from tainting the party line. This is why conservatives habitually retreat into mysticism, gut feelings and the wisdom of our fathers when the facts are against them. It is more accurate to say that conservatism is a counter-intellectual activity that sometimes employs the trappings of intellectual discourse.