But Biden directly shoots Gazan children himself so you should throw your vote away on a green party candidate instead. Trust me.

Yeah, Trump will be worse and we should just ignore everything Democrats have accomplished or try to accomplish by lumping them in with the worst of their party while blaming them for everything a Republican has done like the sane non brainwashed person I am. I’m helping! I swear! People do more when they’re hopeless!

https://www.whitehouse.gov/therecord/

Honestly the thing people need to do is just call it out for the ludicrousness it is every time. People think it’s a popular opinion and it may be in some circles. But don’t let it just slide. Make fun of it. Call it out for the propaganda it is. You don’t have to be a paid Russian troll to push prop. People here can fall for it just as easily as the people wacthing Fox News.

Politicians love non-voters, one less idiot they need to convince.

Should have known the whole thing was suspect when they landed at the same place they left from.

Not exactly. The motivation to leave Europe is right in the Constitution if you look at it carefully enough. The whole church of England (or whatever country) thing was their big problem. They wanted to go somewhere that they didn’t have a mandatory church so everyone would be free to practice whatever religion they want. At the time if the church of England was Catholic and you were Protestant, there would be problems (and vice versa).

I’m not sure that the founding fathers really considered that having no religion was also valid, and that having a non-Christian religion was also valid, but that’s exactly the ideas they tried to enshrine in the Constitution.

The right wing nutjobs wanting to make their religious beliefs into law would be dissidents when the United States signed that piece of paper declaring themselves as a new country. IMO, they still are, and bluntly, they should go. If they’re not willing to be tolerant of other faiths, then they’re being rather un-American.

Yup. Nobody should need therapy. Nobody should need a liver transplant either. Nobody should need insulin injections.

But, the first step to recovery is accepting what is, rather than what should be.

How about trying to end those things, by using techniques that work? (hint: outrage is not in that category)

Love me some Kavernacle 🤙

With outrage and nihilism?

What good could possibly ever come from that?

I am pro basic human decency, I just wish more online leftists realize you get things done with a big tent. Perfect is the enemy of good.

Fred Hampton wasn’t killed by the FBI because he had the most stringent purity tests, he was killed cause he was able to convince a lot of people to come under his tent to fight for workers.

I can understand what they’re saying. You expect hateful shit from the right-wing assholes, and fighting against their bullshit is a worthy cause.

But the left is prickly, including to its allies. Hell, especially to its allies. And it is so much more exhausting when it is coming from your own side.

As an example, when Lil Nas X was accused of faking being gay for, I guess money, or pushing some agenda, he said “I just like dick” and that there’s nothing deep to it. People started attacking him for “trans erasure” and such nonsense. The man didn’t say he likes all dick, and I’m sure if it were attached to a woman, he wouldn’t be about it (and if there was a man without one, he presumably also would not be interested). It was a toss away comment that is easily understood in the context, and people felt the need to attack him for it. It should not bear this level of analysis and scrutiny, but here we are.

The purity tests usually come from leftist adjacent groups that actually have nothing to do with left wing ideology. Read Tankies and some extremely small groups of vegans (Most are fine). They for some reason love telling you “Lefties who aren’t [INSERT THING HERE] are hypocritical and not real leftists”

Really it’s a huge nothing burger complaining about silly people on twitter and Reddit who ultimately do not matter.

Ahhh, the purity test starts.

You’re right, I think concern trolling is absolutely a factor in the knee jerk hostility for some. I think there are some that probably think I’m concern trolling in this thread right now. Thankfully I think my post history is a decent indication I’m not.

Yes! It’s all our fault that you’re shitty online. Fuckin love it

False. The only thing you need to be a leftist is empathy, a willingness to learn, and a willingness to teach what you’ve learned.

Leave your disdain at home. Disdain is what begets purity tests and misunderstandings. Everyone is born ignorant. Don’t disdain the ignorant. But don’t waste your time with those who refuse to learn.

As hard and frustrating as it can be for those in the west to escape the mental conditioning and brainwashing they all go through. It’s still sad to see people do that. Only to be indoctrinated into Marxist Leninist mindsets. Failing to learn from their failures of the last century. Which are often similarly, as bad as the capitalists.

Ah, but as a famous right-winger once pointed out, there are unknown unknowns.

When I discovered there was an emotion I had never felt before (by feeling it), it started my path toward conservatism.

I’ve always had empathy (actually my empathy had been whipped into an almost crippling over-sensitivity to the slightest discomfort in others by a childhood of emotional abuse), and a powerful, delightful curiosity about the world.

It seemed perfectly natural to me to be a leftist. (I’m actually a liberal but these days that comes off as right wing)

I believed what I was told about what conservatives believed:

• I got mine
• Fuck weak people
• Macho bullshit involving guns

I had a republican friend in high school. We’d debate politics, and he’d sit there giving reasoned responses to everything I said, and I’d eventually raise my voice for a forceful claim, and he … would calmly present some other evidence. Then I’d tell myself that he doesn’t understand because he’s middle class and comfortable, and too young to see how callous he’s being.

But then I went from poor to homeless. And while I was homeless, the only way to stay safe was to be armed. I got attacked, and discovered that there was a feeling beyond fear, called terror. I knew the word but assumed it meant extreme fear. That’s not what it refers to. It refers to a thing most of us don’t experience, because our society is so stable.

The terror refused to be ignored, even after it was over. It came with an imperative: I must never feel this again. My mind raced through the options. How could I make sure I never feel that again? I didn’t have a choice but to absorb this new knowledge of being’s extent into my philosophy.

I tried to buy pepper spray. Denied. Required a license in MA (law since changed, thank god), and as a homeless man I didn’t get licenses for things.

I had never felt injustice like that. Here I was without walls, without much muscle, without many calories, and living on the streets of Boston with drunk fuckheads who beat up homeless men for sport, and whereas reality has said “ah we’ve got a thing for that, called pepper spray. Great for getting attackers off you”, but the local government was like “Yeah but … you don’t get to have it”

And I realized why being armed is a human right.

Anyway I got a knife instead. Way less effective as a defense than pepper spray. It won’t stop an attack.

So along with the knife I had to vow that I would slice the next attacker crotch to chin. He might even kill me, but not without getting scarred for life. I had to vow this. The reasoning why I had to strike back while being killed is obvious to anyone who’s had to handle their own security without recourse to authority. And to anyone who hasn’t had to do that, unless they are completely, open-mindedly devoted to logic no matter where it takes them, they will simply reject the reasoning.

So I won’t bother spelling it out. You either get it or you don’t.

And because I have empathy, my understanding of weapons as a human right, and of the knowledge that the basement goes a lot deeper than most people have ever gone, translated into a new political philosophy. I don’t just want myself to be protected from drunk frat boys who decide to kick a man in the head repeatedly for no reason. I want everyone to be protected from that.

And not just the people in the future, after we’ve achieve star trek communism. Also right now. The people right now who have predators around them. I don’t want them to have to wait for society to completely reform itself, before they feel safe.

As a liberal I already believed in free market, self determination, merit, democracy, etc.

But the only people who understood my new stance toward being capable of mayhem, were conservatives.

Dang that was long.

And of course, the last thing to say is that people who are leftists because of ignorance of how bad it can get, don’t know that they don’t know this thing. They think they know the map, that there aren’t any parts of the map they haven’t seen. Therefore, the difference must be in a person’s values: they don’t give a shit about other people. Or, they simply don’t look into things, ie they must know less of the map, and that’s where the political difference comes from.

But sometimes the people on the other side went over there when they saw something you haven’t seen yet. Sometimes, the people who disagree with you do so because they know more, not less.