this post was submitted on 24 Dec 2023
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God (who is white) forbid that little Timmy should ever be made to feel "uncomfortable" about the uncomfortable parts of human history. And why is it that today's kid's seem so molly-coddled and unconcerned about justice? Hmmm - it's a real puzzlement all right. And after all real "christianity" is about how tightly you put those little brains into braces so they can't be upset by reality.
I have heard that the younger generations are the opposite actually - b/c of having access to the internet and reading, they are being exposed at a younger age than ever before to things such as the fact that USA killed off the native Americans (genocidally murdering/raping/thieving/etc.), and also owned human beings. The parents ofc are freaking out, and trying to stop this "knowledge", or at least they say that they want to slow, and not expose little Timmy to things that he doesn't need to know about until he is older.
The odd part is that children are extremely resilient - they can accept death as natural, and the fact that this nation in its past has made some questionable (okay so fine: downright EVIL) choices - but it is the PARENTS that are the ones who cannot accept that.
The Baby Boomer generation in particular, I've noticed, seems to prefer this "let's pretend" attitude, perhaps as a result of growing up emotionally scarred from all the wars (WWII, Korea, Vietnam), they just want to pretend that everything is fine, even as the world burns (in some cases, literally) around them.
I'm not saying I think kids have to have their faces shoved into the ugly side of things, but I think kids ARE more knowledgeable these days and have greater access to the horrible truths about human slavery and such. And I think they should know about it - because being aware is how you stop from repeating the mistakes of history.
I also agree about kids being extremely resilient. They can take a LOT of facts into their heads, like sponges, and not be destroyed by such knowledge. Of course parents don't want to imagine their kids having to see or know about unpleasant stuff - but sometimes that's the way to teach examples of how we, as humans, have failed each other.
For example (as a Boomer myself), in driver's ed we had to watch gory accident movies filmed by the police, including things that would turn a hardcore horror fan's stomach. Nobody enjoyed (I HOPE) watching those things, but you can bet they scared some of us silly enough to be cautionary drivers and be more careful behind the wheel.
No, the truth isn't always beautiful, it can be harsh and disturbing. Yet not facing it always results in more bad outcomes.
Absolutely. Though as we were discussing elsewhere in this post, humans can be evil, and selfish, and greedy, and people can literally help bring back slavery rather than force themselves to truly look at it, call it out as "bad", and do something about it.
I somewhat understand the other side of the argument as well - like, if someone was old and just wanted to lie back and enjoy life for awhile (as we all will be someday, unless we die first), then who am I to take action or even desire to stop such a one from doing exactly that? On the other hand, someone who ACTUALLY does that causes little to no harm, whereas someone who does the OPPOSITE of that, e.g. by taking the action to vote - whether at a local school board, or on the state or especially federal level - that is when such a person's rights end, the very moment that they begin to infringe upon the rights of others.
And like, if a child were to take a book out of the library and burn it, wouldn't that child get in trouble? Maybe they would have to pay a fine, perhaps have disciplinary action taken against them such as being suspended, or if mitigating circumstances coexist then at least be sent to counseling? So how much more in trouble should an adult get into, if they likewise burn a book, or maybe... oh... let's say that they lead a violent attempt to overthrow the democratically-elected government, shitting on the constitution and in the process, cause at least one police officer to be killed, brutally, with his screams of agony caught on video - how much should such a person be punished? (That is a trick question obviously, b/c it presumes that "justice" is what is dispensed at all.) Let us call this "individual 1", but moving past that, how much responsibility would a new person hold, let's call them "individual 2" if even AFTER all of that occurred, and I mean it is not secret but rather came to light and was publicly condemned by people in positions of authority everywhere (Democrats, Republicans, Independents, in the Executive, Legislative - both House and Senate - Judicial, as in Supreme Court, DOJ, federal lower courts, etc.), this person (individual 2) actually votes for individual 1?
When we step up to become leaders, then we take on additional responsibility beyond the common man. Voting is similarly a position of responsibility, in determining what will be done in the USA. As people vote - again, whether in small, local matters such as school board issues, or even more so at the larger levels that affect so many more people besides one's own self + family + even neighbors - I would hope that they would remember the lessons of history, so that we do not have to repeat them. However, since that turns out not to be true, it seems that slavery will be coming back... it is here already in fact, in many areas in the south where there are more incarcerated black people than there ever were as slaves, and I am not entirely convinced that everyone in there is fully a "criminal" (maybe, but the systems that push for convictions based on quotas, in those for-profit institutions, lends credence to the thought that not ALL of them are that way...); plus in any case employment seems to be becoming more slave-like all the time, as the "American dream" of potentially owning a home and thereby becoming financially independent is increasingly being taken away from so very many. We are already re-walking those paths, that so long ago we turned away from in disgust, but like a dog returning to its vomit... we cannot seem to help ourselves. Finally, I want to add that many people, e.g. in WWI and WWII both, literally gave their lives to fight against fascism spreading in other countries - however, fast-forward to today and a goodly fraction of people in America are indicating that they want to fight on the side for fascism, rather than against it. We are moving backwards, and not slowly either, but practically at a run:-( (though precisely how fast nobody seems to know, and I for one do not trust any media source anymore, nor do I see that changing anytime soon, which in itself should be an extremely troubling warning sign of things yet to come).
There is still slavery in the world, sad to say, so yes people can finds way to justify just about anything.
Well luckily I'm at the "lie back and enjoy life" stage of life myself - and it's great! But it doesn't mean I don't do other things, like volunteer work or help with charity gambling nights and such here and there.
And I'm right with you on that punishment for someone who willfully attempts to overthrow America and all it stands for, shitting on the constitution and believing their rights are more important than those of anyone else. The killing of that police officer was unimaginably horrific - what won't such people stop at? To me, it cries out for institutionalization of that person for the duration of their life, it's just too dangerous to let such violent people roam around free.
It seems difficult to put such people in jail for such "crimes" when for one thing, >40% of Americans think that it was a good thing, and for another thing, several congresspeople have stated that they were there and participated - some even lying about that - as a badge of honor and pride. Truth has gotten "twisted" so that it is not "True" anymore, in some people's minds. Brainwashing techniques - e.g. repeating something ad nauseam so as to bypass the logical thought processes and instill it as "simply a fact" (even/especially when it is no such thing) - are extremely powerful, and I see efforts to use it on both sides of the political divide.
Speaking of, at one point in our history we were Americans first, members of a political party second, but this is no longer true, and nowadays someone's political affiliation is the single greatest defining characteristic of them (that btw is not true - or at least might not be!? - but it seems to be many people's perception in any case:-D).
And therefore, in order to stop the badness that whatever the "other side" will do, yes even murder captured on television apparently can be excused, and even celebrated for just how "peaceful" that protest was, and b/c it was so "peaceful", perhaps it should be done again, around... oh, let's say... the time of the next election maybe?
I guess we will see what happens.
That's true, but I believe about 40 or 50% of the American population is totally insane and clinically dangerous to other people. They are likely to see any sort of insurrection and violence against our country as being a "good thing."
I remember growing up in the 60s, a very divisive era, and how people were constantly bickering, the left was demonized, and the right was hated for their insistence on funding a non-winnable war and for hating the younger generation, it was quite a volatile time. I've not seen much of the "we're American's first" mentality, even after 911, but I always like to think it could still happen.
I watched the violent uprising on Jan 6th on television, and it would take an incredibly insane and unbalanced mentality to view it as being any sort of "peaceful" event. It most certainly wasn't. And it wasn't just a protest, it was a blatant attempt to destroy the country of America and everything we've built for the past two centuries.
And yeah, this coming political year will be the worst and most bloody in world history. What is going to happen this time around will change many people's beliefs about who should be allowed to run around with guns in our country. It will be ugly, but it will be exactly what the world needs to see to begin a process of shutting violent people down at any cost.
If you will allow me, I beg to differ: violence is the APPROPRIATE response, sometimes - rarely but not never. e.g., if you had a child who was being mauled by a dog, wouldn't you go to their aid, and strike the dog to get it to go away? Of course you would - any sane, responsible person would.
These people are being brainwashed into thinking that by rising up, they are protecting the "true America". Their heartfelt desire to protect things is GOOD. Their willingness to rise up and actually do something is GOOD. They are not complacent - they are literal heroes, in their own minds at least, but also called thus by those they respect, on the television, in the radio, in the "news" sources they choose to read, etc.
That is what is so twisted about the whole thing - it is not their badness or weaknesses that are being exploited (greed, lust, laziness, etc.), so much as their STRENGTHS, which are being re-directed towards an end that those who employ violence have not bothered to think through and understand. There IS a weakness involved, probably several (crowd mentality, giving up your agency to another rather than questioning everything - e.g. I Thessalonians 5:21 commands, though many preachers, especially evangelical Christianity, behind the pulpits in the Heartland of America do not teach that anymore... and instead are laying out the exact opposite message), but I do not think these people are themselves insane, so much as they are merely "normal".
Which is not to say that the overall effect is not insanity, ofc.
And yeah I suspect the "Americans first" thing would be more the previous generation, like during WWI & II, when people had to stand together regardless of political affiliation, against an outside aggressor. Whereas today, that outside aggressor has patiently lain in wait for so long that the call (for violence) is now coming from inside our own house... even if its' true origin derives from outside of it, e.g. Faux News dictating the talking points that Americans should follow, even if those came originally from Russia. Even if the latter country were to cease to exist literally today, the damage has already been done, and people in the USA now think how they wanted them to; but conversely even if the Republican party were to cease to exist today, those outside forces would continue to push for their desired ends... It is pressure from outside, and yet people today do not see it as that, and willingly go along with it.
Well of course you're welcome to differ, I enjoy your points of view and I'm not the sort who gets offended because of a differing point of view; in fact, I welcome it.
You're right, there are times violence might be necessary, and yes of course I'd intervene if a violence situation threatened any of my family members or pets. I don't condone violence at all but I get how it sometimes can happen anyway.
Yet I can't really condone willful violence against government officials, no matter how wrong-headed their actions may seem. I know some people believe that violence is justified when they are being disenfranchised, but I say that only brings about more misery for everyone.
But I agree with your points about outside aggressors having waited patiently for so long and now are having a field day. Again I totally am against it, waving weapons around and threatening LGBTQ people for being who they are, for example - that is never OK. I hate to see the worst of America being the example that others aspire to follow.
All I can say is, I can only do my part not to contribute to the violent attitude out there. Change is a process that requires small steps, not big acts of violence. Hopefully we can work together again as one people at being a more inclusive and non-violent nation.
(I am giving up on kbin working)
We might agree more than we are letting on. I am doing a horrible job explaining my position though:-(. For one, I think we both agree that hypothetically there are SOMETIMES cases that only violence can solve, and then the real trick is to figure out when & where those cases are, yet they are EXCEEDINGLY rare and caution is best advised until people are ABSOLUTELY certain. And politically speaking, they almost never happen, but when they do they involve great deliberation and care, e.g. the USA entering into WWI and WWII in order to stop the spread of aggressive, violent nations at the expense of our allies; or like Ukranians defending their homeland from an imminent and ongoing invasion attempt.
But none of that describes what happened on January 6. I mean, how does defecating on a desk "protect the constitution"? Or smashing random stuff, rioting, looting, or crushing a police officer literally to death? Some of the people there, during the earlier peaceful phase, truly just wanted their voices to be heard, while others just were angry and took the excuse to do violence. But if someone truly wanted to "protect the constitution" as they claimed, then I happen to think that it might be worth, you know, reading it first!? Which takes real effort - maybe literal years of study in order to fully understand the context and all parts involved.
I suppose what I was trying to say then is that these outside agitators take a very real, honest, and good desire to do something - protect the homeland from badness - but twist it into conveying that you do NOT need to do the hard stuff like "study", and instead you can simply show up at such and such an address at such and such a time, and your presence alone will be mostly enough. Bonus points for bringing guns, whether loaded or not they make a good "tough" image. Some very few people go a step further and do the actual violence, but it really helps to be able to blend into a crowd, i.e. the gullible people who have a conscience but weak follow-through (to actually understand any of what is going on) can be useful to those who desire to use them as meat-shields.
And to be clear I am neither advocating for the political violence, nor especially for the intentional gullibility that allows someone to be used as a meat shield by someone who actually does intend harm to innocents. I only meant that I understand that feeling at the very core, the feeling that is the targt that is being twisted and subverted by those with crafty plots, that to protect one's home country is a good thing:-). Which is what makes the whole thing all the more sickening - b/c it is not merely greed or malice or gluttony or lust or some such that is being exploited, but rather the very GOOD desire to protect the innocents in this nation! i.e., those who are causing the spread of violence, whether they actively do the violence personally are not, they think they are actually doing GOOD (in the same way that you or I would use violence to protect a child from an animal's attack - it actually can be a GOOD desire, at least when used solely in the appropriate context), however in reality they are causing grievous harm (by taking that good and doing it in an incorrect context).:-(
But that is the boundary up to which I feel like I understand. Beyond that, I am hella confused - especially what can be done about it, if anything at this point.:-(
I agree on all counts - including that Kbin is probably the most aggravating site I've ever used. I've never had so many problems with any social media site before.
I think we do agree on most everything, I absolutely agree with your comments about January 6th. I don't think that random acts of vandalism and violence like that do anything to help anybody - if anything, it actually showed people the real face of American extremism and how bad things can get when we encourage violence.
To me, anyone who wants to take a good honest swing at doing something good to protect our democracy needs to get out and vote, and encourage everyone they know to do the same. Honestly, the big problem we have is that many people just think "well my vote doesn't matter," so a large segment of them do nothing.
They say that all that has to happen to allow evil to flourish is for good men to do nothing. To me strength and "toughness" come from being intelligence and listening to each other and working against the idea that it's OK to act like a spoiled brat if things don't always go your way.
When Reddit began its collapse, Lemmy really was not quite ready, but it was roughly in beta stage, so it was close enough, plus the influx of programmers helped spur its development into high-gear, including mobile apps and all sorts of back- and front-end work.
kbin on the other hand was still in alpha stage, and then Ernst had all those family/health/personal problems, while at the same time refusing to let anyone share even minimal control of the project (reportedly?) - he also had a similar influx of programmers, who literally fixed problems that then just sat there in the code repositories, waiting for Ernst to look over & approve them. I liked the philosophy and look of kbin better, but c'mon, I've waited since July or whenever it was (e.g. I just tried to look that up to confirm the date, but ofc even multiple attempts I cannot b/c it will not connect to the server), and it is basically still in the alpha stage even now. I stopped recommending it soon after joining, starting actively warning people away soon thereafter, and finally decided to be the change I needed to see in the world, and switch. Without an account switching process, it has taken me HOURS to find and set things up, and I still am not entirely done:-( - thus even if kbin decides to fix itself, I doubt I would want to invest in all of that again in order to switch back. I wish kbin luck in its future endeavors but... it does seem unlikely to change its ways anytime soon at this point, tbh. As the famous saying goes, "When someone tries to tell you who they are, it is best to listen to them the first time."
About “well my vote doesn’t matter,” - tbh that's actually true though, in one narrow sense at least. From the numerical standpoint, if you live in a county that always votes one way, then whether you vote or not or whoever you decide to vote for, literally will not influence anything at all. More to the point, you need to do heavy research prior to voting especially in the primaries. e.g. I was drawn to Bernie Sanders, but after hearing what people such as Obama had to say about him, am perhaps glad that he did not win the primary? He is authentic like a prophet, but could he make the tough decisions that a King (in our case President but the quote related it in Old Testament Biblical terminology) must sometimes make? Plus, there is a goodly chance that him running on the Dems ticket could have turned the middle-ground folks to Donald Trump on the Repub ticket? After like a year of studying him, I understand the whole situation much better, but back when I first heard about him I was working 80-hr weeks and then lost my job so... I could have made a decision that I would later regret? i.e., I am saying that it is not so simple as "we must all go out and vote" - in order to be proper CITIZENS we must first prepare ourselves to become good leaders of the nation, and THEN do the proper research, before we finally VOTE to help select the course that literally the entire nation will be following for many many years to come. It does no good to skip those first two steps and THEN vote, and conversely it really does active harm if in doing so we hollow ourselves out to become the puppets of whoever it is whose thoughts we decide to echo as if they were our own, e.g. if we watch Faux News and then vote according to what THEY say, instead of what we KNOW to be true ourselves. In the latter approach, we do harm by converting the nation from a democracy of informed citizenry into a plutocracy where whoever buys the largest media coverage wins the election. So... I know this is an unpopular opinion, but if all the people who don't know shit would STOP voting, I thnk this would be a much better place, overall! And yes, I include myself in that as well, especially my past self that knew less than I do now - but also my future one, if e.g. I get busy and do not put in the proper time to study the situation, then wouldn't it be better to recuse myself from voting in that particular instance, than to just take a wild guess? That's not how doctors do surgery, or scientists/engineers do their thing, that's not how soldiers advance on the battlefield, or cops patrol an area - there, when you pull a gun, you know that you better mean it. And those jobs all require years... or at least days of training, so why is it that we push people to vote, without asking anything more of them at all? To be fair, probably it was implicit in your statement to "get out and vote", but I think most people today - all the way from the youngest up to the most senior - have culturally and collectively forgotten that original meaning, and now we just watch TV and vote however it says we should, on both sides.
Plus then there's the aspect that dumb people still feel frustration - bless their hearts, but they do, and yet they do not know how to deal with it. Even if they vote, they still KNOW that that is not enough... to stop all the badness that the "other side" will do. It is a very effective psychological weapon that is used against the most vulnerable in our society. Who then also are the most likely to turn to violence. Perhaps the real crime is not even them, or at least not only them, but those who put out those calls to violence in the first place? Oh but wait, that is "protect free speech" - and yet... is it, is it really, when it is designed to cause violence & death, and then it actually causes violence & death, almost like the call somehow caused the response? If only facts actually mattered, then something might be done about it! But sadly, they do not, in this corrupt environment:-(.
Is it okay if I say that I agree with you 1000% there? (something, I mean I know that is not mathematically possible but... it certainly feels like it:-P)