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If someone’s political stance is something like, “We should move to a VAT tax system like the U.K.”, I will be happy to entertain conversation with them. If their stance is something like, “We should ban trans people.” then they can fuck all the way off.
What if their political option is money good, no money not good? And that’s it.
You know the old saying: “Don’t judge a book by its contents.”
I find a cover a quite reasonable thing to judge a book on, especially when I’m going to thwack someone with it later
This is because politics isn’t identity, or at least it fuckin’ shouldn’t be. A person can change their political stances if they decide to. I’d go so far as to say that’s the point of judging people on the basis of their politics; the hope that it might get them to think about the consequences of their stances just a little bit.
That’s true. But when I encounter someone who ignores all rational arguments and instead continually clings to racist nonsense and the like, I can’t help but judge this person as a racist with whom I want nothing to do with. Politics thrives on discussion and the exchange of arguments. In my eyes, anyone who doesn’t want to see that has no right to be taken seriously.
Once upon a time, there were liberals and conservatives whose most significant differences were things like how much of the national budget we should allocate to defence. We’ve become much more polarized, and now we have a party that openly supports racism, has literally staged a failed coup, has aligned with fascist dictators, and wants to strip the rights from many of our friends and family. Yeah, judging them is the right thing to do.
Yes and no. Even in living memory, the Southern Strategy goes all the way back to the 60s, and explicitly identifies opposition to the civil rights movement as a conservative goal. Going all the way back to the Civil War, it’s undeniable how much the economy of the United States is built on slavery — opposing slavery is thus also an economic argument.
Point being, I don’t think there was some time in the past where economic policy could be so cleanly separated from racial justice, gender equality, queer rights, disability advocacy, and other things that are now seen as “polarizing.” Every economic debate is, I would posit, at least to some significant degree a proxy for a much more critical human rights debate.
'You start out in 1954 by saying, “Nigger, nigger, nigger.” By 1968 you can’t say “nigger”—that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract. Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites.… “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “Nigger, nigger.” ’ - Republican strategist Lee Atwater.
As you say, it’s never been possible to cleanly separate economics and social justice, as if there is somehow no moral dimension to how and where we choose to allocate our resources. Sometimes these things are straight up dogwhistles for more overtly prejudiced acts, and sometimes they reflect deeper and more subtle biases about the world. But there is always a moral dimension to everything we do.
Fair point
Fair points all around.
Exactly! Damn Democrat Deep State! /s
Anyone who says that always has ‘legalize kitten torture’ beliefs
Do they have bumper stickers for that?
taking notes
“Now two potential demographics interested in ‘Torture my pussy’ bumper stickers…”
You fucking BET I’ll judge someone for the groups with which THEY CHOSE to associate.
You should be careful! I mean this sounds logical, but taken to the extreme, it would mean that you judge people who are racist and actively support genocide even though they are always nice to you (assuming you are white). Do you really want that?
i think you might have dropped your “/s” homie.
because of course i fucking judge them XD
however nice they are to me does not absolve their cruelty toward others
i think you might have dropped your “/s” homie.
Damn, I really thought I didn’t need it. It kind of ruins the joke and I thought I made it clear enough
FWIW, to me the comment read as sarcastic from start to finish.
Text doesn’t convey tone, and not everyone who reads what you write knows you personally. The /s doesn’t ruin the joke near as much as the person who thinks you are being serious does when they raise a shit-fit over it.
The (assuming you are white) tipped me off.
“the left is so intolerant”
-guy standing in a group of Neo Nazis
“You should only judge people for sensible things like race and gender… and being left of “Race War Now!” as that’s a little cringe, the Left wants to claim they’re so tolerant, but they judge for something as petty as political affiliation…” - Average Nazi
Margaret Killjoy was recently talking on one podcast about mutual aid during the recent hurricanes. She was talking about how her neighbors probably have starkly opposite views as she does as a trans anarchist, but she believed that in a situation like this where it could mean life or death, that they would be able to set differences aside and work together for their mutual benefit.
She also went on to say that she didn’t hate them and wish them any harm, she just wished that they would stop holding on to hateful and hurtful beliefs.
Most of my family and my girlfriend’s families support just about all of this MAGA crap, but I don’t know if I could call a single one of them a bad person. Some of them treat me differently in what I feel are very obvious ways, but I didn’t believe any of them would let me suffer on purpose. They all seem to not have problems sympathizing with people or situations they are personally familiar with, but with concepts that they are unfamiliar with, they can find them unimportant, and develop bad takes on those things.
As my family is almost all conservative, I was raised that way, and until my later 20s, I had a lot of the same beliefs. As I met more people, learned more things, and developed opinions of my own, I am now mostly the opposite person I was. I can see how wrong I was about just about everything.
I feel it’s ok to hate the beliefs, and dissociate with people while they hold those beliefs, and especially while they act on those beliefs, which includes giving power to those pushing those values on others. I don’t think we should turn our backs totally to them as people though, if that makes sense. If they were hurt, I would still help them. If they needed something, I would help them to get it. If they want me to meet them somewhere in the middle ideologically, most likely not. But it’s part of my humanity to not leave someone to suffer just because they’ve got some dumbass beliefs.
You have every right to associate or not with whomever you wish. You can believe the opposite of people and think they are wrong for what they believe. But I think most people are inherently good. Some make it much harder to keep that belief, but I don’t think many are lost causes or irredeemable.
I really enjoy her work and her ethos of help first.
I was raised religious and at least moderately conservative, though thankfully neither parent has gone even remotely towards Trump’s nightmare orbit.
I am neither now and just keep wondering how people see someone different and think “that’s who caused ALL of my problems… and if I put them in a special camp, all of my problems will disappear”. Especially when said person is either a WWII vet or the child of one.
I think the problem is trying too hard to understand, when it’s something that can’t be understood.
I feel people have problems that really affect their lives badly. They’ve gone through the checklist of things their family and education has told them: they went to school, worked hard, got married, had kids, etc, yet they still feel bad every day. Either they’re still poor, hate their work, spent too much on a house, car, or other things, realized how expensive and hard kids can be, what have you. They dont understand why they did everything that they were supposed to but haven’t gotten anywhere.
They see people on TV or people they know that they feel have made it. They don’t know some just got lucky, or made it by stepping on people like them. These successful people look at who criticize them for being successful and say they’re just jealous and they shouldn’t have to give back anything they have just because they have more. The haters just need to go away and stop trying to take what isn’t theirs.
The wanna be successful hears these things, and it’s a better explanation than they come up with, and since it’s coming from someone who’s success they admire, they buy in.
For those of us not on that trajectory, it’s like seeing something funny in a picture that now you can’t not see it. It doesn’t make sense to look at any of this without seeing the pieces of their story don’t make sense. We know that most LGBT, people of other faiths, or that come from different places aren’t the ones keeping us from our dreams. Most of them are no better off than most of us. But the other people think if I don’t have x, it must be because someone else took what was supposed to be mine.
The South Park episode were Kyle is trying earnestly to learn what it’s like to be a black person, but every time he thinks he’s got it, Tolkien tells him that he’s got no clue. Finally at the end, Kyle comes to the realization that he’s never going to understand, but that it’s just something he has to accept that he’ll never know personally what it’s like, he just has to know black people get treated differently in a negative way and he has to try to be aware of it, and Tolkien tells him that now he gets it.
We don’t need to really understand why people think bad things about others for no reason. I can’t imagine really being attracted to the same gender, to feel I’m trapped in the wrong gender, to be another race, or to have any religious beliefs, but over the years I’ve come to learn that those are the situation for other people, and if I want to be a good person, that I have to understand people live in realities that I personally can’t understand. But I don’t need to understand it to that degree. I just need to listen when people say they have a problem and what they say will solve it for them. And when you realize that’s all you need to do to be a good person to someone just like you as it is someone totally opposite of you, it gets easy to understand and be good to anyone.
Some people take a long time to get to that final realization, and some never will get that they don’t need to get it. They’re the ones that will always be stuck on the other side from us. But like the other people different from us, we don’t need to hate them for it. I feel I’d be missing out on a lot of things if I never made friends with my gay friends, people of other faiths, or my friends of other races. I can feel a sense of pity and loss for those that can’t embrace that in their own lives.
But I don’t need to condone crappy behavior when they talk hateful or disrespectful of anyone, just like I wouldn’t if a lib friend was talking shitty about someone or a group of people. I can say if you’re going to act that way, I’m not going to have around you for a while, or if you never stop and we can’t ever get together without sharing your bad takes, then we can’t be close anymore. At that point, it’s on them. But if they can listen to me in the same way I can listen to them, all isn’t lost yet.
I didn’t read all that, just got stuck on Margaret Killjoy. I’m very curious about what lead to her forefather getting that last name.
From an old AMA
It’s not the name I was born with, but it’s the name I live under and have for about a decade. I originally changed my name to Magpie maybe fifteen years ago, because I was part of a forest defense community where everyone took funny names. Then eventually I met people who had grown up being called Magpie because it was short for Margaret. I wanted a more feminine name, so I adopted Margaret.
Killjoy came about because I needed a last name for writing, and I had a bit of a reputation for, well, being a killjoy.
Oh, should’ve guessed it’s a chosen name
Who’s your favorite author?
Louis-Ferdinand Céline.
I fucking hate you forever Dad.
Judgie AF ENTJ here. Anyone that says they’re not judgmental is a lying virtue signaler.
No one has ever said “oh so you’re just gonna judge someone for their political beliefs?” in real life, please get off the internet.
YEs they have actually
Yes they have, it’s been said directly to me by a - now not very close - friend
TIL: My wife is fictional.
I guess that makes a lot of sense in hindsight.
When violence is being threatened against certain political parties, that would seem like a heck of a lot of judgement going on
And everyone clapped.
