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Really? Let's put the shoe on the other foot. Let's make the sentence read: " The entire movement has been hijacked by sexual deviants and people who don't wa

Really? Let's put the shoe on the other foot. Let's make the sentence read: " The entire movement has been hijacked by sexual deviants and people who don't want to work for a living. Aligning yourself with such an ideology rightfully has a serious social cost now." Does it seem more offensive to you now? Failure to look for the merit in the other person's point of view is a mistake. There are good conservative as there are good liberals. Using inflammatory rhetoric (as the author did) does nothing to disprove one's ignorance of the other person's point of view.

cortesoft 9y ago
I get what you are saying, and it is indeed problematic. I feel like so much of political discussion these days is focused on arguing against the worst of the other side. Even more insidious, though, is a pattern I have seen from both liberal and conservative corners of the internet: Someone makes a satirical tweet or image about the other side, usually some absurd extreme example of an ideology taken too far (e.g. 'I am a feminist and all men should be locked in jail' or 'I am a conservative and we all need guns to shoot these evil immigrants') Someone then posts the satirical image or tweet with some comment like "Look at what these crazy liberal/conservatives believe!" The forum will circlejerk about how crazy the other side is, and how anyone who believes these things is clearly unstable. Then, some people will start pointing out that the image or tweet is satire. Inevitably, the response will be, "Well, yeah this one might be satire, but I could totally see a liberal/conservative posting something like that!" Since the post fits in the readers worldview, the fact that it is satire doesn't really matter. In the end, everyone ends up just mocking and arguing with absurd viewpoints that almost no one actually has.
irhd 9y ago
Except that makes no sense. If you can't see that republicans have quite a bit of xenophobia and racism in their ranks then you need to open up your damn eyes. Instead of talking about how it's wrong to feel that way think for a minute about why this person feels that way. People thinking this way is what happens when 10s of millions of people vote for a man who is anti-immigrant, racist, and encourages white nationalists.
- RickJWag 9y ago
  Really? I am a Republican and I know of no white nationalists. Explain to me where they are. Provide reliable statistics, please.
  - dang 9y ago
    Using HN for political battle will eventually get your account banned, especially if you break the civility rules in the process, such as you both did in this nasty partisan spat. All such stuff is unwelcome here, regardless of your or the other person's politics. Please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and abide by them when commenting here.

cortesoft 9y ago

I get what you are saying, and it is indeed problematic. I feel like so much of political discussion these days is focused on arguing against the worst of the other side. Even more insidious, though, is a pattern I have seen from both liberal and conservative corners of the internet: Someone makes a satirical tweet or image about the other side, usually some absurd extreme example of an ideology taken too far (e.g. 'I am a feminist and all men should be locked in jail' or 'I am a conservative and we all need guns to shoot these evil immigrants') Someone then posts the satirical image or tweet with some comment like "Look at what these crazy liberal/conservatives believe!" The forum will circlejerk about how crazy the other side is, and how anyone who believes these things is clearly unstable. Then, some people will start pointing out that the image or tweet is satire. Inevitably, the response will be, "Well, yeah this one might be satire, but I could totally see a liberal/conservative posting something like that!" Since the post fits in the readers worldview, the fact that it is satire doesn't really matter. In the end, everyone ends up just mocking and arguing with absurd viewpoints that almost no one actually has.

irhd 9y ago

Except that makes no sense. If you can't see that republicans have quite a bit of xenophobia and racism in their ranks then you need to open up your damn eyes. Instead of talking about how it's wrong to feel that way think for a minute about why this person feels that way. People thinking this way is what happens when 10s of millions of people vote for a man who is anti-immigrant, racist, and encourages white nationalists.

RickJWag 9y ago
Really? I am a Republican and I know of no white nationalists. Explain to me where they are. Provide reliable statistics, please.
- dang 9y ago
  Using HN for political battle will eventually get your account banned, especially if you break the civility rules in the process, such as you both did in this nasty partisan spat. All such stuff is unwelcome here, regardless of your or the other person's politics. Please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and abide by them when commenting here.