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I'm old enough to remember the Christian conservative mob of the 80's - the Jerry Falwell/Pat Buchanan/Tipper Gore crowd. When they went after you, they were v

I'm old enough to remember the Christian conservative mob of the 80's - the Jerry Falwell/Pat Buchanan/Tipper Gore crowd. When they went after you, they were vicious. They were ruthless. They wouldn't stop until they had done everything they could to destroy you. Slowly, people started waking up to the damage they were causing - in particular, sexual deviants (like homosexuals) were at the top of their hit list. Rational people started pushing back. Although it seemed unimaginable in the mid-80's, by the mid-90's, they had been made irrelevant by constant, gentle backpressure. Now, though, the people that they targeted, instead of rejoicing that their oppressors are finally powerless to harm them, are taking up the mantle of oppressor themselves. There's a sense of "giving them a taste of their own medicine" - and if the actual perpetrators are too hard to find, anybody that reminds them of the perpetrators will do. History suggests that this, too, will ultimately be defeated, but not after a lot of damage is done to very innocent bystanders.

banads 6y ago
There is a comical irony to how those roles have flip flopped over these recent decades. Evidence of how we humans do in fact have so much more in common than we give ourselves credit for -- all the while these groups hyper focus only on our differences.
at_a_remove 6y ago
I am in the same boat as you. For me, I didn't dislike the people -- I pried myself away from that habit -- and grew to dislike the tactics. Seeing them taken up by the formerly oppressed is very disheartening. That jackboot that has been stomping my face in, I wonder if it fits me?
- banads 6y ago
  >That jackboot that has been stomping my face in, I wonder if it fits me? "If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart? During the life of any heart this line keeps changing place; sometimes it is squeezed one way by exuberant evil and sometimes it shifts to allow enough space for good to flourish. One and the same human being is, at various ages, under various circumstances, a totally different human being. At times he is close to being a devil, at times to sainthood. But his name doesn't change, and to that name we ascribe the whole lot, good and evil. Socrates taught us: "Know thyself." Confronted by the pit into which we are about to toss those who have done us harm, we halt, stricken dumb: it is after all only because of the way things worked out that they were the executioners and we weren't. From good to evil is one quaver, says the proverb. And correspondingly, from evil to good." -Gulag Archipeligo
deleted 6y ago
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jariel 6y ago
""giving them a taste of their own medicine"" Most people in the movement have no memory of the 1980's.
DanielBMarkham 6y ago
There's an odd theory in history that you become your enemy. Over time, whatever group or cause you focus on, you demonize it so much, justify fighting them the same way they fight you (or you perceive them to be fighting you), that eventually you're just like your enemy, only with different slogans. That's why political differences should never be represented as wars, and groups of people with other opinions as enemies. Every effort should be made to personalize people who disagree with you, humanize them, show them kindness they do not deserve (at least in your own mind). It's not for them; it's for you. Wars are bad not because there's some worthy cause that we confront and eventually defeat it, making the world a better place. Wars are bad because they harm the people fighting them, many times forever. In the free world, we've realized that peaceful, loving, kind civil disobedience is the only way to change ourselves for the better. This is why. It has nothing to do with how worthy our cause is or what an awful thing we're defeating. It's about the stage we leave for the next generation with their struggles.

banads 6y ago

There is a comical irony to how those roles have flip flopped over these recent decades. Evidence of how we humans do in fact have so much more in common than we give ourselves credit for -- all the while these groups hyper focus only on our differences.

at_a_remove 6y ago

I am in the same boat as you. For me, I didn't dislike the people -- I pried myself away from that habit -- and grew to dislike the tactics. Seeing them taken up by the formerly oppressed is very disheartening. That jackboot that has been stomping my face in, I wonder if it fits me?

banads 6y ago
>That jackboot that has been stomping my face in, I wonder if it fits me? "If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart? During the life of any heart this line keeps changing place; sometimes it is squeezed one way by exuberant evil and sometimes it shifts to allow enough space for good to flourish. One and the same human being is, at various ages, under various circumstances, a totally different human being. At times he is close to being a devil, at times to sainthood. But his name doesn't change, and to that name we ascribe the whole lot, good and evil. Socrates taught us: "Know thyself." Confronted by the pit into which we are about to toss those who have done us harm, we halt, stricken dumb: it is after all only because of the way things worked out that they were the executioners and we weren't. From good to evil is one quaver, says the proverb. And correspondingly, from evil to good." -Gulag Archipeligo

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

jariel 6y ago

""giving them a taste of their own medicine"" Most people in the movement have no memory of the 1980's.

DanielBMarkham 6y ago

There's an odd theory in history that you become your enemy. Over time, whatever group or cause you focus on, you demonize it so much, justify fighting them the same way they fight you (or you perceive them to be fighting you), that eventually you're just like your enemy, only with different slogans. That's why political differences should never be represented as wars, and groups of people with other opinions as enemies. Every effort should be made to personalize people who disagree with you, humanize them, show them kindness they do not deserve (at least in your own mind). It's not for them; it's for you. Wars are bad not because there's some worthy cause that we confront and eventually defeat it, making the world a better place. Wars are bad because they harm the people fighting them, many times forever. In the free world, we've realized that peaceful, loving, kind civil disobedience is the only way to change ourselves for the better. This is why. It has nothing to do with how worthy our cause is or what an awful thing we're defeating. It's about the stage we leave for the next generation with their struggles.