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I'm all for legalization and harm reduction, but declaring people enemies simply for disagreeing with you is stifling the conversation. Shutting down the conve

by KMag 6y ago

I'm all for legalization and harm reduction, but declaring people enemies simply for disagreeing with you is stifling the conversation. Shutting down the conversation locks in the status quo.

adventured 6y ago
It's the with us or against us, ally or enemy, model that is so popular with the faux-woke crowd that is presently ripping the US apart culturally. It's the furthest you can go with virtue signaling, to act militant, aggressive, threatening and to draw up literal enemy lists (those that must be destroyed). This strain/style of virtue signaling is pretty much everywhere on social media now. It also means our current woke party nationally has jumped the shark and is about to run into its first serious cultural pushback (which has already begun, people are overwhelmingly sick of it at a mainstream level).
- moksly 6y ago
  I’m not sure you can point the blame in just one direction. You see it in any form of radicalisation, once you go too far away from the middle, you start to see others as “the enemy“. I do think that in the terms of the War on Drugs it’s more of a “you support a trillion dollar criminal enterprise” type them vs the rest of society rather than a left vs right issue. If changing political regimes can’t even keep drugs out of prisons, and you see more and more devastation to society and more and more money in the hands of organised crime, then there really isn’t a way around legalisation that isn’t sticking your head in the ground. I get that there is a lot of money, and therefore political incentive, to keep spending money on the parts of organised society that combat drugs, but at some point you gotta ask yourself how much money you want to burn on an enterprise that has never once succeeded in its mission, even if you’re the most tough on crime person out there.
akiselev 6y ago
> I'm all for ending slavery, but declaring plantation owners enemies simply for disagreeing with you is stifling the conversation. Thanks to the 13th Amendment, this is not an exaggeration. Thanks to the war on drugs, hundreds of thousands are slaves that wouldn't be otherwise. Manufacturing your license plates, freezing your Big Macs, and picking up your litter by the side of the highway. At some point, history has to pick a side.
- KMag 6y ago
  It's only by the political campaigning of abolitionists that there was enough support for the Civil War in the North. There were plenty of non-slave owners who needed to be convinced of the evils of slavery. Dr. King was so much more effective than Malcolm X because he didn't declare those yet-to-be-convinced to be his enemies. Once you declare everyone who doesn't agree with you an enemy, they stop listening to you, and you've given up on campaigning. This only makes sense if you've given up on convincing people who aren't already convinced. If you think the time for convincing is over and dialogue has failed, then you seem to be out of non-violent options. Are you raising an armed militia to raid prisons and free non-violent drug offenders? If dialogue has been dismissed, and you're not advocating violence, what options are there beyond impotently yelling into the echo chamber? Edit: also, there's a difference between picking a side and declaring enemies. Edit 2: The great-grand-sibling by cgriswald put it much more eloquently.
  - TeaDrunk 6y ago
    At the same time, I find it difficult to parse this with the knowledge that Dr King also repeatedly stated disappointment with white moderates and also later in life fame to support and understand violence against property in response to police brutality. But these are generally ignored when contrasting him with Malcom X. I’ve even heard theories that King could not be effective without the threat represented by Malcom X.

by KMag 6y ago

I'm all for legalization and harm reduction, but declaring people enemies simply for disagreeing with you is stifling the conversation. Shutting down the conversation locks in the status quo.

adventured 6y ago

It's the with us or against us, ally or enemy, model that is so popular with the faux-woke crowd that is presently ripping the US apart culturally. It's the furthest you can go with virtue signaling, to act militant, aggressive, threatening and to draw up literal enemy lists (those that must be destroyed). This strain/style of virtue signaling is pretty much everywhere on social media now. It also means our current woke party nationally has jumped the shark and is about to run into its first serious cultural pushback (which has already begun, people are overwhelmingly sick of it at a mainstream level).

moksly 6y ago
I’m not sure you can point the blame in just one direction. You see it in any form of radicalisation, once you go too far away from the middle, you start to see others as “the enemy“. I do think that in the terms of the War on Drugs it’s more of a “you support a trillion dollar criminal enterprise” type them vs the rest of society rather than a left vs right issue. If changing political regimes can’t even keep drugs out of prisons, and you see more and more devastation to society and more and more money in the hands of organised crime, then there really isn’t a way around legalisation that isn’t sticking your head in the ground. I get that there is a lot of money, and therefore political incentive, to keep spending money on the parts of organised society that combat drugs, but at some point you gotta ask yourself how much money you want to burn on an enterprise that has never once succeeded in its mission, even if you’re the most tough on crime person out there.

akiselev 6y ago

> I'm all for ending slavery, but declaring plantation owners enemies simply for disagreeing with you is stifling the conversation. Thanks to the 13th Amendment, this is not an exaggeration. Thanks to the war on drugs, hundreds of thousands are slaves that wouldn't be otherwise. Manufacturing your license plates, freezing your Big Macs, and picking up your litter by the side of the highway. At some point, history has to pick a side.

KMag 6y ago
It's only by the political campaigning of abolitionists that there was enough support for the Civil War in the North. There were plenty of non-slave owners who needed to be convinced of the evils of slavery. Dr. King was so much more effective than Malcolm X because he didn't declare those yet-to-be-convinced to be his enemies. Once you declare everyone who doesn't agree with you an enemy, they stop listening to you, and you've given up on campaigning. This only makes sense if you've given up on convincing people who aren't already convinced. If you think the time for convincing is over and dialogue has failed, then you seem to be out of non-violent options. Are you raising an armed militia to raid prisons and free non-violent drug offenders? If dialogue has been dismissed, and you're not advocating violence, what options are there beyond impotently yelling into the echo chamber? Edit: also, there's a difference between picking a side and declaring enemies. Edit 2: The great-grand-sibling by cgriswald put it much more eloquently.
- TeaDrunk 6y ago
  At the same time, I find it difficult to parse this with the knowledge that Dr King also repeatedly stated disappointment with white moderates and also later in life fame to support and understand violence against property in response to police brutality. But these are generally ignored when contrasting him with Malcom X. I’ve even heard theories that King could not be effective without the threat represented by Malcom X.