5 ms·

How you can be "objective," live through the past twenty years, and wind up thinking "both sides" are equally problematic/at fault for the current situation? Ma

How you can be "objective," live through the past twenty years, and wind up thinking "both sides" are equally problematic/at fault for the current situation? Maybe a little history will help? America has been prone to succumb to demagoguery for a long time. Here's a novel from 1935 that you should be familiar with: https://www.amazon.com/Cant-Happen-Here-Sinclair-Lewis/dp/1974087301 https://www.amazon.com/Cant-Happen-Here-Sinclair-Lewis/dp/19... The reason it's finally happening now is that the 60-year old conservative project to remake America in the image of the John Birch Society and other right-wing nuts has borne incredible fruit. Essentially, they decided the end justifies the means and are now being consumed by the means. Here's a quick sampler of stuff to start reading up on. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Birch_Society https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Birch_Society https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_News https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_News https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newt_Gingrich https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newt_Gingrich https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/474662-the-myth-of-the-conservative-bestseller https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/474662-the-myth-of-t...

the_doctah 5y ago
You provided a perfect example without realizing it, it just wasn't contained in the links you provided.
- welshwelsh 5y ago
  But he's correct. That's the part you're missing. If he was wrong, that would be completely different. You're focusing on the appearance of the rhetoric, when you should be attempting to determine the truth of the points presented (i.e. which party is correct). Sometimes- more often than not, I would even say- there is at least one political faction in a society that is completely batshit crazy. It's never both/all sides. But it can look that way, because whatever accusations are thrown at one side, even if true, are returned with the exact same rhetoric, even if false. For example you see this in domestic violence court proceedings. Usually, the abuser will accuse the victim of being the real abuser and accuse them of all sorts of things, some of which might even be true (such as hitting an attacker in self defense). This is surprisingly effective, and often times people will side with the abuser or conclude that both parties are part of the problem. But that doesn't change the fact that there is ONE abuser (usually the party with a power advantage) against whom the accusations are justified, and the other party who is comparatively innocent. Even though they accuse each other of the exact same thing and their behavior looks identical from a distance.
pphysch 5y ago
USA was created in the wake of perhaps the largest ethnic cleansing in human history (virtual entirety of the North American continent) and has been at war for >90% of its history. It has always been deeply racist (whether overt like KKK lynchings or subtle like census reporting and tokenism). Whatever these rightoids are allegedly plotting, you can't say they are "remaking" America into something radically new.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- the_doctah 5y ago
  How does mid-millenium colonization of America prove current-year racism? This is pure CRT-adjacent nonsense. The use of words like "rightoid" does not help your argument.
  - kragen 5y ago
    The Trail of Tears, the US Civil War and the appalling form of slavery that led up to it, the Chinese Exclusion Act, racially-biased "eugenic" involuntary sterilization, Jim Crow, the Japanese internment camps, the Indian Schools, Wounded Knee, cowboys & Indians movies, the Tulsa race massacre, per-country immigration quotas, mass deportation, child internment camps, etc., are not mid-millennium colonization. There's an unbroken chain of racism running through US history since before its foundation, one so deeply embedded in US culture that I couldn't see most of it until I had been gone for several years. Idealizations of US history are common to all US factions, though their content differs.
    - the_doctah 5y ago
      >one so deeply embedded in US culture that I couldn't see most of it until I had been gone for several years. Wherever you went, odds are it has an equally shitty history, and present.
      - kragen 5y ago

the_doctah 5y ago

You provided a perfect example without realizing it, it just wasn't contained in the links you provided.

welshwelsh 5y ago
But he's correct. That's the part you're missing. If he was wrong, that would be completely different. You're focusing on the appearance of the rhetoric, when you should be attempting to determine the truth of the points presented (i.e. which party is correct). Sometimes- more often than not, I would even say- there is at least one political faction in a society that is completely batshit crazy. It's never both/all sides. But it can look that way, because whatever accusations are thrown at one side, even if true, are returned with the exact same rhetoric, even if false. For example you see this in domestic violence court proceedings. Usually, the abuser will accuse the victim of being the real abuser and accuse them of all sorts of things, some of which might even be true (such as hitting an attacker in self defense). This is surprisingly effective, and often times people will side with the abuser or conclude that both parties are part of the problem. But that doesn't change the fact that there is ONE abuser (usually the party with a power advantage) against whom the accusations are justified, and the other party who is comparatively innocent. Even though they accuse each other of the exact same thing and their behavior looks identical from a distance.

pphysch 5y ago

USA was created in the wake of perhaps the largest ethnic cleansing in human history (virtual entirety of the North American continent) and has been at war for >90% of its history. It has always been deeply racist (whether overt like KKK lynchings or subtle like census reporting and tokenism). Whatever these rightoids are allegedly plotting, you can't say they are "remaking" America into something radically new.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
the_doctah 5y ago
How does mid-millenium colonization of America prove current-year racism? This is pure CRT-adjacent nonsense. The use of words like "rightoid" does not help your argument.
- kragen 5y ago
  The Trail of Tears, the US Civil War and the appalling form of slavery that led up to it, the Chinese Exclusion Act, racially-biased "eugenic" involuntary sterilization, Jim Crow, the Japanese internment camps, the Indian Schools, Wounded Knee, cowboys & Indians movies, the Tulsa race massacre, per-country immigration quotas, mass deportation, child internment camps, etc., are not mid-millennium colonization. There's an unbroken chain of racism running through US history since before its foundation, one so deeply embedded in US culture that I couldn't see most of it until I had been gone for several years. Idealizations of US history are common to all US factions, though their content differs.
  - the_doctah 5y ago
    >one so deeply embedded in US culture that I couldn't see most of it until I had been gone for several years. Wherever you went, odds are it has an equally shitty history, and present.
    - kragen 5y ago