this post was submitted on 24 Dec 2023
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If you will allow me, I beg to differ: violence is the APPROPRIATE response, sometimes - rarely but not never. e.g., if you had a child who was being mauled by a dog, wouldn't you go to their aid, and strike the dog to get it to go away? Of course you would - any sane, responsible person would.
These people are being brainwashed into thinking that by rising up, they are protecting the "true America". Their heartfelt desire to protect things is GOOD. Their willingness to rise up and actually do something is GOOD. They are not complacent - they are literal heroes, in their own minds at least, but also called thus by those they respect, on the television, in the radio, in the "news" sources they choose to read, etc.
That is what is so twisted about the whole thing - it is not their badness or weaknesses that are being exploited (greed, lust, laziness, etc.), so much as their STRENGTHS, which are being re-directed towards an end that those who employ violence have not bothered to think through and understand. There IS a weakness involved, probably several (crowd mentality, giving up your agency to another rather than questioning everything - e.g. I Thessalonians 5:21 commands, though many preachers, especially evangelical Christianity, behind the pulpits in the Heartland of America do not teach that anymore... and instead are laying out the exact opposite message), but I do not think these people are themselves insane, so much as they are merely "normal".
Which is not to say that the overall effect is not insanity, ofc.
And yeah I suspect the "Americans first" thing would be more the previous generation, like during WWI & II, when people had to stand together regardless of political affiliation, against an outside aggressor. Whereas today, that outside aggressor has patiently lain in wait for so long that the call (for violence) is now coming from inside our own house... even if its' true origin derives from outside of it, e.g. Faux News dictating the talking points that Americans should follow, even if those came originally from Russia. Even if the latter country were to cease to exist literally today, the damage has already been done, and people in the USA now think how they wanted them to; but conversely even if the Republican party were to cease to exist today, those outside forces would continue to push for their desired ends... It is pressure from outside, and yet people today do not see it as that, and willingly go along with it.
(I am giving up on kbin working)
We might agree more than we are letting on. I am doing a horrible job explaining my position though:-(. For one, I think we both agree that hypothetically there are SOMETIMES cases that only violence can solve, and then the real trick is to figure out when & where those cases are, yet they are EXCEEDINGLY rare and caution is best advised until people are ABSOLUTELY certain. And politically speaking, they almost never happen, but when they do they involve great deliberation and care, e.g. the USA entering into WWI and WWII in order to stop the spread of aggressive, violent nations at the expense of our allies; or like Ukranians defending their homeland from an imminent and ongoing invasion attempt.
But none of that describes what happened on January 6. I mean, how does defecating on a desk "protect the constitution"? Or smashing random stuff, rioting, looting, or crushing a police officer literally to death? Some of the people there, during the earlier peaceful phase, truly just wanted their voices to be heard, while others just were angry and took the excuse to do violence. But if someone truly wanted to "protect the constitution" as they claimed, then I happen to think that it might be worth, you know, reading it first!? Which takes real effort - maybe literal years of study in order to fully understand the context and all parts involved.
I suppose what I was trying to say then is that these outside agitators take a very real, honest, and good desire to do something - protect the homeland from badness - but twist it into conveying that you do NOT need to do the hard stuff like "study", and instead you can simply show up at such and such an address at such and such a time, and your presence alone will be mostly enough. Bonus points for bringing guns, whether loaded or not they make a good "tough" image. Some very few people go a step further and do the actual violence, but it really helps to be able to blend into a crowd, i.e. the gullible people who have a conscience but weak follow-through (to actually understand any of what is going on) can be useful to those who desire to use them as meat-shields.
And to be clear I am neither advocating for the political violence, nor especially for the intentional gullibility that allows someone to be used as a meat shield by someone who actually does intend harm to innocents. I only meant that I understand that feeling at the very core, the feeling that is the targt that is being twisted and subverted by those with crafty plots, that to protect one's home country is a good thing:-). Which is what makes the whole thing all the more sickening - b/c it is not merely greed or malice or gluttony or lust or some such that is being exploited, but rather the very GOOD desire to protect the innocents in this nation! i.e., those who are causing the spread of violence, whether they actively do the violence personally are not, they think they are actually doing GOOD (in the same way that you or I would use violence to protect a child from an animal's attack - it actually can be a GOOD desire, at least when used solely in the appropriate context), however in reality they are causing grievous harm (by taking that good and doing it in an incorrect context).:-(
But that is the boundary up to which I feel like I understand. Beyond that, I am hella confused - especially what can be done about it, if anything at this point.:-(
When Reddit began its collapse, Lemmy really was not quite ready, but it was roughly in beta stage, so it was close enough, plus the influx of programmers helped spur its development into high-gear, including mobile apps and all sorts of back- and front-end work.
kbin on the other hand was still in alpha stage, and then Ernst had all those family/health/personal problems, while at the same time refusing to let anyone share even minimal control of the project (reportedly?) - he also had a similar influx of programmers, who literally fixed problems that then just sat there in the code repositories, waiting for Ernst to look over & approve them. I liked the philosophy and look of kbin better, but c'mon, I've waited since July or whenever it was (e.g. I just tried to look that up to confirm the date, but ofc even multiple attempts I cannot b/c it will not connect to the server), and it is basically still in the alpha stage even now. I stopped recommending it soon after joining, starting actively warning people away soon thereafter, and finally decided to be the change I needed to see in the world, and switch. Without an account switching process, it has taken me HOURS to find and set things up, and I still am not entirely done:-( - thus even if kbin decides to fix itself, I doubt I would want to invest in all of that again in order to switch back. I wish kbin luck in its future endeavors but... it does seem unlikely to change its ways anytime soon at this point, tbh. As the famous saying goes, "When someone tries to tell you who they are, it is best to listen to them the first time."
About “well my vote doesn’t matter,” - tbh that's actually true though, in one narrow sense at least. From the numerical standpoint, if you live in a county that always votes one way, then whether you vote or not or whoever you decide to vote for, literally will not influence anything at all. More to the point, you need to do heavy research prior to voting especially in the primaries. e.g. I was drawn to Bernie Sanders, but after hearing what people such as Obama had to say about him, am perhaps glad that he did not win the primary? He is authentic like a prophet, but could he make the tough decisions that a King (in our case President but the quote related it in Old Testament Biblical terminology) must sometimes make? Plus, there is a goodly chance that him running on the Dems ticket could have turned the middle-ground folks to Donald Trump on the Repub ticket? After like a year of studying him, I understand the whole situation much better, but back when I first heard about him I was working 80-hr weeks and then lost my job so... I could have made a decision that I would later regret? i.e., I am saying that it is not so simple as "we must all go out and vote" - in order to be proper CITIZENS we must first prepare ourselves to become good leaders of the nation, and THEN do the proper research, before we finally VOTE to help select the course that literally the entire nation will be following for many many years to come. It does no good to skip those first two steps and THEN vote, and conversely it really does active harm if in doing so we hollow ourselves out to become the puppets of whoever it is whose thoughts we decide to echo as if they were our own, e.g. if we watch Faux News and then vote according to what THEY say, instead of what we KNOW to be true ourselves. In the latter approach, we do harm by converting the nation from a democracy of informed citizenry into a plutocracy where whoever buys the largest media coverage wins the election. So... I know this is an unpopular opinion, but if all the people who don't know shit would STOP voting, I thnk this would be a much better place, overall! And yes, I include myself in that as well, especially my past self that knew less than I do now - but also my future one, if e.g. I get busy and do not put in the proper time to study the situation, then wouldn't it be better to recuse myself from voting in that particular instance, than to just take a wild guess? That's not how doctors do surgery, or scientists/engineers do their thing, that's not how soldiers advance on the battlefield, or cops patrol an area - there, when you pull a gun, you know that you better mean it. And those jobs all require years... or at least days of training, so why is it that we push people to vote, without asking anything more of them at all? To be fair, probably it was implicit in your statement to "get out and vote", but I think most people today - all the way from the youngest up to the most senior - have culturally and collectively forgotten that original meaning, and now we just watch TV and vote however it says we should, on both sides.
Plus then there's the aspect that dumb people still feel frustration - bless their hearts, but they do, and yet they do not know how to deal with it. Even if they vote, they still KNOW that that is not enough... to stop all the badness that the "other side" will do. It is a very effective psychological weapon that is used against the most vulnerable in our society. Who then also are the most likely to turn to violence. Perhaps the real crime is not even them, or at least not only them, but those who put out those calls to violence in the first place? Oh but wait, that is "protect free speech" - and yet... is it, is it really, when it is designed to cause violence & death, and then it actually causes violence & death, almost like the call somehow caused the response? If only facts actually mattered, then something might be done about it! But sadly, they do not, in this corrupt environment:-(.
Is it okay if I say that I agree with you 1000% there? (something, I mean I know that is not mathematically possible but... it certainly feels like it:-P)