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I really need to stop reading the news so often. I have several different sites I visit on the daily, and little of it is ever pleasant. More, it constantly angers me. I think anymore fear and anger are the two main emotions most people feel when they get the news, regardless of political bent. The part that continues to eat at me though is the continual rapid descent of common sense and moral values to the loudest, rabid, rabble-rousers. It's greatly disturbing to see values held for so long as a given suddenly seen as evil; not just evil, but the kind that cannot be tolerated or gently corrected, but the kind that must be killed with fire and pitchforks.
Disagreements are supposed to be moments of learning. You argue, present your points, make concessions, find some common ground, and either agree to disagree or find a suitable compromise that both sides can respect. I do that fairly regularly with one of my roommates who is on the exact opposite side of the political spectrum. We can get pretty heated, but we will eventually call the argument quits, then go and consider what the other said, re-evaluting and confirming what we believe. Nothing in life, nothing living, becomes stronger from lack of difficulty or diversity. The strongest trees can survive anything only because they had the elements constantly stripping off the weak bits and causing their insides to toughen up. It's how we build muscles. We tear and stretch them so that they can grow back stronger and better. We test and work them. That is how one's mind should work as well. As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.
But we continue to soften and weaken every bit of our society, child-proofing every edge, every corner, every scary thought or word. Unless you have legit PTSD, as in actual trauma, being "triggered" is sign of a feeble and weak emotional constitution. If even someone politely disagreeing with you ends with you trying to physically assault them, the problem is entirely yours and should not be uplifted and lauded, but denounced and derided as the childish, petty, febrile view that it truly is. I read this evening that a fairly large university just suspended their newly-appointed security chief because a few years back he liked, not wrote, but liked, an NRA tweet wishing everyone a Merry Christmas, and another that used the old quote about when something is outlawed, only the outlaws will have it. It started a HUGE issue, with the lamenting of the women and children, as Conan the Barbarian once said... The fact that the man even liked something the NRA said, or even mentioned guns, is somehow now a horrendous sin and cannot be allowed on such a "respectable" campus.
When what half the country thinks or agrees with, or even doesn't disagree with, an idea and it cannot be allowed to exist, that is a dangerous, scary-as-shit, draconian worldview. And it's spreading. Those absolutely adorable alien comics that recently exploded online suddenly got the creator in trouble when they found an old tweet regarding an old girlfriend being at March for Life and how he was glad she was alive. Even that remote link to a pro-life idea was enough to see commenters spewing the most insane vitriol you've ever seen. Hitler would have been better received...
Disagreements are supposed to be moments of learning. You argue, present your points, make concessions, find some common ground, and either agree to disagree or find a suitable compromise that both sides can respect. I do that fairly regularly with one of my roommates who is on the exact opposite side of the political spectrum. We can get pretty heated, but we will eventually call the argument quits, then go and consider what the other said, re-evaluting and confirming what we believe. Nothing in life, nothing living, becomes stronger from lack of difficulty or diversity. The strongest trees can survive anything only because they had the elements constantly stripping off the weak bits and causing their insides to toughen up. It's how we build muscles. We tear and stretch them so that they can grow back stronger and better. We test and work them. That is how one's mind should work as well. As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.
But we continue to soften and weaken every bit of our society, child-proofing every edge, every corner, every scary thought or word. Unless you have legit PTSD, as in actual trauma, being "triggered" is sign of a feeble and weak emotional constitution. If even someone politely disagreeing with you ends with you trying to physically assault them, the problem is entirely yours and should not be uplifted and lauded, but denounced and derided as the childish, petty, febrile view that it truly is. I read this evening that a fairly large university just suspended their newly-appointed security chief because a few years back he liked, not wrote, but liked, an NRA tweet wishing everyone a Merry Christmas, and another that used the old quote about when something is outlawed, only the outlaws will have it. It started a HUGE issue, with the lamenting of the women and children, as Conan the Barbarian once said... The fact that the man even liked something the NRA said, or even mentioned guns, is somehow now a horrendous sin and cannot be allowed on such a "respectable" campus.
When what half the country thinks or agrees with, or even doesn't disagree with, an idea and it cannot be allowed to exist, that is a dangerous, scary-as-shit, draconian worldview. And it's spreading. Those absolutely adorable alien comics that recently exploded online suddenly got the creator in trouble when they found an old tweet regarding an old girlfriend being at March for Life and how he was glad she was alive. Even that remote link to a pro-life idea was enough to see commenters spewing the most insane vitriol you've ever seen. Hitler would have been better received...
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Date: 2019-04-12 06:11 pm (UTC)From:Sidebar: as someone who does suffer from PTSD, it also annoys me how casually people throw the word around these days. (Not implying that you did, here. But how readily people claim it, or use it as an insult, is frustrating. They have no concept.)
no subject
Date: 2019-04-13 07:32 am (UTC)From: