• Glytch@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          16
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          3 days ago

          Dehumanization is the tool of the enemy.

          Republicans are human beings, they’re just ignorant, stupid, or evil. Sick and disgusting animals to be sure, but human nonetheless.

          • whereIsTamara@lemmy.org
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            16
            arrow-down
            10
            ·
            3 days ago

            Don’t care anymore. Did you cast a vote in the 2024 presidential election?

            If you didn’t, you’re on that list.

            • Glytch@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              8
              arrow-down
              16
              ·
              3 days ago

              I get it, you’re burnt out. It’s exhausting fighting fascists and calling out the growth of extreme right wing views for years while no one listens. I’ve been there.

              Remove yourself from whatever direct action groups or community organizations you’re a part of. You’ll be no help in changing anyone’s mind or gaining the support you need to get the change you actually want if you continue with your current attitude. Alienating potential allies is not the way to grow a movement.

              Look at yourself. You’re saying that 231 million people aren’t people. Do you understand how that looks from a sane perspective? It looks a lot like the folks you’re claiming to not support.

              I realize none of this is likely to change your mind, I just keep hearing shit like this and this time it set me off. Sorry about that, have a better day.

              • whereIsTamara@lemmy.org
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                15
                arrow-down
                8
                ·
                3 days ago

                Sane? You assume your view is sane. To me, you’re not sane. So, we can toss around what is moral an immoral all day long, but you still only have YOUR OWN OPINION.

                • Glytch@lemmy.world
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  7
                  arrow-down
                  1
                  ·
                  3 days ago

                  The view that evil people are still people? Yes that view is sane. Believing they are something other than human is at best delusional (not sane). At worst it’s an excuse for genocide (also not sane).

                  Hate who you want to hate, I can’t stop you, but don’t be surprised if you keep getting called out for it.

                  • whereIsTamara@lemmy.org
                    link
                    fedilink
                    arrow-up
                    2
                    arrow-down
                    4
                    ·
                    3 days ago

                    But you aren’t sane. And called out is an opinion. I also don’t care about it. Saying I’m wrong doesn’t make me wrong.

                    These people should be wiped out. Just my OPINION. Which in very much entitled to, and very much not “wrong”

        • GalacticGrapefruit@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          edit-2
          2 days ago

          Hi. Former Republican here. It may have been ten years ago, but I remember when I had these attitudes.

          What changed my mind was finding out that the hateful rhetoric I had been spouting directly applied to me the day I found out I was gay.

          To give you a walk through the very rapid shift in my psyche that happened, I went from being the quintessential trad-Christian material that Instagram chuds drool over to… well, me.

          I want you to understand one thing, if nothing else; the person I am, the one talking to you right now, was always there. Finding who I was after having it–in some ways literally–beat out of me was a special kind of hell. In fact, from deconversion to decolonization to transitioning, it nearly drove me to kill myself. Because I finally found out how much the world actually hurt when I finally saw the scope of the system I had helped reinforce with the ignorance I had been indoctrinated into. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. I would, however, wish it on my best friend.

          The other person here was right. Dehumanizing them only drives hatred deeper down into ourselves.

          Eventually, these assholes will fade away. Some of them might do some soul-searching and make some personal discoveries, like I did. A majority will probably just wrap up their bigotry and hide it on a shelf, and only take it down and pass it around when they’re around other bigoted ghouls. But never forget, the exact same weaknesses in their brain that led to their awful actions exists in your brain too. We like to think we’re immune to that shit. The fear. The anger. The hatred. That because we hate the haters, we’re better than them. That somehow it makes us morally superior, that we want to commit their own atrocities against them as a kind of poetic justice.

          All conflict ends, eventually. It ebbs and it flows, the tide goes in, the tide goes out. Tectonic plates press, and then release the tension after the earthquake. The charge builds up in the cloud until the lightning bolt comes down. The human heart is just as incapable of sustaining so much violence over such a long period of time.

          I’m not telling you that you’re wrong to be furious. To be vengeful. To be spiteful. After all, these are the kinds of atrocities that fill history books. They’re the kinds of atrocities that fuel divides that span centuries or more, and spawn more conflict after the water settles.

          Just remember. Eventually, you will have to put the sword down. Eventually, whether you think you can or can’t, the violence and the fuel that drives it will disappear. The damage, however, will outlive you. And it will outlive me. And it keeps me up at night, knowing that while I never took part in it, I condoned it and promoted it, even though I’d been conditioned to embrace it since I was born. I was lucky to break out.

          Speaking from experience here. They are wrong. They have no idea they’re wrong, because they’re feeling the exact same–and I do mean the exact same–emotion you’re feeling right now, using nearly the exact same moral justification. It’s one of the most bitter glitches in our human psyche. By all means, punch Nazis. But once they decide not to be a Nazi anymore, and actually turn over a new leaf, and disown their past, maybe consider treating them kindly again once they rekindle their humanity.

      • Holytimes@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        3
        arrow-down
        4
        ·
        3 days ago

        Think of the kids don’t work when the kids are Nazi kids.

        Cancels out the good will with bad will. The fuckers are on their own.

          • criscodisco@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            7
            ·
            2 days ago

            I’m a socialist that grew up in the south watching my dad go from Rush Limbaugh to Fox News to Facebook MAGAdom. We went from debating policy in my teens, to debating reality in my 20s and 30s, and finally to me refusing to participate because I could see he was getting old.

            That didn’t stop him from dying in an underfunded and rundown rural hospital with Fox News blaring on the TV in his room.