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This won’t be particularly substantive but hopefully it’s enough to avoid a mod-slap. Apparently a group of women customers accosted staff at a Minneapolis yoga chain and berated them for not having some sort of ICE signage up (presumably a “No ICE allowed” sign, as if ICE agents will be stopping in to do yoga).
Here is an article.
Here is a direct link to the viral TikTok in question
The video’s author is Heather Anderson, 51, essentially the archetype of the wine mom, the core demographic of the latest frenzy. She appears to be an elementary school teacher and host of a podcast Belonging in the Classroom which presents itself with this description:
Of course this dovetails nicely with our discussion of another winemom-cum-podcaster, Jennifer Welch and her open calls for Republican blood. In all seriousness, psychologically speaking, what on Earth is going on with 50 year-old women right now? Have Democrats effectively weaponized Karenism?
The incident reminds me almost exactly of scenes that we saw in 2020, like this similar incident you surely remember of diners being surrounded and screamed at for not raising their fists in solidarity with BLM..
There is much endless discussion of peak woke, but to me it feels almost exactly like we are back in 2020, if not for the historic cold weather of the last few weeks and general time of year, I imagine it would be nearly identical.
Interesting. To me the current situation also feels like 2020, but because of coronavirus lockdowns. Again we are being expected to tolerate draconian government interference with our daily lives, because of some supposed threat. Watching people leap to the defense of the ICErs reminds me of how people cheered when Australian police were beating anti-lockdown protestors. Again it feels like the whole world has gone insane, and nobody is willing to do anything about it.
Here is a tweet with 5k upvotes saying that "ICE should start sl**ghtering liberals for no reason at all." I remember seeing opinions like this about anti-maskers, and thinking how weird it was for this "edgy", "transgressive" humor to be deployed in support of government power.
While the governmental interference in people's lives doesn't sound half as draconian or invasive as the worst excesses of Covid hysteria (it's not as if, in the interests of combating illegal immigration, Minnesotans are being prevented from hiking on mountain trails or attending their spouses' funerals; nor has their full participation in public life been made conditional on their undergoing a specific medical procedure), I nonetheless agree with you that many of the people cheering on ICE are motivated by a similar kind of spite. As a committed civil libertarian it's always disheartening to find out what a large proportion of my ostensible fellow-travelers really just want the boot on the other foot.
Yeah, one of the most depressing occurrences of my adulthood has been realizing that approximately nobody in America actually values freedom. Most of my countrymen seem to be authoritarian in their hearts, and the only question seems to be who/whom.
I mean principles erode in war time and the culture war is a war - I'm very free speech, live and let live etc but I see what the woke have done and feel it is toxic to society etc.
If principles erode based on what others do, then they were never principles - simply what was convenient to do at the time. A principle is something you always uphold.
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May I suggest that it's more about When/Why? For example, I found myself becoming very authoritarian about immigration and drugs and trans, and I thought 'guess I'm not a liberal after all', then genAI happened and it turns out I'm still very libertarian about software and AI, which was kind of pleasing to me. @FtttG is generally quite liberal but was quite clear in the trans thread that (s)he doesn't think it's okay to write anything you want on a government form just because it makes you happy, and generally also doesn't particularly seem to like people traveling across borders as they please. (I criticise neither stance, I'm just noting.)
Who/whom correlates to some degree with this but doesn't actually match it. It's a bit like the saying that everyone is conservative in their area of expertise.
Don't know if you find this reassuring but maybe worth bearing in mind.
Interesting point! I think that is a valid alternate way of looking at the situation. Not that it necessarily makes things right, but it's something to mull over.
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I'm a guy. Although I find it amusing that I apparently have such an – androgynous? – writing style.
I find this characterisation interesting, as while I certainly think of myself as a run-of-the-mill 90s liberal and don't think any of my political opinions would be outside the Overton window for, say, a Democrat or Labour candidate circa 2000 – nonetheless, in my personal life I'm routinely accused of being a crypto-conservative (or even, rather laughably, "far-right"). I certainly don't dispute that I'm more conservative than many of my friends and family, a lot of whom are passively woke, though I still think I'm probably less conservative than the median poster here.
I will freely cop to the former characterisation of my opinions: government forms are for cataloguing demographic data, not for making people feel "validated", and governments should not concern themselves with cataloguing their citizens' unfalsifiable claims about their internal mental states. (Or rather, their citizens' unfalsifiable claims about their internal mental states should not supplant or override objective facts about the compositions of their bodies. "Identify" as whatever you please: that doesn't change what you are.) But when you say I "[don't] particularly seem to like people travelling across borders as they please", I'm a little taken aback. If all you mean as that I'm not an advocate for open borders, that's fair: per an article I read the other day, in order to have laws you must have jurisdictions, to have jurisdictions you must have borders, and if you have borders they must be enforced. But I get the impression you're imputing a stronger claim to me, namely that I'm opposed to immigration into Ireland in general, including legal immigration. If so, that's not how I would describe my own worldview. For example, I live with my girlfriend who's a first-generation migrant who was born and raised Muslim (though no longer practising); of the three long-term romantic relationships I've had as an adult, only one was with a fellow Irish person while the others were with first-generation migrants; it's been nearly a decade since I was physically intimate with a fellow Irish person, with virtually all of the people I was intimate with since being first-generation migrants; I would say a significant proportion if not an outright majority of my close friends are first-generation migrants.
That being said, I'm not going to pretend that all immigrants are created equal; I do think that a significant proportion of immigrants to Ireland as in the rest of Europe are a net drain on the public purse, not to mention responsible for a disproportionate share of violent crime; I have a big problem with people emigrating to Ireland solely to claim social welfare indefinitely and never make a positive contribution; and the progressive news media's habitual obfuscation about migrant crime and its wholesale importing of American racial grievance politics are long standing bugbears of mine. Immigrants who come to Ireland with the goal of assimilating and working hard without demanding handouts (either in the form of social welfare payouts or "ethnic spoils" sinecures) are entirely welcome, which is why I get particularly angry when I see immigrants meeting that description (e.g. Ireland's growing population of recent Indian migrants) receiving abuse and harassment from the native population. If you got the impression that I'm opposed to immigration into Ireland on general principle, I'm legitimately curious as to what gave you that impression (and not in a defensive how dare you! sort of way).
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