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ZorbaTHut  1yr ago (text post)   Edited 1yr ago   38197 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 12, 2022

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A great man once said feeble minds discuss people, mediocre minds discuss events, and great men discuss feeble and mediocre minds. As befits my station (see: flair), I will endeavor to do the first two.

Yesterday, Ron Desantis proudly shipped 50 illegal immigrants to Martha’s Vineyard. See Breitbart and Fox News’ takes as well. The individuals were supposedly offered a plane ticket to Massachusetts, without being told they were being sent to a small, isolated island unprepared to receive them as part of a political stunt. Amusingly, not sharing a border with Mexico, Desantis actually had to source his illegal immigrants from Texas. I suppose rustling up 50 of the 772,000 homegrown illegal Florida Mans was too difficult, or may have upset some core constituency, who knows. The only shelter in Martha’s Vineyard has room for 10 and is obviously not equipped in the way that Boston, New York or DC would be and the plane ticket to those places would have been much cheaper.

Also of note: see the Fox News article for the Florida legislature’s $12 million ‘immigrant relocation program’ Own The Libs/Desantis for President fun.

I can stomach a border wall and even see the necessity, despite disagreeing with what it represents. I can sympathize with people living near the border and dealing with crime and drug cartels. But manipulating impoverished people seeking a better future and treating them as nothing more than chattel to score political points and ‘own the libs’ absolutely turns my stomach. Which, judging by the Breitbart comments and replies I expect here, laughing at my pearl clutching is absolutely the point. You want me to be mad, you want me get up on my soapbox and bleat some self-righteous Soyjak lines about muh poor illegals so you can get mad right back and it feels good.

So I guess I won’t do that, although I never know what to say instead. I’m sorry that you hate Obama and Clinton (see: Breitbart article) so much that the thought of them having to deal with poor third worlders is amusing. I’m sorry that you’re so angry about illegal immigration and the libs that we’ve come here. Please, let’s all try to treat our countrymen better and do what we can to dial down the hate.

A lot of your posts have this following pattern.

  • Right wingers always accuse left wingers for booing their outgroup.

  • Here's an example of something the right did that also boos the outgroup.

  • Some people in the motte are sympathetic to those people. Principles not withstanding.

  • Woe is me? ("laughing at my pearl clutching is absolutely the point.")

You might benefit from leaving out the <woe is me'ing>. Right wingers here do that too, and they do receive less baseline pushback, but I am not a fan of that.

I am saying this because that tone specifically acts as a lightning rod and makes people hostile to you even if they weren't initially going to be. In a "ohh it sucks for you? well it sucks for me too, and its because of your people!" way.

Basically you are putting a big signboard on your back saying "HEY I AM THE OUTGROUP, LOOK AT ME, PUNCH ME HARDER, I WILL GET MAD AND YOU WILL LIKE IT".

Thanks for the earnest feedback. I'm not 100% certain I follow what you're trying to say, as I don't think I said anything about reds accusing blues of booing their outgroup. Unless you were referring to an older post?

I can try to take what you say to heart, but I suspect so long as I'm going against the grain the response will be fraught.

Yes, I am referring to a pattern. Which obviously older includes posts by you. The one that comes to mind is one you made on the topic of political violence, and framed it in a "When the right wingers here talk about political violence, I feel targeted because I am just an innocent left wing guy who has x,y,z opinions, so do you really want to kill me?"

And many responses were along the lines of "yes I do want to kill you".

My suggestion is that you can avoid that entirely by not making it personal. You can frame it as "innocent people with sincerely held beliefs but not operating in bad faith can get caught in the crossfire of political violence" and it will probably be met with much less vitriol.

In short maybe don't clutch your pearls?

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