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Culture War Roundup for the week of April 22, 2024

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I have pretty much had it with people who ranted about "trump disrespecting the troops!" now waving the flag of Hezbollah who actually killed a lot of those troops.
The next time a Democrat starts regurgitating NPR at me I'm going to end up saying something friendship-ruiningly impolite because I just can't hold in the anger at this stupidity any more. It's almost worse than 2020 because the deranged hysteria isn't happening in unique circumstances.

How do you all deal with this every day?

I imagine this is going to get modded for being inflammatory / antagonistic, but I guess there's a core question here that's worth answering.

I just laugh. I accept history as absurd. I read some nonsense in the news, and it makes me laugh how stupid everything is, and I don't suppose things were really less stupid in the past. I don't suppose that I'm less stupid. It's funny. You have to accept that basically illiterate positions, even if they're strongly-felt, are not strongly-reasoned. And that's how people are, and nothing you do is going to change it. Being frustrated about it is about as useful as being mad at traffic. They can't hear you, it's just how the world works.

Are you trying to contain your anger? When I get angry (or broken-hearted or tired or what) I find it useful to let the feeling wash over me. Instead of trying to suppress whatever I'm feeling, or working myself up about it, I just feel it for what it is. It's like a kind of meditation. In many cases, the worst of the hysteria and ranting comes from people who aren't very attuned to their feelings, full of emotion because they never resolve any.

I just laugh. I accept history as absurd. I read some nonsense in the news, and it makes me laugh how stupid everything is, and I don't suppose things were really less stupid in the past. I don't suppose that I'm less stupid. It's funny. You have to accept that basically illiterate positions, even if they're strongly-felt, are not strongly-reasoned. And that's how people are, and nothing you do is going to change it.

To quote the great Carl Brutananadilewski

To paraphrase the red scare girls; “Don’t kill yourself, because then you won’t get to see the next retarded thing that happens.”

Sage advice.