this post was submitted on 31 Aug 2023
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Stochastic terrorism strikes again. This is directly because of Moms for Liberty and Libs of TikTok.

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[–] [email protected] 96 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Yet, those who incite this hatred, meet with no negative consequences.

We go high, they go low.

We turn the other cheek, they throw a temper tantrum for not handing them medieval torture devices.

"Owning the libs" birthed literal psychopaths, who want the state to torture people to death, as entertainment.

[–] [email protected] 54 points 1 year ago (5 children)

As it turns out, "winning the moral victory" is still just losing.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago (2 children)

True. If you really want to win the moral victory you have to take action to stop letting your peers across the aisle get away with inciting this shit. (Speaking to leadership in congress here). You have to take action against propaganda outlets like Fox and OANN and Alex Jones and so forth.

I'm extremely grumpy today... sorry for this rant.

I guess what hit me yesterday is Biden's statement about being friends with McConnell.

I cannot comprehend considering that man as anything but a villain and a lifelong enemy. And it got me wondering what kind of person could consider him a friend? And how seriously does someone like that really take problems in this country? Kind of feels like the life and death problems we peons face aren't life and death for those in power, ya know?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Exactly. Mitch McConnell has done more damage to this country than anyone besides Reagan.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I really hope Biden was just lying to sound diplomatic.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Well, would you be willing to do what they're doing in the name of "winning"? That's the real dilemma. How exactly do you maintain your own morality against an amoral adversary? Is it possible? It's the old trope of "becoming as evil as the evil you're fighting". I certainly admire pacifists for being able to hold to their ideals, but for me there's no easy answer.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Well, would you be willing to do what they’re doing in the name of “winning”?

Not in the name of "winning" no. But in the name of helping people that the conservatives are trying to hurt, absolutely.

That’s the real dilemma. How exactly do you maintain your own morality against an amoral adversary? Is it possible? It’s the old trope of “becoming as evil as the evil you’re fighting”.

It's not a dilemma at all. Conservatives aren't evil because they are willing to use underhanded to accomplish their goals. They are evil because their goals are evil. Fighting back against them is not even remotely the same.

While it is true that the ends don't justify the means, there has been this moderate liberal overcorrection where people only concern themselves with the "means" and think that it is wrong to ever focus on the "ends". But it's not, the ends matter. The process of government, the "means", isn't actually meaningful in-and-of-itself, it's a tool to manage disputes in a non-violent manner. But it is also a contract, and it only works when all parties agree to it and abide by it.

If the conservatives break the contract, and are hurting people, then upholding the "means" and allowing those people to keep getting hurt rather than putting a stop to it, is complacency and it's own sort of evil.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

That's certainly one answer, I agree.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

You don't fight this by meeting it head on, letting them choose the battlefield. You fight this by aggressively bringing the fucking banhammer, both figuratively and literally.

You don't just throw the law book at them, you throw the library. You hit them with every possible charge, loitering, jaywalking, not carrying the right kind of insurance, w/e. All of it, and you don't let off, or give an inch. No fucking plea deals in the face of organizers of hate and stochastic terrorists. Sending bomb scares and death threats should be a mandatory five years, doubling if repeated (5>10>20).

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Idealism and realism are, more often than not, opposed for this reason.

Sure, in an ideal world there would simply be no amoral people. We would all be able to agree that x is bad, y is good.

We do not live in an ideal world.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

There is no moral victory just people in power telling you to be subservient and accept their behavior or you can't go to their imaginary billionaire land in the sky. I mean even the turn the other cheek is always misrepresented. Old slave laws prevented hitting someone a certain way or they could be released, you turned the other cheek to force them to hit you in an illegal manor and try to get released or force them into a position where they couldn't hit you that time. It did not mean turn and let someone hit you ffs.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

My friend group in high school knew this. We'd always jokingly describe losing as winning a moral victory.