I just had a horrific epiphany that should have been obvious. They’re all the same people. It isn’t just the masses of the far right who see nuanced thought as the enemy and insist people stick to the accepted script.
Post a video of ICE abducting people and everyone will yell “Nazis bad!” and say that these people are clearly evil and get off on beating and abducting strangers or are trying to lick boots hoping they won’t be lumped in with the other brown folks.
Try to explain that in general the sad truth is that they’re just desperate, poor people who need a way to cover exploding rent, utility, and grocery costs and make sure their kids are taken care of… that most parents would rather put on a mask and assault a stranger than tell their kids to grab their favorite toy because it’s time to go be homeless and hopefully within a day or so they’ll be able to find a charity meal… and they start screaming that you’re evil and trying to excuse evil.
I made the thread. I tried to understand and explain the sad, simple, human reasons people sign up to do these things. I even very bluntly said that they can’t try to use that they were only following orders as an excuse for the things they’re doing. I never once tried to excuse any of it. Only to understand and explain.
If you care that a roof collapsed and want to keep that tragedy from reoccurring, you study the schematics and the local environment and weather and capacity and try to understand what caused it so you can design things better in the future. If you want to keep genocidal regimes from growing and try to do the same thing, people now call you a monster and say you’re trying to defend their actions.
It’s not just the far right that sees thinking and education as the enemy. While the left tends to be better educated, they have that same tribalism where those who try to put thought into a thing instead of reciting the approved chant are the outsiders and the outsiders are bad and must be shunned.
I just had a horrific epiphany that should have been obvious. They’re all the same people. It isn’t just the masses of the far right who see nuanced thought as the enemy and insist people stick to the accepted script.
Post a video of ICE abducting people and everyone will yell “Nazis bad!” and say that these people are clearly evil and get off on beating and abducting strangers or are trying to lick boots hoping they won’t be lumped in with the other brown folks.
Try to explain that in general the sad truth is that they’re just desperate, poor people who need a way to cover exploding rent, utility, and grocery costs and make sure their kids are taken care of… that most parents would rather put on a mask and assault a stranger than tell their kids to grab their favorite toy because it’s time to go be homeless and hopefully within a day or so they’ll be able to find a charity meal… and they start screaming that you’re evil and trying to excuse evil.
I made the thread. I tried to understand and explain the sad, simple, human reasons people sign up to do these things. I even very bluntly said that they can’t try to use that they were only following orders as an excuse for the things they’re doing. I never once tried to excuse any of it. Only to understand and explain.
If you care that a roof collapsed and want to keep that tragedy from reoccurring, you study the schematics and the local environment and weather and capacity and try to understand what caused it so you can design things better in the future. If you want to keep genocidal regimes from growing and try to do the same thing, people now call you a monster and say you’re trying to defend their actions.
It’s not just the far right that sees thinking and education as the enemy. While the left tends to be better educated, they have that same tribalism where those who try to put thought into a thing instead of reciting the approved chant are the outsiders and the outsiders are bad and must be shunned.