Yeah I gotta say personally both sentences sound violent to me. They can absolutely be understood in both a violent and a window-smashing way, but the wording is so on the line that I too wouldn’t want to see it in a community.

The meaning of what we say or write is not purely what is meant by the speaker/writer but also in large part what the audience or the person we speak to hears and understands. As the person saying something, we always have to be aware of how it may be understood or misunderstood. We all have different contexts, experiences and ways of communicating. All we can do is be as specific as possible to remove any uncertainty. Vague wording is how dog-whistling operates.

Maybe a better way of wording it would have been:

“if people start flying (…) flags on their cars in my country, they better watch out for their windows 'cause I’ll be keeping a baseball bat in my car”

No, in my opinion that follows the rules, it’s not inherently violent. I think the implication is gross, and would rightfully be downvoted, but it doesn’t break any rules. It’s a bit of a false equivalency though considering LGBTQ+ people weren’t actively killing thousands of civilians, destroying homes, and raping thousands of women, like the Russian government was orchestrating at the time (and still is from my understanding, it’s just not interesting enough for the fucked 24 hours news cycle any more).

No, you’d be banned for hate speech.

It’s a shame, I had written a whole large reply earlier around lunch time, only to realize at the end of it that closing my keyboard on mobile completely backed out of my comment I had been writing. I’ll try to get the same reply across now and make sure not to close my keyboard haha.

I get how it can appear nationalistic, but it was less than a month after Russia had invaded Ukraine, and I was still very, very upset about all the war crimes (and war at all to begin with) that Russia was committing against Ukraine. Definitely don’t get me wrong; I have issues with just about every military action the USA has taken too; I don’t like this country but I was born here and have no real way to get out.

But you’re right, I look down on folks flying the American flag on their vehicle, but I wouldn’t want to smash their windows out. Maybe that’s something I need to work on about myself, and it’s something I’ll try to think about from now on. I was raised as a frothing-at-the-mouth almost-fascist conservative, listened to fox news and rush limbaugh with my parents growing up. I feel extremely lucky to have broken free from the brainwashing, but the rage… It’s my personal hypothesis that I have a rage problem, especially about politics, because of right wing media. And despite me realizing they’re in the wrong, and becoming what my parents would consider a “radical socialist” (ie probably moderately liberal for the entire rest of the world lol), the rage has always stayed, just redirected against the people I learned it from. It is however something I have been working on, and continue to work on. That comment is not something I think I would say again today, I’m fortunate for having made that progress.

Finally, a warning is absolutely reasonable, and is pretty much exactly what I expected to happen in the worst case scenario, because I knew I was pushing it with that comment in regards to violence, but my rage at the time said it was acceptable with all the atrocities the Russian government had been committing (and continues to of course). Definitely not blind to the atrocities the USA has committed and is committing either though.

But it’s very nice to hear actual constructive feedback etc.; As I’m sure you know on reddit you’ll only ever get blind support or hateful attacks it seems. I’m really enjoying Lemmy so far and hope it can continue to broaden my mind and help me discover biases and prejudices I don’t realize I have.

Ah yes, I see where you’re coming from now. I’m sure you can understand I’m quick to go on the defensive/offensive after dealing with how it is on reddit 🤣

I definitely agree, they’re definitely way too ban happy as of late.

It’s incredibly refreshing to have an actual conversation that doesn’t immediately dissolve into accusations and name-calling though, and I greatly appreciate your replies and I’m very much looking forward to using Lemmy know. I’ll just have to work on my tendencies I’ve acquired from reddit 🤣

I’m gonna remove that edit as it was kinda dramatic anyway and I wrote it from the viewpoint of, I just woke up at the time and I’m used to how the reddit hivenind runs. This is an extremely refreshing community just from our interaction here so, hate to be repetitive but, I’m even more excited for this community now.