I’m done, I’ve been banned for expressing a different opinion (without insulting or personally attacking anyone), I’ve been accused of evading a ban with multiple accounts (this is my only account I’ve ever had on any lemmy instance), I’ve had people selectively ignore my comments and accuse me of things which I never said, and I’ve had people ignore valid criticisms and keep attacking me.
Reddit has many issues with trolls, one-sided discussion, and just general bullshit, but many Lemmy instances are way worse. The newfound freedom of Lemmy has attracted many extremists, from both sides, and many of them are moderators, who are more than happy to remove any contrarian opinions. This results in discussions being echo chambers
We/they (I’m a leftist, but not really LGBTQ+) don’t think they want to eradicate us, we know that they want to eradicate us. Their penchant for violence and bigotry was the initial violation of the social contract and our rejection and intolerance of their hatred is the consequence. I can present a polite face to someone and hate them without wishing for their death or attacking them directly. I attack their ideology, actions, and effects, but I do not attack individuals, physically, verbally, or otherwise.
So you’re saying their methods are more aggressive. You’re not describing your average trump supporter, right? You’re describing the extreme, just like they describe the extremists of the left in their propaganda. I’m not suggesting we waste time on extremists. I’m suggesting there is hope for the rest of them.
The “average” ones that I’ve encountered don’t endorse outright violence, but they would very much like for all the “undesirables” to just disappear somehow…they’re just not too troubled about how that happens, so they turn a blind eye to the more extreme/more violent ones.
Okay, which brings me back to, why push those people further away, so they only strengthen that worldview rather than trying to communicate with them and show them who we really are? It’s not like you don’t want the undesirables to go away somehow as well, right?
It’s rather hard to push someone further away than them wishing for your death because they don’t agree with your identity or ideology. There are people closer to center that I have had successful conversations with, but the ones that firmly believe that leftists or LGBTQ+ folks are subhuman are too far gone. I don’t want those bigoted people gone, but I do think that I am not responsible for putting myself in the position of being the target of their ire. I can’t change their minds and subjecting myself to their hatred only serves to harm me.
I don’t want them dead. As awful as they are, they are still human. I just don’t want them to have any power or influence over my life or anyone else’s. They can live their lives in accordance with their beliefs, but the second they try to apply their beliefs to anyone else, they have gone too far and need to be stopped.
Yeah that’s valid. It’s not your responsability to deal with their warped worldview.