On "crying wolf"--
Yes. The far left has been crying wolf a great deal. The thing is, it isn't "Crying wolf" for them. They genuinely believe it is racism.
Case in point, when Obama was first running for his first term, I saw much of the hysteria about his being "a historic first black president" as disgusting. It is my opinion that the skin color of the president is not important. What matters is the politics of that president. (To whit, see trump. Our first ever ORANGE president. I dont see a huge fanfare about him being historic for being orange-- I see lots of people talking about his politics though.) At the time, I did not agree with his "hope and change" platform, because I saw it as populist rhetoric (much the same as "make america great again", and equally hollow, as history showed, with only a few highlights.) For much the same reason that I feel electing Hillary so she could "Be the historic first female president!!" is entirely wrong headed, (Pro tip, your genitals are not really something you want involved in affairs of state.) and trying to pander to gender identity politics is gross populism, I saw the "First historic black president!" line as disgusting, and an affront to proper governance. You dont elect somebody based on what genitals they have, or what their skin color is, you elect them based on their platform. When I stated this, I was *INSTANTANEOUSLY* "a racist."
In reality, I could not care less what color Obama was. He could have been green. I consider his race a non-issue, and consider the very idea of voting for him based on his skin color to be OBSCENELY racist, in the really real sense. (When you shape your decision making based on the color of somebody's skin, you are engaging in racism. defacto.) Yet, despite this-- to many people I was "A horribly racist person."
I found the inability of the extreme left to comprehend its OWN racism, coupled with its reflexive use of the pejorative, very very offensive. I concluded that I would just have to shake my head at them, and forgive them their ignorance.
However, not everyone is so congenial. Many people who did not like Obama for very specific features of his platform were likewise drubbed with being called "racists", even though like myself, the color of the man's skin meant precisely nothing to them. When you lob an accusation at somebody, it needs to be for really substantiated reasons, and not "Oh noes! My feelings! My identity!" To me, the impulse to label myself, and others like me, as "racist" for disagreeing with his being the right candidate were not seen as "I disagree with his policies on X, Y, and Z." and instead seen as "YOU ARE DENYING MY IDENTITY ITS REPRESENTATION!"
When I, and others, would try to politely reaffirm that it was "No--- really-- your group identity is not really important in choosing a president, his policies on X, Y, and Z are---" they just doubled down, heard only what they wanted to hear, ("OMG! YOU SAID MY IDENTITY IS NOT IMPORTANT!") and went into full hysterics mode.
It may sound crude, and even flame bait to say this, but to me the issue is that too much of the left is driven not by their minds, but by their hormones and emotional states. Their group identity is vastly important to them, to the point where it overrides any internal self-identity. The "I am a WOMAN!" is more important than "I am jane, and I like these things--", etc.
Because they are ruled by emotions rather than more cold, rational thought, they percieve cold, rational thought as a direct personal attack against their group identity, and thus against them personally, and read way too much into a cold, reasoned statement than they should, resulting in very distorted and absurd opinions.
The reliance on the group identity model then compels them to seek reaffirmation within their groups, which function as exclusive echo chambers. They present their own absurdly distorted view of the interaction they just had with somebody who simply disagrees for political reasons, as having had a conversation with a radically evil person who hates women (or gays, or blacks, or whatever group.) The reaction to this is "Oh how horrible! You are perfectly right to be upset by that!", which re-affirms the distorted narrative, and kicks the echoes off inside the echo chamber, culminating in an increasingly outlandish view of what they perceive as an existential threat, when in fact, it was just some guy who disagrees for purely political reasons, and is totally ambivalent about their group.
When this happens often enough, it alienates these completely benign people that have been wrongfully maligned, and when that happens, those benign people stop having benign opinions of those groups, and REAL tensions start.
Since I am very much opposed to seeing real tensions, real gender hatred, real racism, and real hate in general--- I would like to make an empassioned plea for people to stop using echo chambers, stop reacting on pure emotion and the please at least TRY to understand what other people are actually saying-- asking for clarification if you see something you find horrible, to be absolutely sure, before jumping to the "OMG! A HATER!" conclusion.
Please try to build a strong internal self-identity as well. Reliance on group identities to such an extreme is very unhealthy, and is not good for anyone.
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Topic: Doc Helgoland's Asylum for the Politically American: T+0 (Read 1426353 times)