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[dragdeler]

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[nenjin]

Man I'm right there with you. I am an awful person to the world when I'm in my car. No one succeeds in totality, even the people we disagree with. But yeah, trying to not let the world's toxicity seep in to my own being has been the theme of my life pretty much since Trump got elected. From both sides it's a spew of the worst people can say and think about each other, and I'm trying to not sip that poison. It'd be all too easy to get blinded by rage. We have plenty of examples of that going on already. This is why I've always ragged on Antifa, because that's what blinded by rage looks like to me.

The examples in your close entourage are tragic and all too common I know.

Luckily they ain't my crew anymore. I don't know how much more often I could put up with that without exploding on people who are technically clients / coworkers. At least they kinda learned to just....not say that shit around me. I was always waiting for them to start laying in to the Mexicans in my presence.

[Reelya]

I think scum is like, small organisms that live on the water? Collections of zooplankton and phytoplankton?

He meant the specific phrase "scumbag" not the word "scum".

[MetalSlimeHunt]

This is why I've always ragged on Antifa, because that's what blinded by rage looks like to me.

The horrid blinded rage of not letting neo-Nazis stab and firebomb people while the riot cops watch on impassively, occasionally giving a thumbs up or baring an Iron Cross tattoo.

[Naturegirl1999]

I think scum is like, small organisms that live on the water? Collections of zooplankton and phytoplankton?

He meant the specific phrase "scumbag" not the word "scum".

yes, my thinking was someone could, with dedication, bag various planktons, thus a bag of scum, scumbag

[nenjin]

This is why I've always ragged on Antifa, because that's what blinded by rage looks like to me.

The horrid blinded rage of not letting neo-Nazis stab and firebomb people while the riot cops watch on impassively, occasionally giving a thumbs up or baring an Iron Cross tattoo.

And punching whoever the hell they feel like, let's please not forget that.

[Reelya]

I think scum is like, small organisms that live on the water? Collections of zooplankton and phytoplankton?

He meant the specific phrase "scumbag" not the word "scum".

yes, my thinking was someone could, with dedication, bag various planktons, thus a bag of scum, scumbag

BTW I did some digging and it looks like the reason "scumbag" entered the lexicon wasn't because it was comparing people to a used condom. That slang did exist since at least 1960, but was uncommon. What happened was that there was a live track recorded by Frank Zappa plus John Lennon and Yoko Ono in 1971, which they titled "scumbag" (clearly Frank Zappa's sense of humor), and by 1972 "scumbag" first became used as an insult. Pretty much because of the song title and not because people knew what it meant.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

This is why I've always ragged on Antifa, because that's what blinded by rage looks like to me.

The horrid blinded rage of not letting neo-Nazis stab and firebomb people while the riot cops watch on impassively, occasionally giving a thumbs up or baring an Iron Cross tattoo.

And punching whoever the hell they feel like, let's please not forget that.

we must defend to death the rights of the sturmabteilung, even if we disagree on a few issues, at the end of the day, you have to admit, we live in a society

[SalmonGod]

Fair enough. I'd rather not call people a piece of shit anymore than approve of calling anyone that pisses you off a sub-human piece of garbage.

Brother sometimes I wish I had your attitude, because I probably couldn't get myself to think that was an option if my life depended on it. I've been spiraling into toxicity for the better part of the last decade, with ups and downs... So I'd like to say that I'll try to do better but the truth is that will probably be far down the list of my considerations next time I'll be as angry as the time I incited elder abuse only to defuse that into nazi terminology. TBF whomever is dragging him up there is abusing elders too... Anyway one thing is that you can be 100% sure of is that I will never be seduced by those so feared siren calls, no matter how fucking weird I get. The examples in your close entourage are tragic and all too common I know.

I'm not ok with it, frankly.  Because it's removing levels.  When all you can say is "bad person", then you're forced to use the same words to express disapproval of the person who cuts in line as for the person who promotes genocide.  Part of my argument was that "piece of shit" is generic and weak, too.  That's a phrase I'd use for your rank and file worthless dipshit who does nothing positive with their lives and treats everyone around them abusively.  It's a cheap throw-away pejorative for someone who's not bad enough in scale or novelty to be worth impassioned expression.  Someone on the order of Biden, who has had an influential hand in crafting legislation that has ruined hundreds of thousands of lives deserves far stronger than that.  Hyperbole, and even sometimes being offensive, is linguistically and emotionally important.

And a massive critical differentiation between this and the racist friends in denial is that the racist friends are carelessly throwing words around at people *based on their intrinsic features*.  Calling Biden a subhuman piece of garbage is based on a verifiable life history of intentional decisions made by them, with massive negative consequences for all of society.

If you honestly think that using language this way means someone who is using that language to enthusiastically express their disapproval of someone on the basis of their borderline fascist history is actually in danger of becoming the real fascist, then I don't know what else to say other than I vehemently disagree.  I prioritize substance over aesthetics.

And FWIW, I'm honestly alright with discouraging the use of that specific pejorative based on the complaints lodged.  It was the enthusiastic dogpile of shaming and *especially* this bit.

Well I mean, calling someone a subhuman in this context is indeed very close to Nazi territory, whether it's based upon their actions or not. Especially since Biden hasn't actually done anything you were angry at in your now removed comment, he's just spoken about what he would do. Declaring someone a subhuman based on their fully public, non-incitive, unofficial and frankly little-impact words to their supporters just downright doesn't make sense (and is obviously morally wrong.)

Which says to me "I believe fascism is bad based purely on the aesthetics of their behavior, not what actually happens to people as a result."

If the response were something like "hey I get you're angry and it's legit, but maybe you should say something like let's launch that motherfucker into space where he can die alone because he's that fucking awful instead of using the words 'subhuman piece of garbage' because it just rubs me the wrong way", then I wouldn't have stepped in at all.  But stuff like the above I simply cannot stand for.

Being angry is not an excuse for being vile, and that's the exact same argument that'd be leveled at people you don't agree with.

Also, I don't agree with this.  I don't care if my enemies are civil or not.  I'd rather they be vile, and not "hide their power levels" behind civility.

Or we settle on the idea that if you mouth it, it's what you feel, the same way I'd pillory Ted Nuget for saying it, I'd pillory someone else for saying. The first step to fucking someone over is convincing yourself they're not worthy of the rights you'd extend to people you agree with.

Also it's worth pointing out that if you believe in criminals going to prison, then you literally already believe that people who have done things you don't agree with deserve less rights.

[WealthyRadish]

This is why I've always ragged on Antifa, because that's what blinded by rage looks like to me.

The horrid blinded rage of not letting neo-Nazis stab and firebomb people while the riot cops watch on impassively, occasionally giving a thumbs up or baring an Iron Cross tattoo.

And punching whoever the hell they feel like, let's please not forget that.

All I can say is that it's important to be wary of spin and distortion. Antifa is an easy target that media of all stripes have been happy to vilify, given their radical position outside the mainstream. Years back I thought their tactics (as presented) were counterproductive, but doing any digging into the major events shows that there's really no equivocation to be made. It's also becoming clear that while these same moderate outlets continue to uncritically platform what are increasingly looking to be genuine fascists (and are still woefully unprepared to handle 2020 as they were in 2016), the broader anti-fascist movement has at least been improving.

[Frumple]

I just wish I saw even half the vitriol and word count used to dump on moderately centrist or leftist folks aimed at, say, the shitgibbon in chief currently directing federal agencies to functionally fucking steal medical supplies and PPE and shit from state level healthcare efforts.

Part of me guesses it's some kind of artifact of loitering in largely left-wing areas to begin with, but most days it seems like I see several orders of magnitude of shit flung at biden or whatever and nearly fucking nothing at goddamn trump, or any number of GOP fucks currently in the process of actively getting our population killed by the fucking plague.

Instead it's shit like pages of whether it's okay to coopt fash bullshit to point at people not nearly as fucking bad as a whole goddamn slew of targets basically actively fucking murdering us. Fuckin' frustrating.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I mean, what point would there be? Terms are settled between the GOP and the rest of America at this point, we all know there's nothing to be gained from them save a swifter and harsher death. Complaining about Trump and co just doesn't matter. His supporters love him for being him, not any particular thing he does.

The ideological struggle of the now is for people to realize that the Democratic Party just intends to enforce and collaborate with the GOP platform, even in light of how pathetically little it seeks to differ from that platform in the first place. The Democrats have spent the past twelve or so years as an idling, sputtering car engine, and in that time the only moments of effective political organization I've seen from them is suddenly turning into a monolith whenever the left is on the verge of getting a hook in them.

The Democratic officials themselves are nearly all a lost cause. I could and have gone on for pages about their various pathologies, but the point is that half of them don't truthfully want Trump gone to begin with and the other half sit in their basements crying over The West Wing fanfics and being extremely upset at Jewish socialist carpenter man on twitter.

The left deserves critique for believing this toxic soil could sprout new life - I'm certainly guilty of it myself. We have to move on, or these fuckers will get us all killed. That the GOP is actively loading the pistol, testing how many of us it can kill with as little effort as possible? Old news. What we need to understand now is that all the difficulties of new political organization in this environment is a lesser challenge than trying to coup the DNC-strain of boomerism.

[dragdeler]

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[Frumple]

It's better than the lack, at least.

I guess it'd be less... whatever... if folks going off on biden or whoever isn't actually in the US GOP corner would just... I'unno, dedicate a paragraph or two throwing shit at the ones who are whenever they do. Balance out the discourse so junk doesn't look like it could be interchangeably coming out a russian troll account spamming near exclusively anti-dem crap or some shit, y'know? Throw a pound of shite at biden, take a moment to throw a pound at trump, one of the GOP governors currently screwing over their population* or something, too.

Or in other words, don't go the goddamn email route again, where 90% of the airspace is taken up dumping on folks significantly less bad than the alternative. Go for a more even balance if you really can't just keep the filth hose aimed at the more vile targets for a while.

* P.S. Fuck you, desantis, and fuck scott, too, for the lingering shite extra screwing over florida right now.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

This is exactly what I'm talking about. "Russian troll account" is pure fucking pathology. If what Russia wants so badly is for the US to unfuck its politics and pursue objectively good policies to undo our increasingly rapid collapse, then they're the best friends we've ever had.

This is why the Democratic Party must die. If people can't even advocate for "let's not immediately set the country on fire" without some MSNBC-brained twitter lord coming in to say "ahem, you have now been upgraded from a 'likely' Russian troll to 'very likely', please provide your IP on response, comrade", which itself is only one among the many pathologies of the post-Trump Democrats, then there's no hope for this politics.

The Democrats would have to pull a hard screeching 180, literally right now as I write this, and never look back in order to survive. They're all but Whigs, except they don't seem to plan on ever getting around to collapsing and instead are just going to lose forever.