Yeah, I believe there is a difference between "hey, welcome to the party, isn't this horrible" and "what are yall complaining about, this is totally normal".
The latter is "normalizing", the former is attempting to get folks to understand a broader context.
It's been interesting to watch all the folks in my local newspaper comment section who used to call folks "pedos" for supporting queer folks or voting for biden all simultaneously stop doing that. If you file off enough cogs from the clockwork of yor mind you can think you believed anything at any time.
I find Tiktok an easy way to surface very specific demographic and political views- much easier than Meta-owned media.
It was super interesting to watch, for instance, the discussions between liberal and leftist black women around Harris, Gaza, and the 2024 election. If you just swipe out of videos that aren't things you're okay with pretty quickly, then it will change your feed dramatically in a short time.
Is it not chilling if government can proscribe the things that you say for other people, as if your position is one the government can directly oppose and call illegitimate?
I suspect those who find it chilling also perceive a weak distinction between citizens and visitors. For people who see that difference as foundational, differing treatment of those two groups is not chilling.
Rights can be inalienable but not universal. These rights are conferred by the government, but arise by virtue of membership in a body politic. For example, the right to vote isn’t universal but the government can’t take it away. Free speech arises out of America’s Anglo history and tradition and was viewed by the founders as a political right that protects democracy. There is nothing inconsistent about saying that this right is inalienable for citizens, but doesn’t extend to visitors who aren’t members of our body politic and aren’t entitled to participate in our democracy anyway.
The people you're describing found it consistent with liberty to own other humans, so forgive me if I am skeptical.
I understand your point, I just have a different theory of rights. Just because something is logically conistent doesn't mean I agree with the starting premises.
Personally, are any of your beliefs or statements things that could ban you for entry into the US? Because I have quite a few things that I have said on social media which would likely prevent my entry. It certainly doesn't make me feel like a "member of a body politic" when that body treats my beliefs as intrusive and foreign.
I’m not trying to persuade you about the premises, but only that—as a result of those premises—the slippery slope you fear is longer than you assume. For people who draw fundamental inside/outside distinctions, things that are intolerable for outsiders to say are tolerable for insiders to say.
I view America as a hot cup of coffee, and the outside world as lukewarm day old coffee. I’m not worried about how hot or cold individual molecules inside America are—the average will work out. My concern is about dumping lukewarm coffee from the outside into the cup.
I know you're not trying to convince me, and fortunately many of us see and have taken note of the ambient racism in your position. I understand your point because it is and has been broadcast to me everywhere I have lived in the US.
As a person looking for a cool drink of water, or who might be okay with drinking an iced coffee as the world burns, I am more concerned that the people I live around think that I should be prevented from drinking as I choose. And that's something that has happened here, often, historically, in other places, with many people.
So you can tell me that my concern isn't warranted; I get that all the time. It starts with "you're being hyperbolic" and ends with "well, we are glad they are gone because they weren't 'real people' anyhow."
The reality is that I'm not being hyperbolic in my concern.
> know you're not trying to convince me, and fortunately many of us see and have taken note of the ambient racism in your position.
Culture is not race. Children should be required to write that 100 times on a chalkboard. The third world is the way it is because of the culture of the people who built those societies. Nobody would be more thrilled than me if the only difference between Iowans and Bangladeshis was that we don’t need to spend money on sunscreen. (Except a little for my feet, which burn easily.) But that’s a fantasy world. It’s a fantasy that persists because most Americans have little personal contact with immigrants and can’t see how Bangladeshi mothers raise their children differently than Iowan mothers. Immigrants, meanwhile, actually have limited insight into the inner mechanics of Americans—they can see the results, the institutions, the rule of law, the order. But can’t see the inputs that lead to that. And obviously they have a vested interest in believing flattering falsehoods about what makes societies the way they are.
> I am more concerned that the people I live around think that I should be prevented from drinking as I choose.
You can drink as you choose. What I’m trying to avoid, because we’re all in this cup together, is drowning in the lukewarm coffee that my parents worked so hard to escape. We’re both trying to prevent the world from burning, we just disagree about where the fire is coming from.
I dunno, the US routinely just states plainly how many people they massacre and folks in the US seem okay with it.
I'd assume that when the Chinese do bad things people in China feel the same way about that as folks in the US feel about the US doing evil stuff, which is to say "very little at all". Why would they need to lie, any more than the US needs to lie? Do the average Chinese folks have more conscience then the average US citizen?
"the US routinely just states plainly how many people they massacre and folks in the US seem okay with it."
What a nonsensical thing to say. The CCP ruthlessly sensors all discussion of the massacre and every LLM created in China sensors it. So stop it with the BS whataboutism
I went to part one of a two day "street medic" training today.
It's basically like the Wilderness first aid course I took once, but with an emphasis on how to help folks deal with the various chemical weapons that the state uses.
I've been pepper sprayed- it's not so bad.
But I expect it won't be the last time.
I am rather frighted of the idea that there could come a time when the state apparatus won't simply use less-lethal force, because I and a lot of folks are only non-violent because of choice and not capacity and I don't think it would go the way a lot of the fantasies of the III% assholes think it would.
Anyhow, I live in the sticks and am able to find the community of folks who are already at a point of non-compliance phase and who have been willing to suffer physical harm for it.
There are, I understand, a whole lot more folks in cities who feel similarly.
If they bring the situation the point you're describing, please rest assured that it won't be you engaging folks by yourself but you engaging them with your community.
Seek out that community while it's still easy enough that it seems like a wingnut kind of thing to do.
As a person who a lot of folks would consider, to use the kids' term, "noided up", I don't know if I agree.
My experience has been that in general the fact that there are so many folks able to get traction with their poorly-informed ideas and who face little or no consequences (rhetorically) for being show wrong time-and-again has led to a situation where we can go from "limited hangouts" to "we just publish facts and folks ignore it thinking they are just like all the other dumb things people say".
Like, it's incredibly hard to talk about how many horrible things the US has done and published abut over the years (I am thinking of Pheonix, Bluebird, Artichoke, etc) without sounding like a crank even when the government itself is the primary source.
Authoritarian governments crushing truth directly, but that doesn't mean that liberal governments don't have heavy layers of propaganda to maintain their control.
As a principle, "YOLO anyone should say whatever and never face rhetorical consequences" probably just results in the same destruction of the truth, as you might see in this thread.
Many "liberal governments" of the West certainly have some authoritarian elements to them. I don't see that as a conflict with advocating for free speech. If the government is running the propaganda, who is supposed to push against that other than dissidents protected by free speech? It certainly won't be the government or "the authorities".
I don't understand what "YOLO anyone should say whatever and never face rhetorical consequences" means. Who should be enforcing these consequences? What even is a "rhetorical consequence"?
As ever, the problem with creating an authority to regulate what is truth, is who is going to be that authority, and how are we going to prevent it from being corrupted by human nature.
You don't need a ministry of truth to have a bit of shame when you say say something incorrect or to recall what really bad and false positions people take or to remember when you've put out bad ideas that were incorrect.
Oh, I think I see what you're saying. If I'm understanding the thrust of your argument:
I do think it would be good if people would be more humble in what they think they know and be more willing to engage with the argument presented by the "other side", and not be so tribal. More introspection, and less blindly doing as they are told, while acknowledging "doctors", "scientists", "reporters", are all actually humans that have human emotions, various incentives, varying knowledge, who sometimes do stupid things, and sometimes things with malevolent intent. They are not all-being, all-seeing, all-virtuous non-humans, so don't take everything at face value.
It's not a hard read, and probably would take most adults an hour or two. Maybe just go read it if you're curious, and if you don't like it then quit after a chapter or two.
I like it. I got a lot out of the encounter with the fox, specifically, and that helped me in how I relate to a lot of my friends and lovers.
The latter is "normalizing", the former is attempting to get folks to understand a broader context.
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