Of course blaming and shaming helps solve problems. It always has, and always will.
You see, I’m not the President of the United States. I don’t get to set public health policy. I’m not allowed to enact a prohibition on working out maskless in gyms. I’m not allowed to pay people to shelter in place, or close businesses.
What I CAN do, is point and snicker at those that are too silly to realize that if something isn’t explicitly banned, that doesn’t mean it is wise, or safe, or sensible to do.
And, it is clearly working to some small degree. You’ve walked back a few of your more ludicrous positions, and it is clear that you have at least in some small degree begun to see the folly of your ways. This is a good thing.
I disagree. It only makes those who disagree with you to dig in more. Trump and his supporters are a perfect example of this. I thought we learned this lesson in 2016, but I guess some are super slow at adapting
No. What you CAN do is write your congress person, governor, etc. As an aside… I DID write to my governor to shut down! Has anyone else ITT?
I’m really not walking back much. It’s hard to imagine how it’s not obvious I enjoy the role of devil’s advocate and going against the grain to feel others out and spot their inconsistencies. Don’t get me wrong. I have plenty of inconsistencies of my own and that’s another reason I do it. To find mine. I find that taking a position to the extreme is the best way to find out if its logically consistent. It intereests me how many positions cannot hold water at the extremes and we find in the end, many are subjective, rather than objective and there comes a point where there’s a need to back down.
That’s when you see me back down. However, it’s fascinating that when I push others to where they “should” back down, they refuse and instead, resort to straw mans, ad hoc, and personal attacks. It’s plastered all over threads I’m involved in where I’ve had the audacity to take a contrarian viewpoint. In other threads where I’m mostly in agreement with the herd mentality, I get nothing but likes
This is a great point, but I see it as the complete opposite of what’s happening. It’s because we are seen as expendable stats why there’s a refusal to shut down. The willingness to lose tens of thousands of working class lives to keep the stock market up and shareholders happy is what matters to generations older than mine. We need to be much more pissed off at this than the people who fall prey to the mixed messaging on coronavirus
I was willing to risk my own health to keep small businesses going seeing the lack of help and responsibility the government has been taking to prevent these people from losing their livelihoods and workers joining food lines. I’ve conceded what made it wrong was that it wasn’t just my health I was risking. Nevertheless, I don’t think these people should become poverty statistics to lessen covid statistics. What give me, you, or anyone the right to tell someone they and their family should lose the roof over their head, so me or my grandma doesn’t get sick or even possibly die from covid? Why should we be put in such a situation to begin with?
I really was. The owner and her employees. I could certainly find another way to workout. Our food budget as gone up over $2k/mo because we are ordering take out almost every night from local restaurants. Who else is gonna help these people? Not the government that’s for sure
I don’t agree with this at all. If no one goes, they get laid off and there is no help from the government to save them. It’s an unfathomable shitty system we live in where the choice is risk your lives or starve. Again, in my mind you are failing to recognize the different degrees to this…
As was mentioned above Staying home < going to the gym < going to the gym without a mask
Well okay. But getting your groceries delivered and left at your door is surely < than going into the store and shopping for them yourself, wouldn’t you agree? Have you been getting your groceries delivered for the last 9 months? Are you willing to put everyone who goes into a grocery store on blast because they could be getting them delivered?
There are degrees man. Post a diary of your life the past week and I’ll bet I can come up with at least a few things you could’ve done that would’ve had less risk of putting others in danger. I do accept your points for the most part. I’m just pointing out that we’re not just dealing with binary choices here and I’m not sure it’s our place to blame people because they do something that’s a little riskier than what we’re willing to accept
I’m sorry that’s what you think because the exact is opposite is true. It’s this type of thinking that’s gonna no doubt hurt us again in 2024. Trump got elected because the majority of the country got sick of liberals trying to shame them for anything they disagreed with them about. Basket of deplorables didn’t work out so well the first time, and it came way too close to getting him elected for a 2nd time
Racists aside (who I agree should be shamed relentlessly because there is no redeeming quality about it), there is common ground that needs to be found
No it’s what happened. Trump whined and cried and said America was no longer great while him and his flock named and pointed at those who were destroying it.
I keep reading this thread. … I agree with a lot of what Cactus says. But man, you don’t come off as a sympathetic character. It seems to me that you’ve correctly identified that it is madness to blame individuals. But the reason not to blame individuals is because they’re not really aware. They believe what they believe. You don’t, however. You tell a story with yourself as an aware person mimicing the choices of the unaware. … but what has really amazed me is how everyone has gone 100s of posts caring about this one dude going to the gym. That’s kind of nuts.
I think that’s just because most everybody on this forum believes in science and civic responsibility and we’re all mad at the people that are making the pandemic worse than it has to be. There is definitely a bunch of unloading on the one person advertising that he is being knowingly irresponsible.
I have only read 5% of this thread, but I appreciate cactus 100%. Sincerely.
With a couple caveats, I agree with this sentiment. I wouldn’t say it’s a majority of the country, but a significant number regardless. I know I chuckle along with most of us when we hear about the trials and tribulations of the heir of a car dealership, as we roll our collective eyes at the “economic anxiety”(lol) that surely is the leading cause of their support for Trump.
But when I think of many of the Trump supporters that I know, the ones in rural [semi-ghost]towns, or in the midwest cities that I grew up in, or the west coast city I live in now–I see people struggling to build stable lives, let alone fulfilling ones. People know that they’re playing a game where the deck has been stacked against them. Even if they personally never get dealt the “victim of racism or homophobia” card. People know what it means to live their own lives, their experiences are real. The eDems give lip service at best, and have basically stopped giving a fuck about the lived realities of many of our fellow citizens, and the real economic malaise caused by stagnant wages & increased debt burden, among other factors.
We can choose to criticize those people for voting for Trump, a lying conman. But when the other option is HRC or Biden–career advocates for the neo-liberal agenda that they attempt to dress up with worn-out empty platitudes–can we really say that the other option on the ballot isn’t lying to them as well? I mean, I’m obviously not a Trump voter, but I know that Biden shouldn’t be trusted to do the right thing in a battle of the banks vs the people.
We have very different recollections of 2016. If you’re saying Trump got the racist/nationalist vote, I’ll agree. But I don’t agree that there are more of them than us. Hillary and the Dem party failed to earn enough votes due to their insistence on playing identity politics over policies (which was built around shaming and name calling basket of deplorables) and those are the people who said fuck you Hillary
There’s no other way when arguing against a mob mentality that refuses to concede an inch on anything. This forces me take ANY position I might hold that might be just slightly different than most, to the absolute extreme
I agree it’s nuts. I’ve said numerous times we’ll agree to disagree and leave it at that. But then another shot at name calling or shaming occurs and we’re back at it. If I were any of them, I’d have stopped responding to my responses a looooong time ago. For instance, there are some (SenorKeed comes to mind) who have expressed opinions in the past that I’ve disagreed with. I explain my disagreement and why I think they should change their mind and I’m done unless they bring up a new talking point. But most here don’t do that and keep regurgitating the same insults over and over again, so it becomes a fun game of whack-a-mole for me
To the rest, yes. I can find another way to workout and will now probably just give the staff a holiday bonus instead of daily tips. I’m not an insensitive fuck. I’m also not an idiot who can’t relate or understand what you’re trying to say. And I’m DEFINITELY not anti science! But I’m pretty sick of being the only one who tries to understand another point of view
Disagree. Not with you now, just generally on this …
When all this shit w Trump really began coming up four years ago I talked to my Dad who voted for the monster. And he said that, and I’m paraphraping: “The way liberals are, it pushes my views even more to the right.” It’s a loose parapgrase, but the meaning is there. As he felt others oppose him, he entrenched and took on more and more conservative beliefs.
That seems super unhealthy to me. My dad was basically saying his views are not his own–they’re driven by something he identifies with. So, maybe it’s possible something similar is happening with you?