Voicelessness and Emotional Survival > Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board
Facebook post by Micaela (my daughter) on the day after the election
mudpuppy:
"Racist, misogynist, xenophobe etc" are not words designed to further rational discussion or debate.
They are words intended to prevent debate precisely because they are intended to offend.
Nobody reasons with a fascist or a Hitler so if you delegitimize someone and their opinions by labeling them as something scurrilous you not only shut them up, which I would think if it was going to be frowned upon anywhere it would be at a place called "voicelessness", but you don't have to go to all the trouble of, well, thinking or fashioning a rational argument.
Nor is leading off with "Last night America grabbed me by the hoohaa" a way to encourage thoughtful responses.
If people who voted for Trump were endorsing his crude private remark ten years ago then can I assume people who voted for Hillary were endorsing her harassment and smears of women who came forward describing her husband's undeniable affairs and assaults and at least one credible accusation of rape or her other numerous crimes and corruptions.
There are people who really do hate minorities and women and foreigners. What they believe is vile.
Trump's rise was fueled in no small part by people who are sick to death of being lumped in with the KKK and denounced as deplorable and irredeemable not because they believe any of those vile things but because they simply disagree with the people trying to shut them up.
Nor is some guy working three part time jobs in Alabama to try and keep his family from starving going to be too understanding when a bunch of punk kids from Harvard and Princeton and heading for some gold brick job at a non profit stage a protest to denounce his white "privilege".
There is an evil destructive fringe on the right that uses similar tactics and terms as the above and it is sedulously marginalized by the mainstream right.
The left accepts and embraces comparably fringe tactics and terms within its mainstream constantlyn as evidenced by their use in this thread, so it shouldn't be surprised that somebody who plays by their rules and gives it back just as hard as he gets it was successful and popular where obsequious losers like Romney and McCain were not.
The left's political success has depended for decades on them playing hardball while their opponents were playing tiddlywinks. Now some guy gets up and starts throwing the same kind of bean balls at their heads as we've been ducking for all these years and suddenly the snowflakes need to find their safe spaces and stress relieving coloring books.
They made the bed but they don't want to lie in it. That's not how the world works. Call somebody enough names and eventually you find yourself counting your teeth.
Mud
Hopalong:
It's pretty chicken or egg once people get more into
being angry, outraged and/or right than anything else.
I don't know if it'll have value, but since it does address
more intelligently than I can some of your objections, while
also ceding several of your points, thought I'd share this article (from
a librul site) with you. Would love to know if you find any common ground mixed in.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/11/democratic_politics_have_to_be_identity_politics.html
(You're welcome to PM me so we don't tie up the board with politics.)
Yer snowflake friend,
Hops
Dr. Richard Grossman:
Hi Mud and Hops,
Thanks for your responses! I'll pass them on to Micaela.
Richard
mudpuppy:
Doc G,
I only mentioned one part of the comment by your daughter. The bulk of her comment was an admirable attempt at rational discussion and I don't want to leave the impression that was unappreciated or unnoticed.
Her response to her FB friend was wrong on almost every point but was again a courteous and reasoned and reasonable comment.
A few more like her would make a world of difference.
Mud
Dr. Richard Grossman:
Thanks, Mud!
I very much appreciate your reply and passed it along to my daughter, Micaela.
Richard
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