What's the Matter with Kansas? is a lovely example of contempt disguised as gentle inquiry, with a touch of worry over another, and it starts even with the title itself. "Why those poor, naive, uneducated conservatives in the flyover states, they simply do not understand that they are voting against their own interests." It's concern-trolling with a mask of pity.
Once you begin looking for it, you can see it more and more. On a rather left-leaning forum, an article appeared discussing authoritarianism and how pervasive it is in society. One commenter, without a hint of irony or self-awareness, wondered if there were some way to hook into this tendency to get people to get behind gun control or get vaccinated.
I will at least take naked, open contempt over that sort of thing.
I can't help but think this sense is so prevalent on 'The Left' because they have established an image for themselves that is rational, empathetic, and humanist above all else. They actively frame their positions and actions in terms of "justice" and "fairness". They love to declare that "Reality has a well known liberal bias" and frame people who see the world different as rejecting reality itself. With motivations so unquestionably good, and so unquestionably rational, anyone who is in opposition to their proposals must have something wrong with them, no? How else could someone be opposed to such righteous actions? Well, the answer is that they have been deceived by Fox News, they are ignorant, they are voting against their best interest without realizing it, they are reactionaries, they have no empathy, or they are just plan bad people. Take your pick.
I find those two forms of contempt to be equally frustrating, because (AFAICT) they have the same root cause:
Judging an un-nuanced, possibly straw-man version of another's views. Without any effort to check that they truly understand what the other person believes, let alone what reasons that person has for holding those views.
I've seen this from both conservatives and liberals, and especially from those with mass-media audiences.
> What's the Matter with Kansas? is a lovely example of contempt disguised as gentle inquiry, with a touch of worry over another, and it starts even with the title itself
On the contrary. The title is from the 19th century, from an editorial asking why the populists in Kansas were so left wing, something the book goes into detail about in the second chapter.
I haven't read that book but I think you may be misassessing Thomas Frank, who of course is from Kansas and whose main interest is rehabilitating progressive populism. Wasn't the title ironic? Having read/heard other things, I assumed he was really trying to explain what was the matter with the people who ask that.
I found this episode quite cathartic.
It's only somewhat related but hidden brain released an episode about passion in politics recently which I also found summed up some core problems with how we are framing discourse.
https://pca.st/episode/b2bc078b-f757-41fa-83d8-734cf37589d7
At some level I will be a permanent victim of movies and media, and as such there are absolutely politicians that I hate, but I've been trying to acknowledge to myself that, generally speaking, most of their voters mean well [1], even if they are voting for politicians that I think are disgusting. As such, I've tried to not "hate" them, even if I don't particularly like a good chunk of them either.
[1] Though I have to say that some of the "build the wall" rhetoric around immigrants has made me question this.
I'm not so sure about meaning well. If you read https://www.slatestarcodexabridged.com/I-Can-Tolerate-Anythi... , it feels like there's a lot of decisions nowadays that's taken because it will hurt/offend the "other team", with post-facto justification why the decision benefits "me/our side".
It seems like people have been losing their pride in their selves that now they're invested in their "football teqm" winning in the arena of politics.
It might help to see it as class based. I know I started to feel better about myself when I realized that, being well educated and in tech, I was part of the upper class in the US and it's not good to look down on those who are not.
>but I've been trying to acknowledge to myself that, generally speaking, most of their voters mean well [1], even if they are voting for politicians that I think are disgusting.
Some remedies:
(1) Actually talk to those voters and get to know them at a human level, don't just group them as an undefined mass of "people who vote badly".
(2) Try a mental game where you imagine your side has the wrong arguments or is talking from privilege, etc., and study what the other side is saying (even the naive people there, but even more so the smarter and less naive people there), trying to see how they are right. Find arguments why your (current) position is wrong.
(3) Then try for a month, to see all those sides (voters for R or D for example), as an outsider, who doesn't agree with either side. Check what people not belonging to either side have to say - e.g. political outsiders, academics doing a critique of both parties, pundits, commenters, and philosophers from a previous century not giving a damn for today's politics.
(4) Finally, see the ideas of today as from 2121, the same way we see the ideas of 1921 today. Then as from 3021 B.C. Don't assume a monotonic increase in agreement of the future with your current ideas, or the prevalent ideas of today, but that history goes back and forth in ideological fashions (including what's "good").
>[1] Though I have to say that some of the "build the wall" rhetoric around immigrants has made me question this.
Here are some examples of (2) in this case:
(1) Note that the idea of borders and citizenship is already the idea of a wall. And nobody, not even the "good guys" you voted for, ever challenged those.
(2) Note that the wall is defensive (we don't want no any more to come) and not actively harmful, then see how the good guy politicians that are feigning the idea unacceptable and inhuman, often advocate for foreign wars and interventions that actively harm millions.
(3) Note that those in favor of "building the wall" might have issues in their communities or work that e.g. a FAANG engineer might never experience as problems because they have different job prospects. Consider if your private interests were directly harmed by immigration (e.g. you are living in close quarters with poverty striken immigrants, taking to petty crime and so on, or because your low skill job industry prefers immigrants to lower costs and you're either out of a job or have your wages slashed).
And inversely, if you're say a Republican:
(1) Note that your family doesn't have very deep roots here. Just 400-200 years ago they passed some other people's non-wall (and killed a lot of them) to grap the land. If, say, you're a Kowalski or a Smith, you're not fooling anyone that you're the rightful owner of this land. B...tc please, your ancestors didn't come traversing the Bering Strait, you're not Clovis. If you're, like, second generation, your parents were bona-fide wall climbers. Perhaps they did it legaly through Ellis Island for example, but do you think they'd stopped if they were denied there, but had some other way in?
(2) Note that the Wall is established on land (TX, NM, FL, AZ, CA) stolen from the very country its people tries to keep out. It's even in the names of the states, all Spanish. Who are you fooling?
(3) Note that if you're out of a job, it might have more to do with clean shaven, suit wearing anglosaxon bosses preffering cheap immigrant labor, and less about the immigrants themselves. Plus, if those immigrants were legitimised, and given an easy way to citizenship, would they still be a cheaper option to undercut your wage?
In life there are many things we want but don't know we want, or can't admit we want. We seek analogs and those analogs often scratch our itch but might not for other people, leading among other things to arguments about contradictory anecdotes.
We want to avoid people who are bad for us. If you treat them as dangerous, scary, or 'below you' it's fairly emotionally cheap for you to avoid everything about them, not just the badness. But ignoring 'dangerous' problems can just make them more dangerous.
The problem with this line of thought is that it always becomes something for "the other" to do.
They need to compromise, they need to calm down, they need to love. And as long as they don't, we don't have to.
Not to mention those that equate compromise, civility, and love with getting their way without any sort of criticism. Then there's the issues where compromise isn't an option. If you want to kill everyone on the planet, and I don't want you to kill anyone. Killing half the planet isn't really a compromise I'm willing to entertain.
So sweet, I'm sure if we all loved each other and treated each other with respect, we'd all ride rainbows and shit ponies or whatever. But when we can't even agree on what love and respect even means, it's just kind of abstract, philosophical masturbation.
"Arthur Brooks is an economist who for 10 years ran the American Enterprise Institute, one of the most influential conservative think tanks in the world. He has come to believe there is only one weapon that can defeat our extreme political polarization: love."
I get where he's coming from, but love is too freighted to really get traction. If you see love as meaning to be invested in the happiness and actualization of others, it's more practical on a lot of levels.
The contempt issue begins at the roots of identity, I think. When we're adolescents, we're a part of the world or society, but without the responsibility or authority of an adult. This makes us subject to it and a bit helpless (but for the benevolence of adults) until we find a way to become adults ourselves. Until then, we often assert ourselves though revolt and rebellion as victims of the forces we are subject to. Our adolescent mind exists as an island protected by its own defensive resentment and contempt against the forces it is only subject to, until it acquires the responsibility and resultant confidence to act directly on the world. We all emerge from it differently, if at all.
I'm saying the contempt is an adolscent urge that originates from believing we are a subject or victim of our circumstances. There are many situations where you really are a target, but I'd say there is no contempt without identifying first as a victim, and that necessary identity is a remnant of adolescence. The way to mitigate those adolescent remnants is by taking responsibility and ownership of your life, which coincidentally, happens to be a value at the core of conservative ethos Brooks advocates.
Treating people as undeveloped adolescents because they use disgust and contempt as an organizing social signal could seem to merely respond to contempt with sincere, even heartfelt condescention (the most insulting kind), and that would be all the more alienating and enraging, but it's toward discovering what the fundamental divide in the very axioms that inform our values is. When Brooks says we need "love," I think what he means is we need to feel loved, and by this, that there is some force in the world (or universe) that is invested in our growth and happiness, and believing we can both recieve and achieve it.
I hope this is a signal that Brooks has turned to activism and is working to spread the message of love within his party. I eagerly await examples of his success and wish him all the best.
It isn't clear to me what you are saying. Are you saying we are doomed because he's a conservative or because you have no faith we retain the ability love?
What's notable is where you can see reality come crashing into people who treat policy like it's a simple team sport.
COVID doesn't care about your feelings, and the very real impact of higher infection rates and lower vaccination coverage is demonstrating who exactly has so dug-in on their position so far that they've become utterly disconnected from reality.
That's the problem with "reality" - the reality you see is driven by the media that reports the reality to you. Presumably the media you read likes to run stories like "lots of cases in Florida" to score points against the "other team", while ignoring deeper analysis like the paper I linked.
That doesn't necessarily break with my reasoning, right? They might still actually think that the vaccines are worse than the disease. Obviously they're wrong, and they should get vaccinated, but they might be fundamentally "good" but also misguided people.
I have my own hypothesis about the COVID vaccine denialism in particular, but I am afraid that it might come off as a bit too political for HN and Dang would lock the thread :).
seems like a good place to put this quote: "Justice is what love looks like in public." If this conservative economist wants to spread love, he can start by supporting economic policies that prevent the 1% from exploiting everyone else
Right because conservative = bad and deserving of contempt. This is exactly the type of kneejerk reaction that he is talking about. The 1% do just as well when Democrats are in office, but keep on playing the game ruled by tribe and emotion, see where that gets us.
How can one break an addiction to contempt? The answer is dead simple.
Follow the Prince of Peace.
> Living the New Life
> Therefore, I say this and testify in the Lord: You should no longer walk as the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their thoughts. They are darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them and because of the hardness of their hearts. They became callous and gave themselves over to promiscuity for the practice of every kind of impurity with a desire for more and more.
> But that is not how you learned about the Messiah, assuming you heard about Him and were taught by Him, because the truth is in Jesus. You took off your former way of life, the old self that is corrupted by deceitful desires; you are being renewed in the spirit of your minds; you put on the new self, the one created according to God’s likeness in righteousness and purity of the truth.
> Since you put away lying, Speak the truth, each one to his neighbor, because we are members of one another. Be angry and do not sin. Don’t let the sun go down on your anger, and don’t give the Devil an opportunity. The thief must no longer steal. Instead, he must do honest work with his own hands, so that he has something to share with anyone in need. No foul language is to come from your mouth, but only what is good for building up someone in need, so that it gives grace to those who hear. And don’t grieve God’s Holy Spirit. You were sealed by Him for the day of redemption. All bitterness, anger and wrath, shouting and slander must be removed from you, along with all malice. And be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving one another, just as God also forgave you in Christ.
- Ephesians 4:17-32 (HCSB)
I realize some of the people who might see this have had bad experiences with so-called Christians. I was a staunch Atheist for the vast, VAST majority of my life, specifically because of how some so-called "believers" had treated me when I was very young. I hated Christians so much I scared a preacher half to death, threatened to beat him up, and got him to run away in tears.
My own contempt, my rage, my unbridled hatred for people was off the charts. Anyone who didn't agree with me 100% on everything was an idiot, and I was not afraid to tell them so.
I'm saying all of this to say, if you resent me writing all of this, I get it. I really do. On a fundamental level, I understand that anger. But if you feel like you want to know the only answer to how to turn away from letting those controlling, destructive emotions from ruling your life; this anger that we all seem to be under the thumb of, then there is a very clear, obvious answer: God
Not just mere acknowledgement, or even a reverence for Him, but a stout willingness to obey His commandments and follow His teachings.
There's only one religion that tells you not just that it's wrong to murder, but that to hate someone in your heart is murder, and worthy of the same punishment. There is only one that holds everyone to that level of accountability.
>…He has come to believe there is only one weapon that can defeat our extreme political polarization: love.
Oh my, what a silly way to pitch a possible reader on your book.
There is a (VERY conservative) town in my state where every single employee of the local department of transportation has quit over the vaccine mandate. Now the former employees and their conservative allies are gleefully posting about how “the libs” won’t be able to use the nearby freeways due to lack of maintenance, and how “the libs” will have trouble driving around town because there will be no snow plow operators come winter.
Here’s the funny part: The conservative:liberal ratio there is about 50:1. This rural town is gleefully destroying its own infrastructure over some perceived culture war, fully knowingly. These people are willing to cripple their ability to leave their houses in order to “own the libs” even if they’re not even existent.
I do not think I could be convinced by some old guy that his newly-invented form of conservative Kumbaya will actually make it possible for these people to go to the pharmacy when it snows, or get fresh food from the grocery store.
While it might be a silly way to pitch your book, I think your anecdote captures what he is saying pretty well. Rampant contempt is bad for everyone. It doesn't help you or the people for which you hold contempt.
If I am to believe that "every single employee of the local department of transportation" are somehow right in a (counterfactual?) different timeline, what are they really supposed to do? Take the vaccine for a greater cause and their worst dreams turn true?
It's not the employees that are destroying the aforementioned rural town, it's the DOT doing blatantly undemocratic things that their employees won't approve.
Isnt this argument predicated on the supposition that the only reason they are opposed to coercive experimental gene therapy is because they want to "own the libs?"
I mean, maybe that's right but it seems unlikely when there are other much more obvious things to explain the reasons for the actions in question. That they then post hoc express schadenfreude for the party who they perceive to be responsible for the situation is evidence of the addiction to contempt the article refers to, sure. But I find it difficult to imagine they wouldn't prefer not to be coerced into experimental gene therapy even if it means they don't get the opportunity to "own the libs" in response.
Arthur Brooks is speaking out now to get ahead of the shitstorm that people like Arthur Brooks created for themselves by being contemptuous of the rank and file American worker for decades. It's all peace and love and respect now that he's made a comfortable life for himself. And in typical AEI fashion, he's got a sense of history that mayflies would find appalling.
Politicians are disagreeing and failing to use nonsensical phrases like "my good friend from <insert location here>?" Anybody want to recite Alexander Hamilton's memoirs of his genial political disputes with Aaron Burr?
> Arthur Brooks is speaking out now to get ahead of the shitstorm that people like Arthur Brooks created for themselves by being contemptuous of the rank and file American worker for decades.
Sweeping generalizations such as "people like him" are bad, seems both contemptuous & a shallow examination.
[+] [-] at_a_remove|4 years ago|reply
Once you begin looking for it, you can see it more and more. On a rather left-leaning forum, an article appeared discussing authoritarianism and how pervasive it is in society. One commenter, without a hint of irony or self-awareness, wondered if there were some way to hook into this tendency to get people to get behind gun control or get vaccinated.
I will at least take naked, open contempt over that sort of thing.
[+] [-] BitwiseFool|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] CoastalCoder|4 years ago|reply
Judging an un-nuanced, possibly straw-man version of another's views. Without any effort to check that they truly understand what the other person believes, let alone what reasons that person has for holding those views.
I've seen this from both conservatives and liberals, and especially from those with mass-media audiences.
[+] [-] VictorPath|4 years ago|reply
On the contrary. The title is from the 19th century, from an editorial asking why the populists in Kansas were so left wing, something the book goes into detail about in the second chapter.
[+] [-] dang|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Pxtl|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] watwut|4 years ago|reply
Or like, the notion of real Americams and those who live on cost as not counting as real.
[+] [-] Pearse|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tombert|4 years ago|reply
[1] Though I have to say that some of the "build the wall" rhetoric around immigrants has made me question this.
[+] [-] bellyfullofbac|4 years ago|reply
It seems like people have been losing their pride in their selves that now they're invested in their "football teqm" winning in the arena of politics.
[+] [-] golemotron|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TomSwirly|4 years ago|reply
Can you give some sort of reason why you have this impression?
[+] [-] coldtea|4 years ago|reply
Some remedies:
(1) Actually talk to those voters and get to know them at a human level, don't just group them as an undefined mass of "people who vote badly".
(2) Try a mental game where you imagine your side has the wrong arguments or is talking from privilege, etc., and study what the other side is saying (even the naive people there, but even more so the smarter and less naive people there), trying to see how they are right. Find arguments why your (current) position is wrong.
(3) Then try for a month, to see all those sides (voters for R or D for example), as an outsider, who doesn't agree with either side. Check what people not belonging to either side have to say - e.g. political outsiders, academics doing a critique of both parties, pundits, commenters, and philosophers from a previous century not giving a damn for today's politics.
(4) Finally, see the ideas of today as from 2121, the same way we see the ideas of 1921 today. Then as from 3021 B.C. Don't assume a monotonic increase in agreement of the future with your current ideas, or the prevalent ideas of today, but that history goes back and forth in ideological fashions (including what's "good").
>[1] Though I have to say that some of the "build the wall" rhetoric around immigrants has made me question this.
Here are some examples of (2) in this case:
(1) Note that the idea of borders and citizenship is already the idea of a wall. And nobody, not even the "good guys" you voted for, ever challenged those.
(2) Note that the wall is defensive (we don't want no any more to come) and not actively harmful, then see how the good guy politicians that are feigning the idea unacceptable and inhuman, often advocate for foreign wars and interventions that actively harm millions.
(3) Note that those in favor of "building the wall" might have issues in their communities or work that e.g. a FAANG engineer might never experience as problems because they have different job prospects. Consider if your private interests were directly harmed by immigration (e.g. you are living in close quarters with poverty striken immigrants, taking to petty crime and so on, or because your low skill job industry prefers immigrants to lower costs and you're either out of a job or have your wages slashed).
And inversely, if you're say a Republican:
(1) Note that your family doesn't have very deep roots here. Just 400-200 years ago they passed some other people's non-wall (and killed a lot of them) to grap the land. If, say, you're a Kowalski or a Smith, you're not fooling anyone that you're the rightful owner of this land. B...tc please, your ancestors didn't come traversing the Bering Strait, you're not Clovis. If you're, like, second generation, your parents were bona-fide wall climbers. Perhaps they did it legaly through Ellis Island for example, but do you think they'd stopped if they were denied there, but had some other way in?
(2) Note that the Wall is established on land (TX, NM, FL, AZ, CA) stolen from the very country its people tries to keep out. It's even in the names of the states, all Spanish. Who are you fooling?
(3) Note that if you're out of a job, it might have more to do with clean shaven, suit wearing anglosaxon bosses preffering cheap immigrant labor, and less about the immigrants themselves. Plus, if those immigrants were legitimised, and given an easy way to citizenship, would they still be a cheaper option to undercut your wage?
[+] [-] hinkley|4 years ago|reply
We want to avoid people who are bad for us. If you treat them as dangerous, scary, or 'below you' it's fairly emotionally cheap for you to avoid everything about them, not just the badness. But ignoring 'dangerous' problems can just make them more dangerous.
[+] [-] bena|4 years ago|reply
They need to compromise, they need to calm down, they need to love. And as long as they don't, we don't have to.
Not to mention those that equate compromise, civility, and love with getting their way without any sort of criticism. Then there's the issues where compromise isn't an option. If you want to kill everyone on the planet, and I don't want you to kill anyone. Killing half the planet isn't really a compromise I'm willing to entertain.
So sweet, I'm sure if we all loved each other and treated each other with respect, we'd all ride rainbows and shit ponies or whatever. But when we can't even agree on what love and respect even means, it's just kind of abstract, philosophical masturbation.
[+] [-] lamontcg|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] adminscoffee|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ootsootsoots|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] GoodJokes|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] alexfromapex|4 years ago|reply
... in other words, we're all doomed.
[+] [-] dang|4 years ago|reply
"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."
"Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something."
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
[+] [-] motohagiography|4 years ago|reply
The contempt issue begins at the roots of identity, I think. When we're adolescents, we're a part of the world or society, but without the responsibility or authority of an adult. This makes us subject to it and a bit helpless (but for the benevolence of adults) until we find a way to become adults ourselves. Until then, we often assert ourselves though revolt and rebellion as victims of the forces we are subject to. Our adolescent mind exists as an island protected by its own defensive resentment and contempt against the forces it is only subject to, until it acquires the responsibility and resultant confidence to act directly on the world. We all emerge from it differently, if at all.
I'm saying the contempt is an adolscent urge that originates from believing we are a subject or victim of our circumstances. There are many situations where you really are a target, but I'd say there is no contempt without identifying first as a victim, and that necessary identity is a remnant of adolescence. The way to mitigate those adolescent remnants is by taking responsibility and ownership of your life, which coincidentally, happens to be a value at the core of conservative ethos Brooks advocates.
Treating people as undeveloped adolescents because they use disgust and contempt as an organizing social signal could seem to merely respond to contempt with sincere, even heartfelt condescention (the most insulting kind), and that would be all the more alienating and enraging, but it's toward discovering what the fundamental divide in the very axioms that inform our values is. When Brooks says we need "love," I think what he means is we need to feel loved, and by this, that there is some force in the world (or universe) that is invested in our growth and happiness, and believing we can both recieve and achieve it.
[+] [-] notquitehuman|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] greenail|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] platz|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] dang|4 years ago|reply
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
[+] [-] Pxtl|4 years ago|reply
COVID doesn't care about your feelings, and the very real impact of higher infection rates and lower vaccination coverage is demonstrating who exactly has so dug-in on their position so far that they've become utterly disconnected from reality.
[+] [-] dang|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] caylus|4 years ago|reply
That's the problem with "reality" - the reality you see is driven by the media that reports the reality to you. Presumably the media you read likes to run stories like "lots of cases in Florida" to score points against the "other team", while ignoring deeper analysis like the paper I linked.
[+] [-] tombert|4 years ago|reply
I have my own hypothesis about the COVID vaccine denialism in particular, but I am afraid that it might come off as a bit too political for HN and Dang would lock the thread :).
[+] [-] dontbeevil1992|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] panzagl|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] registeredcorn|4 years ago|reply
Follow the Prince of Peace.
> Living the New Life
> Therefore, I say this and testify in the Lord: You should no longer walk as the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their thoughts. They are darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them and because of the hardness of their hearts. They became callous and gave themselves over to promiscuity for the practice of every kind of impurity with a desire for more and more.
> But that is not how you learned about the Messiah, assuming you heard about Him and were taught by Him, because the truth is in Jesus. You took off your former way of life, the old self that is corrupted by deceitful desires; you are being renewed in the spirit of your minds; you put on the new self, the one created according to God’s likeness in righteousness and purity of the truth.
> Since you put away lying, Speak the truth, each one to his neighbor, because we are members of one another. Be angry and do not sin. Don’t let the sun go down on your anger, and don’t give the Devil an opportunity. The thief must no longer steal. Instead, he must do honest work with his own hands, so that he has something to share with anyone in need. No foul language is to come from your mouth, but only what is good for building up someone in need, so that it gives grace to those who hear. And don’t grieve God’s Holy Spirit. You were sealed by Him for the day of redemption. All bitterness, anger and wrath, shouting and slander must be removed from you, along with all malice. And be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving one another, just as God also forgave you in Christ.
- Ephesians 4:17-32 (HCSB)
I realize some of the people who might see this have had bad experiences with so-called Christians. I was a staunch Atheist for the vast, VAST majority of my life, specifically because of how some so-called "believers" had treated me when I was very young. I hated Christians so much I scared a preacher half to death, threatened to beat him up, and got him to run away in tears.
My own contempt, my rage, my unbridled hatred for people was off the charts. Anyone who didn't agree with me 100% on everything was an idiot, and I was not afraid to tell them so.
I'm saying all of this to say, if you resent me writing all of this, I get it. I really do. On a fundamental level, I understand that anger. But if you feel like you want to know the only answer to how to turn away from letting those controlling, destructive emotions from ruling your life; this anger that we all seem to be under the thumb of, then there is a very clear, obvious answer: God
Not just mere acknowledgement, or even a reverence for Him, but a stout willingness to obey His commandments and follow His teachings.
There's only one religion that tells you not just that it's wrong to murder, but that to hate someone in your heart is murder, and worthy of the same punishment. There is only one that holds everyone to that level of accountability.
Think it over.
[+] [-] dang|4 years ago|reply
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
[+] [-] h2odragon|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] newbie789|4 years ago|reply
Oh my, what a silly way to pitch a possible reader on your book.
There is a (VERY conservative) town in my state where every single employee of the local department of transportation has quit over the vaccine mandate. Now the former employees and their conservative allies are gleefully posting about how “the libs” won’t be able to use the nearby freeways due to lack of maintenance, and how “the libs” will have trouble driving around town because there will be no snow plow operators come winter.
Here’s the funny part: The conservative:liberal ratio there is about 50:1. This rural town is gleefully destroying its own infrastructure over some perceived culture war, fully knowingly. These people are willing to cripple their ability to leave their houses in order to “own the libs” even if they’re not even existent.
I do not think I could be convinced by some old guy that his newly-invented form of conservative Kumbaya will actually make it possible for these people to go to the pharmacy when it snows, or get fresh food from the grocery store.
[+] [-] notenoughbeans|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] maccolgan|4 years ago|reply
It's not the employees that are destroying the aforementioned rural town, it's the DOT doing blatantly undemocratic things that their employees won't approve.
[+] [-] etherael|4 years ago|reply
I mean, maybe that's right but it seems unlikely when there are other much more obvious things to explain the reasons for the actions in question. That they then post hoc express schadenfreude for the party who they perceive to be responsible for the situation is evidence of the addiction to contempt the article refers to, sure. But I find it difficult to imagine they wouldn't prefer not to be coerced into experimental gene therapy even if it means they don't get the opportunity to "own the libs" in response.
[+] [-] Gunax|4 years ago|reply
I dont have any hard proof of course, but this is how it is. No one cares if you're right if the opponent can be witty.
As proof Ill try to leave you with 2 videos, hopefully they are bipartisan enough:
1. https://youtube.com/watch?v=ErZCMcoC8X8 2. https://youtube.com/watch?v=aFQFB5YpDZE
[+] [-] MisterBastahrd|4 years ago|reply
Politicians are disagreeing and failing to use nonsensical phrases like "my good friend from <insert location here>?" Anybody want to recite Alexander Hamilton's memoirs of his genial political disputes with Aaron Burr?
[+] [-] rkk3|4 years ago|reply
Sweeping generalizations such as "people like him" are bad, seems both contemptuous & a shallow examination.