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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
@speedyboris
It's funny because while I always openly supported things like feminism and anti-racism I used to swing way more to the right/libertarianism as a teen. Back then the ACLU just came off as a bunch of angry fedoras purposefully picking fights with Christians for no real reason. Though being exposed to the worst of Internet leftism by fandom and going to school with legitimate communism apologists at an early age probably didn't help.
Better critical thinking skills in college plus greater confidence in my queerness helped with getting a more nuanced understanding of political issues despite having to deal with a lot of the annoying people who put me off out-and-proud liberalism in the first place, but it was being a way into grad school and working or interacting with lots of people from around the world, with different histories and backgrounds and experiences, plus maturing tastes in the way I enjoy media, that really pushed me to rally behind progressive causes in earnest. Even if the ACLU can be a little unnecessarily aggressive at times, I'm fully in support of their civil libertarian causes.
edited 14th Nov '16 12:27:58 PM by AlleyOop
Plus, the definition of conservative changes from generation to generation. Once people get all the reforms they want, they stop the next wave (sometimes) and become the new conservatives. Its not like people turn 40 and wake up opposing marriage equality.
Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.The other issue with that saying is that in the current US, the Republicans aren't actually conservative. At all. In any way whatsoever. They're reactionary radical ideologues who are willing to collapse the whole system so that their ideology can be ascendant. The problem is that they don't really have a coherent ideology beyond "keep us in charge forever, and ruin everything for those who oppose us."
Like, you could genuinely call Mike Pence a "radical Christian", because he ascribes to a weird limited offshoot of Christianity that has the torture of a distinct group as a desired tenent.
edited 14th Nov '16 12:55:24 PM by Zendervai
I've been feeling numb for the past couple of days. Everything that's been happening since Trump got elected feels like a fever dream.
Reince Priebus is the Chief of Staff? Fucking Steve Bannon is a goddamn chief strategist???? And Paul Ryan wants to privatize Medicare and Social Security, because of course he does.
I just...feel like giving up right now. I feel like the US took a couple of steps forward in the last eight years but then took a 100 steps back with Trump's election.
I remember me and my sister watching Luke Cage on Netflix, and she mused on how people still think that racism is a thing when shows like that can be made, and there's even a black American president. (obvious answer: it's because racism is still a thing that shows like that need to be made.)
I wonder if she's had some new thoughts on the subject since Trump got picked. I got kinda scared of outright picking a fight when I saw her yesterday, though.
edited 14th Nov '16 1:51:24 PM by Kayeka
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Honestly, in the past week, I've tried to cheer myself up with the reassurance that the Trump administration would surely implode, but each time, I'm reminded of the enormity of our defeat and it makes me feel ill. I'm happy only that Massachusetts roundly rejected Governor Baker's ballot measure agenda, scuttling the charter school drive and legalizing pot. It just makes me feel incoherently angry that people in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida are going to burn away a decade of my life in favor of creatures like Trump and his ilk transforming America in their image.
edited 14th Nov '16 2:15:08 PM by CrimsonZephyr
"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."The evidence that we are not truly a post-racial society can be argued in part from the continuing existence and relevance of products like Luke Cage (which is very much a blaxploitation homage), Boondocks, etc. We wouldn't have those things if black people were truly culturally homogenized and treated exactly equally, just like we don't have modern day products pointing out the differences between Irish-Americans and 'white people.' Minorities get assimilated and become part of the new white people, then depressingly join the crowd when we move on to the next poor bastards to pick on.
And of course we still have a million hard statistics about how much it still sucks to be a black in many situations, but when you're living in a nice safe suburbia and don't know any minorities, abstract statistics are easy to ignore. Why are so many prisoners black? Oh, they're just criminals being treated completely fairly by an even-handed justice system, who cares about them?
And I mean, I'm guilty of it too. For most of my life, I used to think serious, publicly-voiced racism was completely a thing of the past because I never experienced it except in the context of obvious trolling. Then I shared dinner with a man who wasn't afraid to say that he thought segregation was great for schools, and it blew my freaking mind.
edited 14th Nov '16 2:19:10 PM by Karkadinn
Furthermore, I think Guantanamo must be destroyed.A lot of people are still fighting and will continue to do so. The march of progress isn't a straight line, there are always gonna be setbacks.
Donald Trump flip-flops so much, it's legitimately uncomfortable taking anything he says at face value. Like, if he said, "I am not going to send all brown people to the gas chambers," I would still be nervous about being disappeared.
edited 14th Nov '16 2:20:17 PM by CrimsonZephyr
"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."Rational Insanity: Yeah, that too. Two straight years of whipping racism into a frenzy against ONE public speech for five minutes? Nope.

I mean, of course a saying like that isn't going to be accurate all the time.