This is all fair. For sure.
Allow me to organize the rest of this beautiful post up for you my brother.
"As I said earlier, however, the point about this kind of culture that often goes unacknowledged - including in this thread, where I am STILL waiting to hear about how the Left is more dangerous or toxic than the Right, but I'm not holding my breath for that one anymore - is that this current societal atmosphere began with the far-right and the Republicans, and the post-9/11 atmosphere of hyperpatriotism in which people were castigated and ostracized over speaking out against anything having to do with the wars or the Bush administration.
That's where the metamorphosis of Fox News from simple news outlet to bigoted propaganda machine started, which in my opinion was one of the most detrimental events in the history of American media. People were afraid to speak out against what they believed to be truly wrong for fear of retribution, because all we were told was how important it was to "defend freedom" and all that happy rhetorical horseshit.
And that was before 2004, where the LGBTQ+ community had to watch the same administration win re-election on the back of the Defense Of Marriage Act being put on the ballot in 11 states, which created ANOTHER painful societal atmosphere of "which side are you on?" And that was before Obama being elected - right around the time Bush's old Speaker Of The House, Dennis Hastert, was sent to jail over financial crimes and child molestation - which was immediately followed by Mitch McConnell swearing to dedicate his servitude towards obstructing every effort his administration made to legislate. He is STILL standing in the other side's path while hundreds of bills gather dust on his desk and he already has a stolen Supreme Court seat under his belt in Neil Gorsuch.
All the while, ANY TIME in the years since the Tea Party was voted in in 2010 - on the rhetorical back of Obama and the Left not doing a good or fast enough job cleaning up Bush's Great Recession - any time that the Right has to defend the heinous and reckless things that they do, they've done it by framing them as a fight with Democrats.
They (the Right) paint the narrative of simply wanting to do the right thing while the big bad other side stands in their way and tries to lead our country down the path to socialism or anarchy or whatever the scary word of the day is at that particular time.
They redline and gerrymander voting districts nationwide and tell black people they aren't working hard enough for their right to vote.
They perpetuate draconian women's rights laws to keep them under their thumb and do so using the Bible as a shield as they did with the LGBTQ+ community in the past.
They condemn immigrants who come here from countries that have collapsed into chaos under the guise of making people terrified that most of those immigrants are criminals and rapists who'll come knocking down their door if they're let inside.
They tell you that 99.9% of cops are great people and we would lose our country if we reformed or defunded the police, while one of the biggest reasons we can't pass relevant gun control in America is because most bills that have been written would prevent anyone with domestic abuse on their record from having a gun, and something like 40% of police have such a charge against them.
And any time their morals or ethics or lack thereof are called into question, it somehow becomes the left's fault that it ever had to reach that point.
So now that the Left has produced TWO movements in BLM and cancel culture that actually result in ANY kind of accountability for the kind of crooked and corrupt people who've needed dealing with for a great long while, it doesn't surprise me at all that's it's been condemned and reviled across the board. Because only here can we somehow take putting black people at the forefront of the societal narrative AND the widespread accountability of racists, bigots, rapists, child abusers, xenophobes and so on, and turn it on its head like we've seen it turned.
As I've said before, some people NEED to be intimidated, and turned away, and told in no uncertain terms that their actions, beliefs, states of mind, or penchant for causing chaos and driving dissent where it doesn't need to be, are not welcome in any capacity. I get fucking FURIOUS about these topics and I know it, but I also implore EVERYONE to counter my points, tell me their sides, and give me the business if I'm out of line.
I welcome it.
I don't want anyone to ever feel like they can't call me out if they feel so compelled, because I don't get all mad as hell because I want to scare everyone away or make unnecessary bubbles; I do it because I LOVE this forum and our community to death and back, and I care not one iota about pissing off the kind of people who would sow actual dissent in our ranks or be cancelled off the face of the earth if the world knew what they were hiding. I hope they all come out of the woodwork and curse my name for wanting the FGC and the NRS bubble to be better off without them.
You yourself, Jokey, are exactly the example of a good-minded person who wants to have the debate, but doesn't want things to swing too far either way, which is the ideal kind of person to be. The fundamental problem, however, which I've brought up in the past and have yet to be set right about by anyone, is that the Right swung this pendulum on its own a very long time ago, and it's only in the last 8-10 years or so that the Left and the centrists who are tired of all the cheap money-grubbing rhetoric have begun to gain their footing in any useful capacity, and it took a collection of horrific circumstances and dead bodies to get there."
Originally from Lt. Boxy Angelman
