The economy has been shit for middle class Americans for quite a while. Rent and home prices have been increasing far faster than wages. Furthermore, lots more nickel and diming has led to more debt and misery for the average middle american. The situation is even worse for people lower than that. However, especially for lower middle class white Americans, they aren't too far removed from a time when that was enough to have an OK life. So they remember or have heard about it. And they are unhappy.
And for a while we were working on fixing that unhappiness. But then some people came along and said something different. They said that those other people over there are the reason for your unhappiness. If it weren't for them things would be better. They are your enemy. And they've been doing this for decades now.
And things were getting more tense. Then (probably with a little outside help) someone else came along and really encouraged ramping up that anger. And said all the right things. And said if we just take over, we'll be able to make it right this time. And so many people believed this that they didn't really stop what that actually meant.
This may seem like I'm just BSing here, but I'm not. It's the same technique used by gangs, cults, and neo-nazi's. They target the young, naive, and emotionally frail. And they promise companionship and strength. And for people that feel alone and left behind, that is enough. They don't need to be dumb or evil. Just a little broken. And then the evil ones come in and take advantage.
But if you haven't ever seen how difficult it is to help someone recover from being in a cult or a neo-nazi gang... then you wouldn't realize how hard it is to deal with these groups.
who is "we" in this statement? and how were the things from your first paragraph being "fixed"?
There is no logic, there is no consistency, there is only claiming whatever is expedient at the time.
Anyways, that was a brief attempt to grok "crazytalk".
You'll be banned pretty quickly, they really don't care about free speech, only their speech.
Thankfully majority of people are not far left far right, but center.
Are you suggesting 'tolerant' people should tolerate something like, racism? You are a logical moron if you try to make that argument. You know exactly what you are doing, and it's stupid.
HN is a site for thoughtful, curious conversation. There's no substantive and interesting discussion that can't be had that way, and accounts that are unwilling to stop setting fires and attacking others are not cool here. Ironically, the people destroying the commons this way have far more in common with their enemies than they do with the bulk of the community, who come here to find interesting things to read and to escape this sort of ragey shitfest.
If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. You've posted some good comments in the past, but the damage caused by the abusive ones unfortunately far outweighs the benefit of the good ones.
Should Fox News be taken off the air? Should any conservative talk radio show be shut down? Should all employees for any type of org that can considered conservative or adjacent be made to pay for tolerating the intolerant?
https://images.app.goo.gl/nCWYshqYeZcN94kf7
Tolerating the intolerant gives the intolerant the foothold they need to get enough legitimacy to seize power and destroy the society which was tolerant of them.
If the risk is society's destruction as you say, then I'd imagine you'd be motivated to cast a pretty wide net for who counts as intolerant (who thus should be sanctioned and not given equal access to services until they fall in line). After all, anything can be justified to save our society from destruction, correct? It seems like it'd be better to be safe than sorry, with the stakes so high as you mention.
Are there any conservatives/republicans and their associated organizations that you think should maintain their equal access to services, and shouldn't face some sort of penalty for either directly/indirectly supporting an ideology that led to the events of January 6th?
This is pretty straight forward. If you:
Support violence against other groups because they look different
Seek to restrict someone's rights/voting because of the above
Then you should not be tolerated in our society and you should be punished.
However, I think where we may differ is how we think about solutions to problems like this. I want solutions that are scalable, and that help maintain a society where a diversity of people can all thrive over the long-term. I don't believe emotional reasoning should be a strong factor in determining punishments for people, as it leads to bias and discrimination.
Most vocal people you see on the internet don't seem particularly interested in long-term/scalable solutions. It's not terribly surprising, we humans are very short-term oriented and tribal by nature. When we see members of the outgroup performing badly, we want to punish them. When members of our own ingroup perform badly, we are more likely to rationalize it away and be more charitable with the interpretation of what they've done.
I don't believe the 'punish the outgroup, forgive the ingroup' thinking is healthy for a functioning pluralistic society. The words you are using and the way you are framing things are signals to me that you may be fairly biased against your outgroup. That's why I was asking you to spell out exactly what rules should govern punishment in your mind.
The next step in critically thinking through your proposed rules is whether you would punish members of your ingroup for violating them, or if you'd add new caveats to ensure they were given some leniency. But that's just a rhetorical question given the nature of this forum.
Note: I am making no claims of equivalence between your outgroup and ingroup in terms of actions they've done. You also likely think I'm part of your outgroup for straying from the status quo by even posing such questions, and may feel inclined to use terms reserved for your outgroup. You'd be mistaken, but I understand the impulse.