> "... it's that much of the country never wanted to pay this toll, and that's what makes the rest of us angry."
Thats a good observation. I wouldn't say I had it completely backwards, after thinking on it, I still feel that many people can't/won't get past their anger and that prevents them from paying into the toll. You didn't specify why they don't want to pay into the toll and anger/resentment could be part of that.
> "People have made decisions to actively harm people I love, and they cheer it on to my face. This is not an emotion, it's a fact."
Does that fact make you angry? Emotional? I suspect you are passionate about the issue. Wouldn't your feelings towards your loved ones and the harm done to them galvanize your stance and give you a sense of conviction? If so, why aren't you doing more to help them, don't you care? Why are you on hacker news talking to some rando instead picketing for your cause, raising awareness and funding?
Apologies, I was being intentionally abrasive, trying to make the point that it is relatively easy to fan the flames of someone's passion into outrage. One can be supportive and encouraging about it and push you towards that conviction/outrage, but it takes more time. If one were to be an ass about it, I bet a dollar your conviction/outrage would be near instant and an order of magnitude greater.
Passion is healthy. Outrage is not. With passion, you are happy with yourself and your effort, perhaps a "live to fight another day" mentality. When you slip into outrage, you are never happy until YOU get what YOU want.
So, if given the choice to feed a group of people, but some of them hurt your loved ones, what do you do? What if it's their kids?
Do you feed the people you hate? Weigh the options? Figure out the percentages? Try to heal? Find a way to exclude the offenders? Or do you just bail completely? Do they have to be near death before you'd offer help? I gander the result depends how outraged you are.
My point is that the more outraged you are, the more morality and validity go out the window, and less likely you are to donate to a school to pay off lunches because you might be doing something to benefit someone you disagree with.
The "vague sense of union" we had was the social tolls that we paid. Like universal praise for donating school lunches. But in today's world, you'll be criticized for donating to the wrong school because there wasn't X, Y or Z. You'll be shamed, maybe doxxed, hated and maybe even physically assaulted. All because an outraged group or person felt like something was taken from them.
So, my model of the world isn't that every view "is equally valid, moral, and unworthy of emotion", it's an awareness that emotions greatly affect people's judgement around validity and morality, for better or worse, and that needs to be accounted for.