Split Conservatives Feel Attacked (was Special Counsel 2)

[Elixir]

I am forced at this point to believe that Toni is indulging in hyperbole, and remains the egalitarian we all know and love.

 

[pood]

No. He was not wrong. Those who refused to listen to their better angels were wrong and the nation paid dearly for it, but it was a debt that was owed—and then some! for the compromises that allowed slavery to exist.

When will we learn to not go to war because we refuse to see our fellow human beings as fellow human beings?

But he was wrong. He predicted the better angels of our nature would prevail. They did not. As he said four years later in his second inaugural address: “And the war came.”

If this is a war this time, it will again come from the same source — the neo-Confederacy. And this won’t happen because anyone failed to try to walk in their shoes or see their point of view. All of that has been tried, and has been fruitless, in precisely the same way that all the decades of the north agreeing to conpromises with the south over the issue of slavery prior to the civil war proved to be fruitless. “And the war came.”

 

[pood]

As a slight aside, let’s remembrer too that Lincoln did not run for president on the platform of abolishing slavery in the south, only on preventing its extension into the territories. And for that reason the south rent the nation by civil war. Nice reason, eh? But suppose Lincoln’s ”better angels” had indeed prevailed. For Lincoln, better angels prevailing meant slavery contininuing in the south (but only there) untouched. Without the civil war, how many more decades would blacks have been kept as slaves in the south? Up the present day, maybe?

 

[pood]

Not wishing to pile on, but doing so anyway: I don’t see a single post in this thread where anyone has even remotely characterized rural or southern whites as somehow less than human. It’s a giant and offensive strawman.

 

[Toni]

As a slight aside, let’s remembrer too that Lincoln did not run for president on the platform of abolishing slavery in the south, only on preventing its extension into the territories. And for that reason the south rent the nation by civil war. Nice reason, eh? But suppose Lincoln’s ”better angels” had indeed prevailed. For Lincoln, better angels prevailing meant slavery contininuing in the south (but only there) untouched. Without the civil war, how many more decades would blacks have been kept as slaves in the south? Up the present day, maybe?

Had better angels prevailed, the war might have been averted and slavery abolished without the bloodshed.

I don't know how you were raised but when I was a kid and I claimed 'but she started it!' I was always told 'it takes two.' And it does. Of course, sometimes, there is no choice but to fight but when there is an honorable choice, a right choice, we should not fight. We should not go to war, and certainly not with our brothers and sisters. But let's face it: I'm not going to war and likely you won't either. Nope. You'll happily send off people like my kids to war. I'm sure you'll go to the parade honoring their deaths and talk about how noble it is. There is nothing noble about war. It is ugly and dirty and steals the lives of the soldiers fighting and the civilians in the line of fire or who die of famine or fallout. It cripples generations.

But it does enrich a few.

Think hard about that. Think hard about the very deliberate efforts to inflame passions, to ramp up rhetoric, to make us view our fellow citizens as enemies.

Who profits?

Not me. Not you. Not our kids or our kids' kids.

It's never that big a mystery. Follow the money. It's always the money.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Where I’ll try to understand their jhuman need to be heard, and try to DISCUSS with them a larger context.

I have tried. It’s difficult to part amicably with someone pretending to ”discuss” when all they can do is recite the tidal wave of lies they have memorized.
“There is a mountain of evidence the election was stolen!”
What are ya s’posed to say?
“Joe Biden eats babies”
Same deal. You can implore them to read, or otherwise diversify their info sources, but they think anyone not pandering to their confirmation bias is lying. Sad as hell, really.
OTOH, I can talk to them about horse breeding or hay farming, so I do that; rather than talk about their areas of ignorance, I can let them disabuse me of mine.

Yup. Cult deprogramming is a job for experts, not lay people.

 

[Toni]

when I cannot even convince people here that conservatives are actually human beings with very similar ( but not identical) wishes, hopes and dreams.

Please say the names of the people HERE wjo you think “cannot be convinced that conservatives are actual human beings.”

Just so that I can be crystal clear on exactly who you are talking about so I can go read what they wrote.

I see nothing but contempt for those who have a different perspective than the majority of those posting here

Really? You see NOTHING but contempt? Nothing?

I cannot even convince people here that conservatives are actually human beings

You don't need to do that here because none of the people you're arguing with see conservatives as subhuman.

And if you think they are, Toni, please provide quotes on what made you think that.


I’m feeling quite surprised and not a little attacked by this claim that I don’t think conservatives are even human and I have nothing but contempt for them…. The people who are my neighbors.

Do you really mean these sentences? Do you REALLY mean this?

They may be your neighbors but I know how you write about them.

Let's recap: When I (inadvertently) started this derail, I merely wanted to make the point that a LOT of people in middle America feel abandoned and ignored. That for whatever reasons, they do not see the same things that probably everyone posting in this thread see. That they see things differently. That they see the Democratic party as corrupt---and if we are honest, of course there is some corruption in the Democratic Party. Because the Democrats are comprised of human beings --imperfect, flawed human beings, some of whom allow ambition to over rule their integrity. Like in every other organization on earth since the beginning of time.

You are all jumping all over me. I wish you'd go back and read what has been written in response to my very mild, modest statements--look at the first couple of my posts in this derail. Read the responses.

My sins seem to be that I refuse to condemn republicans as the devil or see Democrats or whatever people wish to call themselves as avenging angels, although I will give you the avenging part.

But I'm done with this thread. If you want to think I'm a horrible person for daring to say that Democrats would do well to try to understand WHY people who vote GOP do so and WHY they feel abandoned or disrespected or ignored, go ahead without me.

 

[Toni]

One cannot change anyone’s mind in your favor by treating them with contempt. I see nothing but contempt for those who have a different perspective than the majority of those posting here—and I share the same liberal perspective. However, I insist that the only way to win people over is by treating them with respect and understanding.

In all these posts you have seen *nothing* but contempt? Really? I do understand your overall point but it won’t be bolstered by hyperbole.

Probably I should not have responded to hyperbole with my own hyperbole.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Really? Do you think that slaveholders regarded the people they enslaved as fully human? I don’t.

Of course there are orders of magnitude in difference but I see each side dehumanizing the other. I think that this is part of deliberate strategies to manufacture and end lane outrage—against anything/everything.

Who benefits from discord?

Moscow.

 

[pood]

As a slight aside, let’s remembrer too that Lincoln did not run for president on the platform of abolishing slavery in the south, only on preventing its extension into the territories. And for that reason the south rent the nation by civil war. Nice reason, eh? But suppose Lincoln’s ”better angels” had indeed prevailed. For Lincoln, better angels prevailing meant slavery contininuing in the south (but only there) untouched. Without the civil war, how many more decades would blacks have been kept as slaves in the south? Up the present day, maybe?

Had better angels prevailed, the war might have been averted and slavery abolished without the bloodshed.

This is beside the point. My point is that you said Lincoln was right. He was not right. He predicted the better angels would prevail, but they did not. And whose better angels failed to materialize? For context, let’s look at some more of Lincolnd’s Second Inaugural Address:

Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came.

The north spent decades mollycoddling the south and in the end, “the war came.” There were no better angels south of the Mason-Dixon line. Lincoln’s prediction was wrong.

I don't know how you were raised but when I was a kid and I claimed 'but she started it!' I was always told 'it takes two.' And it does. Of course, sometimes, there is no choice but to fight but when there is an honorable choice, a right choice, we should not fight. We should not go to war, and certainly not with our brothers and sisters. But let's face it: I'm not going to war and likely you won't either. Nope. You'll happily send off people like my kids to war. I'm sure you'll go to the parade honoring their deaths and talk about how noble it is. There is nothing noble about war. It is ugly and dirty and steals the lives of the soldiers fighting and the civilians in the line of fire or who die of famine or fallout. It cripples generations.

I am now glorifyting war? Where did I say ANYTHING indicating that I would “happily“ — happily, no less! — send other people’s kids off to war? That I would go to parades honoring their deaths? That I would talk about how noble it is? This is disgusting slur against me. I DO NOT do those things, I have NEVER DONE those things, and I gave you no reason to level this charge against me. Your talent for erecting strawmen and baselessly slurring others is noted, but you‘re not very good at it, because it’s so transparent.

 

[Rhea]

If you want to think I'm a horrible person

Toni, are you okay?

No one said this. I certainly did not.
Is everything okay?

 

[Toni]

Because conservatism and rural are so closely intertwined in people’s minds, I thought I’d share this transcript of an interview with the author Barbara Kingsolver, published in the NYT:

Transcript: Ezra Klein Interviews Barbara Kingsolver

The July 21, 2023, episode of “The Ezra Klein Show.”

www.nytimes.com

 

[scombrid]

Thank you.