Category: politics

bookmark_borderImagine holding the exact same views…

Posted on by Marissa
 
 
 
 
 
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A post shared by Being Libertarian (@beingalibertarian)

100% correct.

As is the first comment on the post, which reads as follows: “How come whenever I talk to my non-Democrat (Republicans/Libertarians) friends they’re capable of mutual conversation of differing political opinions, and can critique those they vote and support for and their policies. But my leftist/Dem friends aren’t capable of criticizing anyone in the Democrat Party, policies, etc. It’s almost like they’re a cult or something and incapable of individual and critical thinking” (comment edited slightly by me for typos)

Bingo.

bookmark_borderIf you tell people they can’t speak…

Posted on by Marissa
 
 
 
 
 
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A post shared by Vivek Ramaswamy (@vivekgramaswamy)

This is 100% true and resonates with me deeply. It applies not only to the Capitol protest on January 6 but to the Charlottesville rally in 2017 as well. When you tell people that their views are unacceptable and that they are not allowed to express them, when you call people shameful, bad, and wrong, when you mock and ridicule and condemn them, when you inflict pain on people and insist that they are the ones who should apologize to you, when you fail to address people’s complaints, objections, and concerns and instead tell them that they need to stop having those complaints, objections, and concerns… people are going to feel that violent revolution is the only option. And when violence happens, it’s not on them, it’s on you. 

bookmark_border“Anti-Trump Burnout: The Resistance Says It’s Exhausted”

Posted on by Marissa

I recently came across an article titled, “Anti-Trump Burnout: The Resistance Says It’s Exhausted.”

This headline confuses me, because people who are anti-Trump are the opposite of the resistance. They are the authority. They are the establishment. They are the people who run the institutions of our society, who hold the power. They are, as hippies would say, the “man.”

This headline is a contradiction in terms, because in reality, Trump and his supporters are the resistance. 

That’s why people were arrested en masse for protesting at the Capitol building in support of him on January 6, 2021.

That’s why one of those protesters was killed by a police officer, and why society almost unanimously reacted to her death by viciously insulting, condemning, ridiculing, and shaming her as opposed to the police officer who killed her. 

That’s why Trump was banned from all of the major social media networks.

That’s why he has been charged in four different criminal cases.

That’s why states have removed his name from their ballots.

That’s why the term “MAGA Republicans” – an abbreviation for Trump’s campaign slogan “Make America Great Again” – is used as an insult. 

That’s why it is considered socially unacceptable to say that you support Trump, or that you voted for him. 

That’s why, when hundreds of people personally attacked me on social media for expressing my support for statues, one such person noted the fact that I had once retweeted a pro-Trump post and summarily classified me as “human garbage.”

Nothing could be more twisted, or more wrong, than to call the people who control society and use their power to harm and oppress others, the resistance.

It’s also completely lacking in empathy that the so-called “resistance” – which in reality is the anti-resistance – would characterize itself as “exhausted.” There is nothing exhausting about holding all of the power in society and using it to harm and oppress other people. Trump and his supporters are the ones being harmed and oppressed. We are the ones with no power. We, and not the people harming us, have reason to be exhausted. The anti-resistance has nothing to complain about: if harming and oppressing others is so exhausting to you, then stop doing it.

bookmark_borderBigots and bullies threaten to “bird dog” those with dissenting views

Posted on by Marissa

Bigots and bullies recently held a rally outside the headquarters of the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. The purpose of this rally, apparently, was to protest the existence of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative-leaning think tank. In other words, the purpose of the rally was for the attendees to protest the existence of people who are different than them. 

“We need to go find out where they live, where they go to church, who they hang around with, and bird dog they asses,” said one of the speakers, according to Breitbart News. Fellow bigots and bullies cheered and yelled, “hell yeah.”

In case anyone needs to be told this, it’s disgusting and despicable to hold a rally protesting the existence of people who are different than you.

It’s disgusting and despicable to hold a rally outside a place where people work, with the intention of intimidating the people who work there.

It’s disgusting and despicable to call for people who are different than you to be stalked, harassed, and “bird dogged” (whatever the heck that means).

It’s disgusting and despicable to cheer or express agreement when someone calls for such a thing.

It’s disgusting and despicable that our society tolerates these behaviors and allows people (and I use that term loosely) to engage in them with no consequences. 

These behaviors demonstrate complete intolerance for diversity, for dissent, and for anyone who differs from the norm in any way. Anyone who engages in these behaviors is a bigot and a bully. 

As for the aforementioned speaker at the rally, I think that someone needs to find out where he lives, where he goes to participate in whichever activities he participates in (because the odds that he goes to church are probably pretty slim), and whom he hangs out with, and then “bird dog” his ass. In fact, I think these things should be done to each and every excuse for a human being who attended the rally. 

Maybe then they would gain some understanding of the harm that they are inflicting on other people through their disgusting and despicable words and actions.

Or, as this meme posted by the Nashville Tea Party so eloquently (and correctly) expresses:

 
 
 
 
 
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A post shared by Nashville Tea Party (@nashvilleteaparty)

bookmark_borderYet another instance of election hypocrisy

Posted on by Marissa
 
 
 
 
 
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A post shared by Defiant L’s (@defiant.ls)

In this post, Dean Obeidallah demonstrates hypocrisy, as well as intolerance and authoritarianism. 

There is no such thing as an “election denier.” It’s called a person who believes that the election was illegitimate.

There is no such thing as a “democracy denier.” It’s called a person who doesn’t believe that democracy is the best form of government (which it isn’t, by the way.)

Obeidallah needs to stop presuming the truth of what he is trying to prove, because as I explained in a previous post, doing so is the very essence of intolerance and authoritarianism.

Enough already.

bookmark_borderAnother instance of election hypocrisy

Posted on by Marissa

 

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A post shared by Defiant L’s (@defiant.ls)

Contrary to what George Takei claims in the above post, there is no such thing as an “election denier.”

It’s called a person who believes that the election was illegitimate.

Takei needs to stop presuming the truth of what he is trying to prove, because as I explained in a previous post, presuming the truth of what one is trying to prove is the very essence of intolerance and authoritarianism.

Repeatedly seeing posts like this – and by “this,” I mean Takei’s posts, as opposed to the post by Defiant Ls pointing out his hypocrisy – is exasperating and mentally exhausting.

bookmark_borderThe Palmer Report is pure trash

Posted on by Marissa

Liberal news website the Palmer Report posted the below tweets in which (as pointed out by “Defiant Ls”) they demonstrated both hypocrisy and intolerance:

 

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A post shared by Defiant L’s (@defiant.ls)

So just to recap: attacking the character of not only Melania Trump, but also all people who respect her, is perfectly fine, but attacking the character of Jill Biden is so unacceptable that doing so makes a person “pure trash.”

Also, just to recap: the Palmer Report believes that Melania Trump, all people who respect her, and all right wing pundits, are pure trash. This demonstrates that like so many others on the left-hand side of the political spectrum, whoever published these tweets on behalf of the Palmer Report is a bigot and a bully with no tolerance for anyone who differs from him/herself in any way.

I would argue that whoever published these tweets on behalf of the Palmer Report has shown him/herself to be pure trash through this display of intolerance and hypocrisy.

Making matters worse, one not particularly intelligent commenter wrote, “one of these two women is a literally mail-order bride and the other one is an actual american.”

Um, I doubt that Melania Trump is literally a mail order bride.

Plus, more importantly, this comment has nothing to do with the actual point of the post, which is to point out the hypocrisy of calling a first lady “trash,” only to later claim that it is unacceptable to attack a first lady’s character.

This commenter seems to be implying that Melania’s country of origin somehow erases the Palmer Report’s logical inconsistency and makes the two tweets logically consistent. It doesn’t.

Additionally, this commenter seems to be implying that because Melania Trump was not born in America, it is somehow okay to call her trash. Which makes this commenter not only completely lacking in logic, but also a bigot.

Yet another example of the bigotry and intolerance of those on the left.

bookmark_borderThe news media’s bias re: Capitol protest

Posted on by Marissa

This headline from a few weeks ago on Yahoo News is a bit puzzling. I am not sure what it is referring to, because no Capitol riot took place three years ago. There was, however, a protest that took place at the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Perhaps that’s what Yahoo News was thinking of?

This headline should read: “Capitol protest, 3 years later: Hundreds of convictions, yet 1 big mystery is unsolved.

Hundreds of people have been convicted in the massive prosecution of the Jan. 6, 2021, protest in the three years since the U.S. Capitol protest.

Dozens of protesters still on the lam.”

This, of course, raises the question of why any people, let alone hundreds of them, would be prosecuted, let alone convicted, for participating in a protest in support of a politically unpopular cause. The answer to this question, of course, is that the United States has become a totalitarian dictatorship. For a person to be charged, prosecuted, or convicted of a crime for expressing unpopular beliefs is abhorrent, immoral, disturbing, and completely incompatible with a free society.

This is a point that, unfortunately, seems to be lost not only on the employees of Yahoo News but on far too many people in the general public.

And yes, as Yahoo ominously reminds us, dozens of people are still on the lam for the “crime” of having expressed unpopular beliefs. Why the expression of unpopular beliefs would be considered something that a person would need to go on the lam for… that is a question whose answer is the same as above: the United States has become a totalitarian dictatorship.

The absurdity of people being on the lam for having participated in a protest is also largely lost on both Yahoo News and the general public.

It’s also interesting that a couple of years ago, when I posted on Twitter to express my outrage that hundreds of people had been arrested for participating in the Capitol protest, a bully responded by calling me a “drama queen” and alleging that only 70 or so people had been arrested. This Yahoo News headline, as biased as it may be, confirms that hundreds of people were not only arrested, but actually convicted of crimes, for participating in the protest. Contrary to the bully’s assertion, I was not exaggerating the numbers; I was correct.