I’m sure some slave owners were civil to their human chattel.
Civility with reparations -- that is, measures to repair the damage from discriminations in the past such as the FHA needing to commit to redlining in order to get the support of southern politicians to get it passed similarly Social Security.
Fuck civility -- actual civility as opposed to submitting to the wants of some sort of psycho -- without anything more such as before, let’s say getting Porky to behave, to get rid of stand your place laws (or narrow them, and so and so forth is BS. Indeed, civility in this context is the equivalent of a serial abuser claiming that weren’t deliberately abusive.
It was indeed a great essay, especially his delineation of the terms humanist and supremacist.
Really what it boils down to is wanting us to tell them they're OK, that what they think and believe and do are all OK. Criticism, overt or implied, may nudge them toward self-reflection and that's the last thing they want.
A good analogy is the controlling, violent spouse dynamic. A couple come out of a restaurant and discover a 15 year old kid trying to break into their car. The husband beats the shit out of the kid. After doing so, he looks at his wife's horrified face, becomes annoyed, and demands "what the hell is the matter with YOU?" It's the same dynamic with supremacists. You'd better tell me I'm OK, RIGHT NOW, or there will be trouble.
As I commented on the original column, I'm often accused, as an abortion rights activist, of not being civil to my opposition. I'm not. And I'm proud of it. People like that don't deserve civility.
Also, my best friend since kindergarten, more than 50 years, is a Trumper. We don't talk about politics. And yet we're still friends. It's almost like adults who care about each other can put that shit aside when necessary.
But some dude on a sidewalk in front of Planned Parenthood who thinks he controls women's bodies because sky daddy says he does? Fuck him. Well, no, let me say it a different way, since the odds are greater that I'd fellate the QAnon Shaman. 😉😘
Aug 28, 2023·edited Aug 28, 2023Liked by Roy Edroso
Part of the conservative mind trick is to cast "politics" as something alien, and separate: the Orange Excrescence isn't a "politician" but a businessman...Mitch grinning and sayin' "it's just politics" to shiv Obama's appointees.
THe Civil War was politics: Jim Crow and the KKK were politics as was it's Confederate memorialization and the rise of "Southern Heritage" hisory: Anita Bryant's anti gay crusade was politics: the anti Trans moral panic is politics, most foul.
I remember Gore Vidal goggling at a Catholic Monsignor on the Crossfire gabefest claiming that opposition to gay and women's rights wasn't politics: "Well, then why are you trying to pass legislation.??"
If they don't think you are fully human (and by extension Un American) they thinks it's ok to do whatever:
and that's abuse and quietly destroy and kill the offending. After all, they don't count.
I was in Florida this past weekend. There's an awful lot of White people who are intensely angry that they can't say the n-word in public without being looked at as racist troglodytes. It is sooooo unfair that Black people can call each other the n-word, but White people can't call Black people that word. So unfair!
Many--perhaps most--of these shitheads think that the prohibition on using that word is actually written into law, and thus is their constitutional right to free speech abridged. And it was obviously liberals and democrats who wrote that [nonexistent] law. Thus, race traitors.
No, you can't be my friend and think this way. In fact, we can't even be on friendly terms. As for civility, well, first you have to demonstrate that you can treat other people like they're also humans. Then we can talk about civility.
I am in rural SW Ohio. I have been surrounded by these people my whole life. I've actively hated white evangelicals since about the seventh grade. I've got in-laws I haven't spoken to in 40 years. I'm not shy about it either. They start in I let them know right away I don't want anything to do with that happy horseshit. I'm not rude- neither am I uncertain.
I can't recall the last time somebody tried to convince me otherwise .
I don’t think friendship has much to do with the right wing authoritarian demand that we acquiesce to their bigotry as a condition of having a civil society. Brooks, as clueless as he unquestionably is, doesn’t want us to be friendly, he wants us to ignore the racism, misogyny, homophobia, religious intolerance that form the basis for the RWA world view. That’s his idea of civility. At the risk of repeating myself, Bob Altemeyer took analysis of the RWA personality beyond anecdotes and opinions with his years of research. His book is free at theauthoritarians.org
There's a PSA that I've seen that seems to come from this same warped thinking: A young woman and her daughter are headed to the car when they see a swastika has been spray-painted on their garage door. She glances over to see her neighbor, a White man in his 50's, goateed, ball cap, they exchange no words and she hustles her daughter into the car and leaves.
Later, she returns and finds the swastika has been painted over. And there's Neighbor Guy, the camera pans down to his boots and you can see splotches of white paint on them THE END.
I mean, WTF? Destroying evidence of a crime is now a neighborly act? And what's the REAL message here? That we shouldn't assume goateed White men of a certain age are racists - in fact, how DARE she jump to that conclusion while hurrying her daughter to safety! It's so UNFAIR. Some us are the Good Ones happy to use a paintbrush to literally cover up evidence of antisemitism, but NOOOO, she has to assume we're in on it.
I agree wholeheartedly with your viewpoint. I would add that the fringe of Trump’s MAGA cult aren’t even aware how fascist the diehards are. I have friends who aren’t fascists, don’t hate blacks, Jews and the LGBTQ community, but actually think Trump did a great job as president.
Partially because they are brain dead, and partially because they get their news from the “usual suspects”; Fox News and the right-wing media ecosystem.
That said, I personally have dropped most of these people including some cousins and other family members. Life’s too short to waste my time with them. They’re the problem, not the solution.
Let’s not forget, these people think democrats are destroying their way of life. Think about how insane the Bud light boycott was against that trans spokesperson. Do these people have anything better to do than post instagram video’s of them blowing up cans of Bud-light with AR-15’s?
Like how exactly does hiring a Trans spokesmodel to gain additional market share, ruin their lives? Are these people’s masculinity that threatened by an advertisement on Twitter, that they have to jump into the abyss. They talk about small town values, when anyone who lives in a small town who can leave, will leave. And as values goes, they have crime, corruption and lots of drugs. In some cases, small towns are worse.
This isn’t about wanting to be friends, or not! Clearly, these people have deep anger issues, yet they take it out on the wrong people. It’s their party and media that is doing them a disservice, not democrats.
And their Christian values and religion don’t help, since evangelicals and Catholic teachings legitimize and promote the same hatred (religious texts and passages), that leads to these mass murders of innocents.
That said, like Trump, the MAGA movement is a collective of petulant five year olds, financed by right-wing billionaires who find anyone not like them offensive and use their money to divide this nation.
Vivek, says our culture is dividing us. No it’s not our culture, it’s your party of obtuse and parochial charlatans who continually tell us, it’s not your fault! Sorry, it is your fault.
And anyone who has studied genocides from The Holocaust, Armenian genocide to Rwanda, knows the propaganda is always the same. We’re here because of them; these immoral, crooked, lying thieves and sinners! Cockroaches and worthless souls, bringing diseases and problems, etc....
I have just two more words to say: “projection much?”
These cretinous trolls are basically just screaming brats constantly acting out, yet expecting "mommy and daddy" (us, in this case) to accord them the unconditional love they feel entitled to.
Fuck that shit.
From Day 1, back in the early trump campaigning days, pre-"presidency "- when it seems the logs were rolled over and the rot and vermin were released, we we told to "just listen to them, hear their concerns."
This was obviously a way to make the lib'ruls play into their game. I and most of my friends refused this tack and have been rude and pointed to anyone who spouted racist or any other of this shit they shovel. Shut that shit down and let them know it's NOT acceptable, and that everyone on the left is not some patsy who will roll over and let them tantrum their way to full-on fascism.
You have to push back. Otherwise you're no better than those "everyday Germans" who just put their heads down and went about their business as their neighbors were systematically rounded up and dragged off to their deaths for not being "the right kind".
I’m sure some slave owners were civil to their human chattel.
Civility with reparations -- that is, measures to repair the damage from discriminations in the past such as the FHA needing to commit to redlining in order to get the support of southern politicians to get it passed similarly Social Security.
Fuck civility -- actual civility as opposed to submitting to the wants of some sort of psycho -- without anything more such as before, let’s say getting Porky to behave, to get rid of stand your place laws (or narrow them, and so and so forth is BS. Indeed, civility in this context is the equivalent of a serial abuser claiming that weren’t deliberately abusive.
Please.
It was indeed a great essay, especially his delineation of the terms humanist and supremacist.
Really what it boils down to is wanting us to tell them they're OK, that what they think and believe and do are all OK. Criticism, overt or implied, may nudge them toward self-reflection and that's the last thing they want.
A good analogy is the controlling, violent spouse dynamic. A couple come out of a restaurant and discover a 15 year old kid trying to break into their car. The husband beats the shit out of the kid. After doing so, he looks at his wife's horrified face, becomes annoyed, and demands "what the hell is the matter with YOU?" It's the same dynamic with supremacists. You'd better tell me I'm OK, RIGHT NOW, or there will be trouble.
As I commented on the original column, I'm often accused, as an abortion rights activist, of not being civil to my opposition. I'm not. And I'm proud of it. People like that don't deserve civility.
Also, my best friend since kindergarten, more than 50 years, is a Trumper. We don't talk about politics. And yet we're still friends. It's almost like adults who care about each other can put that shit aside when necessary.
But some dude on a sidewalk in front of Planned Parenthood who thinks he controls women's bodies because sky daddy says he does? Fuck him. Well, no, let me say it a different way, since the odds are greater that I'd fellate the QAnon Shaman. 😉😘
- just statistically -
Unjust, and unstatistical, but yeah...
Supremacists are offering a tremendous gift to liberals in the form of their (domineering) friendship.
“...we should just put bullets in their head.” Projection.
Part of the conservative mind trick is to cast "politics" as something alien, and separate: the Orange Excrescence isn't a "politician" but a businessman...Mitch grinning and sayin' "it's just politics" to shiv Obama's appointees.
THe Civil War was politics: Jim Crow and the KKK were politics as was it's Confederate memorialization and the rise of "Southern Heritage" hisory: Anita Bryant's anti gay crusade was politics: the anti Trans moral panic is politics, most foul.
I remember Gore Vidal goggling at a Catholic Monsignor on the Crossfire gabefest claiming that opposition to gay and women's rights wasn't politics: "Well, then why are you trying to pass legislation.??"
If they don't think you are fully human (and by extension Un American) they thinks it's ok to do whatever:
and that's abuse and quietly destroy and kill the offending. After all, they don't count.
"Right Wing Civility?" no such creature exists.
I was in Florida this past weekend. There's an awful lot of White people who are intensely angry that they can't say the n-word in public without being looked at as racist troglodytes. It is sooooo unfair that Black people can call each other the n-word, but White people can't call Black people that word. So unfair!
Many--perhaps most--of these shitheads think that the prohibition on using that word is actually written into law, and thus is their constitutional right to free speech abridged. And it was obviously liberals and democrats who wrote that [nonexistent] law. Thus, race traitors.
No, you can't be my friend and think this way. In fact, we can't even be on friendly terms. As for civility, well, first you have to demonstrate that you can treat other people like they're also humans. Then we can talk about civility.
I am in rural SW Ohio. I have been surrounded by these people my whole life. I've actively hated white evangelicals since about the seventh grade. I've got in-laws I haven't spoken to in 40 years. I'm not shy about it either. They start in I let them know right away I don't want anything to do with that happy horseshit. I'm not rude- neither am I uncertain.
I can't recall the last time somebody tried to convince me otherwise .
This one hits very close to home for me. I've terminated a LOT of relationships over politics since 2016.
It has not been pleasant, but IMO is necessary, and I wish more were doing it.
I don’t think friendship has much to do with the right wing authoritarian demand that we acquiesce to their bigotry as a condition of having a civil society. Brooks, as clueless as he unquestionably is, doesn’t want us to be friendly, he wants us to ignore the racism, misogyny, homophobia, religious intolerance that form the basis for the RWA world view. That’s his idea of civility. At the risk of repeating myself, Bob Altemeyer took analysis of the RWA personality beyond anecdotes and opinions with his years of research. His book is free at theauthoritarians.org
Funny how the "Supremists" are always on the far distant end of the spectrum from "Superior."
I cannot for the life of me figure out whether Ramaswamy believes what he is saying or is completely deluded.
There's a PSA that I've seen that seems to come from this same warped thinking: A young woman and her daughter are headed to the car when they see a swastika has been spray-painted on their garage door. She glances over to see her neighbor, a White man in his 50's, goateed, ball cap, they exchange no words and she hustles her daughter into the car and leaves.
Later, she returns and finds the swastika has been painted over. And there's Neighbor Guy, the camera pans down to his boots and you can see splotches of white paint on them THE END.
I mean, WTF? Destroying evidence of a crime is now a neighborly act? And what's the REAL message here? That we shouldn't assume goateed White men of a certain age are racists - in fact, how DARE she jump to that conclusion while hurrying her daughter to safety! It's so UNFAIR. Some us are the Good Ones happy to use a paintbrush to literally cover up evidence of antisemitism, but NOOOO, she has to assume we're in on it.
Excellent column Roy.
I agree wholeheartedly with your viewpoint. I would add that the fringe of Trump’s MAGA cult aren’t even aware how fascist the diehards are. I have friends who aren’t fascists, don’t hate blacks, Jews and the LGBTQ community, but actually think Trump did a great job as president.
Partially because they are brain dead, and partially because they get their news from the “usual suspects”; Fox News and the right-wing media ecosystem.
That said, I personally have dropped most of these people including some cousins and other family members. Life’s too short to waste my time with them. They’re the problem, not the solution.
Let’s not forget, these people think democrats are destroying their way of life. Think about how insane the Bud light boycott was against that trans spokesperson. Do these people have anything better to do than post instagram video’s of them blowing up cans of Bud-light with AR-15’s?
Like how exactly does hiring a Trans spokesmodel to gain additional market share, ruin their lives? Are these people’s masculinity that threatened by an advertisement on Twitter, that they have to jump into the abyss. They talk about small town values, when anyone who lives in a small town who can leave, will leave. And as values goes, they have crime, corruption and lots of drugs. In some cases, small towns are worse.
This isn’t about wanting to be friends, or not! Clearly, these people have deep anger issues, yet they take it out on the wrong people. It’s their party and media that is doing them a disservice, not democrats.
And their Christian values and religion don’t help, since evangelicals and Catholic teachings legitimize and promote the same hatred (religious texts and passages), that leads to these mass murders of innocents.
That said, like Trump, the MAGA movement is a collective of petulant five year olds, financed by right-wing billionaires who find anyone not like them offensive and use their money to divide this nation.
Vivek, says our culture is dividing us. No it’s not our culture, it’s your party of obtuse and parochial charlatans who continually tell us, it’s not your fault! Sorry, it is your fault.
And anyone who has studied genocides from The Holocaust, Armenian genocide to Rwanda, knows the propaganda is always the same. We’re here because of them; these immoral, crooked, lying thieves and sinners! Cockroaches and worthless souls, bringing diseases and problems, etc....
I have just two more words to say: “projection much?”
These cretinous trolls are basically just screaming brats constantly acting out, yet expecting "mommy and daddy" (us, in this case) to accord them the unconditional love they feel entitled to.
Fuck that shit.
From Day 1, back in the early trump campaigning days, pre-"presidency "- when it seems the logs were rolled over and the rot and vermin were released, we we told to "just listen to them, hear their concerns."
This was obviously a way to make the lib'ruls play into their game. I and most of my friends refused this tack and have been rude and pointed to anyone who spouted racist or any other of this shit they shovel. Shut that shit down and let them know it's NOT acceptable, and that everyone on the left is not some patsy who will roll over and let them tantrum their way to full-on fascism.
You have to push back. Otherwise you're no better than those "everyday Germans" who just put their heads down and went about their business as their neighbors were systematically rounded up and dragged off to their deaths for not being "the right kind".