Your Humanism and desire to simply see people rehabilitated on the basis of 'growth' is a very admirable and charming thing but it's not entirely realistic looking at the current situation - we are not looking at mere glorified examples of rebellious children; rebellious children do not have the backings of billions in finances and mainstream media parroting everything they do and telling them it's okay..rebellious children, are not coddled by the system they claim to be rebelling against; you see these people as people, just "angry kids being kids" and that's a bit unrealistic - what about the many systems and myriad of adults behind this movement? What do we do about them, friendo?
Oh, George Soros can be hit by a car, I'm fine with that. What's that line in the Bible about those who cause children to stray to have a millstone tied around their neck and sent to the bottom of the ocean?
Stack them in prison, adding them to the taxpayer bill and a growing prison population and just hope that hey, maybe, JUST MAYBE, they'll change over time with enough love and positivity and rehabilitation, right? You seem to live in a Humanistic fairytale where everything is a macrocosm of the rebellious hippie movement we saw in the 60's-70's where many of those kids did indeed grow into normal people..this cannot be compared; we are not looking at Woodstock - we are looking at neo-Soviets, and that sort of ideology, does not easily leave the mind; you're acting as if these kids have no awareness of their actions..they do, they know what they're doing and they will hurl every bit of horribly inaccurate ideology in order to convince you they know what they're doing and entrenched in their positions.
Yes. Some are like that. Maybe these two girls were, maybe they weren't. In any case, I'm not going to celebrate someone being turned into Dr. Strangelove. It's a tragedy if someone's life is spoiled whether that happened before or after the accident. All the accident does is cement their attitudes more permanently. But lets keep this discussion on the level of results rather than emotions. You say some of these people we can never change. That may be true. Equally, they're not going to change me. Not because I'm close minded but because I'm old and have gone through many of my political changes already. But outside of the Us and Them, there's a much larger mass of Those. You want Those on your side. Who do you think they will empathise with - the ones who (imo misguidedly) think they're doing the right thing? Or the ones who celebrate a young woman being mown down. I could equally discuss empathy and ethics with you but I feel here a focus on the practical is going to be most useful. And the practical upshot is that if you sink to their level, people will lose respect for you the same way they lose respect for them. If you maintain the high ground, you win people to your cause. So I've found.
Now you want to talk about dyed-in-the-wool commies out to overthrow the West, Islamist immigrants who want to turn the West into a new Caliphrate and will have five kids each to do it, globalists who think nations are an inconvenience that hurts their profits, that's all good. I'm not someone advocating we all prance around with daisies in our hair while Rome burns. There are plenty of occasions where strong action is required. My point is that celebrating some kid being crippled or killed isn't that.
Seem the type of person who'd literally argue with someone holding a proverbial gun to their head about 'you're gonna regret this, looking back.' - yes, they may, but that isn't going to stop them from pulling the fucking trigger then, is it?
You see compassion as an alternative to force. I see it as a wonderful complement. It prevents me having my force misdirected by my opponent against my own interests and turning me into them. You talk about a gun to my head. To quote the bumper sticker: guns don't kill people; people kill people. If I can persuade that gun that it's been lied to (which it has) and that I don't actually hate it, that's a win. May even be able to turn it back on the person who pointed it at me. Argument by analogy is crappy. These "guns" we're talking about are people who have been weaponised for political purpose. If I see them only as weapons, if I dehumanize them to the point that I'm celebrating their deaths, well it just becomes a war of force. If I remember they are people, then it becomes a war for leadership. When I engage in a war of force, I am fighting the conscripts. When I persuade people out of their views, I'm fighting my real opponents.
I'm very intelligent. Got the test scores to prove it. You probably are too. We are
always going to be outnumbererd by the dumb people. That's just life on this end of the bell curve. We're not going to win by only butting heads. I think you want to stop being all "nice" and take on the enemy at their own game. But you're mistaken if you think their game is about using force directly. Their game is to get into colleges and the media and make other people use force
for them. They aren't hurt by these girl's being hurt. In fact, I suspect on some level a lot of them relish one more martyr for propaganda. We need to lead, not merely oppose. Undoing years of brainwashing and misinformation is hard. But I have one very important edge that helps even the playing field - I'm right. And understanding my ideological opponents strengthens that further.
So I'll continue chipping away at people with compassion and understanding. Where possible. And where not I'll put aside compassion.
I admire your compassion, but guess what? Societies, and laws, are not just built on compassion - they are built on realism, and the pillars of realism have all been torn down, incase you haven't noticed; apply your compassion individually, remain just as loving and good-natured as you are and treat all worthy individuals with that regard but learn to understand that applying your grossly-simplistic and generalized sense of 'universal affection' to the entirety of society has never and will never work..we do not live in a fairytale, this is not a nursery rhyme; I am not going to look down the barrel of a gun pointed directly at me and think, for even a moment, about the fate, life, and 'circumstances' of the individual holding the gun and quite frankly? Most people won't.
I like your attitude on an individual level - people like you are needed in increasingly drastic and dark times, just like medics are needed on a battlefield..but medics are not the only fucking thing winning the battle.
Well, I'll make you a deal, you turn a blind eye to me feeling bad for some kid who got run over and I'll help you punch the US college system in its face.
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