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Kee Hinckley

I keep seeing articles, about people trying to violently overturn election results, that use phrases like “motivated by election lies”.

They aren’t motivated by lies, they are motivated by not liking the result. Repeating the lies just makes them feel powerful because it makes them part of the grift. They think they’re fooling people.

Blaming the lies lulls us into thinking that this is an education/disinformation problem which, if addressed, will eliminate the violence.

These folks aren’t deluded. They’ve learned from their leaders that violence and lying are the route to power.

For most of my life I thought these problems could be solved by education. I no longer do. As far as I can tell, about 30% of the population believes that getting away with grifts and bullying people is proof of power and leadership that should be respected, worshiped, and emulated.

We can’t educate these folks. We can only build a society that ensures that they cannot gain control. Unfortunately, the entire human race has largely failed to do so, and we’re suffering the consequences on a planetary scale.

Every day we act as though they don’t *know* that the elections were valid, is a day we risk losing the fight for democracy, equality, and a stable environment.

#brazil #JAN6

5 comments
MudMan

@nazgul I don't think I agree. Even if the people are complicit in the lies, that's a cultural vector that can be impacted by changing the culture.

I mean, I'm not sure what other alternative there is, but the fact that these things come and go in waves shows that it's not a constant and can be affected by the surrounding culture.

The problem is that changing culture through education takes a generation, at best. You need short term mitigations, too.

Kee Hinckley

@MudMan I’d like to believe that. I really did think that, if you could educate people well enough, it could be solved. I’m no longer sure for a couple reasons.

I think the waves are an indication not of changed values, but of times when the social structure was firm enough that people largely kept their mouth shut when they knew they couldn’t get away with it. It’s not that a new generation grew up thinking these things. It’s that once people in power made it clear it was okay to say and do this stuff, and you wouldn’t be punished, they came out of the woodwork. We can see that just in the wide variety of ages at Jan6.

There’s also no question that social media has had a huge impact in making people think they are a larger movement than they really are.

I *do* think that removing exposure to others with those views, providing exposure to multiple viewpoints and multiple cultures, early liberal education, and creating a society where there are safety nets to reduce fear, could all help. But the first three of those sound a lot like propaganda and forced community service and/or migration. We become what we are fighting. I’m already uncomfortable enough that what I’m proposing sounds an awful lot like “we need to force them back into the closet”, and that a conservative would use the exact same wording to describe how to deal with someone like me.

@MudMan I’d like to believe that. I really did think that, if you could educate people well enough, it could be solved. I’m no longer sure for a couple reasons.

I think the waves are an indication not of changed values, but of times when the social structure was firm enough that people largely kept their mouth shut when they knew they couldn’t get away with it. It’s not that a new generation grew up thinking these things. It’s that once people in power made it clear it was okay to say and do this...

Luis Bruno

@nazgul

you're focusing on the language being the same, whereas the diff is in the outcome: silencing conservatives is just fine, silencing the gays for their gayness is obviously not

my usual example is that it's perfectly fine to plan and execute the assassination of Andrew Wakefield, while still agreeing that life is sacred -- i don't see an incongruence between these two concepts

@MudMan

ZhiZhu

@LadyA @lbruno @nazgul

The Paradox of Tolerance disappears if you look at tolerance, not as a moral standard, but as a social contract.

If someone does not abide by the contract, then they are not covered by it.

In other words: The intolerant are not following the rules of the social contract of mutual tolerance.

Since they have broken the terms of the contract, they are no longer covered by the contract, and their intolerance should NOT be tolerated.

#Tolerance #Intolerance #Meme #Memes

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