This brakes my brain for some reason. If a KKK member was lynched, I wouldn’t feel a thing, but if someone was walking around in an office I or school with this shirt, I would feel weird about it. I can’t put my finger on why.
I think to healthy, liberal (in the original sense) sensibilities, the concept of lynching or imagery of violent death is still principally unpalatable. Fundamentally, violence should be considered undesirable.
Pragmatically, we may consider it acceptable or even necessary in some cases. In those cases, conscious judgement will overrule that fundamental conviction.
But that doesn’t mean the gut reaction can’t be one of distaste. Both sentiments can exist at once, and the weight each of them carries in your mind doesn’t have to be absolute.
For me personally, every death – no matter how justified – evokes at least a faint sense of regret: “Shame they couldn’t become a better person.” It may be very faint in some cases, but I aim to preserve that ideal in myself: never to treat life without respect, never to treat deaths without compassion.
Maybe because extra-judicial “punishment” is unAmerican, no matter who it is.
IF we regain our country, I would get no pleasure from dragging Trump and his henchmen into the front lawn of the White House, and summarily, publicly executed.
OTOH, if they went through proper trials, were found guilty of actual crimes that exist on the books, and were sentenced to death, I would support that 100%, and would be proud of my country for proving that the system set up by our Founding Fathers can still work.
Maybe because extra-judicial “punishment” is unAmerican, no matter who it is.
I don’t know, lynchings are kind of quintessential american.
In the United States, where the word lynching likely originated, the practice is associated with vigilante justice on the frontier and mob attacks on African Americans accused of crimes. The latter became frequent in the South during the period after the Reconstruction era, especially during the nadir of American race relations.[7] Black people were the primary victims of lynching in the U.S. (about 72% of the total), which was often perpetrated to enforce white supremacy and intimidate ethnic minorities along with other acts of racial terrorism.[8]
When an apple has molded you don’t cut off the moody part and hope the rest doesn’t mold.
When you allow a corrupt government to set the rules, you’ll never see anything in power held accountable.
And when you let them make any other form of justice taboo, and let them convince you of it, then justice no longer exists.
And when a car gets a flat tire, you don’t get new car, you fix the flat. We can all come up with a useless analogy to make a empty point.
The fact is, the basic principles and concepts that were outlined in the founding documents - ALL men are created equal, and we are are ALL endowed by our creator with the inalienable rights to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness, et al, - are still relevant today, and are still the best principles and concepts upon which to base a government today.
We could fix a lot of our problems with a few easy steps, like getting all money out of political campaigns, but that would require all parties to negotiate with each other, AND the voters, in Good Faith, and that’s what’s been lacking in government. Very, very few of them, on either side, have earned the trust of the people, and many of them have earned unforgivable scorn. They need to start listening to the people.
So we may need to do some serious tuning up and upgrading, but the chassis and the body are still good, and the drivetrain can be brought up to speed, as long as the guys on the second shift don’t keep coming in and taking a sledgehammer to it every night, and destroying all our work.
The car has been broken down for awhile and you’re still pretending it drives while the right wing is banging it with hammers while it’s on its way to a compactor.
It wasn’t even made of steel the first time but tin - those words aren’t part of the constitution, they’re from the declaration of independence, and even then excludes women.
You can’t fix a car that’s been broken beyond repair, and you can’t even rebuild it while people are finishing off what semblances there are with a giant hammer.
Y’all have been needing a new car for awhile but still think it’s fine. Then enjoy your fantasy as it’s thrown into the furnace of reality.
We generally refer to the Founding Documents - the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, with equal weight. They are the three founding Documents on display in DC.
The Declaration of Independence is the statement that made us a Nation, and is every bit as important and relevant as the Constitution. In fact, until the Constitution was ratified in 1789, this was the sole document that defined America in the 13 years between.
So the opening line, declaring all men to be created equal, is huge. Further, it refers to these things as God-given rights, which means they cannot be taken away by any human, including a president, or even a long.
And “Men” is a metaphor. You say it excludes women, but in fact, it doesn’t even really include men. It means people in general, ALL people.
Further, it doesn’t even include the racial element that contemporary society likes to ascribe to hypocrisy. When they were talking about All Men Being Created Equal, they didn’t mean racially, or even economically. They meant equal as far as class distinctions. Specifically, they were rejecting as a society, the notion of an Aristocracy, in which some people are literally considered to be better quality humans in every way, simply because of their family influence. That superiority gives them great advantages in education, business, government, courts, military, etc.
Not only were they rejecting the Aristocracy, they were literally founding a new nation with that as one of its founding elements. At that time, a totally new nation hadn’t been created in human memory, and now that this enormous uncharted landmass had been discovered, here was the first actual nation, that wasn’t just a colony of predatory European nations. ALL of those nations recognized the concept of Aristocracy, and none of them liked the idea of a NEW nation where the Aristocracy wasn’t respected.
Of course, France broke with the rest, and supported the Continental Army, but that was more a matter of sticking it to England. The Enemy of My Enemy is My Friend, and all that. Considering that our revolution inspired their revolution a few years later, with a much nastier outcome, perhaps it wasn’t the French Monarchy’s best poke at the British. Worked out good for us, though.
Well, yeah, but bigger than that. It has been a customary social expectation for literally centuries, to refer to all collective humanity as “men.” Tolkien was merely using it the same common, traditional way, same as the Founding Fathers, and pretty much everyone else in history, until the last few decades.
Damn, you’re more full of kool-aid then the kool-aid man. There’s no reaching you.
Documents signed by rich white guys that at first excluded non-whites, the poor, and women, of which all this can be proven by history via the founders having slaves as just one example of their hypocrisy, is the best you got? Okay lol.
Hell, it’s those documents that ensured Trump won, because presidents aren’t elected by popular video the but by the “electoral college” because the founders were such fucking snobs that they couldn’t trust voters to actually fully pick someone.
They were just some some rich dudes who didn’t want to pay taxes and strung along a bunch of poor idiots with them. Same then as now, and always has been.
Condemning 18th century people because they didn’t live their lives by 21st century cultural norms is a silly argument. Plenty of our philosophical and political concepts come from ideas as old as the Greeks. We don’t reject valid ideas because the society that produced them didn’t live by our modern values. Of course they didn’t, they were a different society.
We can’t agree with each other in how we should behave NOW, but we should condemn people from the past because they refused to live by proper modern standards, too?
You think you are so much more enlightened than the past? Guess what? So did they. Every generation, no matter how far back you go, thinks they were the most modern, most enlightened generation in history. And yet a few generations down the road, and they all start to look old- fashioned.
When the Founding Fathers wrote those documents, NOBODY had created a nation based on the concepts and standards that became the American government. Every other government in the world favored the wealthy and well-connected. America would be the first nation where the lowliest citizen still held the exact same rights as the wealthiest.
We haven’t always lived up to that promise, but that promise still remains, and it is still a worthy promise to defend. I hear people celebrating the death of America, without any consideration about what would replace it. Nobody has suggested a better system, and destroying the current system, with nothing to replace it, is ALWAYS a bad idea.
I take it back, you’ve become one with the kool-aid.
Not only having the audacity to think America was the first to do that (lol - they based it on an old Greek model), but it’s so western centric it would make a fascist blush, even though you don’t have the same intentions.
But more than that, even hundreds of years before America existed, there were plenty of people who knew slavery - and especially the kind practiced in the USA at the time - was bad. There were countries where it was outlawed.
You can do all you want to excuse the hypocrisy of those founders, it doesn’t excuse that they were just rich hypocrites who definitely knew better, but chose not to do better.
I mean, show me the unprivileged, non-aristocratic, non-colonials who signed a single founding document. They wanted their own aristocracy off the backs of their fellow man and to tell the king to shove it.
Not a thing was “discovered”, only ravaged and stolen. Describing the 100% predatory and selfish inception of the country as the “first real nation” reaches incredible levels of American mythology. I don’t like the Catholic church, but there’s a reason the way the founders are revered is considered legitimate blasphemy.
We all agree that punching fascists in the face is objectively good, but if someone was walking through a school or church yelling that we should punch fascists then you would probably feel uncomfortable.
It’s an aggressive t-shirt, even though it portrays a morally appropriate sentiment. I agree with the message, and personally don’t think it’s inappropriate, but I would not be confused why some people might not want to see it, and probably wouldn’t wear it to my kid’s preschool.
Because hopefully children aren’t being exposed to that hate filled reality otherwise? A blissful ignorance, if you will. I feel like I understand what you’re saying, but this the best I could come up with for the “why. “
This brakes my brain for some reason. If a KKK member was lynched, I wouldn’t feel a thing, but if someone was walking around in an office I or school with this shirt, I would feel weird about it. I can’t put my finger on why.
I think to healthy, liberal (in the original sense) sensibilities, the concept of lynching or imagery of violent death is still principally unpalatable. Fundamentally, violence should be considered undesirable.
Pragmatically, we may consider it acceptable or even necessary in some cases. In those cases, conscious judgement will overrule that fundamental conviction.
But that doesn’t mean the gut reaction can’t be one of distaste. Both sentiments can exist at once, and the weight each of them carries in your mind doesn’t have to be absolute.
For me personally, every death – no matter how justified – evokes at least a faint sense of regret: “Shame they couldn’t become a better person.” It may be very faint in some cases, but I aim to preserve that ideal in myself: never to treat life without respect, never to treat deaths without compassion.
Maybe because extra-judicial “punishment” is unAmerican, no matter who it is.
IF we regain our country, I would get no pleasure from dragging Trump and his henchmen into the front lawn of the White House, and summarily, publicly executed.
OTOH, if they went through proper trials, were found guilty of actual crimes that exist on the books, and were sentenced to death, I would support that 100%, and would be proud of my country for proving that the system set up by our Founding Fathers can still work.
I don’t know, lynchings are kind of quintessential american.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynching
When an apple has molded you don’t cut off the moody part and hope the rest doesn’t mold.
When you allow a corrupt government to set the rules, you’ll never see anything in power held accountable. And when you let them make any other form of justice taboo, and let them convince you of it, then justice no longer exists.
And when a car gets a flat tire, you don’t get new car, you fix the flat. We can all come up with a useless analogy to make a empty point.
The fact is, the basic principles and concepts that were outlined in the founding documents - ALL men are created equal, and we are are ALL endowed by our creator with the inalienable rights to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness, et al, - are still relevant today, and are still the best principles and concepts upon which to base a government today.
We could fix a lot of our problems with a few easy steps, like getting all money out of political campaigns, but that would require all parties to negotiate with each other, AND the voters, in Good Faith, and that’s what’s been lacking in government. Very, very few of them, on either side, have earned the trust of the people, and many of them have earned unforgivable scorn. They need to start listening to the people.
So we may need to do some serious tuning up and upgrading, but the chassis and the body are still good, and the drivetrain can be brought up to speed, as long as the guys on the second shift don’t keep coming in and taking a sledgehammer to it every night, and destroying all our work.
Your two party system can never become a modern car.
The car has been broken down for awhile and you’re still pretending it drives while the right wing is banging it with hammers while it’s on its way to a compactor.
It wasn’t even made of steel the first time but tin - those words aren’t part of the constitution, they’re from the declaration of independence, and even then excludes women.
You can’t fix a car that’s been broken beyond repair, and you can’t even rebuild it while people are finishing off what semblances there are with a giant hammer.
Y’all have been needing a new car for awhile but still think it’s fine. Then enjoy your fantasy as it’s thrown into the furnace of reality.
We generally refer to the Founding Documents - the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, with equal weight. They are the three founding Documents on display in DC.
The Declaration of Independence is the statement that made us a Nation, and is every bit as important and relevant as the Constitution. In fact, until the Constitution was ratified in 1789, this was the sole document that defined America in the 13 years between.
So the opening line, declaring all men to be created equal, is huge. Further, it refers to these things as God-given rights, which means they cannot be taken away by any human, including a president, or even a long.
And “Men” is a metaphor. You say it excludes women, but in fact, it doesn’t even really include men. It means people in general, ALL people.
Further, it doesn’t even include the racial element that contemporary society likes to ascribe to hypocrisy. When they were talking about All Men Being Created Equal, they didn’t mean racially, or even economically. They meant equal as far as class distinctions. Specifically, they were rejecting as a society, the notion of an Aristocracy, in which some people are literally considered to be better quality humans in every way, simply because of their family influence. That superiority gives them great advantages in education, business, government, courts, military, etc.
Not only were they rejecting the Aristocracy, they were literally founding a new nation with that as one of its founding elements. At that time, a totally new nation hadn’t been created in human memory, and now that this enormous uncharted landmass had been discovered, here was the first actual nation, that wasn’t just a colony of predatory European nations. ALL of those nations recognized the concept of Aristocracy, and none of them liked the idea of a NEW nation where the Aristocracy wasn’t respected.
Of course, France broke with the rest, and supported the Continental Army, but that was more a matter of sticking it to England. The Enemy of My Enemy is My Friend, and all that. Considering that our revolution inspired their revolution a few years later, with a much nastier outcome, perhaps it wasn’t the French Monarchy’s best poke at the British. Worked out good for us, though.
so “Men” in the Lord of the Rings sense
Well, yeah, but bigger than that. It has been a customary social expectation for literally centuries, to refer to all collective humanity as “men.” Tolkien was merely using it the same common, traditional way, same as the Founding Fathers, and pretty much everyone else in history, until the last few decades.
Damn, you’re more full of kool-aid then the kool-aid man. There’s no reaching you.
Documents signed by rich white guys that at first excluded non-whites, the poor, and women, of which all this can be proven by history via the founders having slaves as just one example of their hypocrisy, is the best you got? Okay lol.
Hell, it’s those documents that ensured Trump won, because presidents aren’t elected by popular video the but by the “electoral college” because the founders were such fucking snobs that they couldn’t trust voters to actually fully pick someone.
They were just some some rich dudes who didn’t want to pay taxes and strung along a bunch of poor idiots with them. Same then as now, and always has been.
Condemning 18th century people because they didn’t live their lives by 21st century cultural norms is a silly argument. Plenty of our philosophical and political concepts come from ideas as old as the Greeks. We don’t reject valid ideas because the society that produced them didn’t live by our modern values. Of course they didn’t, they were a different society.
We can’t agree with each other in how we should behave NOW, but we should condemn people from the past because they refused to live by proper modern standards, too?
You think you are so much more enlightened than the past? Guess what? So did they. Every generation, no matter how far back you go, thinks they were the most modern, most enlightened generation in history. And yet a few generations down the road, and they all start to look old- fashioned.
When the Founding Fathers wrote those documents, NOBODY had created a nation based on the concepts and standards that became the American government. Every other government in the world favored the wealthy and well-connected. America would be the first nation where the lowliest citizen still held the exact same rights as the wealthiest.
We haven’t always lived up to that promise, but that promise still remains, and it is still a worthy promise to defend. I hear people celebrating the death of America, without any consideration about what would replace it. Nobody has suggested a better system, and destroying the current system, with nothing to replace it, is ALWAYS a bad idea.
I take it back, you’ve become one with the kool-aid.
Not only having the audacity to think America was the first to do that (lol - they based it on an old Greek model), but it’s so western centric it would make a fascist blush, even though you don’t have the same intentions.
But more than that, even hundreds of years before America existed, there were plenty of people who knew slavery - and especially the kind practiced in the USA at the time - was bad. There were countries where it was outlawed.
You can do all you want to excuse the hypocrisy of those founders, it doesn’t excuse that they were just rich hypocrites who definitely knew better, but chose not to do better.
I mean, show me the unprivileged, non-aristocratic, non-colonials who signed a single founding document. They wanted their own aristocracy off the backs of their fellow man and to tell the king to shove it.
Not a thing was “discovered”, only ravaged and stolen. Describing the 100% predatory and selfish inception of the country as the “first real nation” reaches incredible levels of American mythology. I don’t like the Catholic church, but there’s a reason the way the founders are revered is considered legitimate blasphemy.
We all agree that punching fascists in the face is objectively good, but if someone was walking through a school or church yelling that we should punch fascists then you would probably feel uncomfortable.
It’s an aggressive t-shirt, even though it portrays a morally appropriate sentiment. I agree with the message, and personally don’t think it’s inappropriate, but I would not be confused why some people might not want to see it, and probably wouldn’t wear it to my kid’s preschool.
Because hopefully children aren’t being exposed to that hate filled reality otherwise? A blissful ignorance, if you will. I feel like I understand what you’re saying, but this the best I could come up with for the “why. “