Why else would they also seek a blanket revocation of our right to bear arms?

Is this an actual serious proposal by the administration, or more “well, a couple of the lunatic fringe in Congress have put it forward” or “well, I could seeeee this happening.”

who are currently pushing for the FBI to define all transgender people as terrorists and lock us all up.

So, when you wrote this, did you actually mean “okay, they aren’t doing it now but they might in future!” or did you not know what was actually being proposed?

Because this is the key. There is a huge difference between the worst case scenario I can imagine and what is happening.

Consider the flip side. When the Right says that the Democrats are just one step away from communism because folks like AOC say there shouldn’t be billionaires or Mamdami wants to run government grocery stores, I would imagine you see those as pretty nonsensical claims. But, they’re doing the exact thing you are, where they’re taking a handful of proposals, grossly misrepresenting the content and saying it’s a path to ruin. So, we tend to tune them out.

Or, you could look at trump 2016. There were some worrying parallels between him and fascist beginnings but at the end of the day, an election was held and, despite his best efforts he left. And now, the mainstream is pretty suspicious of us when we scream fascist at the actual scary stuff.

By the way, by admitting that what I see happening looks a lot like historical examples of the steps towards genocide, it is possible to paint me as a terrorist under the proposed TIVE categorization.

Read the section I quoted again and you’ll see this isn’t the case unless you ignore a large swathe of it. Again, being able to imagine something is not the same as it being true.

When you hear a wild claim like that, it’s worth double checking a primary source or, failing that, a reputable second hand source.

From page 3 of the full memo:

Note that this designation does not apply to all persons that are transgender, or their allies. It applies to those who: (1) believes that any opposition to transgender ideology is a violent and existential threat to the right of transgender people to exist and amounts to an imminent threat to physical safety; (2) believes that this fear justifies violence against those who refuse to affirm transgender ideology; and (3) takes, incites, or promotes violent action based on that ideology. All three criteria must be met. Individuals cannot and will not be investigated solely based on 1st Amendment protected activity alone.

While I don’t particularly agree with their take, what’s actually being proposed is adding transgender based violence to existing categories. The current categories are: race based, anti government/authority, animal rights/environmental, abortion and other.

Now, as far as I understand, vegans are not being locked up for being vegan, racists are still allowed to be racist, environmental activists are still okay to protest etc.

Could this be abused? Absolutely! And that is why it is stupidly important to be accurate. When we claim hysterical untrue shit, it makes everyone less likely to listen when things are actually dangerous. (We spent 4 years screaming fascist starting in 2016 and now when shit’s actually getting scary, it is much harder to get people to listen because they’ve tuned us out. Boy who cried wolf etc.)

Edit: And like a goof, I forgot to link the primary source!

https://itsyourgov.org/investigation/oversight-project-unveils-case-for-new-fbi-domestic-terrorism-designation/

Like I said earlier, if you mean something like social media, then I agree. When I say social media, I also mean our new ways of ingesting media, eg short form text, memes, podcasts etc (though should probably use a different term.) I think there are a bunch of pernicious effects and incentives which have made seeing the humanity in those with whom we disagree difficult and compromise impossible. We don’t need propaganda, people in general are just not able to handle the information landscape that’s been created.

But, if you’re really talking about even the spread of more independent written media etc, then I just don’t see their limited readership being the fundamental game changer that we’ve seen.

To each their own. I agree with Chomsky that yeah, media blinkers people and frames the terms of the debate. But, this has been true for decades. Something has fundamentally changed in the last 10 - 15 years and we’re watching those changes ripple across almost every society.

Again, you’re free to share any relevant research. But, I think blaming the Rightward swing that we’re seeing across the world on just “the media” is, at best, over simplistic.

aka, “okay, I know they didn’t say this but I feel it!”

Which is eerily similar to how republicans paint the Left on various issues.

You are free to share some of that scholarship.

Unless you mean something like social media, then I’d probably agree. But any research blaming traditional media would have to answer three large issues that seem to stand in direct contradiction:

1. Germany has a wildly different media ecosystem than America, which has a wildly different media landscape than the UK, which has a wildly different media ecosystem than Italy, which has a wildly different media landscape than Austria, which has a very different one than France, which is very different from Poland etc. But the same phenomenon is happening across the board.

2. Traditional media is no longer where most people get their news. So either it’s really radicalizing a smaller group or?

3. Traditional media consumption among age groups seems to indicate quite the opposite happening, ie, in America at least (I can’t recall the age related shifts across Europe) younger voters are, relative to historical norms, lurching Right, whereas older voters are moving a bit to the Left. Yet, the younger groups are much less likely to get their news from traditional media than older voters, so if media were the culprit, you’d expect the shift to have happened the other way.

The short answer is media. Or as the kids like to say, “propaganda”.

Ehhhh, I think blaming a problem happening simultaneously in almost every democracy on “the media” feels a bit like putting our heads in the sand and avoiding the issues. But to each their own.

Thanks!

Admittedly, the Lemkin institute is being pursued in court for misusing the Lemkin name and fragrant misuse of the word genocide. (They are also claiming there’s now a genocide red alert in the UK for trans people.)

You could cite multiple groups like the heritage foundation etc that would strenuously deny anything of the sort is taking place.

Hell, just not engaging with social media would probably be the correct call for all sides.

This stuff is destroying our ability as a people to handle anything.

I’m sorry, this sort of hysteria and screaming genocide is partially why people discredit the Left even when there are actual, real problems.

Is the treatment of illegal immigrants under Maga awful? Absolutely. But screaming genocide because it’s the worst thing you know, well goddamn, now we just sound dumb. This ain’t moving us to a place where we can figure things out. (You probably can’t have everyone in the world who wants to go to America in America. Conversely, they are still humans and even if they are illegally in the country, sending them to an El Salvadorean prison is heinous.) If we aren’t there to make the reasonable case, no one makes it.

It’s like how the right complains that Christianity is under attack etc and they are persecuted for it. Is that true? No and it makes them sound insane. Are there actual arenas wherein things are harder or tricky for religious folks? Sure! (If you believe the Pope and feel abortion is murder, pretty hard to reconcile that with funding abortion etc.)

You are misunderstanding.

I’m not calling the paradox (or the constitution) silly, I’m saying they don’t apply in this scenario.

From the snippet above:

I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies ; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be most imwise

But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force ; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument ; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols.

In other words, yeah, if that instance starts getting people to be assholes to everyone etc, sure, tolerance does not mean we should let them do so here, that’s the point of the paradox. But, as the author states, suppressing them without cause etc would be most foolish. Far better to try and discuss with rational argument first before resorting to “well, we don’t want to talk to you because my MAGA uncle is a dick.”

Honestly, this is an age where we really need to be working on deescalating as much as possible.

I fully agree. And I would hope part of that de-escalation would be finding common ground with those with whom we disagree.

Instead of forcing the individual users to come and be yelled at one at a time, I’d love for them to have a place so we can start some sort of talks, even if it’s just stupid shit like what video games they like. I dunno. If we can’t find common ground then it’s just two sides trying to destroy each other until it’s too late to solve our actual problems.

No real harm in trying.

Otherwise, yay, we’re just in our own obnoxious echo chamber being angry that people don’t agree with us instead of talking with those whom we need to persuade.

Yeah, I get similarly silly stuff from the right, where they have readnheard of something but don’t quite understand how it applies, eg:

“I guess you haven’t read the Constitution!”

“Free speech is about government, not public outcry.”

Such is life.

I’m assuming you’re talking about trans rights?

Show me where that exists in anything published by the trump campaign or project 2025.

As far as I understand, neither have said “we will murder all trans people.”

These sorts of claims are exactly why I’d like to hear what MAGA has to say. It’s just the same as people who claimed Harris was going abolish private property; undoubtedly some of her supporters were from our crazy Left fringe but to conflate them with her was, at best, mind numbingly stupid.

and it invariably moves us up the rungs on the ladder toward genocide.

Wow, that is a damn crazy assertion. And exactly why more discussion is a good thing.

It is the only relevant part.

And so far, no one has given an example of the harms or bad behaviour that would warrent defederation. It’s just been “I disagree with them so defederate.”

Yeah it worked out so well for America that they elected Trump twice and his style of politics has become more popular.

Oh, I hadn’t realized America was secretly not super polarized and has plenty of actual spaces where people meet, interact and talk with folks with whom they disagree.