by ToucanLoucan | 2025-04-03 13:32:13+00:00
> The assumption that social ambushes only occur for horrific beliefs is an amazingly naive take on humanity. By this logic it's implied that the women burned in the Salem witch trials must've done something to deserve it.

That is an incredible leap in logic with far too many layers to properly litigate.

> I've been ambushed for explaining: - to right-leaning folk that most migrants are seeking a better life - to left-leaning folk that securing a border is not a crazy idea - to right-leaning folk that subsidies to help restore agency to people who've had a rougher start and benefit everyone - to left-leaning folk that merely allocating money to an government agency does not necessarily mean anything beneficial happens

I think you're wholely unaware of the concept of dog-whistles and their role in our modern politics.... I mean not even modern, those go back centuries.

In any case:

- You were probably ambushed for suggesting migrants are seeking a better life because many right leaning people are propagandized so heavily into thinking every migrant is a rapist felon drug selling child molester.

- You were probably ambushed for endorsing border security for the same reason, because it's become a dog-whistle for unhinged levels of racism and nationalism projected by the right. And while I don't endorse that level of over-correction on the part of whoever ambushed you, I also don't not-understand it. The dehumanizing rhetoric around immigrants is fucking disgusting and shameful, literally the stuff of Nazi's, and especially given the ongoing abuses by border patrol, the active deportations of people who've committed no crime due to administrative incompetence on their and other agency's parts, again, I'm not surprised people might be telling you to can it about needing more of that.

- Again, this is a ridiculous amount of propaganda going back to the 80's, where the Reagan campaigns created outright fiction about "welfare queens" (and again, more racism there as they were always implied to be black) that's led to decades of "welfare reform" which is better stated as "fucking over the poor for profit."

- And you likely got ambused about the last thing because.... it's wrong, and again, not only is it wrong, it's a hot button issue that's been, again, ruined by the Reagan administration who, along with their compatriots in the Thatcher administration and similar austerity administrations and politics worldwide, have systematically defunded uncountable numbers of public services, which leads to a degradation in those services, which leads to more justifications for more cuts, which leads to a death spiral which is why virtually no government agencies anywhere are effective anymore.

> Not even taking a stand, just pointing out opposing points -- hardly an anti-social, horrible act

And like, I get that you personally aren't advocating for these things, but what you are doing, unintentionally, is invoking bad faith rhetoric that is, at the risk of sounding dramatic, behind the political movement that is more or less responsible for the fact that nothing works anymore and every government on Earth is struggling. And for you, that's probably a minor, or perhaps major annoyance. For other people, it's life threatening. For certain groups of people, they may not only find the actions of border control and immigration courts abhorrent, they might well be the targets of those actions relatively soon.

To put it another way, you may not have strong feelings about zoning regulations or deciding where a sewage line goes in your town. However, if you say that to the person who's back yard is full of overflow sewage and it's causing their family to become ill and their home to be borderline unlivable, they're probably going to be quite pissed off with you because just because something isn't a critically important issue to you doesn't mean it isn't to someone else.

Context is important. I would encourage you the next time you feel so ambushed, instead of getting defensive and/or running away, ask questions. Why is this issue so important to this person? Why are they so upset with what you're saying? Is there another angle to this that you're unaware of?