12mo ago

Moldy Monday

[Moldy Monday] I Have Friends Rule

Some friends I just can’t shake

hard enough

around the neck

with a firm grip

174 comments

Somebody that's actively trying to end my existence isn't a friend.
- I love that they excuse their vote as anything else.
  I just want a tax cut. (and don't care about the republic or my friends' lives)
  
  And said tax cut will work like this:
  Step 1: Before it happens, you're asked to publicly dream about what an extra $4000 will do for you on social media. Step 2: Once it passes, you get a 0.1% tax cut. Enough for one extra pizza. Per year. The bill will also includes 3 tax raises only for the poor, one every 4 years that follow. Step 3: The corporation you work for, meanwhile, gets a 16% tax cut. With it, they'll announce a $2000 one-time payment to all workers. Which will be rescinded as soon as it's been reported about on local news. The bill also includes 3 further, even bigger tax cuts for the rich, one every 4 years.
  End result: taxes raised on the poor, taxes lowered for the rich, but lots of social media euphoria from the working class, lots of newspaper clippings of bosses giving their workers generous one-time payments (that never materialized). And next election cycle, Fox News can dig up all the happy reports and the truth of the matter has never even entered the attention span of the royally-effed-over working class voters.
- Aw come on... they're not trying to end your existence. They just don't want to be alive or exist.
  Okay wait actually some DO want to end your existence directly. But most wished if you just died.
  
  Most of them would be fine if you just denied everything about yourself that didn't conform and pretended to be just like them.
- If you were to try to argue their view, I think they would say that their only problem is when you exhibit immortal behavior. Their definition of immoral behavior isn't the only historic definition but is certainly a prominent one.
  
  I exhibit immortal behavior every day by not dying.
  
  Sure, but the Christian/MAGA view of morality is a shit one that I don't subscribe to. They can fuck off with their moralizing of my decisions.

It's ok not tolerating intolerant people.
- You've become the intolerant. I can't tolerate that. Repeat.
  
  You've become the intolerant. You can't tolerate that.
- Fuck building bridges. Everybody start digging a graveyard for the things that need to die.
  https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBAQFzMKpdA
  
  Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
  https://m.piped.video/watch?v=ZBAQFzMKpdA
  Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
  I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.

I'd be fine with them if they weren't constantly shoving it in our faces. Think about the children!
- And then they put that stuff in classrooms! How disgusting

I have [a] conservative family.
To be conservative in 2024, you have to dismiss that some people in our community are miserable and every day we leave them to their fate is heinous.
In the US, a failure to vote [against] any given Republican (by voting [for] an opposing democrat) is another step towards autocracy and genocide. Every Republican in office is a force towards the Heritage Foundation's 2025 project, by which they will unmake the meager democratic features and civil rights that remain in the US.
Conservatives believe, by the natural extrapolation of their positions and behavior, I have no right to exist. (Curiously, this includes my own father, who simultaneously facilitates political efforts seeking out my extinction while expressing a dissonant interest in my well-being. He doesn't dare connect the two in his mind.)
- I'm so terribly sorry.
  You both deserve to exist and most likely rock out loud :)

A conservative you are guilted into seeing occasionally? We call that family
- If anyone knows about toxic family dynamics it’s Neptune.
  
  Honestly Neptune could be pretty toxic himself sometimes

I don't have Muslim friends who preach for all out jihad and the destruction of American democracy.
I don't have conservative friends who preach for all out insurrection and the destruction of American democracy.
Some choices aren't difficult.
- I wouldn't say "preach" but I do have conservative friends that openly tell me that being gay or trans is wrong. (I'm trans, and they know this). I'd love it if they kept that shit in the privacy of their own homes
  
  These people aren't actually your friends
  
  Sever.
  
  Or maybe realize that the human race is on a collision course with a hot, chaotic destiny in the form of climate change coupled with economic collapse. Maybe it's time to solidify our networks instead of silently praying the 'other' changes or dies?
  
  Some kind of friend, huh
- America has democracy??
  
  Officially.
  
  Not only does it have democracy, it also has socialism! You just have to be ultra rich or a mega corporation.

The paradox of tolerance says if we tolerate intolerance, then intolerance will dominate. Or something.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
- The social contract solution is pretty solid. If you are intolerant of other people first, you lose protection of the contract and others will be intolerant of you without penalty.
  
  The problem on Lemmy is that this gets combined with overgeneralized binary thinking, and all loosely "conservative" people get strawmanned as the intolerant outgroup, which, when this happens, actually does make you the guilty party.
- I’ve heard tolerance is more of a social contract
  If I go hey black guy I’ll tolerate you if you tolerate me We agree Hey gay person I’ll tolerate your differences if you tolerate my differences Hey nazi-
  He doesn’t tolerate us so he is not protected by the social contract and then we don’t have to tolerate Mr Nazi

I have friends
OK you don't have to brag.

The point is to not be tolerant of intolerance...
- https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

I have a couple of conservative friends. We just don't talk about politics or the issues of the day. Surprisingly it's not that hard.
- You know, there's so many people I have tried this with. They just won't stop bringing it up even when it is completely unrelated to what we're doing. One of them told me he feels smart because when that comes up I usually walk away to avoid the endless drama and he took that to mean that his position and opinions had so confounded me that leaving was my only way to respond.
  Stuff like "yeah I think religion should be enshrined in the Constitution and everyone should have to live by our rules" and "if women don't want to have kids they should keep their legs closed".
  Like, even if I thought engaging had any chance of working it's just such braindead regurgitated Fox talking points that I wouldn't engage anyway. Just waiting for these people to get everything they want and suffer for it.
  
  A distressing number of people seem to have inhibition problems.
  A further distressing number are narcissists.
  We shouldn't be surprised though, that's exactly how they were programmed. The more it became acceptable to pander to our baser instincts, the more profitable it became and the more profit driven concerns did it. The more screen time we had in our upbringing (back when we called it 'tv') the more likely we are to have taken on the programming of exceptionalism and decide that what's good for everyone isn't what's good for us.
  I don't necessarily think it was planned that way, but the people who thought that it might be the result were relegated to the fringe.
- No no no, don't you see? You need to cutoff all communication with them and get them arrested and ruin their lives bro.
  
  I mean, I'm sorry, but if they believe that abortion is baby murder, black people are predisposed to being criminals, poor people don't deserve to have healthcare, and trans kids should have to live in a miserable hell that makes them want to commit suicide, I'm not going to just "not talk about it" and stay friends with them. If your morals are that fucked, I can't in good conscience call you a friend.
- You must have better friends than I.
  Every conservative I know or knew is walking around with pent-up anger, seemingly ready explode over whatever their handlers in the media have railed them up against that day. I guess that is what keeps them active at the ballot box and prevents them from taking a step back, calming down, thinking and questioning the narrative. Either way, it became pretty much impossible to have any kind of outing with these people present.
  It's gotten really tiresome to even look for common ground anymore. Things that were fine just yesterday suddenly make them foam at the mouth. And lately, the persecution complex, too.
  
  Hmm part of it might be that I'm in eastern Canada where there are still 'progessive conservatives' and people don't seem to care so much about politics anyway.
  A world away from the USA in terms of media influence.
- So, you're saying you are okay with hanging out with people who are completely okay with the oppression and marginalization of minorities. You choose to keep people around who want other people to loose thier rights. You keep people in your life that support book banning and information suppression.
  I would not hang out with you.
  
  Not really. You just know really awful conservatives.

The primary difference is, I can throw a party, I can have my trans friends gay friends Muslim friends black friends, and Latino friends All in the same room. Then I can leave the room to go take care of something and not have to worry that any one person in the room is going to say "you people".
To be very honest I do have some somewhat conservative friends, They mostly worry that legislation will even the playing field and all their lifelong hard work will be for nothing. Which is still a pretty shitty outlook but I can understand it. They spent 10 years of their life putting our kids through college and all of a sudden colleges free.
- "I had to suffer, so everyone else should too." is NOT a valid reason to push back against progress.
  
  Yep. Falls into the "Fuck you I got mine" category.
- That's my stance too. If I put a group of people in a room, ideally everyone works together.
  Thats not a thing with conservatives. They'll be starting fights with everyone and then blame that they're oppressed.
- Depends really heavily on how fundamentalist that Muslim friend is, comrade. If they are Muslim in the same way that Joe Biden is a Christian, then yeah. If they are a Wahhabist, then may Allah help the gays, because the Wahhabist sure as hell won't.
  
  I have 4 Muslim friends, 3 of them would never say a bad word about anyone even in confidence. The forth one would in fact say something about someone, but never to their face. I'm sure there are extremists out there, but by the numbers, 6/10 Christians can't help but preach to people.

I don't have conservative friends because I'm not friends with toxic people. I wish them ~~well~~ all dead

You don't choose sexual orientation, race, nationality, body you're born into.
- Conservatism is a choice! And it's arguably the wrong one
  
  Ehhh. I understand their logic at this point. It makes sense to them.
  That being said, the basis for that logic is rather insane, so take that as you will.
  Look, I don't agree with them either, but if you understand them, then you can pre-empt their arguments. This doesn't seem to be something that politicians on "the left" can do.... So they put forward these very sensible and logical motions, and get torn to shreds by the opposition.

I don't care what you believe or what direction you lean politically. I won't be friends with jerkoffs and assholes.
That being said, all my friends are left-leaning. 🤷‍♂️
- Why are they leaving the left? Seems kinda sus
  
  Thanks! Auto-carrot kind of screwed me there. I fixed it.
  Have a good day stranger.

I don't agree with the fascist lifestyle. I think they should keep it behind closed doors. On another planet. Not this one.
- Do you want moon nazis? 'Cuz that's how ypu get moon nazis.

shifts uncomfortably
Nope! I know what conservatives want and what they stand for, when I tell them to fuck off it's with pride and volume. Conservative isn't a race, a color, a religion or a sexuality. It's not beyond your control. It's a series of moral decisions made by a fully competent adult who can absolutely be held responsible for what they believe and what they try to do with their power in the world.

Not even that moldy tbh. just not cracked and deep fried enough for non mondays.

Wow, sometimes I invoke Poe's law when people say no one here gets a joke, but like what the hell happens here
It's clearly just joking mirroring. Of course we don't want intolerant people in our discourse.

I have conservative friends. Almost all of them oppose Trump. The point you think you’re making isn’t as clear as you think. The narrative of someone using the “I’m a conservative and I’m being silenced/discriminated” isn’t coming from actual conservatives but rather from MAGA and white nationalist clowns pushing a hateful, un-Christian, not actually classic conservative agenda.
- I think it's a joke at the expense of many who deserve it.

Yyeap that is how it feels to be a conservative today..... Cant say you are a conservative cause people will call you "rasist" "bigot" "sexist" "transphobic" and so on. Just because you think a 9 month old baby should have the same rights as a newborn. Or because you think we should have rules (and we do) behind how people cross the border. Or because you think people should pay money back if they barrow money.
Just some thoughts that will get you banned from social media.
- Or because you think people should pay money back if they barrow money.
  Except of course PPP loans. Student loans for sure need to be paid back, but the free money the wealthy got from the gubermint is fine.
  
  Not not saying its fine, all Im saying its you should be responsable its all. Seems like its not a popular opinion today....
- If people are calling you racist, bigoted, sexist, and transphobic simply because you identify as a conservative, you should probably reevaluate your positions and if you truly identify with conservative values.
  Nobody is aborting 9 month old fetuses outside of exceptional medical emergencies, and denying women bodily autonomy is incredibly authoritarian.
  Nobody thinks there shouldn't be any rules about crossing borders, even the fringe people that are for open borders. What people disagree with is intentionally drowning people via razorwire as a deterrent, and instead want an easier path to citizenship.
  Everyone thinks paying debts is a good thing, but may disagree on what constitutes a faulty, predatory system of debt that ought to be abolished in the first place, like medical debt and school debt.
  The thoughts you listed alone will not get you banned from social media (outside of specific communities for specific purposes), what would is how you express those views, which can in fact be sexist, bigoted, or perhaps even racist or transphobic.
  
  Nobody is aborting 9 month old fetuses outside of exceptional medical emergencies, and denying women bodily autonomy is incredibly authoritarian.
  Nobody is aborting 9-month-old fetuses at all. Unless that fetus is already dead or dying, 9 months is well past the point of viability.
  24 weeks (5 months and some change) is when a fetus could viably survive outside the womb with medical intervention. 9 months is at the point of being fully developed, even if it is a couple weeks premature.
  Almost all abortions happen at 10 weeks or less, well before the point of viability. Almost no abortions happen after 24 weeks. Definitely none happening at 9 months.
- What 9 month old baby has less rights than a newborn? Edit: or vice versa.
  
  I'm gonna charitably guess he means a unborn baby at nine months, but... Does he think those are aborted or some?
  
  Depends on the state, some mothers are able to kill their 9 month baby (does notmatter what the father opinion is)
- I would agree that some people have become hyper-sensitized towards any statement that might be interpreted as "racist", "sexist" or "transphobic", no thanks to a definite rise of those sentiments, mainly amongst conservatives. But I firmly believe this "they call anyone conservative a nazi/a racist/a transphobe/a xenophobe" claim is a persecution complex installed onto conservatives by the media to disarm the accusations and instead turn them into anger against the "other side."
  If this is about the USA, abortion used to be legal up to 12 weeks after conception, 9 months would be crazy. Also, there is no open border, nor does the current government want that (they merely insist on proper procedure, aka rules, rather than letting people drown). Republicans will likely continue to reject border deals in order to keep the topic cooking until election day and to aid America's enemies in Russia.
- I agree with a lot of your opinions here, I just don't understand what makes these examples intrinsically conservative.
  I'm a liberal, but I don't believe in the breakdown of structure. A lot of those rules are in place for a reason - I'd argue the difference lies more in response.
  ...you were banned from a social media site for saying someone should pay back a debt?Which one, I'll stay as far away as possible, that's crazy fr 😯
  
  I'm assuming he's referring to student loan forgiveness. I could see him getting banned from certain communities for saying he's against it.

Define conservative. I don't count bigotry.

Isn't Islam technically Conservative? I'm confused
- Religion should be opposed via education, culture, and general science, not via the state. Religion is conservative, but there are good religious people.
- All religions are technically conservative. Individuals have individual relationships with their religions though.

If you want to be friends then why aren't you friendly?

Over 1100 upvotes and 20 down votes has me cracking up.

There's nothing a conservative hates more than being judged by who they are as people. They think that tolerance means being a complete moral vacuum and accepting any sort of malevolence and violence. This is because they see people being tolerant of PoC, queer people and non-Christians and they also see membership in those categories as moral failings.

174 comments