Commonalities between Far Right and Far Left - tl;dr they're assholes, every last one of them

Movements on the far right and far left in this country have been at this kind of thing for literal decades, possibly centuries. Who's pulling their strings? Their own selfish, sociopathic interests, but probably also foreign interests that want this country to fail. At the moment that is probably Russia, multinational corporations, the 1% richest people on Earth, robber barons, dictators and their sycophants, and China. Ask yourself who else benefits if we go down, though. Why would they want us to? A lot of people want to take down democracy and merit-based systems so they can get all the goodies with little to none of the work. In other words, to con their way into success. And what's even weirder is that a lot of people criticizing this kind of thing are not failing to disguise how much they envy such people and want to be the top dog instead. Oookay. 7/6/22 Come to think of it, in my personal experience, people on the far right are now well known to be evil and are getting justifiably canceled, but people on the far left are usually completely, utterly vindictive, two-faced, and completely evil, just waiting for a chance to stab you in the back so they can get ahead. Intersectionality is their ploy to get you to let your guard down so they can exploit you. That is, in a nutshell, what believing in Communism does to people. Best yet, they can convince themselves they're the good guys the whole time so they can fuck you over now, gain the benefits, and justify it to themselves later. I tell you this now in the hopes that you will distance yourself from these folks so you don't live through what I did. Long story.

Commonalities

Reader, please ask yourself this: is my overall life philosophy or any part thereof fueled by hatred? Because realistically speaking, I haven't actually seen hatred accomplish anything positive ever. Anger, getting even instead of mad, sure. But hatred? Nope. I struggle with this myself tbh. This also includes philosophies fueled by self-hatred. Often looks a little something like "you're not good enough" or "you're not good enough unless blah blah blah." It's the oldest con in the book. It's called religion. Or a cult, or drug dealing, which are all really so similar.

12/14/22 The Small Town Mentality

• 3/16/23 some r/Askreddit anecdotes of small town coverups that match really well with my experiences... one of the many manymany reasons I'm very supportive of better infrastructure everywhere, so that "outsiders" dilute the bullshit in the "insider" culture in these little hellholes and make it so the perpetually-stuck-in-highschool folks there are forced to come to terms with cosmopolitan ideas and come to grips with the fact that yes, the world is a big place and no, it does not revolve around you and your tiny town, and finally, grow the fuck up
• It is a little weird to have people look at me askance when I say "I hate small towns and their mentality." It's simple you guys. I do not like Communism. And yes these two things are interconnected. "We're like one big family here!" Uh oh. Picture this: most places in the US, it's damn near impossible to open up a small business if you don't have say, a couple grand to throw down on lawyers, accountants, and at the local Chamber of Commerce, AND something like $250,000, $35,000 minimum, to pay for a business degree, plus of course a local pedigree among the WASP good-ol-boys network so they know you'll help them out and will stay off their turf. But it's absolutely fucking easy to go work for some local asshole who pays you peanuts, exploits you for all you're worth, and destroys your health and work-life balance in the process. Realistically speaking, in most places in this country, you can't get ahead unless you are connected to someone who knows someone and probably also born to "a local boy." Unless you're damn lucky, damn good, or both. Merit doesn't go as far as you think it would. And it's been my experience that the bigger the small-town mentality, the more likely it is that both people are committing crimes and getting away with it because "this is a small town, we take care of our own," and exploiting other people's hard work and effort in order to get rich without working much themselves, esp. by employing illegal immigrants and other suckers for half wages and getting away with it by being good buddies with local/state government and other social organizations. Far right or far left, it doesn't matter, you can be sure a temper tantrum will be thrown if they aren't getting special benefits from racism, other -isms, intersectionality, or whatever else that entitles them to money and power they did not earn but want. And both of these are what Communism looks like in practice. From each, according to their ability, to each, according to their "needs" - yeah sure, whoever games the system the best wins and to hell with merit. The harder you work and less you game the system the more you lose, the more you game the system the more money you make and the less you need to work. Looks a lot like monarchy in any case, which winds up with de facto slavery or indentured servitude, and the only person you have any right to enslave is yourself. Self-discipline is so underrated. Watch out for Der Kommissar.

Main article

• For conservatives, racism and discrimination due to abundant privilege is an honored tradition. For liberals, racism and discrimination due to lack of privilege is trendy. What a big difference. "Let That Be Your Final Battlefield" in Star Trek: The Original Series really drives this point home. I'm on Scotty's side here. I find them both disgusting.
• 9/27/22 New realization. Intersectionality boils down to "the more labels you put on me the more benefits I can claim from you." Intersectionality is the ism. Racism, classism, sexism, etc. Isms, greed, self-pity, pettiness, hatred. I just asked my family if Israel was as bad in terms of racism (regardless of actual individual skin color) as the United States in that regard before they moved here. Answer? No. The United States was and is worse in terms of isms, particularly racism. And I'll get canceled all to shit here, but claiming things like "oh reverse racism doesn't exist" and "oh misandry doesn't exist in feminism" is pretty much the same as QAnon's whataboutisms. Juuust watch. I'll be proven right. National Brotherhood Week by Tom Lehrer covers this. Because the cover of the book is all important, huh? Pettiness, backstabbing, betrayal, manipulation, nepotism, greed, hatred, isms, and it can all be forgiven by saying "but but but other side bad!" *mutters* and people wonder why i don't like socializing
• 8/25/22 Come to think of it, it's pretty simple. Self-pity. Not just self-pity but doubling down so hard on it with cognitive dissonance aka self-deception, that the person involved deeply believes in every fiber of their being that they have been wronged, and the world owes them something, and they are entitled to more and better than what they've got. I have never heard a more disempowering doctrine in my life. You believe in that and you throw away your energy on something that is not worth your time. Self-pity. It is the root of addiction to getting drunk on emotional excess, of racism, of intersectionality, of sexism, of able-ism, and of all the other -isms. Especially Fascism and other kinds of temper tantrums that spoiled children demand when they have somehow avoided growing up. It might even be the root of some drug addictions and alcoholism. My mom was ruthless with getting rid of self-pity in herself, probably after seeing what wonders it achieved for the Middle East. I'm going to try to divorce myself from this myself. Maybe see what you can do also.
• 7/16/22 "We don't want to work hard. Working hard is for suckers." Really? REALLY? I just... I can't. I just can't level with that kind of evil. For those of you reading this who are in the same boat as I, try to distance yourself from this kind of person as quickly and as far as possible, because they'll gladly make you work for two.
• 7/12/22 They hate the other side despite having so very much in common. It's like two toddlers going "NO YOU" "NO YOU." You know what? I think it's high time we stick these two toddlers in time-out (in prison), together, and if they choose to take out their anger on each other, I don't care. I've been patient. The entire world has been patient. But I really think that they are no longer savable. And really, it's these guys taking out their anger on the center-straddling people and on people who aren't even involved in any of this (innocent bystanders) that's not okay.
• You could argue that Communists have a really horrible dysfunctional cognitive dissonance-based relationship with two things: wealth and relationships. Fascists have the same thing going on. In either case, a distorted relationship with these things that we use to survive - money and relationships - is in itself a kind of religion. Fascism? Worship money to the exclusion of all else, create cult of prosperity and safety. Communism? Pretend not to worship money to the exclusion of all else, and instead worship the people that provide you with worldly goods, and feel entitled to it all... in other words, worship wealth to the exclusion of all else. "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" well if that's all you're thinking about then you are only concerned with physical needs. But just the physical is not what makes us human. There is more to us than that! Here you have a prosperity gospel, people worshipping themselves as their own God, and worshipping money as their so-called independence, and thinking it is the answer, but look closely at these guys; they're miserable, and what they think of as self-esteem and self-love is just self-abuse. Here you have Communists, self-effacing until they hate themselves so much they never even think of their own needs, thinking of it as some kind of virtue, and it's just self-abuse. And I think too many people have it backwards. Using relationships and money in order to survive... is not necessary. Stand on your own. Define your own terms for your life. Put on your own oxygen mask first and fill your own cup first or you will never have anything of value to give to anyone else. It's all just a power-over, dog-eat-dog attitude, instead of power-with, win-win. It doesn't have to be like this. I really think the answer to all this is good mental health. That can only start with a good relationship with the person in the mirror.
• 7/12/22 They seem to think that they are entitled to privileges, wealth, and comfort. But anything that makes them uncomfortable makes them violently allergic to it or wildly intolerant. And guess what's more uncomfortable than anything else? Freedom. And dealing with diverse other people who want freedom too. In fact, these guys have no idea what it's like to want freedom at all, feeling perfectly content with living in a gilded cage like some kind of hamster. So when you say things like "hey, maybe let's not censor everything or burn books," and "hey, maybe we should allow kids to use cuss words in school," and "maybe we should have a minimum wage that gets rid of indentured servitude" the only response is "NO." Why? Because they don't think freedom is a right. Also because they are pretty twisted in the head. "You should just be happy with what you've got, slave! I'm happy without freedom! So happy that I care about what happens to YOU more than what happens to me!" Huh. I'll unpack this in the next few points.
• 0. What is the actual point of life if you are just expected to do as you are supposed to do and blindly obey the path that supposedly is "the only one right and true path for you and possibly all other humans"? Seriously, why? Why is this so important? Couldn't someone or something else spawn in place of you and fulfill these obligations just the same? If that's the case why are you even here? Are you really not interested in ever finding out? Would you really just rather slap a band-aid on the question, of drugs of some sort, the feeling of belonging to a religion, or a cult, or some other thing that gives you supposed meaning and purpose from external instead of internal sources? I mean, that's nice and all, but like, YOU are living your life. And you can't run from yourself forever. I see so many people sleepwalking through life, just going through the motions, but the thing is, we are all going to die. All of us. The real tragedy is never really living. (Never actually enjoying this precious gift of life that has been given to you but just suffering and gritting your teeth through every day.) And can you really do that without liberty and the pursuit of happiness?
• 1. Human beings cannot actually pursue happiness - and I am defining that as deep personal spiritual fulfillment not a drug high - without freedom (since we are all, believe it or not, different due to free will and random chance being built into the structure of the universe and all living creatures, thanks, chaos).
• 2. What makes a human being considered "human"? Free will. A mind that thinks for itself, freedom of choice, the ability to define who you want to be and become that. In fact that's a pretty good definition for any sentient creature. It is because we believe in free will that we create systems of law and government in the first place, because since we believe a person makes their own choices, they are responsible for those choices and their consequences. If you do not have free will, then you are not responsible for anything that you do, and therefore no one has the right to punish you for anything. (Obviously, you can't run a society like that; you'll wind up with a barren wasteland full of death and despair.) But if you're going to say that a society has the right to punish you as well as tell you that you do not have the right to freedom, you contradict yourself. What gives your government the right to tell you what to do as opposed to you having the right to tell you what to do? Unless, of course, what you want would harm or kill the innocent? Possibly more importantly, why would you consider any of those laws valid or that government valid if it contradicts the whole point of government in the first place - namely, to keep people accountable for the consequences of their actions? (Most people prefer not to go the anarchy route because that leads to feudalism, which leads to monarchies and oligarchies, which lead to bloody and unnecessary wars and slavery and untold horrors, and it's really just drama we don't need.) If you're considered responsible enough to follow the rules of "your own free will" but get punished for not following them, then you're responsible enough to make your own rules. To argue otherwise is self-contradictory. UNLESS your rules involve you harming or killing the innocent, in which case we're going to have to get rid of this rule for you, a. because there is nothing responsible, mature, or acceptable about that, and b. so you don't kill off a good percentage of the country, thanks antivaxxers. I mention that cause how this realistically plays out is that "we live in a society" and some guy's going to be like "I really like murdering people, so that's my new rule now" and so the government is going to have to make that guy go to jailll. (Realistically speaking, without appropriate intervention from the government and the justice system, there is absolutely no such thing as freedom because no one is held accountable for the consequences of their actions. Without real justice there is zero freedom. What is justice? The closest thing we have to it is throwing people who harm the innocent unnecessarily in jail for a reasonable amount of time. Or kill them via death penalty depending on the offense. War is far less simple and far less just, but is the only alternative to this. We only have freedom because we have justice and security. What people tend to forget, however, is that government is not exempt from being subjected to the country's justice system. Or you're just asking for trouble.)
• 3. Does the right to liberty actually link up with the right to life? Surprisingly, yes. You see, this freedom of thought and, to a certain extent, behavior thing leads to innovation and collaboration without fear of censorship or punishment. Get rid of that and society starts going backwards, right back into the dark ages and before. Get rid of more freedoms and you get rid of more independent thinking, and guess what natural selection has to say about that? The most suited to survival are the ones who adapt to change the best. Without freedom you just got rid of your whole society's adaptability so instead of bending, you break. Also, getting rid of freedoms has a nasty tendency of making your population not have a very good relationship with the truth, which also screws you up.
• 4. Without the pursuit of happiness according to what makes you, not some generic "human prototype," happy, there's a pretty good chance you don't want to live and possibly also (at worst) off yourself and other people because you think life is cheap (ask any immigrant from a Communist or Dictatorship place), this violates the whole "pursuit of happiness" idea in the Constitution that is built off the "right to life" idea. At best, you're just not going to care about life, your own or others, beyond sheer survival instinct: You can certainly exist in such a place through sheer grit and tenacity, but without freedom of personal choice to do what you want as long as it harms no innocents, it's going to suck. And when things suck, you aren't going to want to do more than the bare minimum just to get by or give a damn about the laws (or really give a damn about much of anything, why should you care?) and neither is anyone else (even the few who originally cared the most, because they get burned out) and the whole society crumbles - end result? lots of people die. In fact it seems to also be destroying the environment and causing a war or a few. Interestingly a lot of people will say "Happiness is not necessary. Isn't survival enough?" Sure, if you're an amoeba or an algae. Are you, though? Willing to give up what it means to be human? Besides that, this might come as a surprise to you but there seem to be (in my experience) strong indications that human beings are not psychologically capable of happiness or mental health if they do not have the option to do something original on a regular basis. And if you tell me "but I'm happier with that kind of security, I don't know what to do with personal freedom and choice, I want my life dictated to me by outside forces, I refuse to take personal responsibility for my own life and existence aside from attaining power over others so I can enslave them instead of be enslaved, I can't make it on my own or handle things that way," you are lying through your teeth. And deep down, you know it. Grow up.
• 5. Why do we do these things? Create governments, create groups, work so hard to survive? Is it out of fear of pain and suffering? Yes. Does a system without allowing humans the freedom to think, do and be what they want (without harming or killing the innocent) actually prevent pain and suffering? In this universe where chaos exists? Unless you can get rid of chaos and free will of all sentient beings, the answer is always going to be no. Meanwhile, if we want to cope with pain and suffering, we will need coping mechanisms. Namely, happiness, and the freedom to pursue it. So if you want to reduce pain and suffering in a population but like the notion of restricting freedom beyond what is absolutely necessary, you shoot yourself in both feet. But you know, some people also work to create governments, groups, and improved likelihood of survival not out of fear but for other reasons, such as to pursue dreams, promote ideals and virtues, and other wonderful but often-considered-frivolous things. Some people just don't understand the notion of wonderful things, honestly believe that obedience to some kind of dogma somehow makes you "good," can't see the point of life beyond causing suffering to other creatures out of a mistaken belief in a zero-sum dog-eat-dog life "game" or straight up sadism, and usually are what is considered evil. These idiots also are absolutely convinced that they're the smartest and wisest and most superior beings around, why? Hubris. Case in point, the Chinese and Russian current governments. I don't think those people should be in power.
• 6. Therefore freedom actually is a basic human right. It might not be a premise based on the strictest logic, but it certainly matches up with pragmatism that stems from history. Communist places? Totalitarian Dictatorships? Monarchies? Cults? Hell holes! And they are spectacularly good at ensuring the people in them die horrible, painful unnecessary deaths, which doesn't bloody well match up with a belief in the sanctity of life and the right to life now does it. To say nothing of the magnitude of the suffering in many of these places.
• 7. The flip side of this belief system goes a little like this: we should not have freedom because it is not a right, we should be content with whatever has been allotted to us and not make waves in order to "be nice" and do "the right thing," asking for happiness is too much to ask when people are dying and starving and miserable and it is our duty to make sure no one ever suffers again at the expense of our own happiness - and everyone should do this - , everyone should get the same things because everyone is all the same deep down (exactly the same), and since everyone is all the same everyone is expendable, and no one has the right to life, or therefore anything at all. Just obey whoever the biggest dog is (a Deity, a government, a person, a cult leader, a philosophy) and everything is going to be peachy. If you don't feel like believing in this, then think with your heart and your gut and not your mind, and don't you dare ever think bad thoughts.
• 8. People who want to rule over other people with such ideologies forget that to rule and be ruled creates a relationship; a bond. Bondage binds both the slave and the master. After all, who's going to expend all that energy trying to force someone to stay enslaved? That's right - the so called "master." Oookay. You could have just gone all "live and let live" but noooo, you HAD to piss in someone's oatmeal, make your bed and lie in it, and wind up getting rid of your own freedom along with theirs. Cause that makes sense.
• Entitlement! Oh, oh, this. This, this, this. Because being born supposedly entitles you to all kinds of freebies and privileges that you're not really aware that most of the world has to work their guts out to obtain. Very few things in this world are "free," and I'm not talking about money here.
• Buzzwords that act as dog whistles to pull others like them from the woodwork to create a mob so they can overwhelm instead of convince. It's like Captain Olimar in Pikmin. Some good examples include SJW (Social Justice Warrior), MAGA (Make America Great Again), Radical, TERF (Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist), Fake News, WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant, often kinda close to the KKK or actually a part of it), Patriot (right), "People" or "People's," Tea Party (where's the tea? there isn't even any coffee, WTF?) and Oppression. All designed to take people's dissatisfaction with life, inflame it into hatred and despair, and then direct it to a more or less arbitrary target. Then come the threat narrative and the hate speech, which all boils down to the same thing: "Sic 'em, doggies! Sic 'em!" Heavens, I think there's more common sense in a mosh pit.
• Symbols that act as same. These include the Punisher skull, the MAGA flags, white hoods, and the Barbie doll botoxed look of all the female presenters on Fox News and within the current Republican Party. Conversely, the androgynous, purposely sex appeal-less look of extreme hardliner TERFs. Fashion itself can become a dress code, a symbol, and a walking talking billboard for a toxic philosophy. These days it's not at all about expressing yourself but about identifying yourself as a member of one tribe or another. Also see the video for Frankie Goes to Hollywood's Two Tribes. And Middle of the Riddle by Alphaville. Be careful how you choose to appear and present yourself these days. Interesting tangent btw, did you know the Skinhead look probably originated from the Jamaican rude boy culture?
• They are against free speech. Not for themselves of course, but for anyone who starts saying something they don't like, they're all "shut the fuck up." Ironic considering Frederick Douglass was adamantly pro- freedom of speech as he believed it was essential for having freedom. And he would know.
• If you wonder where your All-American freedoms went, look no further than these cretins. They took them.
• They won't ever bother to ask you for clarification of what you mean. No, they'd rather immediately make assumptions and jump to conclusions about you for the worst, because they're too damn lazy to consider that maybe, just maybe, you're human too. Or perhaps they think they're great human beings that bother to listen to you and have a good conversation, so they open a conversation with you in order to confirm their worst suspicions about you and then hear only what they want to hear. Then they either ghost you or flame you. It's never, ever about having a productive conversation. No, goddamn it, it's all about them, the selfish pricks. If you don't serve them and benefit them, then your life is worthless to them. They make that VERY fucking clear.
• They're bad people. They use good people. They don't want you to know that if you're a good person, because without you, they can't make it on their own. Therefore they put all their skill points into being as good of an actor and as good of a liar as possible, especially to their nearest and "dearest." Nothing is ever their fault, they're sooo oppressed, wah. Ironically, their self-esteem is usually in the shit but they're so far into being a manipulative psychopath as a pattern of life they don't know how to break out of it. And let me make this crystal clear: they usually have no idea just how bad they are as people. Nope, they're the heroes of their own stories, they're so blind, and within their own enclaves and communities this kind of behavior is so common that the toxicity is considered "normal."
• Want to point this out to them? They'll level up their lying. Oh, the amount of times I've seen this. "No, I'm not like that, I'm nothing like that blah blah blah." Yeah, okay.
• Suspicion, intolerance, or even outright cruelty to everyone who is even a little different from them. The instant the original thoughts come out, the hammer comes down. You're not like them, therefore you're eeeeeevil and they instigate a wee little witch hunt against you, all on their own. Way to go, champ! Since they probably realize they're pathetic, they immediately threaten to bring their friends and allies into the mix to fuck you up. That witch hunt becomes a mob. If you can't convince them, overwhelm them. Hammer smashes face, therefore we are correct. Might makes right, and people with original thoughts are bad. 7/18/22 Which is comforting and all, for the people in the cult, except for the small problem that places where such an attitude is the norm are historically and currently infamous for killing people. Lots, and lots of innocent people in the cult, bystanders just passing through the area, people caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, and in general just large swaths of the local population. Pro-life? (Frolic by Luciano Michelini plays)
• They are - yeah, both sides - against improving themselves through more education. "I don't need it." Well, if you say you don't need it, that's a pretty good indication that you do.
• They're pretty great at being led by some puppet master or other. The flavor of the past few years has been "we need to withdraw our troops from the rest of the world." Far right's reasoning was American isolationism. Far left's reasoning was pacifism. End result? Increased dominancy for dictatorships like China and Russia. We got played, and our own citizens played us. This often happens, and you notice it because large groups of these jerks all start saying the same things and believing in the same things in one big blob.
• "I am an independent thinker!" No, the fuck you are not. You're too scared of being alone to even form one coherent thought on your own and it shows. Go read Atlas Shrugged. Ignore the Ayn Rand fan community too, they're another borg hivemind.
• They need therapy. All of them. Badly.
• They have an interesting tendency of tolerating all kinds of literally illegal activity within their friend and family groups and community, and then rationalizing this toxic tolerance (a term I just now made up) away as supposedly justifiable, but creating mobs to get really angry at some sort of bogeyman that may or may not exist. Then they turn the intolerance up to 11 for everyone who even remotely resembles said bogeyman.
• They refuse to hear anything they don't want to. They refuse to do anything that makes them uncomfortable. They refuse to hear anything but praise for themselves and their own cause. If it's not "positive," "polite," "respectful," agreeable for them, or something that makes them feel good, you might as well be talking to a wall. They're "too stressed," "too tired," don't want to hear it, don't want to know. Don't tear them off of their cloud, and since you're so negative, obviously you're the bad guy.
• Endless whataboutisms, pontification, denial, half-baked illogical justifications, emotional reasoning, and self-aggrandizement. Zero personal accountability or sense of personal responsibility. If you want someone to do the work, they'd really rather not, but they're really great at convincing other people to give them things.
• "How can I feel better about myself? By kicking others who are weaker or have weaker social status so I can feel high and mighty! Or by making them weaker and have weaker social status, and then kicking them! Woot!"
• It's on you to do the work. In fact, it's on you to be PERFECT. If you're not, then it justifies every manner of harm done to you, because you're not in the Right Tribe.
• Not giving as much as or more than they are taking - look closely at the lifestyle of anyone on far right or far left and ask yourself if they really are earning their keep. This goes hand in hand with the first point. I will be very clear here: it's easy to delude yourself one way or the other and thusly not see how hard (or not) someone else is working in comparison to you, so be sure to ask your family, coworkers, acquaintances, strangers on the 'net, and friends if you're pulling your weight enough, and they'll help you have some perspective. You do not want to be That Guy who thinks they work so hard and judges other people without knowing a damn thing about it.
• The belief that our Puritan roots as a hardworking country are somehow bad or wrong - yep, connects to previous point. Yeah, it's bad to work yourself sick, it's bad to work yourself so hard you're in indentured servitude, but saying it's bad to work hard for a job that pays well, with essential labor rights like sick days and good hours and vacation time and all that, and has good benefits... uh... you're a lazy asshole. Fuck you. For every person that decides to coast, someone else has to work that much harder. Because in the end, someone has to make the bread, clean the hospital, drive the garbage truck. These things don't just magically happen.
• Substituting the agreement of a very large group of people for arguments that make logical sense and are ethical. "We have big mob, therefore we are correct." No, motherfucker, that is not how truth works. You can't buy or spin or force truth. It's there, and if it's not on your side, then you're only hurting yourself. I can't count the number of times that I've seen this same fallacy pushed on me by idiots on every place in the political spectrum, a la "so many people believing in the same thing can't be wrong!" History disagrees. But I've seen all these guys actually say, when I present example after example of mass stupidity, "but we're not like that, we're smarter!" as if being part of the right group of people guarantees intellectual superiority or better access to the truth. It does not.
• "Censorship is good." The reasons vary, the outcome is the same. Freedom of speech suffers greatly; hivemind thinking and group unity is increased, diversity squashed, merit rewarded far less if at all.
• Endless noise, sound and fury, signifying... nothing. It drowns out the people saying anything original whatsoever in an unending heap of crap about how "oppressed" or "victimized" this person is. Howling, righteous fury; temper tantrums, but nothing new or of value is actually being said. It's been said before, so these guys think that by saying it again but rephrasing it, the loudness will somehow lend more righteousness to their cause and vindicate them. Sure, if you're trying to make an orc horde. I think a pretty good example is of my recent library search for "american culture." Guess what I found. Endless pontificating about how They are keeping us down, from both far right and far left. Threat narrative this and that. Everything else? I can't fucking find it. Too many books written about threat narrative. Oh wait, there was a book of latino cocktails. That was about it.
• "Hatred of the other group and everyone in it is good; don't even bother getting to know them, they're bad and literally all the same and the same person copypasted over and over, hate their guts" The reasons vary, the outcome is the same. A big group of people gets maligned and mistreated by another group of people, creating more or less arbitrary high school cliques. Merit is rewarded far less if at all. Hivemind thinking and group unity is increased, diversity is discouraged, freedoms decrease, and lots of people start getting unnecessarily killed or seriously hurt for increasingly stupid reasons.
• "The group you are in can do no wrong" Same general stuff happens as in the second bullet point.
• "Crap on the Constitution" - the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? For me, and not for thee. Both sides fail to notice that by denying these rights to the other camp everyone else fails to have them, including, inevitably, their own camp. Denying that stuff to anyone who isn't a convicted serious criminal, and then expecting no major consequences.... yeah, that doesn't happen. There are always consequences.
• Disrespect and hatred instead of rational discourse with the end goal of trying to find workable solutions for all parties - this needs no explanation. You see it everywhere.
• Mistreatment of children. Yeah, really. It's personal experience and observations talking; see if that matches up with what you've seen.
• Hypocrisy and projecting - when it's "no u" all over the place and finger pointing, take a good look at the accusations and see if they match anything in the accuser.
• Total ignorance of how science actually works, and general lack of education, especially with regards to critical thinking, logic, and logical reasoning. This is usually covered up with so much frothing-at-the-mouth hatred or other big emotion and "LOUD IN YOUR FACE STUFF" that you almost don't notice the person in question has no fucking idea what they're talking about. In fact, it would not surprise me if basically all of these idiots, if put through high school again in 2022, would flunk every class. Every. Class.
• To cover up the mess of all of the previous, most in far-right or far-left camps take all of their skill points and plow them into learning how to be a two-faced charlatan, con man, grifter, gold digger or some flavor thereof. It's been my experience that usually the bigger the snake, the more extreme the political viewpoint.
• Along those lines, since there are so many of these snakes so expert at looking great in public and being presentable, if you aren't "nice" like them, if you don't pander to your audience and give them nothing but compliments and ego stroking, if you don't market your ideas as well as the nearest soda company or stripper peddles their product, and if you aren't literally perfect, they will not hesitate to cancel you and get people to brigade you. But I mean, ponder this. Truth is usually not nice. When people can't handle the truth or its raw nature, such as during times of massive stress like this time period, then people flock to philosophies made by the far right and far left in order to feel some kind of feel good bullshit. Anything to feel better, anything for the high of not feeling bad. It's drugs, plain and simple. So your conspiracy theories and in-group cliquishness is no different from heroin, really, just more socially acceptable at the moment. But in my experience those addicted to hard drugs are far better human beings than the kinds of hordes attracted to the far right and far left. They usually have real mental illness driving their addiction. The people in far right and far left usually have no such thing, unless human nature is a pre-existing mental health condition. Do not cut them any slack.
• Upon seeing literally anyone start exposing the truth or holes in their arguments, these guys go for the nuclear option. Why? They know they can't back up their actions through honest means such as rational discourse, so they try to smash their enemies into the dirt instead. The ad hominem attack and 'no u' is a front for one's own inadequacy.
• Total inability to be completely honest with oneself - because if they actually did that, they probably wouldn't be able to look themselves in the mirror every morning. These guys have carefully trained themselves through years of self-brainwashing to be utterly dishonest with themselves. Also, society has promoted this process by rewarding them for being vile two-faced snakes at every opportunity. So a lot of the self-brainwashing was due to the simple logic of "if I lie to myself, then I will get what I want from other people; if I don't, then they will punish me." Being an honest person in this world does often result in extraordinary amounts of punishment after all. Therefore you get a lot of people doing what is easy as opposed to what is right.
• Envy and Malcontent - these are not happy people, and since they're not happy, they don't want anyone else to really be happy either. It says a lot that in times of mass discontent such as war, pandemic, and environmental destruction, such philosophies gain many new adherents. Guess what happens when conditions get even worse? Terrorism, which is the extreme version of all of the above kind of philosophies.
• Total inability to accept personal responsibility for one's circumstances - everything has to be blamed on someone else. Why? Because it seems easier. It's not, but people just don't raise their kids right, so people grow up not knowing that if you don't take responsibility for your own happiness and well-being, you'll never have it because no one else is you and knows what you need to be happy! Worse, people grow up not knowing that you have extremely huge amounts of responsibility for your own happiness and well-being, and it only seems like you don't. You never know how much control you really have over your own circumstances until you try to change them, and that requires far less hurting and controlling other living beings than people think is needed. No, the person you need to change most in order for things to change for you is you. In other words people grow up not knowing they have far more control over their own lives and sovereignty than they think they do, and so throw tantrums instead of exerting intelligent effort to solve their problems. I will, however, say that in the United States people often raise their female children without this kind of knowledge, and that's disempowering and not good. Thus, you have Feminists claiming things like how this kind of attitude is "toxic masculinity" and "macho" and the same old "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" type crap. No. It's called taking responsibility. And it does not mean you fail to ask for help when you truly need it.
• Extreme resemblance to Miss Havisham from Great Expectations. That, or a toddler throwing a tantrum, same difference
• Trying to indoctrinate younger generations into blind hatred and discrimination of the "bad guys," and dehumanizing the "bad guys" til the younguns join in. Worse, trying to make younguns carry on their vendetta, anger, or war. Or whatever. Get a grip you guys, these kids are not your soldiers. We've seen this with antivaxxers indoctrinating their kids to ignore science and hate people who believe in it. Now we are seeing this with people indoctrinating their kids to love intersectionality and get what they need from life by playing the victim card enough in order to make the other side grovel. Yes, by all means, we need equal rights, but when it's served up with a heaping helping of hate and discrimination, and fed to kids as the truth, you've got a fucking problem. See: Middle East. My family is from there! Do you like eternal war? Because that's how you get eternal war.
• Not being into democracy, justice, or the due process of law. Because if followed to the letter, using the actual definitions and meanings of those words and terms and not "spun" by whatever spin doctor is popular this week, that means no more unearned benefits for the undeserving. It means the lazy have to work for a change, or work harder. It means people are held to be personally accountable for the consequences of their actions, by the system. And we can't have that. But actually saying this might make the listener think 'hey wait a moment, this person is a dick' so instead of outright saying it you'll hear a lot of threat narrative. Or something. If you can't convince 'em, confuse 'em!
• Gaming the system to get more than one's fair share of anything, and get more unearned benefits from it. Therefore, smashing those who are legitimately disabled, mentally ill, or otherwise unlucky into the dirt because for every person that throws a tantrum demanding extra goodies that they don't need, there are hundreds if not thousands (or even millions) of helpless people in the shit that desperately need those resources and cannot obtain them for themselves which wind up not getting them due to the shitheads gaming the system and giving the whole system of "benefits" a bad name
• Allergic to change and anything that isn't totally in their comfort zone
• Gunking up and fucking up the system, gaming it and screwing it up beyond all recognition, and then bitching about it and demanding that someone else fixes it
• No real lives to speak of. Picture this. I'm only on here so much because I'm disabled and can't do a lot else. Why would someone else willingly live the kind of lifestyle that I have? What kind of mindset would drive someone to spend basically all of their spare time on social media, consuming and disgorging the same chain letters, e-mails, thoughts, ideas, memes? So much so that they sound exactly like everyone else on the internet who matches their little clique? I guarantee you this, there's probably not a whole lot else going on in their lives, and probably not in their heads either. But that probably won't stop some of them from being riled up enough by their horde to commit some kind of atrocity like terrorism or similar
• They really hate happy people and cancel them. Really! Happiness is verboten for these guys. If you're visibly happy to them, they'll do everything in their power and then some to make sure you're not
• At heart the philosophy of the far right and the far left is that of a boot smashing a human face into the dirt. The human face of someone else, naturally, someone who isn't in that group. This applies to totally unregulated Capitalism. This applies to Communism. This applies to oligarchies. This applies to Fascism, to Russophiles, to antivaxxers, to conspiracy theorists of most types, to Evangelical Christians, to Neonazi Pagans. And somehow none of the people in these groups think that the boot to the face is ever going to come to them in their turn and such a system will reward them for supporting the system as opposed to being preyed on by the bigger fish of the moment. Well, if you really want a system where only the strong survive, what you get is the law of the jungle. It's not where the strong survive at all. It's fickle chance, fate, and luck; social Darwinism leading to literal natural selection. (which is a little different than how pop culture portrays it as; it is not "only the strong survive") For centuries people lived in such situations, living in fear literally because they couldn't survive without it, and not really lucking out in terms of enjoying life without being constantly plagued by an assortment of horrible circumstances. Because only recently have we given our species the illusion that we are something other than weak and pitiful, and given ourselves the delusion that we are the "peak species" and "there's no one else on Earth stronger than I." There's a thing called the bigger fish principle; there's always a bigger fish than you. That is the way of nature, good luck!

How to fight back

Try to remember that different does not equal "bad." Honestly I can't tell you the number of times that people have tried to smash me into the dirt for being well, weird. I suppose from their point of view they just immediately assumed I came from the same white-bread background they did and that my way of communicating and existing (heavily steeped in Israeli and Wiccan cultures) was just to make them feel bad or live a worse life or whatever. Don't make that mistake. If someone is behaving abnormally according to your point of view, have a little patience, try to figure out where they're coming from and what their worldview is like. It is not the same as yours no matter how superficially similar you both are. Listen, try not to make assumptions, and give any set of interactions between you and another person three to seven years before you make any kind of judgment call. And oh, yes, the Internet is not exactly a realistic place. Try not to take it too seriously, especially not social media.

Weirdness, another word for independent original thought and living, is diversity. Diversity requires weirdness. Freedom requires diversity and weirdness thus we must treasure the weird. Freedom of speech (and in general) means things get really bizarre and to hell with canceling that stuff anymore, nay, let's treasure it. Say it with me now: we are going to get even weirder. We are going to get even weirder!

Education, lots of it, for yourself and everyone you know, and everyone you care about. Best quality you can get and lots of it, throughout life, as a lifelong learner. No one is ever immune to the stupid, particularly people with lots of education. It's when you say "wow, i'm really educated and smarter than those guys" that it's pretty much guaranteed you're overlooking something important. And are therefore being stupid. The enemy is "the stupid." Fight it.

Why do we miss the 80s and 90s? We stopped dreaming. That's why. People started sneering at that kind of thing in order to focus on only what was "practical," failing to realize that wanting to live is practical too. Stop killing your imagination, or forcing yourself to not think about certain things. Think about whatever you want, however you want. Daydream more. Do impractical things. You can't learn to fly with a human body, but the mind has no such limitations. Seek inspiration like a lover seeks their mate or like the wind seeks a place to go.

Allow yourself to be happy. Give yourself permission. Because if you're anything like me, you might have grown up in a place where both far right and far left threatened your sanity and/or life for being happy and so learned to not be in order to survive. Depending on your situation you might not be able to show your happiness on the outside, but you are allowed to be, inside. But hide it well if you're under scrutiny. Ask me how I know.

Apparently canceling things works. Alrighty then, please, I am asking for your help here. Help me cancel evil douchebaggery. You can be a jerk, you can be an asshole, you can say whatever the hell you want as long as you understand if you cross the line you will get canceled. If I were to try to cancel every douchebag in the world, I'd cancel every human (aside from maybe a saint or two) because everyone's been a douchebag at one time or another. But being evil? Canceled.

With the idea in mind that if you were to try too hard to be perfect, you'd probably wind up being a far worse person, because that seems to be the case every time I see someone going too far in that direction, take the fucking pressure off yourself. Chill. Don't be so hard on yourself. Accept that you are imperfect and have imperfection, and ironically it can help you change the things you don't like about yourself a lot faster.

Let more things go. So what if that guy over there is screwing up his own life by being a horrible human being? If he's not being evil, let him be.

Be kinder to yourself. Usually the primary mechanism these evil shits use to control and use you is to get you to hate yourself.

Imagine you have a dog and it's gotten into something really, really gross. You go over there and say "what are you eating? OoH GoD whATareyoueATINg?!!?!?!!!" That is you, and your brain, when you are brooding, stewing in your own juices, or otherwise getting angry and getting angry and being negative and being negative and all that. Every time you find yourself with that kind of crap mindset, picture the dog, eating something it really shouldn't be eating. That is you. Don't do that.

Don't shoot yourself in the foot by believing you don't have power to change things. Yeah, it's not easy, but the real reason why things are so fucked in this country and worldwide is because people believe there's nothing they can do besides keep doing the same old things and hope for things to miraculously get better. Wrong! The way to change things? Well, the first step is setting an intention to make an honest attempt to try your best. Then you simply set out and try, gather more information, and adapt your strategy and actions as you go along. Every step of the way, you bang on every door there is to let you in and give you what you need, trying to find an opening in the wall that faces you by going full speed ahead down every route. Also you improve your demolition tools to get better at smashing down walls. Tis what I did to survive tickborne illness, and it seems to be a good way of going about seemingly insurmountable challenges. Plus you have an asset I don't - being able-bodied and/or able-minded. Some good examples of the problems in the country that exist because a large chunk of the population has decided to let themselves be ground into the dust instead of even trying to fight for their rights: public education system, ripoffs in the marketplace, politicians (much of the US doesn't vote!), crap wages and workplaces, lousy justice system, labor rights issues, environmental disaster, child abuse, lack of community. I think a major reason why it's like this is because people don't realize they have the power. Power to the people? Nah man, you had it right there all along, you just didn't use it. I only realized this myself after a decade-long bout with chronic illness, so it's not exactly obvious.

Home