I Love America; Including The Americans

Cold Fury linked to I love America. It’s Americans I hate. I generally ignore such things. I’m aware coastal elites deplore me without clicking on Slate, having NPR drilled into my truck’s radio, or watching MSNBC’s talking heads. But, in the interest of paying attention to those who hate me, I tuned in. This one needs a fisking; good and hard

Let’s start with my failings. They’re still freaking out and I hadn’t absorbed that fact. I assumed nobody can stay pissed forever. Blissful isolation led me to expect the post-election hyperventilation was fading.

At some level I get it. It was a shock. Finding out there are people who aren’t exactly like you is a tough lesson. I always thought that’s why two year olds are such brats. They’re learning the world exists independently of them. This guy didn’t realize the diversity (!) of the electorate and he’s working through it.

I figured it was just a matter of time. Give ’em a week of burning cars or their own neighborhoods, then (for those with lots of spare time) a few more weeks of moping. Eventually being sad gets boring and you move on. Maybe tragedy mired lefty voters need to watch Inside Out, Pixar’s instructional video for children?

Here’s what the snowflake at The Week has to say:

“The public is a swarm of hostile morons, I told her. You don’t need to make them understand you; you just need to defeat them, or wait for them die.”

That’s pretty charitable isn’t it? I joke about hippie tears but I don’t think so much “defeat them” as “ignore them”.

There’s more:

“A vote cast for Trump is kind of like a murder”

No! Voting is like voting and murder like murder. If you’re covered in blood and people put you in jail; that’s not voting. It’s not a subtle difference.

“I don’t believe all Trump voters are ignorant, or bigoted; most of them are just evil — evil being defined not as anything so glamorous as beheading journalists or gunning down grade schoolers, but simply as not much caring about other people’s suffering.”

I’m sure glad he first equated my vote with murder and explained how I’m evil… but ever so kindly granted that I’m slightly less evil than someone who does beheadings.

I want that on my tombstone. “Here lies this guy. He voted wrong but he didn’t behead anyone so there’s that.”

Shall we keep going:

“The level of sustained rage it requires also threatens to harrow out your soul. Condemning half the human race — which is, after all, just another species — as insane or evil is usually a sign that something is off in your worldview.”

Now we’re getting somewhere. Yes, it is true that if you think half of humanity is evil the issue is definitely not them.

“I only know two confirmed Trump voters. One of them is from Texas and the other’s a Marine, so they both have their excuses.”

I got news for you sunshine. You know a lot more than two Trump voters. They’re keeping quiet in your presence because you’re a fucking loon.

Trump voters are plentiful and they’re everywhere. You’ve encountered them without knowing it. They know how you think. You don’t know how they think.

Keep that in mind snowflake, you’re surrounded by people you constantly berate. They know you’ve equated their vote with murder. They know you consider them evil (though not full beheading evil). They know you would “defeat them or wait for them to die”. They move around you, past you, next to you, talk to you, interact with you, and yet every moment of that interaction they know you’re a fuse ready to be lit. They assess your level of crazy and exhibit greater self control than you can imagine.

It takes self awareness to have an opinion without dry humping everything in sight with it. It’s part of maturity. One word for it is decorum.

Also I suspect anyone is as angry as this guy must see a lot of veiled faces. Half the people he meets are interacting with a man who’d love to subjugate and attack them; wouldn’t that put a damper on things? Would such a man see more suspicion and less smiles?

“I recently sent a text to the former woman, letting her know I wasn’t going to meet her for dinner while she was in town because I considered her vote for Trump unconscionable.”

How awesome is that. You are so insufferable that only two of the many Trump voters you encounter every day were honest. Then you shit on 50% of them.

“I didn’t feel just or vindicated; instead I just felt like a heel.”

That’s ’cause you were a heel.

“my normal instinct would’ve been to have dinner with her just to cheer her up. Repressing your normal instincts toward kindness seems like the kind of thing Hitler used to recommend.”

It’s getting circular. She’s the murderous evil non-beheader because of how she votes; thus you act like a heel which means you’re following the advice of the infamous German socialist who led to Godwin’s Law?

I’m just spitballin’ here but you were an ass and that’s all there is to it. The strange nagging feeling in your heart is called a conscience.

I also note that of two Trump voters you shit on the jilted one and cut slack for the Marine? That’s “tactical meanness”. You don’t know enough to be nice but you know better than to piss off a Marine?

“There comes a time when civility in the face of barbarism is folly.”

Civility is never folly. It’s civility. Then again it’s not your strong point. Calling American voters murderous, evil (non-beheading) monsters when they disagree was my first hint that the civility boat sailed without you.

“My feeling has always been that if a religion or ideology has become more important to you than actual human beings, something may have gone seriously wrong with your values.”

Circles within circles. You cut ties with the your friend because of ideology. An act that made you feel like a heel (because you were). Thus your actions show you weighted ideology above an actual human being (who before becoming murderous and evil due to one vote was formerly a friend). Can you diagram that out for me? You’re indicating what about who’s values?

Eventually it ends with this:

“Such are the thin fingerholds we have to cling to as we contemplate the daunting ascent, by excruciating inches, up the sheer thousand-foot face of our incomprehension.”

I may be missing something, what with my murder like vote and my (non-beheading) evil nature and all. I suppose the author just needs to defeat me (good luck with that!), or wait for me to die; because treating a Barbarian like me civilly is folly. But it sure looks like the thousand-foot face of incomprehension is parked solidly between the author’s ears.

Cold Fury also had an epic response:

“…we’ve had a bellyful of it. For a long time, our principles of tolerance, freedom of speech and dissenting political opinion, and the right to be left alone overrode our sense of self-preservation and demanded otherwise, but truth to tell, at this point, we hate you right back, sweetums.”

And a great summation:

“But y’know, it DOES make me wonder how many of these sobbing sad-sacks are so TEWWIBLY, TEWWIBLY FWIGHTENED of what might be done to them in Trump’s America because deep down, it’s merely projection—a direct and clear reflection of what they secretly desire and intend to do to us someday. To which notion I can only say: bring it, pusscake. Any time you feel froggy. Better get help. And pack a lunch.”

Cold Fury has a point. From this post (and many others) I’m getting this weird vibe that certain folks are projecting. As if the only reason they haven’t gone genocide on deplorables is logistics. Not that it’s morally wrong, or mean, or bad, but that it’s hard.

There’s no indication of ethical aversion to mistreating us; just impotent rage when we don’t off ourselves for their convenience. Check out the vocabulary:

• “defeat them, or wait for them die”
• “like murder”
• “ignorant or bigoted”
• “sustained rage”
• “the face of barbarism”
• “unconscionable”
• “condemning half the human race”

I wouldn’t talk about my neighbor’s cat that way. This guy is going like this about 62,979,636 people? Not cool dude.

Quit daydreaming about dominating and enslaving everyone. First of all, thinking like that means you’re fucking insane. Stop it.

Second, it’s not gonna’ happen. If you dream of mayhem but can’t act more concretely than cancelling a dinner, it’s time to get a grip on your own weakness. Deplorables are well aware of the situation and have no fear whatsoever. Even in a mildly demented essay there’s one Trump voter that’s not mistreated… the Marine. The Marine lives every day knowing his neighbor is nuts and has a violent internal dialog without batting an eye. We all do. That’s why I know it’s not going anywhere.