A few books helped me frame this stuff far better than I was able to before. This was the one I started with[0]. Framing isn't a fix or a prevention, but it has helped me to adjust actions and expectations much more tailored for the situation.
I am not looking forward to that crocodile remark: "I just want to be sure your child is safe."
Just like any culture there are many parts of the American one, but the part that comes from adventure, exploration, freedom etc definitely has been on the decline since about the 70-80s. Control and Puritanism is what’s stronger now.
Personally I hope it swings back at some point.
If all adults agree to build mechanized genocidal murder factories that will remain a stain on humanity for centuries it is still wrong to do so.
Some rights are non-negotiable to my eyes. Even (or maybe especially) when a democratic majority decides to break them. Legality doesn't matter here. The concentration camps next to where I grew up were also legal during Nazi reign. That doesn't make them right, not back then, not now and not in the future.
I'd highly advise against a petty "let's se where that gets them"-stance when it comes to human rights issues, because those paying the price are not those who commit the atrocities.
I hadn't heard about this book, and I'm always looking for new books that help frame problems better.
Just based off what I saw regarding this, its probably not the best as a starter book.
It can really be tough with this type of material because if you don't have a solid practical or rigorous approach to both logic and argumentation, and can reasonably make parallels or see where it leads, you can easily fall into traps that are plausible but may be flawed/false.
You really have to approach this type of material critically and assume its false until you can find rational and reasonable support for what may be said. Reading material in this genre, like you would a leisure book would be a mistake, since most tend to internalize words/concepts like movies after speed picks up, and of course children that have not yet reached the age of reason shouldn't be reading this type of material since they would be developmentally incapable of recognizing any potential lies for what they might be.
Not having read the book yet I can't yet vouch for the content, but it definitely looks interesting, and worth a read, at least for me.
You really have to know the philosophy and tactics that are pushed in this area in order to recognize it enough to defend against it.
There was a very interesting recent publication in USMC University on Political Warfare which has some overlap.
I have experienced this cycling without a helmet (as is my right) from aggressive motorists.
Now I have a term for the phenomenon!
This is such a non-statement that everyone can fill in with the ideology that they choose to categorize in this way.
You voiced a lot of super general concerns, but without specific examples it's difficult what you actually believe. Because so much language has been corrupted.
Both people that see peaceful transition of power of democracy in the US being threatened, and those that are against public health mandated COVID lockdowns call those that disagree with them "fascist".
So I genuinely don't know what you're talking about in this paragraph and I'm curious if you would be willing to share some examples.
Its not a statement, its a set of statements that compose a characterization, which is something commonly done by scientists, engineers, and rational people to communicate specific descriptions so they can be recognized again by others, this is primarily done when common words are not available to match specific common meanings in communications.
> can fill in with the ideology that they choose to categorize in this way
You'll have to further clarify what you mean, there are two potential meanings embedded with that single statement, and you've failed to communicate which one that is, it looks to me like you've misunderstood this as some ideology akin to philosophy such as consequentialism when its a description of behavior.
A characterization is just a description of the distinctive nature, elements, features, or composition of someone or something specific, in this case behavior. Behavior that leaves at least one party with a negative outcome while also negatively impacting all or most future outcomes related to that party.
Its important to understand and convey the correct and rational meaning of words, as you said many groups seek to corrupt language to prevent communication, to distract, disorient, and create disunity using a whole host of sordid and malign influence tactics to cause distorted reflected appraisal.
> Both people... and those that disagree with them.
We will not be going off into the weeds, talking about potentially irrational beliefs of others, or getting bogged down in unrelated controversial narratives as those only serve disunity and chaos.
You may also want to review the actual definition and elements of fascism. Regardless, what you mention here has no relevance to the current discussion.
I was confused about your post, too. What did you mean?
Its helpful to those that understood it and in giving the necessary words people need for a time when they will need them. Those that have the faculties to understand it, did.
If you are unable to see anything wrong with where that behavior leads inevitably, you deserve the outcomes that are coming.
Make no mistake death is not uncommon when these types of systems fail towards their logical conclusion, if left to propagate forward unabated, the outcome is inevitable because its part of a cycle that's happened many times in the past with the same outcome.
This has happened before many times in history, and it will happen again. It will be much worse this time because so much of our population is wholly dependent on technological systems that will fail to deliver enough food when those societal failures occur.
If you can't see where this path of coercion, compulsion, and other intolerable acts have led us in the past, no amount of words will change that.
You would have to learn by experience and the downsides firsthand, and by then it would be too late to do or be anything other than a victim.
What odds do you give yourself or your children of survival when those failures occur and suddenly 8-12 billion have to subsist on practices that can only at their theoretical maxima serve 2 billion.
I already gave you one example: reactionaries appropriated those criticizing Trump's policies as "fascist" to call those that disagree with public health lockdowns as the same.
Likewise, your original terms of "flawed and self-defeating beliefs" and "mentally ill" are currently being weaponized by the same people to brandish transgender people as harmful ideologues.
Just thought you should know, in the slim hope that you don't. Because if you do, you either don't care or are doing it on purpose. Both of which are harmful.
Ultimately, you sound like AI-generated. You say a lot of words that individually have meaning without saying anything at all.
It's the children's rights, freedom and agency that are being infringed upon. Even if a parent was unjustly restricting their own child from going outside, instead of calling the police on someone else's child, that would be just as wrong.
On average, I think CPS interventions are usually good. A parent with unchecked power is the ultimate form of totalitarianism, and abuse is common.
You cannot have responsibilities without having the necessary rights needed to fulfill those responsibilities. Its two sides of the same coin.
That line of reasoning also leads to legitimizing coercion, corruption, compulsion, and a large number of other intolerable outcomes that have throughout history become self-destructive.
You may want to further educate yourself from published statistics before pushing unbacked value statements like its 'usually good', and 'abuse is common' [0].
Take a look at the pie chart broken down by category in the report, what percentage of false reports do they say they receive...
What percentage of reports, in aggregate, find some form of confirmation. Keep in mind, 'Unsubstantiated' doesn't mean what you might think it means [1].
Given police refer these issues to CPS for investigation instead of investigating themselves, and given statistics often follow a distribution curve, are either of those answers you provided reasonable, likely, or expected without there being some profound issue with the system being measured.
You really should stop pushing irrational misinformation, and other limiting beliefs. All this comment's done is add to the noise in a fundamentally negative way. Karma has a way of coming back to you three fold over time regardless of whether you believe in it or not.
[0] https://www.childwelfare.gov/pubpdfs/canstats.pdf, Statistics [1] https://www.childwelfare.gov/pubpdfs/decisionmaking.pdf
Also, I don't mean a cultural evil, as most people dismiss this as just being your cultural opinion. I mean the type of multi-cultural evil that strips people of their ability to respond (agency), tells them misleading lies, promotes flawed and self-defeating beliefs, causes loss in one form or another, and worse most of the time the people doing this are mentally ill but you still have to deal with the outcomes.
This is a real problem because if you conform, you are tacitly approving of those beliefs and your children will learn socially from your response to it. Unfortunately, in a world where you get CPS or the police called to charge you with child endangerment its a pretty mad world, and its happening more and more.
An interesting parallel are these philosophies that you can somehow make things safe, all ultimately fall into some form of socialist or fascist narrative where someone at the top decides what is or isn't safe because you as an individual are unimportant comapared to the group which is paramount.
These narratives are very common in totalitarian and fascist societies that use propaganda and political warfare to kill potentially disruptive thinking.