You may think that upsetting ideas and hurt feelings are "damage" that validate violence, croes, but the other side can do the same. And maybe they'd be more organised at it, if those tables ever turned?

Maybe you wish to see a world where settling of questions of right and wrong is done by brute force, rather than reason, where the "right" side is those who have people left, regardless of how stupid or twisted there ideas are.

But a more likely scenario is that you had an abusive childhood, you're angry at the world as a result, and you'll like to see it burn.

Winning through "reason" seems kind of naive given today's social landscape. Are our politics broken because the facts simply aren't known? The misinformation-firehose/attention-economy/propaganda-machines are simply too powerful to be countered by merely being correct.

I'm not saying murdering everyone is the right alternative, but if you think trying to balance political power by "winning debates" or something seems reasonable, that ship has long sailed.

I think this is overblown. Most people do have reasons for what they believe.

I know everyone hates it when people “both sides” things these days, but one thing I do see both sides having in common is a refusal to honestly engage with and comprehend the other position. This doesn’t mean agreeing. It means understanding what someone believes and how they might have gotten there.

Where the echo chambers and other things that you mention do come in is in reinforcing that dynamic, in reinforcing each side seeing only a straw man version of the other.

The unspoken beliefs these people have are often that slavery should return, America is for white people, rules are for thee and not for me, etc. - genuinely the antithesis of any sort of good faith. You might call this a straw man, but I’d ask you to look into reconstruction era politics - this wasn’t a straw man at a point in history with similar conditions to the modern day’s. Everybody understands this because it’s unfettered human greed and selfishness; the only reason we don’t stamp it out completely is because enough people hold these beliefs that this would basically equate to stamping out the country itself.

Ask a parent, there’s no debating with a toddler, they aren’t interested in it. You just put them in a corner and wait it out.

Straw men made in echo chambers.

I know a good number of conservatives and some MAGA people. I know zero people who believe those things.

Meanwhile here are some of the things right leaning people I know think about liberals and leftists:

They hate Christians and would outlaw religious faith if they could. They believe that humans are a cancer upon the Earth and therefore are anti-natal and anti-family and want us to die out. They hate the actual working class and want to import tons of immigrants to depress working class wages. They want to be able to give hormones and do gender surgeries on minors without parents permission. The “LGBTQ movement” wants to add “minor attracted persons” and legitimize pedophilia. Etc etc.

I know a lot of liberals and leftists and I know zero people who believe any of those things either.

This is all straw man bullshit.

People are refusing to honestly engage with each other, so we are devolving to violence. This ends with riots, civil wars, pogroms, or dictatorship, or maybe all of the above.

Check my edit. It’s not a straw man because the poor uneducated south never left their attitudes towards slavery behind (or otherwise rediscovered/were reintroduced to them for political benefit). Believe it or not, people actually have extreme nationalistic and ethnocentric beliefs - if things were so rosy in the world as they are in your bubble, people wouldn’t be getting shot

If it’s just the south why did the entire country shift right in the last election.

You can always find extreme fringe people who believe anything. There are not enough of them to sway national elections. The reasons for huge swings at the national level must be more inside the Overton window than that.

“If it’s just the south” like the south isn’t the larger of two cultures that define the U.S. historically.

Again, it’s not out of pocket for the US to be blatantly racist. You say these are extreme beliefs (and they are objectively) but in the US they never were really fringe. Compare that to whatever you made up for leftists, there’s no historical precedent. The “both sides” way of thinking is just not moored in reality here.

It seems like you can't even do it.

You're not alone here. Most people, including most on the right, seem like they can't do it either. People can't look at someone else's position honestly without assuming the worst possible version of it.

Where I do think your points about algorithms hold is that the algorithms have trained people to think this way. In the echo chambers bashing straw men and vilifying people is how you get upvotes and shares and likes. Look at most of X for the right, or any lefty subreddit for the left. These places are a bunch of people beating straw men.

All the things I listed are things I've heard right-wing people say about people on the left or liberals. When I hear that kind of thing I remind people that I know lots of leftists and zero people who believe those things, that those are either straw men or lunatic fringe positions held by tiny numbers of people.

Similarly: very few Christians are Dominionists, very few Southerners think the Confederacy should have won or that slavery should come back, very few people anywhere think the US should be a whites only ethnostate. There are people who think these things but they are minorities. I'm sure if I went fishing I could find pro-pedophilia-normalization LGBTQ people or anti-human pro-extinction greens, but these are also very fringe views. As I said you can always find a kook.

Most people are not crazy, but crazy people are loud. The question people need to ask is: why would a non-crazy person vote for Trump? Or if you're on the right, why would a non-crazy person vote for Harris?

Your statements that very few people do X requires sources: https://www.newsweek.com/many-americans-have-more-common-whi...

Sorry but "I don't know people like that" is anecdotal evidence and is part of the your echo chamber.

Maybe listen to the people Mehdi Hassan debated with here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2S-WJN3L5eo

That was so entertaining! I know it was not your intention but thanks for the link.

I don’t believe that you actually think large numbers of Americans desire slavery.

This is just you virtue signaling how good you are through hysterics about how bad you think the other team is

>The unspoken beliefs these people have are often that slavery should return, America is for white people

You have a severe case of TSA. Go to therapy.

>Most people do have reasons for what they believe.

You're equivocating between reasons as in causes and reason as in rationality.

So tell how exactly is Trump settling the question if immigrants are all drug dealers and rapists right now?

I must have missed the debate.

Or what about the denial of climate change or the usefullness of vaccines? I see defunding of important agencies not debate.

People will die because of these actions.

What about the lie of the stolen election that led to the riots on January 6th. Do you know who helped spreading this lie?

What about the conspiracy theory of the great replacement?

If I wanted the world to burn I would be a Trump fan because he already set fires.

So I guess according to your logic, it was Trump who had an abusive childhood and lots of the MAGA people too

BTW with damages I don't mean hurt feelings but this kind of damage

https://reports.hrc.org/an-epidemic-of-violence-2024

Even Kirk's murder is most likely a result of someone's idea they took into action. Would you call these ideas upsetting and damaging? I do.

Yikes, seek therapy.

You have an extreme case of TDS. Go touch grass and get a grip on reality. Stop watching MSNBC. It's literally rotting your brain.

you're the problem

I didn't claim that a great replacement startegy is under way.

What do you think happens if people believe such nonsense.

I also don't think that he American Democrat party hates this country and wanna see it collapse.

And I definetly don't think a 10-year should conceive the baby after a rape.

And don't forget in Kirk's own words: "I think it’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the second amendment to protect our other God-given rights. That is a prudent deal. It is rational."

Harder to get guns would likely have saved his life.

BTW how can I be the problems, it's just words, isn't it?

It's simple, there is no limit on what someone can say until they should be shot in public. That's what the justice system is for.

And yeah of course it's ironic what he said about the 2nd amendment, but I don't think he'd change his answer if someone asked him about if HE was shot and killed.

I don't like Kirk, I'm a democrat, but I think the left is pretty deranged at the moment. They have a way of changing the definition of of terrible things (Nazi, racist, facist), and labeling all convervatives those things, which is a great way to dehumanize people. Which leads to... murder.

> How much damage is ok?

To justify the vigilante killing? Some exceptional amount far beyond anything he could have possibly caused with his rhetoric.

If he had broken some law with his speech, the police could handle that.

If words only can cause damage that wants you killing a guy you should seek help

So you deny that words can cause damage?

Charles Manson was convicted for murders he didn't do himself, so there is obviously a limit in how much damage you're allowed to do with words.

Many dictators didn't kill anyone themselves, they just talked others into it.

Or think of the Hamas leaders who talked their people into the actrocity of the October 7 attacks.

I just want to know where people draw the line.

BTW the whole MAGA thing is based on the assumption of damage that is caused by words. You know the whole LGBTQIA2S+, DEI and climate change stuff our kids get indoctrinated with by schools, universities and the liberal media.

Words can and do cause a lot of damage, up to and including destroying a nation. But in the US, we're supposed to be tough enough and Constitution-loving enough to handle it.

But I wouldn't bet any money on us, given what I've seen in the last 10 years.

You're an intellectual infant to even ask that question. Words do not cause damage unless you're a mentally unhinged weirdo. Go read some history of the first amendment before you ask this dumb question. Society will literally not progress if you cannot challenge ideas and hurt people's opinions and express unpopular opinions.

So cyberbullying doesn't exist. Got it.

Go read a book about psychology before you claim words don't do damage.

Or how about you read some history and check how many people did the worst dictators in history kill single-handedly and how many died because of their words.

It was words that caused the January 6th riots. It was words that caused the salem witch trials. And I bet it was words that gave the shooter the idea that murdering Kirk was a good idea.

If words don't affect you, yuu're definetly have a mental condition.

I didn't say cyberbullying doesn't exist, but still--it's protected speech. People have to learn to deal with opinions/offensive words and not be whiny baby snowflakes. You seriously need to read a history book about the first amendment. And even still, the platform they're on is free to ban them.... so take it up with those platforms. Not the government like a pro-censor weirdo.

>It was words that caused the January 6th riots.

You're seriously uninformed. You need to understand the difference between protected and unprotected speech (incitement to violent like 'shoot that person' etc.). While you may not like what they said, it was protected speech.

Babies like you are ruining the country by trying to desensitize everything and make the country in a rubber room for mentally ill snowflakes. Society can't progress if you can hold unpopular and offensive ideas and debate them. You're one of those pro-censorship, anti-first amendment babies who would throw it all away so they can be coddled and infantilized.

>It was words that caused the January 6th riots. It was words that caused the salem witch trials. And I bet it was words that gave the shooter the idea that murdering Kirk was a good idea. If words don't affect you, yuu're definetly have a mental condition.

Just had to come back and laugh at this. Yes words are the problem, cut their tongues out! We'll all be mutes so people can't use words to hurt people. We need word control!