I was on another forum yesterday when out of the blue I received a very poorly written message from a “proud patriot” telling me to “fxxk off” “you imbecile leftard”. I naturally mocked his poor grasp of English and highlighted the irony. He then sent me this. None of what appears on that meme happened. Did he expect a friends request? Whatever, I see the same thing playing out here. If we’re not with you, we’re commies, Marxists, reds under the bed, lefties. Stop being silly.
I think what my friend above is asking for is not to lose our humanity and compassion, even though we might detest Kirk and all he stood for. That is really the key message in this, at least to me. If we give up those things then it doesn’t really matter whether we’re left or right, because we’ll just treat the wrong sort of people like bstrds and believe it’s fine and we’re right to do so.
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Point put much more effectively and succinctly than I managed!
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I find it helps to avoid so much disappointment.
The simple fact is that this was a political rally, solely intended to exploit Kirk’s death for political ends. I genuinely find it astounding that you don’t see that.
This is by no means an attack but I read your posts on Kirk and I ask myself if you’re painfully naive about him, deliberately being obtuse to get a rise or if you actually support the views and poison that he was spreading because he pitched himself as a conservative Christian.
I can’t bring myself to believe that any of those are true but I do find it to be a genuine enigma as I generally respect your views even if we don’t always agree.
As an aside, there’s a statement ascribed to George Bernard Shaw that the power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it, which I often fall back on when that accusation is laid on me 
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I usually think of myself as cynical, so thank you.
I don’t think my description of the event matches your understanding of what I wrote. Never mind.
I’m just trying to find common ground, and the good in people, rather than engage in the chucking of brickbats which much of the “debate” seems to be.
I am sure Hitler and Pol Pot were kind to cats.
I think your perspective is laudable, but there is a place in the world right now for righteous anger.
Whatever “good” there might be in people is being subsumed by greed and hunger for power. “Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
When the good is corrupted by power it is not enough to stand by and say “I’m sure deep down they are a lovely person” or “We have to excuse this behaviour because he had an abusive father”.
I can’t help feeling that it’s time to clean the Augean stables. Or in your terms, maybe, have an angry Christ cleansing the temple.
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I think the difficulty for anyone who believes they should act with righteous anger is the “righteous” part.
It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven.
Love thy neighbour as thyself.
Throwing the moneychangers out of the temple.
It is about time these people started following the lifestyle of Christ instead of spouting hate and calling themselves Christians.
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Maybe this is where I’m too hard line with my view of these people. I don’t want to find common ground with racists, sexists and homophobes. I don’t want to debate them and offer any sort of validity to their abhorrent views. It’s not like I’m going to change their minds any more than they will convince me that it’s just fine to oppress other elements of society.
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I tried this for many, many years, and then one further and actually trained somewhat in the techniques to do so, I got pretty good at some of the techniques used in street epistemology for example, but while someone has to do it I ultimately just decided it was too much mentally and emotionally to deal with people with hate in their heart. Now I just remove myself p from the situation and put extra effort on doing macro level things, leaving the micro level to others. I take my hat off to those people who do though, they’re made of stronger stuff than I am and it is perhaps the only way to reach some of the people who can be informed and grow as people.
I was about where you seem to be during Trump’s first term.
Then, when he lost the election (you DO agree that he lost, right?) and attempted to set his mob on the Capitol to disenfranchise my vote and the ensuing non-reaction by the Republican congress, I lost a bit of patience with them.
Then, he was indicted for stealing classified documents and attempting to tip the election results in Georgia. Unlike the NY case( which was dubious) ,both of those indictments had merit and were delayed and dismissed due to partisan politics.
I don’t need to go much into Trump’s character, which consists of being effectively convicted of rape, and sending Xmas cards to Epstein.
He ran his re-elction campaign on hate. ‘‘Í am your retribution’’’he said.
For his cabinet he chose only incompetent loyalists to run the country…into the ground. Emptied the bench at Fox news - only the best and brightest for us.
So, the people who support him do so out of hate and revenge. They do not have a notion of ‘‘the greater good’’ in them.
I have nothing in common with them. I lost my patience long ago.
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Whatever happened to normal America ? And to think we’ve more than three years of this insanity to look forward to. It’s time for normal Americans to wake up. No need to become woke ! Meanwhile here in Provence we trundle along from one failed government to another and nobody takes any notice. Perhaps we are living in a fool’s paradise.
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So it’s allowed for the left to express “hatred, cynicism and tribalism,” but the same things are not allowed for the right.
Perfectly manifested double standard approach.
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Grifting!
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I’m not sure who you are talking to (@Porridge or me) but I rather think you’ve not understood the comments.
I think the fundamental difference is, the left hate the right. The right hate everyone that doesn’t support them. And given the power they’ll turn state apparatus against their detractors. And the populism that brought them power will go straight out the window. It’s been played out so many times.
You may well be right. The tricky part is that it doesn’t leave those who support neither but borrow the better bits of each side, anywhere to go.
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Better bits of the right? Like autobahns and beetles? They don’t need to adopt either. Just be decent human beings and reject the extremes of both sides. Bearing in mind the post war extremes of the left in Britain have been health and welfare reform and public ownership of services.
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As far as I can see, the best ideas have been stolen from an older ethical system