Post
by DarloOnTheUp » Wed Sep 25, 2019 12:40 am
I'll reply to both posts in here, but I feel we're going in circles now, and I don't want to get into a pointless slanging match. I'll try and explain myself a bit more though but I know how difficult it is to persuade someone who's set in their ways (myself included). You also called me intelligent: well aye, it takes intelligence to understand nuance, to see things how they really are, and to go against the crowd, which I feel is what's needed here. Of course, the ignorant person is ignorant because they don't know they're ignorant, so maybe I'm just a thicko and but haven't realised it.
First off, evidence of your generalisation of right-wingers: you generalised Tommy Robinson supporters as being all the same, you referred to "far-right thugs" which is a double generalisation: that far-right people are all thugs, and that anyone on the right must be far-right (that's a common tactic used by media organisations where they declare certain people to be far-right, even when they're not, as a way to smear them), and you insinuated that they lack intelligence and are cowards.
I feel this point is worth making again as well (apologies for the copy and paste): so moral, so caring, until someone goes against the narrative or has the wrong opinion (as decided by the opinion gods). Then it all goes out of the window. The gloves are off, the knives are out, no mercy. If the left didn't have double standards, they'd have no standards at all. I'd also like to point out that you threw a hissy fit in the other thread because he generalised about Germans. Yet here you are, generalising about right-wingers. As I said, double standards.
Now onto EDJOHNS comments: I'm not saying you can't disagree with someone or challenge their views. In fact, I respect people who are willing to challenge views they don't agree with and that's exactly what I've been doing in this entire thread. But what's being played these days is a dangerous game, and it's one I see too often. Someone has an opinion or says/does something, it's declared as wrong, said person is given a negative label such as racist or whatever, they're then tried and hanged in the court of public opinion, their character is destroyed with the use of shaming language, the conversation is shut down, and people are therefore constantly treading on eggshells as nobody knows what's OK and what's not OK to say. Call it political correctness, call it censorship, whatever. The law of unintended consequences springs to mind as it has the knock-on effect of making people scared of talking about certain things, certain opinions/topics are absolutely not allowed, certain groups cannot be criticised/made fun of/commented on (whilst others are fair game), there's no distinction between varying levels (someone's either a racist or not, there's no in-between), and all of this is used as a political weapon on a regular basis, usually by the left. There's different rules for different people as well which brings us back to the double standards (an example of this is the soft bigotry of low expectations, where certain groups are held to different standards than others on the basis of their group identity).
Furthermore, it's one opinion on a singular issue, yet apparently it's the only thing that matters (for instance, you questioned why Darlo_Pete would talk to EDJOHNS about rugby after YOU decided he was a certain label). And this brings me onto my next point: who decides? In this case, it was you who decided, not Darlo_Pete. Sometimes it's the media, other times it's a particular group. What about if the state decided? The whole thing (including the paragraph above) is very 1984. 1984 was supposed to be a warning, not an instruction manual.
And as I said, his comments were blown way out of proportion. It is possible for different cultures to have, generally speaking, different ways of being and thinking. For example, I know that Americans are brought up to respect their parents, more so than in Britain (you could go around all the cultures in the world and find numerous examples of these). These cultural differences aren't defects, as you insinuated, and pointing them out doesn't automatically make you a xenophobe. Of course, the person making the claim may be mistaken, which is why you question the evidence, and not just revert to hysterics and character assassinations. Moreover, generalisations aren't necessarily evil either and can be quite useful, if accurate. For instance, generally speaking, men tend to be more competitive/taller/and physically stronger than women. Pointing that out doesn't make me a sexist even though I made a generalisation. As stated though: if you disagree then fine, but attack the evidence.