What can we learn from the latest fracas?
1. There are small number of people who are so polarized on their positions that they are willing to destroy you if you make a statement that is not perfectly aligned with their views.
1. There are small number of people who are so polarized on their positions that they are willing to destroy you if you make a statement that is not perfectly aligned with their views.
2. These people will be loud, insistent, and utterly irrational. They will make the most absurd claims and scream them as absolute truths. Their goal is to create a moral blockade. A gale of lies and misdirections in order to keep all opposing views at bay.
3. They will use threats and intimidation tactics upon others who do not holler as loudly and enthusiastically as they do. If you express a scintilla of doubt; you will be targeted.
4. More moderate and rational people will recoil in disgust and silence at first, quite reasonably thinking that they should avoid leaping into the firestorm; lest they make things worse.
* But they continue to watch. *
* But they continue to watch. *
5. One by one those moderate rationals begin to calmly and carefully speak out in rejection of the howling minority. Never loud. Never insistent. Never unreasonable. Yet relentless and growing.
6. Those calm whispers gradually gather and swell until they overwhelm the screaming few; who finally slither back down into their echo chambers, and hang their heads as the echoes of their lies fade away into silence.
