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I went back to find this tweet because it is so relevant today.
The left: Kids are in concentration camps, they are being denied basic sanitation, this trauma will be with them forever.
The right: I have someone to blame – the parents – therefore it's not a problem.
The left: Kids are in concentration camps, they are being denied basic sanitation, this trauma will be with them forever.
The right: I have someone to blame – the parents – therefore it's not a problem.
This is also why they don't care that banning abortion means that women will die. They have someone to blame: the women. Therefore, they don't think it's a problem.
Piling on more evidence of children being abused does not change their opinion; because they think it's all the parents' fault, piling on more evidence simply makes them blame the parents more.
This way of thinking stems from the idea that any policy is fine as long as there is a tightrope of "right action."
You could put up a sign that says "Trespassers will be disemboweled", and they think it would be fine to disembowel someone who trespasses, bc they had a chance at right action.
The "tightrope of right action" explains the thinking behind every wildly inhumane conserv social policy. No healthcare? There was a tightrope of right action you COULD have followed to get a different kind of job. You didn't, so it's your fault.
Abstinence only education known not to work? Well, there was a tightrope of right action presented to those teens. It doesn't matter that we KNEW most wouldn't follow it. The important thing is that the tightrope was there, they say, so any consequences are teens' own fault.
The list continues. Can't afford services for your special needs child? Repubs don't want to fund this, bc there was a tightrope of right action -- making a lot of money before having kids, or not having them -- so now you can be blamed for your own problems.
They don't see their inhumanity -- they think it's yours. You were provided a tightrope, and you fell off of it, or didn't even know about it. If you can be blamed, no social policy or assistance is needed.
Predatory check-cashing/loanshark places: "Well, they should've read the fine print. They should've done their own math." Knowing that 99% of people won't or can't doesn't change their minds, bc the tightrope of right action *existed.*
In high school debate, my partner and I ran a case about medical savings accounts – the idea that instead of socialized med or even insurance, people should literally just have savings accounts and tax benefits and manage it themselves.
People who propose this (which I guess was me as a teen! but in policy debate you don't run cases based on what you believe) KNOW that 99% of people won't do this right and will suffer and many will die. But they were given a tightrope of right action.
The "tightrope of right action" also explains why conservs don't care about sexual abuse victims, even the ones they find "respectable" enough -- the tightrope of right action was to report to police immediately after it happened. You didn't (almost no one does!)
Therefore, they now believe you are to blame for your own problem. It makes no difference when you tell them that the average age to disclose childhood sexual abuse is FIFTY-TWO. (citation: childusa.org/sol )
They know 99% of victims cannot stay on the tightrope of what they believe to be perfect behavior. But they don't care: the tightrope was offered, so whatever abyss lies below the tightrope is, they say, no one's fault but yours.
How do you argue with these people? Sure, my first impulse is: You don't. You fight them politically. Lives are on the line. And yes, that's true.
But also maybe you've got someone in your family who didn't vote for Trump but happily voted Romney or McCain, and they're sort of like this but you feel like you could maybe move their opinion a little bit?
An aside: I genuinely believe that SLIIIIGHTLY moving the opinion of basically irredeemable people is crucial work. Someone who is 100% racist is going to commit murder. If you can make that person only 95% racist, you could save a life, even if that person is still awful.
So: someone who thinks kids in cages is fine bc the parents broke the law is not going to be moved by the latest tale of head lice or ever-younger babies torn from their mothers' arms or even sexual abuse in detention facilities. They have someone to blame, they don't care.
Since they are 100% convinced of the wrongdoing of the parents (yes, applying for asylum is legal, they somehow don't care about that either), a perhaps more effective question:
Under what circumstances should a child be punished for a parents' actions?
Under what circumstances should a child be punished for a parents' actions?
There is nothing in our legal system to support direct punishments of descendants for their parents' actions. Not many people who claim to believe in individualism as a political philosophy could seriously support this idea.
Here is a page about kin punishment as practiced in "pre-Christian European cultures, Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and non-Western cultures including China, Japan, and North Korea" en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kin_punis…
Is that really something your MAGA uncle is into?
Is that really something your MAGA uncle is into?
But another line of questioning is about the tightrope itself. When questioned explicitly about it – for example:
"Sure, it'd be great if people who want $ to feed their kids got themselves in great financial shape before having kids, but what about those who tried and couldn't?"
Most conservs suggest there should be some help for those at the VERY bottom. But not all the regular failures.
Most conservs suggest there should be some help for those at the VERY bottom. But not all the regular failures.
So ... why not? If a society is obligated to help someone bleeding out on the street, why not cancer treatment? Why not cancer screenings? Where do you want to draw that line, and why do you feel a need to draw it at all?
Literally, what is the purpose of a society? Why are we all doing this? Is the purpose of a society to decide which people to punish?
I'm not asking YOU this, Twitter. I'm saying this is maybe the only interesting question I can think of to ask someone who thinks this way.
I'm not asking YOU this, Twitter. I'm saying this is maybe the only interesting question I can think of to ask someone who thinks this way.
Put another way, as if perhaps for a child: If you make a rule, and a punishment for violating that rule – but you know most people are simply unable to obey the rule – what should happen? Should the punishment be minor, or applied only to some? Should we rewrite the rule?
Again, I'm not asking YOU. I'm saying that this is a base-level question to ask someone who thinks that ANY kind of suffering is okay as long as someone can be blamed for that suffering.
And, persuasion-wise, maybe the best thing you can do is ask those kind of questions in a hypothetical space, wait for the answers, say "Hmmmn," and let the person stew a bit.
That's all I've got. I have limited tools to fix much of anything, but this is what's happening with a great many of those people who do not care about wild abuses of our fellow humans.
Hmmn, I thought I was done but actually: this thinking also backed a lot of the racism I was exposed to as a kid (in VA, 80s-90s).
The idea that the speaker is "not racist" because there is a tightrope of right action for POC to follow to be accepted, and in the view of the speaker, most do not comply. Therefore, since the speaker provided the tightrope, they think any abuse is ok for those not on it.
For those reading this thread who didn't see the original, here you go:
