Got kicked out of a D&D group because I said the wage gap wasn't real, lol.
(media.communities.win)
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It wasn't even so much the D&D thing, but the thing where leftists are much more likely to not be friends with conservatives. I've known him for almost 5 years now, and I was always curious when that boot was gonna drop. I avoided talking politics with him, because politics hadn't come up when we were playing IRL. He posted leftist shit on his personal facebook page when we used that to plan game sessions, but I tended to ignore that. It was only after the coof hit when we started playing online and moved from facebook to a discord server that we started to get into some actual disagreements. Like he got pised at me when I said last year that masks don't really do much and that people shouldn't be required to wear them if they don't want to. But it's only been in the last few months, when he expanded his discord server by inviting a lot more people than who were just playing the one game that political shit got posted more. So yesterday, on the designated shitposting channel, I started shitposting. His wife got really upset at me, lol.
It's interesting. I grew up with a a mix of friends who were atheist, Christian, Jewish, etc., Chinese, Indian, American, etc. We had some pretty different political viewpoints. One of our teachers--a huge literally hippie leftist--actually set up a classroom debate in 7th grade to allow the "sides" to put their viewpoints out there and make arguments. We never cared. We argued about poltiics, and then we played ultimate, ate junk food, came home and played vidya.
Something changed.
One of my friends who I have known since literally about first grade completely cut me off. Why? Well, this guy moved out of state, so we only kept up from occasional Facebook messages etc. We kept that level of relationship up for years, would see each other when he came back to town, etc.
Well, he posted a word salad rant about how regressive and racist our home state is because it passed a Voter ID bill. I posted back, literally, one sentence, "Good thing you made the decision to move a non-racist state that doesn't have voter ID" -- the state he moved to has Voter ID and has had it for quite some time. He's never ranted about his new, blueish state, so it was total hypocrisy.
I have not had one response from him since then. Not one Facebook message back. I heard his wife was pregnant, I sent congratulations. Nothing. I heard his dad had cancer, went and talked to the dad at his store (he ran a local store for 50+ years), sent a note to my friend, nothing.
The online rants just get crazier and crazier.
Social media turned people into culture warriors with more religious fervor than your typical Mohammedian.
I completely believe that.
I don't know where it ends. Honestly, I've become MORE conservative over the years due to seeing how shitty people are online. Would I care about the trans outside of the woke trans agenda? Well, I've met exactly one trans person my entire life, so it wouldn't really have any relevance.
I don't know what the solution is. People are never going offline again.
Social media definitely did it. It's easier to draw tribal lines and fully demonize those you disagree with when you don't have to see their faces or sit in the same room as them. Where you can say whatever you want to them or about them in your echo chamber without fear of retaliation (be that verbal or physical), and if you do get any, you can just cry to an online nanny to ban the offender. Where you won't ever find a time where you'll have to rely on them, whether that be to help you with work, an assignment, or just for a cup of sugar, and thus have no need to learn to play nice. And where, after getting exposed to the worst extremists online, you start to paint everyone who bears similar but lesser or moderate beliefs with the same brush, which causes your treatment of people online to spill out into the real world.
It means you should support plans to separate them to California where they can eventually be divorced from the rest of the Union.
For me personally, I think the best thing you can do is be yourself. Be a good person, a confident person, and don't hide your beliefs for fear of being cancelled. Don't go LOOKING for a fight, but also don't just nod and smile. Many liberals are the way they are bcause people are afraid to disagree with them in public. Liberals live in a bubble and an echo chamber.
I AM certainly guilty of nodding and smiling at times, but it's important for liberals to understand that there are other people out there who disagree with them. Disagreement is not just whatever insane caricatures they imagine up. It's easy to imagine your enemy is a modern day Nazi who hates women, wants to kill people, kicks cats, etc. It's NOT so easy to imagine that your nextdoor neighbor who you're friends with, socialize with, going fishing with, etc, who also happens to be conservative, does those things.
So, be friends with cool people, stand up for yourself and your beliefs, and if others choose to freak out over a small disagreement, so be it. "Because I'm not a bigot" as the OP said.
It makes you pragmatic. If it's impossible to be friends with someone because you know they are likely cut you out, why would you even make the effort to begin with?
Another thing I would say. There HAVE to be limits.
Would I be friends and associate with someone who is a NAMBLA advocate? No, that is so far beyond the line, I would never knowingly associate with someone like that. Many people WOULD knowingly associate with pedophiles, see Marion Zimmer Bradley's "husband."
Would I choose to be friends with someone who voted for Biden? Yes. Who advocates for open borders? Yes. Who believes in defunding the police? Yes. Because I believe that there might be good and rational people who disagree with me. To believe that my beliefs are the only good, logical, rational, or reasonable beliefs is...insane. And typical of leftists in my experience.
The internet and social media has had the un-intuitive effect of making people more isolated and cold towards one another.
Actually getting to know someone personally is no longer important. We've substituted knowing someone's ideology for knowing them personally. People are no longer human beings to one another, they're just a representation of an ideology or identity group. If you don't check the right boxes, you're no better than a stranger, or worse, you're an enemy.
The Left has created a new religion to navigate this cold and impersonal reality while the Right is still clinging to the pre-internet conception of people as actual living, breathing persons, and the two are fundamentally incompatible.
Ever notice too, how it's leftists that constantly shove their opinions, politics, beliefs and ideology in your face, and down your throat? But when you do the same, you got to go..because you're a bigot. I have found conservatives are usually fine and dandy never bringing up, or discussing their views, but leftists will never stfu about theirs. Then get mad when you challenge them, after taking their shit forever.
Marxism is their religion and like most religions it requires its adherents to proselytize and sing its praises.
Remember that when neomarxists "communicate" they mean something different than normal people. Normal people communicate to exchange information, maybe learn something new, maybe influence the future decisions of the people they are communicating with.
To neomarxists the content of the message is irrelevent, instead they have 3 goals when they "express themselves".
When a Leftist looks at you, they don't see a person, they just see a series of checkboxes for ideology and identity. They don't actually know how to relate to other people outside of these checkboxes. It's very sad.
Modern culture coddles people with mental weaknesses, and the Internet lets them stay in hugboxes with other crazies instead of having to figure out how to act normal to survive.
I haven't played an RPG since 2014, entirely because every. single. group will be ruined with trannies trying to molest me, or fat joyless frog-faced women fun-policing the entire game/house/store.