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Major and minor disturbance
Jul. 11th, 2011 09:00 amThis week I argued online with people in my gaming guild about politics. I know, I know...
I made the argument "Patriots pay taxes," tried repeatedly to cite data for my views, find commonality amongst our differing views, and tried to be neutral to find agreement areas. It was a miserable failure - repeatedly I only received long conservative rants lambasting immigrants, welfare recipients, and those unspoken government corrupt officials. Multiple parties preached for violent revolution (which is amazingly anti-patriotic and anti-democratic values). Those few who cited data merely quoted Fox pundits - I responded to all alleged facts with the real facts, and included links to mainstream websites to prove my points (in one case using a respondent's cited data source to point out that it supported my point rather than his). Responses descended to cut&pastes of pundit's online postings (which were not often on topic or reality-based). The opinions of these twits only got stronger in the face of data that showed the entire basis of their emotionally-based political opinions. I guess the world did end on Aug 12.
At the same time I'm reading Mause. Between the rekindling of all the WW2 information I've seen on the formation of the Nazi party, the US internment of Japanese, and watching astroturf-based outrage right down to the calls to take up arms (to defend the imagined rights of the rich of whom we are not!) I, perhaps reactionary myself I admit, wonder exactly how far we are from a repeat of that sort of history. Half of Africa is eating itself in military dictatorships, North Korea continues to starve, religious extremism to tribal warfare is in the headlines, and of the land of the free selfish behavior and information laziness has outrageous expressions of feeling which rarely, but occasionally, include violent action rather than mere rhetoric...I wonder if it's a mere series of coincidences before the world sinks into a violent dark age or even if regardless of enlightenment of the few or the progress we've seen if the inevitable product is social control of populations by military force held solely for selfish gains.
In far more important news, today I got a drink from starbucks.
I had a coupon for a free drink of my choice, so not knowing what it was I ordered a large iced skinny caramel macchiato. I asked the barrista whether this was sweetened or not - she explained it was very sweetened, normally 4 squirts of "flavor" though this was "sugar-free" flavor. She asked if I would like half, and I thanked her and said yes. I opened the lid to stir the drink with a straw, and opening the top covered my hand with the goo that floated on the surface as if we had been in a circle jerk. I'm not rabidly anti-starbucks, but I can't say that I'll be bypassing my local shop or my own ground coffee to return there in the near future.
I made the argument "Patriots pay taxes," tried repeatedly to cite data for my views, find commonality amongst our differing views, and tried to be neutral to find agreement areas. It was a miserable failure - repeatedly I only received long conservative rants lambasting immigrants, welfare recipients, and those unspoken government corrupt officials. Multiple parties preached for violent revolution (which is amazingly anti-patriotic and anti-democratic values). Those few who cited data merely quoted Fox pundits - I responded to all alleged facts with the real facts, and included links to mainstream websites to prove my points (in one case using a respondent's cited data source to point out that it supported my point rather than his). Responses descended to cut&pastes of pundit's online postings (which were not often on topic or reality-based). The opinions of these twits only got stronger in the face of data that showed the entire basis of their emotionally-based political opinions. I guess the world did end on Aug 12.
At the same time I'm reading Mause. Between the rekindling of all the WW2 information I've seen on the formation of the Nazi party, the US internment of Japanese, and watching astroturf-based outrage right down to the calls to take up arms (to defend the imagined rights of the rich of whom we are not!) I, perhaps reactionary myself I admit, wonder exactly how far we are from a repeat of that sort of history. Half of Africa is eating itself in military dictatorships, North Korea continues to starve, religious extremism to tribal warfare is in the headlines, and of the land of the free selfish behavior and information laziness has outrageous expressions of feeling which rarely, but occasionally, include violent action rather than mere rhetoric...I wonder if it's a mere series of coincidences before the world sinks into a violent dark age or even if regardless of enlightenment of the few or the progress we've seen if the inevitable product is social control of populations by military force held solely for selfish gains.
In far more important news, today I got a drink from starbucks.
I had a coupon for a free drink of my choice, so not knowing what it was I ordered a large iced skinny caramel macchiato. I asked the barrista whether this was sweetened or not - she explained it was very sweetened, normally 4 squirts of "flavor" though this was "sugar-free" flavor. She asked if I would like half, and I thanked her and said yes. I opened the lid to stir the drink with a straw, and opening the top covered my hand with the goo that floated on the surface as if we had been in a circle jerk. I'm not rabidly anti-starbucks, but I can't say that I'll be bypassing my local shop or my own ground coffee to return there in the near future.
