The END of CIVILITY ?

[Olivia Bauer]

I'm tired of taking the high road to defeat, maybe it's time to take the low road to victory. If we have to out hate these people, so be it.

So you DO want to be like the people you hate. Cool cool.

When you take the low road it makes other people less likely to want to join your side.
If you're going to be critical of someone else for being nasty you don't want to do the exact same thing and make yourself a hypocrite.
You acknowledge that the death of civility is a bad thing but you still want to contribute to it?

[Svengoolie 3]

I'm not even trying to reason with the right anymore. I'm tired of trying to tell the truth to people who believe in 'alternative facts'.  I'm tired of trying to reason with people who respond with nothing but insults.  I no longer want to bother trying t to talknwithbthem.  I just want to throw their own vileness at them and basically fight them.  I've reached the point where I really just want to attack them and fight them.  I'm not interested in trying to talk with people who have the minds of hateful children.  I!'mbsicknof them.  And yes.  I hate them.

[RCMerchant]

 My brother Glenn is a Nazi. I don't scream at him- I ignore him. Fighting it in the Bad Movie Forum world is different then guns in the REAL world. I ain't gotta gun. I can scream all day long. But I won't.  Ain't nothing but a thing.
He puts so much time and effort into it.
 My brother Glenn. Ya know. My point is...!  
...no point,really. 
Sven- the world will keep spinning no matter how loud you yell.  So-ya know-chill out. Watch a movie.  
Put on a record- read a book- cook on the grill-relax!

[Alex]

Most peoples ideas and beliefs are a deep set thing. For many it is immutable and changing anyones mind on something is damn hard work, and it can't always be done. Based on the arguments I've seen you in on this forum, if that is how you argue in real life, you are not going to persuade anyone to change and I am not surprised you are feeling worn out by it. For myself I find the best way to change someones mind is to set what for want of a better term I'll call leaving a trail of breadcrumbs. You do a few things and let someone lead themselves to a conclusion that has them rethink their mindset. Sometimes people will decide to stick to what they already believe in, other times they'll slowly change their ways. By and large though most people don't like changing their minds on things and it takes rock solid proof that they are wrong about something to change it. Hell a good proportion of the successes you do have will slowly slip back into old ways of thinking over time. It normally takes a major life event to get someone to sit back and reassess their particular interpritation of reality.

Quick example, had a friend who was convinced anyone who was homeless well it had to be their own fault. They had to be alcoholics &/or junkies to get themselves in that situation and they were people not worth bothering about or trying to save. He never said it out loud but I suspect he thought of them as being subhuman. Anyway, me and this particular friend went to see a concert in Edinburgh one night (Ozzy Osborne on the Theatre of Pain tour '92, man what a night that was. Best live performance I have ever seen). We stopped to grab some chips (fries to my American readers) and ended up missing the train we wanted to get to Glasgow. We caught the next train, but as a knock on effect we then missed the train from Glasgow to get home.

Anyway, I took him up to Buchannon Street Bus Station as it was a rainy night and we could get shelter there and sleep on a bench (sadly since they remodelled the station this is no longer possible to do), but it was a place I was aware lots of homeless people also crashed out in overnight. I think he (William), thought he was going to be robbed and murdered, but the people there were nice to him, offered to share their food, loan blankets and were generally nice to him. I could see written all over his face that he was realising his perceptions of these people were entirely wrong and after that he treated them differently.

I'd like to say there was a happy ending to that, but by the time a year had passed his experiences had faded somewhat and he was back to his old views. Even if done the same thing to him again later on the emotional impact would have been lessened until eventually it would have had no effect on him.

Still I wonder how some years after this, how the time he spent in prison for what I view as an extremely abhorrant crime would affect him and his views on the world.

Anyway, save the people you can, but don't try and save everyone. It is too much to do and it will break anyone who tries sooner rather than later. And as much as it might feel hopeless doing anything else fighting fire with fire will achieve nothing. I remember hearing on some tv show someone saying (and I think it was an episode of Star Trek TOS) "If a good man has to use evil methods to win, what is the difference between good and evil?" I'd say if a good man has to use evil to win then he was never a good man.