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This pretty much sums up life in america these days. Nothing but extremist fanatics on both sides, it is so sad :(
@freemo
Not in my experience. Normal persons spot fascists. That's how we came to define normality (civility) in the XX century. Most importantly normal persons, in normal situations, know their interlocutor: they are no strangers, they can see beyond their words and they can tell genuine questions from alibis. There's no extremism in defending human rights, while the causes of opposing them are well known (the call for cooperation demands a leap of faith in your neighbors' help against your fears, and that's hard; the call for respect demands the sacrifice of affinities, conventions, traditions, whims, vulnerability, comfort zone, and that's hard).
This conflict arises from thus hardness of the challenge against violence (the shock we endured after WW2); it is so unfair and so wrong to make it just a matter of difference in opinions.
Inside ourselves are not only strong, inalienable opinions and preferences; there's most importantly something volatile and delicate we've crafted as a species for hundreds of thousands of years: a meaning to give to our existence, the reason to wake up in the morning, to keep working during the day, to take care of our health. It's something that didn't exist in nature, and it takes a lot to keep it being, because the mindless cosmos will always threaten it. This thing inside ourself needs to be nurtured, it needs to be addressed, it needs to change and evolve because it's not strong, it will never be stable and self-sufficient, it can never be inalienable, because it is not an opinion, it is not individual: it's our communal duty against the universe that doesn't want us. It's life. Either you accept it and fight, or you side with the storm and eventually pass.
@fra Let me guess, you think half of this meme is true and applies to the one extreme while the other half of the meme doesnt apply, I;m a;so going to venture a guess and say the half you feel that doesnt apply is the half of te spectrum which you happen to be on?
When I visit america I see this meme play out in the most absurd ways a dozen times a day among strangers, among friends I'd never let people like this into that circle in the first place so....
@freemo
Human rights are not "feelings", you can't "perceive" a violation. They are well defined on the basis of facts (historical and verifiable) and ratified by the law. Violations can be detected just as any other crime can be, i.e. on the basis of facts, never feelings. Reasonable doubts will be explored in debate (or in court), but in the meanwhile facts stay facts. You don't perceive them: you find them.
@freemo
You said you couldn't give me examples from your experience, but here you are telling me that you've met extremists yelling at tacos.
"Such form" was in your example, not in my reasoning, therefore that gap is not in my logic.
@fra No no no i can give you plenty of examples from my expiernce. What I said is I cant give you examples of individual that would be relevant to the situation since we dont know eachother, so we have no shared expiernces I can call on.
If you want examples I personally expiernced (and you would just have to trust I was being honest) I can certainly do that. I'm just not sure how helpful it would be.
One example was a video where some women of unknown race was being verbally mean to a black person. The dission I saw go down at the bar was that one person said that he didnt know if the woman was being racist or not since he didnt know what motivated her verbal outburst since the first part of the video was missing. He went on to exclaim that the black person may have done something to provoke it, the context wasnt there.
At that point the liberal in the group got extremely angry and starting yelling about how he was a racist too just for holding that opinion, started making violent threats, ultimately things got pretty ugly.
Thats one of the most recent examples I could think of.
@fra of course you can. You have no or limited evidence of a humans right violation. You then need to draw a conclusion from that as to if there is in fact one or not. You are influenced by your feelings in making that determination (well most people are anyway). In the end how much of your decision is emotionally distorted vs real varies greatly depending on the person.
This is true of any fact.
@fra By the way to be clear I am NOT accusing you of being one of those extremists. Not everyone (only most) on the left or right are extremists. The ones that arent just happen to be blind to it on their side is all.
@freemo
I'm challenging your claim on the word "most", on either sides.
@fra Well sure "there is no extremism in defending human rights".. well there is if you arent actually defending human rights but instead perceive of a human rights violation that doesnt exist and is clearly absurd on the surface, but pursue it as a human rights violation anyway. In other words if you view rational discussion as a humans right violation and start screaming someone is racist because they ate a taco or some other absurdity, then yes, thats extremism.
That fact that you think extremism of such form can never exist because it is done so on the back drop of human rights is a rather concerning gap in your logic.