I will not have a ‘friendly’ conversation with someone who wants more #GunControl. My rights are not up for discussion. If you want to violate my right to defend my family & myself as I see fit then you are my enemy and an enemy of liberty. The LEAST I will do is ridicule you.

@Liberty4Masses While I support gun rights I'd say your doing more harm for the cause than good by taking that stance in the majority of cases.

@Liberty4Masses The biggest threat America faces is extremism & a lack of respectful discourse. Both act together to prevent us from solving the problems we all face. As important as gun rights are, being able to have respectful dialog again as a nation is far far more critical.

@freemo you have a very solid point. I am of the very unpopular belief that those with racist and nationalist views are showing symptoms of mental illness. I say this due to my own past experiences being involved with extremist groups (25 years ago) .
I was a loner with very poor social skills and was bullied pretty intensely this led to me becoming very antisocial. 2 weeks before my 13th birthday my father was murdered and justice was never served. this compounded a lot of negative behavior i was showing at the time and that is when i met others like me. they were in a white extremist group. this was the only place that i was accepted as a weird ,broken loner and it gave me agency over why others disliked me. i had decided if i was going to be hated i would give people a reason. That feeling was intoxicating. I was also dead wrong about everything and will carry a lot of guilt for what i allowed myself to do and become with me until i die. I will own it though. I was not mentally stable and my own bigotry was a symptom of other underlying problems. Everyone else i came across in that world was also broken and mentally ill in other ways.
so with the dawn of social media all of this is at peoples finger tips. bullying still exists in the real world along with being ousted from social occasions. it also now exists online and goes unchecked. people who are not right can be removed from circles and shouted down by others with zero consequence. eventually these people will be pushed into circles where they will fine acceptance and those circles will be with others who suffer from psychological problems that lead them to extreme views. they will leave Facebook for the darker corners of 4 chan and alt right sites. this is the road to extremism. Broken boys with grudges in desperate need of a therapist and a hug being egged on by other broken boys with the same needs. its a recepe for disaster and those who use social media to push their own campaigns of justice by shouting these people down are just as much of the problem as laxed gun laws, extremist groups ,violent portrayals in the media and whatever else people want to point a finger at with no solutions

@Fredwerd Oh my that sounds horrible. I can understand why it might have lead you down the wrong path. I tend to agree most extremists, including racists, are often mentally ill. But I also think the vast majority of America is mentally ill and all that mental illness just feeds off each other and makes more of it.

In a less extreme way I remember seeing that effect from South Silly. People were going to hate me for shit that didnt 100% agree with whatever nonsense they were spouting, and im not one for group think i prefer discourse and difference of opinions. So naturally I stopped caring about being polite with them because, i mean why bother if they are going to hate me anyway, might as well have some fun with it :)

But the most poingenet point you make is how this is all self reinforcing, they more people are at eachothers throats the more each side will move more towards the extreme. ITs a really dangerous downward spiral the USA is on.

@freemo and due to groups like south silly where if you did not 100% agree with the group think we are here. All of the facebook groups i am in are now private or secret for this same reason. There would not be a need for a new platform if there was no toxic culture on the others. we are smart enough to not engage anymore . imagine being a broken young person trying to navigate that?

@Fredwerd I have friends struggling with mental health still knee deep in that. Many not doing too well at all. It is very sad.