I’m becoming increasingly fed up with people labelling me in their pathetic attempts to justify their own bias. We see this a lot on social media. It isn’t the domain of one group or another. People from all groups are doing it. Hence my lament that mankind’s ability to reason is rapidly diminishing.
Like many, I was horrified by the number of attacks carried out in the preceding 24-hours by Islamist extremists. I posted a comment on twitter attaching a clip from the BBC website. Out of the 10 most recent updates 8 related to events, highlighting 5 different attacks.
Number two on the recent update list mentioned Gay Marriage to which someone replied “Gay marriage is more important than 165,000 Christians being murdered every year”. In the context of the BBC updates I replied it’s just detailing the most recent updates, nothing sinister in that. Well from there I was accused of being young (I’m not) and weak (I’m certainly not) and that Jones (assume he meant Alan Jones) and Paul Murray are wrecking a 1000 years of the conservative tradition. WT!!!
As it happens, I don’t listen to Jones or watch Paul Murray, but I digress. Now I did suggest the reply was the dumbest reply of the week. This was followed by an assault (using the latest weapon of choice of the social media crusaders)….. You are a Leftist!!!! Well, actually I’m not. In fact, I’m a dedicated middle of the road conservative who thankfully was born with a brain and the ability to reason based on good old common sense.
You will recall the recent issues in Asia with thousands of asylum seekers stranded on boats. A number of us were discussing the problem there, as well as the problems in Europe. I had made a number of comments about the size and the potential scale of the problem given there are over 50million displaced persons. And the the fact that many of those people are escaping on boats heading for Europe. Hundreds had drowned. I also mentioned countries like Italy & Greece can not be expected to keep absorbing thousands of asylum seekers. And voiced my frustration over the fact that groups like the UN are quick to condemn receiving countries, but do little to address the issues in the asylum seekers own countries.
One of our ‘conservative brethren’ posted a comment “give them life jackets that way they won’t drown can just freeze to death”. Now any reasonable person would consider that a dreadful thing to say (unless of course you have an irrational hatred of Muslims). As a reasonable person, I said as much. What followed, once again was bizarre. Judge for yourself.
Poster: “Maybe we should give them Lifejackets, won’t drown just freeze to death ”
Me: “That’s a dreadful thing to say. Something has to be done to fix problems on their home soil so they don’t leave”
Poster: “Start with smugglers, but living in corrupt countries will never happen. Can’t solve the worlds problems”
Me: “Never say never, never say can’t. There are 50million plus wanting to escape doing nothing isn’t an option”
At this point someone else joined the discussion & asked what I thought needed to happen. My reply.
Me: “Apart from removing despotic leaders, educating people and stop funding terrorists, I have no idea”
My poster chimed in:
Poster: “What are you doing for them apart from twitter”
Me: “Apart from sponsoring children nothing. What are you doing?”
Poster: Ignored question, but came back with “What leader would you have, you seem to have all the answers”
Me: I don’t have all the answers and I will admit my patience was waning. Hence reply “Don’t be so stupid” By this time I could almost sense where we were heading. I know the poster form.
Poster: “You’re the one performing either do something or go away. I’m blinking you. I don’t tolerate idiots. I’m blocking you”
How is that for intolerance and a lack of reasoning ability? The person in question hates Muslims and thinks the answer is let asylum seekers freeze in the ocean and she labels me an idiot.
Conservatives, rightly or wrongly have considered themselves to be above liberal progressives. That was always a bit smug in my opinion, even though I’m a conservative and I do consider myself above the rabble. Conservatives are just as capable of being as intolerant and abusive as anyone else. They prove that over and over again and often over the most mundane issues as per my recent exchanges. If you dare to question, regardless of what you have stood up for, condemned and defended previously, you are automatically labelled; you are not one of us, you are one of them. One of the evil lot. Of course, that is merely a bullying tactic to attack based on the attackers own bias. “If you don’t agree with me, you are a traitor”.
Equally idiotic are statements such as “All Leftist Are Scum”.. Well, they aren’t. “All Conservatives Are Nut Jobs”.. Wrong again. Granted, some people on both sides are indeed scum. We certainly have our fair share of nut jobs of all persuasions but to brand whole groups highlights once again the inability to reason. It saddens me, but all I can do is continue to call out the behaviour for what it is.
Bullying by people based on their prejudices toward opposing or differing views and their inability to reason based on sound judgement. In its place we have the “If you don’t agree with me, you are a traitor” mentality and the world is a less tolerant and intelligent place as a result.
