The USA is suffering from delusional people who think they are justified in belittling others that don’t think the same way they do. We are NOT a country of perfect robot people. We are a melting pot of mistake prone people, as is the WHOLE world.
Many of us need to get over ourselves. Myself included.
Left thinking and right thinking are at all time odds. It’s sick and twisted the way the two sides are at each other’s crusty cranial throats.
Maybe we should try and understand the offensive rants of an unhappy generation grown up on hallucinogenics that evolved rebelling against common sense.
Maybe we should try and understand the defensive rants of a responsible generation grown up on common sense that evolved dealing practically with global survival.
Maybe everyone try a little calming compassion instead of haughty hate.
It’s our heart that matters… ❤️
It’s our opinion that counts…
It’s understanding that makes a difference
So, about 85 or so years ago, a British commander found himself in North Africa opposing then colonel Hans von Luck. Somehow, before the battle was joined, the two met and decided to conduct the battle as gentlemen. Since von Luck was often in touch with Roemmel, he was able to get permission to do this experiment.
Hostilities wouldn't commence before 0900 and would end promptly at 1700 hours every day. At t he end of each day, the commanders would contact one another via field telephone and discuss the day's activities. Sometimes it would consist of things like "we captured so-and-so today, but he's fine and asks that you tell his mother he's OK." Among the captured was th heir to the Players Cigarettes empire. Probably a relatively junior lieutenant.
Once, the Germans got wind of a resupply coming in and offered to swap him for a million British cigarettes. The Brit countered with an offer of 600,000. Done. But not so fast...the heir insisted that he was worth every one of the million and refused to be ransomed for less. He was obviously not being particularly mistreated.
Real story, according the late, great historian, Stephen Ambrose. SA was the founding historian of the National WW II Museum in New Orleans (my home town).
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Some years back, I was in touch with an old friend whose political leanings were well to the left of mine. I proposed to her that we could discuss anything, including--even ~especially~ politics, provided we agreed to listen to one another and respond only to those positions each of us espoused. We wanted to know not only what, but, more importantly, ~why~ we felt and believed as we did. This worked quite well. While we didn't end up agreeing on everything, we at least understood where each other were coming from.
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About 3 years ago, Dorian Abbott was invited to give that year's annual Carlson lecture on geophysics to the Earth and Planetary Sciences [EAPS] department at MIT. His topic was to be exoplanets. That got short-circuited by a Twitter mob that had noticed that Abbott had written an article some months earlier that disagreed with the concept of DEI and that it should instead be replaced by Merit, Fairness, and Equality of opportunity, not of outcome. The Twitterstorm intimidated the then-president of MIT, one Rafael Reif, who, together with the chairman of EAPS, decided to cancel that year's Carlson lecture.
What neither of them had anticipated was the response of the alumni. Together, nearly 1,000 of us formed the MIT Free Speech Alliance (MFSA, which we admit does not exactly roll off the tongue). Deprived of the large sums of money that we represented as donations--and the others who didn't join also closed their checkbooks--and not knowing what to do next, Reif resigned shortly afterward.
Meanwhile, MFSA tried for a year and a half to find people who would, a la Oxford rules, debate the merits of DEI vs anything else. We first, of course, solicited the DEI staff at MIT--then >150 people. Not a single taker, despite having home court rt advantage. We eventually found two black ladies, one Karith Foster; the other's name I do not recall. It proved to be an uneven fight: Heather Mac Donald was on the anti-side and was magnificent. But it was civil, and the parties were genuinely mutually respectful.
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All kinda like von Luck vs the Brit.