Two lifelong Republicans leave the GOP in support of trans grandchild
Two lifelong Republicans leave the GOP in support of trans grandchild
They voted Republican, until they saw the affect that transphobic GOP policies were having on their daughter and grandson.
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/17821531
I usually avoid politics on this community but thought this article kinda fit
Conservatives are only capable of empathy if their ideology directly affects someone they care about. Good on them for finally getting there, but they're a day late and a dollar short
Only sometimes capable of empathy if someone they care about is affected.
So rare that it gets a news article when it happens!
fuck that, conversion therapy for you tommy!
Not everyone changes even when those close to them are impacted, sadly. I share your frustration and your point stands that it shouldn't take someone close to you being impacted to show empathy but this is a good outcome.
We need more stories like this and we should always be encouraging of people who turn away from bigotry even if they should never have been going that way to begin with.
A lot of conservatives stick to their ideology in circumstances like this. It's nice to see when they don't, even if they should have left earlier.
Listen, I get your point but...
They're not some different animal that has foreign feelings to you. They are humans and they are as you are. They are deceived, they are mistaken, they are perhaps brainwashed. But they're people.
When we start using the word "conservatives" the way you just did, to identify the "other", it permits all kinds of inhumane behavior because "they're not like us." Even when they do something objectively good, they're only doing it out of selfish interests, and not because of enlightenment. It's an ugly perspective.
Try substituting the word blacks, or Jews, or transgenders when you say conservatives next time and see if it sounds as good as you think it does. And if it doesn't, maybe back off the rhetoric a little.
The difference between black people, Jewish people, or transgender people and conservatives is that you choose to be
an assholeconservative. You don't choose to be black, (ethnically) Jewish, or transgender.And comparing the systematic abuse those groups have suffered under to the complete lack of abuse conservatives haven't suffered is honestly disgusting. The conservatives helped cause that abuse. Don't compared the abused to their abusers.
Are you attempting to liken the condemnation of conservatives with the historical atrocities inflicted upon the black, Jewish, or transgender communities? All three of which groups are persecuted by conservatives?
Identifying people as the other does lead to all kinds of problems. However, discussing the behavior patterns of adherents of a vile and malicious belief system is just observation. This is a belief system that destroys us all and should not be tolerated. People who support the modern Republican party in the US or the Nazi ideology anywhere don't get to keep their people card until after they give up their toxic ideas.
We quarantine people with an illness to prevent them from harming the whole. We should be doing the same thing conservatives and Nazis. If they get better, wonderful! If they die out, not a significant loss to humanity.
But who will choose which ideas are good and which are bad? Every person makes that choice in how they live their lives. If one Nazi sits down at a table of nine people who do not immediately leave, then you have ten Nazis. The same can be said of American conservatives and the Israeli Defense Force and their supporters.
We should not seek to understand abhorrent ideologies outside the context of history while studying their origins as a means to prevent them from rising again, and we certainly shouldn't look upon their advocates in modern times as anything other than infected and dangerous people who need to be isolated and removed.
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A father jumped in a river to save his children, succeeded, but then drowned.
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A few years ago I risked a felony to save a life because there was no one else.
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These grandparents had empathy for their grandchildren.
None of these deserve accolades. Each met their obligation to provide basic human responses to the given situation.
Grandparents that, without trans family, recognized the hatred they'd been sucked into, perhaps even recognized it as counter their religious ideology, rejected the system in wider scope on principle, then quietly tried to keep running their ideological race: That's my hero.
Yeah, all of these deserve accolades, because we want to encourage empathetic behaviours. Minimizing someone's actions when they do the right thing implicitly sends the message that it's not important or valued to do the right thing.
While I understand and agree that some should receive personal encouragement, this is public accolade which is obviously quite different.
I've higher expectations for individuals I choose to trust and for society in general. Meeting the minimums for humanity isn't good enough. The majority of the comments in response are exemplary of how we fail each other, and thus fail as a society.
2. A few years ago I risked a felony to save a life because there was no one else.
Story time?
The only people I've told were individually rationalized as part of them understanding the potential risks, benefits, and expectations associated with the magnitude of presence I had in their life. In general, most are better off if I don't communicate freely, including myself.
If someone provides an acceptable-to-me explanation of why it'd benefit society for me to tell this audience that story, then I will.
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