Yes, I want snip some of Spanky's fur and smoke it. Was just talking to a couple redneck friends about how much the war on drugs has crippled society like prohibition. They agreed about freeing the weed, that we can handle the hard drugs another way. And they listened when I explained how the past few generations of prohibition have promoted institutional racism.

I don't even see that as different really. To reuse swissmiss's Hitler example, how many people did he personally kill?


Not at all. In fact, my general problem with the moderation of people saying hateful things isn't that it's moderated but that it's selectively enforced. Banning people who say hateful things is an entirely reasonable position for 2+2 to have. After all, they're in the business of providing a service, not of fixing the world's problems. If I owned the forum, I would enforce that role much more vigorously than it is currently. The problem is when some types of hateful people get banned while others are actively encouraged. I have a problem with that.

My position is more that love is the proper way to engage them. No one is required to engage them.

Wait, that was not the reasoning behind my example.

It is not Fly's fault.

Fly should seriously stop. We can all see him.

Okay, nor do I.


I'm not sure where the love comes in but we're not miles apart. I wouldn't ban the haters unless it gets beyond the pale or there would be no-one here. Moderation done well can help.

Speech is an action. Verbally dry humping everyone in the vicinity isn't going to be helpful.

I prefer the term compassion greatly to the word love.

Yeah, but that brings up thoughts of "compassionate" conservatism.

Yeah I'm not going to love Hitler however we put it. Forgiveness doesn't really apply but I can have some compassion for anyone who served at Ypres, Somme , Passchendaele etc Hitler is really stretching my abilities though.

Think of the pain he must have been inflicted as a child to become the person he did. Obviously, it doesn't excuse what he became, but my soul still weeps for that child.

Yeah, I can see that. It has to do with the amount of control.

That was my first thought too. But love takes into account, that it is somewhat selfish. And you can have love without showing it but you have to show compassion? But I am no buddhist and in the end I do not know. So love=compassion for all I know for now. Maybe Spank can elaborate?

I did use compassion as synonymous with love in that model. People develop a personal understanding towards what love is and have their own personal experience of love. Simply put- unconditional love is a just a degree of the idea we all share and have a various experiences with.

I wasn't kidding when I mentioned the word practice. The assertion of the idea matters far less than the information and results you find out yourself.

wtf is with all this god damn hippie love ****?

The word "empathy" is frequently apt. It is basically the ability to note someone else's emotional state and feel kind of sort of the same. Like shadenfreude , except acting like a ****ing human being.

"Perspective taking" is also a good word. Starts out (as an internal mental exercise as) with "if I were you I would". Those that are good at people stuff often have an a ha moment when they do that. Chez did a rudimentary form of this with " of course I would have it in for the police" thing. Taken to its logical conclusion, it would have left to a pretty easy checkmate.

You can feel compassion without showing it. We frequently have compassion for people we never even meet.

I struggle to have any idea what 'love' mean in this context.

BTM introduces 'empathy' but you can also have empathy without compassion i.e "I understand your suffering and you damn well deserve it"

Practices that can be developed.

Keeping enough empathy with shadenfreude is a sportsman-like perspective that is mutually beneficial to any participant.

I think the depth of this element of the side rail is beyond the scope of a basic understanding that different perspectives and approaches to social challenges have a place in the discussion.

Another thread, another time.

This is incorrect. Caring for the person and having a desire to help them are part of empathy.

Good job.

A key feature of *real racism* is (a) the belief that a particular race is inferior to another just because of inborn biological characteristics which manifest as negative behavioral traits. If we get rid of (a) then we’re also getting rid of the justification for (b) advocating discriminatory treatment of people based on their race. Then what we’re dealing with has nothing to do with skin color, but instead cultural norms, socio-economic conditions and whatnot. I think we’re not focused on those factors as much as we should because some, and probably a lot more than you think, adhere to some version of (a), whether knowingly or not. In other words, a lot of white people believe if they were in the shoes of “those people,” they’d behave differently.

Sure I can:
Racist denotes a person who believes (a) and advocates (b).
A person who believes (a) and advocates (b) is a despicable person.
Therefore, a racist is a despicable person.

It's not me who is trying to transform anything:
Aside from being a murderer, Tom is not such a bad guy; aside from being a pedophile, Dick is not such a bad guy; and aside from being a racist, Harry is not such a bad guy.

You must think that I wanted to talk about it. There are standard definitions and meanings. You can safely assume that I didn't actually read what you wrote.

It's skin deep and in society's fathoms.

Comedy, tragedy

Nerdy thinking in describable fallacy may show it.

It hides.

Teachable and entrenched.

Pointed-at and denied.

Uglier than a fictional witch's character stereotype

Stupider than plants, smart like a rock.

Fails poetically.

spank you are straight up a bad person