A recently released Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) document titled “Domestic Terrorism Symbols Guide”* links common protest symbols to “terrorism” — another marker in a common theme of conflating militant protest for social justice with deadly terrorist violence within the United States. Groups like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Brennan Center have raised warnings about such documents, citing inadequate protections for people’s constitutional rights.

  • SirStumps@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Each side has labeled the other as the enemy, it isn’t just conservatives. It’s just a way for the people in power to make the citizens waste their energy on each other rather than focus on the real enemy. Both the right and the left are just tools to sperate everyone. If the citizens are fighting each other then who’s going to fight the corruption in our government?

    • 🦄🦄🦄@feddit.de
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      1 year ago

      BoTh SiDeS

      More enlightened centrism bullshit. Then difference is that one side wants people dead for who they were born as.

      • IHadTwoCows@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        … and they have sponsored talk shows to promote that violence against people born that way

      • mob@sopuli.xyz
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        1 year ago

        And the reality is that there really aren’t these nicely defined “sides” for the majority of people… but there is definitely large groups of people who chose their “team”

          • 【J】【u】【s】【t】【Z】@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            This dialogue between the two of you is idiotic. One side is calling for the end of democracy. They are calling for violence against judges and election workers. They tried to steal a term of the presidency that they knew they lost.

            How can you be so stupid as to say that is conparable? That these are just two different teams, playing the same sport, sometimes one team wins, sometimes the other team wins? Right now, aside from the aforementioned treason, one “team” wants to ban abortion, gay marriage, I terracial marriage, sodomy, and porn, and then they want to eliminate gay people, trans people, immigrants, and other minorities. That’s a different game altogether from a “team” that wants universal healthcare and a fair top marginal tax rate on the richest Americans. Go fuck yourself.

            I think people who think as you do have small lizard brains. You think like that in terms of teams, and so you think that’s how politics are for other people as well. It’s not like that for me. My ideas are my own. Arrived at through years of education and experience, tested with science and debate, peer review.

            • mob@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              I deleted the last comment since I mixed you up with another name.

              You are doing just as I said. Defining sides and creating teams. If you really want to get into this, I will. But can we at least talk about the conversation myself and another person had that you called idiotic, rather than copy/paste internet sentences? It’s always the same and doesn’t even line up with what we were talking about.

              Unless you are a troll/bot/or something … since your final paragraph really has me questioning.

            • SirStumps@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              Unfortunately for the over emotional people that drive their personalities from their side tend to devolve into name calling. Those people typically aren’t worth talking too. I hope the best for you.

      • SirStumps@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I could say that for both sides too. Make one conversation with someone on the left about a different view and someone will call you stupid and someone will dm you to kill yourself. Same story.

    • audiomodder@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      1 year ago

      I’m trans. I was happy to view those on the right as “just people who I disagree with”…until they started pushing to eliminate people like me.

      • SirStumps@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Eliminate? Like kill? Because I have talked to many Republicans about these issues and they have stated time and again it is either a god issue (which I don’t agree with) or it’s a mental health issue. Never have I spoken to one and they say we need a cleansing or something along those lines.

          • SirStumps@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            This reads as satire but knowing fanatics it probably isn’t. If this website is legitimate then some people are deluded. However, this one website does not speak for half a nation. It’s more of a sect of delusional people. Delusions of grandeur are still delusions.

            • Ashe@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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              1 year ago

              Unfortunately trans people are in the early stages of being targeted with genocidal intent. Scary times for us.

                • Ashe@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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                  1 year ago

                  Absolutely, though there tends to be a lot more visibility, and potential for harm. Not to understate the harm done during the aids crisis. I could maybe be scared back into the closet jk death before detransition, but transphobia harms cis women too. I shouldn’t know several people who have had to flee their home states due to Republican led legislation, but I do. I shouldn’t know people who lost access to their medication, some people who need it post GRS, but I do.

                  There’s a LOT to be said about the subject. My existence shouldnt fall on party lines, but here we are.

                  • SirStumps@lemmy.world
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                    1 year ago

                    As I live with the belief no one should tell me how to live my life I believe I should not dictate others. I believe no one should have a say over someone else’s life because it’s not their life to live.

                    How does transphobia harm cis women? As I am married to a wonderful women I feel I should know.

            • audiomodder@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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              1 year ago

              This is quite literally the website that Trump is holding up as his plan if he wins in 2024. So while you’re right, it doesn’t speak for half the nation. It does speak for what could be the people running the country see as their goals though.

          • SirStumps@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Interesting and why is that? What is your reasoning? How did you come to this conclusion?

            As a biracial man I feel I would not be accepted into such a bar.

            I would like to know your methods of deduction if there are any.

        • audiomodder@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          1 year ago

          Yes. And I don’t care about how people who support Republicans justify their votes or why they’re voting that way. At the end of the day, the Republican Party is pushing to commit genocide against the trans community. It’s like saying “I don’t support murdering the Jews, but the Nazi party is so good for the economy”. It doesn’t matter WHY you support them.

          FWIW, the east way to find the genocide is to look for people who support banning gender-affirming care. It would be the equivalent of banning antidepressants for people diagnosed with depression.

      • SirStumps@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        The media is to blame in part for sure. However I have noticed that people do not use critical thinking for themselves and take the information as gospel rather than an opinion. Through this inability to parse the information provided themselves they become a weapon of misinformation that typically will shout you down or threaten you.

        • IHadTwoCows@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          Right. Like I said: start with the talk show hosts who promote this shit.

    • Katrisia@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      I partially agree with you, but also with the rest here. Yes, as people, we should be united fighting against the elites which don’t let us live the life we deserve (because we are receiving less than we should considering our productivity, and because many problems can be solved already). We are all on a planet that we need to save, even if only for selfish reasons. We should be together. But the elites have seized the opportunity to divide us with ideologies such as economics, identity politics, etc. If they need an unfair war against a country to exploit it and extract its resources, they’ll say it’s about patriotism or security or something like that, and many people will believe it and support it. Just look how divided we are about current affairs.

      The left usually goes against these interests. Thus the red scare, the fake leftists that only makes us look bad, etc. They need to disband the left, and they have an army willing to do so for free. Here’s where these opinions enter. As long as an elite, yes, but also all their supporters go against us and against basic ethical principles, we cannot sit and say: “people, do not trivialize wars on social media, it is not nice”, “oil is cool, but saving the planet is cooler”, etc.

      I believe in stronger actions, for example, the sabotage people are doing against the shipping of weapons that are meant to kill civilians in Palestine or the blockages against deep sea mining. These are actions that can save lives without actually hurting others as the economical damages are not going against individuals but big institutions that can manage the losses.

      I also believe in dialogue. I actually dislike how we stop listening to each other as leftists: how moderate, often liberal-leaning leftists censor radical leftists such as marxist-leninists (“tankies”) or gender critical feminists (“TERFs”), without listening to them. No, they do not necessarily promote hate and they have valid points that may need further exploration. That said, I believe in the censorship of hate speech, explicit hate speech like the videos circulating about how others deserve to die or deserve to suffer. That’s unacceptable, no matter the group of people you are talking about. Indeed! If we say that we need to kill white supremacists, it is no better than them saying they need to cleanse the population. Still, we need to keep their hate and all hate out of the normal discourse and we need to defend ourselves in case others turn to violence.

      In a nutshell, it’s about defending the wellbeing of beings in the most peaceful and civil way possible. It is about defending ourselves while doing that, because the people in power and their supporters won’t often like it.

      Do you want a crude example? Read about the people defending the wild life in Mexico. Politicians and organized crime want to profit off those lands. They rob lands from people, often indigenous people; they get into illegal or non-sustainable logging; they enlarge the black markets, hurting and endangering populations; they transform regions, affecting the whole ecosystem. There are people, usually biologists, who warn against this and dedicate their lives to the protection of the forests, rain forests, etc. They end up dead. It is very dangerous to protect the monarch butterflies, the wolves, the big cats… Isn’t that ridiculous and terribly sad?

      This is how it has been for a long time. Speak words of freedom in the kingdom and you might lose your head. Stop the machines and they’ll justify killing you. I mean, read Lord Byron’s defense of the luddites and then think about how they dismissed it…

      Personally, I do not see rightists as my enemies, I see them as people tragically going against others’ and their own interests. The ones that are in power are blinded by it, and the ones that only follow are blinded by hope: “Someday I’ll be rich, if only I defend the status quo a little longer”.

      My personal enemies are the horrid ideas, feelings, and values that accompany most of these acts I disapprove of. Selfishness, vanity, etc. Some people, many people (I am no exception), naturally tend to them in varying degrees, and I can only feel disappointment for the number of people that embrace them. That leads me to my secondary enemies, the things that make people do not defy them. Cowardice, apathy, dogmatism, etc.

      Edit: And I do not have final answers. I do not know if we are in need of a revolution, a reform, an extinction, time… I know very little.

      I am very sorry you got caught in one of my rambling, ranting comments. My point is that it is not a situation in which two sides are equally wrong, but a bunch of the population that sides with the tyrants you yourself allude to in your comment. People who still deserve our respect; that respect doesn’t mean passivity when they actively affect others.

      You are absolutely right and we need to fight against corruption and many other things, and that’s why I consider myself a leftist: you name it whatever you like. These are my attempts at rationality and correctness, and, while I might be a minority in the details, I know I am in good company in the broader ideals. Many of us disagree in a very trivial way… Sorry, and thank you for reading this far.

      • SirStumps@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Your frustration is heard and accepted. I do not judge those who do not seek judgement but release from the thoughts swirling in the head which can no longer be contained.

        A rant is just those feelings and thoughts we keep to ourselves far to long. Words bursting to escape and emotion longing for release. A longing for someone to listen and to have another understand and accept them.