I’m sorry but this just doesn’t work. A society that abandons hope for the redemption of the worst transgressors of its social norms is a society like the US, with the fifth highest incarceration rate in the world (after El Salvador, Cuba, Rwanda, and Turkmenistan). You can’t just kill the traitors just like you can’t just imprison all the murderers and political dissidents.
Redemption does work. It is documented within the most extreme circumstances. It’s not easy and it requires time and resources. But it can only happen with patience and kindness. And I admit that this brings with it a lot of contradictions but I won’t be a part of an extermination campaign no matter how grotesque the vermin might appear.
You can’t just kill the traitors just like you can’t just imprison all the murderers and political dissidents.
I agree that it’s impractical. If I could Thanos-snap them out of existence, I’d do it in a heartbeat. Unfortunately, such easy solutions are not possible. So if we ever do have any hope of recovering the ideal of a country based on the rule of law, we’ll have to figure out what punitive or rehabilitative measure to take against a fifth of our population. Rehabilitation would be extremely difficult, though, as anybody with a Trumper for a family member will attest.
You have to talk to them and admit they’re human beings worth talking to. You have to believe they act the way they do because of a deep pain, and you have to imagine what it’s like to feel such pain. And you have to accept that doing so is dangerous because you can’t trust them. Without a faith to guide you this sounds impossible. And it leaves us trying to engineer solutions that make things worse. I don’t have any answers either, I just wanted you to try to realize how painful it is to hear good people suggesting evil things.
Oh, I completely admit that they’re human beings. I vehemently disagree with the “worth talking to” bit of that sentence, though. As for their pain… I don’t give a flying fuck about it. These people are the root cause of an enormous amount of misery. It’s possible that they aren’t all cruel, but every single one of them decided that cruelty wasn’t a deal breaker for them. I have zero faith that the vast majority of them will ever be redeemable.
We saw the exact same thing after the civil war, by the way. Taking the federal boot off of their necks led to Jim Crow laws and the KKK. Talking to them didn’t fix that. Reasoning with them didn’t fix that.
I think that the main point of difference between us is that you believe that all life is sacred, and should be preserved at all cost. I do not believe that.
I believe that in all human life there is an infinity of possibility. I don’t believe it can be realized in a single human life. So I idealize humans as sacred with the understanding that they are not. This grades into other organisms as well, but less complex beings have more definite boundaries. So mosquito life can be instrumentalized if it results in malaria, and this is why we spray them en masse with insecticides.
The logic of inflicting cruelty to save lives works in the animal kingdom, but I don’t extend it to us (or mammals generally but this is another discussion), so this is I think where we disagree. To me, extending this to human lives who suffer visibly results in the kind of thinking that ends in holocaust.
But I understand the counterargument. I understand why John Brown raided Harper’s Ferry and why he refused to surrender. I also think he should have retreated into the mountains when he had the opportunity, but this is again another discussion. I just don’t think another war will give us what we want, and this is I think what Frederick Douglas was getting at when he tried to dissuade Brown from carrying out the raid. Thanks for listening.
I’m sorry but this just doesn’t work. A society that abandons hope for the redemption of the worst transgressors of its social norms is a society like the US, with the fifth highest incarceration rate in the world (after El Salvador, Cuba, Rwanda, and Turkmenistan). You can’t just kill the traitors just like you can’t just imprison all the murderers and political dissidents.
Redemption does work. It is documented within the most extreme circumstances. It’s not easy and it requires time and resources. But it can only happen with patience and kindness. And I admit that this brings with it a lot of contradictions but I won’t be a part of an extermination campaign no matter how grotesque the vermin might appear.
I agree that it’s impractical. If I could Thanos-snap them out of existence, I’d do it in a heartbeat. Unfortunately, such easy solutions are not possible. So if we ever do have any hope of recovering the ideal of a country based on the rule of law, we’ll have to figure out what punitive or rehabilitative measure to take against a fifth of our population. Rehabilitation would be extremely difficult, though, as anybody with a Trumper for a family member will attest.
You have to talk to them and admit they’re human beings worth talking to. You have to believe they act the way they do because of a deep pain, and you have to imagine what it’s like to feel such pain. And you have to accept that doing so is dangerous because you can’t trust them. Without a faith to guide you this sounds impossible. And it leaves us trying to engineer solutions that make things worse. I don’t have any answers either, I just wanted you to try to realize how painful it is to hear good people suggesting evil things.
Oh, I completely admit that they’re human beings. I vehemently disagree with the “worth talking to” bit of that sentence, though. As for their pain… I don’t give a flying fuck about it. These people are the root cause of an enormous amount of misery. It’s possible that they aren’t all cruel, but every single one of them decided that cruelty wasn’t a deal breaker for them. I have zero faith that the vast majority of them will ever be redeemable.
We saw the exact same thing after the civil war, by the way. Taking the federal boot off of their necks led to Jim Crow laws and the KKK. Talking to them didn’t fix that. Reasoning with them didn’t fix that.
I think that the main point of difference between us is that you believe that all life is sacred, and should be preserved at all cost. I do not believe that.
Not the propaganda they are fed? Or their education, pledging the flag every morning during their childhood?
That would still not be the root cause.
I believe that in all human life there is an infinity of possibility. I don’t believe it can be realized in a single human life. So I idealize humans as sacred with the understanding that they are not. This grades into other organisms as well, but less complex beings have more definite boundaries. So mosquito life can be instrumentalized if it results in malaria, and this is why we spray them en masse with insecticides.
The logic of inflicting cruelty to save lives works in the animal kingdom, but I don’t extend it to us (or mammals generally but this is another discussion), so this is I think where we disagree. To me, extending this to human lives who suffer visibly results in the kind of thinking that ends in holocaust.
But I understand the counterargument. I understand why John Brown raided Harper’s Ferry and why he refused to surrender. I also think he should have retreated into the mountains when he had the opportunity, but this is again another discussion. I just don’t think another war will give us what we want, and this is I think what Frederick Douglas was getting at when he tried to dissuade Brown from carrying out the raid. Thanks for listening.