"I don't want to live on this planet anymore."

[brightlotusmoon]

Sometimes I feel like Professor Farnsworth.
"I don't want to live on this planet anymore."

I've got friends online who are conservative who are receiving death threats just because they're conservative, even though they support various social issues that have been labeled liberal. People ask if if I'm liberal, because I "seem so liberal." I say no, I am not liberal, nor am I conservative. I have views that are liberal and views that are conservative, but I do not support either party, because people on both sides terrify me for various reasons. Sometimes for the same reasons. I'm terrified of humanity right now. People on every part of the political spectrum are tearing each other apart just for having opinions, attacking straw men, launching ad hominem attacks, and I don't even know what to say. I don't think anything I say will matter anyway.

Comments

[jimmy-book.livejournal.com]

Yes, yes, yes. Main reason I can't stand going on FB anymore. It's ceaseless.

[lovefromgirl.livejournal.com]

What you just said matters so much.

How barbaric, that your conservative friends are getting death threats. Or that anyone should, for that matter. *facepalm* HUMANS. GET IT TOGETHER.

[brightlotusmoon.livejournal.com]

I feel like I might get jumped on if I so much as breathe. People were shot, people were killed. A little girl died because someone hated someone else so much.
And if asked, I would say that I still support the freedom and ability to own guns, but there needs to be regulation. People scream about banning guns, but that won't solve anything. People are experiencing emotional knee-jerk reactions, reacting with a part of the brain that processes things too quickly.
The point is, someone shot a bunch of people, including the person he was targeting. He killed people. He does not represent a group, or an ideology, or a political platform. He made a decision, in his mind, and whether he was primarily influenced by Sarah Palin and her sickening statements is not something I feel at all qualified to judge. But people need to stop blaming entire groups for the actions of individuals.
I have friends who support some of the Tea Party's issues. I don't think they are bad people. I don't support the Tea Party. But I don't spew hate and vitriol, because these people are all human beings.

All I know is that people are dead, people are critically wounded, and one person is responsible for pulling the trigger.

[lovefromgirl.livejournal.com]

All I know is that people are dead, people are critically wounded, and one person is responsible for pulling the trigger.

Then that is the right place to start.

...hell, banning guns is pointless (black market?) and though I do think the political climate in this country factored in, yes, that young man did ultimately decide for himself who and what to believe. Also, there's a lot in what's attributed to him that isn't Tea Party at all, just... scattered ideas belonging to different thinkers. Apparently he was fond of Ayn Rand, for example, and Hitler, and the Communist Manifesto, but it's illogical to blame, simultaneously, the objectivists, the Nazis, and the Communists (could they be more different from each other?).

Any road, your points are well worth hearing. Your voice is a voice of reason. Thank you for offering it here.

[brightlotusmoon.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

I have learned that Palin's gun imagery was part of a campaign a year ago, and is now being blamed for this. But I think people are overreacting to the gun imagery.

[crankles.livejournal.com]

Yes, the vitriolic imagery and speech from Palin and the tea party should not be overlooked or excused. But there's also a big danger in blaming stuff like that for the actions of one person. That kind of thinking forms a litigious culture, takes away our personal power and choice, reduces us to easily-programmed zombies who cannot think for ourselves, and therefore suggesting that we need to be controlled and our world censored ... for our "own good."