Informant, I apologize. It was a reaction. It wasn't a position. "OF COURSE Informant would take the side of whoever was white, he always sides with cops when any cop shoots a black guy. Oh. Facts are on his side in this one. Oh, thank GOD I didn't weigh in or I'd never hear the end of it." (Looks like I will anyway.)
Apology accepted. You just have to understand that this is the battle that we have to fight every day. There's this narrative that the right-wingers are the bad guys because they're racist, sexist, homophobic, etc. Even now, we have people saying that those kids deserved to be harassed and threatened because their hats are the same as white hoods, or the fact that they were at the March for Life makes them Nazis, or whatever. (and again, this is why the "punch a Nazi" movement sounds great on paper, but is actually a serious, dangerous thing. We're not actually talking about real Nazis 99% of the time)
Even on this board, it's been implied that I'm all of those things, and it's a hurdle that needs to be overcome if the conversations that need to take place can take place. The truth is, there are very few actual white supremacists, and none of them are embraced by the masses on either side. The need to put that label on people (or calling them sexist, homophobic, etc) is a way of shutting down the conversation without having to come up with an actual viewpoint.
I get that you probably don't believe that I'm a Nazi, but there are still those thoughts that cross your mind, like the thing with cops shooting black kids. I don't always support the cops, because sometimes the cops are wrong. However, I look at each case as its own thing, and I make my judgments accordingly. As with the MAGA kids, the narrative in the press is rarely the whole truth, or even any version of the truth. We just happened to have a 2 hour video that showed the true story this time, and it was undeniable at that point. But there are countless stories where the answers aren't as easy, and when it comes down to documents, various recordings, testimonies, etc, peoples' eyes glaze over and they usually stick to whatever the news tells them to believe.
Hell, I have a hard time getting anyone to tell me what they think "Russian collusion" actually means, but they sure as hell know that Trump needs to be impeached for it, and they'll punch any Nazi that says otherwise.
If I seem super defensive about this, it's because this is the fight that needs to be fought. We need people to listen to what others are saying, instead of projecting images onto the opposition. We need to have conversations that make us ask questions about what we believe, instead of just taking the word of whatever talking head we saw on the news. I forget who it was that said it, but someone once said that if you can't make the best argument against what you believe, you can't really know what you believe.
If I'm a wildcard, it's because I just want the information. I won't believe a story unless I see solid evidence for it. I have no loyalty to Trump or any other politician, or pundit, or website. Even if I don't have all of the evidence and I form an opinion based on my gut, I have to be willing to accept when I'm wrong (and I was wrong about Cavill).
One of my favorite movies is Signs. no matter how many times I watch it, I always see something new and interesting in the movie. But, while most people will tell you that the movie is about an alien invasion, I would argue that the movie is about demons. In another Shyamalan movie, The Happening, it's explained that when something happens, people will come up with theories and they will tell you that they know what's happening, but the truth is that there's often a huge difference between what you're told and what's real. Sometimes people don't know what's really going on, and they make up easy answers to comfort themselves.
With Signs, we're told what's happening on the news and with books that suggest that it's an alien invasion. But does that mean that we *know* what's really happening? We don't actually see a space ship. We don't actually see aliens coming down from space and telling us what they want. What we see are people, grasping for answers in the only way they know how. but ultimately, the movie is about a minister who is having a crisis of faith, and most of the symbolism of the movie is based around that theme (water is a form of purification, often used in baptism, for example).
We could apply this to Supernatural and God/Chuck as well. We're always told that he is a deadbeat that abandoned everyone, but we see him show up when he is needed, and we've seen him sitting in the back of the room, watching the Supernatural story unfold on stage when they did the musical episode. He wrote every story that Sam and Dean were featured in, so he clearly didn't abandon the world, as we have been told over and over again by different characters. He just didn't always do what they wanted him to do. Their lack of faith in him comes from the fact that they didn't get their way. (I'd have to rewatch the specific episode that you mentioned before I could comment on that, so I'll just leave this as a vague discussion of the character overall)
This is basically how I watch the news these days. There's the story that I'm being told, and then there's the story that's not being told. A lot of the time, the details that aren't being reported will change the entire story, and they're being left out because they don't fit the narrative that the media or the politicians want to create.
If I'm a wildcard (and I've never considered myself to be one), I think it's because everyone should be, to some degree. We should consider all of the facts available and form our opinions accordingly. We should discuss all of the ideas and angles, and see what makes the most sense. We'll still disagree, because people have different views on core subjects, but we should at least work to understand the other side as much as possible. To be able to argue for the other team in a debate (which I've actually done online, when people have failed to make the best argument against me. It was fun.)
The MAGA hat story tells us a lot. It tells us that people are willing to believe what's easy. It tells us that people on both sides were willing to condemn people (children, no less) based on what Twitter told them to believe. For some, it was because they were the enemy and it's always a good idea to destroy the enemy, and for those on the right, it was because they wanted to earn points by showing how willing they were to condemn people on their own side. All of these people just wanted points in whatever stupid game we're playing in this world.
What they all failed to do was look for facts. Gather information. The news channels that covered the story didn't seek out all angles before they ran with the story, they went with it because it was the right image for the story that they were going to tell anyway. Nobody who rushed to join the mob cared about what really happened, or the real lives that were being impacted by them.
And this is just one clear example, but it's the same thing that happens every single day. People believe what they want to believe, whether the facts support the story or not. People want to please the mob and collect their points, like Bryce Dallas Howard in that Black Mirror episode, but much uglier.
Sorry that I'm rambling. I know that you didn't rush to judge, and kudos for that. But this story just highlights a much larger problem in our society. It's something that I've been trying to point out for a long time.
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