"Woke" (up on the wrong side of the bed)

[moonshadow]

I've noticed a pattern online, people who claim to be among the "woke" crowd often seem to behave like social assholes.

I've had to block a good many of them out and about. They seem incapable of debating with respect and courtesy, immediately resulting to personal attacks and degrading insults. Honestly it has made me question what the hell I've been fighting for all this time? That's not what I wanted. Liberalism to me means being progressive, as in "progress", building for the future, working together to eliminate injustice in all forms, being open minded to ideas that we may have once dismissed, free debate and discussion, and yes sometimes agreeing to disagree. It DOES NOT mean "I'm a liberal, I therefore know everything and if you don't agree with me you're a fascist, racist, homophobic, sexist pig!".. at least it didn't used to...

It has caused me to reevaluate the clothes I wear, and sometimes I feel a little ashamed to wear anything out of the ordinary, not because someone might think I'm "gay" or "trans" or a "sissy" or "feminine" or whatever. None of those things are a pejorative to me. But I admit to being a bit bothered that these clothes may make me appear as "woke" to the uninitiated.... I still wear them, just not every day, and I've toned down the flamboyance somewhat.

...if only they knew how many times I've been banned, shunned, and publicly degraded by "liberals" (leftist)...

On farcebook, I engaged in a civil and gentlemanly discussion with a conservative about "gig workers" and communism. Both him and I, while coming at this from different perspectives had a polite and civil discussion. The thread ended, and today, out of the blue, some "wokie" just chimes in and simply says I'm a "special person". That's it... no challenge, no discussion. Just comes in, insults me [from a mostly private account no less] and leaves. I now have around 10 people on my "block list", nine of which are "liberals". As a general rule of thumb for me, I won't block anyone as long as you're respectful, but if all you're going to do is just vomit out personal baseless attacks, then I just block you. I don't even take the bait.

Easy enough, but it sure erodes my faith in humanity over time. It's hard to have meaningful discussions about tough issues anymore. It seems all people know how to do is hurl insults back and forth. I worry for the future. We're going to be in an all out global war before long, nowhere will be safe anymore.

It would seem these "woke" people "woke" up on the wrong side of the bed.

[Fred in Skirts]

Hey Moon, Welcome to the new world as we know it.
The so called liberals are not really liberal at all, if you don't do or say what they want you are -Wrong- there is no right and they will not back down even if you have facts to prove you are right.
So what I do is ignore them and don't let them get me too upset.
Just remember to keep your powder dry and you gun oiled because you will be needing them at a moments notice.

[moonshadow]

The so called liberals are not really liberal at all, if you don't do or say what they want you are -Wrong- there is no right and they will not back down even if you have facts to prove you are right.

I'm glad that you see the difference. So many people on the "right" accuse leftist of being liberals. They're not liberal. They're leftist. You can be both, but there is a difference. Just like you can be a liberal Republican, or a conservative Democrat. Liberal Republicans may describe themselves as "Libertarians" (that's about where most of my opinions reside), whereas conservative Democrats have been called different things over the years. "Dixiecrat" comes to mind or "Southern Democrat".

I'll be the first to admit that I'm wrong a lot more than I'm right. I don't have any issue accepting defeat on a debate, and I consider myself better for it as I've learned something new (hopefully), but I don't see what the left hopes to accomplish by degrading everyone.

[Fred in Skirts]

As far as the Democrats are concerned I am evil and there fore need to be confined in a mental institute.
I am an escapee from a Political Corrections Institute. I do not believe in being politically correct. I believe everyone has a right to their own opinion just as long as they do not try to force it on me.

[rode_kater]

I've noticed a pattern online, people who claim to be among the "woke" crowd often seem to behave like social assholes.

You've seen people call themselves woke? In my experience it's purely a label stuck on other people.

There are assholes everywhere. There are lots of people that think that by yelling online they achieve something. Best to ignore them.

BTW, if you in America could fix the political discourse so that people would stop conflating the left/right, liberal/authoritarian and progressive/conservative axes that'd be awesome. Sometimes I wonder if we need a Great Firewall of America to keep all the stupid ideas *in*. We're fortunate in Europe (and Asia too I guess) that most people can't follow the American news due to language difference, but there are always a few people who can that then start copying stupid ideas.

[Coder]

You've seen people call themselves woke? In my experience it's purely a label stuck on other people.

I've had people PROUDLY tell me how woke they are, literally those words. It's a badge of honor. But they also say nasty things about people who they disagree with, and I avoid any sort of political/etc... discussion with them. Maybe there's a sane path for discussing differences, but when they consider capitalism evil/facist (literally, again I've heard both those words used), and socialism*/communism* a perfect system ("No one ever implements it right"), it's hard to get the courage to discuss pros/cons of each. And frankly, at the end of the day I'm not going to convince another person to change their mind, so I prefer to just talk movies, projects, and avoid subjects that we'll never be able to discuss cordially. I don't work



*sigh, the US has socialist policies, and I realize socialism/communism are different. But when painting broad strokes it's easier for me to join the two even though they are different because I feel they have more in common when compared to capitalism. Also, when capitalism is considered a fascist system by someone you are talking with, there really is no room to have a congenial discussion, especially when you are essentially a "nazi" for supporting capitalism.

[Sinned]

What's ironic is that Nazism had nothing to do with Capitalism. Far from it.

[rode_kater]

The Nazi's had nothing to do with socialism either, despite it being in their name. The most fascinating part is that in the rest of Europe it was mostly the conservative parties who were willing to work with the Nazi's while the socialist parties were rabidly opposed. This is apparently one of the reasons socialist parties took power after the war, all the conservative parties were discredited by association.

Unlike much of the European left, many conservatives proved willing to work with Nazis — something they later regretted — an association that tainted postwar European conservatism. When it came time to rebuild European politics after the war, therefore, it fell to center-left parties such as Labour in Britain, the Socialists in France and the SPD in Germany, which abandoned rigid Marxist doctrines, alongside the new center-right movement of Christian Democracy, which rejected traditional nationalism, to take up the challenge. This was the hour of the welfare state, supported by social and Christian Democrats, which encouraged social solidarity within a democratic and capitalist framework.

Source

Actually an interesting article about how the concept of socialism got so corrupted in the US.