Hoooooly shit. I didn’t know about the Health and Human Services money transfer to fund border patrol / wall stuff?)!!! And then that man has the gall to stand in front of cameras and address this shooting as a mental heath crises after diverting $210 MILLION that could have in part been used to, oh, I don’t know, address mental health...? Where would you go off to? We seem to have more than a fair share of Austinites up here.
Isn’t that one of the rich ironies. Every time this happens all the GOP crow about “mental health “, but ask them to give one measly, stinking dollar to public health and they lose their grip on reality. Put your money where your mouth is or shut the fuck up.
You're applying the logic model, not the purity model. - We are pure. - the pure do not succumb to mental illness, for they are pure. - if you succumb to mental illness, it is because you are impure. - the way to prevent the impure from harming the pure is by segregation, which we are no longer permitted to say out loud, so we must settle for charter schools. - purity is compounded by eschewing interactions with the impure. So long as the impure continue to choose to be impure, they shall continue to interact with the impure and suffer the detriments of impurity. You say "irony" without recognizing that an all-white charter school filled with rich republican children that say prayers every morning before the pledge and are kept in line by corporal punishment would not need to worry about any of this. After all, the Incel Rebellion would lose a lot of steam if date rape were a petty misdemeanor again. Your problem is your impurity has twisted your judgement. Get Pure and it all falls into place.
I'm almost done with it and as someone who grew up 'Pure' and managed to largely self-extract from christian fundamentalism / white nationalism Haidt is about 30 years too late. His book seems like a largely self congratulatory attempt by a non fundamentalist to steel man the arguments of 'The Pure.' Which incidentally is the name for some baddies in a sci-fi novel I finished recently, apropos of nothing. Maybe the last 15% will change my mind, seems unlikely though.
His point is that rational argument is not the most convincing rhetorical strategy when conversing with the faithful or conservative, not that one side is right and the other side is wrong. I recognize that me bringing this up to you is just me wasting my time; you are still "pure" and still refuse rational argument. Your every rhetorical gambit comes from a place of "ours is the one true blood" you've just foresworn your birthright. So we'll keep talking past each other because you've chosen a weird demographic: those who fundamentally believe fundamentalists are evil and are utterly incapable of rational discussion about rational discussion.
Yeah. Another Jan. 6th-like moment, wherein I realize that if something THIS simple and obvious isn't enough to meaningfully turn the tide against these hilariously idiotic, dangerous political leaders, we're cooked. I have no doubt Abbott will win re-election this fall. Your neck of the woods was nice. Can't yet really afford to own property there, though, or most urban places near either coast. Even after a few years of building equity in a mortgage, the cheap cost of living here is like crawling out of a financial well. Might have to go at least quasi-rural, but suburbia is lame. If there's no way to move somewhere without losing 1,000 sq. ft., dunno, that's looking like a more and more feasible sacrifice. I would miss my music studio terribly. We'd not have much real income anywhere overseas, paying double taxes, but we live at least semi-modestly, so I dunno. My wife and I (and these damn, ungrateful kittiez) are so very fortunate, at the personal level, and it's not fair that I have the option of leaving, but I can't figure out what staying put would guarantee besides further deteriorating social conditions. Leaving's probably the best way I can still meaningfully vote, right? My biggest concern is the grid going down. And soon. That's the one that'd instantly bring the entire state to its knees. The largest disaster in modern U.S. history, save (perhaps?) covid, which was international anyway, and all it would take is a small series of missteps or mismanagement during the process of instituting rolling blackouts the next time instantaneous demand for electricity exceeds supply. A condition we flirted with, not during winter, but earlier this May, during a heatwave. In May. May. Uh-oh.