Totally not related to another post in this community…
What fearmongering do you find laughably wrong? What do you witness everyday that makes others clutch their pearls while watching the news?
I’ll start with the obvious one, I live in a very urban area. Our crimerate is probably higher than average, but not obscene by any means. The most I’ve had to do is make sure my wallet is put away when walking around - but mostly it’s standard “city mode”. Don’t make eye contact, don’t engage - standard for any urban environment.
When my rural and suburban friends visit though hoo-boy am I exposed to the fear they’re pushed. They think every step is terrifying. “Wouldn’t it be safer to take an uber?” (vs getting on the train). “Are you sure it’s safe to eat here?” I’ve had conservative family call me to ask if I was “safe” during political protests - that happened 10 miles away from me in a single park, lasting for 2 days - claiming they saw “<<my city>> is on fire, I saw it on the news!”.
It always amazes me how people who don’t live in my city keep trying to tell me how I’m wrong about living there. It’s completely arrogant.
I’ll never forget my first trip out to North Lawndale for work. So many people acted like I was headed into Fallujah or something.
In reality though, it was just another neighborhood with regular people trying to get by.
They always seem to forget that normal people live there, going to work every day and doing normal things. If it was as bad as they claimed it would be on worldwide news daily
A couple of years ago, we were coming home from visiting my in-laws in Florida and I sat next to a woman on the plane who found out we were “going home” to SF and wanted to talk my ear off about everything that’s scary there. First of all, I didn’t want to talk to you anyway, lady, I just want to read my book. But since you asked, no, I don’t know what you mean when you are talking about how dangerous it is. I played it as simply confused about what she was talking about, and eventually she got confused at my response and left me alone. I wasn’t going to be successful convincing her; I knew that. But playing it that way was non-confrontational and still seemed to have the desired effect, which was to put a chink in the armor of her misinformed opinions.
Good on you, at the very least maybe she learned not everyone has the same lame ass regurgitated opinion as her. It’s how I shut down my family as well, they asked if I was safe and I literally just laughed and asked why I wouldn’t be. They said the riots and I just said don’t believe everything you see on the news. They stopped bringing it up. They still watch, but for one moment I think I broke their brains
Conservatives use the word “urban” as a dog whistle for “minorities,” probably most often black people.
But anyways, as to your point, even if an urban area has a higher crime rate, it’s inevitable because of the density. If you take the same number of people and cram them more closely together, there will always be more crime because the people interact with each other more often. More chances for crime usually results in more crime.
But the conservative mindset is also completely wrong about what to do about it. People usually commit crimes for a reason. Like you steal something because you cannot afford to buy it. Conservatives want to stop crime not by looking at the reasons people commit crimes and looking for ways to solve those issues, but by trying to scare people into not committing crimes. But that doesn’t work.
Spot on, and definitely right about per capital crime rate as well. They always seem to leave that out. Maybe because it’s been proven that the most unsafe cities in the US per capital are in redder areas, by a pretty wide margin.
Conservatives are wrong about pretty much everything. I don’t know of a single problem where they have a sensible policy. They’re worse than toddlers.
I can’t think of anything they say in modern times that is not laughably incorrect.
If we properly tax billionaires, they’ll just flee with all of their job-creating wealth to another country! Sorry, but we just can’t afford to treat them like normal members of society.
Just last year I was laid off while my job was shipped overseas. But hey, my CSuite got richer, so congrats to them.
Dems does it too
Yes, the question was “conservatives,” not “Republicans.” Liberalism itself is a conservative ideology focused on protecting the status quo.
They say the same shit in the UK. Where are all these billionaires going?!
Yeah, if we can sanction a country and seize their assets, we can do the same to the billionaires. Plus there are very few countries where it would be as cheap or cheaper than the US for them.
THE GAY AGENDA!!!
I have yet for anyone to tell me what their agenda is, but I suspect it’s to make the world a little more FABULOUS! 😱
My agenda today is a hike with a friend, a quick dinner and to bed early since I didn’t sleep super well last night.
Insidious, right?
With an evil plot like that, it’s no wonder you can’t sleep at night!
“What if there was a mosque in your neighborhood?” There’s been one my entire life. It’s fine actually.
Exact same impact as having a church in your neighborhood I assume? I say I assume because I don’t even know if there is one near me - I bet there is now that I think of it, but that’s how little it affects me.
That college professors are turning young people into communists.
Dawg, I can’t even get them to read.
Ok one of my professors did guide me towards communism on accident. He explained how we’d need to put human suffering in dollars to get safety investments and how that’s vital as an engineer. He wasn’t wrong, but Jesus fuck that shoved me into the arms of ths labor left.
This one bugs me so much. It may feel that way but you know why? Because they’re literally being exposed to new people and ideas - you know - what being in a community does naturally. College isn’t doing anything, it’s because they’re breaking out of their small town/suburban bubble
All of it is laughably wrong.
Other than “lower taxes” and “stop illegal immigration” conservative policies are largely unpopular. I put these in quotes because once you start to apply nuance to those policies they become less popular. Lower taxes for who? Middle America? No, for the 1%! Stop criminals from crossing the border? No, deport the farm workers and asylum seekers that prop up American society!
This is why conservatives resort to wedge issues, propaganda, and fear mongering to stir up their base. Nothing they actually do is popular. They manipulate people into voting against their own interest or just play on their own voter’s racism.
Personally, the fear-mongering about cities is fucking insane. I’ve been to a ton of cities and never not felt safe. Are there areas that you probably shouldn’t go to? Sure, but that’s been the case for all human history. Do you have to like cities? No, but don’t act like they’re a Wild West town where people get shot and robbed at a whim.
Honestly, I’ve found that when you discuss taxes not as “higher or lower” but as “higher to fund x,y, and z or lower at their detriment” people stop champing at that low tax bit. A lot of middle class people feel screwed by rich people not paying as much as them, but when you frame it as helping them or people they know they’re more on board.
deleted by creator
Yes.
In the U.S., that crap about how the Democrats are actually a cabal of pedophiles and the entire organization is just a front for a global sex trafficking ring for children. Like, how do you get substantial parts of the population believing what QAnon says? Unbelievable.
There’s a persistent (among conservatives) theory, supported by some batshit crazy book, that “liberalism,” as in empathy, compassion, and use of resources for more than just immediate househild gratification, is a mental illness.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism_Is_a_Mental_Disorder
Maybe they should see if that weird Jesus guy had it
An oldie but goodie, how the tea party fucks always ranted about FEMA death camps. It was beyond absurd.
The irony is just hilarious. The magas who screamed the loudest are now silent…when their turnip is doing exactly that.
Everything conservatives cry about ultimately is a projection of their own wants and desires.
FEMA Death Camps evil? Not when Trumps making deathcamps in the swamps.
Healthcare Death Panels? Not a problem, when its republicans dictating that women have to die from miscarriages.
“WON’T SOMEONE THINK OF THE CHILDREN?!” Republicans are thinking of children, alright… Which is why you shouldnt leave them alone, unsupervised, with any children.
And now they’ve decided to build their own.
Yah, I mean a disaster agency running death camps was always farfetched. OTOH we have clear precedent of the US gov running death camps vis-a-vis the Native American reservations, Japanese-American concentration camps, the shit they did in the Philippines…Ironically, it actually isn’t super crazy to think that the US would put you in a death camp if they decided you were the ‘wrong’ minority (waves hands at current events). They were just wrong about ever being even remotely targeted for that.
That Portland is a filthy, crime ridden hell-hole. I used to live in Cincinnati, Portland is almost paradise. But it’s “blue”, so must be lots of crime…
Cincinnati is blue too, and Cincinnati is a filthy crime ridden hell hole. Ok I hear it’s improving. The PNW has its issues for sure, and the homelessness issue is real (sure would be nice if red America bought their homeless shelters and apartments instead of just greyhound tickets west), but nah I don’t want to go back to the rust belt.
Remember when the entire west coast was burned to the ground during the George Floyd protests. Whole thing, every city, gone.
I mean I lived in the Bay Area and San Francisco seemed completely unaffected. But the news told me daily about how every city had been turned into a mad max style thunder dome where the only medical care that remained was gender affirming transition surgeries.
It’s fun being governed now by the candidates that appealed to the voters who saw that and went, “yep, that’s gotta be true”
Trans women are coming into the ladies’ to… listen to me pee? Still not sure what they’re allegedly doing in there.
Lesbians are also hearing me pee and that makes me uncomfortable (/s). The real solution is obviously requiring everyone to wear ear plugs in public restrooms.
Also wondering about correlation between pee-play fetishism rates and American conservatism? I hypothesize there is a strong correlation given how seriously they treat pee sounds heard between the genders and sexes.
Don’t kink-shame the conservatives with their pee-play fetishes! Wear earplugs!
We have an amazing bar near me that has an “all gendered restroom” that would make my rural family members cry out in fear. A sink in the middle big enough for 15 people to wash their hands. On one side is urinals, the other stalls, and all are fully enclosed and lockable individually. The horror
Those sort of open restrooms are by far my favourite kind. They always feel so open and nice.
And everybody knows it if you don’t wash your hands, so more people do.
My conservative parents flew in/out of SeaTac in Seattle and gasp the absolute mind boggling grossness they had to endure by knowing there was a non-gendered restroom in the airport???
If I rolled my eyes any harder, I’d have to put out some missing posters for they’d have rolled away.
Oh my god, did they have to be in the same building as one?! The horror
I mean, all of it?
The recent protesting in Los Angeles. It was actually small, organized, and nonviolent.
It was a little bigger than the protests that happen nearly every year but the conservative media portrayed it as the entire city being in full riot mode.
I think they must have a fundamental misunderstanding about how big Los Angeles is. Like, truly, it is monstrous. And even when the city ends, it keeps going.
It’s the second largest city in the country but unlike other major cities it lacks density.
but the conservative media portrayed it as the entire city being in full riot mode.
they do this damn near any time there are protests anywhere. portland has supposedly burned to the ground 5, maybe 6 times last i checked.
If the san Francisco earthquake fires had been videotaped clips of it would appear on fox every week
I’ve been seeing the same thing with New York on yt. Single channel posting straight up “Immigrants Looting New York”, “New York Destroyed By Gangs” type of bullshit using what looks exactly like AI imagery for the thumbnails.
Hell, I don’t even need to see the video title or channel responsible to know it has to be bullshit if they’re willing to use AI generated images in the thumbnail.
It was night and day what they showed on the news vs social media. Conservative news might as well had shown half of LA on fire with mothers clutching their babies because of scary rioters. Liberal news showed nothing. Social Media showed a lot of very angry citizens peacefully protesting in LA who wanted their families and friends returned from being disappeared.
LA definitely got the Portland treatment. Interesting when they claim violence when the only violence to be seen stems from the fucking police and ICE.
Same as every protest. People peacefully organize in a park or something. Police get all weak in the knees and put on riot gear and bring out tanks, and start pushing people around. Finally a single protester throws a rock back and the media swarms in calling it a “warzone”. Closeups of the rock, slowmo of it going overhead, interviews with sergeants. Policeman crying. Every. Damn. Time.
It’s not even that. It’s more like when all the cops are stationed at a protest, some people become aware that they can commit crime without repercussion. Including torching a car or breaking into stores.
If you don’t want that, keep your cops dispersed and friendly
LA would have been fine with small teams of cops wearing hardhats and less oppressive gear roaming around keeping the protesters safe.
Heck, put together protest teams consisting of 2 cops, 1 lafd/emt, and 1 sanitation worker, just walking around providing community service. They’d be cheered as heroes.
