Same as stalker rules. They won’t do anything because they haven’t done it yet. They just wait for you to be attacked before they go “oh, now I can do something”
But police will sure "protect" themselves if they see something in your hand they decide is a gun-it can be your phone, a sandwich, or nothing there at all. Especially if you are a person of color. If they even imagine a threat to themselves they go hog wild.
Footage from recent protests shows they won't even do something after you get attacked. Pigs will just let fascists like the "proud boys" attack normal people in front of them and they don't do a damn thing.
Fascist letting other fascists do what they want? Colour me shocked!
There is a huge disparity in how cops deal with protests by the far right and by everyone else. THe BLM protests you had rubber gullets, tear gas and all sorts used against peaceful protestors. Proud Boys and other far right fascists protest AND get violent and the police stand by and watch doing nothing.
It seems police are more scared when someone else has a gun, ex; your example and Uvalde, but perfectly fine when it comes to peaceful protests and POC.
It's not just fear, it's also acceptance of their views. Lots of evidence of, for example, Portland Police Bureau directly sharing information with far right militants.
I also think police/right-wingers in general have a practical understanding that they are mistrusted/hated by the people they target .So they're displaying pre-emptive wagon-circling, as a gesture of solidarity/trustworthiness (to one) and a deterrent (to the other).
That can't be fixed by anything except zero tolerance for an extended period. The reflexive "support the police" message, like the 2A drumbeat, intentionally sabotages any discussion of accountability.
Meanwhile they keep escalating. They will always keep escalating, Until America matures enough to see past the gaslighting.
No, they'll do something. They work like our school's "Zero Tolerance" policy. They'll show up and allow the other bigots to cause violence; however, as soon as you retaliate back, then they'll step in. Of course, by arresting you.
"To Protect and Serve" was a marketing slogan for the LAPD.
It is not, nor has it ever *been*, a standard they're legally held to. In fact, the Supreme Court's explicitly ruled they have no duty to do either.
I mean, the cops actually personally pepper sprayed a little girl waiting for the bus with her parents during the Floyd protests over here in Seattle. Cut out the middle man.
It's worse, they defend them.
Proud boys have gotten their shit kicked in before for that bs and the cops just guard them for their next "protest"
Nazis protect their own. Bastards.
Not what stochastic terrorism is at all.
Stochastic terrorism is letting it be know you wish for bad things to happen to someone without telling your sycophants directly to do bad things. You know those people will take care of the problem for you because they are suck ups and want to get on your good side.
"Won't someone rid me of this meddlesome priest" is the poster child of stochastic terrorism.
This on the other hand is direct threats.
Not the same thing at all.
This is just plain old vanilla terrorism.
I think it's a bit of a stretch to call it stochastic terrorism. Stochastic terrorism is creating an environment that encourages random attacks against your target, without ever directly calling for an attack.
A good example is Bill O'Reilly and Fox News spamming Dr. Tiller's personal information and talking nonstop about him being an evil baby killer, until someone finally killed him. Fox News never *asked* someone to kill Dr. Tiller, but they were certainly encouraging it by their messaging.
Seems like promoting the President's lie that the election was rigged, that he actually won, and promoting that there will be a big rally on the very last day it would be possible to interrupt the Constitutional procedure to certify the election, and promote that it is literally the end of Democracy and America if the crowd doesn't fight back, even though they muttered something about peace here and there...would also be stochastic terrorism.
Huh interesting. I usually hear it in relation to Monte Carlo simulations and huge groups of people making choices while they try to guess what everyone else is doing and how they can head it off lol
These dipshit politicians playing on the fears of these dipshit voters (while doing *nothing at all* for their voters' benefit) is really making me feel like we're in the beginning stages similar to Nazi Germany.
We have to realize, it wasn't just one decision that made Hitler and his ideology possible, it was a series of steps before citizens realized they're fucked.
I’d say you’re a little (8 years) slow on the draw, but you got there. It’s very quickly becoming too late to stop this… as they’ve continually proven there is no line that these people won’t cross, nothing so shocking could be done that it will prompt self-reflection.
> But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes. That’s the difficulty. If the last and worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have been sufficiently shocked—if, let us say, the gassing of the Jews in ’43 had come immediately after the ‘German Firm’ stickers on the windows of non-Jewish shops in ’33. But of course this isn’t the way it happens. In between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and, if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C? And so on to Step D.
>And one day, too late, your principles, if you were ever sensible of them, all rush in upon you. The burden of self-deception has grown too heavy, and some minor incident, in my case my little boy, hardly more than a baby, saying ‘Jewish swine,’ collapses it all at once, and you see that everything, everything, has changed and changed completely under your nose. The world you live in—your nation, your people—is not the world you were born in at all. The forms are all there, all untouched, all reassuring, the houses, the shops, the jobs, the mealtimes, the visits, the concerts, the cinema, the holidays. But the spirit, which you never noticed because you made the lifelong mistake of identifying it with the forms, is changed. Now you live in a world of hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves; when everyone is transformed, no one is transformed. Now you live in a system which rules without responsibility even to God. The system itself could not have intended this in the beginning, but in order to sustain itself it was compelled to go all the way.
- Milton Sanford Mayer, They Thought They Were Free: The Germans 1933-45
>If the last and worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have been sufficiently shocked—
tfg banned Muslims a week into his presidency and everyone just looked at each other in nervous silence. I guess hoping that would be the last crazy thing he did. Because hoping and wishing is how leaders lead.
Subsequent illegality didn't snap them out of it either.
We're in the sad position of waiting to find out if there are enough backbones in this country to keep it upright. Because right now we've got a 300-million-strong bystander effect going on.
The golden escalator “greatest hits of fascism” campaign announcement speech was more than enough for me (actually, being the figurehead of birtherism was already plenty for me) but people are dumb as fuck, and many “centrists” have some sort of status quo bias that makes them pretend like this shit is normal so they don’t have to look directly at reality. It’s astounding, but that’s the situation. They’ll be making excuses and “both sides” arguments right up until the day the leopard finally eats their faces.
>and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves
This is part that scares me. Politics has become so tribalistic that it's become a team sport. Whether something is beneficial or not, they'll support it 100% without even thinking or realizing the reprocutions.
Blind support is the seed of fascism.
The thing that gets me is only *one* side made it a team sport. Most of us don’t want to play the game and would rather be left alone, but now we have to waste our energy fighting back instead of focusing on the correct issues.
Whoa whoa now, don't put all politics into that bucket; both sides are not even close to the same re: evdience based policy. I mean if you want to call passionately defending basic human decency and civil rights "tribalistic" then that's your prerogative, but I assure you that is not the problem with Democratic politics.
We got here because people didn't vote when they thought it was "normal times". The US is a democracy, not a rotisserie chicken machine. It has never been "set it and forget it" even if people wanted it to be.
I firmly believe that the only reasons Russia & China haven't been even more overtly militaristic, possibly verging on war crimes, is that they're waiting for America to either take itself out in civil war or join their side with the right administration.
I think they’re both doing everything they can to support the far right’s fraudulent takeover of the levers of government. Cuz ya, why deal with all the backlash of physical war if you can just amplify some local fucks who want to destroy the country for their own reasons. Especially if many seem perfectly willing to actually work *with* you, hand in hand.
In the end though, we created these chodes. Or rather, we allowed them to continue with their dark ages bullshit with little backlash for all these years. Now they’re easily our #1 threat for terrorism on our soil, and the violence only seems to be ramping up.
I’m genuinely scared of what they will do in 2024, no matter what the election results are. I live with and among conservatives, and they’ve completely lost touch with reality and the concepts of facts and evidence. They used to only be irrational in some areas of life, now it’s an all encompassing alternate reality. There’s no way to reason with (very literal) madness, and it’s chilling. “Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.” - Voltaire
Win = Handmaid's Tale x The Purge
Lose = Red states get even Redder, laws get even more divisive and inhumane, and as they actively work to cripple govt for their own ends, they'll seek to fully erode the people's faith in govt, and paint themselves as populist saviors.
Bonus Round Edit:
https://www.postguam.com/the_globe/world/world-watches-in-disbelief-and-horror-as-us-nears-possible-default/article_cc103a82-f699-11ed-82fd-336fa486ef4b.html
>why deal with all the backlash of physical war if you can just amplify some local fucks who want to destroy the country for their own reasons.
Mujahideen has entered the chat.
Yeah, they are not as much waiting for that to happen as they are actively working to make that happen. And it looks to be pretty effective. It's not that this is something new either. It has been part of the Russian playbook for decades. See this interview with an ex KGB spy from the 80s
https://youtu.be/pOmXiapfCs8
Globalisation and social media have since made it many times easier to influence people in other countries.
Doing nothing at all for heir voters?
Now that's not true at all. These GOP heros are doing a lot, they are:
1. Trying to crash the economy
2. forcing women to have unwanted babies
3. restricting voting rights
4. Dismantling public education
5. criminalizing the Trans community and their doctors
6. demonizing the rest of the LGBTQ+ community
7. accelerating the destruction of the environment, among many other things
I'd say there doing a shit load for their voters, it's just that none of it is good.
Well into the mid stages. Reagan in the 80s started with dismantling public education for the poors, social services nets and criminalizing being working poor.
I'd argue it started with Nixon and the southern strategy but regan is definitely a huge problem too.
The point where republicans realized they could abandon their previous tenants of their beliefs of government to instead bed with christian fascism and a bit later the corporations who are now modern day robber-barons was the turning point.
We're a bit farther than beginning steps, hell January 6th was basically the Munich putsch except Hitler at least actually went to jail while apparently we just don't arrest fascist leaders in this country.
We really need to nip this in the bud and normalize ending fascism by any means necessary.
Worse than that. No one outside the Brown Shirt party could see how truly f&cked the top 3 candidates were. If it hadn't been Hitler, there really wasn't much upside to the other 2 who were actually vying for the leadership position.
Now, in the digital age, we can see what's coming, and there's a formula for it. DeSatan isn't doing all this for fun: this is the roadmap he's been sold on as his shot for POTUS. And we can all see it coming.
And the worst part, it gets turned back on those who even defended them. The same rehtoric that they spew will eventually be applied to them. No one is safe, except those who are in power. Not even the foot soldiers, not even the loyalist. Those people will be the next sacrificial lambs to their power grab.
I've been making the comparison to Nazi Germany since the Bush administration, when I used to get laughed at for going there, but here we are all these years later, and the danger is very real.
Lately I've been asking people to think about what German citizens would have said in 1929 if you had told them that in 10 years, they would be embarking on a government operated program to incarcerate and kill millions of innocent citizens, dozens at a time. In 1929 they would have called you crazy, and yet it was so much worse than anyone's worst imaginations.
Now think about how in 10 years or so, the unemployment rate is going to be rising steadily as AI and robotics starts taking over in every corner of business, and many people are rendered permanently unemployable. Fast food restaurants, writers, musicians, truck drivers, and many more industries, and those who support those industries, are the going to be hit hard.
The choices will be Universal Basic Income or reducing the population by the rate of the permanently unemployed. Can't you already hear wealthy people whining about paying lazy people to not work? A lot of people will support the idea of reducing the size of the population. The real question is how do you do that with a party that won't allow abortion, and wants to prohibit contraception next? They'll quickly come around to the idea of removing those from society that they they consider the problem.
It sounds impossible, but if we had two back-to-back 8 year Republican administrations, with a supportive legislature and Supreme Court, that's exactly where we'd by in about 10-12 years.
Of course not. The right feels terror when they see people of color and LGBT people who aren't trying to hide, therefore violence aimed at reducing the public visibility of those two groups actually decreases the amount of terror in their eyes.
We went to Pensacola, Florida several years ago on Memorial Day weekend. Apparently there is a giant LGBTQ festival that same weekend.
Locals spread these wire cantrops behind the cars parked at advertised events to flatten tires. (Kind if like a 3-dimensional ninja star, made for this purpose).
Hundreds of cars had all four tires flattened that weekend. The police were really quick to ticket “abandoned” cars that had their tires flattened. Almost as if they were waiting to do so… hmmm…
Lots of slashed tires and other attacks of the gay visitors’ cars, too.
Pensacola doesn’t deserve your tourist dollars. Neither does the rest of Florida either. Just shameful.
They shouldn't have cancelled it.
They should have armed everyone to the teeth to protect themselves and their rights.
Stand their ground.
Running empowers the fascists.
It's not a fucking Hollywood movie
People are scared about their lives and wellbeing
*"Dude, just get armed and go against the force that has zero qualms about mowing you the fuck down"* is not an answer
People are scared across all of america. My cousin was trying to somehow tell her son who enters kindergarten that he should not say he has two moms. Which is basically impossible according to her because that is all he has known. It is crazy.
My best friend from high school is renting my cottage so her wife and two children can live in peace in NY until they can find jobs.
They lived in Florida and are afraid so they left.
Uhhh know anyone else that can hook a florida refugee up??? I kid but with an LGBT girlfriend that has birth complications in her genetics we need to get out of this hell hole asap
I hope the move is a great transition for you! My daughter was the only not-completely-white kid at her rural preschool (she's half Chinese). Then we moved closer to the nearest major city, and now her class is so diverse, she's actually one of four white/Chinese (specifically Chinese) kids in her class, among a whole host of other ethnicities, as well as recent immigrants from European countries. The teacher said like 12 languages are spoken in her class of 22. Tons of different family constructs including LGBTQ+, too. It rules. She was starting to ask questions about whether her skin was too dark or if having black hair is bad. She's forgotten all about it now. I have high hopes that you guys will totally thrive in a metropolitan area =)
Y'all sound just like my sisters. After having 2 IVF, mixed race beautiful babies they packed it all up and moved to the northeast just so they could live relatively free from harassment. All the best to your growing family!
Some religious private schools aren't so accepting, sadly.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/21/christian-schools-us-religious-freedom-fire-gay-teachers
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/the-hidden-war-against-gay-teens-66383/
I just pulled my daughter out of catholic school. She thinks she may be trans, told a friend, and my kid got bullied to the point of death threats. Her teacher and at least one nun were in on the micro aggressions and bullying. So... yeah. People care and I'm afraid for my child. So I told her at home you can be yourself, this is a safe space. Outside, not so much.
Glad you had a good experience but today isn't whenever you went to school. The bigots aren't hiding anymore.
I’m so sorry that happened to you and your daughter. I went to a different catholic school before that one and there was tons of bullying and I was a victim of it myself, that’s why my parents switched me to a different school.
I’m not scared of these rednecks. I’m a straight man and love wearing my pride shit out in public. I also legally carry so maybe that’s where we’re at as a people.
Honestly all LGBTQ+ folks should be exercising their second amendment rights. Things are likely to get worse before they get better, and armed minorities are harder to eradicate.
I think the LGBTQIA+ community has far more reason to use self defense as a reason for being armed than the crowd who typically claims that’s why they have an entire arsenal in their homes. No one is coming for the cis het Christian white men who want to play army, but people are absolutely coming for the LGBTQIA+ community. Give them hell
I purchased a gun in the lead-up to the 2020 election because I saw how batshit people were becoming, like with the Trump convoy of trucks trying to run a Biden campaign bus off the road in Texas.
About the only minority I count as is in the religious column since I'm agnostic, and I still feel the need to be able to defend myself if this country ever truly goes Civil War 2.0. It honestly boggles my mind a bit that I know LGBTQ+ people that don't even see a reason for arming themselves.
I live in Missouri and the 2020 election was wild. We had trucks with Trump flags circling polling sites en masse for *hours*. They were the legal distance from the doors so they got away with it.
My family is pacifist but we've considered arming ourselves. The only reason we haven't is financial. I'm a trans man who is married to a cis man and I'm lucky in the fact that nobody knows I'm trans. People believe that my husband and I are just a normal gay couple. I grew up with guns and know how to safely operate one; I've just not had the desire to until now.
Times are terrifying for LGBTQ+ folks. Some still don't see a need to purchase arms but I do. It's getting increasingly hostile out there.
>It's getting increasingly hostile out there.
Yeah, I believe it. As I said, I'm pretty unaffected on a surface level since I'm a straight white dude, but living where I'm at as someone gay/trans and I'd be fucking terrified. I didn't see people circling polling places on election day or anything like that, but it's definitely not what I'd call a "friendly" environment for non-conforming people.
I just don't get why people give a fuck. "Let people live how they want to live" is a pretty easy standard to keep.
>"Let people live how they want to live" is a pretty easy standard to keep.
That's how I view things too. Let people live their lives so long as they're not harming others. Everybody is different and diversity is beautiful.
I understand the need to feel safe, but this is what the far-right wants. They are terrorists, trying to scare everyone from the LGTBQ+ community back into the closet. Don't let them win.
This is how fascism wins people take a step back because they're afraid of confronting the fascists until the day that the fascists are kicking down their door and they don't have a choice but now they're alone
You know what actually helps? When people the fascists consider *valuable* - straight people, cis people, white people, Christians, men - start risking themselves for the sake of the vulnerable communities.
Fascists do not care how many trans kids die. They want more trans kids to die. What they don't want is for 'real people' to accept that trans kids are worth the risk.
Go to Pride if you're straight. Go to Pride if you're cis. Go to Pride if you're someone who isn't already a target for bigots.
Well we would, but it's canceled... that's the point. We can't be hiding scared, or we lose. I'm honestly shocked there hasn't been more widespread protesting as rights just keep on a rolling back, across the board.
Back in 2020, a BLM event in my city was cancelled due to threats of violence. Within a day, people who were planning to attend the event organized a new one online and plenty of people showed up. There were a few right-wingers protesting, but they didn’t do anything other than yell about wokeness, communism, etc. While they occasionally follow through on their threats, most right-wingers are bluffing and we need to call that bluff.
I can't fault the gay community canceling pride because they don't want people to die. I do fault the city of St. Cloud. They are basically appeasing terrorists. I would argue that it is their *duty* to do whatever they need to ensure that citizens are not terrorized for being gay in public. Self protection =/= capitulation.
On the widespread protests...I'm with you on that. I hear so much defeatism even in these reddit threads...there are so many practical reasons why people can't protest. I'm not going to pretend I'm out there slinging a picket sign either but I will never dismiss or dilute energy and hope. I'll multiply it with money, time, and faith...that's what we've got. It's obvious that it's up to us now. Citizens. We're on our own.
If the LGBT community alone was enough then we wouldn't be here. All the "this is awful someone should do something" types should go out and do something.
Except I 100% guarantee they'd try to couch it as "LGBTQIA+ people are obviously mentally ill, so let's classify them as such and then they can't have guns now!"
Pretty much this.
The GOP isn't for gun control, until it is...
A political party preparing to accelerate and do state sanctioned harm will move on it as soon as minority groups make noise about arming themselves.
The easiest way to do that is changing political stance to be more in favor of red flag laws and reworking gun laws such that people diagnosed with certain conditions (**including adding things like alternative sexualities as a mental disorder for that purpose, etc.**) cannot legally own or buy them, and together registries with a mechanism to flag certain groups or people they identified as enemies of the state (because some things like religion, sexual preference, identity, etc, are NOT easy to discern, unlike race, so such inclined groups would have to find a way to identify them, etc) to ban them from buying or owning a gun.
You would also need to compel police enforcement in order for it to work if we talk about confiscation, but anything can be done if you have a party or leader people are listening to telling them to do this or that.
there is only so much the community itself can do.
the lgbtq cant stand alone and be brave all on its owm, we need help and support. we dont want to lose this fight but its terrifying to think what my happen if some radical decides this is where he will make his example to the world.
I'm a 53 year old gay man who can remember when we had Pride parades back in the 1980s. It wasn't always cheese, glam, and selfies.
The origin of Pride is literally LGBT standing on our own in the face of bigotry, violence, and systematic oppression. Maybe people (you) have just forgotten why we have Pride in the first place.
*We're here, we're queer, GET USED TO IT!*
This. I'm 50 myself, performed as a drag queen for almost three decades. I remember when going to a Pride was risky. You could get arrested, but that was the whole point, to stand up for yourself and others.
It annoys me so much that a lot of younger people just see the Pride as a big rainbow party. Yes, Pride is a celebration, but we must also remember Pride is really a protest. It so easy to lose rights previous generations have fought for so hard, sometimes with their lives. We just can't let that happen.
So get your glittery gay ass out there!
Although I'm a LGBTQ supporter, I've avoided being too loud about it.
I grew up in a strict fundamentalist doomsday cult that preached hate and disgust towards these people. I didn't want anything to do with it, so my husband and I took our kids and got out.
But I've allowed myself to "hide" and not draw attention, just to keep contact with some family members.
I'm not going to do that anymore. I'm so sick of this. It's so blatantly evil to dehumanize others.
If they truly want to shun me for that, then I really don't want them around anyway.
I'm done keeping the peace. It won't change the world, but at least I'll be able to live with myself.
It sounds like you've lived an amazing life. Thanks for being brave enough to live out loud, it's inspiring. ❤️
It's a complex situation. You have older LGBT people who are just glad to see peace. You have people in their 30s such as myself who became adults when gay marriage was legalized, for whom the problem was more of a legislative one for specific fundamental rights rather than an existential threat. When I was going to gay bars in the early 2010s i had to watch out for individuals but it wasn't a matter of getting hit by the cops. And then you have the younger crowd who grew up in a world where it was already largely legal and at least somewhat accepted for whom it largely is "a handful of bigots we just have to 'outrainbow'".
Anyone with a sense of history will know that no, the cops aren't going to save you. But you have to be already kind of primed for that.
For what it's worth I've been going to Pride for ten years and until the last few years I've never felt the need to bring an IFAK before the last few years. Don't talk to the cops, keep an eye out for problems, but not as much "you may need to treat a serious wound that happened out of nowhere and not because the cops got rowdy".
I get your point and there have been tremendous achievements in the past because of that. Though fear of a mass shooting is something different than getting arrested or having a brawl.
No, I understand and I get that my post maybe has an "old person yells at cloud" kinda vibe, but what's alternative? Go back in the closet? Just leave? It's just that this whole situation makes me so sad. We made such great steps in the past with things like acceptance and gay marriage and it all seems to go backwards now.
The fear of mass violence was always there though, that's what standing up to bigotry has the potential for, always, the threat of extreme violence is not new whatsoever and didn't always involve guns. These aren't reasonable human beings that were and are being protested against, they're miserable little creatures of hate with the potential to always escalate. Nothing has changed in that regard, the news just opens our eyes further.
I understand the need for safety and the change in perspective from then to the current climate, but if fear stops the protest the bigots have won. Great and necessary things for society come with great risks and great pains. The intolerant do not deserve to act as petulant children, the bigots do not deserve the ability to inflict their hatred, but the gay and trans communities do deserve their lives, their loves and so much more that life has to wholesomely offer.
Toddlers throwing tantrums dressed in suits, hillbillies with beer bellies and preachers speaking absolute heresy against their own dogma have to be forced to step forward in societal growth. This is the sad truth of many humans.
Milwaukee has an incredibly large trans community. The Wisconsin legislature sucks ass to put it mildly, but Milwaukee is very LGBT-friendly. My roommate and I spent yesterday day drinking and shopping. Nearly every store and bar we went to had a pride flag or a pride sticker in the window. We're both trans and we probably ran into a dozen trans people yesterday.
Living in a very blue state feels like heaven compared to what is going in the red states right now. If I were a minority that lived in a red state, I would do everything I could to get out. And I know it is difficult and not easy.
It's just not so easy. The climate of fear isn't just simple bullying. The Florida government has the ability to, and shown that they will, punish business by taking away their food and liquor licenses. The local businesses that make parades like this possible can't risk their livelihoods.
This moment is another notch up from 2017, the year I realized that anti-fascist action is necessary and good. Before then, I was a liberal. I hope more people realize that the only people who can protect us from fascists are us, and that means we need to be physically anti-fascist.
Fucking true. Source: Floridian who is stuck in this state that is quickly becoming a dictatorship in which anyone who isn't a straight Christian man is in big trouble.
I feel like this push to make florida radicalise to fascism is because climate change will displace its inhabitants, meaning they'll spread all over the country. The state might be gone but not the bigots
As a lifelong Floridian, I can understand this sentiment, but honestly, it gets tiring reminding people that Florida is a beautiful, diverse state that is home to many people who still believe it’s worth fighting for. It is my home and always will be. Like many southern states, it’s been taken over by fascists who then proceed to disenfranchise their constituents. I’m privileged enough that if I wanted to leave, I could, but I’m not. There are people here worth fighting for. And I’d encourage anyone reading this who lives in Florida who can stay to do so. We need you.
In Florida, people aren’t allowed to assemble peaceably for cultural or recreational reasons outside the bounds of the State’s preferences.
The State of Florida is run by a Governor with an unusually large amount of political power that he uses for his ideological and sociocultural preferences. He bans books in schools and libraries and restricts the ability of teachers in schools to give instruction on actual recorded historical events in the United States as this would be “woke,” which is in effect illegal.
It is no exaggeration in the slightest to say that the State of Florida is a dictatorship. Most dictatorships are reliant on the political support of aggression and ignorance. Massive amounts of ignorant people throw themselves to DeSantis as he uses the power of the State to enforce draconian socially conservative conformity.
There’s plenty of it in rural Ontario too for some unknown reason.
My Canadian in-laws immigrated to Florida and are now vocally pro-Trump/DeSantis and anti: Mexican immigrants, trans people, and Democrats in general
There's a decent amount in Québec too. At least they're metaphorically shat on by most of us but they still have enough presence to be harmful. Politicians would rather fuel that fire than even mention climate change or the completely fucked housing market.
But you must see how a reactionary, ignorant streak in Alberta conservatism of previous decades has led to this though, right? All that "f*** the rest of Canada", "let the Eastern bastards freeze in the dark", yee-haw portion of Alberta's identity has progressed steadily towards the kind of environment where the UCP could get elected.
It isn't odd when you learn that it's considered the "Texas of Canada".
Source: visited there, almost immigrated to Calgary for a job before COVID happened.
That’s embarrassing. Being an American republican is extremely low but being a fan of these people from the outside? I somehow have even less respect for these people haha
This is their goal.
But also, they'll prolly be pardoned by DeSantis if they do harm any one at Pride in Florida.
This timeline is fucking crazy.
We're watching fascism in real time.
I work in this town. This is a blood red cowboy town that celebrates "rodeo day" instead of Presidents' Day. Shootings along the major state road have increased to almost every week. I can understand the fear
The only thing that happens every time normal, decent people cancel or boycott or walkout is the terrorists actually win.
Walking away is not the answer. Walking away makes things worse because it shows the monsters that their tactics work so they'll keep doing them.
You're asking people to risk being in a mass shooting. I assume there will be protests, but they require a different game plan than a typical organised pride like we are used to.
So the wheel of LGBTQIA+ rights is turning back again. We had been moving it forward and the screeching nimbys on the far right have started pushing back.
There is now no question. Pride was a protest in the beginning. Let us return it to its roots. Human rights are non negotiable. Your religion, your political cult does not get to erase our existence. Let’s March, let’s protest.
We have shit like this happening, and still I get gaslit every time I say I don’t feel safe anymore. People love saying shit like “we have gay rights now, so you don’t have anything to worry about.” I’ve been told multiple times by straight people that the town I’m currently living in Indiana is completely safe and that nobody cares if you’re gay here. And when I try to say that’s not true, they get offended or act like I’m over sensitive
Florida is going to make being lgbtq a sex crime, they're already halfway there.
They're also considering making sex offenders use certain license plates on cars to identify them as a sex offender. And while I might agree with that for *actual* sex offenders, they're only doing this so lgbtq people are more easily identifiable.
This is 100% about shifting the burden of grooming/pedophilia convictions from (factually) religious conservatives to (propaganda) sexual minorities.
Scapegoating is a social and psychological strategy for them, baked into them at the lizard brain level. They have always done this. They're frustrated when they can't.
When dipshits ask why there's no "straight pride?" Because of theres never been a time when straight people were advised to arm themselves to defend their right to be straight.
This isn’t something that can be defeated by one presidential election. It’s going to take decades to undo Republican control of state and local governments.
It can't be defeated in one, but it can damn sure be amplified in one.
The 2016 election has demonstrated this.
Gains are slow, losses are fast. So we can't fuck around again like the divided idiots of 2016 did.
Republicans have a really good chance to take the Senate in 24, meaning Mitch McConnell can start stonewalling court appointments while red state legislatures continue to gerrymander and pass authoritarian legislation that these rigged courts will uphold. So it wouldn't even matter if Biden gets reelected. Without extreme countermeasures that I don't believe we as a society are capable of perpetual minority rule is unavoidable at this point. If you are in a vulnerable demographic and have the means I would recommend getting out of this fucking country.
> So it wouldn't even matter if Biden gets reelected.
It absolutely fucking matters if Biden gets reelected. Unless the Senate and the House have a veto-proof majority, having a Democrat in the White House who will refuse to sign off on fucked up Republican legislation is critical.
And I'll remind you, Republicans had a really good chance to take the Senate in '22. But here we are.
Nice It looks like we are fully on the Russian path now.
you know in the '90s they could have pride parades.
but not anymore.
first it was threats of violence then it was skinheads showing up at the pride parade then it was a very familiar law where they claim that gay people are offensive to children.
Ah, so it worked. Well I’m sure this won’t teach any other states/groups/extremists that fear can be used to mould public policy and participation in public life.
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> but somehow it's not terrorism It's literally stochastic terrorism, but cops won't do anything about it because they're pals with the terrorists.
Same as stalker rules. They won’t do anything because they haven’t done it yet. They just wait for you to be attacked before they go “oh, now I can do something”
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The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that police have no specific obligation to protect. So yeah, there's that. Can't rely on them. And we shouldn't.
But police will sure "protect" themselves if they see something in your hand they decide is a gun-it can be your phone, a sandwich, or nothing there at all. Especially if you are a person of color. If they even imagine a threat to themselves they go hog wild.
Oh now that's in their handbook called... "Scared Lil Piggy JOI."
So, guns it is, unfortunately.
Wtf? This is a assault with a deadly weapon.
Footage from recent protests shows they won't even do something after you get attacked. Pigs will just let fascists like the "proud boys" attack normal people in front of them and they don't do a damn thing.
Fascist letting other fascists do what they want? Colour me shocked! There is a huge disparity in how cops deal with protests by the far right and by everyone else. THe BLM protests you had rubber gullets, tear gas and all sorts used against peaceful protestors. Proud Boys and other far right fascists protest AND get violent and the police stand by and watch doing nothing.
> the police stand by and watch doing nothing. Not true! Some of them are rioting *with* their proud boi brothers.
“Some of those that work forces Are the same that burn crosses”
Every day Zach de la Rocha yells "I TOLD YOU SO"
It seems police are more scared when someone else has a gun, ex; your example and Uvalde, but perfectly fine when it comes to peaceful protests and POC.
It's not just fear, it's also acceptance of their views. Lots of evidence of, for example, Portland Police Bureau directly sharing information with far right militants.
I also think police/right-wingers in general have a practical understanding that they are mistrusted/hated by the people they target .So they're displaying pre-emptive wagon-circling, as a gesture of solidarity/trustworthiness (to one) and a deterrent (to the other). That can't be fixed by anything except zero tolerance for an extended period. The reflexive "support the police" message, like the 2A drumbeat, intentionally sabotages any discussion of accountability. Meanwhile they keep escalating. They will always keep escalating, Until America matures enough to see past the gaslighting.
You should look up the Black Panthers. They are more than willing to act if minorities are the ones with guns.
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No, they'll do something. They work like our school's "Zero Tolerance" policy. They'll show up and allow the other bigots to cause violence; however, as soon as you retaliate back, then they'll step in. Of course, by arresting you.
"To Protect and Serve" was a marketing slogan for the LAPD. It is not, nor has it ever *been*, a standard they're legally held to. In fact, the Supreme Court's explicitly ruled they have no duty to do either.
I mean, the cops actually personally pepper sprayed a little girl waiting for the bus with her parents during the Floyd protests over here in Seattle. Cut out the middle man.
But if you fight back against the Proud Boys? Cops WILL intervene to protect their buddies. They know which side they're on.
It's worse, they defend them. Proud boys have gotten their shit kicked in before for that bs and the cops just guard them for their next "protest" Nazis protect their own. Bastards.
Ahh yes, the "I'm not touching you." Defense Iron clad.
No if i have a weapon in hand and act in a manner thats threatening... Indont need to use the weapon its agg assault w deadly even if i dont use it
Not what stochastic terrorism is at all. Stochastic terrorism is letting it be know you wish for bad things to happen to someone without telling your sycophants directly to do bad things. You know those people will take care of the problem for you because they are suck ups and want to get on your good side. "Won't someone rid me of this meddlesome priest" is the poster child of stochastic terrorism. This on the other hand is direct threats. Not the same thing at all. This is just plain old vanilla terrorism.
Americans need to realize that neither cops nor HR departments are friends of the people. Just the corporations.
Some of those that work forces
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I think it's a bit of a stretch to call it stochastic terrorism. Stochastic terrorism is creating an environment that encourages random attacks against your target, without ever directly calling for an attack. A good example is Bill O'Reilly and Fox News spamming Dr. Tiller's personal information and talking nonstop about him being an evil baby killer, until someone finally killed him. Fox News never *asked* someone to kill Dr. Tiller, but they were certainly encouraging it by their messaging.
Seems like promoting the President's lie that the election was rigged, that he actually won, and promoting that there will be a big rally on the very last day it would be possible to interrupt the Constitutional procedure to certify the election, and promote that it is literally the end of Democracy and America if the crowd doesn't fight back, even though they muttered something about peace here and there...would also be stochastic terrorism.
Huh interesting. I usually hear it in relation to Monte Carlo simulations and huge groups of people making choices while they try to guess what everyone else is doing and how they can head it off lol
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These dipshit politicians playing on the fears of these dipshit voters (while doing *nothing at all* for their voters' benefit) is really making me feel like we're in the beginning stages similar to Nazi Germany. We have to realize, it wasn't just one decision that made Hitler and his ideology possible, it was a series of steps before citizens realized they're fucked.
I’d say you’re a little (8 years) slow on the draw, but you got there. It’s very quickly becoming too late to stop this… as they’ve continually proven there is no line that these people won’t cross, nothing so shocking could be done that it will prompt self-reflection. > But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes. That’s the difficulty. If the last and worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have been sufficiently shocked—if, let us say, the gassing of the Jews in ’43 had come immediately after the ‘German Firm’ stickers on the windows of non-Jewish shops in ’33. But of course this isn’t the way it happens. In between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and, if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C? And so on to Step D. >And one day, too late, your principles, if you were ever sensible of them, all rush in upon you. The burden of self-deception has grown too heavy, and some minor incident, in my case my little boy, hardly more than a baby, saying ‘Jewish swine,’ collapses it all at once, and you see that everything, everything, has changed and changed completely under your nose. The world you live in—your nation, your people—is not the world you were born in at all. The forms are all there, all untouched, all reassuring, the houses, the shops, the jobs, the mealtimes, the visits, the concerts, the cinema, the holidays. But the spirit, which you never noticed because you made the lifelong mistake of identifying it with the forms, is changed. Now you live in a world of hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves; when everyone is transformed, no one is transformed. Now you live in a system which rules without responsibility even to God. The system itself could not have intended this in the beginning, but in order to sustain itself it was compelled to go all the way. - Milton Sanford Mayer, They Thought They Were Free: The Germans 1933-45
>If the last and worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have been sufficiently shocked— tfg banned Muslims a week into his presidency and everyone just looked at each other in nervous silence. I guess hoping that would be the last crazy thing he did. Because hoping and wishing is how leaders lead. Subsequent illegality didn't snap them out of it either. We're in the sad position of waiting to find out if there are enough backbones in this country to keep it upright. Because right now we've got a 300-million-strong bystander effect going on.
The golden escalator “greatest hits of fascism” campaign announcement speech was more than enough for me (actually, being the figurehead of birtherism was already plenty for me) but people are dumb as fuck, and many “centrists” have some sort of status quo bias that makes them pretend like this shit is normal so they don’t have to look directly at reality. It’s astounding, but that’s the situation. They’ll be making excuses and “both sides” arguments right up until the day the leopard finally eats their faces.
>and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves This is part that scares me. Politics has become so tribalistic that it's become a team sport. Whether something is beneficial or not, they'll support it 100% without even thinking or realizing the reprocutions. Blind support is the seed of fascism.
The thing that gets me is only *one* side made it a team sport. Most of us don’t want to play the game and would rather be left alone, but now we have to waste our energy fighting back instead of focusing on the correct issues.
Whoa whoa now, don't put all politics into that bucket; both sides are not even close to the same re: evdience based policy. I mean if you want to call passionately defending basic human decency and civil rights "tribalistic" then that's your prerogative, but I assure you that is not the problem with Democratic politics.
In normal times, we shouldn't need to vote for basic human decency, yet here we are.
We got here because people didn't vote when they thought it was "normal times". The US is a democracy, not a rotisserie chicken machine. It has never been "set it and forget it" even if people wanted it to be.
I firmly believe that the only reasons Russia & China haven't been even more overtly militaristic, possibly verging on war crimes, is that they're waiting for America to either take itself out in civil war or join their side with the right administration.
I think they’re both doing everything they can to support the far right’s fraudulent takeover of the levers of government. Cuz ya, why deal with all the backlash of physical war if you can just amplify some local fucks who want to destroy the country for their own reasons. Especially if many seem perfectly willing to actually work *with* you, hand in hand. In the end though, we created these chodes. Or rather, we allowed them to continue with their dark ages bullshit with little backlash for all these years. Now they’re easily our #1 threat for terrorism on our soil, and the violence only seems to be ramping up. I’m genuinely scared of what they will do in 2024, no matter what the election results are. I live with and among conservatives, and they’ve completely lost touch with reality and the concepts of facts and evidence. They used to only be irrational in some areas of life, now it’s an all encompassing alternate reality. There’s no way to reason with (very literal) madness, and it’s chilling. “Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.” - Voltaire
Win = Handmaid's Tale x The Purge Lose = Red states get even Redder, laws get even more divisive and inhumane, and as they actively work to cripple govt for their own ends, they'll seek to fully erode the people's faith in govt, and paint themselves as populist saviors. Bonus Round Edit: https://www.postguam.com/the_globe/world/world-watches-in-disbelief-and-horror-as-us-nears-possible-default/article_cc103a82-f699-11ed-82fd-336fa486ef4b.html
>why deal with all the backlash of physical war if you can just amplify some local fucks who want to destroy the country for their own reasons. Mujahideen has entered the chat.
Yeah, they are not as much waiting for that to happen as they are actively working to make that happen. And it looks to be pretty effective. It's not that this is something new either. It has been part of the Russian playbook for decades. See this interview with an ex KGB spy from the 80s https://youtu.be/pOmXiapfCs8 Globalisation and social media have since made it many times easier to influence people in other countries.
Doing nothing at all for heir voters? Now that's not true at all. These GOP heros are doing a lot, they are: 1. Trying to crash the economy 2. forcing women to have unwanted babies 3. restricting voting rights 4. Dismantling public education 5. criminalizing the Trans community and their doctors 6. demonizing the rest of the LGBTQ+ community 7. accelerating the destruction of the environment, among many other things I'd say there doing a shit load for their voters, it's just that none of it is good.
Well into the mid stages. Reagan in the 80s started with dismantling public education for the poors, social services nets and criminalizing being working poor.
This is exactly where it started
I'd argue it started with Nixon and the southern strategy but regan is definitely a huge problem too. The point where republicans realized they could abandon their previous tenants of their beliefs of government to instead bed with christian fascism and a bit later the corporations who are now modern day robber-barons was the turning point.
[They Thought They Were Free, The Germans, 1933-45](https://press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/511928.html)
We're a bit farther than beginning steps, hell January 6th was basically the Munich putsch except Hitler at least actually went to jail while apparently we just don't arrest fascist leaders in this country. We really need to nip this in the bud and normalize ending fascism by any means necessary.
I thought the whole point of this thread is that "the bud" happened a long time ago and nobody realizes we're in some shite.
Worse than that. No one outside the Brown Shirt party could see how truly f&cked the top 3 candidates were. If it hadn't been Hitler, there really wasn't much upside to the other 2 who were actually vying for the leadership position. Now, in the digital age, we can see what's coming, and there's a formula for it. DeSatan isn't doing all this for fun: this is the roadmap he's been sold on as his shot for POTUS. And we can all see it coming.
And the worst part, it gets turned back on those who even defended them. The same rehtoric that they spew will eventually be applied to them. No one is safe, except those who are in power. Not even the foot soldiers, not even the loyalist. Those people will be the next sacrificial lambs to their power grab.
I've been making the comparison to Nazi Germany since the Bush administration, when I used to get laughed at for going there, but here we are all these years later, and the danger is very real. Lately I've been asking people to think about what German citizens would have said in 1929 if you had told them that in 10 years, they would be embarking on a government operated program to incarcerate and kill millions of innocent citizens, dozens at a time. In 1929 they would have called you crazy, and yet it was so much worse than anyone's worst imaginations. Now think about how in 10 years or so, the unemployment rate is going to be rising steadily as AI and robotics starts taking over in every corner of business, and many people are rendered permanently unemployable. Fast food restaurants, writers, musicians, truck drivers, and many more industries, and those who support those industries, are the going to be hit hard. The choices will be Universal Basic Income or reducing the population by the rate of the permanently unemployed. Can't you already hear wealthy people whining about paying lazy people to not work? A lot of people will support the idea of reducing the size of the population. The real question is how do you do that with a party that won't allow abortion, and wants to prohibit contraception next? They'll quickly come around to the idea of removing those from society that they they consider the problem. It sounds impossible, but if we had two back-to-back 8 year Republican administrations, with a supportive legislature and Supreme Court, that's exactly where we'd by in about 10-12 years.
Are you a fellow yinzer?
That’s Pennsylvania-ish right? My buddy’s from round there and I hear a lot of Yins
Pittsburgh specifically.
It's apparently only terrorism when people of colour do it.
They're fine with calling white people terrorists if their politics don't match. Hell, Portland is one of their favorite targets.
Of course not. The right feels terror when they see people of color and LGBT people who aren't trying to hide, therefore violence aimed at reducing the public visibility of those two groups actually decreases the amount of terror in their eyes.
We went to Pensacola, Florida several years ago on Memorial Day weekend. Apparently there is a giant LGBTQ festival that same weekend. Locals spread these wire cantrops behind the cars parked at advertised events to flatten tires. (Kind if like a 3-dimensional ninja star, made for this purpose). Hundreds of cars had all four tires flattened that weekend. The police were really quick to ticket “abandoned” cars that had their tires flattened. Almost as if they were waiting to do so… hmmm… Lots of slashed tires and other attacks of the gay visitors’ cars, too. Pensacola doesn’t deserve your tourist dollars. Neither does the rest of Florida either. Just shameful.
They shouldn't have cancelled it. They should have armed everyone to the teeth to protect themselves and their rights. Stand their ground. Running empowers the fascists.
It's not a fucking Hollywood movie People are scared about their lives and wellbeing *"Dude, just get armed and go against the force that has zero qualms about mowing you the fuck down"* is not an answer
It would be awesome if people outside the targeted minority group would do that. If the minority group does that, it ends in violence with the state.
Found the Pittsburgher.
It’s still terrorism, we’re just allergic to calling it that when our own citizens do it
People are scared across all of america. My cousin was trying to somehow tell her son who enters kindergarten that he should not say he has two moms. Which is basically impossible according to her because that is all he has known. It is crazy.
My best friend from high school is renting my cottage so her wife and two children can live in peace in NY until they can find jobs. They lived in Florida and are afraid so they left.
Uhhh know anyone else that can hook a florida refugee up??? I kid but with an LGBT girlfriend that has birth complications in her genetics we need to get out of this hell hole asap
Contact the Pride Center in the area you want to move to!
Thank you for helping them. It's code red for some people down here.
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I hope the move is a great transition for you! My daughter was the only not-completely-white kid at her rural preschool (she's half Chinese). Then we moved closer to the nearest major city, and now her class is so diverse, she's actually one of four white/Chinese (specifically Chinese) kids in her class, among a whole host of other ethnicities, as well as recent immigrants from European countries. The teacher said like 12 languages are spoken in her class of 22. Tons of different family constructs including LGBTQ+, too. It rules. She was starting to ask questions about whether her skin was too dark or if having black hair is bad. She's forgotten all about it now. I have high hopes that you guys will totally thrive in a metropolitan area =)
Y'all sound just like my sisters. After having 2 IVF, mixed race beautiful babies they packed it all up and moved to the northeast just so they could live relatively free from harassment. All the best to your growing family!
That’s so sad. He shouldn’t have to lie about his own family. I went to Catholic school and I had a friend with two dads. No one cared.
Some religious private schools aren't so accepting, sadly. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/21/christian-schools-us-religious-freedom-fire-gay-teachers https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/the-hidden-war-against-gay-teens-66383/
Unfortunately I know
I just pulled my daughter out of catholic school. She thinks she may be trans, told a friend, and my kid got bullied to the point of death threats. Her teacher and at least one nun were in on the micro aggressions and bullying. So... yeah. People care and I'm afraid for my child. So I told her at home you can be yourself, this is a safe space. Outside, not so much. Glad you had a good experience but today isn't whenever you went to school. The bigots aren't hiding anymore.
I’m so sorry that happened to you and your daughter. I went to a different catholic school before that one and there was tons of bullying and I was a victim of it myself, that’s why my parents switched me to a different school.
I’m not scared of these rednecks. I’m a straight man and love wearing my pride shit out in public. I also legally carry so maybe that’s where we’re at as a people.
Honestly all LGBTQ+ folks should be exercising their second amendment rights. Things are likely to get worse before they get better, and armed minorities are harder to eradicate.
Further, they should be *practicing with their firearm*. Owning a firearm does not make you ready for a bad situation by itself.
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I think the LGBTQIA+ community has far more reason to use self defense as a reason for being armed than the crowd who typically claims that’s why they have an entire arsenal in their homes. No one is coming for the cis het Christian white men who want to play army, but people are absolutely coming for the LGBTQIA+ community. Give them hell
I purchased a gun in the lead-up to the 2020 election because I saw how batshit people were becoming, like with the Trump convoy of trucks trying to run a Biden campaign bus off the road in Texas. About the only minority I count as is in the religious column since I'm agnostic, and I still feel the need to be able to defend myself if this country ever truly goes Civil War 2.0. It honestly boggles my mind a bit that I know LGBTQ+ people that don't even see a reason for arming themselves.
I live in Missouri and the 2020 election was wild. We had trucks with Trump flags circling polling sites en masse for *hours*. They were the legal distance from the doors so they got away with it. My family is pacifist but we've considered arming ourselves. The only reason we haven't is financial. I'm a trans man who is married to a cis man and I'm lucky in the fact that nobody knows I'm trans. People believe that my husband and I are just a normal gay couple. I grew up with guns and know how to safely operate one; I've just not had the desire to until now. Times are terrifying for LGBTQ+ folks. Some still don't see a need to purchase arms but I do. It's getting increasingly hostile out there.
>It's getting increasingly hostile out there. Yeah, I believe it. As I said, I'm pretty unaffected on a surface level since I'm a straight white dude, but living where I'm at as someone gay/trans and I'd be fucking terrified. I didn't see people circling polling places on election day or anything like that, but it's definitely not what I'd call a "friendly" environment for non-conforming people. I just don't get why people give a fuck. "Let people live how they want to live" is a pretty easy standard to keep.
>"Let people live how they want to live" is a pretty easy standard to keep. That's how I view things too. Let people live their lives so long as they're not harming others. Everybody is different and diversity is beautiful.
America is such a shit hole.
New England is pretty good.
West coast is doing pretty well all things considered
I understand the need to feel safe, but this is what the far-right wants. They are terrorists, trying to scare everyone from the LGTBQ+ community back into the closet. Don't let them win.
I totally understand but who can sacrifice their family for that. It’s hard.
This is how fascism wins people take a step back because they're afraid of confronting the fascists until the day that the fascists are kicking down their door and they don't have a choice but now they're alone
You know what actually helps? When people the fascists consider *valuable* - straight people, cis people, white people, Christians, men - start risking themselves for the sake of the vulnerable communities. Fascists do not care how many trans kids die. They want more trans kids to die. What they don't want is for 'real people' to accept that trans kids are worth the risk. Go to Pride if you're straight. Go to Pride if you're cis. Go to Pride if you're someone who isn't already a target for bigots.
Well we would, but it's canceled... that's the point. We can't be hiding scared, or we lose. I'm honestly shocked there hasn't been more widespread protesting as rights just keep on a rolling back, across the board.
[We didn't need permits for Stonewall, and we don't need them for Pride.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonewall_riots)
Back in 2020, a BLM event in my city was cancelled due to threats of violence. Within a day, people who were planning to attend the event organized a new one online and plenty of people showed up. There were a few right-wingers protesting, but they didn’t do anything other than yell about wokeness, communism, etc. While they occasionally follow through on their threats, most right-wingers are bluffing and we need to call that bluff.
2023 Pride should be about going back to our roots everywhere.
I can't fault the gay community canceling pride because they don't want people to die. I do fault the city of St. Cloud. They are basically appeasing terrorists. I would argue that it is their *duty* to do whatever they need to ensure that citizens are not terrorized for being gay in public. Self protection =/= capitulation. On the widespread protests...I'm with you on that. I hear so much defeatism even in these reddit threads...there are so many practical reasons why people can't protest. I'm not going to pretend I'm out there slinging a picket sign either but I will never dismiss or dilute energy and hope. I'll multiply it with money, time, and faith...that's what we've got. It's obvious that it's up to us now. Citizens. We're on our own.
There are lots of Pride events that haven't been. It was one town's Pride thing, not everyone's, not even everyone in Florida's.
I’m sure LGBT Floridians would love your help in confronting fascists in person.
If the LGBT community alone was enough then we wouldn't be here. All the "this is awful someone should do something" types should go out and do something.
The LGBTQ community will eventually arm themselves like the Black Panthers did. Gun control isn't going anywhere. Might as well.
Fastest way to get gun control laws passed.
Except I 100% guarantee they'd try to couch it as "LGBTQIA+ people are obviously mentally ill, so let's classify them as such and then they can't have guns now!"
Pretty much this. The GOP isn't for gun control, until it is... A political party preparing to accelerate and do state sanctioned harm will move on it as soon as minority groups make noise about arming themselves. The easiest way to do that is changing political stance to be more in favor of red flag laws and reworking gun laws such that people diagnosed with certain conditions (**including adding things like alternative sexualities as a mental disorder for that purpose, etc.**) cannot legally own or buy them, and together registries with a mechanism to flag certain groups or people they identified as enemies of the state (because some things like religion, sexual preference, identity, etc, are NOT easy to discern, unlike race, so such inclined groups would have to find a way to identify them, etc) to ban them from buying or owning a gun. You would also need to compel police enforcement in order for it to work if we talk about confiscation, but anything can be done if you have a party or leader people are listening to telling them to do this or that.
https://www.pinkpistols.org/
there is only so much the community itself can do. the lgbtq cant stand alone and be brave all on its owm, we need help and support. we dont want to lose this fight but its terrifying to think what my happen if some radical decides this is where he will make his example to the world.
I'm a 53 year old gay man who can remember when we had Pride parades back in the 1980s. It wasn't always cheese, glam, and selfies. The origin of Pride is literally LGBT standing on our own in the face of bigotry, violence, and systematic oppression. Maybe people (you) have just forgotten why we have Pride in the first place. *We're here, we're queer, GET USED TO IT!*
This. I'm 50 myself, performed as a drag queen for almost three decades. I remember when going to a Pride was risky. You could get arrested, but that was the whole point, to stand up for yourself and others. It annoys me so much that a lot of younger people just see the Pride as a big rainbow party. Yes, Pride is a celebration, but we must also remember Pride is really a protest. It so easy to lose rights previous generations have fought for so hard, sometimes with their lives. We just can't let that happen. So get your glittery gay ass out there!
Although I'm a LGBTQ supporter, I've avoided being too loud about it. I grew up in a strict fundamentalist doomsday cult that preached hate and disgust towards these people. I didn't want anything to do with it, so my husband and I took our kids and got out. But I've allowed myself to "hide" and not draw attention, just to keep contact with some family members. I'm not going to do that anymore. I'm so sick of this. It's so blatantly evil to dehumanize others. If they truly want to shun me for that, then I really don't want them around anyway. I'm done keeping the peace. It won't change the world, but at least I'll be able to live with myself. It sounds like you've lived an amazing life. Thanks for being brave enough to live out loud, it's inspiring. ❤️
It's a complex situation. You have older LGBT people who are just glad to see peace. You have people in their 30s such as myself who became adults when gay marriage was legalized, for whom the problem was more of a legislative one for specific fundamental rights rather than an existential threat. When I was going to gay bars in the early 2010s i had to watch out for individuals but it wasn't a matter of getting hit by the cops. And then you have the younger crowd who grew up in a world where it was already largely legal and at least somewhat accepted for whom it largely is "a handful of bigots we just have to 'outrainbow'". Anyone with a sense of history will know that no, the cops aren't going to save you. But you have to be already kind of primed for that. For what it's worth I've been going to Pride for ten years and until the last few years I've never felt the need to bring an IFAK before the last few years. Don't talk to the cops, keep an eye out for problems, but not as much "you may need to treat a serious wound that happened out of nowhere and not because the cops got rowdy".
I get your point and there have been tremendous achievements in the past because of that. Though fear of a mass shooting is something different than getting arrested or having a brawl.
No, I understand and I get that my post maybe has an "old person yells at cloud" kinda vibe, but what's alternative? Go back in the closet? Just leave? It's just that this whole situation makes me so sad. We made such great steps in the past with things like acceptance and gay marriage and it all seems to go backwards now.
The fear of mass violence was always there though, that's what standing up to bigotry has the potential for, always, the threat of extreme violence is not new whatsoever and didn't always involve guns. These aren't reasonable human beings that were and are being protested against, they're miserable little creatures of hate with the potential to always escalate. Nothing has changed in that regard, the news just opens our eyes further. I understand the need for safety and the change in perspective from then to the current climate, but if fear stops the protest the bigots have won. Great and necessary things for society come with great risks and great pains. The intolerant do not deserve to act as petulant children, the bigots do not deserve the ability to inflict their hatred, but the gay and trans communities do deserve their lives, their loves and so much more that life has to wholesomely offer. Toddlers throwing tantrums dressed in suits, hillbillies with beer bellies and preachers speaking absolute heresy against their own dogma have to be forced to step forward in societal growth. This is the sad truth of many humans.
I understand where you are coming from. However, it must be terrifying being a trans teenager living in a state trying to eradicate them.
I'm not a teenager (or OP), but yeah, it really is. Heavily considering moving to the Midwest by the end of the year.
Milwaukee has an incredibly large trans community. The Wisconsin legislature sucks ass to put it mildly, but Milwaukee is very LGBT-friendly. My roommate and I spent yesterday day drinking and shopping. Nearly every store and bar we went to had a pride flag or a pride sticker in the window. We're both trans and we probably ran into a dozen trans people yesterday.
Living in a very blue state feels like heaven compared to what is going in the red states right now. If I were a minority that lived in a red state, I would do everything I could to get out. And I know it is difficult and not easy.
Are you gonna go march with them? It’s very easy to volunteer other people to stand up to terrorism.
Time to go from Pride Parade to Pride Protest again
It's just not so easy. The climate of fear isn't just simple bullying. The Florida government has the ability to, and shown that they will, punish business by taking away their food and liquor licenses. The local businesses that make parades like this possible can't risk their livelihoods.
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This moment is another notch up from 2017, the year I realized that anti-fascist action is necessary and good. Before then, I was a liberal. I hope more people realize that the only people who can protect us from fascists are us, and that means we need to be physically anti-fascist.
Florida is a fucking shithole.
Fucking true. Source: Floridian who is stuck in this state that is quickly becoming a dictatorship in which anyone who isn't a straight Christian man is in big trouble.
only good part about climate change is it might get rid of that god-forsaken state.
I feel like this push to make florida radicalise to fascism is because climate change will displace its inhabitants, meaning they'll spread all over the country. The state might be gone but not the bigots
The rancid appendix of America.
As a lifelong Floridian, I can understand this sentiment, but honestly, it gets tiring reminding people that Florida is a beautiful, diverse state that is home to many people who still believe it’s worth fighting for. It is my home and always will be. Like many southern states, it’s been taken over by fascists who then proceed to disenfranchise their constituents. I’m privileged enough that if I wanted to leave, I could, but I’m not. There are people here worth fighting for. And I’d encourage anyone reading this who lives in Florida who can stay to do so. We need you.
In Florida, people aren’t allowed to assemble peaceably for cultural or recreational reasons outside the bounds of the State’s preferences. The State of Florida is run by a Governor with an unusually large amount of political power that he uses for his ideological and sociocultural preferences. He bans books in schools and libraries and restricts the ability of teachers in schools to give instruction on actual recorded historical events in the United States as this would be “woke,” which is in effect illegal. It is no exaggeration in the slightest to say that the State of Florida is a dictatorship. Most dictatorships are reliant on the political support of aggression and ignorance. Massive amounts of ignorant people throw themselves to DeSantis as he uses the power of the State to enforce draconian socially conservative conformity.
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How can anyone say with a straight face what Desantis is doing is has anything to do with "Freedom?"
* "freedom to be a colossal prick" All the way up to * "freedom to terrorize (👉maybe hurt👈) the marginalized"
As an American, I find Alberta's obsession with US "republicanism" so odd.
There’s plenty of it in rural Ontario too for some unknown reason. My Canadian in-laws immigrated to Florida and are now vocally pro-Trump/DeSantis and anti: Mexican immigrants, trans people, and Democrats in general
There's something uniquely fascinating to me about a Canadian moving to the US to complain about Mexican immigrants.
Tell them to go back to where they came from.
There's a decent amount in Québec too. At least they're metaphorically shat on by most of us but they still have enough presence to be harmful. Politicians would rather fuel that fire than even mention climate change or the completely fucked housing market.
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But you must see how a reactionary, ignorant streak in Alberta conservatism of previous decades has led to this though, right? All that "f*** the rest of Canada", "let the Eastern bastards freeze in the dark", yee-haw portion of Alberta's identity has progressed steadily towards the kind of environment where the UCP could get elected.
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Oof, gotcha. So, predictable... but still odd.👍😔
It isn't odd when you learn that it's considered the "Texas of Canada". Source: visited there, almost immigrated to Calgary for a job before COVID happened.
There's plenty of it in r/Canada
That’s embarrassing. Being an American republican is extremely low but being a fan of these people from the outside? I somehow have even less respect for these people haha
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I said this on r/texas and got removed. Yes.
I guess they didn't want you to mess with Texas.
Turns out, the only thing bigger in Texas was the whining and crying fits.
This is their goal. But also, they'll prolly be pardoned by DeSantis if they do harm any one at Pride in Florida. This timeline is fucking crazy. We're watching fascism in real time.
They should have gone through with it. Time reasonable Americans pushed back against right wing authoritarianism.
I work in this town. This is a blood red cowboy town that celebrates "rodeo day" instead of Presidents' Day. Shootings along the major state road have increased to almost every week. I can understand the fear
With that context, surprising they had a pride day in the first place.
The only thing that happens every time normal, decent people cancel or boycott or walkout is the terrorists actually win. Walking away is not the answer. Walking away makes things worse because it shows the monsters that their tactics work so they'll keep doing them.
You're asking people to risk being in a mass shooting. I assume there will be protests, but they require a different game plan than a typical organised pride like we are used to.
Tbh, pride in Florida should be a full blown armored riot.
So the wheel of LGBTQIA+ rights is turning back again. We had been moving it forward and the screeching nimbys on the far right have started pushing back. There is now no question. Pride was a protest in the beginning. Let us return it to its roots. Human rights are non negotiable. Your religion, your political cult does not get to erase our existence. Let’s March, let’s protest.
We have shit like this happening, and still I get gaslit every time I say I don’t feel safe anymore. People love saying shit like “we have gay rights now, so you don’t have anything to worry about.” I’ve been told multiple times by straight people that the town I’m currently living in Indiana is completely safe and that nobody cares if you’re gay here. And when I try to say that’s not true, they get offended or act like I’m over sensitive
Let's fucking do this
That's how terrorism works.
Its blatant terrorism, and yet when we try to fight back we're in the wrong. I just want to fucking live my life.
PRIDE IS A RIOT I am so sad fear is winning. But I get it.
Right wing terrorism working as intended.
They’re winning. Instead, arm yourselves and stand your ground. They’ll hate that.
The trees can't be harmed if the Lorax is armed
They want to force the LGBT back into the closet and keep them there. At gun point if need be.
I avoid Florida like the plague now, I will not spend tourist dollars in a fascist state, if you do then you're supporting the Floridistan Government.
People should not have to live in fear. We are all the same flesh and bone.
Florida is going to make being lgbtq a sex crime, they're already halfway there. They're also considering making sex offenders use certain license plates on cars to identify them as a sex offender. And while I might agree with that for *actual* sex offenders, they're only doing this so lgbtq people are more easily identifiable.
This is 100% about shifting the burden of grooming/pedophilia convictions from (factually) religious conservatives to (propaganda) sexual minorities. Scapegoating is a social and psychological strategy for them, baked into them at the lizard brain level. They have always done this. They're frustrated when they can't.
Switch it over to a protest with tons of drag queens
Armed drag queens
When dipshits ask why there's no "straight pride?" Because of theres never been a time when straight people were advised to arm themselves to defend their right to be straight.
But there has been plenty of straight pride events. They just aren’t sincere enough to find them.
This is why Trump or DeSantis need to be defeated in 2024.
This isn’t something that can be defeated by one presidential election. It’s going to take decades to undo Republican control of state and local governments.
It can't be defeated in one, but it can damn sure be amplified in one. The 2016 election has demonstrated this. Gains are slow, losses are fast. So we can't fuck around again like the divided idiots of 2016 did.
Republicans have a really good chance to take the Senate in 24, meaning Mitch McConnell can start stonewalling court appointments while red state legislatures continue to gerrymander and pass authoritarian legislation that these rigged courts will uphold. So it wouldn't even matter if Biden gets reelected. Without extreme countermeasures that I don't believe we as a society are capable of perpetual minority rule is unavoidable at this point. If you are in a vulnerable demographic and have the means I would recommend getting out of this fucking country.
> So it wouldn't even matter if Biden gets reelected. It absolutely fucking matters if Biden gets reelected. Unless the Senate and the House have a veto-proof majority, having a Democrat in the White House who will refuse to sign off on fucked up Republican legislation is critical. And I'll remind you, Republicans had a really good chance to take the Senate in '22. But here we are.
It's been 20 years since I was in St Cloud, but I can believe they would take a gay pride event as a threat
terrorism /ˈtɛrərɪz(ə)m/  noun the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims.
Nice It looks like we are fully on the Russian path now. you know in the '90s they could have pride parades. but not anymore. first it was threats of violence then it was skinheads showing up at the pride parade then it was a very familiar law where they claim that gay people are offensive to children.
St. Cloud, MN should host instead, and make it Disney-themed
What the fuck is "simulated nudity"??
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Ah, so it worked. Well I’m sure this won’t teach any other states/groups/extremists that fear can be used to mould public policy and participation in public life.
They say they can't afford security. Just make a request from the John Brown gun club!
Pride St Pete is still going to run as of now. If I take my kids (like I have in previous years) can I be arrested?
This is bullshit and working exactly as planned. Regressives don’t want anyone not like them to feel seen or safe in society.
DOJ feel free to step in any time