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comment by kleinbl00
kleinbl00  ·  1536 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: I didn't punch a Nazi, and I'm not sure how I feel about that.

Maybe August 2016 I was waiting in line at LAX. Which, if you've never done it, don't; it's a sea of ill-prepared humanity attempting to queue up for inspection by the most hateful, jaded and bitter people on earth. Anyway, way in the back of that queue was a fat kid from the Inland Empire wearing a MAGA hat.

He couldn't keep his eyes off the crowd. He was meeting everyone's gaze. There is nothing that little shit wanted more than to own the libs. He wanted someone to validate his hatred of Los Angeles, that liberal shithole, so that he could tell all his buddies tales of daring-do and rhetorical mastery. He needed someone to jump-start his self-started career as a crusader for Real America.

A couple people gave him dirty looks. Most people ignored him. Because yeah. We get it. Your values are anathema to us and ours are to you. Ain't nobody there gonna gain any wisdom from any interaction 'cuz we've all got our spurs on. What did he take from his adventure at LAX? Probably that the burgers are expensive and TSA is surly. Maybe that we were all too pussy to take on him, a chubby 16-year-old from Indio or whatever. That's fine.

You cannot destroy ideas through violence. This is something the Right has never understood while the Left grasps intrinsically - ideas are destroyed through parody and mockery and the minute you have to stop and get out of your car to engage, you've already lost. Your beef isn't that he's dressing like a Proud Boy it's that he's thinking like a Proud Boy and the more persecuted he is, the more he'll cling to it. Mormons don't send their kids on Mission in order to recruit more mormons. They send their kids on Mission to clinch them as Mormons because there is nothing that makes you feel as alone as having the world turn on you. Spend a few months having doors slammed in your face and you will know who your true friends are.

A lone Proud Boy in Seattle doesn't need his ass kicked. He needs to have coffee with a black drag queen.





Quatrarius  ·  1536 days ago  ·  link  ·  

i've kinda been following your comments around today but i just wanted to jump on the LAX hate

a tsa guy groped me when i was going through security, in that he snapped at me for doing something wrong (i took my shoes off when i didn't need to, or something similarly grave (which i had learned to do when i exited LAX initially when i flew in), and then grabbed at my breasts while giving me a patdown

my initial version of this comment had more "kinda"s and "?"s in it because i have difficulty asserting that experience apparently but it made me deeply uncomfortable and was the first time i ever felt threatened in the way that women feel threatened, not including catcalling from cars. i just remember walking away feeling really angry and greasy

fuck em

kleinbl00  ·  1536 days ago  ·  link  ·  

It's gonna take some doing for me to say anything positive about the TSA. It's gonna take more doing for me to say anything positive about LAX.

goobster  ·  1535 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    "...Your beef isn't that he's dressing like a Proud Boy it's that he's thinking like a Proud Boy ..."

I don't honestly care what's in his head. He's probably just a sad little internet troll looking for attention.

But he has wrapped himself in a flag of hate, and is walking up and down the street in my town.

He's committed to the iconography to elicit a reaction from genuinely nice people.

In Germany, people go to jail for showing the swastika. They've drawn the line clearly and definitively, and enforce it vigorously.

Our Constitution doesn't allow for that; but simple manners and society requires us to enforce our standards in other ways. Sadly, the actions available to an individual, on the spot, without preparation or tools, are limited. And violence is easy.

Yuck.