• jballs@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    I live in a red county and am surrounded by conservative neighbors. It’s pretty exhausting hanging out with them, because they’re constantly mad/afraid of something that literally is not happening. A few weeks ago, I had a few too many drinks and told one of them that they need to quit letting things dictate their lives that weren’t real. He didn’t take it very well.

    • Dale@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Yeah, people generally don’t like questioning the version of reality they based their lives on. Too much thinky-work. At least you tried.

      • Asafum@feddit.nl
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        1 year ago

        Especially since “our” reality is just “given” to us by lying MSM, but their reality given to them by Faux News is somehow different…

        Logic, not even once.

        • jballs@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          Not all news sources are created equal and you should always keep in mind what the motivations of sources are when deciding which news to trust. But treating it as if Fox News is the same as reputable sources like AP or Reuters is a pretty bad argument.

          Fox News was literally created with a Republican strategist as the CEO with the goal of reporting news with a conservative bias. They have argued in court that no reasonable person would take their commentators have said on-air as facts. There have been polls showing that Fox News viewers are less informed than people that consume no news sources at all. They recently settled a lawsuit with Dominion Voting Systems for nearly a billion dollars for knowingly spreading falsehoods on-air about the 2020 election.

          At the end of the day, Fox News is a terrible source of information. The response I often hear to this is “well what about CNN?!” To which I’d say, sure don’t watch that either. Try to find a reputable, neutral source like AP or Reuters and you’ll be much happier and well informed since they’re not trying to sell you fake news stories that make you angry and engaged.

        • floofloof@lemmy.ca
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          1 year ago

          Also how Fox News is apparently not “mainstream” despite being one of the most watched corporate news channels all over the USA.

      • A7thStone@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        And if you try to tell them it doesn’t happen they insist their father’s brother’s nephew’s cousin’s former roommate saw it with their own two eyes.

    • CyberDine@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I’ve found the best way to talk to people like this is to come more from a place of caring than from rebuke of the content itself.

      “Dude, you seem really bothered by this stuff. What’s it like living in fear everyday? Assuming all this stuff is true, what can you do about it? If you can’t do anything about it, then why worry all the time? You sure there’s not something else going on that’s causing this upset?”

      A lot of these people who subscribe to extreme views are hurting in ways that are completely unrelated to the extreme content they consume. Most likely some type of trauma or experience or relationship that is resonating with the consumption of this content.

    • slurpeesoforion@startrek.website
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      1 year ago

      I’ve used that opportunity to point them to FOSS and other privacy tools. But most don’t want to take control of their own data. None of them have switched to Arch Linux yet.

  • Margot Robbie@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Despite their love of fearmongering, Fox News also flat out tries to cover up things that are actually happening if it is done by them, like Roger Ailes’ sexual harassment of Fox News’ woman employees.

  • Taniwha420@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    This is Canadians, IMO. It’s like we’ve internalised bureaucracy. I work with volunteers, and I have never met board members more concerned with making rules to prevent things that no one is doing. “Yes. That would be a good rule, IF we were having problems with people doing that thing, but we’re not right now, so let’s table that until that problem actually arises.” Such good imaginations.

    • lugal@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      Nobody says OP is. They might have loved ones who are or be bombarded with links or just following media critics or anything.

      • Senex@reddthat.com
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        1 year ago

        I spent an afternoon at my in-laws, who watch Fox 24/7, fact checking the nonsense spouted. They were not happy with me.

      • hydrospanner@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I really only get this shit third-hand (occasional visits to my parents, and they tell me about the stupid shit said by one of their close friends, who has the crazy fears and politics put into her head by her Trumper son), and it’s exhausting then.

        I cannot imagine living an existence where I’m subjected to it daily.

        I’m very thankful that I work in an office where political shit is expressly forbidden, that at my last job, my Trumper coworkers usually at least tried to keep it to themselves, and the one job I worked with a true conservative lunatic (like…it would be zero surprise to me if I saw the news tomorrow that he’d shot up a place or barricaded himself in his home and had a standoff with govt agents) was well before the trump era.

    • TheJims@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Where else are you going to find deals on colostomy bags and shitty pillows?

    • BitingChaos@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Yeah, like the white replacement theory, the “Biden Crime Family” led by an old man that is somehow a criminal mastermind at the same time he isn’t mentally competent, or how someone is coming to take our guns away, or the liberal teachers turning their students gay, or all those stolen elections, or the dozens of other stuff normal people laugh at conservatives for blindly believing in like a bunch of sheep.

      • SupraMario@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I’m with you on everything but the whole guns thing…they most definitely are always try to take firearms. You’re naive if you think otherwise.

        • starman2112@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          Ooohhh nooo big bad Biden come to take our guns away

          Member that time he said to bypass due process and confiscate any gun with a bump stock immediately?

          Oh wait that was the other septagenarian

          • Caradoc879@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Seriously, these fucking people. Very few democrats that people take seriously are advocating for taking away guns like Trump did. Gun control? Absofuckinglutely, but if you don’t believe in gun control you shouldn’t believe in drivers licenses or criminal background checks or any other kind of government regulations, either. Like moronic libertarians.

            • starman2112@sh.itjust.works
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              1 year ago

              What’s next, a license to make toast in your own damn toaster?

              Either I peed off some libertarians or /s is needed

            • SupraMario@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              I can buy a car without background checks, I can buy any car I want at any age without a license, I can transport it anywhere in the country, and can drive it on private property without insurance or a license.

              Can’t do that shit with firearms, so please stop with your ignorance about gun control.

              • CareHare@sh.itjust.works
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                1 year ago

                Yes, also cars are a problem too, thank you for pointing this out. There are way too many cars, it’s unsustainable. Not even talking about the earth right now, motorways with fucking 8 lanes and there’s still traffic.

                Also: cars don’t fit in your pocket and can mow down everyone in a small room without warning. Usually manslaughter requires a lot more noise and at least some kind of runway to build up speed.

                Please stop with your ignorance about gun control.

                • SupraMario@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  Yea cause electric cars are quite…and guns are super quiet…lol

                  I’m all for mass transit btw…but that isn’t what we’re arguing about here.

              • PersnickityPenguin@lemm.ee
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                1 year ago

                Guns and cars are two totally different things.

                They are so different that any comparison between the two is moot.

          • SupraMario@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Remember the AWB?

            O and where did the OP say anything about shit Republicans encroaching on the 2nd?

            Want some more whataboutism?

        • Soulg@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          They’ve been coming for your guns for decades. And are not even one step closer.

          So either you’re wrong, or the people coming for them are so absurdly incompetent that you have nothing to fear. And I’m saying that as someone that absolutely supports them coming for your guns.

        • SuperDuper@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          they most definitely are always try to take firearms.

          Republican president Donald Trump passed the most comprehensive federal gun control law in decades, and he did so through executive order without Congress passing any laws.

          • Haywire@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            And Obama eased restrictions on guns in National Parks, but those are just facts not feelings.

          • SupraMario@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Yep and he’s a fuckin dick and so are the other Republican trash heaps who act like they’re pro2a. The Republicans aren’t for the 2nd.

              • Zeppo@sh.itjust.works
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                1 year ago

                There’s the paradox of American politics. You can vote for people who are probably fucking you over somehow, or someone who can’t ever win.

        • Caradoc879@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Lol are you fucking daft? Look up “Trump gun quote”. He literally talks about taking guns away. Something no democratic president has ever said.

        • Manifish_Destiny@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I’ve lost a handful of rights over the last couple years, and none of them have anything to do with owning guns. Maybe you’re worried about the wrong things.

        • floofloof@lemmy.ca
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          1 year ago

          We’re going to take the firearms first and then go to court, because that’s another system. Because a lot of times by the time you go to court … it takes so long to go to court to get the due process procedures. I like taking the guns early…

          -Donald Trump, 2018.

          • Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org
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            1 year ago

            That…doesn’t contradict what he said, at all. All it shows is that Trump counts among the “they” in question. And I don’t think anyone has ever claimed Trump was strong on 2A stuff. TBF, Trumps not strong on anything other than finding ways to bill the federal government for his secret service detail projecting him.

            It’s really generally a bad idea to assume all of someone’s positions based on one of their positions. Real people don’t work that way.

        • Zeppo@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          Right, so the hilarious way conservatives fucked themselves and each other by stockpiling ammo and paying 5x the regular price for it because of OBAMA was a really smart move.

      • BearWolf@lemmings.world
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        1 year ago

        Look all I am saying is that these things are not happening. It’s a good thing they’re happening were they possibly to happen and in some ways they have happened and this is a good thing but not in the exact ways that the chuds are worried about so it’s silly of them to be worried about these things that are simply not happening and it’s good they’re happening if they were to happen which is my hope but just to state very clearly are currently presently not taking place in the ways specifically described.

          • uberkalden@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            He’s saying liberals or whoever the Boogeyman of the day is, are actively working to enact the things fox news is yelling about. So it doesn’t matter that the things haven’t happened, because the bad people are trying to do it.

            Of course, this usually comes down to one of two things. No, “the bad people” aren’t trying to do anything and they aren’t bad. Or, the thing they are doing is being misrepresented to scare the audience.

          • BearWolf@lemmings.world
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            1 year ago

            It’s dangerous misinformation to say that these things I am campaigning for to happen and would be good if they happened are actually happening.

            So just relax, turn off Tucker Carlson, have some calming camomile tea because the thing that isn’t happening is about to start happening soon because I used all my political power to make it happen but it’s not happening at this moment so it’s dangerous misinformation to say it is happening.