Fighting and Projection

Smoker's Lounge
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So I’ve gotten into a few little scrapes here recently and encountered a phenomenon that I thought was strange so I figured I’d share with you.

So get in a fight with this guy (small fight) and he starts calling me a “Biden blowing racist destroyer of America.” Or something like that.

Ignore his political words I’m trying to make a point.

I am

  1. Not American.
  2. Not a democrat.
  3. Pretty indifferent to American politics.

What I found strange was at the moment of conflict these traits are projected on me to try and turn me into an straw man.

Then he proudly claims to be a trump supporter, like as a weapon of virtue, and as such I am the enemy.
A: doesn’t surprise me
B: how are we so partisan?

“Your politics is different than mine therefore you are subhuman.”

Again, not about politics, but psychology.

I don’t get it. Thoughts?

Don’t turn this political, it’s a serious question.

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Not sure how this thread can avoid politics to be honest. I’d just ignore him, personally.

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Right left doesn’t matter they both do it. So, not political. More like seeing enemies everywhere.

And I’m Canadian ffs. But I guess they don’t know that

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People are easily divided because they can’t see most often both sides are of the same source.

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92d1a5c0-c4ae-11ed-bcf8-bb0f62c4b772

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nah, more like greed. i place greed at the root of all of it. the media found out that sex and violence sells more than wholesome stuff so they show us sex and violence. not the kind that is natural and ok, but extremist, unhealthy views of everything. politicians love it because it makes it easy to control, and it seems that one side has been moving closer toward straight up mafia-type shit since nixon and the other has been purposely self-defeating at certain stages, all because of greed. once they took the limitations off of donations they knew what would happen and here we are.

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Illusion of choice I agree.

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It’s not as if there isn’t a Canadian right and left, and at least to some degree the politics align.

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Oh we have our own crazies up here for sure.

Like I care about American politics. In fact if there was a certain committee re-enacted from the 1950s I’d end up jail.

Anyway, no right answer, just a weird one I came across.

A little fighting is fun, but I prefer my fights to, you know, make sense.

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It’s the old superiority paradigm, it seems everyone looks down on someone for something……human nature I suppose…. Thanks for always trying to bring a little humor into the mix @Foreigner :blush:

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I also got called a feminist, which deeply hurt my feelings :joy:, because he meant to call me a pussy but didn’t have the bus fare.

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I know who you’re talking about, it would be a concern if he will be an Oger in a proper sense which is not. I wouldn’t bother at all, “sticks and stones will brake my bones, but words will never hurt me” … beer3|nullxnull

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Oh I’m not injured by this I just find it tremendously stupid.

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Yes there’s a good chance you know who I’m talking about but I will not name them.

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I think you got the heart of it right there - each “side” has got to the point where they don’t even listen to “the other side”, they simply listen to what “their side” says about “the other side”.

There’s a whole industry dedicated to building up the scary straw men and breaking them down, sells ads like hotcakes. Super dangerous and a big reason why things are so bad in my opinion. I personally blame Stewart era ‘Daily Show’ for the phenomona, getting deep into depressed GenX frustrated by Bush, but one could point to any number of television, radio, or internet personalities for fantastic examples.

I don’t have a great axiom or parable or whatever for it, but advice I’d give anyone is never trust the opinion of someone’s enemy.

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Well shit, I was really hoping you were going to say it didn’t happen here.

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I have an issue with people getting their news from comedy shows but maybe that’s just me.

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I asked for a flag icon near our avatar, that would explain my language barrier :construction: and many other questions, many people think the axis of the :earth_americas: passes through their belly button … frech|nullxnull

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Probably a better source than any “news” channel…

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Joke - “yo momma’s so fat her belt size is equator.”

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