Backlash from Michael Thomas, among others, forces Drew Brees to clarify comments

AsylumGuido · 06-10-2020, 04:28 PM

Originally Posted by dizzle88

That I can agree with, working for the NHS, I see people react badly every day lol

Never knew you were NHS. Hats off to you for sure. Especially during these times. My wife has spent the past 35 years in or closely connected to the hospital industry and I spent my last 17.5 years before retiring.

AsylumGuido · 06-10-2020, 04:29 PM

Originally Posted by spkb25

Drew Brees believes exactly as he first stated. Does Brees is afraid of tarnishing his reputation and opportunity to be on TV after football since this is his final season. Drew Brees is a coward.

Any man that says someone needs to STFU for stating their opinion is a P who is incapable of holding his emotions.

Everything else surrounding the topic is BS and some people like that. They really enjoy being lied to, tickles them down deep.

And in comes the voice of no reason.

LOL!

jonnyrotten · 06-10-2020, 05:20 PM

I have been on this forum forever, mostly in the background listening. Here is something I feel i need to state regarding this situation and the situation in America today regarding "divisiveness". To me, there is a real simple solution.

Remove labels.

We label everything, I am black, I am white, he's a racist, she's a bigot, I'm a 1 on Enneagram. It never ends. We use these labels to define us and to make excuses for terrible behavior. "That's just who I am and i won't apologize for it" .... etc.

Every single person on this planet has the ability to change, change and love are choices, plain and simple.

People make the right choices and CHOOSE to love instead of hate is the ONLY way the world will change for the better, regardless of race, religion, enneagram number, etc.

AsylumGuido · 06-10-2020, 05:58 PM

Originally Posted by jonnyrotten

I have been on this forum forever, mostly in the background listening. Here is something I feel i need to state regarding this situation and the situation in America today regarding "divisiveness". To me, there is a real simple solution.

Remove labels.

We label everything, I am black, I am white, he's a racist, she's a bigot, I'm a 1 on Enneagram. It never ends. We use these labels to define us and to make excuses for terrible behavior. "That's just who I am and i won't apologize for it" .... etc.

Every single person on this planet has the ability to change, change and love are choices, plain and simple.

People make the right choices and CHOOSE to love instead of hate is the ONLY way the world will change for the better, regardless of race, religion, enneagram number, etc.

Dead on, jonny. And get with me offline. My son performs there in Nashville. Like you to go check him out.

neugey · 06-10-2020, 07:09 PM

Originally Posted by jonnyrotten

I have been on this forum forever, mostly in the background listening. Here is something I feel i need to state regarding this situation and the situation in America today regarding "divisiveness". To me, there is a real simple solution.

Remove labels.

We label everything, I am black, I am white, he's a racist, she's a bigot, I'm a 1 on Enneagram. It never ends. We use these labels to define us and to make excuses for terrible behavior. "That's just who I am and i won't apologize for it" .... etc.

Every single person on this planet has the ability to change, change and love are choices, plain and simple.

People make the right choices and CHOOSE to love instead of hate is the ONLY way the world will change for the better, regardless of race, religion, enneagram number, etc.

I despise being labeled as well. Except as a WhoDat. That one is cool.

spkb25 · 06-11-2020, 03:20 PM

Originally Posted by AsylumGuido

And in comes the voice of no reason.

LOL!

Youre definitely in love with being lied to and believing BS. Youre completely FOS about yourself so it sort of fits

AsylumGuido · 06-11-2020, 03:55 PM

Originally Posted by spkb25

Youre definitely in love with being lied to and believing BS. Youre completely FOS about yourself so it sort of fits

And you go through life believing everyone lies to you and everyone is full of bullsh!t. Guess who clearly lives a happier existence.

saintfan · 06-11-2020, 05:48 PM

Originally Posted by jonnyrotten

I have been on this forum forever, mostly in the background listening. Here is something I feel i need to state regarding this situation and the situation in America today regarding "divisiveness". To me, there is a real simple solution.

Remove labels.

We label everything, I am black, I am white, he's a racist, she's a bigot, I'm a 1 on Enneagram. It never ends. We use these labels to define us and to make excuses for terrible behavior. "That's just who I am and i won't apologize for it" .... etc.

Every single person on this planet has the ability to change, change and love are choices, plain and simple.

People make the right choices and CHOOSE to love instead of hate is the ONLY way the world will change for the better, regardless of race, religion, enneagram number, etc.

Ah, but in a perfect world...

Labels are just names - a means to reference something. I see the problem as a bit deeper. It's not Labels, its people wearing their feelings on their sleeves and feeling justification in being offended and feeling entitled enough to actually believe everyone else should accommodate their emotion.

The world has NEVER worked that way, nor will it ever.

Ability to change does not equate into willingness. Some people have very deep rooted psychological reasons for their issues...racism in this case. Some people actually justify their position, as if it could ever be, and these people are both white and black and Asian and Hispanic etc.

The Beats didn't solve a damn thing. Neither did the Hippies, and neither did the SDS or the Weather Underground. When the dust settles, there will not be a separate jurisdiction in Seattle. The police will still exist. So will racism. For those who think I'm being a bit defeatist, as my grandmother would have said, "hide and watch."

You won't find many well thought out opinions on the street. You will find people spewing whatever their "news" source tells them to spew. These "news" sources are in the can for a political persuasion. Wash, rinse, and repeat. As long as we, the people, allow our politicians to create discord as a means to divide and get elected then we have the government we deserve and thus the society we deserve. The solution will NOT arrive through legislation. The problem is far greater.

How then do we solve the problem? I don't know. What "I" am doing is reading with my kids. Right now I'm reading "Killing England" to them. I don't want them to hear all the rhetoric about the founders being bad men because (and precisely because) some of them owned slaves. That's a red herring. I want them to know what was risked by those men, and I want them to see how, while not perfect, they created the greatest government in human history. They're sure as hell not going to learn it in school.

I'm also reading a book about an African American family who moved from the north back to the south (to live with the grandmother) in the 50s. I want my kids to know where the filter through which black people view the world comes from. I want them to have compassion for everyone's experience and to be considerate when they encounter what may be to them a foreign view. It's not about right or wrong. It's only about compassion.

I also want my kids to recognize a person who is beyond their ability to relate or help or console. Those people exist. They are not worth the effort. Best to smile, recognize the crazy, and move along...but that's another story...

I don't know what else to do. I am not a social justice warrior. I never will be, and in today's political climate that's an indictment. Whatever. The truth is I see it getting worse. We cannot freely express ourselves anymore in America, and that's disturbing. People seem to believe they have a right to be gloriously unoffended. Its not their fault. Everything they see and hear tells them they have this right...but they do not. None of us do.

Honestly a great place to start would be to turn off the TV. Read. Let your own mind form your own opinions rather than being dog-whistled into a viewpoint because your political affiliation. That way you can actually have an informed conversation with the opposition in a way that forces the other side to take you seriously. The problem is that requires work. Nobody wants to do the work...

AsylumGuido · 06-11-2020, 06:08 PM

Originally Posted by saintfan

Ah, but in a perfect world...

.......

Honestly a great place to start would be to turn off the TV. Read. Let your own mind form your own opinions rather than being dog-whistled into a viewpoint because your political affiliation. That way you can actually have an informed conversation with the opposition in a way that forces the other side to take you seriously. The problem is that requires work. Nobody wants to do the work...

This is it in a nutshell. Very nice post, saintfan!

burningmetal · 06-12-2020, 12:21 AM

Originally Posted by saintfan

Ah, but in a perfect world...

Labels are just names - a means to reference something. I see the problem as a bit deeper. It's not Labels, its people wearing their feelings on their sleeves and feeling justification in being offended and feeling entitled enough to actually believe everyone else should accommodate their emotion.

The world has NEVER worked that way, nor will it ever.

Ability to change does not equate into willingness. Some people have very deep rooted psychological reasons for their issues...racism in this case. Some people actually justify their position, as if it could ever be, and these people are both white and black and Asian and Hispanic etc.

The Beats didn't solve a damn thing. Neither did the Hippies, and neither did the SDS or the Weather Underground. When the dust settles, there will not be a separate jurisdiction in Seattle. The police will still exist. So will racism. For those who think I'm being a bit defeatist, as my grandmother would have said, "hide and watch."

You won't find many well thought out opinions on the street. You will find people spewing whatever their "news" source tells them to spew. These "news" sources are in the can for a political persuasion. Wash, rinse, and repeat. As long as we, the people, allow our politicians to create discord as a means to divide and get elected then we have the government we deserve and thus the society we deserve. The solution will NOT arrive through legislation. The problem is far greater.

How then do we solve the problem? I don't know. What "I" am doing is reading with my kids. Right now I'm reading "Killing England" to them. I don't want them to hear all the rhetoric about the founders being bad men because (and precisely because) some of them owned slaves. That's a red herring. I want them to know what was risked by those men, and I want them to see how, while not perfect, they created the greatest government in human history. They're sure as hell not going to learn it in school.

I'm also reading a book about an African American family who moved from the north back to the south (to live with the grandmother) in the 50s. I want my kids to know where the filter through which black people view the world comes from. I want them to have compassion for everyone's experience and to be considerate when they encounter what may be to them a foreign view. It's not about right or wrong. It's only about compassion.

I also want my kids to recognize a person who is beyond their ability to relate or help or console. Those people exist. They are not worth the effort. Best to smile, recognize the crazy, and move along...but that's another story...

I don't know what else to do. I am not a social justice warrior. I never will be, and in today's political climate that's an indictment. Whatever. The truth is I see it getting worse. We cannot freely express ourselves anymore in America, and that's disturbing. People seem to believe they have a right to be gloriously unoffended. Its not their fault. Everything they see and hear tells them they have this right...but they do not. None of us do.

Honestly a great place to start would be to turn off the TV. Read. Let your own mind form your own opinions rather than being dog-whistled into a viewpoint because your political affiliation. That way you can actually have an informed conversation with the opposition in a way that forces the other side to take you seriously. The problem is that requires work. Nobody wants to do the work...

Your last sentence is what gets me, and I keep seeing it. I don't think it's true, at all, that no one wants to do the work. I also don't believe that because people don't agree, it automatically means they are responding to a dog whistle. You and I are in a majority of ways aligned in our opinions. But what I keep seeing repeated, here, and elsewhere, is that essentially we are too busy arguing to feel compassion. I can see that lack of compassion coming from the fools in the streets, but not from those of us who are trying to reason with people.

And I think the idea of sticking to the facts, regardless of how anyone "feels" about them is more important than appearing compassionate. I have compassion. It breaks my heart to see the people who have, through no fault of their own, been caught in the middle of the madness and had their lives ruined. And it is for this very reason that I refuse to stop pointing out the facts. Allowing the rhetoric to continue is not going to educate anyone to the foolishness of equating one bad act to an entire system of racism. We don't even know that Derek Chauvin, himself, is a racist. We don't know what his motivations were. Now I know that some will be quick to say "oh, but there are other instances of cops killing blacks". Sure, and more white people are killed by cops than black people are, DESPITE that blacks unfortunately commit far more crimes. That is simply a statement of fact, and I know your opinions plenty well enough to know that you would agree with that. There is no such thing as systemic racism. There are pockets of racism, here and there, and frankly there is just as much black racism as there is white racism, THESE days.

I read something Rezburna said the other day, that was so frustrating to read that I wondered if there was any point in trying to address it. On the subject of "division", he asked when there was a time that we WEREN'T divided. Which totally misses the point. When people like MLK were fighting REAL racism and oppression, there was obviously a great divide. But after that movement, society started to change for the better, at least as far as "race" relations were concerned. But it was right about that time that the Democratic party started working to pulverize black families through systematic demoralization. Instead of letting the black families grow and thrive with their new found freedoms, they were offered free "stuff", minority quotas, and told that they couldn't make it on their own, because the system was still against them. They (still talking about the Democrats) promised to fix whatever it was that they claimed was broken but, for 50 years, have not lifted a finger.

And who do they blame? White people. Specifically, white conservatives. So why did Rezburna's question miss the mark, in my opinion? Because, more than 50 years after the civil rights movement, most white people today barely even know what the big issue was with racism, anyway. They've moved on. But because of the lies the black community has been fed for decades, a great many of them continue to blame white people for their problems TODAY, which have nothing to do with 50 plus years ago. So those who have bought into these lies don't trust white people, and white people, in turn, are often suspicious of black people, even though they have no hatred towards them. My point: We DON'T HAVE to have a divide. But when people blurt out this nonsense narrative the NFL players, BLM, celebrities and the media are pushing, it drives this divide.

I don't know how I, or anyone else, can "compassionately" fight lies that hurt this country, if what we're trying to do right now is anything otherwise. We can't wrap truth in heart covered paper. God said we are to love our neighbors. He even said we are to love our enemies. Love, however, doesn't mean coddling people and meeting them halfway in a lie. I'm all for peaceful resolution, and meaningful conversations. But if every conversation has the precondition that I must first accept the lies of my opponent and work my way toward a "solution" for said lies, then there is no reason to have that conversation. "Systemic" racism is not supported by real life statistics. The common enemy of the public, is the media. They suppress the truth. But a great many of us, contrary to what you said before, ARE able to inform themselves. But when is the "other side" going to make the same effort? That's the real question. I'm seeing a lot of black folks speaking out against this narrative. I'll fight for, and with them. These are people who want to make it, and HAVE made it in life, through their hard work; not waiting on reparations for things of the past that have nothing to do with most people alive today.

Until all people are ready to confront FACTS, and not just their feelings, no one can solve anyone's problems, in my opinion.

06-10-2020, 04:28 PM	#261
AsylumGuido 10000 POST CLUB Join Date: Sep 2007 Location: Bossier City, LA Posts: 26,274	Re: Backlash from Michael Thomas, among others, forces Drew Brees to clarify comments Originally Posted by dizzle88 That I can agree with, working for the NHS, I see people react badly every day lol Never knew you were NHS. Hats off to you for sure. Especially during these times. My wife has spent the past 35 years in or closely connected to the hospital industry and I spent my last 17.5 years before retiring. dizzle88 and OldMaid like this.

06-10-2020, 04:29 PM	#262
AsylumGuido 10000 POST CLUB Join Date: Sep 2007 Location: Bossier City, LA Posts: 26,274	Re: Backlash from Michael Thomas, among others, forces Drew Brees to clarify comments Originally Posted by spkb25 Drew Brees believes exactly as he first stated. Does Brees is afraid of tarnishing his reputation and opportunity to be on TV after football since this is his final season. Drew Brees is a coward. Any man that says someone needs to STFU for stating their opinion is a P who is incapable of holding his emotions. Everything else surrounding the topic is BS and some people like that. They really enjoy being lied to, tickles them down deep. And in comes the voice of no reason. LOL!

06-10-2020, 05:20 PM	#263
jonnyrotten 500th Post Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Nashville Posts: 511	Re: Backlash from Michael Thomas, among others, forces Drew Brees to clarify comments I have been on this forum forever, mostly in the background listening. Here is something I feel i need to state regarding this situation and the situation in America today regarding "divisiveness". To me, there is a real simple solution. Remove labels. We label everything, I am black, I am white, he's a racist, she's a bigot, I'm a 1 on Enneagram. It never ends. We use these labels to define us and to make excuses for terrible behavior. "That's just who I am and i won't apologize for it" .... etc. Every single person on this planet has the ability to change, change and love are choices, plain and simple. People make the right choices and CHOOSE to love instead of hate is the ONLY way the world will change for the better, regardless of race, religion, enneagram number, etc. Danno, neugey, AsylumGuido and 8 others like this.

06-10-2020, 05:58 PM	#264
AsylumGuido 10000 POST CLUB Join Date: Sep 2007 Location: Bossier City, LA Posts: 26,274	Re: Backlash from Michael Thomas, among others, forces Drew Brees to clarify comments Originally Posted by jonnyrotten I have been on this forum forever, mostly in the background listening. Here is something I feel i need to state regarding this situation and the situation in America today regarding "divisiveness". To me, there is a real simple solution. Remove labels. We label everything, I am black, I am white, he's a racist, she's a bigot, I'm a 1 on Enneagram. It never ends. We use these labels to define us and to make excuses for terrible behavior. "That's just who I am and i won't apologize for it" .... etc. Every single person on this planet has the ability to change, change and love are choices, plain and simple. People make the right choices and CHOOSE to love instead of hate is the ONLY way the world will change for the better, regardless of race, religion, enneagram number, etc. Dead on, jonny. And get with me offline. My son performs there in Nashville. Like you to go check him out.

06-10-2020, 07:09 PM	#265
neugey Hu Dat! Join Date: Dec 2004 Posts: 6,715 Blog Entries: 13	Re: Backlash from Michael Thomas, among others, forces Drew Brees to clarify comments Originally Posted by jonnyrotten I have been on this forum forever, mostly in the background listening. Here is something I feel i need to state regarding this situation and the situation in America today regarding "divisiveness". To me, there is a real simple solution. Remove labels. We label everything, I am black, I am white, he's a racist, she's a bigot, I'm a 1 on Enneagram. It never ends. We use these labels to define us and to make excuses for terrible behavior. "That's just who I am and i won't apologize for it" .... etc. Every single person on this planet has the ability to change, change and love are choices, plain and simple. People make the right choices and CHOOSE to love instead of hate is the ONLY way the world will change for the better, regardless of race, religion, enneagram number, etc. I despise being labeled as well. Except as a WhoDat. That one is cool.

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06-11-2020, 03:20 PM	#266
spkb25 10000 POST CLUB Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Baltimore, MD Posts: 13,101	Re: Backlash from Michael Thomas, among others, forces Drew Brees to clarify comments Originally Posted by AsylumGuido And in comes the voice of no reason. LOL! Youre definitely in love with being lied to and believing BS. Youre completely FOS about yourself so it sort of fits

06-11-2020, 03:55 PM	#267
AsylumGuido 10000 POST CLUB Join Date: Sep 2007 Location: Bossier City, LA Posts: 26,274	Re: Backlash from Michael Thomas, among others, forces Drew Brees to clarify comments Originally Posted by spkb25 Youre definitely in love with being lied to and believing BS. Youre completely FOS about yourself so it sort of fits And you go through life believing everyone lies to you and everyone is full of bullsh!t. Guess who clearly lives a happier existence.

06-11-2020, 05:48 PM	#268
saintfan Donated Plasma Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: San Francisco, CA Posts: 18,556 Blog Entries: 5	Re: Backlash from Michael Thomas, among others, forces Drew Brees to clarify comments Originally Posted by jonnyrotten I have been on this forum forever, mostly in the background listening. Here is something I feel i need to state regarding this situation and the situation in America today regarding "divisiveness". To me, there is a real simple solution. Remove labels. We label everything, I am black, I am white, he's a racist, she's a bigot, I'm a 1 on Enneagram. It never ends. We use these labels to define us and to make excuses for terrible behavior. "That's just who I am and i won't apologize for it" .... etc. Every single person on this planet has the ability to change, change and love are choices, plain and simple. People make the right choices and CHOOSE to love instead of hate is the ONLY way the world will change for the better, regardless of race, religion, enneagram number, etc. Ah, but in a perfect world... Labels are just names - a means to reference something. I see the problem as a bit deeper. It's not Labels, its people wearing their feelings on their sleeves and feeling justification in being offended and feeling entitled enough to actually believe everyone else should accommodate their emotion. The world has NEVER worked that way, nor will it ever. Ability to change does not equate into willingness. Some people have very deep rooted psychological reasons for their issues...racism in this case. Some people actually justify their position, as if it could ever be, and these people are both white and black and Asian and Hispanic etc. The Beats didn't solve a damn thing. Neither did the Hippies, and neither did the SDS or the Weather Underground. When the dust settles, there will not be a separate jurisdiction in Seattle. The police will still exist. So will racism. For those who think I'm being a bit defeatist, as my grandmother would have said, "hide and watch." You won't find many well thought out opinions on the street. You will find people spewing whatever their "news" source tells them to spew. These "news" sources are in the can for a political persuasion. Wash, rinse, and repeat. As long as we, the people, allow our politicians to create discord as a means to divide and get elected then we have the government we deserve and thus the society we deserve. The solution will NOT arrive through legislation. The problem is far greater. How then do we solve the problem? I don't know. What "I" am doing is reading with my kids. Right now I'm reading "Killing England" to them. I don't want them to hear all the rhetoric about the founders being bad men because (and precisely because) some of them owned slaves. That's a red herring. I want them to know what was risked by those men, and I want them to see how, while not perfect, they created the greatest government in human history. They're sure as hell not going to learn it in school. I'm also reading a book about an African American family who moved from the north back to the south (to live with the grandmother) in the 50s. I want my kids to know where the filter through which black people view the world comes from. I want them to have compassion for everyone's experience and to be considerate when they encounter what may be to them a foreign view. It's not about right or wrong. It's only about compassion. I also want my kids to recognize a person who is beyond their ability to relate or help or console. Those people exist. They are not worth the effort. Best to smile, recognize the crazy, and move along...but that's another story... I don't know what else to do. I am not a social justice warrior. I never will be, and in today's political climate that's an indictment. Whatever. The truth is I see it getting worse. We cannot freely express ourselves anymore in America, and that's disturbing. People seem to believe they have a right to be gloriously unoffended. Its not their fault. Everything they see and hear tells them they have this right...but they do not. None of us do. Honestly a great place to start would be to turn off the TV. Read. Let your own mind form your own opinions rather than being dog-whistled into a viewpoint because your political affiliation. That way you can actually have an informed conversation with the opposition in a way that forces the other side to take you seriously. The problem is that requires work. Nobody wants to do the work... neugey, jonnyrotten and AsylumGuido like this.
	C'mon Man...

06-11-2020, 06:08 PM	#269
AsylumGuido 10000 POST CLUB Join Date: Sep 2007 Location: Bossier City, LA Posts: 26,274	Re: Backlash from Michael Thomas, among others, forces Drew Brees to clarify comments Originally Posted by saintfan Ah, but in a perfect world... ....... Honestly a great place to start would be to turn off the TV. Read. Let your own mind form your own opinions rather than being dog-whistled into a viewpoint because your political affiliation. That way you can actually have an informed conversation with the opposition in a way that forces the other side to take you seriously. The problem is that requires work. Nobody wants to do the work... This is it in a nutshell. Very nice post, saintfan!

06-12-2020, 12:21 AM	#270
burningmetal 1000 Posts + Join Date: Mar 2012 Posts: 3,923 Blog Entries: 3	Re: Backlash from Michael Thomas, among others, forces Drew Brees to clarify comments Originally Posted by saintfan Ah, but in a perfect world... Labels are just names - a means to reference something. I see the problem as a bit deeper. It's not Labels, its people wearing their feelings on their sleeves and feeling justification in being offended and feeling entitled enough to actually believe everyone else should accommodate their emotion. The world has NEVER worked that way, nor will it ever. Ability to change does not equate into willingness. Some people have very deep rooted psychological reasons for their issues...racism in this case. Some people actually justify their position, as if it could ever be, and these people are both white and black and Asian and Hispanic etc. The Beats didn't solve a damn thing. Neither did the Hippies, and neither did the SDS or the Weather Underground. When the dust settles, there will not be a separate jurisdiction in Seattle. The police will still exist. So will racism. For those who think I'm being a bit defeatist, as my grandmother would have said, "hide and watch." You won't find many well thought out opinions on the street. You will find people spewing whatever their "news" source tells them to spew. These "news" sources are in the can for a political persuasion. Wash, rinse, and repeat. As long as we, the people, allow our politicians to create discord as a means to divide and get elected then we have the government we deserve and thus the society we deserve. The solution will NOT arrive through legislation. The problem is far greater. How then do we solve the problem? I don't know. What "I" am doing is reading with my kids. Right now I'm reading "Killing England" to them. I don't want them to hear all the rhetoric about the founders being bad men because (and precisely because) some of them owned slaves. That's a red herring. I want them to know what was risked by those men, and I want them to see how, while not perfect, they created the greatest government in human history. They're sure as hell not going to learn it in school. I'm also reading a book about an African American family who moved from the north back to the south (to live with the grandmother) in the 50s. I want my kids to know where the filter through which black people view the world comes from. I want them to have compassion for everyone's experience and to be considerate when they encounter what may be to them a foreign view. It's not about right or wrong. It's only about compassion. I also want my kids to recognize a person who is beyond their ability to relate or help or console. Those people exist. They are not worth the effort. Best to smile, recognize the crazy, and move along...but that's another story... I don't know what else to do. I am not a social justice warrior. I never will be, and in today's political climate that's an indictment. Whatever. The truth is I see it getting worse. We cannot freely express ourselves anymore in America, and that's disturbing. People seem to believe they have a right to be gloriously unoffended. Its not their fault. Everything they see and hear tells them they have this right...but they do not. None of us do. Honestly a great place to start would be to turn off the TV. Read. Let your own mind form your own opinions rather than being dog-whistled into a viewpoint because your political affiliation. That way you can actually have an informed conversation with the opposition in a way that forces the other side to take you seriously. The problem is that requires work. Nobody wants to do the work... Your last sentence is what gets me, and I keep seeing it. I don't think it's true, at all, that no one wants to do the work. I also don't believe that because people don't agree, it automatically means they are responding to a dog whistle. You and I are in a majority of ways aligned in our opinions. But what I keep seeing repeated, here, and elsewhere, is that essentially we are too busy arguing to feel compassion. I can see that lack of compassion coming from the fools in the streets, but not from those of us who are trying to reason with people. And I think the idea of sticking to the facts, regardless of how anyone "feels" about them is more important than appearing compassionate. I have compassion. It breaks my heart to see the people who have, through no fault of their own, been caught in the middle of the madness and had their lives ruined. And it is for this very reason that I refuse to stop pointing out the facts. Allowing the rhetoric to continue is not going to educate anyone to the foolishness of equating one bad act to an entire system of racism. We don't even know that Derek Chauvin, himself, is a racist. We don't know what his motivations were. Now I know that some will be quick to say "oh, but there are other instances of cops killing blacks". Sure, and more white people are killed by cops than black people are, DESPITE that blacks unfortunately commit far more crimes. That is simply a statement of fact, and I know your opinions plenty well enough to know that you would agree with that. There is no such thing as systemic racism. There are pockets of racism, here and there, and frankly there is just as much black racism as there is white racism, THESE days. I read something Rezburna said the other day, that was so frustrating to read that I wondered if there was any point in trying to address it. On the subject of "division", he asked when there was a time that we WEREN'T divided. Which totally misses the point. When people like MLK were fighting REAL racism and oppression, there was obviously a great divide. But after that movement, society started to change for the better, at least as far as "race" relations were concerned. But it was right about that time that the Democratic party started working to pulverize black families through systematic demoralization. Instead of letting the black families grow and thrive with their new found freedoms, they were offered free "stuff", minority quotas, and told that they couldn't make it on their own, because the system was still against them. They (still talking about the Democrats) promised to fix whatever it was that they claimed was broken but, for 50 years, have not lifted a finger. And who do they blame? White people. Specifically, white conservatives. So why did Rezburna's question miss the mark, in my opinion? Because, more than 50 years after the civil rights movement, most white people today barely even know what the big issue was with racism, anyway. They've moved on. But because of the lies the black community has been fed for decades, a great many of them continue to blame white people for their problems TODAY, which have nothing to do with 50 plus years ago. So those who have bought into these lies don't trust white people, and white people, in turn, are often suspicious of black people, even though they have no hatred towards them. My point: We DON'T HAVE to have a divide. But when people blurt out this nonsense narrative the NFL players, BLM, celebrities and the media are pushing, it drives this divide. I don't know how I, or anyone else, can "compassionately" fight lies that hurt this country, if what we're trying to do right now is anything otherwise. We can't wrap truth in heart covered paper. God said we are to love our neighbors. He even said we are to love our enemies. Love, however, doesn't mean coddling people and meeting them halfway in a lie. I'm all for peaceful resolution, and meaningful conversations. But if every conversation has the precondition that I must first accept the lies of my opponent and work my way toward a "solution" for said lies, then there is no reason to have that conversation. "Systemic" racism is not supported by real life statistics. The common enemy of the public, is the media. They suppress the truth. But a great many of us, contrary to what you said before, ARE able to inform themselves. But when is the "other side" going to make the same effort? That's the real question. I'm seeing a lot of black folks speaking out against this narrative. I'll fight for, and with them. These are people who want to make it, and HAVE made it in life, through their hard work; not waiting on reparations for things of the past that have nothing to do with most people alive today. Until all people are ready to confront FACTS, and not just their feelings, no one can solve anyone's problems, in my opinion. Danno, jonnyrotten and St. Sherman like this.
	If I had a nickel for every time I heard that, the NFL would fine and suspend me.