this post was submitted on 14 Aug 2023
14 points (100.0% liked)
AskBeehaw
2003 readers
1 users here now
An open-ended community for asking and answering various questions! Permissive of asks, AMAs, and OOTLs (out-of-the-loop) alike.
In the absence of flairs, questions requesting more thought-out answers can be marked by putting [SERIOUS] in the title.
Subcommunity of Chat
This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Thank you. I’m sorry. There’s a vocal segment in spaces like this that goes beyond trying to make sure Americans don’t manifest destiny the internet (totally fair) and crosses the line into attacking anything about us (not just the many, many, justified parts). I may have overreacted, but yes, living in a country where calling a suicide hotline could result in being shot by a police officer heightens my emotional response here. Thank you for being understanding.
Thank you, but no need to apologize, I get where you're coming from.
One of my passports is American (mom is an expat), so I probably spend more time reading American news than most of my countrymen. It's not unlikely that this, in turn, can foster a bit of antipathy from time to time; even if I don't get affected directly by all the horrible stuff (especially everything instigated by the right and their collective boner for fascism and hatred), it's frustrating too look on from the sidelines when you feel you have a connection, however tenuous.
People actively working against their own self-interests and buying into the populist narratives is mind-blowing, and the dumpster pyre just keeps growing. And it's difficult to look away, however morbid the fascination may be.
It's also leaking. The rise of the right all over the globe is scary as fuck, and while America can't take the full blame, the normalization of fascism that the American right is peddling (quite successfully) is making everything worse, rapidly.
So yeah, my comment could probably have been worded better, and I'll work on being better going forward. I'll also keep voting in every American election, even if I'm a natural born expat. It's the least I can do (and probably also the most).
I hope you have the resources to do the same. If only elections could become national holidays like many have proposed, but the right will never allow that, and they will make sure that it never happens.
Making sure voting is a luxury that many can't afford was a damned clever move; being poor and struggling now effectively means you're too poor to vote in many places, and having to rely on the privileged to do the right thing. And too many aren't.
I honestly have a hard time seeing a happy ending on the horizon these days, and it's bloody depressing.