With the rise of BLM and the #MeToo movements, there has been a constant theme across the Left when it comes to addressing concerns raised by people not within those movements: Let's Have a Conversation. Nothing could be further from the truth. The people who claim to want to have a conversation only want the chance to hector, humiliate and lecture people who do not bend the knee.
How do I know this? Well, because I've tried to have conversations with people, both online and in person. What usually happens is that I'm told I need to educate myself. Considering that I read upwards of forty books a year -- none of them in the James Patterson or Maeve Binchy categories -- and that I listen to podcasts involving people who are on both sides of an issue, I'd like to think I'm educated beyond what most people are. Admittedly, I don't know everything about every issue, and I'm painfully uninformed when it comes to statistics -- as some say, statistics can mean whatever a speaker wants them to mean -- but I'm relatively conversant about most hot-button issues. My rhetorical style doesn't lean on too much sarcasm or snark, I don't revile my opponent and I don't insult people, generally, although if someone starts a fight, I'll finish it.
During the Obama administration, I got into it with a couple of black guys about Trump, and how racist he is. Perfect he ain't, but I don't think he's particularly racist. I was harangued about my support of Trump -- it was more of a defense, but OK...-- and told I had drunk Kool Aid. The conversation took the inevitable turn into systemic racism, and Michael Brown was brought up. To them, it was clear the cop was a dyed-in-the-wool racist and was only looking to gun down the first black guy who provoked him. But when I brought up Eric Holder's DOJ autopsy which, on pages 88 and 89, stated that Brown was rushing at the cop when he was shot...the discussion abruptly ended. See, they didn't want to have a conversation: They wanted to hector me until I apologized for being white.
In my time, I've been around plenty of horses' asses of the male variety. I know of one guy who, in high school, slept with a fellow student on her birthday and then broke up with her immediately after. So I'm quite prepared to defend a woman who makes a credible accusation of rape or sexual harassment. But I've also known that some women, for whatever reason, will make claims that are unsupported by the facts simply to impugn a guy. Take the Brian Banks case, the Duke lacrosse cases and the UVA frat case for starters. And those are just the most visible cases.
Gun control always brings out zealots. Despite never having touched a firearm, much less fired one, gun control advocates will point to the need to get rid of all semi-automatic assault rifles, asking rhetorically why weapons of war are needed by anyone. When the difference between automatic and semi-automatic is finally explained to them, and when statistics about murders by cars and knives are raised, the discussion ends, because it's not a conversation that was sought, but an intervention. When the person who is the subject of the intervention is resistant, the conversation abruptly ends. That the intervenors might be proven wrong, or that they may admit that their point of view needs correction, is not a possibility. Only the complete and utter capitulation of the interlocutor is acceptable, and once it becomes evident that that's not going to happen, the conversation ends.
So spare me the entreaties to converse. No matter what LeBron James says, I don't need education. I'm not omniscient like those who want to convert me. But I am analytical, I am well read and I'm no fool.
To paraphrase Sir Walter Scott, I'm not about to change my beliefs as one would change his coat with the weather.
(c) 2022 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
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