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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   17108 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 16, 2024

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But I don't think accusing people of eating wildlife and/or pets is dehumanizing them.

People will kill for their pets.

Somebody harming our pets is a sick and severe crime to most of our moral systems.

To accuse an ethnic group of eating our pets is explicitly setting them up to be the targets of violence.

Those people are going to be in harms way, there’s no two ways about it.

I predict that zero Haitians in Springfield will be murdered by someone who is angry about pets.

We’ll see, hopefully not.

But, I don’t think a person has to be murdered to have been dehumanized either.

Can you imagine being a Haitian in Springfield right now?

Can you imagine being a Haitian in Haiti?

In 2023, kidnapping jumped 72% from the first quarter of the previous year.[228] Doctors, lawyers, and other wealthy members of society were kidnapped and held for ransom.[229] Many victims were killed when ransom demands were not met, leading those with the means to do so to flee the country, further hampering efforts to pull the country out of the crisis.[229] It is estimated that amidst the crisis up to 20% of qualified medical staff had left Haiti by the end of 2023.[230]

In March 2024, Ariel Henry was prevented by gangs from returning to Haiti, following a visit to Kenya.[231] Henry agreed to resign once a transitional government had been formed. As of that month, nearly half of Haiti's population was living under acute food insecurity, according to the World Food Programme.[25]

I don't think being treated in a dehumanizing manner is anywhere near as bad as what they fled from. They come from literal starvation to a land where there are pets aplenty and delicious wild geese are running around, why not take advantage of the free meat? If there was an endangered elk or buffalo running around Springfield, they'd carve it into steaks too, there's no question about it.

The question isn't about whether racism is an issue, it's about the Springfield community's ability to absorb these people without suffering any deleterious effects. If they assimilate and go to eating packaged precut chicken breast and cheez-wiz, good for them. But you have to prepare for the eventuality that one of them goes 'wait a second, why would I do that when meat is running around for free'?

Can you imagine being a Springfielder already close to poverty who suddenly has to deal with wages dropping and car insurance rising because the government imported tens of thousands of foreigners to your backyard and de facto exempts them from laws?

Can you imagine being a Springfielder with a third of your town suddenly replaced by foreigners - your schools swamped with ESL kids, your car insurance tripling - because your mayor wants to bilk the feds out of craptons of money on his shitty apartments?

I am a white man, so I can imagine it, since white men have been dehumanized for years now by various people.

Can you imagine being a Haitian in Springfield right now?

It must be horrible. They should be given a new residence in Martha's Vineyard, where they will not have to suffer such vile bigotry.

To accuse an ethnic group of eating our pets is explicitly setting them up to be the targets of violence.

By analogy you've just placed responsibility for the assassination attempts against Trump on those Democratic politicians who called him an existential threat, just like the Trump campaign itself has. However, even granting that arguendo, it's STILL not dehumanizing them.

I agree you can also promote violence against someone by making Hitler comparisons or similar.

it's STILL not dehumanizing them.

What would be required to dehumanize somebody?

I feel that trying to paint someone as a pet snatcher and eater because of their ethnicity is pretty close.

What would be required to dehumanize somebody?

The classic example is calling them "vermin". Or literally "subhuman".

I feel that trying to paint someone as a pet snatcher and eater because of their ethnicity is pretty close.

It is not.

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