no, they don't...

ignorance isn't bliss in all cases

I write shaking my head about something I came across on Twitter this morning. I won’t dignify it with a photograph but someone posted a photograph of two men (both 55 ish, Caucasian, and feeling pretty proud of themselves) wearing matching tee shirts saying ‘I’d rather live under Russian than with Democrats’. Both men grin broadly.

This is sheer ignorance. Performative thester, as it’s called these days by both sides, for the sake of getting attention but it’s still borne of ignorance, plain and simple.

Life in Russia today may be ever so slightly less obviously threatening to anyone who differs with Putin but it’s truly a minor distinction. Russians are dying at a terrible rate because of alcoholism, as they have throughout their history. Russians will find their population drop further, beyond the declines begun in the Soviet era, as the death of conscripted young men in Ukraine is startling.

Russians, Iranians, Chinese, Egyptians, and many other peoples cannot differ from their government’s positions. There may be a hierarchy of worst down to lesser bad cases but these guys have no clue their ‘freedom’ of speech would disappear they moment they began espousing something divisive about their own societies and its governing authorities. That is how it goes. Even India, the world’s largest democracy, is less open and tolerant of views other than those of Prime Minister Narendra Modi than in the past.

Democrats are fellow Americans who hold different interpretations of how to achieve good for all Americans. No, Democrats are not evil. No, Democrats are not devil-lovers. No, Democrats do not burn children at the stake or drink their blood. No, Republicans don’t have some sort of God-given superiority, reinforced by a kinship with Russia.

However, people who do not act—or threaten to act-violently towards others are free to hold personal views—however controversial, repulsive, or ignorant—in this country. The key is that they not act violently towards others. Those same types of people are almost invariably restricted from doing so in Russia, China, and much of the remainder of the world.

I am not in any way—not in any way—supporting repulsive, divisive, or incendiary perspectives but stating the bedrock principles that make us who we are. Weird, outlandish, distatesful but American citizens all if born in this country or nationalised through a due process.

I would tell any Democrats belittling Republicans (and I know several for whom I could substitute the D for the R in the anecdote above) precisely the same.

We are a country of citizens, like it or not, under the same flag.

We are also increasingly ignorant of what our forebearers have fought against to get us to this point. Authoritarianism is so hard because we are at heart idealist individualists. Ignorance is not bliss when it comes to stupidity about how authoritarian rule operates. Wrong assumptions about which community is worse abound in evidence-free thinking hatched of ideological hatred. Wars have been brutal and deadly for those who fought to preserve that right of free speech.

Those guys in the Twitter picture were so wrong. But it was their prerogative to say stupid stuff.

I wish you a good week. I appreciate you reading this column today and any other day. I sincerely thank those who subscribe financially to support this column. Please respond with any and all feedback.

It is cloudy this afternoon but the sunrise certainly had its moments.

Be well and be safe. FIN