That’s kind of a difficult thing to determine, when asked almost no one says they are, but if asked about policies, they tend to go for more progressive policies, even people that identify as conservatives will agree with more progressive policies. The people they vote for however, are definitely not progressive… Mostly, there are a few.

Then again, progressive in America is pretty much basic human rights and protecting vulnerable people which should be the minimum.

I think it was both playing chicken against each other. Dem leadership refused to listen to “progressives”, I E.: things that most Americans wanted, and the voters refused to vote until the Dems listened to them.

So they crashed into each other and now the country is going to burn down.

Maybe if you imagined then being played angrily by tiny little opera phantoms it would help.

Pointing out racism is not you making everything about racism, it’s there being a lot of racist shit.

If he didn’t try a coup after he lost the last election, you might be able to give him the benefit of the doubt.

It’s far, far less than Israel has killed. Before Oct 7th, it was about ten to one Palestinians killed for every Israeli killed. Now it’s much much worse and getting worse everyday. Or does that not matter?

Now, can we say Hamas is bad? Of course we can, but by whatever metrics we use to call out Hamas as being bad, Israel is at least ten times worse.

You can’t bring in the amount of children Hamas has killed, and at the same time ignore that Is real has killed way more, and expect people to take you seriously. And if you want to try to play the “who shot first” game, that was also Israel, forcing its way into the land that they now occupy. And every square inch they have invaded since.

The Mexican pizza that had olives on it.

The productive class vs the parasite class.

Wait until they read the second one “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water”

Don’t forget every major corporation.

Pushing back against my rudeness? You think what I’m doing is rude and what you’re doing is OK because you think I was rude.

Because when someone is trying to do something nice for you, you don’t smack their hand way.

I didn’t smack your hand away, I made a joke based on your odd assumption. If you only wanted to be nice, why are you pushing me at all? When I try to do something nice, and the person receiving it doesn’t like it, I apologize, because I did something to them. That they didn’t like. That is the polite thing to do. The nice thing.

Trying to brow beat the other person into appreciating what you did or worse, to get them to apologize to you for not liking what you did is not nice. It’s controlling behavior. It’s bad behavior. You are behaving badly and rudely. No amount of ridiculously irrational ramblings is going to change that.

instead of inquiring further to what I was trying to convey

I already knew what you were trying to convey, I was not the one ignoring the other. Which most would agree is rude behavior.

Well, when you start[…]

Hey, I don’t care. I was just offering up some friendly advice about how to interact with others. Act how ever you feel you need to. It just looks to me like you’re missing the mark on what you claim to want to do. By all means, keep messing up, it doesn’t affect me one way or the other.

And truly, I would say that you are the one who is not listening.

I’m sure you would say that. I’m sure that in your head I’m the bad guy and you’re some kind of crusader whipping me into submission for having the gall to respond differently to you than how you wanted me to.

And yes, I am fun at parties. Not sure why you think otherwise from a small sample of our interacting. It’s kind of irrational.

You want the right to act as you want with others without them being able to tell you when you are acting poorly. Gotcha.

Well this doesn’t make any sense. Do you want to read what I try that again?

Honestly, you were being rude

I wasn’t. I have nothing to apologize for. If it makes you feel any better, I don’t think there is any winning in an Internet argument. I honestly thought this was just some weird exchange and not an argument at all.

If you think it’s a waste of time, and you’re not getting entertainment out of it like I am, then why am did you keep replying?

One person has to start the expansion though, it just doesn’t manifest on its own.

Sure, and like I already said, the others should be onboard with you. If however, like I did, push back against it and provide the reason for the push back, then it’s bad form to keep pushing. You haven’t even addressed the reason for the push back.

One person’s forcing is just another person’s expanding, and shouldn’t be responded to rudely.

The first time is not forcing. Continually pushing and pushing is forcing.

So the content I got from your replies is basically a person is only allowed to respond exactly to what was said, cannot leverage from that and expand on it like any other normal conversation between people, cannot be helpful if the other person is not in need of it, and if they do so they’re just plain ‘wrong’ for doing so.

Not anywhere near what I said. I said it doesn’t make me feel better, and yet you persisted. That’s not good behavior.

If you want to talk with someone rather than at them, then yes, you have to accept and adapt to what the other parties are telling either directly, through their actions, or even in hints. I’m telling you directly and that doesn’t seem to work.

You prefer to talk at me rather than with me where only your desires and intentions matter. I don’t see why you bother talking with anyone if that’s what you do, because a wall is just as good as a conversation partner as one you don’t listen to.

You must be really fun at parties.

Yes actually. For one, I don’t force the conversations after someone lets me know they’re not interested in it. Tends to put people at ease when they feel that their boundaries are respected.

Are your co-workers the only people on the planet that have ever tried to shut down that kind of conversation?

No. This is a conversation, the person you replied to said something and that something meant a specific thing. Since I’m the person who said it, I know what that guy meant. I was talking about conversations I had in real life.

Even if I didn’t mention that specifically or clearly enough, talking about a random thing never before brought up in the discussion is your leap.

Cannot conversations be expanded upon?

They sure can. But since it’s a conversation between at least two people, those two (or more) people should be on board with the expansion. Just forcing it into a conversation and ignoring what the others are telling you, is not a good way to have a conversation for a myriad of reasons.

No need to be so literal, especially when I was responding generally, and trying to make you feel better.

Talking about something that doesn’t make me feel bad in the first place (astroturfing in this case), and “fixing” it, has absolutely no chance of making me feel better. It’s like putting a bandaid on my knee when it was my finger that was cut.

I’m aware of astroturfing, and can usually spot it in the wild. But online comments from other people hold much less weight for me than in person or at least personal conversations. So by default, astroturfing doesn’t really affect me.

Yeah, get that. I get where you went wrong as described in my last post.

I am not happy with a lot of people in my generation wanting to shut the conversation down. Astroturfing doesn’t apply since the people that were doing it, were in person, face to face, coworkers. Not astroturfers.

What does make me feel better is that millennials and later seem to be more on board with me on this.

Yeah, I gathered what you were talking about. But you’re responding to me talking about me talking to coworkers. I get that I didn’t specifically say that, but I also don’t say anything about comments on forums.

You mean like a corporation got some coworkers hired and doing actual work at the place I’m working at just to tell me I need to deal with my shit job? That seems a bit on the paranoid side.

I have a good job now.

Depends on the boss. Some can be good and actually try to manage, but most tend to be lazy and not care much about working with their staff. Figuring out how to get the most out of your employees is part of every management training course I’ve ever seen, but a lot of managers/bosses tend to pick the things they like and not necessarily the things that work best for their employees.

I like that more and more of the kids these days are willing to settle for shitty stuff. Most of the people in my generation (+/- a generation) just deal with it and shut down anyone that thinks things can and should be better, and that sucks.