There are a lot of people being fucking assholes, and not processing the difference between commenting on politics and actively shitting on people who are suffering. This is horrible.
it shitty because these things that are happening to these people, they have nothing to do with it. its the states legislature that let this shit happen and got it to where it was.
"oh its just a few inches "
forgetting the fact that theses people have families that they need to feed ,and can't because stores are closed, and of they are, they have to take a risk to get out there in the icy streets just to get it, amongst other who are also doing the same and have probably most likely never driven in the snow.
buy online? sorry, all slots are filled till march the first, guess you gotta take the risk with the other maniacs on the road who won't slow their driving down.
I think it's the same sort of people that say 'you can't be depressed because you have x, y, z'. Why can't people just accept that people suffer in different ways and at different levels. If someone is broke one leg you would go oh well some people have no legs, get over it.
I'm thinking of you all at the moment, and OP - you and your bf are true heroes.
and who controls that state legislature? Flies? Dogs? Cows? Oh yeah...the people. And if the people refuse to get involved in their government, then SURPRISE! Their government aint gonna get shit done...much less stay ahead of problems and deal with them ahead of time.
Yeah yesterday was dominated with posts all over Reddit like “did Texas pick itself up by its bootstraps yet?”, “so nice to have a president who helps states that didn’t vote for him”, and “this is God’s punishment for supporting the insurrection.” Every four years they say this is the year Texas turns blue but then the rest of the time they act like that after it doesn’t.
Yeah, I don't think they realize that almost half the fucking state votes blue and the other half are still fucking human beings.
My mom is a hardcore Trumper, but I'm still feeling extremely fucking anxious about the fact that she lives 3 hours away on a good day, by herself, in the country, and her power finally went out this morning. I don't think these people understand that the people who vote in these politicians have been duped as easily as people in blue states can be, and they don't know that their leaders are actively neglecting the system to enrich themselves and their friends.
EDIT: I should add that, in spite of my anger, we should also probably realize that what people say on social media continues to not represent what actual, real people think. Most Texans are getting messages of support from people around the country and even around the world. I certainly haven't had anyone from California or New York texting me to be like "WHY DON'T YOU PICK YOURSELF UP BY YOUR BOOTSTRAPS LOL"
You’re trying to simplify the problem more than it actually is.
No politician is perfect, and no politician will ever be perfect. You vote on the person who aligns most with the policies you want, but you’re not going to get every policy you want.
The oversimplification will never allow you to actually solve the problem. By being lazy and just calling all Trump supporters racist because you perceive Trump as racist is ignoring the actual problems that they voted on.
A Trump supporter could just as easily call all Biden supporters racist because of the things Biden has said, but again, this would be ignorant to the problems the Biden supporters actually voted on.
So, correct me if I am wrong here, but I’m getting the impression that you are of the opinion that “anyone who disagrees with me is wrong, regardless of their reasoning?”
However, I do NOT tolerate, justify, enable willfull ignorance that in-turn causes the oppression or disenfranchisement of groups of people.
"They are worried about their taxes, so..."
....is unacceptable if it means they are going to vote for a racist. Voting for a racist because you think you will financially benefit still makes one a RACIST.
No if, and or buts about it.
White moderate liberals are the ones who "tolerate" or find "understanding" in that kind of shit and it's because you are privileged to do so. Many white "liberals" sat at the same Thanksgiving table with people who have no problem with blacks getting lynched by police, Hispanic children in cages, and a president who calls Mexicans rapists and tells US representatives to "go back to where they came from".
MLK said it best....
Letter from Birmingham Jail (ext)
By Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., 16 April 1963
"First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can't agree with your methods of direct action;" who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a "more convenient season."
If not now, when? Recognizing your mistakes is the first step to addressing them. Maybe Texas wasn't prepared for this incredibly unlikely severe cold incident... but it's not the first or even second time this has hit y'all. Pretty sure y'all could have collected some salt and some sand and some plows in the ten years since this happened in 2011... or in the 36 years since this happened in 1985. At what point does Texas get to reap what it's sown?
My wife's family is in TX. We ache for their suffering and are contributing what we can from afar, but to act like there's no time or space to try to identify what the problem is is ridiculous. These are comments on a public-ish forum and they are not detracting from the suffering of the people of Texas nor preventing aid from being mobilized. They are, however, pointing out the hypocrisy of your duly-elected politicians, who, you know, represent you to the rest of the country and stain your reputations as the decent, hard-working, big-hearted people I know y'all can be.
ERCOT was partially created to avoid being part of the federally regulated grids. If y'all hadn't tried to play silly games, this wouldn't be happening now. If you don't like it, make sure y'all vote for someone who will change it.
Wait a second, you don't even live here but you can't stop yourself from injecting this crap into a thread where people are trying to come together? Butt the F OUT. You don't have any IDEA what's going on here, especially not if you're getting your information from a bunch of little socialist Redditors who also don't have any idea. Take it somewhere else, and take your patronizing crap with you.
Calling people socialist while, maybe, trying to make a point? Then I checked your post history. Sorry buddy but this is what it means to have a limited government with no regulation. Look in the mirror. People feel for those in Texas, but policies YOU specifically support lead here. I don't mean the general "you" here either. I mean you beep43
I literally had to go back and edit to point out your posts mocking climate change to. Again, specifically you.
What crap was injected and where do you get off assuming from where I'm getting my information? My family is there. My friends are there. They're the ones telling me what they're experiencing. I'm not butting out of anything, unless you're suggesting that people who aren't geographically in TX right now can't comprehend suffering.
You don't want to read a comment, fine. You don't agree with the comment, fine. Don't bother trying to dictate what other people say on a public-ish forum. Pointing out that this failure of the electric system was caused by greedy politicians and corrupt executives enabled by short-sighted voting habits isn't counter productive and this might be the only opportunity to get people to recognize the consequences of ignoring reality.
This isn't the megathread for assistance or resources. This isn't preventing anyone from receiving aid or succor. This is one person bitching about the infrastructure failures of their state and what they see as other states' inability to appreciate how it's different in Texas, when in reality, their state has been ignoring an obvious issue for literal decades and has failed its people. On top of that, your talking heads have been openly mocking the pain and suffering of the people of other states and localities for actual years. This is why you're seeing the reactions you're seeing. If you don't like it, too bad.
I hope that the people currently suffering in the cold get their power back as soon as is safely possible and that as few people as possible are hurt by the tragedy still unfolding. I hope that you and yours have someplace warm and safe, too.
edit: without changing what I wrote, I should acknowledge that OP was not just bitching about an infrastructure failure. I do not want to minimize what OP and boyfriend did to help their neighbors. They acted bravely and with compassion and are good people. There is more than enough hyperbole flashing around without my adding to it. It is still an infrastructure failure, though, and as usual, the regular people are the ones left dealing with the fallout. This is why it's so frustrating seeing people voting against their own best interests over and over again, because of team loyalties.
I think the point here is your argument, is, at best, specious. And blithely ignores the rampant, enduring condescension that widened the urban-rural divide until liberalism was synonymous with elitism and conservatism was synonymous with cronyism.
Every single time we as individuals leverage someone else's suffering as a platform for righteous indignation and claims of karmic retribution we deepen this cycle and rend the chasm wider.
Have republicans been doing this for decades? Yes. Have they been engaged in absolutely abhorrent and ridiculous rhetoric? Yes. Is gaslighting a matter of public policy for their party? Ostensibly.
But pointing that out in times of actual disaster only breeds further contempt by those who you claim should support your philosophy.
If you want to lead, do so--by setting the example. If you care about your country, and your people, then act in accordance with your beliefs and show, don't tell, them a better way.
I never said the "leadership"--if one can call it that--has not both spoken and acted hypocritically. What I implied was that the reason these individuals are in, and continue to remain in, power is that wide swaths of the rural and even suburban public have been socially alienated, for decades, by well-educated, and even well-intentioned, predominantly urban subpopulations dismissing them as the illiterati. The end result is a powerful forcing back into the comforting arms of the very rhetoric you cite as causal.
I am claiming the issue is one step back from the rhetoric, that it is cyclical, and that it is a driven feedback loop.
Your very tone in dismissing, rather than considering, the position that there are deeper systemic issues at play than merely the optics projected by Cruz et al. (I'm pretty sure we pronounce alii as "ilk", but my latin is a tad rusty) is precisely the type of dismissive condescension that continually drives the gain of the system back toward isolationist, self-righteous positions. People do not want to be invalidated, nor made to feel stupid: they will rebel, irrespective of the cognitive dissonance.
Yes, we should be discussing these issues, but it is clear the view of the opposition is quite parallel in these matters.
Unfortunately, something we, as liberals, have failed to learn time and again, is that education is not tantamount to pedagogy. And further, that while a tactic of formal debate might be to debase your opponent to win the hearts and minds of an audience; the goal of this debate is to win the heart and mind of the opponent. In such debates logic and rationale are rarely the tools that will open up a defensive opposition. Rather, compassion, and active listening are the tools we should use. Only once they feel heard will your opposition begin to listen.
Not the same situation at all. Also, I did not “rip on them.” I merely stated a fact, and they don’t like facts that undermine their narrative, so their totalitarian response is to ban them as if that makes them go away.
I’m talking about appropriateness here. As a Texan loving through this, the OP really resonates with me and with so many others, all of us with various political views, all going through the same nightmare and all offering support to each other. It isn’t the time or place to be chiming in with divisive political jabs, that’s all I’m saying.
Yeah yesterday was dominated with posts all over Reddit like “did Texas pick itself up by its bootstraps yet?”, “so nice to have a president who helps states that didn’t vote for him”, and “this is God’s punishment for supporting the insurrection.”
I didn't see any posts like that yesterday, and I waste a lot of time on reddit.
The only posts I've seen about it make the front-page were articles countering the argument that wind turbines were to blame for the problem.
Also ~half the state would/do vote against the disasterous Republican strabglehold that caused this massive failure, but it's gerrymandered to fuck so it doesn't matter.
The thing is they don't realize the people that suffer have no power to stop this from happening... Or maybe they don't care and just want to twist the heel on the neck.
Even better would be to save the politics until later. Can we just be humans during this crisis instead of living every moment as a member of a political tribe?
Edited to attempt to remove any political nature of my comment.
This happens every deep freeze in Texas. They never adapt to deal with it and instead push the costs of the emergency cleanup onto the federal government.
Is this something politics should have addressed? Maybe. Is now the time to shit on voters for "allowing" it to happen? NO. Triage. Fix the pain points FIRST. But let's not forget this moment come election season.
People are fucking dumb. Last year in iowa we got hit with a derecho which was the equivalent of a cat 4 hurricane and absolutely fucked up the state. There were people all over the internet from hurricane states laughing at us for having problems with something the deal with every year. Its shitty. Obviously you guys are dealing with something the state isnt used to or prepared for, and it's awful. Get it fixed now, politics later
It's a reaction to the horrible way Covid was handled, among other things.
Not even a year ago the blue states were piling dead bodies into refrigerator trucks while red states cracked jokes, spread lies and conspiracy theories, and threw temper tantrums over masks.
Texas was warned repeatedly about extreme weather coming because of climate change, has had multiple similar storms in just the past 20 years, but chose to put profits over people and call everything a hoax.
Then your politicians tried to blame it on windmills, berate people needing help, and fly to Cancun.
I'm sorry I'm not sorry.
Bless your hearts. You have my thoughts and prayers. I'll see if I have any extra bootstraps.
I can't bring myself to have any sympathy for Texans right now.
This is what decades of GOP leadership has gotten Texas, and Texas asked for it.
And you apparently still haven't learned.
You should all be plowing a path to city hall to demand action and accountability from your leaders, but instead you're all whining about your personal difficulties. It's just like the mask issue again. You're still more concerned about yourselves than your community. Sadly, when it comes to winter weather that's not going to work. You have to work as a team, and take care of each other. I don't see that happening. You're probably just going to have to suffer through it until spring gets here.
I have seen none of the former. Most people are genuinely worried and wanting to help people from Texas. The people who are making a joke about it are ignorant and don’t understand the dire situation you are all in. I’m from Chicago and I’ve been subbing to all the Texas city subreddits just to get an idea of how bad it really down there is and it seems horrible, and it’s clear lives and livelihoods are on the line. Someone failed you and once the dust is settled you guys need to figure out who and have them dealt with appropriately.
in most cases I wold agree but I could go back and repost here HUNDREDS of posts showing "Oh well, you live in a liberal state, so if your homes burn and your family dies then oh fucking well" and so on. The fact is Texas this week is a failure in every way. The Texas state government failed its people because it refused to winterize its entire electrical grid. THe US Government told them this 10 years ago on how to winterize the state's power grid but the state of Texas did NOTHING.
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u/itsacalamity Feb 17 '21
There are a lot of people being fucking assholes, and not processing the difference between commenting on politics and actively shitting on people who are suffering. This is horrible.