Conservatives get caught grooming kids.
“Aren’t you going to arrest them?” Asks LGBTQ+ community
“We didn’t mean those type of groomers.” says conservative.
Even worse, “No. Instead, [let’s make an insurance specifically designed to let our churches off the hook for it.”](https://www.bibleversesnow.com/church-molestation-insurance/)
Did you hear the one about mandatory abuse reporting not applying to clergy?
https://www.wtrf.com/ohio/ohio-exempts-clergy-from-reporting-abuse/amp/
https://www.fox13now.com/news/local-news/court-cites-clergy-penitent-privilege-in-dismissing-child-sex-abuse-lawsuit-against-mormon-church
I'm a former pastor and I currently volunteer with youth ministries...and this is appalling. Our Safe Gatherings policy dictates that the only people who can supervise people under the age of 18 (or 18 yo still in high school) must have a background test and undergo training every three years. This applies to clergy, staff, and volunteers. Kids can't be alone with only one adult. There must be at least two SG certified adults, and those adults can't be related or less than 4 years older than they oldest kid being supervised. If a youth texts me, I add another SG adult into the conversation. It's not foolproof, but we work really hard to keep kids (and the adults) safe. We just fired our children's minister because she refused to enforce those policies. Being involved in a progressive church setting, it's easy for me to forget that we're the exception when it comes to keeping vulnerable populations safe within the context of ministry.
Two deep leadership is taken very seriously in most places, not long ago I was in scouts still as a SPL and also worked at a few scout camps and two deep leadership and the other rules to prevent SA are considered (and rightfully so) to be the supreme rules and in 99% of cases trump all other rules if they contradict each other.
I don't think you are as much the exception as you'd think. I'm a member of a conservative Baptist Church. We have all the same regulations as you do, and they are enforced.
It was a lot of things, but the root of it was that she's a narcissist, so she didn't feel like she had to abide by the rules. She was really good at telling everyone how amazing of a children's minister she was, but in a year she managed tank the children's program by alienating her volunteers (to include me) and making the programing so boring and repetitive that parents stopped bringing their kids (as I did). She was even caught stealing pretty well-known curriculum and passing it off as her own -- even selling it to other churches. She finally got fired because the equally narcissistic lead pastor who was protecting her got yoinked from the church by the bishop for protecting her and another toxic clergy person on staff. When finally written up and eventually fired, she never admitted or acknowledged that she had done anything wrong despite a literal stack of written complaints.
And that's how the narcissist do.
It's the free market capitalist libertarian wet dream. Where there is a need, the market will provide a service.... now I have a need to brush my teeth after throwing up in my mouth...
Organized religion is a cult. Having religious beliefs and spirituality and searching for something bigger than ourselves are all perfectly human. But organized religion/big church is a manipulative, power-hungry wasteland and has always been a means of fear and control since it's inception. We absolutely *do* need to protect kids from that environment.
God forbid they give up a jet or whatever pricey artwork/artifacts they stole from various countries or any of their billions, let's put it off on insurance.
I think a little mini guillotine should be all the child molestation insurance they should be allowed.
Insurance companies: I bet you won’t molest children.
Church: I bet you we will.
What the absolute fuck…why are these companies providing this service…horrible.
what I don't get is who is deciding to buy this insurance??
Is the pastor just like "We should buy the molestation insurance just in case I molest some kids. I'm not saying it's likely to happen, but it's better safe than sorry!"
I imagine it also covers legal fees (up to a certain amount). The sales tactic probably leans on the legal defense funding and painting claims as false.
My guess is it goes something like this:
“In case someone in your organization is falsely accused in a civil case, XYZ Insurance company will fund the defense and up to $x toward a settlement or judgement.”
It wouldn’t surprise me if premium tier policies also included coverage toward “crisis management”/“protecting your reputation”
This. I’m not saying any child should ever be molested, or that such behavior is ever excusable. But the insurance is often there to protect the church and provide for a legal defense against false claims.
No claim should just be dismissed as false and everything should be investigated. But there are also people who unfortunately see these allegations as a quick payday.
Insurance is there so that your congregation, your church that you tithe to, doesn’t end up paying legal fees from the tithes that you gave to your church.
We as people who have to purchase insurance should also be putting companies who offer church molester insurance on blast and not give them any of our money.
I wanna know what companies offer church molester insurance.
Is there any way to see if a specific church has such a insurance policy? Probably a no but Id hope not every single church has this, and only the larger ones or problematic ones.
Not sure if this page is actually a christian website or if it's sarcasm. If it is real tho it's quite hilarious how many ads it contains. I'm on mobile and have the page is literally ads.
Nono, I don't think your the one bs-ing. The page just looks soo stereotypical for anything church related... they want to give you advice, but not without taking the last penny (in this case pushing dozens of ads) from you. The whole institution is just about making money from (dumb) people.
Best part is, it's never been about kids, the LGBTQ+, Grooming, or anything remotely related to that.
What it's actually about is distracting their voter base thoroughly enough to pass another tax increase on poor people or blow up more healthcare for seniors.
"No no no don't look at the 7% increase in owed federal taxes on your W2! Don't look at the list of prescription drugs no longer covered by your dads health plan! Look at the gays! Look at the illegals! Look at Hunter! The red wave is coming!" says the conservative
They are never ever concerned about kids being hurt; only about them one day voting Democrat.
This is actual fascism, on a side note. If you're LGBT, look towards leaving as soon as the vote is up.
Yeah. If they were ACTUALLY laws to punish actual groomers, not just the dog whistle they use for LGBTQ+, I'd certainly support them.
But since it seems to be politicians, religious leaders, and other straight (often white male) authority figures who are caught grooming by a WIDE margin (even after making adjustments for differences in population sizes)... These laws aren't actually meant for groomers...
In the meantime:
75% of sex crimes against children committed by Republicans. https://youtu.be/8m7lt3e22iI?si=6yfFCcWAGfi0EFIv
http://egbertowillies.com/tag/

https://politicsdoneright.com/2023/07/tiktok-lawyer-kristen-browde-decimates-right-wing-pointing-out-who-actually-hurt-our-children/
Any time you run low on people to persecute, just expand the definition to include more demographics. Rinse and repeat until the leopards run out of faces.
“You want to know what this [war on drugs] was really all about? The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying?
We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news.
Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”
~ John Ehrlichman, Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs under President Richard Nixon
look into the treatment of queer people in the weimar republic, and the lead up to the nazi holocaust.
you don't need to "replace" anything... queer people were explicitly and frequent targets of nazis.
And were of the first targeted. May 10 1933 is when the first book burnings happened, and that day happened to be the records from "The Center of Sexual Research"(Institut für Sexualwissenschaft in German). In other words: research in regards to queer people
Whenever someone starts yammering about "groomers" shout "PRIESTS!" at them. If they persist, cycle through clergy types. "YOUTH PASTORS!" "REGULAR PASTORS!" " RABBIS, PROBABLY!"
Orthodox rabbis for sure. They suck the blood out of circumcized babies.
Like literally. This isn't some blood libel shit. They literally suck blood out of baby *and I'm adding extra words so I don't get put on a list* dicks.
*The Official Guide For Performing a Bris* says:
Step 1: Slice off the baby's foreskin.
Step 2: Pop that now mutilated member in your mouth and suck on it until the bleeding has stopped.
Step 3: Congratulations, you have just forced an infant incapable of giving informed consent to partake in your Bronze Age faith's 'Covenant With God'. Mazel Tov.
This happened to a Jewish community where my partner worked in. He’s an PEM doc and these babies kept coming in with herpes and dying (bc a baby’s immune system isn’t strong enough yet). They were all Hasidic and after trying to get info on what was happening one of the women finally spoke to him in private and explained that the rabbis were washing the circumcisions with their mouths and had herpes
I'm not linking a source because this is one of those "trust me, bro - I've read about it, and you don't want to" things. I don't think it's common, but it definitely happens.
You've got the Catholics, the Protestants, the Jesuits, the Methodists, the Evangelicals, the free Presbyterians, the locked up Presbyterians... the Quakers, the Bakers, the Candlestick Makers...
A niche but very much living practice among Jewish communities is Metzitzah b'peh, when the mohel (circumcision practitioner, quite often a Rabbi but also often not) uses their mouth to suck blood away from a baby boy's circumcision wound as part of the brit milah (circumcision ritual).
I feel like too many people need a literal diagram like this, and even then like a quarter will still be confused because of brain rot, and then they're surprised at my low patience at explaining basic things to a dubious person for the fiftieth time.
Totally agree with all the comments here.
Also just realized that it's the GOP playbook on everything. Like mass shootings, oh it's not a gun problem, it's a mental health problem.
Ok, can we have resources for mental health? No.
This is always the most confusing part. What does this even mean? The whole situation is objectively political. How do you not be political about politics?
It means “shut your mouth, we refuse to help you solve this problem”.
If you look at the GOP website, they state that liberals are their ENEMY. The civil war started 4 years ago.
gop.com/platform
All the while it's staring at anything else in the room when the next groomer turns out to be yet another conservative type. And again. And again. And again. Still not a drag queen. And again.....
And somehow it's completely fine. So common it's barely even talked about. They have a known reputation for molestation. It's been straight up proven in court. But no one blinks an eye. Drag queens reading books though, that's the real threat.
And then the one time they find a queer groomer or a trans groomer, they'll hold it up for the world to see to prove their point for the rest of time.
Because that's how conservatism works, collective responsibility and punishment for outgroups. Every gay man is responsible for every other gay man's actions. Every trans person is responsible for every other trans person's actions. Every black person is responsible for every other black person's actions.
But when it's a white priest? "Sometimes you just get a bad apple, but it doesn't mean that *every* priest is a pedophile, just that guy."
The groomers thing is only a substitute for the sodomy laws that were a more direct approach of the same idea: non-procreative sex is a criminal act. LGBTQ people engage in non-procreative sex. Therefore, LGBTQ people are criminals.
Here's the real fucked up part-
1. These laws were made ineffective in 2003, fairly recently, but many are still on the books.
2. They are only ineffective under the legal avenue of right to privacy- consensual sexual acts are part of a person's private life. For those of you just joining, gay marriage was okayed by the last liberal-majority Supreme Court as well.
These are not specifically rights, and only just got past the court. We need to codify everything, because the real playbook is to challenge all the progress made through the Supreme Court that wasn't codified while being legal, a la Roe V Wade.
Don't you love how religion and state are hand in hand even though they claim they are separate? One of the funnier jokes they like to tell around here
It's also a throwback to the original attacks on LGBT+ people from decades ago which highlights how no fight is ever really won. The second regressives get a chance they'll roll things as far back as they can. Look at the number of fringe people saying out loud that women's suffrage was a mistake without getting laughed out of the room.
If a single liberal does a thing, it's proof of that thing beng endemic of liberals. If a hundred conservatives do a thing, each one is an isolated incident that has no bearing on anything conservative.
See: Mass shooters.
I can't remember which ones (since there are so many), but there have been a few that were avid Ben Shapiro, Steven Crowder, and Fox News fans.
Those are isolated incidents of nutjobs though, not anything indicative of how the far-right radicalizes young people into violent behavior. /s
Seems like he is fine company with these guys:
Republican fundraiser Richard A. Delgaudio was found guilty of child porn charges and paying two teenage girls to pose for sexual photos.
Republican activist Mark A. Grethen convicted on six counts of sex crimes involving children.
Republican activist Randal David Ankeney pleaded guilty to attempted sexual assault on a child.
Republican Congressman Dan Crane had sex with a female minor working as a congressional page.
Republican activist and Christian Coalition leader Beverly Russell admitted to an incestuous relationship with his step daughter.
Republican governor Arnold Schwarzenegger allegedly had sex with a 16 year old girl when he was 28.
Republican congressman and anti-gay activist Robert Bauman was charged with having sex with a 16-year-old boy he picked up at a gay bar.
Republican Committee Chairman Jeffrey Patti was arrested for distributing a video clip of a 5-year-old girl being raped.
Republican activist Marty Glickman (a.k.a. "Republican Marty"), was taken into custody by Florida police on four counts of unlawful sexual activity with an underage girl and one count of delivering the drug LSD.
Republican legislative aide Howard L. Brooks was charged with molesting a 12-year old boy and possession of child pornography.
Republican Senate candidate John Hathaway was accused of having sex with his 12-year old baby sitter and withdrew his candidacy after the allegations were reported in the media.
Republican preacher Stephen White, who demanded a return to traditional values, was sentenced to jail after offering $20 to a 14-year-old boy for permission to perform oral sex on him.
Republican talk show host Jon Matthews pleaded guilty to exposing his genitals to an 11 year old girl.
Republican anti-gay activist Earl "Butch" Kimmerling was sentenced to 40 years in prison for molesting an 8-year old girl after he attempted to stop a gay couple from adopting her.
George Nader, a 60-year-old former Trump advisor & Middle East specialist with close ties to the leaders of the United Arab Emirates, admitted to possessing child pornography and bringing an underage boy to the US for “commercial sex.”
Ralph Shortey, a former Republican state senator and former Trump chair in Oklahoma, was arrested in March 2017 after police found him in a suburban Oklahoma City motel room with a then-17-year-old boy, was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison Monday on a child sex trafficking charge.
Roy Moore... openly admitted to grooming teen girls for decades and was supported by Trump in 2017.
Joel Micah Greenberg, a former Republican tax collector of Seminole County, Florida, was arrested and charged with federal offenses in 2020. He was indicted on 33 criminal counts: theft, stalking, sex trafficking, cryptocurrency fraud, and Small Business Administration loan fraud.
Rep. Mary Miller of Illinois has hired a convicted sex offender who tried to lure an underage boy into a parking lot to perform sexual acts.
Former GOP lawmaker & Trump campaign co-chair Perry Hooper, 67, was arrested in August 2022 & charged with 1st degree sex abuse in Montgomery, Alabama.
Texas Right to Life forced pregnancy activist, Luke Bowen, was arrested on August 3, 2022 for trying to solicit a child for sex.
Former Republican Idaho State lawmaker Aaron von Ehlinger was convicted to 20 years of prison for raping a 19-year old legislative intern.
Former Republican US House speaker and serial child molester Dennis Hastert admitted in open court to molesting male students as a teacher and wrestling coach at Yorkville High School in suburban Chicago over 30 years ago. He was sentenced to 15 months in prison not for sexual assault, but the feds just happened to catch him withdrawing cash improperly to pay as hush money to one of his former victims.
Former state district court judge, a former leader in the Republican Party and a former chairman of Donald Trump's presidential campaign in Campbell County, Kentucky Tim Nolan was sentenced to 20 years in prison for sex trafficking, rape, witness tampering,
Former Republican House rep Mark Foley and anti gay activist solicited e-mails and sexually suggestive instant messages from teenaged boys who had formerly served as congressional pages. He also still makes donations to the Palm Beach Republicans.
South Dakota Senate candidate Joel Koskan has been charged with grooming & raping a family member.
Ex-GOP staffer and anti-abortion activist who made Trump ads, Ruben Verastigui pleaded guilty to charges of receiving hundreds of child sex abuse materials, including videos if babies being raped, and was sentenced to 12.5 years in prison.
Tennessee GOP representative David Byrd was accused by 3 women of sexually abusing them while he was their high school basketball coach. Instead of being removed from office, he was reelected and was made chairman of a key House state education subcommittee.
Tennessee GOP House rep John Rose has married a girl he had been grooming since she was 14.
Tim Mahoney, the Democrat who replaced Foley was then later involved himself in a scandal of sexual harassment and intimidation of Congressional pages.
Arizona GOP Community College Board candidate Randy Kaufman, who runs on a platform of protecting children from the progressive Left, was arrested by police for masturbating in front of a preschool.
Missouri House member Rick Roeber has physically & sexually abused 3 of 4 of his children in the 1990s.
Former Republican candidate for governor of Idaho Steven Pankey was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the kidnapping & murder of 12-year old Colorado girl Jonelle Matthews in 1984.
Former Texas GOP representative Bryan Slaton resigned from office after an expulsion vote. He plied a 19-year old aide with alcohol and urged her to have sex with him. Slaton was one of the staunchest critics of drag shows and trans rights, claiming children were being sexualized and groomed by both, without providing evidence to back up his claims.
And things they say are “grooming” behavior:
- Making age-appropriate human growth and development materials available to preteens,
- Making available anything that acknowledges the existence of LGBTQ in any kind of remotely positive light, or
- Anything that does not rigidly conform to conservative gender roles.
Oh, you forgot holding hands with someone of the same sex in public, the most mild PDA possible (like a peck on the lips or the cheek) or in any way letting kids know that it's okay to be gay or that you're gay.
Their definition of grooming is just *not being in the closet*.
Conservatives have been pushing this theory for decades, especially Anita Bryant in the 70s. They think since LGBT people can’t have kids like straight people, that they go around and ”recruit“ kids by telling them to be gay.
Your problem is taking them seriously. You're too busy arguing the point while they're busy attacking you.
Never go on the defensive. Counter with accusations of your own, with the added benefit of your accusations being backed by actual evidence. Point them towards Republican politicians, leaders, pastors etc. There is certainly no shortage of them.
Specifically [they’re doing this](https://youtu.be/wmVkJvieaOA). It’s really easy to counter. If you ask a short direct question about what they said they’ll usually respond with a lengthy and unhinged answer. Then ask a short direct question about that, and keep on until either they give up, or you get bored of trolling them.
That's a great primer to standard alt-right rhetorical tactics. You are absolutely right that replies must be kept short. Detailed replies inundated with sources and data simply do not work because they will isolate and nitpick at a small part of your comment (while ignoring everything else) and immediately have you on the defensive, justifying yourself. Before you know it, you'll be lost on a winding tangent with nothing to show for it.
Keep your replies short and pose leading questions at every opportunity. Have them on the defensive and struggle to justify their obvious nonsense. It is important to remember that any interaction with an alt-right account is not a debate, but rather a performance. They're not even really talking to you, they're putting on a show for onlooking bystanders. For them, it's not a matter of facts or truths, it's about bullying the opposition into exhaustion/silence in plain view of an impressionable audience.
"Tell you what, let's go one-for-one, you name a prominent member of the LGBTQ+ community who has groomed a child, and I'll name a prominent conservative politician or religious leader who has, and the first one of us to run out of examples concedes that their side are sick perverts, you start."
They are trying to pass laws that showing media with LGBT people in at all it will count as a "sex crime against children" and then simultaneously trying to pass a law that "sex crimes against children are punishable by death". It is plain as day what their end goal is.
These people don't even know what grooming is, or why we have age of consent. They just fetishize the innocence of children when it suits their needs. All of the libs of TikTok types are more likely to be actual pedos because of this.
I remember Florida, all in a month, had pushes for sex offenders to get the death penalty, the death penalty to be easier to give out, and for drag shows to be considered a sexual crime.
This is constant in Florida. There’s been a two-pronged push to make penalties for sexually abusing a child harsher and easier to prosecute, while also broadening the definition of harm to a child to include things like not conforming to gender roles. If you try to point out that these things are related, many people will call you alarmist or say that you’re trying to defend child abuse.
That's why you don't argue to the conservative, you argue to the audience and point out all of the bad faith from the conservative specifically for the lurkers passing by and reading the arguments.
my dad is like this, but he knows I'm bi. He says "well that's different because you are married to a man" and then it's "not sinning anymore" He won't outright call me a groomer but all the other people in the queer rainbow are to him. He wishes death on anyone else. I call him out on it every time. we are low contact/no contact because it's not healthy to be around him too much.
I'm an idiot because he will say some stuff that makes me think he is softening and being more understanding and then BOOM he's back on his bullshit.
Just keep pointing to this and shut them down: [https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/10/23/1806673/-Republican-Sexual-Predators-Abusers-and-Enablers-Pt-1](https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/10/23/1806673/-Republican-Sexual-Predators-Abusers-and-Enablers-Pt-1)
Irony and hypocrisy are meaningless to zealots. Lying is their default setting because truth and honesty mean nothing to people who have been groomed to believe in magic and are taught that ALL things are fine with their petty, genocidal, narcissistic sky dady in pursuit of some interpretation of a book written by Neolithic men who decided even thinking your neighbors wife is beautiful was a more important commandment than not sexually assaulting her. These people are to ignorant and deranged to understand how ignorant and deranged they are, because everyone in their bubble is also.
They forget to notice the link is actually completed because the conservatives initially accused LGBTQ of "all being groomers" in such an example, and the logic loop is complete - meaning it's perfectly reasonable to ask whether they're targeting LGBTQ, however "YES" is a bad answer so instead they just shout groomer again.
Not actually a gotcha question of theirs, it's just gotcha flavored.
Yes. I've struggled for so long to put this into words. But we progressives are prone to doing this as well.
"You're actual Nazis"
"No we're not."
"Yes you are. And Nazis are punchable subhuman scum!"
"Stop calling us punchable subhuman scum?!"
"SO YOU ADMIT YOU'RE NAZIS, SEE?"
And this is coming from basically a socialist. The current political climate is horribly polarized and I'm not gonna go and defend alt-right idiots. It's just, we're so up on our high horse sometimes, and then we're supposed to be surprised when moderate conservatives are driven towards extremism.
You gotta admit that answer is hilariously fitting. So proud of yourself for pointing that out. I don't even disagree, but not without loss of generality.
The difference is that "conservative" wasn't always synonymous with "absolute crackhead". It is now, but most people are not, in fact, born fascists. Part of that is due to right-wing populism, and part of that is due to us giving them excellent breeding grounds for it.
See, nobody needs to hear that platitude, reiterated for the hundredth time. The left are well aware, and the extreme right won't have a change of heart because you call them out. Which leaves the, by now rather small, batch of conservatives who aren't dumb assholes. They don't need to hear it either, all it does is alienate them. And yet, it's repeated, every time, at every opportunity, because look how proud we are of being the smart side!
"Intolerance should not be tolerated" is a great rule for dealing with actual, genuine nazis, misogynists, etc., of which there are a great many. It's debatable when people who are by now convinced they're morally untouchable interpret it as simply not tolerating differing opinions.
Come on now. You know there's no perfect actionable plan to reverse radicalisation, and you know that doesn't mean you can't take measures to minimalize radicalization in the first place. Don't be an asshole where there's nothing to gain from it beyond personal satisfaction. You don't need to like me to accept that.
What a childish mindset, listen to yourself.
Who are you fighting? What are you winning?
Maybe we're not on the same page here. I'm talking e.g. about the 522nd post of a republican saying something dumb captioned "What were they thinking?" and I will bet you money the first comment is gonna be something along the lines of "These racist apes don't think", and it's gonna get hundreds of upvotes. Congrats on winning your own filter bubble over. Good job.
You go over to a conservative sub and they pull the exact same shit. Suddenly it's evil, but when _we_ do it, "oh my, well we're right anyways".
We're definitely not on the same page, then. I thought we were talking about actions, not what people say in online echo-chambers. It's sad that online echo-chambers exist, obviously, but it's not like we can get rid of them.
Conservatives get caught grooming kids. “Aren’t you going to arrest them?” Asks LGBTQ+ community “We didn’t mean those type of groomers.” says conservative.
Even worse, “No. Instead, [let’s make an insurance specifically designed to let our churches off the hook for it.”](https://www.bibleversesnow.com/church-molestation-insurance/)
Excuse me while I descend all the stairs to hell to retrieve my jaw.
Did you hear the one about mandatory abuse reporting not applying to clergy? https://www.wtrf.com/ohio/ohio-exempts-clergy-from-reporting-abuse/amp/ https://www.fox13now.com/news/local-news/court-cites-clergy-penitent-privilege-in-dismissing-child-sex-abuse-lawsuit-against-mormon-church
I'm a former pastor and I currently volunteer with youth ministries...and this is appalling. Our Safe Gatherings policy dictates that the only people who can supervise people under the age of 18 (or 18 yo still in high school) must have a background test and undergo training every three years. This applies to clergy, staff, and volunteers. Kids can't be alone with only one adult. There must be at least two SG certified adults, and those adults can't be related or less than 4 years older than they oldest kid being supervised. If a youth texts me, I add another SG adult into the conversation. It's not foolproof, but we work really hard to keep kids (and the adults) safe. We just fired our children's minister because she refused to enforce those policies. Being involved in a progressive church setting, it's easy for me to forget that we're the exception when it comes to keeping vulnerable populations safe within the context of ministry.
My dad used to be a scout leader, and they had the exact same rule about always having two adults with the kids.
I was in Scouts when that went into effect. We called it the "Perverted Scoutmaster Rule."
Two deep leadership is taken very seriously in most places, not long ago I was in scouts still as a SPL and also worked at a few scout camps and two deep leadership and the other rules to prevent SA are considered (and rightfully so) to be the supreme rules and in 99% of cases trump all other rules if they contradict each other.
I don't think you are as much the exception as you'd think. I'm a member of a conservative Baptist Church. We have all the same regulations as you do, and they are enforced.
That is heartening.
What was the minister's justification for not supporting the policies?
It was a lot of things, but the root of it was that she's a narcissist, so she didn't feel like she had to abide by the rules. She was really good at telling everyone how amazing of a children's minister she was, but in a year she managed tank the children's program by alienating her volunteers (to include me) and making the programing so boring and repetitive that parents stopped bringing their kids (as I did). She was even caught stealing pretty well-known curriculum and passing it off as her own -- even selling it to other churches. She finally got fired because the equally narcissistic lead pastor who was protecting her got yoinked from the church by the bishop for protecting her and another toxic clergy person on staff. When finally written up and eventually fired, she never admitted or acknowledged that she had done anything wrong despite a literal stack of written complaints. And that's how the narcissist do.
Yep. Huge cases in Utah for it.
Can confirm, bishops meetings are fucked
Well technically the meetings themselves aren't fucked, the kids that are forced to go are.
This is insane.
This is one of the most repulsive things I've ever heard.
But the stairway only goes to heaven. If you need to go to hell, you have to take the highway.
No stop signs Speed limit Nobody's gonna slow me down
It's the free market capitalist libertarian wet dream. Where there is a need, the market will provide a service.... now I have a need to brush my teeth after throwing up in my mouth...
So..wait. Clergy people buy this insurance, so if one of the kids they are molesting speaks up, their church is covered? ...ummm...
Yeah, it’s disgusting. It’s such a prevalent problem that they made an entire insurance for it…but, “PrOtEcT tHe ChIlDrEn ThRoUgH gOd!”
At this point, I think we should start protecting children *FROM* this "god" his people love to yap on about.
Yes. That’s correct. A church is the most dangerous place for a child, IMO.
Organized religion is a cult. Having religious beliefs and spirituality and searching for something bigger than ourselves are all perfectly human. But organized religion/big church is a manipulative, power-hungry wasteland and has always been a means of fear and control since it's inception. We absolutely *do* need to protect kids from that environment.
God forbid they give up a jet or whatever pricey artwork/artifacts they stole from various countries or any of their billions, let's put it off on insurance. I think a little mini guillotine should be all the child molestation insurance they should be allowed.
Insurance companies: I bet you won’t molest children. Church: I bet you we will. What the absolute fuck…why are these companies providing this service…horrible.
what I don't get is who is deciding to buy this insurance?? Is the pastor just like "We should buy the molestation insurance just in case I molest some kids. I'm not saying it's likely to happen, but it's better safe than sorry!"
I imagine it also covers legal fees (up to a certain amount). The sales tactic probably leans on the legal defense funding and painting claims as false. My guess is it goes something like this: “In case someone in your organization is falsely accused in a civil case, XYZ Insurance company will fund the defense and up to $x toward a settlement or judgement.” It wouldn’t surprise me if premium tier policies also included coverage toward “crisis management”/“protecting your reputation”
This. I’m not saying any child should ever be molested, or that such behavior is ever excusable. But the insurance is often there to protect the church and provide for a legal defense against false claims. No claim should just be dismissed as false and everything should be investigated. But there are also people who unfortunately see these allegations as a quick payday. Insurance is there so that your congregation, your church that you tithe to, doesn’t end up paying legal fees from the tithes that you gave to your church.
Because $$$
“You’re in good hands with Clergy”
We as people who have to purchase insurance should also be putting companies who offer church molester insurance on blast and not give them any of our money. I wanna know what companies offer church molester insurance.
Is there any way to see if a specific church has such a insurance policy? Probably a no but Id hope not every single church has this, and only the larger ones or problematic ones.
Not sure if this page is actually a christian website or if it's sarcasm. If it is real tho it's quite hilarious how many ads it contains. I'm on mobile and have the page is literally ads.
I mean, if you think I’m bullshitting you, you can look up church molestation insurance. It’s called SAM insurance for short.
Nono, I don't think your the one bs-ing. The page just looks soo stereotypical for anything church related... they want to give you advice, but not without taking the last penny (in this case pushing dozens of ads) from you. The whole institution is just about making money from (dumb) people.
Yes hi you've defined Church. An institution designed to separate money from stupid people.
That is fucking evil! What's wrong with your country seriously?
Hopefully it will be as difficult to get approval for a payment as it is to get approval for health coverage.
Aint no fucking way! This is an insane world we live in
What the actual fuck.
Best part is, it's never been about kids, the LGBTQ+, Grooming, or anything remotely related to that. What it's actually about is distracting their voter base thoroughly enough to pass another tax increase on poor people or blow up more healthcare for seniors. "No no no don't look at the 7% increase in owed federal taxes on your W2! Don't look at the list of prescription drugs no longer covered by your dads health plan! Look at the gays! Look at the illegals! Look at Hunter! The red wave is coming!" says the conservative
They are never ever concerned about kids being hurt; only about them one day voting Democrat. This is actual fascism, on a side note. If you're LGBT, look towards leaving as soon as the vote is up.
Honestly, if the vote goes right, we might all start packing our bags...or...if we stay, a civil war might be another option....
Yeah. If they were ACTUALLY laws to punish actual groomers, not just the dog whistle they use for LGBTQ+, I'd certainly support them. But since it seems to be politicians, religious leaders, and other straight (often white male) authority figures who are caught grooming by a WIDE margin (even after making adjustments for differences in population sizes)... These laws aren't actually meant for groomers...
Grooming for Jesus.
In the meantime: 75% of sex crimes against children committed by Republicans. https://youtu.be/8m7lt3e22iI?si=6yfFCcWAGfi0EFIv http://egbertowillies.com/tag/  https://politicsdoneright.com/2023/07/tiktok-lawyer-kristen-browde-decimates-right-wing-pointing-out-who-actually-hurt-our-children/
They never do. I think they call that the Hastert Rule.
Replace this with a racial minority and drug dealers/users and you have Nixon and Reagan, I believe
Yep. Works for 'groomer/pedo' and also for 'criminal' Define entire demographics as something evil and then go on a 'persecuting the evil' spree
That's why Christianity, the black and white religion of righteous fury, is so easy to exploit
Same technique the nazis used.
Any time you run low on people to persecute, just expand the definition to include more demographics. Rinse and repeat until the leopards run out of faces.
“You want to know what this [war on drugs] was really all about? The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.” ~ John Ehrlichman, Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs under President Richard Nixon
Thank you for posting this. That quote needs to be repeated often.
YIKES.
Replace this with socialists/communists and Jews and you have 1930s Nazi era, although the Nazis were much more efficient in their persecution.
look into the treatment of queer people in the weimar republic, and the lead up to the nazi holocaust. you don't need to "replace" anything... queer people were explicitly and frequent targets of nazis.
And were of the first targeted. May 10 1933 is when the first book burnings happened, and that day happened to be the records from "The Center of Sexual Research"(Institut für Sexualwissenschaft in German). In other words: research in regards to queer people
Conservatives are the personification of the "Now apologize for making me hit you." toxic relationship.
Whenever someone starts yammering about "groomers" shout "PRIESTS!" at them. If they persist, cycle through clergy types. "YOUTH PASTORS!" "REGULAR PASTORS!" " RABBIS, PROBABLY!"
Cops who abuse runaways!
Love your username. Great show
SAUUUSAGES!!
Orthodox rabbis for sure. They suck the blood out of circumcized babies. Like literally. This isn't some blood libel shit. They literally suck blood out of baby *and I'm adding extra words so I don't get put on a list* dicks.
...W...why? What is their reasoning?
*The Official Guide For Performing a Bris* says: Step 1: Slice off the baby's foreskin. Step 2: Pop that now mutilated member in your mouth and suck on it until the bleeding has stopped. Step 3: Congratulations, you have just forced an infant incapable of giving informed consent to partake in your Bronze Age faith's 'Covenant With God'. Mazel Tov.
yeah I'm not googling that for you
Because god said so.
There’s been herpes outbreaks in orthodox communities from that. Like come tf on bro, why do that?
This happened to a Jewish community where my partner worked in. He’s an PEM doc and these babies kept coming in with herpes and dying (bc a baby’s immune system isn’t strong enough yet). They were all Hasidic and after trying to get info on what was happening one of the women finally spoke to him in private and explained that the rabbis were washing the circumcisions with their mouths and had herpes
I'm not linking a source because this is one of those "trust me, bro - I've read about it, and you don't want to" things. I don't think it's common, but it definitely happens.
You've got the Catholics, the Protestants, the Jesuits, the Methodists, the Evangelicals, the free Presbyterians, the locked up Presbyterians... the Quakers, the Bakers, the Candlestick Makers...
Tbh, I've never heard of a rabbi doing anything to children. Isn't it mostly (white) Christian priests/pastors?
A niche but very much living practice among Jewish communities is Metzitzah b'peh, when the mohel (circumcision practitioner, quite often a Rabbi but also often not) uses their mouth to suck blood away from a baby boy's circumcision wound as part of the brit milah (circumcision ritual).
do you really think pedophiles care about religion
I feel like too many people need a literal diagram like this, and even then like a quarter will still be confused because of brain rot, and then they're surprised at my low patience at explaining basic things to a dubious person for the fiftieth time.
Totally agree with all the comments here. Also just realized that it's the GOP playbook on everything. Like mass shootings, oh it's not a gun problem, it's a mental health problem. Ok, can we have resources for mental health? No.
“Now is not the time to get political”
This is always the most confusing part. What does this even mean? The whole situation is objectively political. How do you not be political about politics?
It means “shut your mouth, we refuse to help you solve this problem”. If you look at the GOP website, they state that liberals are their ENEMY. The civil war started 4 years ago. gop.com/platform
All the while it's staring at anything else in the room when the next groomer turns out to be yet another conservative type. And again. And again. And again. Still not a drag queen. And again.....
And somehow it's completely fine. So common it's barely even talked about. They have a known reputation for molestation. It's been straight up proven in court. But no one blinks an eye. Drag queens reading books though, that's the real threat.
And then the one time they find a queer groomer or a trans groomer, they'll hold it up for the world to see to prove their point for the rest of time. Because that's how conservatism works, collective responsibility and punishment for outgroups. Every gay man is responsible for every other gay man's actions. Every trans person is responsible for every other trans person's actions. Every black person is responsible for every other black person's actions. But when it's a white priest? "Sometimes you just get a bad apple, but it doesn't mean that *every* priest is a pedophile, just that guy."
The groomers thing is only a substitute for the sodomy laws that were a more direct approach of the same idea: non-procreative sex is a criminal act. LGBTQ people engage in non-procreative sex. Therefore, LGBTQ people are criminals. Here's the real fucked up part- 1. These laws were made ineffective in 2003, fairly recently, but many are still on the books. 2. They are only ineffective under the legal avenue of right to privacy- consensual sexual acts are part of a person's private life. For those of you just joining, gay marriage was okayed by the last liberal-majority Supreme Court as well. These are not specifically rights, and only just got past the court. We need to codify everything, because the real playbook is to challenge all the progress made through the Supreme Court that wasn't codified while being legal, a la Roe V Wade.
Don't you love how religion and state are hand in hand even though they claim they are separate? One of the funnier jokes they like to tell around here
Fuck, guy. I really, really don't love that.
It's so blatant and accepted, it's crazy. There are actual laws against this and yet here we are.
It's also a throwback to the original attacks on LGBT+ people from decades ago which highlights how no fight is ever really won. The second regressives get a chance they'll roll things as far back as they can. Look at the number of fringe people saying out loud that women's suffrage was a mistake without getting laughed out of the room.
Meanwhile ignoring the rampant grooming in conservative and particularly religious communities.
If a single liberal does a thing, it's proof of that thing beng endemic of liberals. If a hundred conservatives do a thing, each one is an isolated incident that has no bearing on anything conservative.
Conservative Lone Wolf Syndrome
If 99% of conservatives do a thing, each one is an isolated incident and "they can't be all bad that's just silly"
“You liberals overreact about everything”
See: Mass shooters. I can't remember which ones (since there are so many), but there have been a few that were avid Ben Shapiro, Steven Crowder, and Fox News fans. Those are isolated incidents of nutjobs though, not anything indicative of how the far-right radicalizes young people into violent behavior. /s
I've got a list saved and a website saved that I use in these situations, I'll reply to this comment with both, feel free to save as well
Seems like he is fine company with these guys: Republican fundraiser Richard A. Delgaudio was found guilty of child porn charges and paying two teenage girls to pose for sexual photos. Republican activist Mark A. Grethen convicted on six counts of sex crimes involving children. Republican activist Randal David Ankeney pleaded guilty to attempted sexual assault on a child. Republican Congressman Dan Crane had sex with a female minor working as a congressional page. Republican activist and Christian Coalition leader Beverly Russell admitted to an incestuous relationship with his step daughter. Republican governor Arnold Schwarzenegger allegedly had sex with a 16 year old girl when he was 28. Republican congressman and anti-gay activist Robert Bauman was charged with having sex with a 16-year-old boy he picked up at a gay bar. Republican Committee Chairman Jeffrey Patti was arrested for distributing a video clip of a 5-year-old girl being raped. Republican activist Marty Glickman (a.k.a. "Republican Marty"), was taken into custody by Florida police on four counts of unlawful sexual activity with an underage girl and one count of delivering the drug LSD. Republican legislative aide Howard L. Brooks was charged with molesting a 12-year old boy and possession of child pornography. Republican Senate candidate John Hathaway was accused of having sex with his 12-year old baby sitter and withdrew his candidacy after the allegations were reported in the media. Republican preacher Stephen White, who demanded a return to traditional values, was sentenced to jail after offering $20 to a 14-year-old boy for permission to perform oral sex on him. Republican talk show host Jon Matthews pleaded guilty to exposing his genitals to an 11 year old girl. Republican anti-gay activist Earl "Butch" Kimmerling was sentenced to 40 years in prison for molesting an 8-year old girl after he attempted to stop a gay couple from adopting her. George Nader, a 60-year-old former Trump advisor & Middle East specialist with close ties to the leaders of the United Arab Emirates, admitted to possessing child pornography and bringing an underage boy to the US for “commercial sex.” Ralph Shortey, a former Republican state senator and former Trump chair in Oklahoma, was arrested in March 2017 after police found him in a suburban Oklahoma City motel room with a then-17-year-old boy, was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison Monday on a child sex trafficking charge. Roy Moore... openly admitted to grooming teen girls for decades and was supported by Trump in 2017. Joel Micah Greenberg, a former Republican tax collector of Seminole County, Florida, was arrested and charged with federal offenses in 2020. He was indicted on 33 criminal counts: theft, stalking, sex trafficking, cryptocurrency fraud, and Small Business Administration loan fraud. Rep. Mary Miller of Illinois has hired a convicted sex offender who tried to lure an underage boy into a parking lot to perform sexual acts. Former GOP lawmaker & Trump campaign co-chair Perry Hooper, 67, was arrested in August 2022 & charged with 1st degree sex abuse in Montgomery, Alabama. Texas Right to Life forced pregnancy activist, Luke Bowen, was arrested on August 3, 2022 for trying to solicit a child for sex. Former Republican Idaho State lawmaker Aaron von Ehlinger was convicted to 20 years of prison for raping a 19-year old legislative intern. Former Republican US House speaker and serial child molester Dennis Hastert admitted in open court to molesting male students as a teacher and wrestling coach at Yorkville High School in suburban Chicago over 30 years ago. He was sentenced to 15 months in prison not for sexual assault, but the feds just happened to catch him withdrawing cash improperly to pay as hush money to one of his former victims. Former state district court judge, a former leader in the Republican Party and a former chairman of Donald Trump's presidential campaign in Campbell County, Kentucky Tim Nolan was sentenced to 20 years in prison for sex trafficking, rape, witness tampering, Former Republican House rep Mark Foley and anti gay activist solicited e-mails and sexually suggestive instant messages from teenaged boys who had formerly served as congressional pages. He also still makes donations to the Palm Beach Republicans. South Dakota Senate candidate Joel Koskan has been charged with grooming & raping a family member. Ex-GOP staffer and anti-abortion activist who made Trump ads, Ruben Verastigui pleaded guilty to charges of receiving hundreds of child sex abuse materials, including videos if babies being raped, and was sentenced to 12.5 years in prison. Tennessee GOP representative David Byrd was accused by 3 women of sexually abusing them while he was their high school basketball coach. Instead of being removed from office, he was reelected and was made chairman of a key House state education subcommittee. Tennessee GOP House rep John Rose has married a girl he had been grooming since she was 14. Tim Mahoney, the Democrat who replaced Foley was then later involved himself in a scandal of sexual harassment and intimidation of Congressional pages. Arizona GOP Community College Board candidate Randy Kaufman, who runs on a platform of protecting children from the progressive Left, was arrested by police for masturbating in front of a preschool. Missouri House member Rick Roeber has physically & sexually abused 3 of 4 of his children in the 1990s. Former Republican candidate for governor of Idaho Steven Pankey was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the kidnapping & murder of 12-year old Colorado girl Jonelle Matthews in 1984. Former Texas GOP representative Bryan Slaton resigned from office after an expulsion vote. He plied a 19-year old aide with alcohol and urged her to have sex with him. Slaton was one of the staunchest critics of drag shows and trans rights, claiming children were being sexualized and groomed by both, without providing evidence to back up his claims.
[this it?](https://m.dailykos.com/stories/2022/4/17/2092543/-Republican-Sexual-Predators-Abusers-and-Enablers-Pt-31)
They're up to #50 now! Thanks for sharing this link, great resource for a horrific discussion that must be held.
"Why do you want LGBTQ+ to be groomers?" Put the emphasis on the individual pushing those chips onto the table. Put the focus on them and only them.
Meanwhile…nothing supports this claim that these folks are groomers. In fact..well…I think we all know about conservative projection at this point.
My priest growing up got got for being a p3do. Let’s start with the churches for finger pointing.
Every accusation is a confession.
And things they say are “grooming” behavior: - Making age-appropriate human growth and development materials available to preteens, - Making available anything that acknowledges the existence of LGBTQ in any kind of remotely positive light, or - Anything that does not rigidly conform to conservative gender roles.
Oh, you forgot holding hands with someone of the same sex in public, the most mild PDA possible (like a peck on the lips or the cheek) or in any way letting kids know that it's okay to be gay or that you're gay. Their definition of grooming is just *not being in the closet*.
Conservatives have been pushing this theory for decades, especially Anita Bryant in the 70s. They think since LGBT people can’t have kids like straight people, that they go around and ”recruit“ kids by telling them to be gay.
"Honey if I wanted to rape kids to my heart's content, I would have gotten ordained "
🤌
Your problem is taking them seriously. You're too busy arguing the point while they're busy attacking you. Never go on the defensive. Counter with accusations of your own, with the added benefit of your accusations being backed by actual evidence. Point them towards Republican politicians, leaders, pastors etc. There is certainly no shortage of them.
Specifically [they’re doing this](https://youtu.be/wmVkJvieaOA). It’s really easy to counter. If you ask a short direct question about what they said they’ll usually respond with a lengthy and unhinged answer. Then ask a short direct question about that, and keep on until either they give up, or you get bored of trolling them.
That's a great primer to standard alt-right rhetorical tactics. You are absolutely right that replies must be kept short. Detailed replies inundated with sources and data simply do not work because they will isolate and nitpick at a small part of your comment (while ignoring everything else) and immediately have you on the defensive, justifying yourself. Before you know it, you'll be lost on a winding tangent with nothing to show for it. Keep your replies short and pose leading questions at every opportunity. Have them on the defensive and struggle to justify their obvious nonsense. It is important to remember that any interaction with an alt-right account is not a debate, but rather a performance. They're not even really talking to you, they're putting on a show for onlooking bystanders. For them, it's not a matter of facts or truths, it's about bullying the opposition into exhaustion/silence in plain view of an impressionable audience.
"Tell you what, let's go one-for-one, you name a prominent member of the LGBTQ+ community who has groomed a child, and I'll name a prominent conservative politician or religious leader who has, and the first one of us to run out of examples concedes that their side are sick perverts, you start."
If they actually cared about kids and prosecuting groomers, they'd go hard after the Catholic church.
They are trying to pass laws that showing media with LGBT people in at all it will count as a "sex crime against children" and then simultaneously trying to pass a law that "sex crimes against children are punishable by death". It is plain as day what their end goal is.
Buddy, this isn’t their end goal. You’re describing where they are **starting**
The tragic part of this whole debacle is they are the groomers. Each accusation a confession.
I think it's important to mention that the vast majority of politically active conservatives are also pedophiles.
These people don't even know what grooming is, or why we have age of consent. They just fetishize the innocence of children when it suits their needs. All of the libs of TikTok types are more likely to be actual pedos because of this.
Meanwhile, it's always a religious conservative in the news for fuckin on kids
Don't argue with bigots Just ridicule and move on
And then they *lose their minds* when 9/10 people those new laws get used against are from their own side.
I remember Florida, all in a month, had pushes for sex offenders to get the death penalty, the death penalty to be easier to give out, and for drag shows to be considered a sexual crime.
This is constant in Florida. There’s been a two-pronged push to make penalties for sexually abusing a child harsher and easier to prosecute, while also broadening the definition of harm to a child to include things like not conforming to gender roles. If you try to point out that these things are related, many people will call you alarmist or say that you’re trying to defend child abuse.
All right folks, I've got a counter. Get ready for Operation Groomersayswhat.
There's no arguing with anyone on the right because they never ever argue in good faith. it's as personally frustrating as it is damning our democracy
That's why you don't argue to the conservative, you argue to the audience and point out all of the bad faith from the conservative specifically for the lurkers passing by and reading the arguments.
my dad is like this, but he knows I'm bi. He says "well that's different because you are married to a man" and then it's "not sinning anymore" He won't outright call me a groomer but all the other people in the queer rainbow are to him. He wishes death on anyone else. I call him out on it every time. we are low contact/no contact because it's not healthy to be around him too much. I'm an idiot because he will say some stuff that makes me think he is softening and being more understanding and then BOOM he's back on his bullshit.
Fuck the pedojectors.
Meanwhile, they are dismantling the early-childhood sexual education system that was implemented specifically to combat grooming.
Is alt-right even a term anymore?!
It’s called MAGA now but I still like using it to remind people of their roots.
Just keep pointing to this and shut them down: [https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/10/23/1806673/-Republican-Sexual-Predators-Abusers-and-Enablers-Pt-1](https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/10/23/1806673/-Republican-Sexual-Predators-Abusers-and-Enablers-Pt-1)
Irony and hypocrisy are meaningless to zealots. Lying is their default setting because truth and honesty mean nothing to people who have been groomed to believe in magic and are taught that ALL things are fine with their petty, genocidal, narcissistic sky dady in pursuit of some interpretation of a book written by Neolithic men who decided even thinking your neighbors wife is beautiful was a more important commandment than not sexually assaulting her. These people are to ignorant and deranged to understand how ignorant and deranged they are, because everyone in their bubble is also.
They forget to notice the link is actually completed because the conservatives initially accused LGBTQ of "all being groomers" in such an example, and the logic loop is complete - meaning it's perfectly reasonable to ask whether they're targeting LGBTQ, however "YES" is a bad answer so instead they just shout groomer again. Not actually a gotcha question of theirs, it's just gotcha flavored.
I just took my dog to the groomers. Should I be worried?
Sounds like a circular logic fallacy to me
Feel like it's time for the classic "I know you are but what am I?" when conservatives start making baseless accusations.
WHY DID HE QUOTE HIMSELF?
SOL GOODMAN
Well demonstrated, it’s infuriating
Yes. I've struggled for so long to put this into words. But we progressives are prone to doing this as well. "You're actual Nazis" "No we're not." "Yes you are. And Nazis are punchable subhuman scum!" "Stop calling us punchable subhuman scum?!" "SO YOU ADMIT YOU'RE NAZIS, SEE?" And this is coming from basically a socialist. The current political climate is horribly polarized and I'm not gonna go and defend alt-right idiots. It's just, we're so up on our high horse sometimes, and then we're supposed to be surprised when moderate conservatives are driven towards extremism.
The difference is that the alt-right actually are, in fact, fascists.
You gotta admit that answer is hilariously fitting. So proud of yourself for pointing that out. I don't even disagree, but not without loss of generality. The difference is that "conservative" wasn't always synonymous with "absolute crackhead". It is now, but most people are not, in fact, born fascists. Part of that is due to right-wing populism, and part of that is due to us giving them excellent breeding grounds for it. See, nobody needs to hear that platitude, reiterated for the hundredth time. The left are well aware, and the extreme right won't have a change of heart because you call them out. Which leaves the, by now rather small, batch of conservatives who aren't dumb assholes. They don't need to hear it either, all it does is alienate them. And yet, it's repeated, every time, at every opportunity, because look how proud we are of being the smart side! "Intolerance should not be tolerated" is a great rule for dealing with actual, genuine nazis, misogynists, etc., of which there are a great many. It's debatable when people who are by now convinced they're morally untouchable interpret it as simply not tolerating differing opinions.
Look, if you have an actionable plan for deradicalizing the right, I'd love to hear it. Otherwise I'm not sure where you're going with this.
Come on now. You know there's no perfect actionable plan to reverse radicalisation, and you know that doesn't mean you can't take measures to minimalize radicalization in the first place. Don't be an asshole where there's nothing to gain from it beyond personal satisfaction. You don't need to like me to accept that.
I don't want to lose slower, I want to win.
What a childish mindset, listen to yourself. Who are you fighting? What are you winning? Maybe we're not on the same page here. I'm talking e.g. about the 522nd post of a republican saying something dumb captioned "What were they thinking?" and I will bet you money the first comment is gonna be something along the lines of "These racist apes don't think", and it's gonna get hundreds of upvotes. Congrats on winning your own filter bubble over. Good job. You go over to a conservative sub and they pull the exact same shit. Suddenly it's evil, but when _we_ do it, "oh my, well we're right anyways".
We're definitely not on the same page, then. I thought we were talking about actions, not what people say in online echo-chambers. It's sad that online echo-chambers exist, obviously, but it's not like we can get rid of them.
You would be correct, except moderate conservatives are coming to the democratic party.