Bullshit.

I have family members all the way up the Fox News Facebook misinformation hole, and they didn’t get vaccinated because they felt respected; they got vaccinated because their children told them they wouldn’t get to see their grandchildren until they got vaccinated.

3 observations:

People don't tend to change their worldviews from a place of comfort.

When selfish assholes decide to behave like selfish assholes, the problem isn't that others aren't coddling their feelings enough.

Selfish assholes aren't everyone else's job to fix.
Selfish assholes would love for you to *think* they are everybody else's job to fix.

It puts them at the center and in control.

That means when they act like a selfish asshole, it's *your* fault. You should have been more persuasive. Daddy hits you because you made him angry.
Truth is, vaccine resistors are behaving this way because their feelings ARE being respected.

Malicious media entities created self-feeding networks that reassure selfish assholes they can be selfish assholes and still be respected.

Antvax, racist, sexist, all are welcome.
The way you make a selfish asshole stop being a selfish asshole is well known.

You draw a clear boundary and then you enforce that boundary. You tell them that their bullshit won't be tolerated, and then you don't tolerate their bullshit.

I think we all know that, actually.
Selfish assholes say they don't care what other people think. This is a lie.

They don't care about other people's LIVES. They are *obsessed* with what other people think about *them.*

Which is why they always talk about being disrespected.

As we see.
Selfish assholes equate 'respect' with 'not paying social consequence for behaving like a selfish asshole.'

When they think their behavior will carry social consequence, they threaten worse behavior.

This is to frame the worse behavior as someone else's fault.

As we see.
A selfish asshole isn't your project, and he isn't your fault. His beliefs don't need to change; just his actions.

Selfish assholes are making life difficult for all of the rest of us.

Let's make a society where being a selfish asshole is difficult.
We have a society that’s optimized to the whims and desires of selfish assholes over the lives of those they harm.

We can change that by making and enforcing clear boundaries and consequences.

Selfish assholes will frame this as violent oppression against themselves. Example:
We’ll see real change affected when we stop being so concerned about whether we’ve changed the minds of selfish assholes.

We shouldn’t care about changing their minds. They are responsible for their minds. We should want it to not be easy for them to act like selfish assholes.

More from A.R. Moxon

Imagine if Christians actually had to live according to their Bibles.


Imagine if Christians actually sacrificed themselves for the good of those they considered their enemies, with no thought of any recompense or reward, but only to honor the essential humanity of all people.

Imagine if Christians sold all their possessions and gave it to the poor.

Imagine if they relentlessly stood up for the widow, the orphan, and the foreigner.

Imagine if they worshipped a God whose response to political power was to reject it.

Or cancelled all debt owed them?

Imagine if the primary orientation of Christians was what others needed, not what they deserved.

Imagine Christians with no interest in protecting what they had.

Imagine Christians who made room for other beliefs, and honored the truths they found there.

Imagine Christians who saved their forgiveness and mercy for others, rather than saving it for themselves.

Whose empathy went first to the abused, not the abuser.

Who didn't see tax as theft; who didn't need to control distribution of public good to the deserving.
People have wondered why I have spent 3 days mostly pushing back on this idea that "defund the police" is bad marketing.

The reason is, it's an example of this magic trick, the oldest trick in the book.

It's a competition between what I call compass statements. And it matters.


There are a lot of people who think "defund the police" is a bad slogan.

But it's a directional intention. A compass statement.

The real effect of calling it a bad slogan, whether or not intentional (but usually intentional), is to reduce a compass statement down to a slogan.

Whenever there is a real problem and a clear solution, there will be people who benefit from the problem and therefore oppose the solution in a variety of ways.

And this is true of any real problem, not just the problem of lawless militarized white supremacist police.

There are people who oppose it directly using a wide variety of tactics, one of which is misconstruing anything—quite literally anything—said by those who propose solutions—any solutions.

They'd appreciate it if you mistake their deliberate misrepresentation for confusion.

The reason they'd appreciate if if you mistake their deliberate misrepresentation for confusion is, it wastes time that could have been spend on the solution trying to persuade them, with different arguments and metaphors or solutions.

Which they intend to misconstrue.
Observe: the lie that "government" is a monolithic entity, from which we are somehow separate.

Government is how we organize, manage and maintain our society, but to acknowledge that is to acknowledge society, and one's responsibility to organize, manage, and maintain it.


Government didn't close churches. Churches closed because people with something more than a childishly selfish view of the world understood their responsibility to the shared life of a society, and government is how that understanding was operationalized and delivered.

Nor does government militarize police. The police is militarized because people with a fearful, hateful or selfish view of the world understand a militarized police will operationalize & deliver that fear, hate, and greed through the mechanism of government.

Government is *us*.

Those who now align with a party actively working to dissolve and demolish democracy in our country do so not because they don't understand this, but because they do.

Democracy allows people they fear and hate to be government with them.

So they hate democracy, and government.

People who align with a party standing in the way of any solution, any maintenance, any governance, do so not because they don't understand this, but because they do.

Better to die of sickness, disease, and neglect than allow those they hate and fear to be government with them.

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