Arguments about cops are some of the very least pretend arguments there are today, so here you go again just revealing what’s important to you and not. I’ll let ya get back to it.
I did leave an unfortunate mistake in my last comment that shifted the tone from my intended somewhat neutral into pure snark, so I can’t really blame you for getting mad just now, but anyway, regardless we don’t have anything to discuss lol.
As is often the case in the US, without someone chiming in with a bunch of specifics, it’s hard to understand the scope of what I mean as being as dark as it is. We institutionally went from “no pain is allowed in patients, load em up!” to “patients can fucking deal with it, it probably doesn’t even hurt that much”, overnight, we didn’t land at any semblance of a sane middle ground. Hopefully the pendulum swings will behave like a real pendulum and settle lower and lower, but woof, it’s bad out there.
Your own quote is literally the benefit of the doubt I’m complaining about, it’s not me failing to understand something here.
Cop was way wrong here, clearly. Why are you talking about obviously forged documents, what does that have to do with this situation? You’re saying because of other situations, you can see why the cop is suspicious, and that’s normal and fine - he just should’ve checked properly! I realize I put words in your mouth, but they sound like the ones you’re saying.
That’s you extending benefit of the doubt. I’m saying that cop much more likely didn’t really give the first fuck whether it was legit or not, and that’s the kind of doubt that must be extended to such people.
As in, “Think that cop mighta been doing the right thing in this case or at least with good intentions? Nah, prolly not”. Unless I really am misunderstanding, you’re doing the opposite.
You’re doing the opposite. [Edit - whoops - struck out line was a duplicate I left accidentally before adding the “Unless…” above, which does happen to create the exact opposite effect intended by adding the “unless” in the first place]
It gets worse. There was nothing done for the people whose doctors told them these drugs were safe and non addicting and totally fine to take for their ankle sprain or whatever (slight exaggeration, maybe, but truly slight).
They experienced the same sudden guillotine chop of subscription willingness with no support, mid-addiction.
So yeah all those people the Sacklers got rich by lying to and addicting, they’re just dead now or homeless and on their way there. Damn near to a rule, cuz opiate addiction often can’t be beat at all, and almost never without real support.
It’s grim. But the dead and ruined, their voices don’t rise to anywhere that people with decision-making power can hear. And that’s how our country works, in a nutshell - if you mistreat people a bit, they complain. If you mistreat people all the way, though, they die and go otherwise silent. Forget leopards and their face buffet, we live in a full-on meat grinder.
I can’t quite put my finger on moments like yours, but had the same strange sensation of creeping revulsion toward NPR, where it once felt like a safe, familiar, even comforting, thing.
NPR, in a million ways small and large, carries water for the status quo, and it’s fuckin gross. Even just small ongoing things like their current phrasing “the war in Iran”. It’s an anodyne, neutral phrasing used in their broadcasts, seemingly as a rule. Same neutral language for cops when “an assailant was shot and died”, or when “a weapon discharged”, etc.
It’s never the war against Iran, it’s not “the unprovoked attack against Iran”, etc., it’s just this vague inscrutable thing merely happening, and merely in Iran. No one is responsible, and it just is there. And thankfully, it’s only IN Iran! Wouldn’t it be worse if that were spilling over into other places and things?
There are countless stronger examples, but this one is current and consistent and you can hear it in any random news broadcast, and it tells a huge lie in a tiny word every time.
Just what we need here, some benefit of the doubt for the disgusting pig, thanks bud!
Side note update for you, thanks to the Sacklers and the hell on earth they visited on us via profiteering lying about the opiates they invented, now there’s actually a gigantic back swing and it’s WAY more difficult to be prescribed strong pain relief, even when badly needed. Count on us to always come up with the worst possible response to a problem, I guess.
Oh it’s just a “k shaped economy”, doesn’t that feel better?!
Huh? I thought it was the baby from the hokey 90s show Dinosaurs, all grown up??
Yeah, makes sense and sounds like the kinda thing sociologists have a word for probably lol
Interesting observation! To rephrase, sounds like you’re saying that for a persecuted subculture, the vocally “out” members behave almost like polite ambassadors for the rest of the group lol
I’d back this up entirely, I know none of them well, but I’ve met a bunch and none that I’ve met land outside your characterization.
In fact the awareness, like you said, of being both permanently “off the beaten path”, but not usefully so and basically involuntarily - that’s such a common thread, and yep I’ve seen those folks be super generous, too.
Idk I’m ready to start treating juggalos almost as a protected class of some kind lmao, juggalo hate seems to come exclusively in the “I’ve never really met one but they seem gross” variety.
Maybe a fun way to think about it - give me a choice between dinner with any random juggalo vs dinner with any random American voter, if I really think about it, rolling those dice, I’m picking the rando juggalo every time…
Well, they did discover thinking, it’s pretty exciting!
Holy shit lol
A few years from now I’ll think for a moment, combine a few memories, and tell someone that I heard on pretty good authority that something to do with collected cow farts, arriving right there in the Bermuda Triangle, caused ships and planes to rock around violently.
By which I mean, thank you, for the confused glares from strangers, somewhere in my future.
That one I think was basically a late response to all the ways folks used to kinda find themselves on fire.
Advent and proliferation of gas stoves, cigarettes, and cool new “space-age” (hyper-flammable) building and textile materials. Probably lotsa extra reasons and compounding factors, too, frankly there was (and is) a lot to figure out lol.
You might even have found yourself on fire back then, too!
Nearly died on a drive home from a rock climbing trip where we did tons of fun and wild (but safe) stuff on ropes, there was a car stopped perpendicular across part of a dark empty interstate in the middle of the night that we passed at full speed.
Two carloads of people had a near-death butt pucker like nothing else we’d experienced on that trip (and no clue what was going on with that car, we were long gone by the time we recovered our wits and processed not being a mangled up paste of people). Your comment resonates with me cuz I understood driving that night, lmao. It’s wildly uncontrolled compared to rock climbing, with comparatively high risks of really bad outcomes in fully capricious ways. Can become a splat out of nowhere with barely a moment to consider the coming fact. Woof.
My now-wife hid me from police one of the first times we hung out, couldn’t agree more!
The butt plug chess guy was some smart shit.
This American Life and The Moth may not be quite the format you’re describing but if you’re not familiar, they are old (big backlog), and quality and tend to feature viewpoints from the ordinary and even marginalized, both in their own ways.
Actually when I think about it, unless I’m misremembering, This American Life did a piece on body dysmorphia long before that concept reached more mainstream awareness. I don’t know how I’d feel about it now (I’ve just learned a lot since and it’s been like 10 years or something), but at the time I remember finding it compassionate and insightful, really opened my eyes on something I was previously only dimly aware of and curious about, before.