I am going to actively work to change my way of understanding NomadPatriot, and in the process I hope to change ‘the Forum’’ collective opinion as well... and maybe make this a better, happier, more constructive place. I don’t know if NomadPatriot (Nomad / NP) will or won’t appreciate it, we will find out.
I will ask. Nomad, that you take this Post as I present it and give me the benefit of the doubt that this is an honest and good faith effort and not a joke.
===
I will start here by pointing out some facts...
*Nomad (and a few others) on ‘Conservative Themed’ subjects is constantly ‘under attack’ by a number of regular posters. It is human nature to respond aggressively when you are being attacked (physically/verbally/in forums) from multiple directions. He’s ‘out-numbered’ and in this situation his response(s) are kinda normal. In this situation it’s hard to really discuss ideas because we wind up talking “past” each other and not truly engaging.
*If you really take a minute to read what he writes, he sometimes has a point. He’s clearly NOT dumb.
(I say this even though I’ve accused him of “being an idiot” because he’s not agreeing with me... like on the idea of Trump being Racist. The problem is that from my view it ‘seems so obvious’... yet we know that our life experiences determine how we view the world. So my inability to understand why he “can’t see this” is because we have likely had radically different live experience... and therefore my calling him “an idiot” for not seeing things my way is really just de-valuing his life experience.)
*Going back to the Trump racist thing... I don’t think he’s actually ever said “Trump’s not a Racist”. He’s saying “prove it”. Now we can debate what counts as “evidence”... but I think he’s really just verbalizing an idea that A LOT OF AMERICANS agree with, and that is that people throw out the “Racist” claim way to easy / or maybe we can say they “drop the race card” way to easily. So... from that point of view, if you are going to claim Racism you bets have strong evidence to prove it.
Now you can disagree with the idea that the word is thrown out to easy... and I would guess a lot of people-of-color would say we don’t talk about it enough. This goes back to the life-experience point. I’m not going to say that African Americans ‘don’t’ experience racism, because I don’t live in their shoes. Therefore, I shouldn’t say that the feelings/beliefs of a Significant Number of people who think “the race cards played too much “ is wrong either.
*Nomad is a human being just like everyone else here (as far as we know). I believe/hope that True Hate and True Full-On Racism is not something a lot of people have. Sure, people are biased... both overtly and covertly... consciously and subconsciously. But true outright Racism is (I HOPE) only relegated to a very small percentage of Americans. Therefore, based on the odds, it’s really unlikely that Nomad is truly Racist. In all likelihood Nomad is just a guy who works (or has worked) hard to make his life and the lives of those he loves better... just like most people.
(Again, I say this even though I have been calling him a Racist. I am going to take him at his word. I’m going to admit my use of that word to describe NP is due to my inability to convince him that President Trump is a racist... and therefore I blindly called NP a racist also because he doesn’t think Trump is a Racist.)
I think that’s a good start... there are other things I find interesting (about NP and some other posters here) that I may ‘verbalize’ in further posts.
... for example his name here... NomadPatriot is pretty interesting, and seems to be a fair / accurate description of how he presents himself here in this forum.
In my efforts to make this forum a better place I will attempt to translate his Conservative-Speak for all the Liberals who won’t understand what he says. Nomad, you can choose to correct me if you feel I’m inaccurately translating your thoughts. In real life I ‘pride’ myself for having friends on both ends of the political spectrum... and I was brought up fairly Conservative and held strong views through High School. I still have some views that many would label as ‘Conservative’... though on social issues I have leaned more Liberal in recent years. I do still believe President Trump is a racist, or at the very least uses Race as a tool to motivate some of his base. That said, I often admonish, my Liberal friends when they say things like “Trump Supporters are Idiots”... because I try to remind them that they’re talking about half the voting population of this country... and if you want to make progress you can’t just brush-off half the people as ‘dumb’. (I also admonish my Conservative friends who say “Liberals in their Ivory Towers don’t understand what it’s like to live in the real world.”)
ok... thanks for reading.
. but you won't mind if i still refer to him as an idiot, will you?
