#tell me honestly did we convert you or scared you away by our obsessions?

[zingaplanet]

Can you explain the carraville ship to me please (like context and the steps of the relation and so on? If it isn't too much)?

I see your posts and I grow curious.

R U KIDDING?? IT'D BE MY PLEASURE!! I feel a huge responsibility to represent the carraville fandom lol, so my dear carraville mutuals pls do help fill the blanks n lol hope you don't regret this ask cause as you know, I have a slight tendency to go on a maniacal j-stor length rant hahaha

So basic's basic first, who are they? They're football pundits! They work for sky sports (the major broadcaster of premier league football in the UK), and their work encompass commentating on matches, giving their analysis on tactics, players etc, we'll go into details later. But there's an incredible background story to how they came to work together and here's where the fun begins!

Righto so, if you know my blog, I'm always most fascinated with enemies or rivals who came together in the end despite their differences (or actually BECAUSE of their differences like fedal!). I just thought that this is one of the most uniquely special and incredibly powerful bonds that represents how amazing human relationships can be, it is often our opposites who understand us the most!

Jamie Carragher and Gary Neville encapsulates this relationship perfectly but also perhaps most comically. They are an example of how ironically funny life can be as they are technically THE SAME PERSON but from opposite sides (hey WE LOVE MIRROR OPPOSITES!)

How, you ask? So football pundits don't just get plucked out of journalism school, they are mostly former players, and very specific ones: Those that have strong characters (that ppl actually found interesting to watch on telly), and those that have brilliant tactical minds. So both of them are incredibly witty and funny, and they're great readers of the game!

And this actually comes from their playing days. So both Neville and Carragher were defenders. Carragher especially played centre back (Neville played right back) and were leaders of their team for a long time, which meant they had to organise everyone while reading the game at the same time. But here's the catch:

They played for 2 different clubs who have the oldest, fiercest longstanding rivalry in the premier league (UK football) and perhaps even in the world: Carragher played for Liverpool FC and Neville played for Manchester United. In here they call this the Northwest Derby, as they are both clubs from cities of Northern England who are historically most successful both achiement-wise and size-wise.

So... they used to LOATHE each other, and this isn't just the passive-agressive détente Messi and Ronaldo used to have during el clasico matches, oh no, English football in the early 2000s was quite violent, and both Neville and Carragher were amongst the staunchest characters in their teams. There are reasons for this, which comically prove that they are actually the same person!

Aside from playing in the same position as each other (though on opposite sides of the field), they also have similar backgrounds/relations to their clubs. They are ONE-CLUB MEN. Now this is very rare in football and have gone quite extinct nowadays, but basically, they are LOCAL boys who were born in their cities (i.e., Liverpool and Manchester), grew up supporting their clubs, and their club identity became their identity so much so that they only ever played in that club for their whole professional career (i.e., they were never transferred nor loaned). They also came from working-class backgrounds in Northern England (Liverpool and Manchester are basically only separated by the M62 highway).

Being local lads means they were the most LOYAL of the bunch, and are also rare breed leaders since they've been with Manchester United and Liverpool FC from their youth academies. They've never left the city and usually have quite an important leadership roles within the team.

But Carragher and Neville were never star players (nothing of the Virgil Van Dijk defenders type you found nowadays). They didn't have amazing skills etc yet they have the most caps (number of appearances) in their club games, and they were still playing matches even close to their 40s. Make no mistake they were actually really good players, both with significant england caps (even during the golden generation of Rooney, Ferdinand, Becks, Lampard, etc!) This is because even tho managers can buy star players, they could never buy loyalty nor replaced the way these two know their club and led their peers. They were sort of the emotional backbone of the clubs so to say.

This also means that their roles have always been as supporting characters and with them it's quite literally. So Carragher (or Carra as we call him) is best mates with non other than Liverpool former captain and forever supertstar, Steven Gerrard. Meanwhile Neville grew up and is still best mate with the global superstar, spice-girl married David Beckham. Carraville were often vice-caps for a long time, taking a sidelined but important role.

Even more mirror symbolisms (it's all a bit poetic really): both LFC and Manchester United have red as their club colours! (Everton and Man City are the blue side of their cities). Neville was part of the Man United team that won EVERYTHING in english football (including the unrepeated treble), but they never really dominated Europe (as Carragher likes to point out). Carragher was part of an underestimated LFC team who didn't win much of local cups but did one insane miracle and beat Paolo Maldini's superstar AC Milan team after being 3-0 down IN THE SECOND HALF in the 2005 Champions League final in Turkey. That night was called one of the greatest comebacks in football, dubbed "the miracle of Istanbul!"

NOW on to the crazy bits:

After they retired, both of them were invited to do this programme on SkySports called Monday Night Football. It's actually one of the most prestigious and highly difficult punditry programmes to do in football, since it's hours of LIVE analysis, dissecting the game one by one using statistics, and reacting live to the teams' tactics as they watched the match.

Safe to say the sky producers must have had the biggest balls on the planet when they decided to put those two together in one studio. The first few shows were quite patchy, but LO BEHOLD the strangest things happened: Gradually the animosity of rivalry turned into something more of a friendly banter (AKA what the english calls a very passive aggressive curmudgeon way of saying they're becoming awfully fond of each other but are too 😤 stupidly 😤 manly 😤 to admit it 😤). Once they realised they're not on opposite teams anymore, their walls came down and people called them two peas in a pod as they started noticing how similar they are to each other!

But this old rivalry makes for a hilariously fun relationship! They hold no barrels and take every. single. opportunity. to slander and make fun of each other. This includes turning each other into memes and petty saving all of each other's past football analysis lest the opportunity arrives when the moment proves them absolutely wrong to make fun of each other on social media.

Fact is: Even though they'd rather be shot dead than get caught saying it in public, they've actually become best mates lol. They still argue endlessly over football, and as the English call it, the season's never officially begun before a Neville-Carragher high-pitched argument on live TV. They even left their former teammates speechless, as they were known to be one of the most aggressive loyalists to their clubs. Neville used to not even be able to walk through Liverpool without getting mangled lol once he had to have a police escort just to get to the stadium, yet nowadays they get greeted by everyone in their respective cities 🥲

So in a nutshell: They are basically the definition of school scoundrels who used to beat the shit out of each other every week being put together in detention (by skysports) and ended up becoming besties lol. I have to say they are probably the most hilarious relationship development you could ever witness lol:

Ok so if you've made it this far (I AM IMPRESSED) and by some crazy reason decided that you still want some more, here are some starter packs for you:

This ad they did for fifa perfectly encapsulates the disgruntled fond and hilarious nature of their relationship!

Here is a compilation of them turning into 5 year olds in front of each other, and debating until only dogs can hear them!

Here is Carragher hilariously tackling Neville on a charity football match after they retired cause they ARE that petty lol

P.s. carraville mutuals lmk if i missed anything!

[dredshirtroberts]

Naming and Other Fun Things You Can Do With Your Trauma

Below will follow my journey to where I am today with my sexuality and romantic attraction levels and kind of be a look at where I might be with it all at this time. Because I want to figure shit out about myself for me, not because it actually matters right now, and I think taking a look at The Shit™ I’ve put myself through romantically will be a good jumping off point.

I might get TMI, as a warning, because I’m not good at keeping things to myself online. So be aware of that.

Alright so...how far back to I go? Do I start with the most recent endeavors or do I end with them? How do we accomplish this task.

Let’s start with actual romantical feelings I guess. I had a crush on the same guy for 7 years. There were other crushes during that time, one of which extended well past the end of my crush with the first guy. The 7 Year Crush was a guy I knew from church. He was a whole year older than me and he was Cool™. He had the cool guy haircut, everyone at school knew him, his parents were well known in the area, he played guitar. I liked him from age 7 to age 14 with no breaks. I finally got over him but it took a long time.

Now We’re Best Friends was fun. I acquired that crush around 10 or 11 or so - another church kid, again around a year older than me. They’re non-binary now, and one of my best friends. My crush on them was like...at least 10 years long. Again, there were some others that came and went during that time but I was a bit obsessed. They’re still really fuckin pretty but I’m at least aware they’re not actually my type and we would have been super incompatible so thanks to the universe for steering me away from that one.

The David Incident was...an attempt to get away from Now We’re Best Friends. I was 16 (going on 17, dahdah dee dahdeedaahhh). I knew him through some of the people we hung out with (ironically, NWBF was one of those people. I had a very small circle I interacted with - I’d say I was friends with them but they turned out to not be very good friends so, yeah...). We’d hung out at a couple of “parties” our mutualest friend held. I went to my sister’s dance recital for the dance school that same mutualest friend went to, so The David Incident was there watching her perform I guess. I never questioned why he was there I just knew he was. Why was he there? They weren’t that close.... huh.

Anyway, he complimented a necklace I’d gotten from my Nana that year for my birthday that I was wearing to the event (cause you dress up nice for your lil sister’s dance recital. Especially because the entire family shows up). We texted a bit and he asked me out on a date. We hung out pretty regularly for about 2 weeks. Mostly watching documentaries and making out, honestly. He tasted like doritos. It was kinda gross. He was also, I would later find out, a conservative neckbeard, so dodged a fucking bullet when he left me for his ex girlfriend he wasn’t over yet. They broke up again three months later and he’s married now to someone he met in college through the military program at the school. 

I’m jumping over the Really Bad Choices I Made At Church Camp because he was technically too old for the event, I knew him for a total of 3 days, and he proposed to me after a week of text-only conversation. He also went into the military. This...actually this does become a theme. All my absolute worst decisions went into the military. Hmm.

Anyway where was I...

Okay so Really Bad Church Camp Choices, The David Incident...

And then I was on my own until I was in college. I’m going to count this next one as a contributing factor even though the entire relationship was completely platonic with no intention of going further (except..did I want it to? We’ll go into that I guess).

I Should Have Known Better is what I’ll call this one. This is the only relationship I had with a woman that will be listed on here because most of my relationships with women are friendship only. But this was...a lot more intense than just friendship. And I at one point wanted to be more than friends with her. 

We met in class while I was in college. I had just come back from the deep south and was high on Megachurch Neo Baptist Doctrine and also whatever the people in the parking lot of the school were smoking during breaks between classes. It was probably weed. We struggled with the class because the class was shit and taught by someone who could not teach and would not recognize her own failings.

I Should Have Known Better was the first person since I’d started attending college courses to talk to me about things that weren’t class related. She invited me to hang out - she was 3 years older than me, lived on her own (with roommates, but it felt like she had the place to herself), she had a dog, and she did Grown Up Things like drinking and she sometimes smoked weed and my tiny freshly converted and c-sectioned out of the womb of attempting to be born again heart was all a pitterpatter at the thought that I was an adult and I could do that. She got me involved in online dating, we went to Disney together where I footed most of the bill (this is also where my financial struggles started up, though there was a nice long period where I was doing very well by my standards which are low but not bad). We decided to move in together because we were able to stand being around one another all the time and enjoyed it. We talked about becoming even adultier adults and moving into houses right next door to one another, where we’d have our husbands and we’d hang out all the time and it’d be great. There was one point shortly after our move where she had a pregnancy scare, and I was prepared to become the dad of that baby because the potential father was Not Good. Thankfully it was unfounded, but that’s how invested I was with her.

The place we moved into we shared with 2 other girls. These girls did not mesh well with I Should Have Known and this is where the name comes from. She didn’t handle the conflict well, none of us did, because none of us were over the age of 24. But I knew I Should Have Known and I knew it wasn’t her fault that all these other girls didn’t like her, they were just bitches who were immature because that’s what she told me they were. I never really knew the other side of the story.

Anyway we were 4 months into our lease and ISHK wanted the two of us to break the lease and move out. I couldn’t afford moving out and potentially owing 2 rents. The landlord wouldn’t let us out of the lease just because we (she) didn’t get along with the people we moved in with. They were all unwilling to try a subleasing agreement, and I had to make a decision as to whether or not I was going to owe rent at 2 separate places. Mind you, of the two of us I was the only one with a steady job and I was able to make rent and bills and feed 2 people. That was it, that was all I was able to do. I couldn’t afford her rent on top of mine - her dad was helping her.

And the thought that I could move in with her somewhere where it would just be the two of us and I might have to cover my rent (an unknown at this point), the rent at the place we were currently living, our food and bills, and potentially part of her rent if her dad wasn’t willing to help with 2 separate rents? I couldn’t do that. I consulted the cards, I freaked out and went to my family that she’d been slowly working on pitting me against for the past year or so of knowing her, went back to the cards, and spent the entirety of Thanksgiving break just in the worst state. I have always bitten my nails, especially when things get stressful. That was the first time I drew blood and it happened on more than one finger. It was bad.

I told her I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t leave the apartment. After the lease was up I’d be more than happy to change locations because it was only one year. She...didn’t like that. She told me that staying would ruin her mental health which was already bad, she told me that it would kill her to stay, that living with these two other girls was signing her death warrant.

That was the first time I didn’t just let someone talk me into something I didn’t want to do. Thinking about it is kind of giving me some really shitty reactions in my chest, but...but I did it. I told her I wasn’t going to leave. I sat through her reaction, I planned for her to tell me to never speak to her again, to give her back all the things she’d ever given me or lent me or anything. I sorted out my laundry so I could have her items separate. I was planning on losing my best friend because she couldn’t live with two other people.

The argument that caused all of this, by the way? Dirty dishes. I was the one who ended up cleaning them, as a side note.

ISHK ended up inducing vomiting in the shower after our major blow out about it, while I was sorting through the items she’d given me. I don’t know if it really was that she was crying so hard that she vomited or if she did it on purpose. She told me when she was done that she didn’t want to lose me as a friend, and that she’d stay with me because she couldn’t leave on her own, and also because it wasn’t fair that I be subjected to these two evil girls by myself. She had me clean the bathtub after her, and I did it. I was just glad she wasn’t angry at me and wasn’t leaving me.

Things were strained. She met a guy online, they hit it off over winter break. She’d gone to be with her parents during that time so it was literally just me and one of the other girls in the apartment for nearly a month. Learned some of the other side of the story on that one.

She comes back, she brings the guy with her to hang out. We smoke weed together, he seems alright. They plan on making brownies. You know, special brownies. In the communal kitchen. 

She has me go to the one other girl - the one I spent time with during the winter break because it was just the two of us in the apartment - to make sure that it was okay. Even though no matter what the answer was, it was going to happen anyway. The other girl was not pleased, because our agreement was that she and I could smoke but we kept it to our wing of the apartment.

Thankfully this other girl did seem to recognize that I would not do something that directly went against what we’d all agreed on if the other party said no had ISHK not been there. The cops were called, only ISHK got in trouble (she could have lumped me in with her, but she was trying to keep her new boyfriend out of trouble. She didn’t have to, I guess). This did not help relations with the other roommates, of course. She was convinced it was the one who I’d stayed with over the holidays that had caused all the trouble - when not only was that kind of a projection, but also inaccurate because the person who hadn’t been doing their dishes in the first place was the 4th roommate who has been relatively unmentioned due to the fact that I barely spoke to her.

She moved in with her boyfriend when the lease was up, they eventually got married. She did a volunteer stint with a group who she later introduced me to. I feared losing her after the November Incident and let her use me like a doormat a lot more after that. Through the volunteer group I met my next mistake, but we’ll get there. She actually pushed me into trying to have a relationship with him, but I’ve now learned that I should probably not date people who identify as heavily armed and armored combat vehicles so at least there’s that.

I became so attached to this woman that I wanted to be in a more romantically inclined relationship with her and her husband. I never brought this up specifically but we were entirely too codependent on one another. She required me to build herself up and validate her worldview. I required her because I felt I had no one else.

Through the volunteer group I learned that that’s not how healthy friendships or relationships look for the most part. There were aspects that weren’t so bad, of course. I wouldn’t have been her friend for four years straight otherwise. But we were not healthy together. She may not have been abusive necessarily but she and I were toxic together.

And I should have known. At least that something was wrong earlier than I did. Because of her I moved away from my hometown. The intention was to be closer to her. Everything was finalized and then...I had to make a decision. It was her or the new group of friends who didn’t require me to be anything more than myself. I could explore my boundaries and enforce them in a safe and healthy environment and they would be respected. I had people who supported me and loved me and didn’t mind that I was a little strange because they were all a little strange and I loved them for it. Still do, by the way. <3

So my choices were someone who made me choose between being financially stable or potentially ruining everything I’d just set up four months out of my parents house and got mad at me when I made the right decision because it wasn’t what she wanted. Someone who tried to turn me against my family and very nearly succeeded - whether it’s what she intended or not that’s what she was doing. Someone who when I told her I shouldn’t have to choose because 1) it really wasn’t as big a deal as she was making it out to be and 2) I shouldn’t have known ANYTHING about the situation, specifically the things that were supposed to be confidential between her and the main person she had an issue with (who happened to have a very dominant personality - this was a theme), she told me she felt like killing herself.

And if she killed herself because of this it was my fault.

That’s what she told me. Thankfully for me I was at work an hour away and could not drop what I was doing and rush to her side. I would have, if my dad hadn’t stepped in and said “if she were really honestly going to do it, she wouldn’t tell you like that.” Which, yeah might be a shitty way of putting it, but also was true.

I chose not her. I didn’t necessarily choose the volunteer group because for me that’s not the choice I was making. I was choosing to be beside her for another however long it was, alone with no one but her, because she didn’t want me to have anyone else, until she decided she didn’t like the way things were going and pulled this shit again - or not any of that. Of being responsible for only me, emotionally, financially.

I was also beginning a relationship with The Warzone and I couldn’t separate him from her from the volunteer group. 

Those next few months were rough for me. When she finally calmed down from everything, she tried to get back into my life. I requested she wait until I contact her again because I was still working through my thoughts and feelings and I didn’t need her influence in that process. I knew it would not be helpful. She would give me about a day, maybe two, before texting me again. This reset everything for me because I could not deal with her and with my still conflicted - and very hurt - feelings about the situation. And I asked her again to please respect my request. This happened several times and I finally stopped responding to her altogether.

There were only two terse emails after that, where she had me come collect my things from her house and leave my key while she was not there. The exchange happened quickly and quietly and I didn’t hear from her for several years after that.

I was with The Warzone for the summer. Considering my longest lasting romantic relationship to this point had been about 2 weeks, this was a novelty to me. I was convinced this was it, this was the time I’d done something right, after all my bad choices this was a good thing.

He had some troubles, and had things that had become roadblocks but he had a job, he had his own place, he had a direction he wanted to go in. So I’d just graduated college and he was still in college life? I was still roughly the same age as his friends, I could still hang and party. My life wasn’t that different. 

Our major struggles were mainly that we lived about an hour apart, and we didn’t communicate very well. Or at all, really.

I was anxious and terrified. I hadn’t started working through all my shit yet. I didn’t even know there was shit to work through. I was grieving the loss of my best friend and I had no idea that was even happening. 2 best friends, actually. NWBF had moved really far away and I was still crushing on them super hard. I eventually told them I couldn’t be friends with them until I figured my shit out. That was hard.

I was going through a really rough patch and self medicating with alcohol and more weed because I apparently had found another pothead in Warzone.

Warzone was also my first partner I’d ever had sex with. I don’t regret Warzone necessarily, but I do regret that I invested so much in the relationship, to the point that I blatantly ignored several signs that this was not going the way I wanted it to. His own struggles led to him realizing he couldn’t be in a relationship with me. I still am fucked up over the phrasing he used, because no one wants to be described as a roller coaster the other person doesn’t want to ride on anymore.

And he did this before we were set to hang out with people through the volunteer group. I am incredibly, incredibly thankful for the people who allowed me to lean on them while I was there, who knew the situation. We kept our PDA in the group to a minimum anyway so if you didn’t know we were together, you wouldn’t know unless we told you. He showed up high about an hour after I’d gotten there. I’d showed up early because I’d had to leave after he broke up with me, and I had a nice long tantrum cry in my car in a small parking lot downtown and couldn’t be alone anymore. 

My roommate at the time treated me to drinks, helped me get set up on a dating website after some wine on a different night, and was generally supportive throughout the process. I think her change in behavior towards me should have clued me in about The Ex a lot sooner, but oh well.

Because of the dating apps/sites I signed up on, I met The Ex. That whole debacle played out through my posts on here for the most part because this is where I process everything, so if you’ve been with me for a while you’re pretty familiar with my mental state while I was with him. I was constantly justifying his behaviors and actions and no one who loved me liked him but no one said anything either.

They all have carte blanche to tell me when they don’t like someone I’m dating from here on out - not that I plan on doing that much in the future, but I wanted them aware of it. After ISHK and The Ex, I need outside input to show me I’m not making good decisions with the people I’m choosing to keep in my life despite the fact that they treat me like dirt.

ISHK laid the groundwork for The Ex to fully isolate me from my family. Not only was I farther away from them than I’d ever been in my life, but he took me from the job that allowed me to see them regularly. He encouraged me to skip family events. I missed nearly 5 years of my family’s lives because of this man.

When I left him, I was already emotionally done with him. So I thought I’d be ready to try again. It may have been compensation for my loneliness, for my isolation, still so far away from my family even though they at least were aware I was struggling. I couldn’t let myself rely on them yet.

Still can’t.

So I turned back to the dating apps. And I met The Pittsburgh Mistake.

He was nice, charming. I’ll admit when I met him a gaydar went off - the one that says “Oh, this might be a trans guy”. You know all the signals we queer folk give off to one another to say “Hey other queer folk guess what I’m one of you please don’t let me be alone”? There were multiple that read as trans guy.

He was not. I wish he had been. But no he was a redpill, conservative nightmare. And he was abusive as FUCK. We went on an outing and he didn’t tell me the plan was to stay overnight somewhere. He just had me drive him around and we finally got up there and he was like okay let’s go get a room for the night.

That was the first sign.

Then he was like “Hey I gotta go back to Pittsburgh to get all my things so I can move down this way, wanna come with me?” Thinking it was going to be another overnight, maybe a 2 night stay maximum, I said sure. 

We were there for almost a week. He’d driven so I couldn’t just leave. He didn’t seem to have any intention of actually doing anything to move his stuff, or sell it, or anything. He flirted with other women nearly the entire time - which I didn’t have an issue with him seeing other people, but I wasn’t, I don’t think, prepared for him to do it while I was with him. Like out with him. On things that other people might have considered dates. I’ve mentioned, however, that he took me to a huge museum and I nearly did forget that I had no idea how long we were going to be up there, I had no spare clothes - just one outfit, he would actively ignore me to flirt with other women, and he wasn’t doing anything to move the situation along with his move.

I’d picked back up on smoking while I was with him. I’ve smoked cigarettes a few times in my life. I can quit cold turkey pretty easily and that’s not an issue, it’s just...I shouldn’t do it. It’s bad for me for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that my mom’s family has a tendency to acquire rare lung cancer that’s exacerbated by smoking. The other is that I have a penchant for getting bronchitis, like, all the time. But I was smoking a lot more heavily than I had previous times, even when I was smoking a lot of weed daily with ISHK, I didn’t smoke nearly as much as I did with The Pittsburgh Mistake.

The other thing that was a huge major red flag I should have been more cognizant of is how he made it my fault if he couldn’t keep it up or get it in during sex. I was doing something wrong, I wasn’t good enough or prepped enough, even though he’d done literally nothing to help things along. It was be ready to go whenever he wanted it, or be told I was worthless and useless and I must not really like him if he couldn’t get it in.

He got really drunk and wouldn’t know what he was doing, and he got really uncomfortable to be around while he was drunk. He claimed he wasn’t an alcoholic but i know he was using it as a crutch for whatever was going on in his brain. He projected his issues onto everyone else. It was everyone else’s fault, not his. They were crazy, not him. 

When he started talking about being godlike in a decidedly blasphemous way, I figured there was definitely something wrong. When he continually invited his other girlfriend over while I was still there, despite the fact that both of us had been vocal about it being uncomfortable for us, I knew I needed to get out.

When he broke a window right next to my head because I was trying to leave because he’d invited her over again without saying anything to either of us until he’d already made the decision, and he was drunk enough to not remember it even as it was happening, I knew I needed to run and never come back.

I gave him one last chance. I asked him if he knew why I was upset, and he said something bullshit I don’t even remember. I told him about himself and he accused me of gaslighting him. Which??? Telling you you’re an asshole and that I am uncomfortable when you bring your other girlfriend over and haven’t discussed it with me, especially since I’ve told you  multiple times I’m incredibly uncomfortable in that situation is not gaslighting. But he thought he was a genius and so smart and so close after The Ex who had a god complex and thought he was a genius and so smart, I knew I needed out and fast.

He literally sent me a text with a screen shot of a bible verse saying “I am a jealous god” yadda yadda and something about I’ll end up dying alone if I continue being however I was being. Like, thanks, but no thanks I don’t even believe in the Christian God, I’m not going to believe you, some random redpill douche who literally broke a window because I wasn’t putting up with his bullshit anymore, is a god either. I’m very proud of my response.

“LOL, okay bye.”

Like, sorry, bro. You gotta feed me a way more intricate story than just that you think you’re god incarnate. The Ex at least told me he could travel through alternate dimensions and universes and pulled me through along with him at some point from another universe - not his, but a different one, because he loved me so much. You gotta try a lot harder on the god complex in order to top that one, buddy.

yeah I wish I was kidding about the above. I also wish I was kidding when I tell you I believed it.

I’m still working on not believing it. I don’t feel like i belong in this universe a lot of the time, and playing into that did not help. And it’s especially not helpful when I’m super depressed and feeling mildly suicidal. So that’s been fun to deal with since I’ve gotten away from him.

Anyway, those are my relationship mistakes. Warzone almost doesn’t count because it wasn’t necessarily a mistake, but I shouldn’t have been in a romantic relationship so soon after the ISHK incidents.

And through all of this, one of the weirdest things for me is realizing that when I was in relationships? I didn’t necessarily feel any draw to be any sort of way with people. Like, I was with The Ex for 4 1/2 years, and while I loved him I wasn’t romantically in love with him. Which I didn’t realize until I was on my way out of loving him at all because he was treating me poorly. I was physically attracted to The Pittsburgh Mistake, but I knew that wasn’t a long-term deal from the outset. But I wasn’t necessarily sexually attracted to him. I have a high sex drive that sometimes clouds my judgement and I know that was a part of it, but he wasn’t *sexy*. Neither was The Ex. I found him attractive, aesthetically, but he wasn’t *sexy* necessarily. I told him I found him sexy because he didn’t understand otherwise and I thought I was helping. I was actually making it worse but I didn’t know. I felt giddy around The David Incident because I was 16 and was excited that I was finally dating someone because I’d never really done it before. I was just downright stupid with the Bad Choices I Made At Church Camp and that one I will own, but again I was 16 and lonely. Now We’re Best Friends has been the only one that worked out and I think honestly it was the LGBT+ flocking instinct. 

I Should Have Known was the only one I feel came closest to romantic feelings and honestly I think that was more stockholm-obsession than actually anything romantic.

So while I’m a sucker for a good love story, while I love the thought of being in a loving romantic relationship, I’m not sure I’m actually romantic? Like? 

There was a post the other day that was like “I’m in love with being in love, but I’m Aro-spec" and I was like??? That’s a thing???

And then I was listening to someone else who said they were cupioromantic and I looked up what that meant because I don’t know the aro-labels as well as the asexual labels and I was like???? That’s a THING??????

So, I’m still figuring myself out. I thought I was nearly there and then I remembered I don’t make anything easy for myself. I’m somewhere on the ace spectrum. My sexual attraction is very limited to what I definitely have zero chance with and that’s because it’s safe. Also it’s very aesthetically based, not powered by my genitals or hormones. As to whether or not I’m Aro as well? We’re still working on that.

But this was apparently more about me processing my trauma more than figuring out my labels since that’s what happened. I’m still working on my labels. I may never figure it out. It might change and then I’ll be really fucked which’ll be fun.

So anyway...did you really read this far down? Holy fuck this is so long, well done. You deserve a cookie or a glass of water or at least stand up and stretch like goodness you must be exhausted. Thanks for supporting and loving me and for being here with me while I try to figure out what the fuck is going on in my life.

I love you.

[stopkingobama]

Inside the Soros-backed "Alt Left" terrorist movement

Click here to deport George Soros! —

Image credit: World Economic Forum Photo by Sebastian DerungsCC by SA 2.0

When writing this piece, a quote kept rattling around in the back of my head. It was the title of the opening chapter of “The Feminine Mystique,” Betty Friedan’s seminal 1963 feminist manifesto: The Problem That Has No Name. Apologies in advance, for appropriating and altering three of the quotes I find most meaningful from that chapter, for my own purposes here:

The problem lay buried, unspoken, for many years in the minds of American liberals…

Even so, most liberals still did not know that this problem was real. But those who had faced it honestly knew that all the media dismissals, the academic justifications, the intellectualized double speak and the manufactured outrage were somehow drowning the problem in unreality…

How can any person see the whole truth within the bounds of one’s own life? How can she believe that voice inside herself, when it denies the conventional, accepted truths by which she has been living? And yet the liberals I have talked to, who are finally listening to that inner voice, seem in some incredible way to be groping through to a truth that has defied the media.”

The Alt-Left Is Real

There is an effort underfoot, in the media and in academia, to declare the Alt-Left a myth, to sweep it back under the rug, to reduce it, in effect, back to being a sickness not spoken of, a problem that has no name. I have had well-meaning friends tell me I should not use the term Alt-Left (or any of its synonyms: Regressive Left, CTRL-Left, SJWism) because they are ‘pejoratives’ used only by the right to attack the left.

In my experience, this is not true. Like canaries in the coal mine, liberals who do not (or no longer) subscribe to the Alt-Left ideology have been sounding the alarm about this creeping plague of repressive groupthink for quite a while now. I believe this attempt to dissuade our use of the term Alt-Left is purposeful (even if not consciously recognized by individuals who are doing it) — for how can we discuss something we cannot refer to by name?

When asked to define Alt-Left, I would describe it as a leftist but illiberal authoritarian ideology rooted in postmodernism and neo-Marxism that supports censorship, condones violence in response to speech, is obsessed with identity politics (much like the Alt-Right), and functions like a secular religion that gives its believers a sense of moral self-worth.

It masquerades as a form of liberalism, but it has more in common with authoritarianism than its true believers can (or want to?) admit. It claims to speak for the marginalized, but it either ignores or attempts to hatefully shame members of marginalized groups who do not subscribe to the ideology.

It is not simply Antifa; it is the ideology that undergirds Antifa, and it has swallowed much of BLM and intersectional third wave feminism. It wishes to swallow the whole of the left, the country, the world. It is rooted in nihilism, resentfulness, and arrogance, though it presents itself as being rooted in equality, justice, and morality. It favors collectivism over individualism, statism over liberty, forced equality of outcome over freedom.

Now…imagine if I had to say that mouthful every time I wished to talk about the Alt-Left because I bought into the notion that to give it a name it would be insulting to fellow liberals. No, to speak of it by name is to out it for what it is and to reduce some of its power.

What’s in a Name?

I can’t tell you how good it felt when I first discovered the work of Dave Rubin, a reasonable liberal, and realized I wasn’t alone in seeing this pernicious belief system for what it really is.

In his video, Rubin offers that it doesn’t matter which term we use, what’s important is that we are allowed to identify the problem. “Whatever name you use for this well-meaning yet painfully misguided set of ideas is largely irrelevant. We needed this phrase to identify this backward ideology which puts groups before people. And sometimes you need a label to get people to understand an idea.”

Reasonable liberal Maajid Nawaz, widely credited with coining the term Regressive Left, also made the following observation last year:

Today’s active, organized left is no longer liberal. A liberal will always prioritize free speech over offense. This behavior, censorship on the organized left, post factual behavior, violence being seen as an option and prioritizing group identity over individual rights. That isn’t liberal.”

Do yourself a favor and watch the whole video:

Yet another reasonable liberal, Tim Pool, points out that one of the few things Politico gets right about the Alt-Left is that it is a term used by centrist liberals. Pool says, “Yes, I use the term Alt-Left because I want to make sure everybody knows when I say I’m left-leaning, I’m not the kind of person that’s gonna go out and punch somebody in the face or take away their rights because I think mine are more important.”

I’m also a liberal who’s been using the term Alt-Left since I first learned to trust that voice within myself, that voice that denies the conventional, accepted Alt-Left “truths” by which I had been living.

The first time I used it in a public piece of writing was back in May while attempting to articulate my transformation in belief systems in an essay called On Leaving the SJW Cult and Finding Myself. The essay itself was a long time coming. I started to wake up to the creeping authoritarianism and endless internal hypocrisies of the accepted Alt-Left ideology over a year ago. But leaving behind a belief system to which you’ve subscribed for twenty years is a bit like razing your house to the ground and rebuilding from the ground up.

Suddenly you are starting with nothing; everything you thought you knew is suspect. It takes a long time to evaluate each previously held belief and try to discern which ones hold substance. Where before my house had foolishly been built on the shifting sands of postmodernism, this time I want to ensure that, as Dr. Jordan Peterson might say, my house is built on rock.

It makes me think of George Lakoff’s “Don’t Think of an Elephant,” my first introduction to the concept of framing. Lackoff said “Frames are mental structures that shape the way we see the world….Neuroscience tells us that each of the concepts we have — the long-term concepts that structure how we think — is instantiated in the synapses of our brains…If a strongly held frame doesn’t fit the facts, the facts will be ignored and the frame will be kept.”

I devoured this book when a young SJW. It helped me understand how people could vote Republican and why my right-wing Aunt didn’t seem to be swayed to my point of view no matter how many facts I threw at her. What I didn’t think too much about was how this human tendency is just as prevalent on the left as it is on the right.

The Frog and the Pot

I am of the opinion that a lot of well-meaning people have become converts to the Alt-Left ideology without even realizing it. Like the parable of the slow boiling frog, if you had told me at the beginning that one day I’d be expected to perform mental gymnastics in order to defend censorship and violence in response to speech, I would have leaped from the pot.

Instead, I was conditioned to accept as gospel each new tenet of SJWism over a period of twenty years. I believed in the essential goodness of the ideology, and in my own essential goodness in preaching it. When facts about the direction it was taking me made themselves known to me, I rejected them because they did not fit the frame. As the ideology became more noticeably toxic, hypocritical, and authoritarian, so too did the tactics of the true believers. Whether in academia, in the media, at Google, or online — the message is clear: dare to step out of line or express an independent thought, and a mob of zealous SJW zombies will come for you. The fear of losing one’s job, status, friends or personal safety is a strong motivator in forcing reasonable people to remain silent.

I have received a lot of positive feedback about the sentiments expressed in my writing about SJWism from people all over the political spectrum. Most meaningful to me of these might be the messages I get from fellow liberals who are going through the same realization, confusion, and fear.

In addition to the public responses you can read yourself, I have received private messages from people in academia, journalism, and entertainment — many of them liberals — expressing that the piece resonated with them and that they were afraid to share it (or presumably in some cases, to express themselves about anything at all). Excerpts from a handful of these are below:

I honestly was scared to tweet that…that’s how bad things have gotten. I’ve nearly lost work…The world has gone mad.”

“I have definitely taken notice of so many of my friends on the left going to a dark place.”

“It is totally wild. These people are my friends — my community….They’re so angry.”

“…your piece on the social justice cult affected me more than words can say. After being called ‘violent’…because I used a word that someone decided was offensive…I had a bit of an existential crisis about my life and self-worth. Thus, I’ve been thinking about this quite a bit… I remain committed to the idea that privilege exists and it should be combated through both self-reflection and system action. I also am a proud liberal, and that hasn’t lessened. That said, I can’t get behind the individual scapegoating, shouting and intimidation in the name of fighting hate, or defining sharing a point of view as “educating” and “labor.” Ultimately, the world needs more compassion….I’m trying to get there on talking and writing about some of this a little more publicly, but I don’t think I’m quite there yet (also, the fact that I’m on the academic job market makes me a bit hesitant).” 

“I saw your posts and they were refreshing. I hate politics but free speech is so important to me….but then I remember I work in TV and Music and I can’t say anything that’s going to make me lose my job. It’s crazy what’s going on right now.”

“Just wanted to let you know I’m one of those people who greatly appreciates your voice on social media, but am too afraid of the thought police to voice my support.”

Actions Speak Louder Than Words

If the Alt-Left doesn’t exist, why are so many liberals and centrists afraid of expressing themselves? Why are so many people self-censoring for their own sense of safety? I was fascinated by the James Damore story, not because I have an opinion on the legality of his dismissal, but because his online stoning and subsequent firing confirmed for me what I already suspected: Google, like most of the tech space, the entertainment space, the academic space and the media space has become a panopticon of Alt-Left groupthink, self-censorship, and fear.

I know this fear intimately. As I started waking up to the illiberal nature of the growing Alt-Left ideology, I held my tongue for a long time out of fear of losing job opportunities, the safety of anonymity, and friends. After all, I built my career, and by proxy a lot of my friendships, from this SJW frame. I don’t judge anyone for subscribing to this ideology out of misplaced idealism and a desire to do good; I did for twenty years. Likewise, I don’t judge anyone who is currently waking up from it but is constrained by fear. As I tell folks who write me about it: I don’t know the exact way to get over it. I suspect it’s different for every person. But trust me when I tell you, it is so liberating on the other side.

For those self-identified liberals who may have been seduced by this belief system, by its propaganda, and are fuming at this piece, thank you for reading this far. I believe a part of you is struggling to wake up if you stuck it out this long. I encourage you to start listening to that small voice inside yourself, the one that tells you when something doesn’t seem quite right or reasonable, no matter if it’s accepted by all of your peers.

Take a look at who was really at the Free Speech Rally in Boston for starters. This, for example, is Shiva Ayyadurai. You may decide you don’t like him because he’s conservative, but to call him a “white supremacist” is a dangerous Alt-Left falsehood.

Take the time to listen to Will Johnson and Joey Gibson, two of the organizers of the Patriot Prayer Rally in SF this past weekend. Their rally was canceled after successful media (and political) attempts to smear them as “white supremacists” caused subsequent threats of violence from the Alt-Left. Ask yourself if it’s not odd that so many so-called liberals are now smearing people of color with whom they don’t agree as “white supremacists” (Charles Barkley is apparently one now too, so Johnson, Gibson, and Ayyadurai are not alone).

Then ask yourself if these people, or these people, or these people, or these people, or these people, or these people, or these people, or these people or these people, or these people, or these people, or these people, or these students, or these students, or these students, or these students are really fighting fascism, or if they are acting as footsoldiers (some witting, some unwitting) for a pro-censorship and pro-violence ideology. These facts may not fit your frame, but — do the actions depicted here reflect your liberal values?

I read a C.S. Lewis quote some time ago, that has stuck with me during my transformation in thought. Perhaps it will stick with you:

“Suppose one reads a story of filthy atrocities in the paper. Then suppose that something turns up suggesting that the story might not be quite true, or not quite so bad as it was made out. Is one’s first feeling, ‘Thank God, even they aren’t quite so bad as that,’ or is it a feeling of disappointment, and even a determination to cling to the first story for the sheer pleasure of thinking your enemies are as bad as possible? If it is the second then it is, I am afraid, the first step in a process which, if followed to the end, will make us into devils. You see, one is beginning to wish that black was a little blacker. If we give that wish its head, later on we shall wish to see grey as black, and then to see white itself as black. Finally we shall insist on seeing everything — God and our friends and ourselves included — as bad, and not be able to stop doing it: we shall be fixed for ever in a universe of pure hatred.”

Keri Smith

Keri is Co-Founder of Whitesmith Entertainment.

This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.

[americanlibertypac]

Inside the Soros-backed "Alt Left" terrorist movement

Click here to deport George Soros! —

Image credit: World Economic Forum Photo by Sebastian DerungsCC by SA 2.0

When writing this piece, a quote kept rattling around in the back of my head. It was the title of the opening chapter of “The Feminine Mystique,” Betty Friedan’s seminal 1963 feminist manifesto: The Problem That Has No Name. Apologies in advance, for appropriating and altering three of the quotes I find most meaningful from that chapter, for my own purposes here:

The problem lay buried, unspoken, for many years in the minds of American liberals…

Even so, most liberals still did not know that this problem was real. But those who had faced it honestly knew that all the media dismissals, the academic justifications, the intellectualized double speak and the manufactured outrage were somehow drowning the problem in unreality…

How can any person see the whole truth within the bounds of one’s own life? How can she believe that voice inside herself, when it denies the conventional, accepted truths by which she has been living? And yet the liberals I have talked to, who are finally listening to that inner voice, seem in some incredible way to be groping through to a truth that has defied the media.”

The Alt-Left Is Real

There is an effort underfoot, in the media and in academia, to declare the Alt-Left a myth, to sweep it back under the rug, to reduce it, in effect, back to being a sickness not spoken of, a problem that has no name. I have had well-meaning friends tell me I should not use the term Alt-Left (or any of its synonyms: Regressive Left, CTRL-Left, SJWism) because they are ‘pejoratives’ used only by the right to attack the left.

In my experience, this is not true. Like canaries in the coal mine, liberals who do not (or no longer) subscribe to the Alt-Left ideology have been sounding the alarm about this creeping plague of repressive groupthink for quite a while now. I believe this attempt to dissuade our use of the term Alt-Left is purposeful (even if not consciously recognized by individuals who are doing it) — for how can we discuss something we cannot refer to by name?

When asked to define Alt-Left, I would describe it as a leftist but illiberal authoritarian ideology rooted in postmodernism and neo-Marxism that supports censorship, condones violence in response to speech, is obsessed with identity politics (much like the Alt-Right), and functions like a secular religion that gives its believers a sense of moral self-worth.

It masquerades as a form of liberalism, but it has more in common with authoritarianism than its true believers can (or want to?) admit. It claims to speak for the marginalized, but it either ignores or attempts to hatefully shame members of marginalized groups who do not subscribe to the ideology.

It is not simply Antifa; it is the ideology that undergirds Antifa, and it has swallowed much of BLM and intersectional third wave feminism. It wishes to swallow the whole of the left, the country, the world. It is rooted in nihilism, resentfulness, and arrogance, though it presents itself as being rooted in equality, justice, and morality. It favors collectivism over individualism, statism over liberty, forced equality of outcome over freedom.

Now…imagine if I had to say that mouthful every time I wished to talk about the Alt-Left because I bought into the notion that to give it a name it would be insulting to fellow liberals. No, to speak of it by name is to out it for what it is and to reduce some of its power.

What’s in a Name?

I can’t tell you how good it felt when I first discovered the work of Dave Rubin, a reasonable liberal, and realized I wasn’t alone in seeing this pernicious belief system for what it really is.

In his video, Rubin offers that it doesn’t matter which term we use, what’s important is that we are allowed to identify the problem. “Whatever name you use for this well-meaning yet painfully misguided set of ideas is largely irrelevant. We needed this phrase to identify this backward ideology which puts groups before people. And sometimes you need a label to get people to understand an idea.”

Reasonable liberal Maajid Nawaz, widely credited with coining the term Regressive Left, also made the following observation last year:

Today’s active, organized left is no longer liberal. A liberal will always prioritize free speech over offense. This behavior, censorship on the organized left, post factual behavior, violence being seen as an option and prioritizing group identity over individual rights. That isn’t liberal.”

Do yourself a favor and watch the whole video:

Yet another reasonable liberal, Tim Pool, points out that one of the few things Politico gets right about the Alt-Left is that it is a term used by centrist liberals. Pool says, “Yes, I use the term Alt-Left because I want to make sure everybody knows when I say I’m left-leaning, I’m not the kind of person that’s gonna go out and punch somebody in the face or take away their rights because I think mine are more important.”

I’m also a liberal who’s been using the term Alt-Left since I first learned to trust that voice within myself, that voice that denies the conventional, accepted Alt-Left “truths” by which I had been living.

The first time I used it in a public piece of writing was back in May while attempting to articulate my transformation in belief systems in an essay called On Leaving the SJW Cult and Finding Myself. The essay itself was a long time coming. I started to wake up to the creeping authoritarianism and endless internal hypocrisies of the accepted Alt-Left ideology over a year ago. But leaving behind a belief system to which you’ve subscribed for twenty years is a bit like razing your house to the ground and rebuilding from the ground up.

Suddenly you are starting with nothing; everything you thought you knew is suspect. It takes a long time to evaluate each previously held belief and try to discern which ones hold substance. Where before my house had foolishly been built on the shifting sands of postmodernism, this time I want to ensure that, as Dr. Jordan Peterson might say, my house is built on rock.

It makes me think of George Lakoff’s “Don’t Think of an Elephant,” my first introduction to the concept of framing. Lackoff said “Frames are mental structures that shape the way we see the world….Neuroscience tells us that each of the concepts we have — the long-term concepts that structure how we think — is instantiated in the synapses of our brains…If a strongly held frame doesn’t fit the facts, the facts will be ignored and the frame will be kept.”

I devoured this book when a young SJW. It helped me understand how people could vote Republican and why my right-wing Aunt didn’t seem to be swayed to my point of view no matter how many facts I threw at her. What I didn’t think too much about was how this human tendency is just as prevalent on the left as it is on the right.

The Frog and the Pot

I am of the opinion that a lot of well-meaning people have become converts to the Alt-Left ideology without even realizing it. Like the parable of the slow boiling frog, if you had told me at the beginning that one day I’d be expected to perform mental gymnastics in order to defend censorship and violence in response to speech, I would have leaped from the pot.

Instead, I was conditioned to accept as gospel each new tenet of SJWism over a period of twenty years. I believed in the essential goodness of the ideology, and in my own essential goodness in preaching it. When facts about the direction it was taking me made themselves known to me, I rejected them because they did not fit the frame. As the ideology became more noticeably toxic, hypocritical, and authoritarian, so too did the tactics of the true believers. Whether in academia, in the media, at Google, or online — the message is clear: dare to step out of line or express an independent thought, and a mob of zealous SJW zombies will come for you. The fear of losing one’s job, status, friends or personal safety is a strong motivator in forcing reasonable people to remain silent.

I have received a lot of positive feedback about the sentiments expressed in my writing about SJWism from people all over the political spectrum. Most meaningful to me of these might be the messages I get from fellow liberals who are going through the same realization, confusion, and fear.

In addition to the public responses you can read yourself, I have received private messages from people in academia, journalism, and entertainment — many of them liberals — expressing that the piece resonated with them and that they were afraid to share it (or presumably in some cases, to express themselves about anything at all). Excerpts from a handful of these are below:

I honestly was scared to tweet that…that’s how bad things have gotten. I’ve nearly lost work…The world has gone mad.”

“I have definitely taken notice of so many of my friends on the left going to a dark place.”

“It is totally wild. These people are my friends — my community….They’re so angry.”

“…your piece on the social justice cult affected me more than words can say. After being called ‘violent’…because I used a word that someone decided was offensive…I had a bit of an existential crisis about my life and self-worth. Thus, I’ve been thinking about this quite a bit… I remain committed to the idea that privilege exists and it should be combated through both self-reflection and system action. I also am a proud liberal, and that hasn’t lessened. That said, I can’t get behind the individual scapegoating, shouting and intimidation in the name of fighting hate, or defining sharing a point of view as “educating” and “labor.” Ultimately, the world needs more compassion….I’m trying to get there on talking and writing about some of this a little more publicly, but I don’t think I’m quite there yet (also, the fact that I’m on the academic job market makes me a bit hesitant).” 

“I saw your posts and they were refreshing. I hate politics but free speech is so important to me….but then I remember I work in TV and Music and I can’t say anything that’s going to make me lose my job. It’s crazy what’s going on right now.”

“Just wanted to let you know I’m one of those people who greatly appreciates your voice on social media, but am too afraid of the thought police to voice my support.”

Actions Speak Louder Than Words

If the Alt-Left doesn’t exist, why are so many liberals and centrists afraid of expressing themselves? Why are so many people self-censoring for their own sense of safety? I was fascinated by the James Damore story, not because I have an opinion on the legality of his dismissal, but because his online stoning and subsequent firing confirmed for me what I already suspected: Google, like most of the tech space, the entertainment space, the academic space and the media space has become a panopticon of Alt-Left groupthink, self-censorship, and fear.

I know this fear intimately. As I started waking up to the illiberal nature of the growing Alt-Left ideology, I held my tongue for a long time out of fear of losing job opportunities, the safety of anonymity, and friends. After all, I built my career, and by proxy a lot of my friendships, from this SJW frame. I don’t judge anyone for subscribing to this ideology out of misplaced idealism and a desire to do good; I did for twenty years. Likewise, I don’t judge anyone who is currently waking up from it but is constrained by fear. As I tell folks who write me about it: I don’t know the exact way to get over it. I suspect it’s different for every person. But trust me when I tell you, it is so liberating on the other side.

For those self-identified liberals who may have been seduced by this belief system, by its propaganda, and are fuming at this piece, thank you for reading this far. I believe a part of you is struggling to wake up if you stuck it out this long. I encourage you to start listening to that small voice inside yourself, the one that tells you when something doesn’t seem quite right or reasonable, no matter if it’s accepted by all of your peers.

Take a look at who was really at the Free Speech Rally in Boston for starters. This, for example, is Shiva Ayyadurai. You may decide you don’t like him because he’s conservative, but to call him a “white supremacist” is a dangerous Alt-Left falsehood.

Take the time to listen to Will Johnson and Joey Gibson, two of the organizers of the Patriot Prayer Rally in SF this past weekend. Their rally was canceled after successful media (and political) attempts to smear them as “white supremacists” caused subsequent threats of violence from the Alt-Left. Ask yourself if it’s not odd that so many so-called liberals are now smearing people of color with whom they don’t agree as “white supremacists” (Charles Barkley is apparently one now too, so Johnson, Gibson, and Ayyadurai are not alone).

Then ask yourself if these people, or these people, or these people, or these people, or these people, or these people, or these people, or these people or these people, or these people, or these people, or these people, or these students, or these students, or these students, or these students are really fighting fascism, or if they are acting as footsoldiers (some witting, some unwitting) for a pro-censorship and pro-violence ideology. These facts may not fit your frame, but — do the actions depicted here reflect your liberal values?

I read a C.S. Lewis quote some time ago, that has stuck with me during my transformation in thought. Perhaps it will stick with you:

“Suppose one reads a story of filthy atrocities in the paper. Then suppose that something turns up suggesting that the story might not be quite true, or not quite so bad as it was made out. Is one’s first feeling, ‘Thank God, even they aren’t quite so bad as that,’ or is it a feeling of disappointment, and even a determination to cling to the first story for the sheer pleasure of thinking your enemies are as bad as possible? If it is the second then it is, I am afraid, the first step in a process which, if followed to the end, will make us into devils. You see, one is beginning to wish that black was a little blacker. If we give that wish its head, later on we shall wish to see grey as black, and then to see white itself as black. Finally we shall insist on seeing everything — God and our friends and ourselves included — as bad, and not be able to stop doing it: we shall be fixed for ever in a universe of pure hatred.”

Keri Smith

Keri is Co-Founder of Whitesmith Entertainment.

This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.