Bro really said that losing all right to bodily autonomy isn’t a good enough reason to dramatically shift someone’s political leaning

Haha, “why so defensive”?

Right, but if the person I was talking originally to had said “I’m not from the US so I know nothing about it” it woulda been fine and I would have immediately apologized and we’d go from there. Having a nice chat.

That’s not what happened. Someone new chimed in with a pretty rude non-sequitur in the vein of ‘stupid Americans’. I don’t think I was particularly defensive or angry, but maybe it came off that way.

I definitely don’t? I was just providing my experience for the place I live. Obviously not all places are the south…? And good for you on your ‘more civilized place’, but we’re not talking about those areas.

Seems to me that, to solve rent crisis, Americans should just move into Europeans’ heads, since we seem to live there rent free already.

I’m not sure where you live, but living/growing up in the south… I can tell you that those beliefs run deep. Deep deep deep. Deeper than you can fix by just being pleasant to your neighbor.

If you try to talk to them with kindness and openness, they dig in their heels and start spewing fox news talking points like it’s the most obvious thing in the world (I’m pretty sure they like it so much because it confirms every awful belief they already had). Try to present different sources, they’re rejected as fake news. I’ve tried everything with people around here since before 2016 and nothing seems to help. Mostly I just keep to myself.

Living in the south, if you’re not indoctrinated, is very isolating. Even living in the cities doesn’t really help. You still need to dig deep and look carefully for people who don’t think you deserve fewer rights.

Edit: thinking about it more, I think the isolation is the point, and it’s how so many people in my state believe some of the same basic things when it comes to religion and politics. You learn pretty young around here that if you don’t get with the program, you’re not going to have many friends. If you didn’t go to church, especially, you lost out on most of the community’s socializing for the week. It feels very cliquey in the smaller towns especially, almost by design.

Super not enthused with how centrist this is. Comes off as more of the “can’t we all just get along and live in unity??” stuff people say, when really they mean “the left needs to chill and stop making everything a big deal.”

Kinda hard to just ‘get along’ when the other side is trying to destroy democracy and strip large portions of the population of their basic human rights.

There is so much to unpack here holy moly. Ignoring the religious stuff, there are lots of alternatives to the things you’re listing, if you’re concerned. You say truth is bitter, but overlook some glaring ones provided by the modern era: vitamin supplements and alternative leather made from plants.

Those things might have been true when the monk spoke them, but time marches on and modern advancements leave some pieces of wisdom behind in the past.

Practice makes perfect :) If you’re sewing, try using a backstitch

My fear of not tipping before I get my food/product is the fear of a resentful employee tampering with it before I get it. So then I’m left in a situation of feeling like my food is being held hostage if I don’t give a tip. It really feels like a shakedown, and I don’t appreciate it. It has made me stop frequenting places that ask for a tip before I even get my food.