Compassion, Kindness, and Nazis

[Red Martian]

I wasn't always acerbic and cynical. Well, I mean not as much as I have become. Being one of those kids back in the day who was considered "gifted and talented," I developed that darkly sarcastic sense of humor so many of us do to cope with the expectations our parents and teachers placed on us, and to deal with the bullshit we got from our peers for being "teacher's pet" and whatever else they thought would make me cry (successfully) while hiding behind my locker door.

I have tried to become as soft outside as I am inside. Deep down, I am a marshmallow, I'm a soft fuzzy unicorn, and a cuddly wuddly stuffed teddy bear. If it were up to me, I'd play with stuffed animals all day, feed hungry kids, donate my time to the needs of the unfortunate, and give everyone hugs and kisses while tucking them into their beds.

I stayed as soft and sweet as I could for as long as I could, because I also took care of my mom, and she needed positivity and joy in her life, and on that I could deliver to the best of my ability. I would pour out my kindness in the hopes of lifting her up and giving her more to build on so she could feel better and get better. That went on for well over a decade. I was soft and kind for her, using all of my energy to insulate her from the cruelty of the rest of this horrible country.

We live in a world that hates such a person. No, wait, we don't live in a world like that, we live in a culture like that. Specifically, the US culture is hard edged, cynical, hateful, and xenophobic. Were we always? That's up for debate, but I know that as it stands, our culture values hardness and apathy towards those we see as beneath us. We're a caste society in a sense. If you're born poor, you'll almost always stay poor, no matter how hard you work and sweat and save, because working and sweating and saving doesn't lead anywhere except more working, sweating, and saving.

The rich didn't get where they are by working, they got where they are by inheriting money and playing markets that are gamed in their favor. If you think you're a failure because you're poor, you're not a failure, you're simply being used by people who convinced you that your blood and sweat making them rich is somehow beneficial to you.

I despise capitalism. When I say capitalism, I'm talking about the late stage economic system that extracts wealth from the bottom and distributes it to the top, I'm not talking about markets, which honestly have little to do with capitalism. Markets serve a purpose: to help distribute products and services to the people who need them in a relatively efficient and responsive way.

Capitalism isn't that. Capitalism attaches itself to markets, like a leech, sucks the blood until it's dry and dead, and then moves on to something else. When you buy and sell, you're not engaging in capitalism. If you buy a company, sell its assets and lay off its employees, and use those assets to line your pockets, that's capitalism. The end goal of capitalism is profit. If a million people die, but you make an extra $100,000 in the process, congratulations you have capitalismed successfully.

Anyway, I'm off the subject, whenever my mom died about 4 years ago, that soft side of me started to relax and allow the more cynical, angry side of me to emerge. Not cynical and angry towards the innocent, the oppressed, the marginalized, but against oppressors, against exploiters, against the predators that were harming others.

I feel myself becoming more and more liberated in that regard, too. I'm still very soft and sweet and kind to people, but when I am approached by fascists, by exploiters, by abusers, oppressors, I am not soft, nor kind. They get what they deserve, what they earn, which is anger and a lack of compassion.

Some folks might say all people deserve compassion, but I don't agree. Nazis do not deserve compassion. Fascists do not deserve compassion. What's more is that they will not give you compassion and will use your compassion to destroy you because they do not care about you as a person, they just want you gone. It's Karl Popper's Paradox of Tolerance: the more you tolerate the intolerant, the more they will consume what you have until you have nothing, and then will snuff you out.

It is a situation where you will not befriend the starving hyena. Nazis, like capitalism, cannot sustain itself on its own, it has to consume what's around it, and when that has been exhausted, it reaches out for more. That is the nature of fascism, of Nazism, of Capitalism, it's a virus, and it cannot rest until the host is dead and it seeks out a new one.

If you ever feel like you're being too hard on someone for espousing Nazis ideals, just remember what they have done throughout history and what they still plan to do. They will not rest until everyone who isn't them is dead, and then they will eat themselves, because they cannot help but consume everything even unto death.

That's also why I don't allow fascists on the board. A board with one fascist is a board of fascists, because it's only a matter of time until they start infecting people with their cruelty and hatred.