A.R. Moxon: What you find "understandable" depends on who it is you choose to understand

[Nevilledog]

https://armoxon.substack.com/p/the-rivers-mouth

So let’s say you’re on the subway and it’s crowded, and let’s say a guy gets onto your car and crowd in next to you. And let’s say he steps on your toes.

And you think, hey, it’s a crowded car, that’s just a mistake. It hurt, but it didn’t injure. You assume no ill will. You might not even say anything about it. It’s city living.

Say he does it again, so you clear your throat, to make sure he’s aware of you. And then again. And so you break your silence, and politely ask him to please take care.

And then he tells you that he didn’t step on your toes, and while he tells you that, he makes eye contact with you, and steps on them again—hard. And you yell at him, because you now know it is intentional. And he loudly protests that he has no intention of stepping on feet, he doesn’t even see feet, and that the place where your feet are is his area of the car anyway. He is only concerned about equality. This is a question of integrity in matters of subway floor-plan fairness, he says, and if you’re getting your little toes stepped on—which you aren’t—it’s because you’re putting yourself somewhere where you shouldn’t be, which means that you are actually the one infringing on the space of others. And, having said this, he steps on your toes.

So you shove him away.

Now let’s say I see this, and come over.

Say I scold you that violence is never appropriate, and explain that you are adding to the overall polarization and division on the subway car. Say I tell you that while you have the right to your opinion, he has the right to his, because this is a free country, and we all have to exist together on this subway car, and his position is perfectly understandable, if you’ll just listen to it. And if you won’t, then you are actually causing him to kick you.

*snip*

[barbtries]

1. i think i get it.

i think my toes are broken, bruised, and I'm fucking tired of being stepped on, and i do on many occasions resent being told that i should be trying to understand the motherfuckers who are stepping on my toes.

i hate republicans

[BOSSHOG]

2. Republicans are incredibly hateful people

They think if the “wrong” people hate them, they must be right. Republicans are in the farming business. Breeding and growing stupid people. They produce mass quantities of votes.

[Solly Mack]

3. K&R

[MustLoveBeagles]

4. K&R

[Martin68]

5. This is where we are as a country. MAGAts constantly attack liberals with incredibly hateful and

violent speech - and the explain they are just exercising their 1st Amendment rights. I don't think yelling helps. Just move away so the person can't step on your toes, and stop trying to explain things to deranged individuals. Engaging them just eggs them on. I will usually make one statement of fact and then leave.