The problems often start historically when one group comes to believe that some other group wants to “eliminate open society and civility” (or so some other evil thing), and thus feel justified in using any means to oppose them. Never forget the bad guys almost always think they are good guys fighting evil.
100% except perhaps we don't agree on who is doing that.
Look at marjorie taylor green's most recent insanity.
"accusation in a mirror."
and it goes far beyond a handful of loud extremists who are given megaphones from the 'less-extreme' in their party (are they really the minority then?)
the Fox news led contingent have been screaming this 'under attack' narrative.
and they are openly setting the conditions for IRL violence.
Othering trans & queer people. freaking attacking drag queens which is SO silly..
claiming we are pedo groomers who give out hormones to tweens like candy. saying your identity will no longer be people like you in the future, straight & cis.
child abusers seem to be the one class that it's still acceptable to openly wish violence upon.
telling their audience to 'take a stand' or else lose their entire existence & identity produces extremism and prods armed extremists to show up in real life.
they are bringing guns to shut down libraries, ban books, pile into vans to go attack pride, passing discriminatory laws.
not even touching on poc, immigrants, & attacks on democracy/jan 6; i'm focusing on my identity since I can better speak to it. which btw funny how there is always an eminent caravan invasion (a specifically chosen word) right before the election.
we have always been victims of violence.
but this is a much bigger boiling kettle and one group is stoking the fire.
i clearly see this fear in the eyes of a large & heavily armed group.
they think they are under attack. what will they do to 'protect themselves and save our country'? what happens when the kettle boils over?
I agree with you if you mean that the individuals that first do the targeted group violence are the bad guys. But not if you generalize blame to the group.
Just about any large group of people, whether defined by by race, religion, nationality, or creed, will have bad individuals in it. And so the bad guys can almost always point to people from the other group that "started it".
When someone from the out-group commits an atrocity, it is just more proof of how bad that group is. When someone from the in-group commits an atrocity, it is an exception.
Sure, and those groups almost always believe they are the good guys, fighting against some group that does and exists to do bad things.
The point is, if you are going to write of a group (presumably, the other political party) as bad beyond redemption, you better have a damn good reason to think that you are the historical exception.
I mean the commonly understood contextual meanings of those words. Dictionaries are useful when you're unfamiliar with the words in context. I trust that you, being a native Anglophone, know what those words mean in the contexts they're used. However, if you're thinking of specific examples where you expect our understood meanings of those words to differ, I'll entertain those examples.
Also, violence isn't the only bad thing people do which justifies some sort of retribution.
