Comment by defrost
3 hours ago
> The categories are quite arbitrary, can vary, and can change. Yes, race is a social construct.
Obviously.
> Compare with say how easy it is for someone with different political views to just hold their tongue when bureaucrats and true believers are waxing poetic about DEI, just as one had to hold their tongue when bureaucrats and true believers were waxing poetic about the virtues of mega golf or owning a boat, just as one might have to hold their tongue these days when bureaucrats and true believers are waxing poetic about the virtues of fascism.
That seems very un-Australian; I'm unfamiliar with the concept of letting rank stupidity ride w/out having a poke at it, and a lot of people have boats, big, small, whatever.
I'm quite fond of shed built ground effect boat/planes FWiW: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ILbQHnHPnY
> can we stop using the word "conservative" as a lazy synonym? Applying that label to the Republican party after ~2020 is absurd
TBH I'm not sure I have ever done that; "Conservative" varies by country, as does "Liberal".
Well I'm glad that you've apparently got a lower density of rank stupidity in Australia such that you've never been in situations where you've just had to let it wash over you while avoiding provoking it! In the US we've got an epidemic of it, quite obviously.
That's a cool boat/plane! I'm certainly not picking on people who are interested enough to build their own, or even just buy into doing something they themselves really enjoy. Rather I was referring to the previous managerial fashions in the US, before the DEI fashion took over.
The point about "conservative" wasn't directed at you, but all of the parent comments who did use it that way
Australia was once awash with "real British" people who constantly attempted to lord it over all - it really doesn't pay to let self denoted elites get away with that shit.
Modern Australia is seeing new waves of various behaviours, like all cultures these things ebb and flow - at our last elections the poor (particular) Christian conservative liberals that tried to ride the US wave of being mean to trans people and blaming big problems on a tiny tiny minority got hammered electorally for what was seen as un-Australian behaviour (giving everyone a fair go, regardless).
This time around the xenophobes are back stronger than ever riding a wave of flag draping nationalism not so subtlely hiding a grab bag of white supremacism and general X-phobia; we have