re: #176 ObserverArt

I’m going to say this, from a therapist who helped me recover from a violent relationship in my 20’s.

I felt awful because I hit my asshole boyfriend with a hammer in self defense. She asked me if I killed him. No. Did you continue to hit him after he stopped hurting you? Tempting, but no. Would he have stopped hurting me if I was “only” whatever the fuck it was he wanted? No, assuredly no. Then why the hell did I feel guilty? I was protecting myself. I used the force and effort needed to stop the violence and nothing more. There is nothing wrong with that. I left him immediately after that session. Understand, I was COVERED in bruises in various stages of healing. He never hit my face because that couldn’t be covered. He wasn’t at all scared of me til I hit his ass a few times.

You do not stop violent bullies by being nicer than they are. Ever. It does not work and they see it as weakness. Democrats are not winning by being more virtuous and apologizing for strong words and taking matters into their own hands to win elections. And by this I do not mean violence. But every damned time a Democrat says something that’s strongly worded or a little bit out of character, the Republicans lose their shit, work on getting people fired, use threats of violence to induce silence and fear, and then we backtrack and apologize. Then we get seen as weak and wimpy and not “tough on” things like crime and terrorism. And the public keeps buying this shit because for DECADES now, liberals have both dismissed the opposition as not serious and not invested in media and on the ground resources needed to counter this crap. Not to mention not even bothering to break into local level governments and working our way up the ladder.

This shit isn’t going away, they will continue to escalate this shit til they are stopped. Fear and violence is all they’ve got left, they aren’t above using it, we have to stand up strongly and fight back. I am NOT advocating violence, but fighting back is not wrong. I think this is key to why we find ourselves here today. YMMV and you don’t have to agree, but my experience with bullies is also valid. They do it because they CAN. They’re believed and they win, over and over.