Immediately stomp an insect when they see one inside the house. It's like a reflex or impulse and honestly it's kinda scary seeing an otherwise nice person just stomp an insect or spider or whatever in cold blood almost instantaneously. There's like no thought or contemplation, it's just see the insect, and then immediately stomp it.

Like holy shit what did that little critter do to you? Just let it be.

EDIT: Holy fuck the responses. I guess many didn't actually read what I wrote. I wrote that people who "immediately stomp" without "thought or contemplation" have fash tendencies and I get accused of fashjacketing. Ugh whatever. To those who had thoughtful responses (e.g. if you feel something stinging your skin and swat it with your hand, or if you have an infestation issue in your house, etc.), I gotta say those make sense and I hear you all the way (and even in those cases it's not like there's a kneejerk intentional kill response, it's usually accidental or done after careful deliberation). But to the ones complaining about fashjacketing, maybe do some self crit for fuck's sake. You sound exactly like the fucking man vs bear defender types or a white fragility type, Jesus... It makes me actually think you do have fash tendencies tbh.

  • Frank [he/him, he/him]
    ·
    8 months ago

    You are fashjacketing people who kill bugs. Please consider... idk... just consider something. Everyone who isn't a Jain is a fascist? What is this?

      • Frank [he/him, he/him]
        ·
        8 months ago

        Compassion for all living things isn't nuts, and I'm sympathetic, but calling killing bugs a fash tendency is not reasonable or productive. It's not indicative of anything. The only group that consistently refused to kill bugs, afaik, is the Jains. And there's only a few million of them. Saying that every other culture, society, government, group of people in the world has fash tendencies because they thoughtlessly kill bugs is not accurate and does not represent a remotely materialist analysis.

        • GalaxyBrain [they/them]
          ·
          8 months ago

          Yes. To defend OP, the title did say might be one and although Jeff Foxworthy has turned that 'might ' into an 'do' with that phrasing by association, it probably goes back further but whatever. So I can give ground that it's a red flag, and does have a mentality in common with fascism in regards to killing things you view as inferior and seeing it as totally cool and okay. Vegan struggle sesh material here, but the industrial slaughter of living beings for the utility of another does have some pretty clear parallels.

          If anything that can do me harm is in the process of that or seems to be ready to and it's something like a bug, then I'm not gonna be able to reason with it and I can't really give it a nonnlethal physical scare. My hands are kinds tied there. But otherwise, I don't hurt things cause that's bad and does speak to a mindset that is certainly fash adjacent but not in any meaningfully determining way. I get where it's coming from.

    • ShimmeringKoi [comrade/them]
      ·
      8 months ago

      I don't read this a fashjacketing, I read it as an examination of a specific fascism-compatible tendency, phrased in a way that could also easily be read as fashjacketing.

        • Frank [he/him, he/him]
          ·
          8 months ago

          This post was made in the politics comm. If it had been made in /c/vegan or /c/chapotraphouse or /c/chat it would be read differently. In the context of the politics comm it reads as an earnest statement intended to be read at face value. The choice of venue shapes how the message is perceived. The post reads as a political statement that killing bugs reveals a person to have fascist character.

          I am sympathetic to your compassion for all living things, but this is not an appropriate way to present that view.

          • muslimmarxist [none/use name]
            hexagon
            ·
            edit-2
            8 months ago

            This post was made in the politics comm. If it had been made in /c/vegan or /c/chapotraphouse or /c/chat it would be read differently. In the context of the politics comm it reads as an earnest statement intended to be read at face value. The choice of venue shapes how the message is perceived. The post reads as a political statement that killing bugs reveals a person to have fascist character.

            I call complete cap on that. If anything this sounds like you trying to tone police based on "venue" or some ephemeral construct like that. "Oh I support your right to protest but do it in the rIGhT wAy!!" kinda shit. I see posts in all kinds of comms, including this one, that link behaviors with tendencies. Cuz you know, "everything is political" right? But with this all of a sudden come the "rules/regulations" BS? With all due respect, eff off with that shit.

            but this is not an appropriate way to present that view.

            Yup white moderate vibes... smh

  • spacecadet [he/him]
    ·
    edit-2
    8 months ago

    Anthropomorphizing little bugs and deciding not to kill them is valid (I do this) but deciding that those who do not are fascist is, imo, an unexamined, myopic and frankly cushy lib perspective

    Edit: however if you torture bugs you are probably a pyschopath

    • GalaxyBrain [they/them]
      ·
      8 months ago

      Fascism link is sketchy at best, but I do agree that it's something that makes me think way way less of a person.

  • TraschcanOfIdeology [they/them, comrade/them]
    ·
    edit-2
    8 months ago

    When it's mosquitoes, sorry, it's kill on sight. Flies, I try to chase out the open windows. Stink bugs, I pick them up with a piece of paper and drop them outside because sorry, I can't afford to have an infestation of y'all. And then you have the little pantry moths, I declare holy war on them every year when the weather gets warmer, and will stop at nothing to get rid of them.

      • TraschcanOfIdeology [they/them, comrade/them]
        ·
        edit-2
        8 months ago

        Wrt invasive stink bugs, there's so many of them, and they really stink up the place if you kill them. They're terrible for crops, too. I'll flush them in the future.

    • Smeagolicious [they/them]
      ·
      8 months ago

      We get thousands of thoes mf stinkbugs here, and I don't even kill them, they just pile up by the hundreds it's horrible.

    • GalaxyBrain [they/them]
      ·
      8 months ago

      Bugs that are causing harm are a different story. You wouldn't kill a fox just for coming across one in the woods but totally would if it was determined to attack you. That's a perfectly reasonable approach, if a raccoon couldn't be shooed away by threats of violence or even the lightest of violence was totally lethal, we'd have a lot more dead raccoons. But yknow bugs are just smaller and easier to kill animals and killing them just cause it's easy is a pretty disgusting common thing to do. I wouldn't say it makes you a fascist but it does mean you're willing to kill something you deem as inferior for no reason and refuse to see that it's a living being with its own stuff going on and whatnot, there is a thread of fascist thought there.

  • Alaskaball [comrade/them]MA
    ·
    edit-2
    8 months ago

    I do this with mosquitoes. If you think otherwise, please fly up here and take a hike with me without any mosquitoe repellant or long clothing.

    Absolute menaces.

    • GalaxyBrain [they/them]
      ·
      8 months ago

      The mosquito started it in this case. They are pretty awesome at killing people with diseases, so mosquitoes or things that bite, get into your food, eat your home or will cause an unlivable infestation don't count. That's self defense. You shouldn't take joy in it, but if it's you or them, pick you. Killing bugs just for being bugs is for sure behavior that I abhor and will think less of someone for doing. Houseflies are a medium ground and if they overstay their welcome or get on my food there are grounds for termination. Also they receive no diplomatic protection from my cat that spiders and beetles enjoy.

  • Moonworm [any]
    ·
    8 months ago

    "You think I'm fashjacketing? I'll show you fashjacketing! You must be a fascist!""

    Good Job OP this is very funny.

    Also I like bugs and try to avoid harming them.

  • TheBroodian [none/use name]
    ·
    8 months ago

    To echo @Frank@hexbear.net, bugs aren't people, and peoples' feelings toward bugs do not translate to their personal politics. The opposite, I would think. People have fash tendencies when they treat people like bugs.

  • T34_69 [none/use name]
    ·
    8 months ago

    Ok but mosquitos are really something else and they love my blood. Is it stormtrooper to smash them? Hopefully we can make one exception

    • GalaxyBrain [they/them]
      ·
      8 months ago

      It's about killing bugs just for being bugs, not ones that are threats. They're tiny and non lethal intervention isn't really possible.

  • Xx_Aru_xX [she/her, they/them]
    ·
    edit-2
    8 months ago

    I'm actually very good towards the bugs, I feed them daily by being a cute girl who eats trash in her room, I'm almost a disney princess

  • itappearsthat
    ·
    8 months ago

    OP you're getting a lot of heat for this but for the record you are 100% correct except for bugs that harm people

    • pisstoria [he/him]
      ·
      8 months ago

      While I agree with killing bugs that harm people, there's a caveat for smashing in particular. Smashing a biting kissing bug will just rub all of its guts and likely Chagas infested feces into the bite. It probably applies to a number of other biting bugs to varying extents depending on how they might spread disease, but kissing bugs and Chagas are the examples I know. Really, I just really think everyone should be aware of Chagas disease and am using this thread as an excuse to mention it.

    • bubbalu [they/them]
      ·
      8 months ago

      I seen a six year old at the school I work at kill a fat cockroach 4 seconds after it jumped out his locker. Another kid stomped it too just to be safe.

      • zed_proclaimer [he/him]
        ·
        8 months ago

        just took out a colony of carpenter ants. am I supposed to just let them destroy the building?

        • GalaxyBrain [they/them]
          ·
          8 months ago

          If it's a threat to you then it's self defense. Don't kill bugs just cause they're bugs tho

          • zed_proclaimer [he/him]
            ·
            8 months ago

            Any bug inside is getting killed. They are unsanitary and not compatible with comfortable human life. I'm not living alongside roaches

            • GalaxyBrain [they/them]
              ·
              8 months ago

              I'm not down with a roach either, they die on site indoors cause they're indicating a real issue. A spider or random ass beetle though? No call for that. Either tske em outside or ignore them.

  • FourteenEyes [he/him]
    ·
    8 months ago

    Like people are saying it does depend on the bug. I love bugs in general (too much some would say) and go out of my way to save spiders and such, but when I see Argentine ants massing inside the house it is ant genocide time. I feel no remorse because they fuck up every ecosystem they invade and that also includes my goddamn pantry.

    • ShimmeringKoi [comrade/them]
      ·
      8 months ago

      Do you do the poison honey trick? It's extra effective on argentine ants, since they have multiple queens the borax typically gets them all