I play games with some childhood friends and we use discord. At the time when everyone went off to college, my cousin joined the military (surprise). He's like a brother to me and he's not a chud, so we're still close. Now our discord is overrun with his military buddies. It was alright at first. I could hold my own against one or two of em. A few are even comrades, but now I'm beset on all sides by bootlickers.
In one of the most insane moments yet, this line of argument was tossed out by one of them last night: "America has only lost wars due to its strict rules of engagement" implying of course, that losses in vietnam or afghanistan, for instance, were only due to our humanitarian willingness to not nuke/carpet bomb the enemy.
I don't even know how to respond to shit like this. I just want to keep in touch with my friends, but at what cost?
That whole social stigma of it being unhealthy to disassociate from chuds in 2016 was such bullshit. In my group of friends, I was the first to act and speak out that some people we hung out with were very problematic. I started asking who would be at social events and backing out accordingly. Soon enough my friends realized I was right, hanging out with only the jerks while everyone fun dips out is lame.
A couple of the bad ones realized they need to snap out of it, others made excuses. The good ones realized that there was nothing wrong with me setting boundaries and grew to respect me more and become closer friends.
I agree to an extent. It's amazing how far telling your friend "your opinion is fucked, man" goes. staying quiet for the sake of civility is impIicit approval. I feel like I've provided a few friends off ramps on the highway to the alt-right.
On the other hand, I dont avoid them altogether. It would be to hard as most of my family are a stones through away from q-anon types. So I've just made a point that if they're going to talk politics, I'll argue, and if they're going to say reprehensible shit, I'm going to call them out. The cowards in the bunch just avoid those topics now, but I feel like it's made a impact on the rest of them
Yeah I did this with my mom, used to argue politics with her, now she avoids it, and will pause/mute whatever chud shit shes watching if I walk by. Was in the car with her and her new boyfriend a couple weeks ago and he starts talking "states rights" bullshit about the confederacy, shut that down real fucking fast now hes probably gonna shut up around me too.