What percentage of vets would you estimate are persuadable?
That's what I see as the central question here: if a group of people can be convinced to become leftists, we should be working with them regardless of whether it's difficult. We're not going anywhere unless we get literally tens of millions of more people on our side, and not all of those people are going to be perfect.
Note that a few comments up I've already said killing someone over this is wrong. No one is arguing that people should get the death penalty for drawing Muhammad. The argument is that you're a huge asshole if you do, because there's no reason to do it besides pissing people off.
What if you never wear red but, upon being told you’re racist if you wear red on tuesdays, you decide to start wearing red on tuesdays? Does this circularly make you racist?
If I never did something -- let's call it drawing a picture of Muhammad -- but I started doing it specifically to piss off a group of people my country has demonized and killed by the millions, yes, I would be an enormous piece of shit.
You realize christianity and islam are almost precisely the same fucking thing, right?
Bit of an oversimplification there
But I wear red plenty now, so it would at least be somewhat of a burden to remember not to wear red on Tuesdays. It's not a burden at all to not draw Muhammed because I never draw him anyway.
It's the going out of one's way to be as offensive as possible that makes this asshole behavior. No one's ordinary routine is being disrupted, no one's being even slightly inconvenienced.
How common is wearing red? How common is drawing a picture of Muhammad?
The reasonableness of the request is in large part determined by how burdensome it is to fulfill.
i literally do not give a fuck what is offensive
eat my entire ass
fuck off
Civility at the expense of accomplishing something real is bullshit, but man, you're not going to get very far with very many people if you're just an outright asshole.
i have every right if i did want to
Yes, that's exactly the "fuck you I do what I want" mentality I was criticizing. That makes you a massive piece of shit, even if you're technically free to do it.
You shouldn't be a massive piece of shit, and you certainly aren't accomplishing anything if you choose to be one. You should be a decent human being.
Why would you ever draw Muhammad? About the only reason anyone ever does is in an attempt to deeply insult an enormous number of people. That kind of "fuck you I do what I want" mentality doesn't garner much sympathy from me. Having a reasonable amount of respect for your fellow human beings (i.e., not doing something you would never otherwise do specifically to piss them off) is something we need more of.
Yeah, you're free to yell the N-word at the top of your lungs in public. Yeah, if a black person decides to beat you to death for it they're in the wrong, too. But my sympathy for you in that situation is limited because maybe you shouldn't be an absolute piece of shit just because you technically can.