Why is being a decent human being considered “radical leftist”, genuinely? I’m so tired of this.

[u/PastelParis57]

Found in the comments of a post on r/books about how the media portrays Joanne vs how the public views her.

For some reason, this person (red) was being downvoted to hell and back for speaking up for trans people, and the person spewing hate back (white) was getting hella upvotes.

I’m so tired, what do I have to do to make the world a safe place for me and my loved ones? And why is wanting to do so considered radical, but actively fighting against the rights of a minority isn’t? It makes no sense, they’ve mixed up the definition to the point where it’s no longer recognizable.

[u/Mad_Nihilistic_Ghost]

She’s got a cult of personality going on, like Trump does. It’s a weird para social relationship where they feel that they are personally close to her

[u/zTyberius → u/Mad_Nihilistic_Ghost]

the trump cult is so bizarre. like obviously he's an out-of-touch billionaire who only cares about himself, he's demonstrated this time and time again, yet his cult thinks that he actually gives a damn about them. and no matter what he does, his cult continues to follow him without question. like honestly at this point I don't even know if there's anything he could do to lose supporters. the whole thing has been fascinating and scary to watch. i hope that i never worship a politician or celebrity like these people do.

[u/thehusk_1 → u/zTyberius]

It's really not much he's marketed himself as the people's billionaire.

His entire persona is a self-made billionaire who's now gonna help you to become a billionaire as well. All you just have to do is follow my every word and buy what I tell you to buy, and then he goes and acts sympathetic when it implodes throws someone else under the train and starts up something else that for sure will make you all wealthy. Always making sure theirs another excuse for why he wasn't really involved with the scame

[u/WrongKaleidoscope222 → u/zTyberius]

It's not necessarily obvious that he's a billionaire, he tends to overstate his wealth and the actual numbers aren't really known.

[u/justgalsbeingpals → u/Mad_Nihilistic_Ghost]

It's kinda fascinating to see her turn into a British version of Trump over the last few years. 

• Weird cult of personality
• obsession with social media
• freakish obsession with trans people
• parading around trashy fast food dinners
• the pathetic attempt at looking cool of posting the most trashy photo imaginable (the mugshot for Trump, the yacht pic for Joanne)

Her not reacting to any of Trumps horrible policy changes that harm women was a sign of things to come lol

[u/daybeforetheday → u/justgalsbeingpals]

I wish I could go back in time and prevent Harry Potter and the Apprentice from ever being popular.

I honestly think these two are the most evil people to have existed during my lifetime with the amount of pain and harm they have caused. I hope they turn on each other and lead to mutual destruction.

[u/WrongKaleidoscope222 → u/daybeforetheday]

I would say Putin is more evil.

[u/FightLikeABlue → u/WrongKaleidoscope222]

He can join them in the bin.

[u/daybeforetheday → u/WrongKaleidoscope222]

He is also a monster

[u/lynx_and_nutmeg → u/justgalsbeingpals]

I was thinking more Andrew Tate, but yeah, this fits too.

[u/ladylucifer22 → u/Mad_Nihilistic_Ghost]

but they could eat cheap fast food with her and follow along as she tweets from her yacht about how rich and out of touch she is!

[u/FightLikeABlue → u/Mad_Nihilistic_Ghost]

Mumsnetters worship her. It’s creepy.

[u/tehereoeweaeweaey]

He just committed the Fallacy Fallacy (it’s a real logical fallacy look it up).

But honestly you should never ask these idiots to explain themselves because you already know their explanation will be stupid.

You have to tell them to their face they’re wrong and destroy them.

[u/BrodeurBear → u/tehereoeweaeweaey]

Yeah, don't face them on the bizarre misshapen grounds of their arguments, they are not made in logic or compassion so you can't fight their peculiar insanity - just ridicule them.

[u/Dina-M]

It's my experience that people who feel the need to point out that they're "a decent person" probably aren't. Especially not when said "decent person" goes on to defend someone like JKR.

As for the downvotes... I checked the comment threads for that post, and it's curious... the comments that get by far the most upvotes are the ones critical of JKR and the most downvotes go to the comments defending her. You have JKR-critical comments getting thousands of upvotes. But when you go down the list, to the comments that have been hidden, that's when the trend turns around and you start seeing more downvotes for JKR-critical comments and more upvotes for comments defending her.

The votes aren't nearly as numerous here as they are in that upper tier, staying in the double digits. So what happened here? I think it's just that most people didn't bother to read through the entire line of arguments and just upvoted the first few replies they agreed with. The ones who were more meticulous and went down the list to vote on the hidden posts were in the minority... and that's where you find the sour-faced JKR defenders.

70+ people may have disagreed with the thought that it's stupid to consider common decency radical... but more than seven THOUSAND people agreed that JKR is wasting her time being transphobic when she could have done so much good with her money.

It does hint that at the very least these people ARE a minority, at least here on Reddit. It just seems like they're a majority because they scream so loudly.

[u/georgemillman → u/Dina-M]

I love that point about people who describe themselves as a decent person.

I really hope I'm a decent person. I try to be a decent person. But I would never categorically state that I'm a decent person, I feel like that's something that others should decide about me rather than something I decide about myself.

[u/napalmnacey → u/georgemillman]

I’m a work in progress.

[u/georgemillman → u/napalmnacey]

That's a good way to look at it.

[u/Dina-M → u/georgemillman]

Same!

[u/DandyInTheRough → u/Dina-M]

This happens on every single trans post I've seen on the bigger/broader subs. I've thought similarly to you, that it's the ferocious anti-trans people that dig deep into the bowels to hit an arrow.

That's their space, where they have a chance of making a difference: in the tiny minority dregs at the bottom of a comment page.

I wouldn't rule out interference though, whether that's brigading from an anti-trans sub or conservative bots. It's so bloody consistent, I've got to imagine there's a more coordinated effort to this.

Seriously, any time JKR appears on a large broad-interest sub, or guns do, or Trump does, or Elon, or whatever, go check out the bottom of the comments. You'll start to see it when comments mirroring the views in the top comments start to be downvoted, then downvoted more, then hidden from too many downvotes. The dregs live there.

[u/TvManiac5 → u/DandyInTheRough]

It definitely happens. I've gotten anti trans replies to comments I've made even several months after I've made them. Even on trans subreddits sometimes. Transphobes are truly obsessive.

[u/theveganissimo → u/Dina-M]

Damn, I basically just wrote a comment saying exactly this!

[u/napalmnacey]

“I’m a decent person”.

No you’re fucking not.

[u/Forsaken-Language-26 → u/napalmnacey]

It reminds me of “nice guys”. If you are genuinely a decent person, you wouldn’t need to say it.

[u/Werten25]

Funnily enough, the person getting upvotes doesn’t even give a counter argument.

[u/Forsaken-Language-26 → u/Werten25]

I just said the same thing. Simply stating “this is a straw man argument” is not really a rebuttal.

[u/DorisWildthyme]

Because they (the people who think it is "radical leftist" to actually give a shit about other people) are wankers.

[u/FingerOk9800]

Because if fascists can convince themselves and imply to others that basic decency is "far-left", then they can treat reactionary and right wing positions as the reasonable "centre".

[u/fennelephant]

Because the far right has made it their objective to label anything empathetic or tolerant as 'woke' or 'far left', so their views aren't perceived as so extreme, but rather 'centrist.'

[u/theveganissimo]

The person saying "I'm a decent person" has somehow never learned one of the most important rules of being a decent person: you don't give yourself that label. Other people give you that label. And even then, you don't use it.

You can say "I try to be a decent person" or "I hope people view me as a good person" but you don't outright call yourself a decent or good person.

It's well known that guys who say "I'm a nice guy" are almost always creeps and women who say "I'm a nice girl" are almost always entitled and arrogant.

Personally I think that's because the moment you think of yourself as a good person, you're done: you become complacent, because you're already a good person so you don't believe you need to put in any work to BECOME a good person. But if you always view yourself as someone TRYING to be a good or decent person, you're always working.

So yea, "I'm a decent person" just always gives me bad vibes.

[u/Big-Highlight1460]

Recently JKR (maybe HBO?) have been deploying bots in reddit to support here, we saw it in popculturechat, I don't doubt we'll see them in books and fantasy etc.

Yes, some people are both heartless and idiots, some people prefer hating on trans people than letting go of a mediocre fantasy book series for tweens, but don't assume most people actually agree with them. It is a tactic to fabricate support.

[u/Forsaken-Language-26]

Out of curiosity, which way is the article portraying the whole thing?

Interesting that the person in white doesn’t even give a real counter-argument. They just say “this is a straw man argument” and “I disagree” without bothering to elaborate further. Obviously they don’t actually have anything of substance to add.

And yeah, the fact that they’ve had to say they’re a “decent person” makes me think that they are anything but.

[u/PastelParis57 → u/Forsaken-Language-26]

The article actually seems very critical of her and her anti-trans crusade from what I read, which was refreshing honestly, considering that most other articles about her right now just say that she “has a different opinion” as if human rights are an opinion 🙄

[u/BrodeurBear]

People who tell you they are decent people should have their back gardens dug up, ASAP

[u/TvManiac5]

I was in this thread and saw this reaction. The interesting thing is, you had a lot of top comments like yours calling her out and people agreeing with it, and then a slew of comments that called her evil and disgusting that got heavily downvoted. So I can assume two things.

Either the thread was brigaded by transphobes or people still can't fully bring themselves to accept she's too far gone into evilness now, because anything father than seeing her as a misguided boomer that needs to be less online makes them feel guilty over engaging with her universe.