2023

Yesterday's most active thread was the Gaza war thread which I discussed yesterday. So, I'll skip that one today. I am sorry to say that the next most active thread was about the British Royal Family. Worse even, a second BRF thread is also on the list today. The first of the two was titled, "Petty royal family" and posted in the "Entertainment and Pop Culture" forum. The original poster says that she was reading an article about a lawsuit that Prince Harry is pursuing and was bothered that the government of the United Kingdom had refused to provide security for Harry. In light of the threats Harry faces, the original poster finds this decision to be petty. One issue with this post is that the original poster did not provide any sort of link to help clarify precisely what she is discussing. Moreover, despite the obsession with the Royals that characterizes many participants of these threads, few seem to know much about Harry's security dispute. Even the original poster misstates the facts. The basis of the dispute is the security arrangement established for Harry during his UK visits. Rather than around-the-clock full security such as that provided for full-time working royals, he is provided with security that is tailored to his specific needs and his perceived risk. Harry is appealing that decision in a quest to receive full security protection. In addition, he recently lost a bid to pay for police protection himself. Most of those replying seem to know few of these details. Several posters argue that Harry or King Charles should pay for Harry's security and consider Harry's security to be an unnecessary public expense, especially at a time that the UK is suffering with economic difficulties. A number of posters want government-provided security removed for all royals, forcing family members to pay for security themselves. Those familiar with the details of Harry's security concerns point out the shortcomings of private security such as not being able to carry guns and not having access to police intelligence about threats against him. Other posters point out that under the current arrangment Harry will receive police protection with all that entails when the circumstances require it. Much of this thread is devoted to comparing the type of protection provided to Harry with that provided to other celebrities or politicians. In particular, posters describe the type of security provided to the children of US presidents. All in all, this was not the worst BRF-related thread that I've had to read, but that's probably the best that can be said about it.

The Gaza war thread was back as the most active thread yesterday and the next most active thread was directly related to the war. Titled, "Lost a dear friend over the war", the thread was originally posted in the "Religion" forum. But, after reading it, I moved it to the "Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)" forum because it really didn't have anything to do with religion. Some posters suggested that the thread was most appropriate for the "Political Discussion" forum, which ultimately was probably correct. The original poster says that three couples went to dinner, including one of her oldest and best friends. Two of the couples expressed solidarity with Palestinian civilians who are under Israeli attack in Gaza. The original poster's friend, who is strongly pro-Israel, went on a tirade against the others, jumped up and left the table, and took a ride share car home, even abandoning her husband. Her husband apologized and said that her extreme views have been causing marital problems and problems at their kids' school. The next day, the original poster called her friend and her friend told her never to speak to her again. The original poster asks if others have lost friends over this sort of discourse. When I moved this thread, it had less than a page of posts. But in less than five hours the thread grew to 18 pages. That's more than 250 posts, or more 50 posts an hour. Before the first page was complete, a poster had made a totally-political post that had nothing to do with the estranged relationship. Not only was that post off-topic to the discussion, it didn't even reflect the positions held by either the original poster or her friend, In short, the statement suggested that the poster had not bothered to read the original post. But, that was enough to provoke additional political posts. To be clear, the first three political posts were all from pro-Israel posters criticizing Hamas, a group that the original poster had explicitly rejected. Like the original poster's friend, these posters seem incapable of having a simple, reasonable discussion. While a few posters did address the relationship aspects of the thread, often saying that they too had lost friendships over political issues, the bulk of the discussion consisted of debate over the war. Many posts in this thread reflect why disagreements such as the original poster described can so easily lead to lost friendships. A good number of individuals have adopted the position that any sympathy for Palestinians is support for Hamas and any criticism of Israel is antisemitism. To be sure, many — maybe even most — Jews don't hold such positions and many non-Jewish supporters of Israel also reject those views. But, for those who do have such beliefs, almost any kind of discussion other than fully agreeing with Israel's actions is impossible. As was pointed out in the thread, when encountering such individuals, your choices are to keep silent and preserve relationships or speak up and likely see the relationship ended.

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "House Explosion in North Arlington" and posted in the "Off-Topic" forum. This is a tragic story that began in the late afternoon on Monday. Arlington police responded to reports of shots being fired within a house in North Arlington. Police determined that an occupant of a duplex had fired between 30 and 40 flares from a flare gun. After being unable to make contact with the individual inside the home, police obtained a search warrant and attempted to force entry. At that time, they heard what they believed to be gunshots from within the house followed by a devastating explosion. As video that was widely circulated on social media showed, the entire duplex was destroyed. Much of the early part of the thread was devoted to obtaining facts about what exactly happened and speculating about the cause of the explosion. Suggestions ran from a meth lab exploding to a gas leak. The owner of the duplex unit in question was soon identified and linked to a number of social media postings advocating various conspiracy theories, including accusing his neighbors of being spys who were out to get him. In real time developing stories of this nature, I have a difficult time trying to draw lines between what should and should not be allowed to be posted. Inevitably, whatever I decide will be imperfect. In this case, my primary concern was preventing misinformation, particularly when it came to identifying individuals. Therefore, I removed any mention of the duplex's owner's name. But, I allowed discussion of his social media postings. My thinking was that the individual might turn out to be innocent, as unlikely as that might be, but his social media postings exist regardless of his involvement in the explosion. As of this morning, Arlington Police have said that they believe that remains recovered from the home belong to the property owner, but positive identification is outstanding. A number of posts dealt with possible motivations for the individual's behavior. This included suggestions that he was a right-wing gun enthusiast or a left-wing radical. But, due to the social media postings, most attention focused on mental health. Many posters proposed various actions that could be taken with regard to those suffering from mental health problems and others discussed the difficulty of getting assistance for adults who have mental health challenges. In addition, considerable attention was focused on the family who lived in the adjoining duplex unit. That family, apparently evacuated prior to the explosion, has lost their home and all belongings. Many posters were eager to know how they might help them.

Over the weekend, the Gaza war thread was again the most active thread, adding over 600 new posts. The second most active thread was also one that I've already covered, the thread about weird things that in-laws do. So, I'll start with what was actually the third most active thread over the weekend. That thread was titled, "A difficult truth to accept: Liberal democracy is not favored around the world" and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. The original poster contributes a rather lengthy essay summarizing various musings he has had about opinions in other countries regarding politics. The main thrust of the post is that the ideas espoused by liberal democracy are not universally popular and that in many parts of the world, authoritarian ideas are supported. The responses in the thread go in many different directions, but one surprise for me is how many supporters of dictatorships there were. I guess one outgrowth of Trumpism is that authoritarianism is now popular among some Americans. This is a 14 page thread and instead of trying to summarize the responses, I'll just provide my own reaction to the original poster's thoughts. First, and most importantly, I think that it is important to separate the ideas and values espoused by liberal democracies, especially the United States, from the practices actually implemented abroad. More often than not, the US quickly discards its stated values when its perceived interests are at risk. There are any number of examples of the US assisting in or actively leading the overthrow of democracies because the winner of the election was not sufficiently pro-American. This hypocrisy does not go unnoticed and, as a result, our professed values ring very hollow in much of the world. In many countries, citizens are not presented with a choice between liberal democracy supported by the US or authoritarianism supported by Russia or China. Rather, their choices are pro-American authoritarians or pro-Russian or pro-Chinese authoritarianism. Free elections and democracy are supported by the US only to the extent that they produce pro-US politicians and policies. Moreover, "pro-US" is frequently, "pro multinational corporations". When faced with an economic landscape dominated by international corporations, the residents of many countries lose any enthusiasm they may have for capitalism. Just as in the case of American political values which are often seen as empty to foreign audiences based on the lack of application of those values internationally, claims about free enterprise and the benefits of capitalism are frequently betrayed by how capitalism is actually implemented abroad. That is often in the form of monopolistic foreign entities that dominate local businesses. To summarize, it is not that liberal democracy as we understand it is becoming less popular internationally, but that foreign populations are rejecting the hypocritical version of "liberal democracy" practiced abroad that generally lacks most of the values of true liberal democracy.