Anyone who watches sports is familiar with bad calls. Or no calls. Or that moment the game is about to be out of hand. When the players take things into their own hands and it's out of control. The refs are supposed to stop that before it happens. And usually they do. Sometimes they don't. And sometimes after a stretch of not making the calls they needed to they make a lot of ticky tack make up calls. Which just pisses everyone off.
Every sports fan is also familiar with the feeling that the game is being called unevenly. That your team is being penalized more than the other. That they are getting away with blatant fouls or cheating. But not your team. Your team steps out of line even a little and the whistle blows.
As a B1G football fan, there is also the belief that your refs just suck. Like as a whole. The group that is supposed to be making the calls can almost always be counted on to get at least one really wrong. And you just hope that in making the wrong calls they do it evenly. Yeah, the calls are not always going to be great, but as long as they are not great for both sides you feel like it's at least fair.
And that's really the big thing right? We just want to believe it's fair.
And here's the really big thing. We don't. None of us do. We see the slights against people we agree with as massive and the slights against people we disagree with as minor. Even when there is data to back up one side being treated more unfairly than the other, we ignore it. Even when you can show numbers that say you were treated the same, you ignore it. You always feel the slights against your side deeper.
And (my own bias coming in to play here as well as facts and figures so take it how you will, I mean, you will no matter what, that's the whole point) when we are talking about politics one side has done a better job at playing victim than the other.
When you think of the IRS scandal during the Obama years with the 501c companies what comes to mind? A targeted effort by the IRS to hit conservative groups? A way to silence groups that disagreed with the current administration? Probably, something in there. But what if I told you that there were progressive groups that were denied tax exempt status as well? When it was reported it was always a small note, some progressive groups were targeted as well. Just a little aside. The big story was groups with names like Tea Party Whatevers and Patriots For Whatever were investigated a little more and often denied tax exempt status because it was determined they weren't charities, they were political action organizations. But the conservatives screamed the loudest. And eventually (under a Jeff Sessions DOJ) they got an apology. And the progressive groups that were targeted as well got a small mention in news stories saying things like "some progressive groups were targeted as well."
You are seeing it right now with Facebook and Twitter bans. Now, I will say, it's been pretty sweeping over the past few days but it's also not everyday that a sitting president incites an insurrection, we are, again, as usual now, in unprecedented times.
But conservatives have been complaining for ages about bans and shadow bans, and targeting. Even though study after study shows conservative targeting doesn't happen. And not only does it not happen, the Facebook algorithms showed preference to conservative speech and elevated it in the recommendations. But conservatives have banged the drum so long and so loudly over how they are oppressed that people believe it to be true. It's not fair, it's not being called evenly. And they are right, it's not, but not in the direction they think.
And right now while a lot of groups are being banned and removed from Facebook and Twitter it's playing into that SEE??? narrative. But the fact that they were able to post about "stopping the steal" for weeks without removal shows that it took something extraordinary to get them removed. Just run of the mill false information wasn't enough. It was considered "just a different point of view" even though there were no facts to back them up, it was fine. Right up until they realized that repeatedly saying that something was stolen lead people to feel they should do something to take it back.
Parler has been shutdown from Amazon's hosting service. They said that it was due to the fact that they hadn't done anything to moderate the threats of violence. But there have been threats of violence since Parler started. That was the whole point of Parler. That you could say whatever the fuck you wanted and not have it removed due to "Terms and Services." So once the threats of violence became actual violence they "rushed" into action. Up until that point they were perfectly fine cashing the check.
I don't know how I feel about Parler being shut down, by the way. On one hand I say, yeah, of course. They provided a forum to foment insurrection, and let's be honest we were minutes away from massive bloodshed. It could have been much worse than it was, and it was already awful. They reveled in their fuck your feelings edge, right until they realized that they were honestly fucked. But none of those people have changed. They still want a civil war. They still would like to see all of the satanic baby eating democrats strung up. They just are someplace more private, someplace harder to see what they are planning. And they are still planning. They were planning on Facebook until they got banned from there. They were planning on Twitter until they got banned from there. They were planning on Parler until they got shutdown. So...
But I also think something needs to change. Allowing hate to find a new level and attract others to it more easily is a bad idea. And that's what has happened over the past few years. Groups have found each other. They've fed each other new and more amazing crazy ideas. Qanon is crazy. But a lot of people believe them. They honestly think they are saving children and how in the world can that be bad? And while they are saving the children they are not getting vaccines because evil satanic Bill Gates is going to inject microchips. And while that is happening Black and brown people are coming for your jobs and your money. And while that is happening the government is softening you up to be led to the slaughter by asking you to wear a facemask. And...
So what do you do?
I don't know.
But I do know that we all feel the refs are biased. We all feel like the other side gets away with EVERYTHING while we don't. We really need to try and look at things with a more jaded eye. Jaded toward our own beliefs, by the way.
Though it's not easy.
Especially when people are trying to whatabout their way out taking responsibility for an attempted coup. Fighting for the right to not be shot by police is not equal to fighting to overturn the results of an election you don't agree with. The reaction of the police to BLM protestors vs the Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol couldn't be more stark.
We are also seeing more and more reports about the number of police that were active participants in the insurrection. That were there. Off duty. To support it. Not to mention, though I am, the members of the Capitol Police in uniform that were also helping. Giving directions, posing for selfies, moving out of the way so they had easier access.
How do you look at the refs and expect them to be fair when you know they wear the other team's uniform in their off time? Or in the case of Tour Guide Capitol Officer in the MAGA Hat while on duty as well...
And that's not new information. People on the left, people at BLM protests, people who have watched issues with police brutality have tried to point it out for years. The white supremacy problem in the military has also been known for years. But now people are paying attention. So something needs to be done.
How can you trust the game is fair when you know it's not being called evenly?
And I'm not saying that progressives need to start screaming as loudly about every slight the same way that conservatives have. I'm not saying I want the police to shoot rubber bullets and mace at every single protestor. I'm not saying that threats of violence against one group are okay but against another are not.
But it needs to be called evenly.
View your own beliefs with a little more critical thinking. Don't spread information before you check it for accuracy. Not just what "feels like the truth" but what is the truth. And no, I don't buy into the every side gets their own facts. Every side, every person, gets their own feelings about things, but the facts are facts.
We've seen the "game" get out of hand, how bad is it going to get before we all pull it back under control?
Last week was bad. It could have been worse. They are still planning for worse. It's not over yet.
The refs need to get control of the game and we need to get control of the refs.
Good luck to us all.
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