I had a good conversation with my brother the other day and some good points were brought up and I wanted to share. It’s about empathy and how vital it is even when we disagree with someone’s choices or viewpoint. Right now the propaganda is strong to make those who don’t choose masks and vaccines look selfish and inconsiderate. Worse, they are painted as not caring if other people and their families die. It’s not at all an exaggeration to say that those who resist the lies and toxic experimental drugs are increasingly seen as murderers.
This is very very important and dangerous. This is how you dehumanize a group and make others hate them and look the other way when bad things happen to them - like if they do get covid or the government goons come for them or throw them into some sort of camps. This is already happening - my girlfriend was just in a Facebook discussion with an ex-friend who is stating that anyone who isn’t vaxxed shouldn’t be hired by anyone. He justifies this essentially by stating “well they don’t care if I live or die so they can go and starve then”. This mentality is spreading and every authoritarian ever relied on 2 things to establish their control - get people afraid, and get people to dehumanize and hate another group, could be foreign or domestic or both.
So one observation I had, upon some reflection, is that my brother and I are guilty of this as well. We’ve been trying to get our sick parents to eat healthy and do protocols to address their serious health conditions for a decade now with almost no success. And when my mom has a particularly bad day emotionally or physically due to the cancer and chemo effects, we found ourselves experiencing cognitive dissonance - how much sympathy is appropriate when the person does nothing to help themselves and then complains? We found it easy to justify not being very sympathetic. But it’s also difficult to be unsympathetic because she is suffering, and she’s a person, and doing “the right action” can be hard. Who are we to judge when we ourselves (granted we don’t have any illnesses) find it hard to stick to carnivore, do iodine, EE, cold showers, and other things in any consistent way. How can we expect others to do this, even if we feel they should be more motivated by their illness, isn’t that rather hypocritical?
So the important takeaway we had from this discussion is simply that we should not remove empathy and sympathy even if we perceive someone as making the “wrong” choices despite knowing better. It doesn’t mean give them pity energy and let them drain you or use you, and perhaps tough love is appropriate, but it’s probably a mistake to try be completely unsympathetic and cold. You gotta remember that self care IS hard, we are all human and mechanical, and are all struggling with doing the right action and tapping into the needed motivation to be consistent.
One important difference between our situation with mom and the covid/vax crowd is that our suggestions are based on actual understanding and likely truths based on research and analysis of the facts rather than blindly believing authority and accepting that as truth. However, in both cases, there is a *perception* that your methods and ideas are right, even if they aren’t, so the end result is the same - a removal of empathy towards those who, in your view, are willfully ignorant, and don’t do “the right thing”, and therefore deserving of whatever fate.
The best way to approach it, I think, is to let the universe dish out lessons and “punishments” as it deems appropriate. If someone is doing the “wrong” thing, don’t be the executioner and don’t cheer from the sidelines if they suffer. Remember they’re people just like you who may be a little more stubborn in learning some of their lessons. But keep your humanity and heart alive, even towards those you think are your ideological enemies or whatever. Don’t enable them or be used by them, keep strong boundaries, but there is no need to judge what THEY need or what ought to happen to them or even that their suffering is deserved. Perhaps it is. Perhaps it’s just how they will learn. But if you look with a cold heart at someone getting the jack boot of the government on their head because “they brought it on themselves”, you gotta ask yourself what sort of world you’re creating here. Are you really that different from those who look at you just as coldly? Regardless of who is truly objectively right or wrong in their views, isn’t the end result the same - creating a disconnected uncaring division of us and them, and tolerating abuse and suffering for “them”?
Anyway those are my current thoughts on the topic, please let me know if I’m off my rocker here or missing something.