I’m now envisioning a car wrecking its way into a house, and then trying to make cat sounds with its engine and stuff (the meows would be kinda hard, but whining would be easy enough) at the door of the restroom, and then the tires just squeal as it zooms away as the person opens the restroom door. I’m envisioning the sheer, overwhelming perplexity on their face.

I’m completely cracking up over this image. It’s amazing.

Thank you very much!

Yeah, I’ve run into that plenty myself. Hell, I’m a woman and I have a wife, and I was once accused of being homophobic… as I was trying to explain why I was happy about living thousands of kilometers from my family.

It really bugs me when people accuse people like my grandparents of being “hateful.” If my grandparents see that, they’ll just see more “proof” that left wingers have no idea what they’re talking about.

I can’t do anything to fix the issues on the conservative side of the fence - I really wish I could - but I can hopefully help on my side of the fence, with fostering better understanding and communication.

My break from conservative thinking was… uh… perhaps best described as a violent psychological event. I went from thinking we were the good guys, to maybe getting some things wrong, to suddenly realizing I’d been unknowingly on the side of evil my whole life. Meeting someone who was gay and hearing his story, about the abuse he took from people who acted exactly as I’d been taught to… Stars above, that ripped out my heart.

And if I hadn’t already had my beliefs cracking and under pressure, I’d have blown off his story as pure manipulation.

It’s a whole thing, for me. I can only hope for reconciliation of some kind. My family members aren’t really evil people - they mean well, even if they only consider people who are straight, white, and Christian to be fully people.

But calling them things they aren’t won’t ever get them to listen.

Not that I know what would get them to listen, beyond convincing their pastor of things…

I get where you’re coming from and why, I really do, but I think saying stuff like that is really unhelpful.

I’m about as left wing as they come, but I grew up in rural Florida. All the bullshit you see about the place? That’s my family. None of them specifically have shown up on the news, but still, it’s them - their beliefs, attitudes, etc.

The issue isn’t deception or manipulation from regular conservatives. When my grandparents / cousins spit out that sort of bullshit, that’s not what’s going on.

The issue, rather, is a complex one that is, among other things, a thing of trust.

They believe, honestly and truly, in Fox News. They believe in their preachers. They believe that homosexuality is a demon that possesses people, and by interacting with “the gays,” you “open the door” to demonic influence in your life.

That last bit is an example of something I was outright taught.

When my grandparents talk about how it’d be good for America to round up all the gays and put them in concentration camps, what they’re feeling is protectiveness. They want to protect people from Satan’s influence, and if someone has accepted the enemy to the point of being proudly gay, then why should people be sympathetic to them? Get rid of them all, obviously.

Yes, it’s insane and hurtful and stupid and so frustrating that I haven’t spoken to my extended family in a few years.

But they’re not trying to trick people. They don’t need to think about what they believed before, they don’t need to second guess what’s right, they know what’s right. What’s right is believing in the authority figures they’ve been trained to believe in. What is right is to listen, to obey, to fight as they are directed to fight, for the good of all.

It’s horrifying from the outside, but from the inside, it’s a safe little bubble where you don’t have to wonder and worry about what is the right thing to do. It’s easy - the only hard part is acting on it. Do what’s right, and everything else will fall into place. It’s simple and feels good.

To challenge that way of thinking, to suggest that they have to figure it out themselves - that’s a huge ask. Going against what they’ve been taught their whole lives, and for what? To have to deal with moral uncertainty and unsolvable moral dilemmas? That’s hardly a reason to change.

That is an excellent point. Yeah, PSI would totally read as pounds times square inches which would be something else entirely. Adding in the extra P would fix it, too. PPSI. Suppose it’s another thing that people just have to get used to, haha.

Because in^2 is generally said “square inches.”

So it’s “pounds per square inch.”

Sometimes “per” will get its own letter, like in PPM - parts per million - and sometimes it’s left off, as in PSI.

In that case, yeah, you’ve got an admin problem. I’m sorry - that really sucks. The entire system desperately needs an overhaul. The education system in Canada is a dumpster fire, and the US is even worse. Dealing with behavioral issues is one of many major problems…

You might have had bad teachers and bad admin, true - but more likely, the school can’t do anything.

I’m a teacher, and I cannot tell you how incredibly frustrated I am at how tied my hands are. The admin can’t do much, either.

My options: talk sternly to the student. Talk sternly to the parent/guardians. And… that’s it.

Send them to the office? Sure. The principal also has those two options, for the most part. Suspending students is something we only do in very rare circumstances, but they really, really try to avoid it, because so often, kids are acting out because of stuff at home, so suspending them only makes the behaviour worse.

We can’t do detentions after school or on weekends - we can’t force parents to bring their kids in then. Lunch hour detentions, we can’t afford dedicated staff to run them, especially since we’d also need them to chase the students down, because it’s not like they’ll go just because they were told to. We can’t fail students any more.

Our district has also even gotten rid of prizes for achievements - no more honor roll, no awards, nothing. Apparently this makes the low performers feel bad, and we couldn’t have that.

And talking to the parents? Most parents are honestly great, but also, I never talk to them, because the kids with the great parents, I never need to call home. The asshole kids? Their parents are almost always a nightmare. And it’s a waste of time to talk to them.

One kid last year, went after another kid’s field trip paperwork with a pair of scissors. Ripped into her like no one’s business. Sent an email home describing the situation. I was pretty sure, based on her history, she wasn’t really going to destroy his stuff, she was trying to get a rise out of him, so I said something like, “while I believe she was only intending to annoy him, not actually destroy property, it is critical for her to understand that this is absolutely unacceptable behaviour” or something like that.

So rather than telling her kid off, mom goes to the principal to try to get me in trouble for calling her kid annoying.

In application? Doesn’t matter what the teachers or even admin want to do. The district, province/state, and country have taken away practically every carrot and stick, when it comes to students with extreme behavior.

It’s a huge mess.