When two people can't get along they have to stop living together.
One underlying reason that people can't get along is that they no longer share the same reality.
From a societal standpoint two people's personal problems don't mean very much.
But when entire swaths of society reject empiricism, embrace outlandish disproven conspiracies, and seek to harass and intimidate other people based on their distorted reality map then that is a much bigger problem than two people getting upset because they have different ideas about money, child raising, fidelity, or clothing choices.
Society begins to fall apart when too many people no longer agree on reality.
Conservatives have been on the warpath about race (what else, I may have more to write on that later) but have recently taken a detour to attack the National Butterfly Center. Yes you read that correctly.
The people who run the National Butterfly Center are apparently part of a far reaching conspiracy to pimp children for sex and help illegal aliens get into this nation.
The butterfly sanctuary, part of the North American Butterfly Association, made the announcement Wednesday. The decision came just days after GOP operatives descended on the site, reviving baseless and false conspiracy theories linking the center to sex trafficking.
The center’s leaders fear the renewed focus on the nature preserve could lead to violence, as similar online harassment directed at a Washington, D.C. pizzeria in 2016 led a man to fire a rifle inside the restaurant. “The safety of our staff and visitors is our primary concern,” said Dr. Jeffrey Glassberg, president and founder of the North American Butterfly Association.
The butterfly center has been the target of far-right conspiracy theories for years, after the sanctuary in 2017 sued over the Trump administration’s plans to build a border wall through the 100-acre nature preserve. Two years later, online trolls — led by Brian Kolfage, the head of the allegedly fraudulent “We Build the Wall” fundraising campaign — falsely claimed there were dead bodies and “rampant sex trade” at the sanctuary.
But the situation escalated over the past two weeks, starting with a confrontation between Marianna Treviño Wright, the center’s executive director, and Kimberly Lowe, a GOP congressional candidate from Virginia. On Jan. 21, Lowe approached the facility and demanded to see “illegals crossing on rafts.” When Treviño Wright refused, the candidate began filming on a phone and accused her of being “OK with children being sex trafficked and raped and murdered.”
This is just another example of why saying both sides are corrupt or crazy doesn't capture the pure malicious madness to which some conservatives have descended. You can't both sides this.
One group of people believes things that aren't true, knowingly lies, and makes threats. How does society deal with this? I understand the need for safety but is closing a nature sanctuary in the face of threats the best way to deal with this stuff?
