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Slightly different approaches
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this post was submitted on 19 Jan 2024
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Microblog Memes
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Are you referring to something specific?
Abortion rights, voting rights, gay marriage, privacy, trans rights, immigration, housing, the economy, net neutrality, take your pick.
The topic at hand is wheelchair accessibility, though.
Nope. The topic at hand is free ice-ceam. A topic that you, as a rational adult, can understand that is 100% literal and not at hyperbolic example to make a point about general trends and not a single specific item.
Massive assumption tbqh
Then somehow I'm in the wrong thread.
Yes the willfully oblivious thread is elsewhere
Not specifically. They just picked a random idea out of a hat. One that is currently working fine with no issue. To signify that is the type of stuff they go after.
Which takes us back to my first comment.
Are you suggesting that Finland is offering free ice cream?
Just in case you're sincerely confused, no I'm not suggesting that.
Let me break down the original post for you, since you're refusing to understand it for some reason. Free ice cream is a ridiculous thing that would never happen, but would be amazing if it did, and countries like Finland seem to often be in the news for doing amazing things. Banning wheelchair ramps is a ridiculous thing that would never happen, but would be terrible if it did, and the USA seems to often be in the news for doing terrible things. You understand the meaning of a hyperbole - you're just being obtuse.
It's just a troll.
Because free ice cream is good? I remember a local bank would give out free ice cream one day a year during a promotion, and it brought the whole town out. Musicians would come and play for everyone, and we'd all just sit and enjoy the day with some ice cream. Sounds like a much more amazing change for a government to make than taking away yet another established right from their population.
So, what does this OP actually mean?
That Americans are evil people? That America is a terrible place? That nothing America does is ever good?
You're making this out to be some kind of deep constructive criticism. So that's the part I need explained.
It's saying that it's really bad that America has fallen so far lately.
Abortion rights are gone, voting rights are being messed with, a racist misogynistic president has a significant chance of winning the next election, gay rights are in peril. America isn't bad, but it's actively getting worse, so when a news article comes about about it, it's generally noting that downward trend. The news specifically talks about changes in things, not their current state. It also talks about big-ticket items, so smaller good things that happen don't get on the news when there's a bigger bad one going on. And there are a lot of big bad ones going on right now.
Americans aren't America. I'm an American, and I staunchly oppose just about all major changes that have happened to my country in the last decade. I understand that I am not my country, and the actions of my country are not my own. I love my country in the same way that I love my drug addict cousin; he makes me very uncomfortable and embarrassed right now, but I really hope he comes around eventually, because I have great memories of who he used to be. I'm doing my best to help him change, but it's not been enough.
The constructive criticism is that America should try to be less of a country where someone expects to hear bad news, and more of a country where someone expects to hear good news.
...would be welcome. As I said originally, of all the things you can criticize the US for, wheelchair accessibility isn't one of them. And it's not likely to become one of them any time soon.
My objection is that OP is not constructive. It could have been--plenty to criticize as I said--but it's not. At best it's ignorant; at worst it's vindictive.
It's not criticizing disability rights. They way hyperboles work is that they need to be over the top. If you want to use a hyperbole for terrible news about America, you need something terrible that specifically wouldn't happen, even in America right now. That's why they used disability rights - because they're NOT in danger. If they had said something like "America revokes gay rights" it wouldn't be a hyperbole, because that's a real risk at the moment.
I know. It's criticizing Americans.
Might want to check with some of the other lovely commenters on that one. I'm told that it's an imminent danger.
Again, Americans aren't America. It's criticizing the actions of the governmental body, not your average person who has no more control over that government than any of his 300,000,000+ constituents. And honestly, while there are many bigger issues on the table, I wouldn't be terribly surprised if the president who has shown complete disdain for the disabled decided to go after their rights as well. But for now there's bigger fish to fry.
People can't think, or read between the lines, for you.
Don't be a sea lion.
I did read between the lines. I'm asking if my interpretation is somehow wrong.
https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN1C022I/
Tldr, they're actually trying and have been trying, to pass bills to gut the ADA because disability access is anti American.
Also, the post is just making fun of the US consistently doing messed up stuff. When picking something for hyperbole, you usually pick something that's extreme, not something that actually already happened.
it's not quite as funny to say "the news is always like: former US president argues he should legally be able to do whatever he wants without consequences and courts might let him, meanwhile Finland has nearly eradicated homelessness." You do get that the point was to be funny?
That proposal died in Congress 7 years ago.
We Americans are not the monstrous caricatures you make us out to be. We're not evil. We're not wicked. And the US is not some dystopian nightmare. It's actually a pretty good place to live.
The proposal shouldn't have existed in the first place! There wouldn't be a need to kill the proposal if our representation was composed of empathetic decent people, instead of ghouls bought out by the wealthy few.
It's pretty monstrous to even consider proposing a removal of legislation that objectively helps a lot of Americans.
Therefore, all Americans are evil. Got it.
Nope, you're either just a moron with shit reading comprehension skills, or you're a sealioning troll.
I never said anything about all Americans, I said a portion of our representatives have proposed gutting ADA protections, which is pretty universally liked in America.
First, I live in the US, so not sure where you're going with that.
Second, nice straw man. No one said Americans were evil, people said the news is often distressing and backwards.
Third, it doesn't matter when it's from when your argument was "America would never assail disability rights!". An article about recent efforts by active politicians to rollback our biggest protections speaks to that. In any case, here's a more recent article on the topic: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/midterm-elections-republicans-disabled-community_n_6375a759e4b0afce046aefef
Four, you're entirely lacking in nuance or a sense of humor, and seen incapable of distinguishing a joke from "all Americans are evil", which is definitely a way to live, but not a very productive one if you ask me.
Alright. If the message isn't "hurr durr americans r dum and ebil!!!11", then what is it?
You've literally had it explained to you a dozen times in this thread.
"America seems to be backsliding policy wise, and other countries seem to be implementing extremely pleasant policies. The contrast is absurd".
It's a "joke".
All I've seen are excuses, insults, and childish nonsense comments.
No shit. And I'm saying it's a stupid joke.
You mean to tell me I just read all of that because you think a joke is stupid? Is this a bad day or a typical afternoon in your household?
If you didn't realize that then you didn't read the whole thread.
That's an example used in the OP meme, but the context still suggest all those other things, too. That's what the "news is always like" part is. You can replace wheel chair access with all sorts of things and the meme would still ring true.
The context of this thread is my criticism of that example.
Finland did not in fact make ice cream free, but you don't challenge that. This is a meme, it could have said anything that sounds grotesquely arbitrary and callous, like banning left handed scissors, even if two-handed tools are probably more easily available in America than in many other parts of the world, perhaps even Finland.
Except the OP's point would be much better made by criticizing something the US doesn't actually do pretty well at.
Wouldn't it?
No. It would be weakened. The point is America is taking things we're good at and rolling them back. It loses its point if you pick something we've always been bad at.
That seems backwards and ridiculous to me.
It wasn't criticising anything though. It was a hyperbole, an outlandishly absurd proposition that nobody in their right mind would take seriously. Well, almost nobody I suppose.
Nonsense. Humor and hyperbole are often used to criticize.
Check the thread as a whole, my guy. Your critique of the example isn't where people started disagreeing with you, but the secondary argument you made when someone said the meme itself isn't just about wheel chair accessibility.
Literally the first comment was disagreeing.
It's a fucking similie. Stop being so goddamned literal.