Man, on the humanity faith thing and US politics...
I skateboard and do skateboard affiliated things. One of the news aggregators I follow on Facebook for anything skateboarding related posted an objective topical discussion about these tariffs, and how most of the Maple for good decks comes from Canada, and as you'd expect, Mexico and China is where a lot of the hardware comes from.
The administrator of the community wanted to discuss this, same as our hobby with escalating prices. Instead everyone immediately just starts dropping the, "Good, F Canada. F Mexicans (not Mexico!). F China. Everything should be made in America. They have to pay these tariffs that's the price they pay for doing business with America. Make it all in America. America should be the skateboard industrial complex."
Couple Europeans chimed in and were like uh... But we don't want to pay your ridiculous tariffs. More ignorant hostility.
Couple Americans points out that there's never going to be full on manufacturing in America for any of these things, it's not feasible, it's not economical by our own capitalist skeleton and evolution. More insults. More being accused of being anti-American. More insulting the other countries.
At the base level, very fundamental misunderstanding of how tariffs are supposed to work and how manufacturing economics work versus your niche hobby. And it is niche. No one who actually runs a skate shop or a manufacturer is in this discussion. It's all just Joe average people.
People who are clearly angry and maybe they just needed the outlet because of that medical insurance thing coming back into effect thanks to the judge.
And you can find this in any discourse about video games, action figures, movies. There's just this willing ignorance.
It's hard to have faith midterms will change anything. It's hard to have faith 28 will change anything. Certainly given how the system is being re-rigged. It's hard to have faith in the common Joe average American because we just keep ending up here.
How hard is it just to nod your head and go? Yes I like skateboarding/action figures/video games and I don't want to pay more money or I need to get a large raise and a benefits to keep up.
I think it's funny, as a teenager of the late '90s into the 2000s - I spent my whole young adult life being told go to school, You don't want to flip burgers, flipping burgers is for losers.
And then they complain when people don't want to get a job flipping burgers. And then when people do want to flip burgers but points out that they need a little bit more money, people get mad about that. But at the same time thinking they should have more money. Just not you.
You know what's also messed up. I know people my age and older that love contractors. They love trade workers. When they're working on their house or fixing their problems.
But when someone in their family expresses an interest in joining the trades because it could be lucrative or they could be self-employed. Or maybe they just don't want to work in an office all day. Whatever. Those same people will tell you. Oh, you don't want to be in that field. You don't want to be blue collar. I heard that from one of my younger friends recently, that they wanted to get into HVAC and their parents told them don't do it, you're better than that.
Better than what? Do we want money and to be stimulated and happy or not?
Ugh.
I feel like the entire country has tall poppy syndrome, and everyone is content to be stunted while denying they are.
Even on social media, influencers will tell you never let anyone dull your shine. But what they actually mean is don't dull my shine, and you should move. You're in my light. That shows up in practice time and time again.
It might not be in American problem. It's probably a western capitalist problem. It's just been my experience as a working adult from 16 to now that it doesn't matter if it's your manager at your part-time Spirit Halloween store gig, your manager in the office, or your rivals in the field once you have your own business. There's always a reason you shouldn't get ahead. But for some reason there was ahead of us are allowed to stay ahead because they earned it?
Thank you for enduring my ADHD rant.
