I haven't found a Raymond in Cascadia
this post was submitted on 12 May 2025
1101 points (96.9% liked)
Comic Strips
16499 readers
2734 users here now
Comic Strips is a community for those who love comic stories.
The rules are simple:
- The post can be a single image, an image gallery, or a link to a specific comic hosted on another site (the author's website, for instance).
- The comic must be a complete story.
- If it is an external link, it must be to a specific story, not to the root of the site.
- You may post comics from others or your own.
- If you are posting a comic of your own, a maximum of one per week is allowed (I know, your comics are great, but this rule helps avoid spam).
- The comic can be in any language, but if it's not in English, OP must include an English translation in the post's 'body' field (note: you don't need to select a specific language when posting a comic).
- Politeness.
- Adult content is not allowed. This community aims to be fun for people of all ages.
Web of links
- !linuxmemes@lemmy.world: "I use Arch btw"
- !memes@lemmy.world: memes (you don't say!)
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
The worst kind of person isn't someone who will defend free speech, it's someone who does so at first, and then stops defending it when they're in power.
I think hate speech should have repercussions, but there are lots of thoughts that are hard to explain. A big problem is the upsurge in these types of comics. I think they are not only unhelpful, but detrimental to the cause at hand when pro-Palestine protesters are being labeled "Nazis" and then detained. The problem right now clearly is the state, not the people living under the state, and someone saying a few offensive things, while evil, isn't as bad as the government being turned into a police state before our eyes, who will gladly shut us up for protesting against them. Stop worrying about the Nazis in universities and start worrying about Nazis about to run the U.S. military.
Did you comment on the wrong post?
I really hope so, for their sake.
Nah, Raymond's a cunt and I've told a few Raymonds at work that.
I don't have much to do with these types so then I see something like given a wife by the state and im like. WTF!
That's an extra weird one because usually I thought these dudes were all about a return to a mythical time when according to them, everything was great until things like women having rights ruined it all. But when has the state ever given people a wife? Even when women were considered property it didn't work like that. You always previously had to demonstrate at least some semblance of appeal even in paternalistic societies with arranged marriages since even then the parents at least needed to be persuaded this was a good idea.
They actually somehow managed to dream up a dystopian system even worse than "the good old days".
Handmaid's Tale. They're literally using it as a checklist of things to aim for.
I know guys who straddle the line, and I give the benefit of the doubt because they are simply confused and don't know better. And then there is the Andrew Tate gang.
Rofl the polite misogynist. The worst
Tips fedora
M'property
This is also the rationale to people defending Nazis because "it's just their opinions".
No, it is not "just opinions" when you want to terrorise and murder other people simply for having been born. It is not "just opinions" that you want to abolish democracy for a totalitarian police state. It is not "just opinions" that you manifest that you are working towards this society. It is not "just opinions" that you express this in public in order to make other people live in fear for your "opinions" to become reality.
It is violence. And violent aggression is justified to be met with violent defence.
Punch a nazi today, kids. Every day is punch a nazi day.
Edit: Sorry, I went wild and somewhat unrelated. I didn't intend to diminish the topic of womens rights. Every day is of course also a punch a sexist day, regardless their other opinions.
Double punch sexist nazis
Is there any other kind?
Hmmm, I know Savitri Devi hated just about everyone, but can't recall if she was sexist.
Catholic nazis?
Oh wait, it's the same.
Always has been. They can slap on a genteel veneer with their faux progressive popes, but the structure is always the same.
This is also the rationale to people defending Nazis because "it's just their opinions".
I find that it is mostly Americans who do this sort of thing because of exaltation of free speech. I don't wish it would happen to the US, but it is primarily because they haven't had much experience with inciting hatred that led to genocide. Other parts of the world have had this experience so they have restrictions.
Don't get me wrong, I love free speech as much as the next guy, but as seeing how unbridled speech led to genocide in many cases, I used to be absolutist and now I am on the fence. I think free speech is something that will be perpetually debated. I was told the social contract could define what is acceptable speech and what isn't; but society at times is not a great arbiter of many things.
they haven’t had much experience with inciting hatred that led to genocide
The indigenous peoples of North America might have something to say about that.
I am not saying hate speech hasn't had any role at all on what happened to Native Americans, but to my knowledge there wasn't a deliberate and systemic call to eradicate Native Americans unlike with the Holocaust or the Rwandan genocide. A lot of native people and colonisers have initially gotten along, but many colonial conflicts happened because of neither misunderstanding or some trumped up cassus belli orchestrated by local colonial officials, which the central government may not know due to poor communications over long distances at the time. Even the Spanish crown have gotten appalled after learning what Christopher Columbus did to indigenous population in Hispaniola, which took a long time for Spain to find out because of long distance.
Again, I am not trying to say hate speech hasn't had any role whatsoever on the genocide on Native Americans, but it is more complicated than that. Western colonisers still saw indigenous people as humans, but lesser if that makes sense. That's why even for the Western Allies, the systemic hate speech and call to rid the Jews had been a step too far, even though they themselves own colonies.
I'm an American and I'm here to tell you that Americans who say shit like that are just pretending to care about free speech, if they even understand what "free speech" actually means. They're fascists trying to defend fascism while using the idea of free speech as a way to avoid admitting that's what they're doing.
load more comments
(4 replies)
Bourgeoisie has depicted fasciscts as vilains, evil and monstruous. Now when people discovered that nazis are just humans, their are surprised. Spoiler: people could act nice, honest, and even involve in charity, and still aim to enslave or mass kill others.
It depends also who you are. That person in the comic saying he’s nice is a guy and not the of the group of people(women) that are so aggressively disrespected. How would he know?
It also falls into the “decorum” sphere. Someone who isn’t yelling while they’re throwing your rights in the garbage is not nice. Someone opening the gas chamber door for you is not nice. Surface level means nothing and it has always meant nothing but it takes a lot of energy for the vast majority of people to be thinking deeper than that all the time so they fall back on easy, high-level observations.
Now, I won’t say someone can’t be turned around. Many are pretty far gone, though, and it’s not their victims’ job to be nice and supportive to their oppressors. So yes, they might just be humans but the warning given above needs to be more of a “he’s kinda a misogynist right now but I’ve been working on him and he’s getting better. Let me know if you’re uncomfortable at any point though and I’ll take care of it.”
My friend told me once about how people in cults have a sunk-cost fallacy to the cult's beliefs that makes it harder to get them out the longer they've been in.
People are more likely to double down on their beliefs when proven wrong because they'd have to admit that they were wrong and so were all the things that they did following those beliefs. And nobody likes to admit when they're wrong, because nobody wants to believe that they're the bad guy.
I have my thoughts on this, mainly that there’s a point where even very stubborn people need admit defeat and turn things around. That point is usually where, in defence of their shitty opinion, they are asked to do something that crosses a line. And yet for so many conservatives we keep hoping the line is crossed and keep learning just how little they care about other people.
I’m not entirely sure how connected it is to my original comment, but I can sorta see the relation?
The problem is you need to depict their actions as evil and monstrous, or fascism might appear to be a reasonable solution. Isolating the evil of fascism from the ordinary people pushing for it is subtle and complicated. Especially when some fascists really do cross the line into evil behaviour.
Basically humans are often bad at sharing subtle messages widely. Regardless of how much nuance you add to begin with, the message will always devolve for most people into either “hitler evil” or “hitler wasn’t that bad, he was nice to animals”, so given the options, most people prefer to lean into the evil side and avoid normalising fascism, with the inevitable consequence that it appears you have to start wearing skulls and torturing people in order to be a fascist and people forget that for the vast majority of everyday fascists it was “just politics” right up until they lost the war and had to start rethinking things.
I offer no solutions, but I don’t think you can blame just the bourgeoisie, but rather the human condition in general, us vs them, and the difficulty in sharing detailed concepts to a wide audience. There will always be “bad guys” who are so bad that we can’t possibly become them. I do think we’ve gotten better at telling stories with complex evil, but the flip side is that seems to just reduce people’s resolve to act. Almost like the 2 options built into our brains are “us vs them, kill the evils ones” and “meh, corruption is inevitable, just ignore it”.
load more comments
(1 replies)
It hadn't occurred to me before, but sometime about a year ago I ran into a group of guys who are passionate about nature: talking about preserving woods, how majestic deer could be standing in the mist in the early morning, how much they liked a particular species of bird because of it's call, expressing concern about civilization's impact on the health and well-being about animals.
They were all hunters. I honestly believe they really did respect and admire the animals they were hunting; they didn't want them to suffer, they weren't out specifically to cause pain. I still struggle with the dichotomy, but I have no doubt they saw themselves as animal lovers. I think there are probably trophy hunters who are just in it for the ego, but I believe a lot of hunters are in it to get out in the woods, away from civilization, and on their way, commune with nature.
Don't get me wrong: there are other ways of achieving that without hunting, and there are malicious, hurtful, broken people. It's probably more common that what we'd attribute to petty meanness is simply a different set of ethics - and, no, I'm not saying all ethics are equally good or right or valid. But the people who hold them can be - as you say - perfectly polite, nice, kind, thoughtful people. They just hold unjustifiable opinions about some things.
This is an interesting parallel, but I feel like I missed some key part of it.
In the US, at least, we historically killed off a lot of deer’s natural predators - mostly wolves - and as a result, the deer population can get out of control, causing serious problems to the ecosystem. Hunters help to remedy that. The relatively small violences that they perform on an individual basis add up to improving the overall ecosystem.
That isn’t the same as being a bigot, or a sexist, or a fascist… and I don’t know why anyone would assume that a person holds those views because they’re mean and petty. They hold those views for a variety of reasons - sometimes because they’re a child or barely an adult and that’s just what they learned, and they either don’t know any better or haven’t cared enough to think it through; sometimes because they’ve been conditioned to think that way; sometimes because they’re sociopaths who recognize that it’s easier to oppress that particular group.
It doesn’t really matter what their reason is. Either way, they’re a worse person because of it, and often they’re overall a bad person, regardless of the rest of their views, actions, and contributions.
Being a hunter, by contrast, is neutral leaning positive.
It makes sense that a rational person who loves being in nature, who loves animals, who wants their local ecosystem to be successful, would as a result want to help out in some small way, even if that means they have to kill an animal to do so. It doesn’t make sense that a rational person who loves all people, who wants their local communities to be successful, would as a result want to oppress and harm the people in already marginalized groups.
I don’t think equating being bigoted with holding unjustifiable opinions does it justice. The way we use the word opinion generally applies to things that are trivial or unimportant, that don’t ultimately matter, e.g., likes and dislikes. Being a bigot is a viewpoint; it shapes you. For many bigots, their entire perspective is warped and wrong. And there’s a common misunderstanding that you can’t argue with someone’s opinions; because it’s just how they “feel.” But being a bigot, whether you’re sexist, racist, transphobic, queerphobic, homophobic, biphobic, etc., is a belief, and it’s one that, in most cases, the bigot chooses (consciously or not) to keep believing.
If an adult with functioning cognitive abilities refuses to question their bigoted beliefs, then they’ve made a choice to be a bigot.
load more comments
(1 replies)
Being a hunter also means you want the animals that you eat to live a free natural life, rather than being raised in a prison (farm).
You just dug up an old memory. When I was in high school, there was a girl who came from a hunting family. I remember one day she came up to me and started telling me the same things you said about "loving nature," along with rambling about how her dad makes her kill just "one deer" each year, like it's a token goal she's obligated to fulfill. She kept apologizing to me for it. Okay, random, right?
Nah, not random at all. I've been vegan since I was 14. I never said anything about her hobbies - sure, I don't agree with hunting for sport, but I would've preferred to avoid the topic entirely than to hear anything about it. She felt compelled, of her own accord, to not only initiate the conversation, but to make it basically a confessional - like she felt guilty and was looking toward me for some kind of forgiveness.
It's an aspect of veganism that doesn't get talked about in public much - not only are we made the target of tons of random hate, but we're also made into a sounding board for meat-eaters, hunters, etc. who are experiencing cognitive dissonance. Like we're some kind of liason between humans and other animals, or like winning our approval will make a guilty meat-eater feel better. I don't know.
Interesting. I guess if you feel guilty about it, but not enough to change your behaviors, seeking absolution from someone who's more ethically pure would be a natural reaction. It's the basis for absolution in the Catholic church, and in begging forgiveness in prayer even in branches of Christianity that don't have human confessors. I think it's very human.
In your friend's case, it doesn't sound like she was a willing participant, and that sucks.
This comic illustrates my internal struggle to get along with my trump bootlicker coworkers.
I have to schmooze a little bit to keep the working relationship running, but I feel disgusted every single day when the little hints of what they stand for peek out.
So I’m going to share something agent_nycto said once, because it works very well on people like this:
I don't think you should be quiet, it makes them feel like everyone is agreeing with them and makes everyone miserable. Time to introduce you to my favorite game to play with conservatives, Politics Judo!
So you hear them rant about a thing. Some dumbass talking point. Let's use gun control. It's pretty easy to know in advance what the talking points are since they never shut up and parrot the same problem and solution over and over. "Shouldn't take guns, it's a mental problem not a gun problem".
Things are basically boiled down to a problem and a solution. A lot of people try to convince people that the problem isn't what people think it is, and that's hard to do. Even if they are just misinformed, it feels like trying to dismiss their fears.
So what you do is you agree with the problem, then use lefty talking points as the solution.
"Oh yeah, gun violence is pretty bad! And I love the Constitution, we shouldn't mess with that!" (Use small words and also throw in some patriotism, makes them feel like you're on their side. You want to sound like a right wing media con artist) "so instead of taking guns away, we should instead start having more, free, mental health care in this country. Since it's a mental health problem and these people are crazy, that is the solution that makes the most sense!" (Don't try to get them to agree to your solution, just state it as the obvious one)
It becomes weaponized cognitive dissonance. Their brains fry because you said the things you should to agree with them, flagged yourself as an ally, but then said the thing they were told is the bad and shouldn't want.
If they try to argue with your solution, rinse and repeat to a different talking point. "Oh yeah it might cost more, and we shouldn't have to pay more for it, so we should get the rich people who are screwing average hard working Americans over by not paying taxes to do that. We should shut down tax loopholes and increase funding to the IRS so they can go after them instead of the little guy"
Always sound like you're agreeing with them, but giving solutions that they disagree with that seem to be off topic but are related.
Either they will get flustered and stop, or they will slip up and say something racist or sexist or something, and then you can have HR bust them. Document it and also see if you're in a single party consent state.
The "yes and" method.
i had a coworker who simped for trump and musk. we are not even from the us.
oh he also bragged he and part of his family estranged some close gay relative of his that really needed a lot of help from them once.
very in favor of the war on drugs, hated weed and the 'addict do-nothings', but did some dangerous pharmaceuticals he acquired somehow.
had the grindset mentality that i can see could potentially bring him to collapse if he keeps it up, on a place that already overworked its employees. barely slept and used said meds to work harder. theres probably more i could say but eh.
he was indeed nice though. said his pleases and thank yous, had his coworkers backs. he was generally easy to deal with and was relied upon because he knew his shit (but it probably cost a piece of himself)
i dont understand these people at all or how we normalized this... strangeness? i honestly can't really explain the surrealism of it. believe it or not that was tame for that workplace.
It starts with "I'm married to a Democrat, so I'm reasonable" but then "sorry guys let me get my dog's shock collar, she's eating the cat food again". Funny how over half of my Republican coworkers shock their dogs and hit their kids in the past, literally don't think there's anything wrong with it.
load more comments
(13 replies)
The guy excusing it is almost just as problematic. Just because you can act polite doesnt mean youre nice, but espousing these views isnt even polite. Having to pretend to get along with people like this at work is soul draining.
That's the joke and it's good you picked up on it.
People need to face the consequences of their beliefs within the circle of their loved ones. If that fails, the next social circle upwards like their friends. But right now it feels like even that has failed and now people are okay with letting awful beliefs fester in their neighbors because it's "politics". That's not okay, as this comic relies on.
™
view more: next ›