Every once in awhile I see a truck with a custom 88-themed license plate or stickers, but typically in real life I only see it as tattoos. Back of the neck or on the arm as part of an iron cross or something. Seeing that in front of you for a half hour sorta sours the wait for Peter Pan’s Flight at Disney World.
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There was a White Nationalist group near me that used it, which is how I became aware of it. But these guys were so fringe that I always associated it with Chinese people first and foremost.
It’s the 88 and not some stock car racer’s number or something?
I saw it recently. I was at a train station in the middle of nowhere and this guy walked in covered with racist tattoos. I was so repulsed I immediately moved to the other side of the station without even thinking about it, like I had been compelled by some kind of psychic force.
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It could totally be a stock car number, or heck, a Chinese guy putting it there for good luck. But an ‘88’ license plate paired with a “ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ” bumper sticker and other sorts of far-right gun-nut race-warfare stuff, I’m thinking it has a different meaning.
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Did you have red or white laces in your Doc Martins? Apparently that was significant too?
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Oh, the Moron Label.
Just playing Devil’s Advocate here, but I’m sure there’s a fair amount of overlap between gun nuts and NASCAR fans.
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I’ve found such behavior very helpful in spotting potential frenemies in the wild, and changing course to steer around them.
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I think it’s because narcissists can totally play that they are GGG bi people when grooming new supply.
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I generally did have white laces in my Adidas, but I never owned Docs. I can see how colored laces would stand out in a pair of those. All my racist classmates and neighbors just looked and dressed similar to everyone else I knew. I don’t think they felt the need for signals and secret handshakes.
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FTFY.
Exit shame cube.
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Well…
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Can we start “Rump Card” to refer to the repetition of especially stupid political memes that are widely accepted in certain circles?
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The time has come for me to depart this community.
This was not a decision I came to without a great deal of thought; I’ve been going back-and-forth on it this whole week. But today, something happened that solidified my decision, and I now know that leaving is what I have to do.
The problem is that I’ve been getting in a bunch of increasingly intense arguments here, on an increasingly frequent schedule. The first, I wrote off as being someone with a grudge: once is happenstance. The second, okay, the other person and myself have mutually-exclusive visions of fighting climate change that we’re both passionate about: twice is coincidence. Three and four, though, and now I’ve been mudslinging with four different people… That’s a pattern, a troubling one, and one where I’m the common element. I’ve now been accused of misogyny, shilling for nuclear energy, gaslighting, and finally “pedantic literalism” (which, okay, guilty, but not in that case), by four different people.
That was enough to provoke reflection, on my part. The saying about “if you run into an asshole in the morning…” is a pretty good warning that the problem is me. The question was, am I leaving, or do I try to stay and figure out where I’m wrong?
So, while I was thinking this over, I’ve been logged out here, and spending time elsewhere on the Internet. One of those places is The Other Place. And I ran into this shitstorm.
If I were still willing to participate over in BB, I’d’ve been right there, getting dogpiled along Skeptic on this one, because I am in complete agreement with him that there is no such thing as an insult that only cuts one way. Visually painting a woman as a crone because you think their actions are evil equates evil with ugliness, and the fact that he got piled upon by people from here, that got accused of virtue signalling (and, let me tell you, seeing that insult show up on BB, from anyone other than a drive-by troll, flabbergasted me) by someone from here, that he got accused of being a crypto-Conway-supporter for trying to make the “insults cut both ways” argument that lies as the very heart of my philosophy of how to behave kindly…
It’s become clear that I don’t belong here. Five instances of intense, irreconcilable, passionate disagreement isn’t just a pattern, it’s a statement. And it’s entirely probable that the problem is with me, and not with the people here. That I take issue with things too quickly, that I get too emotionally invested in those arguments, that I see the worst in people and in the positions they take, that I’m less forgiving of other people’s failings than my own. That it might simply be the case that I’m everything that I — and Skeptic, who made the argument I didn’t want to log in to BB to make — have been accused of.
Whether the statement being made is that the problem is with me or not, it’s clear that this is not where I belong; it’s not where I feel safe. I came across a quote, while thinking this over, that “people who don’t share your values aren’t your friends; they’re your acquaintances.” So I guess this isn’t even where my friends are. At the very least, it’s none of those things anymore.
Be assured that the self-reflection isn’t going to end here (it’s very likely, as misanthropic as I am, that this is entirely my fault), and if I figure out a way to square the circle so that I can feel good about being here again, I may even be back someday. Don’t wait up, though: if I felt that were likely, I wouldn’t be leaving.
It’s been a blast. I sincerely wish all of you all the best, all of the kindness and love that this suffering world can spare (and especially good luck in 2020 to all of my American and British acquaintances).
Farewell,
-RM
PS - I’ve turned off notifications on PMs and replies; I’ll be watching this topic for a few days, but if you want to get word to me after that, you’ll have to go to other communities (I’m not that hard to find).
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But you’re right about insults…
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Sorry to see that @nimelennar . I hope you come back if this one feels like it might fit again.
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If you’ve turned off PMs then how will people be able to communicate alternate ways of staying in contact?
I know I will miss you.
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Good luck, dude. This board’s pun game is really going to suffer in your absence. 
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I hate it when there has been drama and I never noticed any of it.
I’d be happy to see you back at any time.
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