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this post was submitted on 20 Jan 2026
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Leopards Ate My Face
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They're raised to believe they are in a uniquely righteous and benevolent group, fighting a just war against tyrants.
And they have ever misfortune or injustice in their lives attributed to this evil outside force.
That might provide an explanation, but it's certainly not an excuse.
It's a consequence of US foreign policy not some individual moral failing
No individual is that stupid. They're just evil bigots too cowardly to but their bigotry on their own conscience so they seek other bigots that provide a fantasy and community where their bigotry is a virtue.
People aren't just born this way. They're indoctrinated.
It's not a question of stupidity, it's an issue of perspective. It's the same way you have Texas grade school bludgeon "Mexico tyrannized Texas but now we're free" into each subsequent generation of kids as part of the Texas History curriculum. You raise generations of Floridians by telling them over and over and over again that Cuba is the Bad Place run by the Bad People and its your duty to liberate them by any means necessary. It doesn't work on everybody, but it inevitably cements this reflexive fear in somebody.
And then you sift these radicals off the pool with police/military recruitment, religious clubs and mission trips, political organizations and anti-communist business communities, and a dozen other state-sponsored organizing groups. In the same way you make an atom bomb - by sifting and compressing the most radioactive isotopes of uranium - you can make Miami Cuban radicalism.
Do you apply the same lack of agency to everyone or just reactionary proles?
If you dig far enough, nothing is technically anyone's fault and free will is an illusion. Even the self deluding centrists, unhinged millionaire libertarians, and ineffectual gay liberals that I know you despise ultimately are just following their programming.