So I’ve got this dog… She’s a 2 year old rescue. She was supposed to be someone else’s, but she was so traumatized by something that they couldn’t train her, couldn’t even pet her, and eventually, one thing led to another and we ended up with her. Took about 2 months before anyone in the house could even pet her, but now she’s super lovey to everyone who lives in my house. She is “growling and barking when someone walks past the house on the other side of the street” levels of protective, though, and it’s disruptive to our lives. It would be easy to just kick her or yell at her or get a shock collar and solve the problem that way, but I haven’t done that because I’ve spent a lot of time rehabilitating rescue dogs and I know that abusing her will male her stop barking but at the cost of her personality. If our house becomes another abusive situation, she’ll regress and, rightly, start being scared of people again… maybe forever this time. Instead, I got a sonic egg that distracts her when she barks, and I’ll gently pet her and talk softly to her when she’s spazzing out. She is slowly getting better. Some days, it’s still frustrating and disruptive, but the way i solve the problem is important to my desired outcomes. I want a dog that loves and trusts me and my family and still wants to protect us but doesn’t feel like we need protection from everyone who walks by.
In the same way, and as you said, with much higher stakes, I want Trump to lose , and I want the US to remain (and even improve) our democracy. Political assassination is incompatible with functional democracy. I know the US has a lot of problems with our democracy, but I’m not ready to “kick my dog” yet. I still want to save it. That does NOT mean I won’t put the dog down if she bites one of my kids, but I kick her, then she bites… that’s on me.
So I’ve got this dog… She’s a 2 year old rescue. She was supposed to be someone else’s, but she was so traumatized by something that they couldn’t train her, couldn’t even pet her, and eventually, one thing led to another and we ended up with her. Took about 2 months before anyone in the house could even pet her, but now she’s super lovey to everyone who lives in my house. She is “growling and barking when someone walks past the house on the other side of the street” levels of protective, though, and it’s disruptive to our lives. It would be easy to just kick her or yell at her or get a shock collar and solve the problem that way, but I haven’t done that because I’ve spent a lot of time rehabilitating rescue dogs and I know that abusing her will male her stop barking but at the cost of her personality. If our house becomes another abusive situation, she’ll regress and, rightly, start being scared of people again… maybe forever this time. Instead, I got a sonic egg that distracts her when she barks, and I’ll gently pet her and talk softly to her when she’s spazzing out. She is slowly getting better. Some days, it’s still frustrating and disruptive, but the way i solve the problem is important to my desired outcomes. I want a dog that loves and trusts me and my family and still wants to protect us but doesn’t feel like we need protection from everyone who walks by.
In the same way, and as you said, with much higher stakes, I want Trump to lose , and I want the US to remain (and even improve) our democracy. Political assassination is incompatible with functional democracy. I know the US has a lot of problems with our democracy, but I’m not ready to “kick my dog” yet. I still want to save it. That does NOT mean I won’t put the dog down if she bites one of my kids, but I kick her, then she bites… that’s on me.