u/Belle_Juive

Everyone knows that tall men earn more. And you know who benefits from not using the metric system? That's right, tall men. The 1% is systemically oppressing short kings, and most of you don't realise it.

Under the metric system, I can't really tell what counts as a truly tall man. Most men are in the 170s-180s range, and a few cm difference as a third digit doesn't sound like much. So I can't easily discriminate against short kings on a dating app, because I can't easily visualise just how short they are.

But the imperial system is a small numbers game, which makes the cutoff of 6'0 or taller a round and easy arbitrary number to remember. An inch is bigger than a cm, so a few inches give/take feels like a much bigger deal than a few cm.

This means the richest 1%, who are mostly tall men, can easily segregate the poorest 99%, who are less likely to be tall, from the dating market. If everyone adopted the metric system, this would be much harder to do. And that's why Americans care way more about height.

In fact, I'm not American, and one of the only contexts in which I ever hear people using feet+inches is male height in a dating context. This is American propaganda making its way to us. Literally American Imperialism.

Workers/Incels of the world unite! Adopt the metric system and maybe you'll get laid.

I'm just wondering if anyone else feels the same way I do about this phrase. A common refrain we hear after antisemitic attacks, including the latest one in Golders Green, where well-meaning people, positioning themselves as allies, condemn antisemitism by saying that Israel's actions don't justify violence against random Jews.

First of all I think that's kind of obvious. I have many criticisms about the Chinese government's handling of human rights issues, but I don't go vandalising or burning a random Chinese restaurant in London about it. I know nothing about the politics of a random Chinese person I've just met, and I have no reason to assume they support the CCP.

But even if I did happen to know they support the CCP, I still wouldn't in any way, shape or form, think this justifies them being harassed at their place of work, attacked, raped or killed?

This type of condemnation of antisemitism often seems to actually be about creating acceptable targets, and scolding those who don't choose prudently enough. Like I guess if Essa Suleiman had first stopped to converse with the Jews he stabbed, and gotten a verbal confirmation that they identify as Zionist or are even pro-Bibi, then his crime wouldn't truly be a hate crime after all?

The second issue is that while I'm no Bibist, and have ample criticisms of my own against the Israeli government, this rhetoric often ignores that the Israel-Hamas war is itself a product of antisemitism. Hamas didn't invade and massacre Kibbutzbiks on the border because their victims were "genociding Palestinians". These were communities of Israel's biggest Leftists and peace activists. They did it because those people were Jews. And their leadership has vowed again and again to repeat such attacks until every last Jew is dead. How are Jews supposed to respond to that? Are British Jews innocent, unacceptable targets because they lack state power to take action for themselves, and so can simply lay down and die? Whereas Israeli Jews are sinners because they have guns and a military with which to defend themselves from those who've made clear they want to kill them?

What is happening in the UK right now is like a proto-Hamas movement. We're not quite at the level of bus bombings, but we have a subset of the population that wants to kill Jews for being Jews. And it's this exact mentality that led to the situation in Israel today; Jews forced to respond to a demographic that wants to kill Jews for being Jews.

So I hate it when "allies" "condemn" antisemitism in the US/UK/Australia/wherever by saying it's wrong to hold those Jews responsible for the actions of Israel. The sentence is technically correct, but misses the point, and it implies that Jews who suffer antisemitism are being punished because other Jews reacted to antisemitism. Also, no self-respecting Jew accepts the approval of gentiles and promise not to be murdered, at the expense of other Jews. Like, "we'll agree not to kill you if you can agree that those other Jews do deserve to be killed". What??

How do you/we push back against this rhetoric?