Unrelatedly, I accidentally clicked Report comment on your comment, there is no undo and am very sorry. Somehow the web site reacted immediately, instead of waiting for minutes like on daily refresh. You’re not a terrorist in my book. Probably. Even if that Brown-ian motion race simulator game is vexing.
Don’t sweat it. Putting the two links that close together is an invitation for accidents, so you weren’t the first and won’t be the last. I’ve even done it once or twice myself. Good news is, I understand it takes five reports before a comment is flagged for moderation, and even if five people have the same accident Willis can just restore the comment if it isn’t actually offensive.
Of course, since the Bulmerian majority group are all born terrorists and have to be killed before they can do anything to challenge the minority rule, protesting against the university paying for the bombs to kill those children is terrorism, pure and simple.
No but really there was a group in blue uniforms who “terrorized” the protest. . .
Like I said, I want more info on Bulmeria in-universe versus trying to draw parallels to RL events or using it as a commentary on the RL events. Because it’s not a good 1:1 parallel and only is going to annoy fans when it remains a backdrop for Yuri disaster antics.
Yeah, terrorists. The people who peacefully protest and then have armed and armoured thugs chase them off. You know, the classical meaning of the word…
The length of Willis’ buffer means I’m pretty sure he can see the future for some of this stuff.
Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnnie Ray
South Pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe DiMaggio
Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Studebaker, television,
North Korea, South Korea, Marilyn Monroe
A sadly common tactic. Authoritarian governments often describe any dissent as terrorism or throw around vague, open ended charges such as “inciting civil unrest” to quash any opposition. I can remember a time when Americans were proud to think (however accurately or not) that only happened in “other” countries.
Yes I don’t think he’s deadnaming and misgendering Jocelyn on purpose to spite her, he’s only focused on the protest in of itself and Jocelyn is still closeted to him
I imagine jocelyne hasn’t had time to tell him, that said, interesting that the protesters are painted as the ‘terrorists’ when they’re very anti missles about bulmeria or so versus joce suddenly starting to work for Ruttech
Given the irl political comparisons, Bulmeria is using the excuse of fighting insurgency for their war crimes, which is presumably a defense being parroted uncritically by right-leaning news sources. Ergo, people protesting Bulmeria are “supporting terrorism”.
Veronica
I always thought the more apt comparison was Syria (until recently (but also: still kind of recently just with a new dude in charge))
deliverything
You can take your pick, really. It’s happened again and again and again…
I would give Willis the entire internet if it turns out Hank knows Joyce and Dorothy kissed (and possibly Jocelyn is trans) but is more concerned about the Bulmerian activism thing.
yeah being the most progressive of the fundie parents isn’t saying much
it’s basically like being the tallest dwarf
and yeah @Serendipity I doubt “captured” is really the word I’d use, given how he and the rest of the cult basically already agreed with the militarists and colonists to begin with
Nymph
Fun Fact: The tallest person with dwarfism was actually 7ft 8in tall when he died despite having measured 4ft at age 18.
He had a pituitary tumor that gave him gigantism and is the only known person to have had both conditions.
It’s possible he’s just watching hte mainstream media that slants it a way versus actually doing all the info, b/c other than that one guy with a mustache and leslie/robin i imagine most of the protesters were college age/among the uyounger crowd than coloser to hanks age
I’m irritated by the double standard about reasonableness. People who call the protesters “terrorists” are expected to be considered “reasonable conservatives”, but if someone were to call out the police brutality at the protest, nobody on the right would call them a “reasonable liberal”.
Dot
Sure but that’s just the reality of living with conservatives in your life. You kind of do need to grade on a curve.
thejeff
It is, but it’s also a huge part of the problem and a deliberate media strategy.
Nymph
Nah, I don’t grade on curves for human decency. Which is why, thankfully, I have none of these sorts of people in my life anymore.
Dot
That’s a valid approach, certainly, and I won’t fault you for it. It’s what I do now that I have the capability to do so. Not everyone does.
Serendipity
You absolutely do not have to do that.
Dot
Tell that to Joyce’s friends from day one of classes to basically the end of the first semester.
Proxiehunter
The fact that they did grade on a curve is unrelated to the fact that you (and they) don’t have to grade on a curve. Especially when it comes to saying people “fell in with terrorists” because they . . . (checks notes) protested against an ongoing genocide. Even on a curve that still gets you an F.
Freemage
Yes, and I’m sure that’s what Hank’s heard about the protests. Fox News and Friends came on and spent the entire episode talking about how these kids were just peacefully protesting a genocide, and now he’s decided that means these people have fallen in with terrorists.
Or, you know, news sources that he’s been using for most of his adult life, and has been thoroughly indoctrinated by, told him that Bulmeria is only trying to defend itself after a particularly heinous assault instigated for no reason whatsoever by the unnamed population of terrorists (seriously have we still not named the equally fictional group being genocided?). The fact that even the mainstream media talked about the incident in question, and the attack really was rather monstrous, muddies the waters even further.
I’d love to see a Jocelyn/Hank discussion about the issue. Hank’s shown he can be reasoned with, and even recognize something being wrong on his own (see his reaction to the comments about Becky in the church). He just needs context and patience to be guided along the path. THAT is the ‘curve’ on which he should be graded.
(The attitude that everyone should already be in the same starting point as the most aggressive progressives, or else they are irredeemable, is straight-up the reason I tend to cringe every time Roz speaks.)
Yun Yi Zhang
> You kind of need to grade on a curve
But why? Why not apply the same standard to everybody?
Km
Glib answer: we live in a society
Seriously: not all of us live in places it societies where we can apply liberal standards and still function socially.
thejeff
Because it’s still useful (and sometimes absolutely critical to your own safety) to be able to distinguish the Hanks from the Carols or the Rosses.
Freemage
A bunch of people in the last Prez election applied this reasoning, and didn’t show up to vote because they ‘refused to support Democrats who sponsored war crimes’. Ask the Palestinian people how that tactic worked for them.
C.T Phipps
For me, I absolutely refuse to make any associations about Bulmeria’s stance and RL. Because it sucks the humor out of the comic. Hank’s opinion is about a purely fictional event that has no relation the RL event.
Ideological capture is when people become convinced, by listening to the arguments of people who are not me, of systemic opinions that are different from mine.
Or he fell for the lies people are telling about why their actions are good actually. That does happen- sometimes perfectly decent folks get fooled into thinking that a person or group is doing something good/isn’t doing a particular bad thing, and that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t be utterly horrified if they knew the truth about that person/group’s actions.
I disagree. I find people like Hank are usually not half bad at raising genuinely good people because the things they preach are good they simply for some odd fucking reason don’t listen to anything they preach and twist it in their own fucked up mind
Support for the IDF is correlated to but not exclusive to fundies is it not?
eskimolos
Right, the centre/left is also ideologically aligned currently with IDF support. The narrative of mainstream offline media sources is almost exclusively support for Israel though empathy for civilians in the crossfire, with blame on the terrorist org/govt, as all propaganda is justifying bombing schools and hospitals because supposedly they’re being held as hostages.
I would suspect Raida more. She seems pretty annoyed at the two of them. Especially if she catches them keeping their mouth shut to their dad about how they feel about the entire thing she might go ‘Oh, you love making the protest all about you to the point of being the headliner, but don’t have the guts to talk to your dad? Since you love people who air dirty laundry to their parents, let me give you a taste’
mindbleach
Raidah does seem more likely. She’s kind of awful.
Jennifer’s restraint telling Walky about their literal dirty laundry says she would actively avoid it. But if she’s flanked by Alice, good fucking luck.
Dot
I don’t think Raidah would do that intentionally out of malice if she knew Joyce and Dorothy hadn’t actually intended to be out, but she’s working with incomplete information and I can see her confronting them about it while Hank is around.
Damn, At least it isn’t transphobia in this case, it is literally not knowing his family and still being in the bubble of thinking that protesting genocide is somehow terrorism. While that is still bad and makes me lose some respect points at least it is not out and out transphobia or I would have some serious beef with the better of Joyce’s parents.
as a trans woman, you 100% should still have beef with this guy, he just said opposing genocide makes you a terrorist. you under no circumstances gotta hand it to him
Dude listens to Fox News. All protests are terrorism, because they disrupt the civil order or whatever. Maybe I’m just too inured to casual bigotry from my own folks but this seems pretty normal to me. Not that it makes any of it better, but this is entirely within my expectations of Hank – his viewpoints come from conservative radio, but he can be reasoned with, and he’s not innately hateful.
264 thoughts on “Any brother”
NGPZ
“””terrorist””” huh??? (9-9)
“what’s for lunch?”
“crackers and mayo, boi” (-_-)
NGPZ
and some fishbelly cuz why not
smh
flumfula
Unrelatedly, I accidentally clicked Report comment on your comment, there is no undo and am very sorry. Somehow the web site reacted immediately, instead of waiting for minutes like on daily refresh. You’re not a terrorist in my book. Probably. Even if that Brown-ian motion race simulator game is vexing.
JepMZ
All my reports in tthe history of living here as all been accidental lol
NGPZ
well tbf I did release that game on 9/11 LOL XD
and yeah no worries i know ya chill
Wizard
Don’t sweat it. Putting the two links that close together is an invitation for accidents, so you weren’t the first and won’t be the last. I’ve even done it once or twice myself. Good news is, I understand it takes five reports before a comment is flagged for moderation, and even if five people have the same accident Willis can just restore the comment if it isn’t actually offensive.
Needfuldoer
It takes five reports to bump a comment back into the moderation queue.
Amelie Wikström
Of course, since the Bulmerian majority group are all born terrorists and have to be killed before they can do anything to challenge the minority rule, protesting against the university paying for the bombs to kill those children is terrorism, pure and simple.
No but really there was a group in blue uniforms who “terrorized” the protest. . .
C.T Phipps
Like I said, I want more info on Bulmeria in-universe versus trying to draw parallels to RL events or using it as a commentary on the RL events. Because it’s not a good 1:1 parallel and only is going to annoy fans when it remains a backdrop for Yuri disaster antics.
Maybe even shenanigans.
Furie
Yeah, terrorists. The people who peacefully protest and then have armed and armoured thugs chase them off. You know, the classical meaning of the word…
The length of Willis’ buffer means I’m pretty sure he can see the future for some of this stuff.
Proxiehunter
Even while it was being written that sort of thing was the past as well as the present. No future vision needed.
C.T Phipps
Is he referring to the Bulmerians or the protestors or both?
Because it’s not terribly clear to me.
Or is he assuming Ham…err, Bulmerian Liberation Front is manipulating the US protestors?
Needfuldoer
Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnnie Ray
South Pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe DiMaggio
Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Studebaker, television,
North Korea, South Korea, Marilyn Monroe
Wizard
A sadly common tactic. Authoritarian governments often describe any dissent as terrorism or throw around vague, open ended charges such as “inciting civil unrest” to quash any opposition. I can remember a time when Americans were proud to think (however accurately or not) that only happened in “other” countries.
Nono
Okay so he just doesn’t know?
KM
Yes I don’t think he’s deadnaming and misgendering Jocelyn on purpose to spite her, he’s only focused on the protest in of itself and Jocelyn is still closeted to him
yet_one_more_idiot
Didn’t Jocelyn tell Joyce when she arrived, that she hadn’t come out to their parents yet? Or am I misremembering?
thejeff
No, she didn’t. She hinted in the texts before that he might know (before you find out from dad), but didn’t talk about it again once she was here.
KM
i felt it was more of “i’m going to tell you first so that when I tell dad you already know”
thejeff
Or, as I think someone suggester earlier, “I’ve started HRT and it’s going to be obvious soon enough.”
anon
I imagine jocelyne hasn’t had time to tell him, that said, interesting that the protesters are painted as the ‘terrorists’ when they’re very anti missles about bulmeria or so versus joce suddenly starting to work for Ruttech
James
Given the irl political comparisons, Bulmeria is using the excuse of fighting insurgency for their war crimes, which is presumably a defense being parroted uncritically by right-leaning news sources. Ergo, people protesting Bulmeria are “supporting terrorism”.
Veronica
I always thought the more apt comparison was Syria (until recently (but also: still kind of recently just with a new dude in charge))
deliverything
You can take your pick, really. It’s happened again and again and again…
C.T Phipps
I would give Willis the entire internet if it turns out Hank knows Joyce and Dorothy kissed (and possibly Jocelyn is trans) but is more concerned about the Bulmerian activism thing.
Serendipity
Oh damnit, he’s ideologically captured and on the side of genocide.
Reaver
Shocker that just cuz he’s the better parent doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a lot of his old hateful beliefs still…
NGPZ
yeah being the most progressive of the fundie parents isn’t saying much
it’s basically like being the tallest dwarf
and yeah @Serendipity I doubt “captured” is really the word I’d use, given how he and the rest of the cult basically already agreed with the militarists and colonists to begin with
Nymph
Fun Fact: The tallest person with dwarfism was actually 7ft 8in tall when he died despite having measured 4ft at age 18.
He had a pituitary tumor that gave him gigantism and is the only known person to have had both conditions.
NGPZ
I meant like Snow White’s Seven Dwarfs when i wrote that haha
but thanks for that interesting tid-bit!
Reaver
Hey I’ll have you know as someone who is 5’1 I am very tall for a dwarf! I got the high constitution score to match!
Shade
Yep, like I said on the previous comic. Cooler than Carol is not a high bar to clear.
anon
It’s possible he’s just watching hte mainstream media that slants it a way versus actually doing all the info, b/c other than that one guy with a mustache and leslie/robin i imagine most of the protesters were college age/among the uyounger crowd than coloser to hanks age
Dot
He’s a reasonable guy but he’s still a conservative. This isn’t shocking.
Kevin K
I’m irritated by the double standard about reasonableness. People who call the protesters “terrorists” are expected to be considered “reasonable conservatives”, but if someone were to call out the police brutality at the protest, nobody on the right would call them a “reasonable liberal”.
Dot
Sure but that’s just the reality of living with conservatives in your life. You kind of do need to grade on a curve.
thejeff
It is, but it’s also a huge part of the problem and a deliberate media strategy.
Nymph
Nah, I don’t grade on curves for human decency. Which is why, thankfully, I have none of these sorts of people in my life anymore.
Dot
That’s a valid approach, certainly, and I won’t fault you for it. It’s what I do now that I have the capability to do so. Not everyone does.
Serendipity
You absolutely do not have to do that.
Dot
Tell that to Joyce’s friends from day one of classes to basically the end of the first semester.
Proxiehunter
The fact that they did grade on a curve is unrelated to the fact that you (and they) don’t have to grade on a curve. Especially when it comes to saying people “fell in with terrorists” because they . . . (checks notes) protested against an ongoing genocide. Even on a curve that still gets you an F.
Freemage
Yes, and I’m sure that’s what Hank’s heard about the protests. Fox News and Friends came on and spent the entire episode talking about how these kids were just peacefully protesting a genocide, and now he’s decided that means these people have fallen in with terrorists.
Or, you know, news sources that he’s been using for most of his adult life, and has been thoroughly indoctrinated by, told him that Bulmeria is only trying to defend itself after a particularly heinous assault instigated for no reason whatsoever by the unnamed population of terrorists (seriously have we still not named the equally fictional group being genocided?). The fact that even the mainstream media talked about the incident in question, and the attack really was rather monstrous, muddies the waters even further.
I’d love to see a Jocelyn/Hank discussion about the issue. Hank’s shown he can be reasoned with, and even recognize something being wrong on his own (see his reaction to the comments about Becky in the church). He just needs context and patience to be guided along the path. THAT is the ‘curve’ on which he should be graded.
(The attitude that everyone should already be in the same starting point as the most aggressive progressives, or else they are irredeemable, is straight-up the reason I tend to cringe every time Roz speaks.)
Yun Yi Zhang
> You kind of need to grade on a curve
But why? Why not apply the same standard to everybody?
Km
Glib answer: we live in a society
Seriously: not all of us live in places it societies where we can apply liberal standards and still function socially.
thejeff
Because it’s still useful (and sometimes absolutely critical to your own safety) to be able to distinguish the Hanks from the Carols or the Rosses.
Freemage
A bunch of people in the last Prez election applied this reasoning, and didn’t show up to vote because they ‘refused to support Democrats who sponsored war crimes’. Ask the Palestinian people how that tactic worked for them.
C.T Phipps
For me, I absolutely refuse to make any associations about Bulmeria’s stance and RL. Because it sucks the humor out of the comic. Hank’s opinion is about a purely fictional event that has no relation the RL event.
Because life is depressing enough.
Leorale
This is a wise move.
Proxiehunter
You can be reasonable or conservitive (as defined in the current political climate). You can not be both.
Decidedly Orthogonal
“Ideologically captured”?
First —maybe he’s only seen one news article on it and hasn’t stopped to think about it yet.
Second what does Ideological Capture mean here or to you? Was it tongue-in-cheek, or well… so many questions. ?
Clif
Ideological capture is when people become convinced, by listening to the arguments of people who are not me, of systemic opinions that are different from mine.
It’s not complicated.
S.R.
Or he fell for the lies people are telling about why their actions are good actually. That does happen- sometimes perfectly decent folks get fooled into thinking that a person or group is doing something good/isn’t doing a particular bad thing, and that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t be utterly horrified if they knew the truth about that person/group’s actions.
Jay
Hank you raised her perfectly.
If only people like you could see that
Queezle
I disagree, I think Jocelyne is a good person despite how they raised her, not because of it.
Decidedly Orthogonal
Ding Ding Ding!
?
Jay
I disagree. I find people like Hank are usually not half bad at raising genuinely good people because the things they preach are good they simply for some odd fucking reason don’t listen to anything they preach and twist it in their own fucked up mind
Cassie
I realize sitcom-level silliness is a staple of this comic but girls you can in fact tone it down and still hit your metrics.
Shiro
Yeahhhh, this is…about what I was realistically expecting from Hank, as a fundie dad
Amós Batista
I’m amazed how he keeps the “fundies”, even after the kidnapping.
KM
Support for the IDF is correlated to but not exclusive to fundies is it not?
eskimolos
Right, the centre/left is also ideologically aligned currently with IDF support. The narrative of mainstream offline media sources is almost exclusively support for Israel though empathy for civilians in the crossfire, with blame on the terrorist org/govt, as all propaganda is justifying bombing schools and hospitals because supposedly they’re being held as hostages.
mindbleach
Five comics from now, with an overheard conversation spiraling into heated debate, Asma considers outing these two idiots to own a boomer.
anon
i don’t think asma would even care/ be that petty tho i can imagine billiefer accidentally blurting it out without realizing hank wasn’t aware
Shogeton
I would suspect Raida more. She seems pretty annoyed at the two of them. Especially if she catches them keeping their mouth shut to their dad about how they feel about the entire thing she might go ‘Oh, you love making the protest all about you to the point of being the headliner, but don’t have the guts to talk to your dad? Since you love people who air dirty laundry to their parents, let me give you a taste’
mindbleach
Raidah does seem more likely. She’s kind of awful.
Jennifer’s restraint telling Walky about their literal dirty laundry says she would actively avoid it. But if she’s flanked by Alice, good fucking luck.
Dot
I don’t think Raidah would do that intentionally out of malice if she knew Joyce and Dorothy hadn’t actually intended to be out, but she’s working with incomplete information and I can see her confronting them about it while Hank is around.
Sirksome
Hrmmmmm……….Don’t trust Hank. Yes, Hank specifically. Not yet.
Dave Van Domelen
BLOCKING!
Doribi
Damn, At least it isn’t transphobia in this case, it is literally not knowing his family and still being in the bubble of thinking that protesting genocide is somehow terrorism. While that is still bad and makes me lose some respect points at least it is not out and out transphobia or I would have some serious beef with the better of Joyce’s parents.
Megan
as a trans woman, you 100% should still have beef with this guy, he just said opposing genocide makes you a terrorist. you under no circumstances gotta hand it to him
Amara
Dude listens to Fox News. All protests are terrorism, because they disrupt the civil order or whatever. Maybe I’m just too inured to casual bigotry from my own folks but this seems pretty normal to me. Not that it makes any of it better, but this is entirely within my expectations of Hank – his viewpoints come from conservative radio, but he can be reasoned with, and he’s not innately hateful.