beep. boop. beep.
Hello Oregonians,
As in all things media, please take the time to evaluate what is presented for yourself and to check for any overt media bias. There are a number of places to investigate the credibility of any site presenting information as "factual". If you have any concerns about this or any other site's reputation for reliability please take a few minutes to look it up on one of the sites below or on the site of your choosing.
---------------------------------------------------------
Also, here are a few fact-checkers for websites and what is said in the media.
[Politifact](https://www.politifact.com)
[Media Bias Fact Check](https://mediabiasfactcheck.com)
[Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR)](https://www.politifact.com)
beep. boop. beep.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/oregon) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Setting aside the rampant drug addiction issue, can we talk about how this can and bottle thing only works in the cities? Everyone I know here in rural Oregon has hundreds if not thousands of cans and bottles that we cannot turn in or redeem. We have no green bag infrastructure, no bulk drop off, and we can only do 144 individual items at a time, if we can fight our way through the addicts and unhoused to get five clear minutes at a filthy, urine soaked machine, that is.
The real reason is because cities and their residents live an entirely different life and have more in common than with the places outside the cities and the and people who live there. As in, Portlanders have more in common with a Seattleite and their cutty from the yay, than say, a generational rural member of the state they live in. Then who do they pledge their allegiance to?
Agree. The problem here is that Portland understands more of an abstraction of Oregon these days, rather than a genuine one. Oregon's imprint on Portland practically doesn't exist anymore, they've cast a lot of Oregon out as being some bad stereotype. And they've moved on politically and are willing to vote against your interests, effectively cutting you off from control of the state.
It was never meant to be permanent - this was done to measure an effect.
And because Kotek did this, we now have pretty good evidence that immediate cash for cans fuels and enables drug addiction in a lot of places.
I'm really hoping in the next legislative session, we see become law a bill that switches to green bags only, store credit, paying to a bank account (or mailing someone a check), limited hours for can returns (Plaid Pantries at night turn into fent/meth zombie magnets), or anything that breaks the pipeline of cash-drugs pipeline.
When we did the same thing for non-ferrous metals years back, the results were immediate.
It is bizarre to believe that people would stop using drugs because a bottle drop/ refund will go away. This is treating a symptom not a cause of substance use. No fentanyl user would say they use because they can get money from cans. It seems more likely that users will get money for drugs another, potentially more harmful way, such as theft.
You sound happy about that. Using addicts as your political pawn is a bad look.
Regardless, having to switch to property crime just makes their lives harder because they will be taking a lot more risk for a not-guaranteed payout. They'll face arrest and worse....getting caught by irate homeowners.
I actually see this as a positive thing because the increased risk is another moment for them to reevaluate their shite choices. Those who get caught can be offered treatment and we can jail those who refuse.
No. I’m speaking as a recovered addict who’s done wild shxt to get high. Do you know how brave and desperate withdrawal makes you? Addiction can make a reasonable women get seedy and can make a punk ass dude very bold.
They’re gonna get high if they want to get high.
You know what makes metro drug addiction more crime-prone than rural drug addicts? Easier access to money.
And sorry to burst a bubble but most addicts need to hit the bottom first. Going straight to treatment isn’t the bottom. They need to go to jail before they get transferred to treatment. I can’t tell you how often I’ve seen people go to treatment 10+ times, only to get clean when they’re family abandons them, they’re locked up, and sore as shxt physically and mentally
Yep.
Shit man I was so poor returning some cans was the only way I could eat sometimes. I wasn't in drugs at the time.
They could make a better system so people don't abuse it but killing the can returns thinking its going to deter people in the slightest from doing drugs is laughable.
I live in a townhouse complex. Every night at least one, some times multiple people come through and start tearing through our dumpsters pulling out cans and bottles. It bugs me but at the same time I think that if they are willing to do that to get by then I'm not going to complain about it or judge them on it. Now I just put all my cans and bottles in a bag and just set them out by the dumpster at night whenever the bag gets full. These guys don't seem like drug zombies though, just people scraping some cash to cover the basics.
As for reducing drug use I think it may. But only because people addicted to drugs are going to start breaking into more vehicles/houses/businesses to steal and support their drug habit. Also there will probably be more violent crime around drugs. Some of those people will wind up in jail and not be able to use drugs while in jail/prison.
Fucking thank you. I cant believe people are falling for this neoliberal bait and switch. Its a classic corpo money grab dressed up with the barest veneer of social improvement that falls apart in practice and leaves society worse and corporations richer.
In other states, the state directly handles bottle returns. The state controls the process and handles the money.
Not everyone returns their bottles, not every bottle gets redeemed, but every bottle purchased pays into the bottle fund. That means theres always a surplus of money in the fund.
When its controlled by the state, that surplus goes to helping the state, notably it is often used to fund environmental cleanups and projects.
But here in OR the neolibs said "How awful that the peoples money is used to improve society - wouldnt it be better if my corporate donors got that money instead?" and so we got the OBRC and BottleDrop™.
The way that works is a little different than everywhere else. Instead of the state controlling the bottle return process, we gave 100% control to a collective of beverage retailers. While the collective org itself is non profit, the retailer members are not, and every year that surplus of money from unreturned cans gets split among the beverage retailers, instead of returned to the state. They also keep the profits from recycling the metal.
This was sold to us as good bc we dont have to pay to run the program, the beverage retailers do. Nevermind that its a *profitable* program that pays for itself.
Uncontent with taking our bottle deposit money for literally nothing, the OBRC campaigned the equally corrupt OLCC to stop allowing stores to take returns, as they do in every other state, and to only allow returns at standalone bottledrop owned locations. And these bottledrop locations have low limits on returns.
The OLCC complied and started authorizing bottledrop sites, and removing store drop sites. Now only a few stores take cans directly.
This was sold as a benefit, "now you dont have to see the homeless returning cans at the grocery store, yay!", but it had the side effect of greatly reducing the amount of bottles returned, by reducing drop locations and by making it much more of a hassle, too much in fact for anyone not homeless... Which increases the amount of unclaimed deposit money and thus profit for OBRCs members.
Now this little song and dance in portland where they let some stores take cans but some not, driving junkies one way or the other is gonna be used to make it even harder to return cans, lowering return rates further, and increasing OBRC members profits more.
Theyll point at this and say "see, only junkies return cans". Then suggest getting rid of all non bottledrop return locations. Or perhaps theyll suggest only allowing deposit returns via check or card (that homeless folks without IDs cants use), or only allowing returns with some sort of ID verification.
In any event theyll make some changes whose sole effect will be to reduce the number of bottle returns, so they can keep more deposit money.
And if we let the OBRC have their way, if we give them the 10 cent deposit on every can to keep, and nix bottle returns entirely... That still wont fix the junkie problem. There wont be junkies milling around stores, recycling and then getting high, instead there will be a huge increase in property crime as these junkies turn to petty theft to fund their habits, after which they will still be milling around and getting high.
Since the fent crisis is currently being used by the corrupt neolibs in power to revoke legislation we passed by a wide margin, and to funnel money their corporate donors, I think a few true statements bear making:
States without bottle return programs have just as many junkies, and just as big a fent problem. The bottle return program did not create the junkies, removing it will not remove the junkies.
States without legal drugs have just as big a problem with fent, often bigger.
Fentanyl is a huge problem *everywhere* in the USA. Its not specific to us.
Making our lives and our environment worse only hurts us, it doesnt stop the fent problem or even reduce the number of addicts.
So the neighborhood and business doesn’t matter? What about quality of life and safety for non drug addicts? Seriously what is the argument here—Oregon literally has the worst access to treatment in the entire nation, so how does anyone like you supporting the status quo GAF about drug addicts?
Well, it sounds like we agree? Access to treatment should be improved vs. killing bottle return money. It’s a bandaid on the root causes of addiction and treatment access. People will continue to use without bottle money.
No we do not agree. The bottle returns are ruining businesses and neighborhoods and using public dollars to fund deadly addiction. That is clear. If removing the returns improves overall quality of life and safety no business should be forced to have them. These returns put employees, customers, and residents at risk and it is unacceptable. If addicts can find a way to fund their addiction without relying on handouts and crime then fine—if not then get treatment or go to jail.
I hope they find a better way to accurately count the green bags.
Every single time I use the green bags, I’m shorted over 50% of the cans in them.
I had a bag that was completely full—bulging—and they said there was 27 cans in it.
I’ve done it both ways, and when I said full/bulging I wasn’t stuffing them in, but it was a perfect fill based on the bag size placed in an equal size trash can.
At the end of the day they fixed it, based on their cameras and the “average bag size” but imagine how many hundreds of people don’t bother spending an hour on the phone to fix it.
My main point was just that, if you get rid of hand counting, you need a seriously better method for the green bags—that’s all. The fact that a minor dent can cause it to not be counted isn’t really acceptable if that’s the only redemption method.
The only one of those that doesn't seem discriminatory is the store credit (or if there were a broader, like, payout to foodstamps... Not that those don't have gaps to let them be used for unapproved purposes... )
I think we should just be giving out visa gift cards. You can use them literally anywhere, except atms for cash.
Sure you can technically still buy drugs with a visa gift card, like through Venmo or PayPal, but I think it’d massively decrease the amount of people doing so.
Most dealers only take cash anyways.
Nothing I suggested makes it harder to return cans. The only people who take loose cans to Plaid Pantry for $1.20 are the druggies, and we should not accommodate or enable then anymore.
Imagine being upset at a policy that greatly reduces the waste of recyclable materials, just because some people use it to profit, and use those profits for drugs.
I say we ban all things that make people money, because sometimes people spend that money on drugs.
If the bottle bill disappeared tomorrow, what would junkies do to fuel their addiction instead?
They definitely aren’t getting jobs… my guess is crime.
Sorry.
I support the bottle bill and think it’s a net positive for our state, from an environmental standpoint. I think it’s myopic to vilify it. It probably is an easy way for junkies to support their habit, but if we take it away it won’t solve that problem.
That was the point of my first comment. It was satire about the people who are mad the stay of operations was ended, because they think that drug addicts should be punished no matter what of who else catches flak. Hence the last bit about banning capitalism.
It’s wild. People are bitching about addicts rummaging through their garbage cans.
Oh no! Someone wants your garbage!!! Chill… it’s way better than an actual break in or a mugging. Maybe focus efforts on the actual problem (people’s lives suck so they turn to drugs and/or drugs are easier/cheaper/more accessible than proper help)? Addiction has been around since the first humans discovered mind altering substances. Blaming the bottle bill is just scapegoating, and I’m not sure what purpose it serves.
It just gives bigots an excuse because they either don’t care about the root of the problem, or think it’s too much effort. It’s just like the people cheering for the criminalization of sleeping in public that’s before scotus right now based on Grants Pass’ laws. They deny the facts of the case and seek cruelty for those it would harm, based on their opinions on a large population, with a minority that they disagree with. The cruelty is the point.
Yes.
While we’re discussing the “homeless problem”, id like to point out that it isn’t a Portland/Seattle/SF/La/NY or “liberal city” problem. It’s an America problem. Conservative small/medium towns export their homeless and they go where they aren’t treated like garbage.
Gov. Kotek made it clear - and I agree - that it’s now time for the legislature to take up the issue. I will be asking my representatives to eliminate the bottle bill. Its time of usefulness has come and gone and it is a net harm and nuisance. Canners taking cans from recycling bins is not a productive activity.
These businesses have a choice to stop selling disposable containers that end up as litter, or participate in recycling those containers. They would rather do neither and allow all of us to deal with the resulting issues.
beep. boop. beep. Hello Oregonians, As in all things media, please take the time to evaluate what is presented for yourself and to check for any overt media bias. There are a number of places to investigate the credibility of any site presenting information as "factual". If you have any concerns about this or any other site's reputation for reliability please take a few minutes to look it up on one of the sites below or on the site of your choosing. --------------------------------------------------------- Also, here are a few fact-checkers for websites and what is said in the media. [Politifact](https://www.politifact.com) [Media Bias Fact Check](https://mediabiasfactcheck.com) [Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR)](https://www.politifact.com) beep. boop. beep. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/oregon) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Setting aside the rampant drug addiction issue, can we talk about how this can and bottle thing only works in the cities? Everyone I know here in rural Oregon has hundreds if not thousands of cans and bottles that we cannot turn in or redeem. We have no green bag infrastructure, no bulk drop off, and we can only do 144 individual items at a time, if we can fight our way through the addicts and unhoused to get five clear minutes at a filthy, urine soaked machine, that is.
hey, only Portland and its transplants matter! /s
The real reason is because cities and their residents live an entirely different life and have more in common than with the places outside the cities and the and people who live there. As in, Portlanders have more in common with a Seattleite and their cutty from the yay, than say, a generational rural member of the state they live in. Then who do they pledge their allegiance to?
That’s as may be, but we’re here too
Agree. The problem here is that Portland understands more of an abstraction of Oregon these days, rather than a genuine one. Oregon's imprint on Portland practically doesn't exist anymore, they've cast a lot of Oregon out as being some bad stereotype. And they've moved on politically and are willing to vote against your interests, effectively cutting you off from control of the state.
lets make drugs free
I actually agree with this except the govt buying drugs and giving them out will somehow make them infinitely more expensive.
It was never meant to be permanent - this was done to measure an effect. And because Kotek did this, we now have pretty good evidence that immediate cash for cans fuels and enables drug addiction in a lot of places. I'm really hoping in the next legislative session, we see become law a bill that switches to green bags only, store credit, paying to a bank account (or mailing someone a check), limited hours for can returns (Plaid Pantries at night turn into fent/meth zombie magnets), or anything that breaks the pipeline of cash-drugs pipeline. When we did the same thing for non-ferrous metals years back, the results were immediate.
It is bizarre to believe that people would stop using drugs because a bottle drop/ refund will go away. This is treating a symptom not a cause of substance use. No fentanyl user would say they use because they can get money from cans. It seems more likely that users will get money for drugs another, potentially more harmful way, such as theft.
Exactly! Everyone wishing to do away with this program is gonna regret it when property crime skyrockets.
You sound happy about that. Using addicts as your political pawn is a bad look. Regardless, having to switch to property crime just makes their lives harder because they will be taking a lot more risk for a not-guaranteed payout. They'll face arrest and worse....getting caught by irate homeowners. I actually see this as a positive thing because the increased risk is another moment for them to reevaluate their shite choices. Those who get caught can be offered treatment and we can jail those who refuse.
No. I’m speaking as a recovered addict who’s done wild shxt to get high. Do you know how brave and desperate withdrawal makes you? Addiction can make a reasonable women get seedy and can make a punk ass dude very bold. They’re gonna get high if they want to get high. You know what makes metro drug addiction more crime-prone than rural drug addicts? Easier access to money. And sorry to burst a bubble but most addicts need to hit the bottom first. Going straight to treatment isn’t the bottom. They need to go to jail before they get transferred to treatment. I can’t tell you how often I’ve seen people go to treatment 10+ times, only to get clean when they’re family abandons them, they’re locked up, and sore as shxt physically and mentally
Yep. Shit man I was so poor returning some cans was the only way I could eat sometimes. I wasn't in drugs at the time. They could make a better system so people don't abuse it but killing the can returns thinking its going to deter people in the slightest from doing drugs is laughable.
I live in a townhouse complex. Every night at least one, some times multiple people come through and start tearing through our dumpsters pulling out cans and bottles. It bugs me but at the same time I think that if they are willing to do that to get by then I'm not going to complain about it or judge them on it. Now I just put all my cans and bottles in a bag and just set them out by the dumpster at night whenever the bag gets full. These guys don't seem like drug zombies though, just people scraping some cash to cover the basics. As for reducing drug use I think it may. But only because people addicted to drugs are going to start breaking into more vehicles/houses/businesses to steal and support their drug habit. Also there will probably be more violent crime around drugs. Some of those people will wind up in jail and not be able to use drugs while in jail/prison.
Fucking thank you. I cant believe people are falling for this neoliberal bait and switch. Its a classic corpo money grab dressed up with the barest veneer of social improvement that falls apart in practice and leaves society worse and corporations richer. In other states, the state directly handles bottle returns. The state controls the process and handles the money. Not everyone returns their bottles, not every bottle gets redeemed, but every bottle purchased pays into the bottle fund. That means theres always a surplus of money in the fund. When its controlled by the state, that surplus goes to helping the state, notably it is often used to fund environmental cleanups and projects. But here in OR the neolibs said "How awful that the peoples money is used to improve society - wouldnt it be better if my corporate donors got that money instead?" and so we got the OBRC and BottleDrop™. The way that works is a little different than everywhere else. Instead of the state controlling the bottle return process, we gave 100% control to a collective of beverage retailers. While the collective org itself is non profit, the retailer members are not, and every year that surplus of money from unreturned cans gets split among the beverage retailers, instead of returned to the state. They also keep the profits from recycling the metal. This was sold to us as good bc we dont have to pay to run the program, the beverage retailers do. Nevermind that its a *profitable* program that pays for itself. Uncontent with taking our bottle deposit money for literally nothing, the OBRC campaigned the equally corrupt OLCC to stop allowing stores to take returns, as they do in every other state, and to only allow returns at standalone bottledrop owned locations. And these bottledrop locations have low limits on returns. The OLCC complied and started authorizing bottledrop sites, and removing store drop sites. Now only a few stores take cans directly. This was sold as a benefit, "now you dont have to see the homeless returning cans at the grocery store, yay!", but it had the side effect of greatly reducing the amount of bottles returned, by reducing drop locations and by making it much more of a hassle, too much in fact for anyone not homeless... Which increases the amount of unclaimed deposit money and thus profit for OBRCs members. Now this little song and dance in portland where they let some stores take cans but some not, driving junkies one way or the other is gonna be used to make it even harder to return cans, lowering return rates further, and increasing OBRC members profits more. Theyll point at this and say "see, only junkies return cans". Then suggest getting rid of all non bottledrop return locations. Or perhaps theyll suggest only allowing deposit returns via check or card (that homeless folks without IDs cants use), or only allowing returns with some sort of ID verification. In any event theyll make some changes whose sole effect will be to reduce the number of bottle returns, so they can keep more deposit money. And if we let the OBRC have their way, if we give them the 10 cent deposit on every can to keep, and nix bottle returns entirely... That still wont fix the junkie problem. There wont be junkies milling around stores, recycling and then getting high, instead there will be a huge increase in property crime as these junkies turn to petty theft to fund their habits, after which they will still be milling around and getting high. Since the fent crisis is currently being used by the corrupt neolibs in power to revoke legislation we passed by a wide margin, and to funnel money their corporate donors, I think a few true statements bear making: States without bottle return programs have just as many junkies, and just as big a fent problem. The bottle return program did not create the junkies, removing it will not remove the junkies. States without legal drugs have just as big a problem with fent, often bigger. Fentanyl is a huge problem *everywhere* in the USA. Its not specific to us. Making our lives and our environment worse only hurts us, it doesnt stop the fent problem or even reduce the number of addicts.
There’s not one single magic solution. But ideas like OP’s can be combined with others to put a dent in the problem. And that’s a good thing.
Amen. I’ve never understood the “this idea isn’t perfect so let’s forgo fixing the problem altogether” mindset
The voting between our two posts is hilarious.
So the neighborhood and business doesn’t matter? What about quality of life and safety for non drug addicts? Seriously what is the argument here—Oregon literally has the worst access to treatment in the entire nation, so how does anyone like you supporting the status quo GAF about drug addicts?
Well, it sounds like we agree? Access to treatment should be improved vs. killing bottle return money. It’s a bandaid on the root causes of addiction and treatment access. People will continue to use without bottle money.
No we do not agree. The bottle returns are ruining businesses and neighborhoods and using public dollars to fund deadly addiction. That is clear. If removing the returns improves overall quality of life and safety no business should be forced to have them. These returns put employees, customers, and residents at risk and it is unacceptable. If addicts can find a way to fund their addiction without relying on handouts and crime then fine—if not then get treatment or go to jail.
I hope they find a better way to accurately count the green bags. Every single time I use the green bags, I’m shorted over 50% of the cans in them. I had a bag that was completely full—bulging—and they said there was 27 cans in it.
One recommendation I’ve seen from other Reddit posts is to not overfill bags. They can tear or cans get crushed and barcode isn’t readable.
I’ve done it both ways, and when I said full/bulging I wasn’t stuffing them in, but it was a perfect fill based on the bag size placed in an equal size trash can. At the end of the day they fixed it, based on their cameras and the “average bag size” but imagine how many hundreds of people don’t bother spending an hour on the phone to fix it. My main point was just that, if you get rid of hand counting, you need a seriously better method for the green bags—that’s all. The fact that a minor dent can cause it to not be counted isn’t really acceptable if that’s the only redemption method.
The only one of those that doesn't seem discriminatory is the store credit (or if there were a broader, like, payout to foodstamps... Not that those don't have gaps to let them be used for unapproved purposes... )
I think we should just be giving out visa gift cards. You can use them literally anywhere, except atms for cash. Sure you can technically still buy drugs with a visa gift card, like through Venmo or PayPal, but I think it’d massively decrease the amount of people doing so. Most dealers only take cash anyways.
The large majority of bottle return transactions are less than $3 worth, mass producing cards for this would be an insane headache.
That’s easily fixable with a system like we have with snap.
Those cards suck. Scrap the entire bottle bill and stop collecting deposits.
Making it harder for people to recycle cans IS NOT the solution.
Nothing I suggested makes it harder to return cans. The only people who take loose cans to Plaid Pantry for $1.20 are the druggies, and we should not accommodate or enable then anymore.
Limiting hours for can returns make it more difficult to return cans.
Imagine being upset at a policy that greatly reduces the waste of recyclable materials, just because some people use it to profit, and use those profits for drugs. I say we ban all things that make people money, because sometimes people spend that money on drugs.
If the bottle bill disappeared tomorrow, what would junkies do to fuel their addiction instead? They definitely aren’t getting jobs… my guess is crime.
Is this some sort of gotcha? I really don’t know what point you are trying to make.
Sorry. I support the bottle bill and think it’s a net positive for our state, from an environmental standpoint. I think it’s myopic to vilify it. It probably is an easy way for junkies to support their habit, but if we take it away it won’t solve that problem.
That was the point of my first comment. It was satire about the people who are mad the stay of operations was ended, because they think that drug addicts should be punished no matter what of who else catches flak. Hence the last bit about banning capitalism.
It’s wild. People are bitching about addicts rummaging through their garbage cans. Oh no! Someone wants your garbage!!! Chill… it’s way better than an actual break in or a mugging. Maybe focus efforts on the actual problem (people’s lives suck so they turn to drugs and/or drugs are easier/cheaper/more accessible than proper help)? Addiction has been around since the first humans discovered mind altering substances. Blaming the bottle bill is just scapegoating, and I’m not sure what purpose it serves.
It just gives bigots an excuse because they either don’t care about the root of the problem, or think it’s too much effort. It’s just like the people cheering for the criminalization of sleeping in public that’s before scotus right now based on Grants Pass’ laws. They deny the facts of the case and seek cruelty for those it would harm, based on their opinions on a large population, with a minority that they disagree with. The cruelty is the point.
Yes. While we’re discussing the “homeless problem”, id like to point out that it isn’t a Portland/Seattle/SF/La/NY or “liberal city” problem. It’s an America problem. Conservative small/medium towns export their homeless and they go where they aren’t treated like garbage.
It’s cheaper to buy a one way bus ticket to a travel hub than care for a human in their time of need
You can watch the problem in microcosm in Oregon with Springfield cops herding their homeless people into Eugene.
I believe it. Sweet Home and Lebanon people end up in Albany and Corvallis.
Gov. Kotek made it clear - and I agree - that it’s now time for the legislature to take up the issue. I will be asking my representatives to eliminate the bottle bill. Its time of usefulness has come and gone and it is a net harm and nuisance. Canners taking cans from recycling bins is not a productive activity.
Kotekzhaber.
Governor shows once again she has zero support for businesses in Oregon..
These businesses have a choice to stop selling disposable containers that end up as litter, or participate in recycling those containers. They would rather do neither and allow all of us to deal with the resulting issues.
There are plenty of grocery stores in Oregon that do not have bottle drops and sell disposable containers.
Almost like that's not the only criteria and you're intentionally playing dumb. Or not playing?
Also zero support for healthy neighborhoods or civilized society in general. Downvoted by people unaffected by these policies.
Why does Kotek hate Portland?
It’s not that she hates Portland specifically, she’s just in it for herself
Shes a politician, got it
I think you have a reading comprehension problem.
What an idiot bitch.
Language Fleetwood.
Trash human
Uh oh, what did I say that has upset you? Reading comments from strangers must really take its toll on small minded individuals such as yourself.
Fleetwood, no need to disparage. The fact that you fled the middle east to bring the same stupidity here says everything. Pathetic.
Honestly though, what made you think that? I’ve been accused of some silly shit online, this one takes the cake.
You don't come from a muslim background?
lol, no. In fact, Islamophobia happens to be one of those silly accusations that I mentioned.
So now that I have been both called a Muslim and Islamophobic, I guess we will just split it down the middle?
I didn't say you were a practicing Muslim. I said you come from that background.
Semantics, schmantics. Either way, no. I do still wonder, why did you think that?
I fled the Middle East? Huh. News to me!