Here's another thing I don't get. The urban centers of America are making more money than they ever have; money is coming out of their ears so fast that San Francisco literally has "too much money" as their #1 civic problem. The middle of the country controls the House and the Senate completely, and can tax and distribute this crazy urban wealth to any degree they like. The urban politicians are hardly tax and budget hawks to begin with. So who exactly is standing in the way here? Never in human history have the "plebs" had such a degree of control over such a vast array of riches, and yet they have chosen to burn it all down ...for what exactly? Someone help me.
This may not entirely be the right place for this but I was reading the other night and this caught my eye: "Keep strong, if possible. In any case, keep cool. Have unlimited patience. Never corner an opponent and assist him to save his face. Put yourself in his shoes - so as to see things through his eyes. Avoid self righteousness like the devil - nothing is so self blinding" It's an excerpt from a book that RFK references in his book Thirteen Days when talking about JFK's attitude during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Obviously that was dealing with a much more immediate and tangible threat but I think what he talks about is critical in this situation and explains a lot of the response. I would be considered by some a bleeding heart liberal, but many people whose opinions I agree with fall victim to the last part. Everyone is a product of their environment, and while someone like ToyToy and I have very opposing views on most topics from what I've seen, we've also lived drastically different lives that got us that point. But, the only way I can change his opinion on something would be to approach it from his side and see how he got there, not just tell him he's wrong. Maybe that's just a pipe dream, but I think it explains the majority of the responses from people on the "right" both here and in the general public.
Here's what I hear when people say "I'm tired of this PC bullshit!!" "I'm tired of having to think about what I say. I'm tired of having to consider my actions. I'm tired of having to wonder if my beliefs or actions or are going to impact someone else in a meaningfully negative way. I'm tired of not being able to say what I think or how I feel without someone telling me I'm wrong for it!!" Which. Okay. Cool. Let's talk about that. When words and actions DO impact other people in a meaningful, negative way...maybe don't say and do those things? OR go ahead and do them, but know that means someone's going to call you an asshole, and you getting angry about that is a wholly unreasonable response. The complete lack of introspection from the "anti-PC" crowd is baffling. There's no intellectual honesty. Like, why do people keep saying I'm racist/sexist/etc.? Why do people say I'm making racist/sexist/etc. statements? What is it about those things that people are putting that label on me? No consideration, at all, for an opposing perspective. Last week my mom calls me. She's talking and she suddenly bursts out, "if people don't stop telling me I'm racist when I'm not racist, I'm gonna be real upset..." I asked what happened. She told me she was at work, and used the phrase "cotton pickin'" in reference to telling someone to do something. The subject responded "that's racist!!" Mom doesn't see it that way, because she'd say it to literally anyone. The dog included. She can't see the idea that SHE may not be overtly racist, but her phrasing definitely could be seen that way, and so no progress is made. No introspection.
My mother used to use the phrase "No tickie, no shirtie" all the time, because her father used it. It never occurred to her, and honestly never occurred to me, that it was a racist statement until I watched The Departed and saw the scene where Frank Costello tells the Chinese mobster "No tickie, no laundry." Suddenly it made sense why my Boston Irish grandfather frequently used a phrase that before that seemed nonsensical. I told my mom, and she stopped using the phrase. I don't think she ever used it intending to be racist, nor do I think she should be excoriated for operating in genuine ignorance. But the difference is that once it was brought to her attention, she adjusted. It was a very simple adjustment, and at no point did she vote for the utter ruin of The Republic.
To me, overly-PC is the rampant "I'm offended by that". I'm a very respectful person, generally, but when people DEMAND that I not offend them, my immediate, knee-jerk reaction is "go fuck yourself". It seems that the bar on what has been determined to be offensive has been set very, very low these days... so much so that comedians are no longer playing colleges due to their material offending the vocal minority and causing problems. And it's got nothing to do with a lack of consideration. I considered it, and deemed it bullshit.
But why does any of this rise to the level of so much as a school board election much less The Presidency? Your knee jerk reaction is to tell them to go fuck themselves, so you tell them to go fuck themselves, and society continues on its normal winding path of evolving social norms. None of this requires a moment's thought at the ballot, much less an entire national temper tantrum.
Back a page ago I posted: This is quite literally what you just said in this post. You hate that people demand respect and that you not say offensive shit, and your knee jerk reaction when someone calls you on it is "go fuck yourself." If you want to debate the merits of what is and isn't offensive, that's fine and a good debate to have, as there are gray areas. When your knee jerk reaction is "go fuck yourself" you're being as immature as you say I am. An example of a gray area is like the above "cotton pickin'" statement. She likely had no idea it was an offensive term. I heard it from Bugs Bunny for fuck sake. Still, when I got older and realized the origins of the term (an insult meant to compare people to slaves, known for picking cotton), I stopped using that term. Over time, we realize the origins of phrases that are offensive to a group, or dehumanizes a group. A rational person says "oh, okay, didn't know that was offensive, my bad, won't say that again." A knee-jerk "go fuck yourself" isn't constructive in the least, and is at best an irrationally angry response.
The "go fuck yourself" is in response to obvious bullshit. The typical SJW crap that we're supposed to be offended at that is bullshit to normal people. If you tell me that you're offended that I don't just agree with your position on something, I'm going to tell you to go fuck yourself. If you tell me I have to support the new Ghost Busters because it's good for women, and if I don't I'm a misogynist, then go fuck yourself. I have to vote for Hillary because that, too, is a step forward for women, then I'm going to tell you to go fuck yourself. There is a line, and at some point you should be called on it. The problem is that when you get fucking blasted over the most menial of bullshit triggering events, it taints everything else. It's called signal to noise... if you have enough noise, you lose the signal. And yes, while I default to the "you get my respect" position, if you do something to lose it, then yes please, feel free to go fuck yourself... you no longer have it. Respect is earned, not demanded.
Fucking hell, really? The election isn't even a week old and CNN's already got a book coming out that probably presumes to have all the answers.
I got some reps asking me to stay, and seeing as I'm not going to find another internet pothole filled with alcoholic misfits I might as well. That wasn't so much a response to Aetius specifically(we were just the last two exchanging feces) as it was to some of the posters on here in general who have been calling me a racist misogynist for like, the last three years. I'm clearly not, but fuck it, I'll just ignore them. Using that as a strategy to try to win an argument because you don't know much about a subject gets old. I know a couple people like this in real life so if I can deal with it there I might as well here. So, the ill tempered gungan is back. I saw the Bill Maher episode after the election. It's nice to see someone on the left addressing the problems, but I lost a lot of respect for him when he spent 6 straight months trying to shame millennials into ignoring Hillary Clinton's horrid record. The left needs to cut ties with people like that woman on the show. She made some good points, but whenever anyone called her on her shit she would just fold her arms and say "white males". The party needs to realize that a lot of democrats know white males, and even the demographics that aren't find it just as off putting as the whiteys themselves. It's one thing to rant about history, but it's another entirely to keep putting people in boxes you like, or don't like. It's like that fucktarded list of 86 genders. Gee, maybe you have a personality. You'll find it on the list between male and female. The reason people find the whole SJW nonsense annoying isn't just because they're loud and try to get people fired, it's as if they've literally forgotten the concept of the individual. The left is always going to have these people, and I guess they need their votes too, but maybe stop being so tolerant of it. They're fucking assholes and having a few mutual opinions on social progress doesn't change that.
I feel like I'm taking crazy pills with this anti-PC/attack-on-white-males theory that's cropped up since the election. Economic anxiety I get; I think they're inexcusably wrong about their analysis of its root causes and recommended solutions, but I get that the anxiety itself exists. This though... are there really white men in this country that feel like they're "under attack" and not just taking the occasional bruise because racial reconciliation is a complex and bumpy process that isn't going to be total uninterrupted smooth sailing into MLK's colorblind utopia? I genuinely cannot comprehend being so thin skinned that I can't shake off the occasional asshole without it ruining my day, much less it impacting my actual vote in a national election.
Yes, and it's one of the reasons I was saying throughout the election thread that I think the left is dysfunctional, although maybe not as much as the right. Most of them are college educated and the thinking is starting to filter down into the lower classes. This has been happening in Europe as well, and they've mostly congregated on youtube. It's not so much about an attack on white males specifically as it is a frustration with the media and liberal arts. They're sick of the sensationalizing nonsense and constant pouting. Usually if someone has these opinions in the mainstream media they just get fired so it's been easy to not notice. It started out as an atheist/far left group of free thinkers. It's now become an industry where angry leftists gather. I'm a center leftist, but most of these people are left of the mainstream and they LOVED Bernie. The whole thing is really childish, but it's also fucking hilarious. They're a group of anti-sjws who are making a career out of endlessly mocking the activist left. Normally they would just fall in line because most of them hate republicans, but because of Hillary they ended up abstaining or voting Trump this election. Why the democrats lost is extremely complex, but take a look at how Obama did in '08 vs Hillary in '16. Obama: 69,498,516 votes Hillary: 61,391,139 votes Trump had some abstainers and some unlikely voters that made his campaign unusual, but he performed similarly to Romney and McCain in the total count. Hillary just couldn't get people to the polls. The republicans can rely on bland candidates, but the democrats need someone inspiring to win. We'll never know, but that's why I still think Bernie would have crushed Trump in the general election.
A somewhat unrelated question... I just read that the popular vote count has exceeded 1 million votes for Hillary over Trump. Are these votes coming in from states she has already won? The electoral college system seems to be lost on some people when it doesn't work in their favor. Its like they want votes from California and New York to be more valuable than some place else.
The left needs to sort this out over the next four years because while I think if there's a candidate like Obama everyone will fold together, but if there's another shitty candidate and some quality third party non-establishment types emerge; a significant chunk could break off and follow the candidates they prefer, no matter how hopeless. The former is more likely, but the ladder is a possibility, in my opinion.
It just kind of surprised me that people were inspired by him. Maybe he improved his public speaking from when he came to my clinic in 2014, because when I met him he came across as insincere and pandering. He was way too passionate about our cause for not being very informed about it which made it seem like he was putting on an act when he promised to get more money for our industry. It's one of the reasons why he was never able to get me to leave Hillary's camp. I disagree. I think banding together behind a charismatic candidate is just masking the issues the left needs to sort out among itself. The Left and the Democratic party need to do some serious self-work in order to make long term, sustainable victories a reality.
He had a lot of bad ideas. For me it's not so much I liked him as I trusted him. However, the far left was obsessed with the guy. He was kind of oblivious to a lot of the social issues. I mean, he had a general idea, but he didn't know how to articulate or tap into it. Weird when you consider that he was a civil rights activist for much of his life.
You're treating what is mostly a petty squabble between blue haired college lesbians and weaponized autists as some grand societal struggle. It doesn't have nearly the impact you believe it does.