Bring Your Sidearms To The Banks of the Potomac.

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Re: Bring Your Sidearms To The Banks of the Potomac.

Postby 23 » Fri May 14, 2010 9:31 am

compared2what? wrote:Good thing you're not dogmatic, then, I guess.

Because there's pretty much no way to grasp enough about any really important topic to have an informed opinion on it that doesn't entail reading multiple lengthy and nuanced statements about it by other people. A large number of whom probably came by whatever knowledge or understanding they're going all out to share with you via a wide variety of experiences and observations your own life didn't happen to include.

So you'd kind of be at pretty high risk for seeing each thing and also all things in the exact same self-validating and knee-jerk sort of a way if you were temperamentally more the rigid and doctrinaire type, you know?

Anyway. Thanks for falling on your sword like that. Mighty white of you.

Cheers.


What gave you the impression that I'm not dogmatic? I certainly never stated that I wasn't. I did say that an "unquestioned subscription to dogma kills", which is not the same assertion.

Everyone who is still inhaling and exhaling sees through dogmatic lenses. That comes with the territory of being alive.

I'd check to see if you're mistaking the sword to have my initials on it when they could be yours.
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Re: Bring Your Sidearms To The Banks of the Potomac.

Postby 23 » Fri May 14, 2010 9:53 am

I guess, then, that someone should inform the Metro Police in Las Vegas that they are engaging in "anti-immigrant fear-mongering and dog-whistling" when they alert the public to the 100% rise in home invasions in their town.


http://www.mynews3.com/story.php?id=13356
Rash of residential robberies, home invasions in west Las Vegas

(excerpted)

Over the last two months, Metro says home invasions and robberies are happening twice as often and becoming increasingly more violent on the west side of town.

(excerpted)

They occur about twice per week, between 9 am and 3 am. The days are random, as are the victims, without regard to race or the neighborhood in which you live.

Police say these crimes have happened at apartments, condos, and 6,000-square-foot homes alike.

“A few years ago the trend was, if you were engaged in some sort of illegal behavior, you were more of a target than the average citizen,” says Metro Police Lieutenant Clint Nichols. “But lately we’re starting to see regular moms and pops become the victims.”

(excerpted)

“We’re talking about people getting confronted at gunpoint as they’re sleeping. Dangerous behavior,” Lt. Nichols continues. “We just want to get the word out that this is a problem. We need for people to pay attention to what’s going on.”



Even police officers aren't immune to being invaded at home:

http://www.lasvegastribune.com/index.ph ... Itemid=244
Metro Officer killed during a botched home invasion
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Re: Bring Your Sidearms To The Banks of the Potomac.

Postby beeline » Fri May 14, 2010 10:27 am

compared2what? wrote:
beeline wrote:
...

Link


Yes. That's the same little scary yet vague list of non-statistics one finds everywhere, said to be (as they are at that link), "According to a United States Department of Justice report."

To take them one at a time:

    - 38 percent of assaults and 60 percent of rapes occur during home invasions

Not according to any Justice Department numbers I've ever seen. In fact, I can't find the DoJ report on home invasions they're referring to at all. Which I find utterly unsurprising, since "home invasion" is a button-pushing propagandistic meme, not a crime you can charge someone with.

They have no way of tracking those numbers, is my point.

Plus, the FBI -- which is, after all, a part of the Justice Department -- puts out annual "Crime in the United States" stats, with lots of tables and stuff, none of which show anything remotely like the above-cited.

And they've been doing that thing for years and years. It's one of their main public-servant-in-shining-armor routines. So I imagine they'd have something to say about it if all of sudden they were being publicly contradicted by some other, little-known home-invasion-investigative division of the DoJ.

I mean, I'll cop to the error, if I am in error. But I seriously don't see and can't find their original source for that list. And I've been looking everywhere for it.

    - One in five homes undergoes a home invasion or break-in


That "or break-in" kind of speaks for itself, imo.

    - There are more than 8,000 home invasions every day in North America


No idea where the hell that number is from. None. But even if it were accurate, it still wouldn't represent home invasions as "common," by anyone's definition.

    - 50 percent of home invasions involve the use of a weapon; the most common weapons used are knives or other cutting instruments


That seems to be a mashed-up and misleading recapitulation of the FBI numbers for various other crimes.

    - In 48 percent of home invasions, victims sustain physical injuries


Ditto.

    - Victims age 60 or older make up 17 percent of home invasion victims


Ditto.

    - In 68 percent of home invasions, victims and the accused are strangers; in 11 percent of these cases, victims and the accused are friends, business associates, or family


Ditto.

# # # #

IN SHORT:

That list is cherry-picking, inventing, and distorting numbers to frighten and thereby manipulate people.

Optimally deeply enough that in the event that they ever do run into some data (from the DoJ or elsewhere) that comes complete with a helpful explanation of stuff like what methodology was used to gather and analyze it, they'll be too blinded by their assumptions accurately to perceive and/or understand real criminal trends that pose a threat to their safety and well-being.

Hence, the world as we know it.


Hey, you just asked for stats :D you didn't specify 'accurate stats!' :twisted:

On a personal level, googling 'home invasion Philadelphia' pulls up 601,000 hits (which seems a bit, if you will pardon the pun, like overkill)

Link

but there have been a half dozen in a neighborhood that I hang out in a lot alone this year:

Link

Is that scaremongering? I don't know. Personally, I don't think so. Then again, my friend Karl was shot in the back of the head during a home invasion. So I think there are enough of people out there with guns that will gladly break into your home and point one at you and shoot it if they think (a) it's worth it and (b) that you don't have something to defend yourself with that gun ownership a justifiable preventative measure. It happens, more often than lightning killing someone, but less often than say, pedestrians killed by automobiles. I keep my doors locked at all times. But I'm not really afraid of my neighborhood, even though it's pretty much the ghetto. I don't even hear gunshots all that often since I moved a year ago. So I prefer to have something in the nightstand to defend myself with, in the unlikely occurance someone break in while I'm home. I have no wife or kids or dogs or anything else I might shoot accidentally.
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Re: Bring Your Sidearms To The Banks of the Potomac.

Postby ShinShinKid » Fri May 14, 2010 11:05 am

23,

I think you're missing the point. You should at least have the respect to read what has previously been posted before responding with something so trite.

As for home invasions, there are good defensive measures you can take wherein you will stand a very reduced chance of confrontation.
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Re: Bring Your Sidearms To The Banks of the Potomac.

Postby 23 » Fri May 14, 2010 11:50 am

ShinShinKid wrote:23,

I think you're missing the point. You should at least have the respect to read what has previously been posted before responding with something so trite.

As for home invasions, there are good defensive measures you can take wherein you will stand a very reduced chance of confrontation.


Re. your first point, I'm not in accord with it.

If someone is responding to a specific observation that I made in a thread, I have no expectation that they had to have read all of my preceding points in the same thread. Especially if it's a particularly long one.

I'll gladly reiterate an earlier point of mine, if need be, to incorporate in my reply. And I've done that on several occasions.

You may think that a person should read all of another person's posts in a particular thread before responding to a specific point of theirs. I don't share that expectation for anyone who responds to any particular point of mine.

As for your second point, there are different responses to an armed assailant invading your home. You seem to favor one that reduces the chance of confrontation, whereas I favor a trained and practiced confrontational one.

Here's hoping that neither one of us has to report, from personal experience, which one worked, or didn't work, for him or her.

But the continuing tanking of our economy, and its expected commensurate increase in property crimes, will soon make home security a top concern for many of us, I believe.
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Re: Bring Your Sidearms To The Banks of the Potomac.

Postby JackRiddler » Fri May 14, 2010 4:32 pm

c2w?, I add to the chorus of those grateful for your sparing us the work. Well done! (You remain the light of my life on RI!)

Elsewhere on this forum, everyone posting on this thread seems to recognize that "War On Terror" propaganda is drastically out-of-proportion to reality, if not complete bullshit -- and that the intent of it is to create a fearsome bogeyman that allows the state to acquire more power, the empire to justify its wars and astonishing budgets, the corporations who run the state to make more money, and the politicians to look tough and patriotic. Same goes for the "War On Drugs," it's bullshit for business. Probably people will also agree about the propaganda about "two million missing children" a year, and various other overblown or false hysterias. (There are thousands of missing children a year, most of them runaways and parental kidnappings, and the remainder are a serious problem.)

But apparently some of the same people who are so smart about the statist propaganda otherwise are willing to accept outrageously false War-on-Crime propaganda created with the same motives, long as it suits their pro-gun (or anti-immigrant) ideology. The gun has a powerful attraction, even though, as has been said on this thread about X-teen times to no effect, there is no danger at all of new limits to gun rights in those states where majorities value guns as mechanisms of "self-defense" and "liberty" (contrary to the empirical evidence).

You know what? If we can consolidate the stats (or fabricate them altogether), let's go all the way with it! I say thieves, robbers, burglars, druggies, foreigners, unsolicited door-to-door hawkers and accidental trespassers all qualify as TERRORISTS. Therefore Arizona is home to hundreds of TERROR attacks on unsuspecting homes every day!!!

AAAAAAAA!!!
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Re: Bring Your Sidearms To The Banks of the Potomac.

Postby compared2what? » Fri May 14, 2010 6:16 pm

23 wrote:
compared2what? wrote:Good thing you're not dogmatic, then, I guess.

Because there's pretty much no way to grasp enough about any really important topic to have an informed opinion on it that doesn't entail reading multiple lengthy and nuanced statements about it by other people. A large number of whom probably came by whatever knowledge or understanding they're going all out to share with you via a wide variety of experiences and observations your own life didn't happen to include.

So you'd kind of be at pretty high risk for seeing each thing and also all things in the exact same self-validating and knee-jerk sort of a way if you were temperamentally more the rigid and doctrinaire type, you know?

Anyway. Thanks for falling on your sword like that. Mighty white of you.

Cheers.


What gave you the impression that I'm not dogmatic? I certainly never stated that I wasn't. I did say that an "unquestioned subscription to dogma kills", which is not the same assertion.


Nothing. It's actually my impression that above all other things, you're a sensitive and suffering human soul like any other. It's also my impression that the coping mechanism with which you contain and quiet your fears and insecurities requires you continuously to reassure yourself that you see the world more clearly and are therefore better than what you regularly refer to as "the herd" -- ie, the billions of other sensitive and suffering human souls with whom you share this country and this planet.

That's a very common disposition, and therefore one that's very commonly exploited by any number of the countless cynical and self-interested powers who have an agenda that purports -- somewhat paradoxically -- to offer something close to absolute individual freedom and personal empowerment to those who sacrifice their autonomy by subscribing unwaveringly to every tenet of its dogma.

So....Please forgive me in advance for speaking as candidly as I'm about to do. And please also accept my assurances that my candor is motivated by concern for you and not hostility, if you can. Though I certainly wouldn't hold it against you if you couldn't. It is kind of asking a lot. But anyway, here goes:

At least as far as I can recall, you -- my forum colleague and peer, 23 -- have rarely if ever posted anything that shows any really free consideration at all of any subject, concept or proposition on its own merits, as it exists in itself, and outside of the grid of your pre-existing, inflexible and self-reinforcing convictions. All of which are consistent in every respect with the dogma of what's essentially the Christian-Nationalist-Authoritarian-in-Libertarian's-Clothing movement for which Ron Paul is currently the most prominent figurehead. Which, being authoritarian, is not going to enhance your liberty or anybody else's.

On the contrary, it will diminish everybody's rights and freedoms. Those of some more than those of others, granted. But still. Diminution is diminution, irrespective of degree.

In short, my impression of you is not just that you're unwittingly complicit in but also a passionate and tenaciously dogmatic advocate for your own oppression. I worry about you, therefore.

Anyway. The short answer is "Nothing." I was speaking sarcastically, out of frustration and also out of fears of my own, for which I apologize.

23 wrote:Everyone who is still inhaling and exhaling sees through dogmatic lenses. That comes with the territory of being alive.


I think not.

And I offer as evidence the generally very extensive capacity of almost all people to -- inter alia -- admit error; apologize and make amends for their errors; and revise whatever opinions they might have formed based on incomplete or incorrect information at one stage of their lives in a way that's commensurate with their spiritual, emotional and intellectual evolution and the consequent expansion and deepening of their understanding over time.

It's certainly true that almost everyone still inhaling and exhaling has a belief system of some kind that influences and guides their perceptions and opinions, both for better and for worse, for sure. Even if it's just an ad hoc, informally developed, and strictly personal worldview.

But that's a very different thing, both qualitatively and quantitatively, from the universality of seeing everyone "through dogmatic lenses," though. It's not the same assertion, so to speak.

More in a moment.
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Re: Bring Your Sidearms To The Banks of the Potomac.

Postby compared2what? » Fri May 14, 2010 7:47 pm

23 wrote:I'd check to see if you're mistaking the sword to have my initials on it when they could be yours.


Well....All right. Let's do a close review.

    1. Who, by their own admission, isn't interested enough in what other posters** have to say; or on what basis; or -- for that matter -- even who they are to bother making a habit out of reading their posts?

(a) You.

(b) Me.

    ** (Not excluding posters with whom they've chosen to enter into a debate on a thread to which they've posted at least once, usually twice, and sometimes three times on nine out of eleven pages so far.)


    2. Whose habitual indifference to understanding any more of what other posters have said (or why they were saying it, or even who they were) than the bare minimum that they needed to excerpt in order to continue complacently to reiterate the flawlessness of their own implacably held position led them twice to ask what would have been an unnecessarily aggressive, condescending and implicitly insulting personal question of another poster under all circumstances, and which -- as chance would have it -- under the specific circumstances as they stood, would also in all likelihood have been a profoundly painful one?

(a) You.

(b) Me.

    3. When he or she saw that the repetition of a very infelicitously phrased question was in danger of turning into a sticking point, which one of us decided that since it's in everyone's better interest to prevent avoidable pain from being inflicted on an innocent party, he or she should really bring the relevant background information to the attention the other one of us as quickly and clearly as he or she possibly could?

(a) You.

(b) Me.

    4. Who still hasn't acknowledged, let alone expressed or otherwise shown the slightest sign of natural sympathy with the grief of a fellow parent for his or her child?

(a) You.

(b) Me.

    5. Who is even now playing still yet more underhanded rhetorical tricks in an attempt to evade all responsibility for the mistakes he or she inadvertently made by transferring it wholesale to the person who merely pointed them out?**

(a) You.

(b) Me.

    ** Primarily by going for the hot-button-pushing gold that's buried in every nook and cranny of the suggestion "I'd check to see if you're mistaking the sword to have my initials on it when they could be yours."

____________

Hmm. As I score it, that comes out as:

1. (a); 2. (a); 3. (b); 4. (a); 5. (a)

So I'd say there's not really any question about it. Those initials are yours.
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And one final note.

Postby compared2what? » Fri May 14, 2010 7:51 pm

Of course, I do fully concede that I might have addressed you in gentler terms than I did.

I used at least to attempt to do exactly that when our views differed for a while back in the day, in fact. Basically out of consideration for what struck me as your very extreme sensitivity to any and every perceived challenge to your own implicitly superior authority.

Which I'd still do, if I came anywhere close to being the person I aspire to be on any regular basis. But sadly, I emphatically do not. In all honesty. Consequently, it really didn't take very long at all before your very extreme insensitivity to the needs of pretty much everyone other than yourself totally wore me out. Which I sincerely regret and am sorry for, both on your behalf and mine. FWIW. I mean, don't get me wrong. Because I very seriously doubt that I ever could have or ever will be able to do much better.

But it's not like I'm proud of that or anything. On the contrary. I regard it as a personal failing, and take full responsibility for it as such.
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Re: Bring Your Sidearms To The Banks of the Potomac.

Postby ShinShinKid » Fri May 14, 2010 8:23 pm

What he said!

And, I was just trying, once again (remember our martial arts discussion?) to help you out and "teach" you; trying to be friendly, really. Why? I don't know, maybe you're emotionally unaware in knowing how badly what you wrote hurt someone else (sheesh, it hurt my feelings, just reading what you wrote). I hope you can show some maturity and resheathe your weapon.
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Re: Bring Your Sidearms To The Banks of the Potomac.

Postby 23 » Fri May 14, 2010 9:49 pm

ShinShinKid wrote:What he said!

And, I was just trying, once again (remember our martial arts discussion?) to help you out and "teach" you; trying to be friendly, really. Why? I don't know, maybe you're emotionally unaware in knowing how badly what you wrote hurt someone else (sheesh, it hurt my feelings, just reading what you wrote). I hope you can show some maturity and resheathe your weapon.


Huh? Resheath my weapon? Very dramatic, I'll say that. But WTF are you talking about?

What would constitute a currently unsheathed weapon? Be specific, if you can.

No problem if you can't. Drama for drama's sake is its own reward, I guess.

And I don't recall a conversation with you where you tried to "teach" me something. Maybe that's why I don't recall it; you tried to teach me something. Paternal approaches rarely stick on/with me.
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#1 with a bullet

Postby IanEye » Fri May 14, 2010 10:13 pm

23 wrote:http://rigorousintuition.ca/board2/viewtopic.php?p=336104#p336104
You can only be willing to be a martyr with your own life. You have no right to chose that path for your children.


23 wrote:http://rigorousintuition.ca/board2/viewtopic.php?p=336383#p336383
Maybe that's why I don't recall it; you tried to teach me something. Paternal approaches rarely stick on/with me.


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Re: Bring Your Sidearms To The Banks of the Potomac.

Postby compared2what? » Fri May 14, 2010 10:18 pm

23 wrote:I guess, then, that someone should inform the Metro Police in Las Vegas that they are engaging in "anti-immigrant fear-mongering and dog-whistling" when they alert the public to the 100% rise in home invasions in their town.


I'm sure they already know it better than anyone. What with it being such an excellent way of deflecting the attention of the citizenry away from the mobbed-up corruption due to which the Metro Police in Las Vegas aren't interested in doing a whole lot more to address locally endemic rates of random violent crime than they have to do in order to maintain some semblance of safety in the various select neighborhoods that cater to family-friendly tourism.

Even more to the point, keeping populist anger over such things at a high boil and then directing it exclusively toward the lowest-on-the-organizational-totem-pole criminals and/or unaffiliated have-nothings who are so desperate and crazy that they'll risk something as potentially suicidal as breaking into an occupied residence just about couldn't be any more in the interests of the higher-ups to whom the Metro Police in Las Vegas are indebted than it is.

Because guess what? Those higher-ups are the ones who really profit from the shenanigans that go hand-in-hand with both the legal parts of the gambling and prostitution industry and the illegal parts. Which include narcotics and human trafficking. Typically. All of which is very, very lucrative for the happy few. As well as generally good for business to a much more modest extent for the ever-decreasing remnants of what used to be the American middle class, in historical terms, at least.

But it simply can't be done without creating at least a small class of desperate, crazy and desocialized criminals. That (typically) preys on the classes that are one or two or three rungs above it. Even in the best of times. Which these aren't.

In fact, I wouldn't be at all surprised if what I guess I'll call "home invasions" for the sake of continuity (although I really prefer not to use the language of my oppressor, and don't plan on making a habit out of it on this one, btw) are on the up-tick to some degree in the places where you'd expect to see the cracks appearing first.

Which would be cities with large and long-standing minority communities:

    -- that live at significantly higher poverty rates than the majority do;

    -- who have been systematically and brutally abused by a notoriously corrupt police force for decades;

    -- the vast majority of whom wouldn't, at this point, even have been alive for long enough to form any hopes or ambitions about aiming for one of the few minor nods in the direction of the social contract via which they might have had some long-shot odds of working their way out of generational poverty before Reagan scrapped some altogether and gutted the rest; and last but not least

    -- a visibly prosperous class in plain view on a regular and probably daily basis.

IOW: You'd definitely expect both Las Vegas and Philly to be among the front-line cities.

Also, fwiw, I personally do fully expect to see life getting more and more Weimar, wrt to stuff like crime, living standards, social cohesion, and the scape-goating of the usual demographic "Others" for the foreseeable future. And even if I didn't I'd fight for your right to keep and bear arms in your home, if I had to.

I just don't see how getting all dramatically Chicken Little -- either about calling primarily memetic trends "common," or about concentrating any political energy resisting totally non-existent and one hundred percent imaginary threats to the second amendment -- does anything apart from make it easier for the big-time criminals who call the shots to continue their unimpeded advance.


http://www.mynews3.com/story.php?id=13356
Rash of residential robberies, home invasions in west Las Vegas

(excerpted)

Over the last two months, Metro says home invasions and robberies are happening twice as often and becoming increasingly more violent on the west side of town.

(excerpted)

They occur about twice per week, between 9 am and 3 am. The days are random, as are the victims, without regard to race or the neighborhood in which you live.

Police say these crimes have happened at apartments, condos, and 6,000-square-foot homes alike.

“A few years ago the trend was, if you were engaged in some sort of illegal behavior, you were more of a target than the average citizen,” says Metro Police Lieutenant Clint Nichols. “But lately we’re starting to see regular moms and pops become the victims.”

(excerpted)

“We’re talking about people getting confronted at gunpoint as they’re sleeping. Dangerous behavior,” Lt. Nichols continues. “We just want to get the word out that this is a problem. We need for people to pay attention to what’s going on.”



Even police officers aren't immune to being invaded at home:

http://www.lasvegastribune.com/index.ph ... Itemid=244
Metro Officer killed during a botched home invasion


So I'll take the accuracy of those links on faith for now. And probably forever. Because you and I would still differ about what they represent in political terms and how effectively to respond to them every bit as much if they were utter crap as we would if they were pure gold.

And in any event, they don't really have any bearing one way or the other on the justice or accuracy of my only contention. Which was simply that there is no town in the United States in which "home invasions" are common. Which I'm actually perfectly willing to retract if that's what it takes to resolve the issue.

Because seriously, given that we're currently not living in a functional democracy, I can hardly make much of an argument for that particular point being worth going to the mat over. And since it was my point, if I can't, who can?

The only marginally constructive purpose of continuing to dispute it that I can even imagine would be to provide yet another illustration of what's probably the single most frequently illustrated symptom of a civilization in decline that there is around these parts.

And that's sure not gonna stop the disease from progressing, we can at least agree about that much, right?
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Re: Bring Your Sidearms To The Banks of the Potomac.

Postby compared2what? » Fri May 14, 2010 10:19 pm

Honestly, whoever wins or loses, 23, it just ain't gonna be pretty for almost anybody. Because there really just isn't any easy way out. In connection with which, though I'm not down with Arthur Silber's reading of Night of the Living Dead, since I am in almost full agreement with him about practically every other point he's ever made about civilization and its discontents, I'm going to wrap it up by linking to a few of his other recent essays that are, in one way or another, germane to the substance of our disagreements, albeit not what you could really call on-topic.

I intend them as both a peace offering and a proximate occasion for hope. Because although it ain't gonna be pretty and there really isn't any easy way out (as the post at the first link says, in part) that doesn't necessarily mean there's no way out at all.

In addition to which, once you accept that there really is no pretty or easy way out, or even any way out the route for which isn't going to involve taking the underpass through hell, you'll probably automatically find that you've already put one of the ugliest and most difficult parts of the entire endeavor behind you.

I really do mean these as a gift, is what I'm trying to say. Which is not to say that you shouldn't feel perfectly free to scorn and disagree with them, of course. But as far as the thought-that-counts part of it goes, fwiw, those are my intentions.

Cheers to you, 23, sincerely.

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http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/20 ... -best.html

And to you too, beeline.

Because I read what you wrote with attention, and appreciate your having posted it, even though I'm not responding.

The thing is that I'm just trying to remind myself that I'm not posting here anymore. Is all.
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Re: #1 with a bullet

Postby 23 » Fri May 14, 2010 10:34 pm

IanEye wrote:
23 wrote:http://rigorousintuition.ca/board2/viewtopic.php?p=336104#p336104
You can only be willing to be a martyr with your own life. You have no right to chose that path for your children.


23 wrote:http://rigorousintuition.ca/board2/viewtopic.php?p=336383#p336383
Maybe that's why I don't recall it; you tried to teach me something. Paternal approaches rarely stick on/with me.


"it's sure nice talking to you dad, it's been sure nice talking to you"
.


I'll conjecture, by your juxtaposition of the above two comments of mine, that you're viewing the former quote to be an effort in teaching. A perfectly understandable perspective, and not an uncommon one.

My grade school aged daughter, however, would probably disagree with you. The other day, a stranger asked her: "So I guess that your dad is your teacher, eh? Since you're homeschooled."

To which she replied: "No, not really. He treats me like I'm my own teacher. And he prefers to be seen as a seedsower for me. He'll plant seeds all the time for me to think about. I'll either water them, watch 'em grow, or pay them no mind. He sows the seeds, but I decide how to garden them."

I can easily see how someone's seedsowing efforts can be viewed as a teaching effort. My daughter did at first. She has another view now.
"Once you label me, you negate me." — Soren Kierkegaard
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