What the fuck is wrong w/these people?

[StarmanSkye]

Whoa -- I'll miss Alice's keen insight, inspiration, enthusiasm for Truth, warm heart & strongly principled sense of justice.

Sorry to see her go; I'll miss her, I always enjoyed her posts and learned quite a bit from her. She helped make this forum a very dynamic place, somehow made the barbarities, cruelties, miseries and sorrows of this mis-run planet a little more bearable.

Best Wishes Alice!

[beeblebrox]

Yeah, this place would be a lot less interesting without ATC's contributions.

[Stephen Morgan]

If you want to show your solidarity with other humans take part in the collective organisation of society by forming queues, allowing people to keep their seats, and so on, not by giving certain people preferential seat treatment. Treat others as you would like to be treated. Ask for no seat, give up no seat. That is the virtuous way to be.

I agree that we should respect each other's rights by forming orderly queues and allowing people to keep their seats. But nobody's disputing each person's right to keep his or her seat. I was suggesting that freely choosing to give up something that you don't really need, to someone who does, is liberating and life-affirming. There's no virtue without choice, but there's also no virtue in selfishness.

But there's no such thing as choice when burdened with expectation. That's why the European Working Time Directive, which limits the hours one is allowed to work in a week, is involuntary. It doesn't matter if you want to work longer than allowed, rather than being forced by your bosses, the fact that you are working longer will put pressure on your co-workers to do likewise to keep up. If you give up your seat you create an expectation, and a stigma on your still-seated fellow-travelers. Therefore there is a positive duty to keep your seat, rather than merely the option of doing so.

There was a case a few years ago where a girl sued her school for religious discrimination, it was a Muslim girls' school, because she was expected to wear a uniform, which was a salwar kameez which the school had derived from the recomendations of some religious scholars they'd consulted. But she wanted to wear a burqa. Or a chador or something, one of the more all encompassing ones. Now the whole point of a school uniform is to be uniform, so no-one shows off with their dress, presumably the same aim as the religious duty to dress modestly in Islam. But she wanted to show off how holy she was with the non-standard dress, which obviously carries the implication that the others are less holy and will place pressure on them to conform with her trend-setting rather than the official policy of uniformity. Therefore forbidding the girl from wearing her religious garmentry was in the public interest and the common good of the students.

I prefer being on a level playing field with people. I'm not a supplicant and I'm not your mum. I gave someone a gift once, as it made for the most efficient use of that item. Like Plato's thing about a just society giving the best flute to the best player.

But it's not a level playing field, so why pretend it is? One day you'll be old and frail and need to get somewhere, and imagine having to balance on legs that can barely hold you up, holding on to the pole with trembling muscles, on a long bus trip while a young, healthy person sits right there and pretends not to notice. There's something very ugly and frightening about a society where this is viewed as good, or even normal. In a way, I feel even more sorry for the young person, who is convinced he has so little, that he or she has nothing to give.

I wouldn't want to be coddled. It might feel nice to give, but not to receive. Picturing myself on both ends of that relationship, I'd feel a hell of a lot better about having generously given up my seat and gone off patting myself on the back than I would if I'd taken someone else's seat due to my own incapacity. I wouldn't want to make someone else feel like that. Would be horribly selfish.

To be either patronising or obseqious is abhorrent, even if you aren't on a level playing field physically, or monetarily, or however else, it's only compatible with dignity to act as if you are, whichever side you're on.

I don't seem to have that. Funeral processions make me think what a rich fucker the dead must have been to shut down a street or two in town. Normal people get burned and disposed of, as is the right way to do things.

Yeah, but in the end, it all works out to the same. A corpse is a corpse, whether it's inside a golden casket or in some pauper's grave. Death is the great equalizer, the one inevitability. For some of us, coming face-to-face with birth and death can prompt a moment of reflection about the impenetrable mystery that brackets our lives. Not for everyone, of course.

Certainly not for the pawl-bearer. No time to consider the eternal mysteries when you're hefting a great wooden box.

Which implies that you aren't as horrified by his wantonly beating people other than pregnant women. Or pepper spraying, tasing, whatever. Solidarity as humans is the tenet breached, not some taboo against bashing pregnant women.

Absolutely. I agree with you. It's just that in the case of a cop beating an unarmed, pregnant woman, they are so unevenly matched physically it makes his assault even more cowardly and a flagrant abuse of power than usual, just as shooting a dog that was already tied up is simply an act of cowardly cruelty.

It's an American policeman, so presumably he's got a gun, and some pepper spray, and a taser, and a big club for a truncheon, and a car, and a big shotgun in the car, and a bullet proof vest, and there's probably some minimum level of physical stature and fitness to be met to join the police. Now, I like to think I'm quite a tough bloke, but there's no way I'd be winning a fight with a bloke with all that stuff. And even if you win you're then wanted for resisting arrest and assault a police officer. So I don't think the pregnancy significantly increases the power differential here.

Also, the terror she's likely to feel for the life of the baby she's carrying, in addition to the pain of her physical injuries,

Well she'll be worried but anyone can be killed by the police. There was a case here a couple of year ago, a paratrooper was restrained by the police, not even beaten, but restrained in a position on the floor that caused heart failure and a rather slow and unpleasant death. If you're not in severe fear when being physically restrained and chained up then you should be.

adds a further element of sheer sadism or even just callousness that's hard to fathom. Beyond the legalities or the principles involved, it's understandable that people would feel horror knowing that such a person was armed and unleashed against citizens.

You can't really have someone whose job is arresting people, which is to say physically overpowering them and attaching chains to restrict their movement, if he's got any sort of empathy for members of the public. Especially in America where such a big part of the police work involves guns and killings.

[Stephen Morgan]

Love that you equate being pregnant with being fat or disabled. Great mindset.

Quite a philosophy you got there... you and Anton LaVey would've made fast friends. But wait -- you're the cat that dubs himself 'christian', is that right? Must be some customized interpretation, I would think. The Chruch of Morgan and latter-day Saints that Service the Self.

Unless, of course, this is all some form of satire on your part. In which case: good show, chap.

The church of the fair allocation of resources, including chairs on public transportation. First come first seated. But I don't equate pregnancy with disablement, I can see why the disabled would want someone else's chair. When it comes to the allocation of seats, pregnancy is on a par with fatness: not involuntary, not permanent, not really deserving any sympathy. You can't help getting old, or losing your knee caps to a debt collector, but you can help getting pregnant. You have voluntarily reduced your physical capacity and shouldn't expect others to make up for that. Don't give me no childbirth-is-a-magic-miracle stuff neither.

And I am not adorable.

When I read your words, I think of an old codger in a dank basement fitted with a small gated window, displaying overcast skies.

In my little corner of the Northeast, it's quite lovely outside -- sunny and bright. Just returned from a bike ride, in fact. Think I'll head back outside and continue enjoying the weather rather than considering a response, set in your ways as you are.

on edit:

One cannot state "Don't give me no childbirth-is-a-magic-miracle stuff neither" and also label themselves Christian.

So you're either NOT Christian and hold the above view, or, you ARE Christian and do NOT truly hold the above view, and are simply having a bit of fun or performing for your amusement [or trolling, etc].

I didn't realise I was conversing with the Archbishop of York.

[Joe Hillshoist]

[Sounder]

AlicetheKurious has provided more well formulated content and context than any ten other posters on this board. This is one reason that I will stand by her in preference to some sanctimonious claimants to righteousness that seem to love nothing more than propping up existing vertical authority distribution systems.

What the fuck is wrong with people that they cannot see the difference between context stripping, leading to forms without substance and attempts at adding substance by expanding context or range of understanding? Institutional attempts to guide our narrative ALWAYS seek to bury context that may threaten institutional power.

We have a love/hate relationship with the folk that provide illuminating context because they expose our ignorance that is bred into us through ‘culture’. These folk are easy targets for folk that are determined to maintain their façade or self belief in their own righteousness established through their ‘diagnosis’ of the ‘problem’ that places blame for social ills at the foot of some narrow class of humans.

Sadly this effect is so deep seated that nearly all us spend most of our analytical efforts at identifying what is ‘dreadfully’ wrong with any given writing rather than seeing the elements that support more broad based understanding. I attribute this to the general assumption of a split reality that creates a medium where eventually we all become merely more objects to be manipulated.

While it may be easy enough to see institutional support for the status-quo, we must also realize that every individual act of repression or denial of ones shadow is also in implicit support of the status-quo.

Why else pray tell do so many republican homophobes get caught having same sex trysts?

[wintler2]

Misogyny is not adorable, neither is racism.

Fuck this place.

Hey Beautiful: remember, its only the internet. And also, that there is actually little need for extensive engagement with many kinds of ugliness - it reveals itself.

[Nordic]

AlicetheKurious has provided more well formulated content and context than any ten other posters on this board. This is one reason that I will stand by her in preference to some sanctimonious claimants to righteousness that seem to love nothing more than propping up existing vertical authority distribution systems.

What the fuck is wrong with people that they cannot see the difference between context stripping, leading to forms without substance and attempts at adding substance by expanding context or range of understanding? Institutional attempts to guide our narrative ALWAYS seek to bury context that may threaten institutional power.

We have a love/hate relationship with the folk that provide illuminating context because they expose our ignorance that is bred into us through ‘culture’. These folk are easy targets for folk that are determined to maintain their façade or self belief in their own righteousness established through their ‘diagnosis’ of the ‘problem’ that places blame for social ills at the foot of some narrow class of humans.

Sadly this effect is so deep seated that nearly all us spend most of our analytical efforts at identifying what is ‘dreadfully’ wrong with any given writing rather than seeing the elements that support more broad based understanding. I attribute this to the general assumption of a split reality that creates a medium where eventually we all become merely more objects to be manipulated.

While it may be easy enough to see institutional support for the status-quo, we must also realize that every individual act of repression or denial of ones shadow is also in implicit support of the status-quo.

Why else pray tell do so many republican homophobes get caught having same sex trysts?

^^^^^ what you said.

And Stephen, if you don't at least offer your seat to a pregnant woman, you're simply a cad. Remember, nobody is forcing you, and she can always turn it down!

Obviously you've never lived with a pregnant woman. They get extremely tired; the body goes through quite an exhaustive process creating another human being. Maybe you should ask your own beloved mother about this?

Here in the US it's "Mothers' Day". We actually celebrate motherhood because without them none of would even be here, but perhaps you hold that against your own mum.

[crikkett]

[Iamwhomiam]

It's a good thing that Morgan's a Christian. Even if he doesn't espouse Christian ethos. Christianity is the only religion that has a forgiving deity. But then again, one must first recognize and acknowledge their transgressions of the flesh and spirit, and they must be repentant to be forgiven for their sins...

Steven, you are going to straight to Hell!

[Simulist]

Christianity is the only religion that has a forgiving deity.

Well, there is the Big Woo* who made his debut (all those rhyming words!) in Joe Versus the Volcano (scandalously, a favorite for me) — and the Big Woo was pretty forgiving. Well... after a human sacrifice (Hmm... Jehovah? Come to think of it, has anyone ever seen these two together? You know, at the same time?) and lots and lots of orange soda.

_________
* To his credit, Hugh has been warning us against this false God, almost from the beginning.

[Project Willow]

Hey Beautiful: remember, its only the internet. And also, that there is actually little need for extensive engagement with many kinds of ugliness - it reveals itself.

Thanks, Wintler.

My lack of impulse control was not very pretty, and I have personal and IRL relationships with members here, lots of them.

I am regretful I responded to the conflict at the last minute and extend my apologies to Alice, C2W, and Searcher.

[Iamwhomiam]

I ain't afraid of your Yahweh
I ain't afraid of your Allah
I ain't afraid of your Jesus
I'm afraid of what you do in the name of your God

I ain't afraid of your churches
I ain't afraid of your temples
I ain't afraid of your praying
I'm afraid of what you do in the name of your God

Rise up to your higher power
Free up from fear, it will devour you
Watch out for the ego of the hour
The ones who say they know it
Are the ones who will impose it on you

Rise up, and see a higher story
Free up from the gods of war and glory
Watch out for the threats of purgatory
The spirit of the wind won't make
A killing off of sin and satan

[Stephen Morgan]

And Stephen, if you don't at least offer your seat to a pregnant woman, you're simply a cad. Remember, nobody is forcing you, and she can always turn it down!

It's not up to her to turn it down, it's up to me to not offer. What on earth gave you the idea that I was worried she might feel pressured to sit? That is literally the least of my concerns.

Obviously you've never lived with a pregnant woman. They get extremely tired; the body goes through quite an exhaustive process creating another human being. Maybe you should ask your own beloved mother about this?

And fat people don't get tired? They often have far more excess weight than a mere pregnancy produces. And don't they have a greater risk of heart failure under physical exertion? What about someone who's run for the bus, he's gonna be tired, yes? But you don't want them given other peoples seat, you reprehensible bounder.

Here in the US it's "Mothers' Day". We actually celebrate motherhood because without them none of would even be here, but perhaps you hold that against your own mum.

A founder member of the SPR wrote a whole book about Americans' obsession with the mothers. You national obsessions, motherhood and apple pie. Hence the obesity and psychological failings. Infantilism, servility. Obsessive consumption of cheese.

[Nordic]

Your schtick is only cute for a while. You're starting to turn into a bore.