Terrible Editorials, Opinion Pieces and Letters to the Editor

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Guilty Spork: Feb 26, 2011; Thunder rolled. It rolled a six.

Ah yes, Apple bowed to pressure to make one of their gadgets work better, therefore everything else should work out the same, right? That's why you'll have no problem buying non-GMO food at the supermarket, and if you don't like what Halliburton or Blackwater are doing you can just vote with your dollars! :v:

# ? Apr 11, 2013 01:11

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# ? May 24, 2024 14:08

Nintendo Kid: Aug 4, 2011; by Smythe

Guilty Spork posted:

That's why you'll have no problem buying non-GMO food at the supermarket

So you don't realize that this is actually true then?

# ? Apr 11, 2013 01:17

I AM GRANDO: Aug 20, 2006

Guilty Spork posted:

Ah yes, Apple bowed to pressure to make one of their gadgets work better, therefore everything else should work out the same, right? That's why you'll have no problem buying non-GMO food at the supermarket, and if you don't like what Halliburton or Blackwater are doing you can just vote with your dollars!

I literally lost a friend over an argument over the banning of smoking in public places. The dude kept insisting that even though he didn't smoke and hated being around cigarette smoke, it was a violation of the rights of smokers to keep them from smoking in public. He said that the market provided the perfect solution because some enterprising individual could open a smoke-free bar and restaurant and then everybody would flock to it.

Then I asked him why nobody had tried it before if it was such a wonderful idea and he said that maybe he was the first to think of it but it was a wonderful idea. Then I asked some followup questions about what makes people prefer one bar to another or one restaurant over another and about the risks of opening a restaurant and he told me to shut up, and then I asked about his right to live without risk of second-hand smoke and he told me to gently caress myself and that was the last time I ever spoke to him.

I don't think our friendship would have lasted even if I had shut up when he asked.

# ? Apr 11, 2013 01:36

Borneo Jimmy: Feb 27, 2007; by Smythe

Former Israeli prison guard and Iraq war cheerleader Jeffery Goldberg reminds us that the Iraq war wasn't so bad because you know Saddam was a bad guy and we had to do something about it!

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-08/was-the-iraq-invasion-worthwhile-ask-an-iraqi-jeffrey-goldberg.html

quote:

Was the Iraq Invasion Worthwhile? Ask an Iraqi
By Jeffrey Goldberg 2013-04-08T22:00:35Z

In a recent interview with the New York Times, the writer Toni Morrison said, �I dare you to tell me a sane reason we went to Iraq.�

Her request is not unreasonable. We�ve heard similar arguments a lot over the past few weeks, as we marked the 10th anniversary of the war. There is widespread agreement that the American invasion of Iraq was provoked by a series of lies, neuroses, venalities and delusions.

And so much of what has happened over the past 10 years in Iraq has been undeniably disastrous. The cost in Iraqi and American blood and treasure is appalling, and the damage done to our country�s reputation -- and to the ideas that animate liberal interventionism -- may be irreparable. (Just ask the people of Syria, who are struggling against tyranny without much help from the U.S.)

One thing I�ve noticed over the past two weeks, however, is that Iraqis themselves haven�t often been asked about their opinion of the war. Iraq, after President George W. Bush failed to accomplish his mission, was a place of violence and chaos, but before the invasion, it was a charnel house. Saddam Hussein�s regime murdered as many as 1 million Iraqis in its years in absolute power. Many Americans forget this. Most Iraqis don�t.
Torture Chambers

The New Yorker�s Dexter Filkins, who wrote the best book on Iraq (�The Forever War�), recently recalled a visit, shortly after the invasion, to one of Saddam�s torture chambers, a place called Al Hakemiya. He met a man there who identified himself as Al-Musawi. The two visited a room where Al-Musawi�s �arms had been nearly torn from their sockets.� He had been hung from the ceiling and electrocuted.

�Today, in 2013 -- a decade later -- it�s not fashionable to suggest that the American invasion of Iraq served any useful purpose,� Filkins continued. �But what are we to make of Iraqis like Al-Musawi? Or of torture chambers like Al Hakemiya? Where do we place them in our memories? And, more important, how should they shape our judgment of the war we waged?�

His suggestion: �Ask the Iraqis -- that is, if anyone, in this moment of American navel-gazing, can be bothered to do so.�

I took Filkins�s charge to heart, and asked another graduate of Saddam�s torture chambers, a man named Barham Salih, what he thought of the invasion, 10 years on.

Today, Salih is the chairman of the board of the American University of Iraq in Sulaimani, which provides a liberal education in a place not previously known for such a phenomenon. In recent years, Salih has served as both the deputy prime minister of Iraq and as prime minister of the Kurdish regional government. He was in the camp of people who argued that Saddam�s decision to commit genocide against Iraqi Kurds (sometimes with chemical weapons) in the late 1980s made his removal a moral imperative.

I asked him if he thought the invasion was worth it.

�From the perspective of the Kurdish people -- and I dare say the majority of the Iraqi people -- it was worth it,� he said. �War is never a good option, but given our history and the brutality of Saddam�s regime, it may have been the only other option to end the genocidal campaign waged by Saddam against the Kurds and other communities in Iraq.�

Here is where his answer became a lament. �I must admit, however, that 10 years on, Iraq�s transition is, to say the least, characterized by unrealized expectations, both for Iraqis and for our American liberators. Iraq is not the friendly democracy that the U.S. had hoped for, and it is far from the secure, inclusive democracy that Iraqis deserved and aspired to.�
�Inherent Danger�

He went on to blame Iraqis, rather than Americans, for the failures of the past decade. �Much can be said about U.S. missteps and miscalculations in this process, but there is no denying that Iraqi political leadership bears prime responsibility for squandering a unique opportunity to deliver to their people. This has been nothing short of a drastic failure of leadership on our part! The Kurdistan region offers hope that all is not lost in Iraq.�

I asked Salih to answer the argument that the Kurds -- who make up almost 20 percent of Iraq�s population -- were, by 2003, mainly living in relative safety in a region protected by an American-enforced no-fly zone. In other words, the invasion wasn�t a humanitarian necessity at that moment.

�All Iraqis lived under a regime that had complete disdain for human life,� he said. �Executions and killings continued at will. Thousands of Iraqis were being sent to the mass graves. The Kurds were never safe as they knew that Saddam could at any time decide to reconquer the no-fly zone.�

He went on, �Saddam was a menace to the Kurds, to the other Iraqi communities, and an inherent danger to the region. He was, from our perspective in this part of the world, a grave and mortal danger that we could never be safe from while he was still around.�

I take Toni Morrison�s beliefs seriously. The serial and tragic mistakes of the Bush administration, and the naivete of people like me, make questioning the value of the invasion necessary. I thought that Iraq, with competent American help, could make the transition to at least semi-democracy, even after suffering such physical and psychological damage during the bleak years of Saddam�s reign. But those who believe the invasion was an act of insanity -- especially those who fashion themselves as advocates for human rights, dignity and liberation -- should at least ask Saddam�s many victims for their opinion on the matter before rendering final judgment.

I would encourage Morrison, too, to talk to Iraqi victims. I�m sure the American University in Sulaimani would be happy to give her a visiting professorship.

oh hey and what about that awesome American university of Iraq?
http://www.alternet.org/story/148443/i_was_a_professor_at_the_horribly_corrupt_american_university_of_iraq..._until_the_neocons_fired_me
http://www.counterpunch.org/2009/11/06/inside-the-american-university-of-iraq/

# ? Apr 11, 2013 22:13

VideoTapir: Oct 18, 2005; He'll tire eventually.

What exactly is a no-fly zone worth if the only air force you'd be concerned with has been annihilated?

The American University of Iraq articles are loving amazing/sickening, BTW.

# ? Apr 12, 2013 10:11

Ignatius D: Jul 30, 2006

The NYT opinion page weighs in with some insightful commentary.

The Bretton Woods system: "a sin graver than Watergate".

# ? Apr 12, 2013 12:51

duck monster: Dec 15, 2004

I don't know if this is the right thread, of if theres a "loving retarded poo poo your great aunt forwarded to you on face book" type thread.

But this is going around facebook. Just read it. Its loving berk.

quote:

WHY DOES THE CHILD IN HANDS OF THE BEGGAR ALWAYS SLEEPING??????????????

"Why is sleeping child in the hands of beggars? Have you ever wondered ... "

This article I read a few months ago. Who is the author of, I don't know.
Please read�..

""Near the metro station sits a woman of uncertain age.
Women�s hair
is confused and dirty, her head bowed in grief.

The woman sits on the dirty floor and next to her lies a bag. In that bag
people throw money. On the hands of a woman, asleep, is a two year old baby. He's in a dirty hat and dirty clothes.

�Madonna with baby� - numerous passers-by will donate money. The people of our kind- we always feel sorry for less fortunate. We are ready to give unfortunate people the last shirt, the last penny out of your pocket and never think another issue.
Helping, seems like. �Good job done�...

I walked past a beggar for a month. Did not give any money, as I knew that this is a gang operated scam and money collected by the beggar will be given to whoever controls beggars in the area. Those people own numerous luxury properties and cars.
Oh and beggar also gets something, of course � A bottle of vodka in the evening and a d�ner kebab�.
A month later, walking past the beggars, as shock, it suddenly
hit me�.
I'm staying at a busy crossing, stared at the baby, dressed as always- dirty track suit. I realized that it
seemed "wrong", finding a child in a dirty underground station from morning to evening.
The baby slept. Never sobbed or screamed, always asleep, burying his face in the knee of a woman who was his MUM.

Do any of you, dear readers, have children? Remember how often they
slept at the age of 1-2-3 years? Hour two, maximum three (not consecutive)
afternoon nap, and again � movement. For the whole month, every day of my
walking in the underground, I've never seen a child awake! I looked
at the tiny little man, with his face buried in the knee of his mother, then at the beggar, and my
suspicion was gradually formed.
� Why he sleeps all the time? I asked, staring at the baby.

The beggar pretended not to hear me. She lowered her eyes and
hid her face in the collar of her shabby jacket. I repeated the question. The woman again
looked up. She looked somewhere behind my back, tired with utter irritation. Her look was similar to the creatures from a different planet.
-F **k off ... her lips murmured.
-Why is he asleep?! I almost cried ...

Behind me someone put his hand on my shoulder. I looked back. A some old man was looking at me disapprovingly:

� What do you want from her? Can�t you see how hard she�s got it in her life� Eh �
He gets some coins from his pocket and throws them in the beggar�s bag.

Beggar made a hand wave of a cross, portraying the face of humility and universal
grief. The guy removed his hand from my shoulder and strolled out of the underground station.
I bet, at home, he will tell how he defended poor, distraught woman from a soulless man in a tube station.

Next day I called a friend. It was a funny man with eyes like olives Romanian nationality. He only managed to complete three and a half years of education. The complete lack of education does not prevent him from moving around the
City streets on very expensive foreign cars and live in a �small� house with countless number of windows and balconies. From my friend I managed to find out that this business, despite the apparent
spontaneity, clearly organized. Its supervised by begging organized crime rings. The children used are in "rent"
from families of alcoholics, or simply stolen.
I needed to get the answer to the question � why is the baby sleeping? And I received it. My friend Gypsy said the phrase, completely ordinary with calm voice that twisted me in shock, just like he was talking about weather report:
-They are on heroin, or vodka ...
I was dumbfounded. "Who is on heroin? Whom � under vodka?! "
He answered
-The Child, so he doesn�t scream. The women will be sitting whole day with him, imagine how he might get bored?

In order to make the baby slept the whole day, it pumped up with vodka or drugs. Of course, children's bodies are not able to cope with such a shock. And children often die. The most terrible thing � sometimes children die
during the "working day". And imaginary mother must hold another dead child on her hands until the evening. These are the rules. And the by passers-by will throw some money in the bag, and believe that they are moral. Helping
"mother alone" �
� The next day I was walking near the same underground station. I stocked up journalistic identity, and was ready for a serious conversation. But the conversation didn't work out. But turned out the following ...
A woman was sitting on the floor and in her hands she was holding a child. I asked her a question about the documents on the child, and, most importantly, where was yesterday's kid, which she simply ignored.
My questions were not ignored by passers-by. I was told that I was out of my mind screaming at poor beggar with a child. All in all, I was escorted out of the tube station in disgrace. One thing remained was to call the police. When police arrived, beggar with the baby disappeared. I stood with a full sense of - �I'm trying to fight windmills�.

When you see in the subway, on the street whether women with children,
begging, think before your hand climb for money. Think about that, if it wasn't for your hundreds of thousands of handouts, the business like this would have died. The business would die and not the children-inflated with vodka or
drugs. Do not look at the sleeping child with affection. See horror� Since you're reading this article, you know now- why the child is sleeping in beggars hands.

P.S.
If you copy this article on your wall or just click "Share", your friends will read it too.
And when you decide again to open your wallet to throw a coin to a beggar, remember that this
charity could cost another child's life.""

And then the gypsy said "Welcome to the republican party!"

# ? Apr 15, 2013 04:30

Pope Guilty: Nov 6, 2006; The human animal is a beautiful and terrible creature, capable of limitless compassion and unfathomable cruelty.

It is endlessly amazing and infuriating, the lengths people will go to in order to feel justified and morally superior about spitting on poor people.

# ? Apr 15, 2013 04:32

Guilty Spork: Feb 26, 2011; Thunder rolled. It rolled a six.

duck monster posted:

I don't know if this is the right thread, of if theres a "loving retarded poo poo your great aunt forwarded to you on face book" type thread.

The crazy forwarded political e-mail thread also encompasses crazy shared Facebook posts (I assume because Facebook is now the site of choice for people who want to spread crappy political stuff and make excuses when someone points them to a Snopes article).

And hey, an article about how there's allegedly a scam that abuses people's charity (or "handouts") and general desire to do at least a tiny bit to help fellow human beings not die in the streets, therefore, what? We should stop helping homeless people entirely? Are we supposed to believe that the scam artists outnumber the people in genuine need?

# ? Apr 16, 2013 01:09

William Bear: Oct 26, 2012; "That's what they all say!"

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/345373/fun-us-tax-code-deroy-murdock?pg=2

This is an editorial on NRO making fun of dense legalese and ridiculous exceptions in the tax code. I figured by the end, he would propose some sort of plain language or transparency reform. Instead, out of nowhere in the last two paragraphs:

quote:

America needs a universal 10 percent flat tax with no deductions. This would be far less knee-slapping than the status quo. However, shutting every loophole, macheteing rates, and requiring every American to have some skin in the game and pay the same fair share would replace today�s vaudeville act with a tax code worthy of Earth�s sole surviving superpower.

Meanwhile, the Tax Foundation reports that Tax Freedom Day will fall on Thursday, April 18. That is five days later than last year. So, the biggest joke of all is that if you pay your taxes on April 15, you still must pay your taxes. You will owe Uncle Sam three more days of hard labor in 2013 before you start working for yourself.

Why necessarily 10%? Why not make it... a little lower?

I can't believe people are still advocating stuff this regressive in such bold language.

William Bear fucked around with this message at 03:34 on Apr 16, 2013

# ? Apr 16, 2013 03:30

Pththya-lyi: Nov 8, 2009; THUNDERDOME LOSER 2020

When my dad wants me to read an editorial, he prints it out instead of emailing it to me because he seems to think that I, too, am in my 60s. I was remarkably non-confrontational when he complained about the vitriol surrounding Thatcher's death, and I got to read this in return:

Mrs. Thatcher's Losing Victory, by noted shithead Mark Steyn.

quote:

A few hours after Margaret Thatcher�s death on Monday, the snarling deadbeats of the British underclass were gleefully rampaging through the streets of Brixton in South London, scaling the marquee of the local fleapit and hanging a banner announcing, �THE BITCH IS DEAD.� Amazingly, they managed to spell all four words correctly. By Friday, �Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead,� from The Wizard of Oz, was the No. 1 download at Amazon U.K.

Mrs. Thatcher would have enjoyed all this. Her former speechwriter John O�Sullivan recalls how, some years after leaving office, she arrived to address a small group at an English seaside resort to be greeted by enraged lefties chanting �Thatcher Thatcher Thatcher! Fascist fascist fascist!� She turned to her aide and cooed, �Oh, doesn�t it make you feel nostalgic?� She was said to be delighted to hear that a concession stand at last year�s Trades Union Congress was doing a brisk business in �Thatcher Death Party Packs,� almost a quarter-century after her departure from office.
Advertisement

Of course, it would have been asking too much of Britain�s torpid Left to rouse themselves to do anything more than sing a few songs and smash a few windows. In The Wizard of Oz, the witch is struck down at the height of her powers by Dorothy�s shack descending from Kansas to relieve the Munchkins of their torments. By comparison, Britain�s Moochkins were unable to bring the house down: Mrs. Thatcher died in her bed at the Ritz at a grand old age. Useless as they are, British socialists were at one point capable of writing their own anti-Thatcher singalongs rather than lazily appropriating Judy Garland blockbusters from MGM�s back catalogue. I recall in the late Eighties being at the National Theatre in London and watching the crowd go wild over Adrian Mitchell�s showstopper, �F**k-Off Friday,� a song about union workers getting their redundancy notices at the end of the week, culminating with the lines:

�I can�t wait for
That great day when
F**k-Off Friday
Comes to Number Ten.�

You should have heard the cheers.

Alas, when F**k-Off Friday did come to 10 Downing Street, it was not the Labour party�s tribunes of the masses who evicted her but the duplicitous scheming twerps of her own cabinet, who rose up against her in an act of matricide from which the Tory party has yet to recover. In the preferred euphemism of the American press, Mrs. Thatcher was a �divisive� figure, but that hardly does her justice. She was �divided� not only from the opposition party but from most of her own, and from almost the entire British establishment, including the publicly funded arts panjandrums who ran the likes of the National Theatre and cheerfully commissioned one anti-Thatcher diatribe after another at taxpayer expense. And she was profoundly �divided� from millions and millions of the British people, perhaps a majority.

Nevertheless, she won. In Britain in the Seventies, everything that could be nationalized had been nationalized, into a phalanx of lumpen government monopolies all flying the moth-eaten flag: British Steel, British Coal, British Airways, British Rail . . . The government owned every industry � or, if you prefer, �the British people� owned every industry. And, as a consequence, the unions owned the British people. The top income-tax rate was 83 percent, and on investment income 98 percent. No electorally viable politician now thinks the government should run airlines and car plants and that workers should live their entire lives in government housing. But what seems obvious to all in 2013 was the bipartisan consensus four decades ago, and it required an extraordinary political will for one woman to drag her own party, then the nation, and subsequently much of the rest of the world back from the cliff edge.

Thatcherite denationalization was the first thing Eastern Europe did after throwing off its Communist shackles � although the fact that recovering Soviet client states found such a natural twelve-step program at Westminster testifies to how far gone Britain was. She was the most consequential woman on the world stage since Catherine the Great, and Britain�s most important peacetime prime minister. In 1979, Britain was not at war, but as much as in 1940 faced an existential threat.

Mrs. Thatcher saved her country � and then went on to save a shriveling �free world,� and what was left of its credibility. The Falklands were an itsy bitsy colonial afterthought on the fringe of the map, costly to win and hold, easy to shrug off � as so much had already been shrugged off. After Vietnam, the Shah, Cuban troops in Africa, Communist annexation of real estate from Cambodia to Afghanistan to Grenada, nobody in Moscow or anywhere else expected a Western nation to go to war and wage it to win. Jimmy Carter, a ditherer who belatedly dispatched the helicopters to Iran only to have them crash in the desert and sit by as cocky mullahs poked the corpses of U.S. servicemen on TV, embodied the �leader of the free world� as a smiling eunuch. Why in 1983 should the toothless arthritic British lion prove any more formidable?

And, even when Mrs. Thatcher won her victory, the civilizational cringe of the West was so strong that all the experts immediately urged her to throw it away and reward the Argentine junta for its aggression. �We were prepared to negotiate before� she responded, �but not now. We have lost a lot of blood, and it�s the best blood.� Or as a British sergeant said of the Falklands: �If they�re worth fighting for, then they must be worth keeping.�

Mrs. Thatcher thought Britain was worth fighting for, at a time when everyone else assumed decline was inevitable. Some years ago, I found myself standing next to her at dusk in the window of a country house in the English East Midlands, not far from where she grew up. We stared through the lead diamond mullions at a perfect scene of ancient rural tranquility � lawns, the �ha-ha� (an English horticultural innovation), and the fields and hedgerows beyond, looking much as it would have done half a millennium earlier. Mrs. T asked me about my corner of New Hampshire (90 percent wooded and semi-wilderness) and then said that what she loved about the English countryside was that man had improved on nature: �England�s green and pleasant land� looked better because the English had been there. For anyone with a sense of history�s sweep, the strike-ridden socialist basket case of the British Seventies was not an economic downturn but a stain on national honor.

A generation on, the Thatcher era seems more and more like a magnificent but temporary interlude in a great nation�s bizarre, remorseless self-dissolution. She was right and they were wrong, and because of that they will never forgive her. �I have been waiting for that witch to die for 30 years,� said Julian Styles, 58, who was laid off from his factory job in 1984, when he was 29. �Tonight is party time. I am drinking one drink for every year I�ve been out of work.� And when they call last orders and the final chorus of �Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead� dies away, who then will he blame?

During the Falklands War, the prime minister quoted Shakespeare, from the closing words of King John:

�And we shall shock them: naught shall make us rue,
If England to itself do rest but true.�

For eleven tumultuous years, Margaret Thatcher did shock them. But the deep corrosion of a nation is hard to reverse: England to itself rests anything but true.

Pththya-lyi fucked around with this message at 05:37 on Apr 17, 2013

# ? Apr 17, 2013 05:34

AndyP: Nov 7, 2011

A couple letters from my local paper:

Tolerance for traditional values is waning

quote:

I�m not surprised at the liberal direction many Americans are taking to support gay marriage. Years ago, I recognized that media and school curriculum were including being �gay� along with other ethnic minorities. This greatly disturbed me.

Back then, there was more debate about whether being gay was a learned behavior. Today, it�s all about gay rights. �Tolorance� is the new mantra.

Young people brag about having a gay friend, and experimenting with the same sex is sometimes encouraged. Also, Hollywood saturates young minds with the idea of normalcy with the gay culture.

Yesterday, we distanced ourselves from gays, but how we have changed. Today, we embrace them for being different and having the courage to come out. Our concern about suicide keeps our condemnation in check.

Columnist John Kass, in his March 29 column �Will tolerance for tradition be tolerated?�, questions if it�s possible to hold traditional religious views on what constitutes marriage and not be considered a bigot. Kass says that same-sex marriage is not just about equal protection, but about redefining the foundation of our culture.

He believes that tolerance for those who make a stand for traditional marriage on religious beliefs will soon find themselves the minority.

I always appreciated the late Jerry Fallwell, who was a regular on talk shows about homosexuality. His basic stand of loving the sinner and hating the sin resonated with many Christians � some who were dealing with gay children or friends. Fallwell was always consistent and reflected a genuine spiritual concern and respect to the gay visitors he addressed on the show.

I believe he spoke for a lot of Christians, including myself. Personally, I would rather my grandchildren be illegitimate than one of my children tell me they are gay. Either way, I would still love them the same.

"Why do people yell at me when I say I hate the faggots?" :qq:

Bit of context for this one, the City of Appleton recently issued new recycling bins for everyone, they're significantly larger than the old bins, and even larger than our garbage bins. It's really not that big of a deal, but some people are terrified of change.

Big Daddy could be a big problem

quote:

Welcome, Big Daddy, to Appleton. Your arrival on our street didn�t have any bands or music, because the noise you made had neighbors wondering if they missed a day for garbage pickup. It sounded like everyone was taking their garbage to the street.

Now, I need to find a place for you. I don�t plan on any addition to my garage for your new home.

We�ve recycled for years, but now Big Daddy will make life easier in winter months with snow, ice and rain. But I might wait until next time, maybe saving my body from injury, because Big Daddy won�t be full.

I think all Appleton residents should boycott recyclables for a month and let the truck go up and down the street with no pickups. I hope whoever came up with this shove-down-your-throat idea doesn�t get re-elected.

Maybe we should have a neighborhood watch on council members� recyclables and make sure their containers are filled to capacity. The words �large,� �medium� and �small� don�t exist in the council vocabulary � only �XXXL.�

If there are any missing people in Appleton, check all recycling carts first. They might be in the container.

# ? Apr 17, 2013 10:40

Crameltonian: Mar 27, 2010

AndyP posted:

A couple letters from my local paper:

Tolerance for traditional values is waning

"Why do people yell at me when I say I hate the faggots?"

'It'd be the worst thing ever if my child was a filthy fag but I still love them!' That's pretty standard stuff but I find it hilarious they'd be upset at having an illegitimate grandchild in 2013.

# ? Apr 17, 2013 12:45

VideoTapir: Oct 18, 2005; He'll tire eventually.

You've inspired me to delve into my sort-of-home town paper(s), for the first time in a long time. They do not disappoint.

quote:

4/15/2013 5:59:00 AM
Letter: Basic math and biology

If there is anyone thinking, do they realize that if everyone was gay 120 years ago, nobody would exist now.

Lee Fluaitt

Kingman

quote:

4/14/2013 6:00:00 AM
Letter: U.S. needs someone like Thatcher

The article on Margaret Thatcher by national columnist Mona Charen (KDM April 9) was excellent. Ms. Thatcher was one of a kind; she did what was right for her country's well-being even against her own party's advice and some even turned against her. She had more gumption than any of our politicians today will ever have. Unlike the government we have here in the States, where our representatives only represent what is best for them and what they can benefit from.

I have heard that since we have elected a black president, and you can see how well that worked out, that it is time to elect a woman president. How lame is that kind of thinking? And I can say with confidence that that woman certainly would not be Hillary Clinton. She is as corrupt as the rest of them in as much as she is not being truthful (surprise, surprise) about our Ambassador and three other Americans killed in Benghazi, not to mention the fact that she would be to distracted wondering what room Bill was in and with whom.

What we really need is another Margaret Thatcher, male or female, who is willing to do the right thing for our country regardless of what others thought as long as it was good for the citizens that they served. And so far I have not seen that person come forward.

Sam Wise

Kingman

quote:

4/14/2013 6:00:00 AM
Letter: Common sense and knives

In light of yesterday's multiple stabbings on a Texas campus sending 14 students to the hospital, I'd like to be the first to say, it's time we make some "common sense laws" on knives.

Ban all "high capacity" knives. You don't need that many blades in one location. Include all kitchen knife blocks and racks and no more than one steak knife per person in household.

Ban all "multiple function" knives such as Swiss army knives with can openers and cork screws. Because winos love 'em and booze and blades don't mix.

Ban all Boy Scouts of America multi-bladed knives, since today's 15-year-old Boy Scouts are tomorrow's right-wing Rambos.

Ban all knives longer than 7 inches, because we all know he who lives by the sword dies by the sword.

This includes the banning of all excessively large "hunting and survival" knives. Because you're not Crocodile Dundee and this ain't the outback.

Ban all "military/assault" style knives, because lightweight materials belong on aircraft, and black and darkened steel belong in special forces.

And finally, ban all bladed purchases (including scissors, letter openers and gardening tools) without extensive background checks and medical record reviews of you and all persons in your household.

Take action now! Write or call your congressman today before another student is sent to the hospital.

Daniel Snelling

Kingman

Knives have non-violent uses, you say?

# ? Apr 17, 2013 13:51

Crameltonian: Mar 27, 2010

quote:

If there is anyone thinking, do they realize that if everyone was gay 120 years ago, nobody would exist now.

This argument is the best, it's such a bizarre non-sequitor. If everyone was a man 120 years ago nobody would exist now, what does society propose to do about the problem of men???

# ? Apr 17, 2013 14:12

Captain Frigate: Apr 30, 2007; you cant have it, you dont have nuff teef to chew it

Would anyone here be interested in a thread for good/cool/interesting articles? I have no illusions that everyone will agree on what that entails, but I think it would be nice to have a good source of good stuff to balance out the bad, and to pool knowledge and especially share sources of quality articles.

# ? Apr 18, 2013 19:42

redmercer: Sep 15, 2011; by Fistgrrl

Captain Frigate posted:

Would anyone here be interested in a thread for good/cool/interesting articles? I have no illusions that everyone will agree on what that entails, but I think it would be nice to have a good source of good stuff to balance out the bad, and to pool knowledge and especially share sources of quality articles.

You know what happens when you multiply by zero, right? One would probably be better off posting the few good ones right here.

# ? Apr 18, 2013 20:15

Captain Frigate: Apr 30, 2007; you cant have it, you dont have nuff teef to chew it

redmercer posted:

You know what happens when you multiply by zero, right?

I'm not really sure what you mean.

# ? Apr 18, 2013 21:32

CrushedB: Jun 2, 2008

quote:

Iraq war liberated Iraqis from dictatorship

Some weeks ago, Mark Streeter�s �cartoon� shamed former President George W. Bush and Former VP Dick Cheney for involving our country in a warwith Iraq (�Mr, Shock� and Mr �Awe� was how he �cutely� referred to them).

I was shocked that not only did Mr. Streeter fail to see the depth of that act and how it will go down in history as the first serious effort on the part of any country to bring freedom and democracy to those who for centuries have lived and died under the rule of a ruthless and greedy dictator.

Before the Iraq war, for some reason no one publicly complained about American forces freeing Kuwait after Iraq�s Saddam Hussein had invaded that country, killed many of its citizens and allowed his men to rape the Kuwait women.

Kuwait seems now to be the �seed� of the freedom that President Bush and VP Cheney hoped to plant in Iraq. Kuwait�s ruler even appeared before our Congress after Kuwait�s liberation and thanked America for what we had done.

You may recall President Bush was forced to wait for weeks while the United Nations considered approval of the Iraq invasion.

During that wait Iraq seized the opportunity to transport and/or hide their �weapons of mass destruction.� Colin Powell himself revealed this to be true with satellite footage of the removal activity.

Streeter�s cartoon suggested that the Iraq war was a waste of time, money and lives. I hope he will apologize to the troops and their families for suggesting that those lives were �wasted.�

Their lives will go down in history as champions of taking the first step in introducing freedom to the people of the Middle East.

Additionally, Ed Fahey�s letter of April 16th (�Iraq was robbed of future generations�) also tried to make fools out of President Bush and VP Cheney, but it was a pitiful attempt.

BARBARA HOFER

Savannah

Just wait another decade and the Iraq War will be vindicated by history!

# ? Apr 18, 2013 22:55

SMILLENNIALSMILLEN: Jun 26, 2009

Guilty Spork posted:

And hey, an article about how there's allegedly a scam that abuses people's charity (or "handouts") and general desire to do at least a tiny bit to help fellow human beings not die in the streets, therefore, what? We should stop helping homeless people entirely? Are we supposed to believe that the scam artists outnumber the people in genuine need?

It's just an excuse to never help anybody, it justifies their apathy.

# ? Apr 19, 2013 05:30

pig slut lisa: Mar 5, 2012; irl is good

Crameltonian posted:

This argument is the best, it's such a bizarre non-sequitor. If everyone was a man 120 years ago nobody would exist now, what does society propose to do about the problem of men???

I dunno, I'm pretty convinced :v:

The Kingman Daily Miner appears to be a gold mine for this sort of crazy. I say "appears" because every link I click for a letter to the editor returns a big fat "Service Unavailable" page. I managed to get a look at a letter suggesting that zombies are real because Barack HUSSEIN Obama was elected though.

EDIT: VVVVV Every day I wake up and thank god I've been able to spend my life in Big Ten college towns. A random crazy can come from anywhere, I know, but I've been fortunate to avoid the group crazy so far.

pig slut lisa fucked around with this message at 07:28 on Apr 19, 2013

# ? Apr 19, 2013 06:59

VideoTapir: Oct 18, 2005; He'll tire eventually.

Remember: Kingman is where Timothy McVeigh lived before the bombing. It hasn't changed much.

# ? Apr 19, 2013 07:14

The Midniter: Jul 9, 2001

VideoTapir posted:

Take action now! Write or call your congressman today before another student is sent to the hospital.

Better than being sent to the morgue, dick.

# ? Apr 19, 2013 16:40

little munchkin: Aug 15, 2010

Joementum posted:

A Breitbart writer wonders why everyone is so hung up on calling the Aryan Brotherhood a "white supremacist" group.

Smart take, dude.

Mr Interweb posted:

So, his argument is basically "well, yeah the AB started off as a racist gang, but they're no longer racist, and the media just wants to highlight that so that they can protect the Mexican gangs cuz immigration"? Did I get that right?

He's actually right about the media overplaying the "white supremacist" thing to scare people. I posted this in some other D&D thread, but here's what a few actual members have to say about that:

Michael Thompson posted:

The Aryan Brotherhood is not about white supremacy. It is about supremacy. And it will do anything to get it. Anything.

Clifford Smith posted:

[The gang is no longer] bent on destroying blacks and the Jews and the minorities of the world, white supremacy and all that poo poo. It�s a criminal organization, first and foremost.

Full article here, originally a New Yorker article from 2004. Recommended reading if you have the time, the Aryan Brotherhood are some scary loving people.

So his premise is correct, but the article is still poo poo. He takes a valid point with evidence and citations, and does nothing with it besides race-bait.

-It's basically saying "How can they be racist? They associate with Mexicans!" which follows the white person logic where racism is binary and having a black friend absolves you of any biases. The real picture of how white supremacy fits into their identity and motivations is complex, but gets ignored either out of laziness or because it doesn't fit the narrative of the piece.
-It's about the Aryan Brotherhood, but leads off with a picture of Mexican gang members. A picture of a white person just isn't going to scare the breitbart.com readers enough! We need some dark skin to get their blood pressure up!
-The baseless claim where the media is only doing this so they can push for looser immigration laws. The comments section latched onto that part. It's an article about a violent prison gang composed of white Americans, but the author and FreedomPatriot134 both knows the real threat here is foreigners.

He also attacks the "mainstream media" for wrongly painting them as white supremacists, while linking to another article on breitbart.com which does this. drat you, mainstream media, myself included :argh:

# ? Apr 19, 2013 19:20

Play: Apr 25, 2006; Strong stroll for a mangy stray

"Schizophrenics are too disorganized to set off simultaneous bombs, for example."

-Charles Krauthammer, obviously an expert on mental illness, speculating wildly about the Boston bombing.

# ? Apr 19, 2013 20:03

Presto: Nov 22, 2002; Keep calm and Harry on.

Play posted:

"Schizophrenics are too disorganized to set off simultaneous bombs, for example."

-Charles Krauthammer, obviously an expert on mental illness, speculating wildly about the Boston bombing.

I've of the opinion that we really should just give Chuck the "Something Awful Lifetime Achievement Award For Being Totally Wrong About Absolutely Everything Ever" and not pick on him in this thread, because it's just too easy.

# ? Apr 20, 2013 06:38

Alec Bald Snatch: Sep 12, 2012; by exmarx

Play posted:

"Schizophrenics are too disorganized to set off simultaneous bombs, for example."

-Charles Krauthammer, obviously an expert on mental illness, speculating wildly about the Boston bombing.

He was the chief resident of psychiatry at Mass Gen. Also severe schizophrenics aren't prone to self-actualization.

# ? Apr 20, 2013 07:06

ErIog: Jul 11, 2001

Presto posted:

I've of the opinion that we really should just give Chuck the "Something Awful Lifetime Achievement Award For Being Totally Wrong About Absolutely Everything Ever" and not pick on him in this thread, because it's just too easy.

But...but...but where does that leave Bill Kristol?

# ? Apr 20, 2013 08:25

knife super power: Nov 4, 2010

ErIog posted:

But...but...but where does that leave Bill Kristol?

Or Cal Thomas?

# ? Apr 20, 2013 10:15

King Dopplepopolos: Aug 3, 2007; Give us a raise, loser!

They would be runners up by a quantum finish.

# ? Apr 20, 2013 13:16

Pope Guilty: Nov 6, 2006; The human animal is a beautiful and terrible creature, capable of limitless compassion and unfathomable cruelty.

knife super power posted:

Or Cal Thomas?

Face most demanding of a fist thirty years running.

# ? Apr 21, 2013 10:01

Alec Bald Snatch: Sep 12, 2012; by exmarx

Pope Guilty posted:

Face most demanding of a fist thirty years running.

Ernest Istook, John Fund, Matthew Continetti, and Ron Christie rank far higher. Cal Thomas is little more than a Kmart knockoff of Pat Buchanan; John Derbyshire minus the roguish charm.

# ? Apr 21, 2013 10:22

duck monster: Dec 15, 2004

Play posted:

"Schizophrenics are too disorganized to set off simultaneous bombs, for example."

-Charles Krauthammer, obviously an expert on mental illness, speculating wildly about the Boston bombing.

Having dealt with serious schizophrenics a fair bit, this is actually a pretty reasonable assessment. Schizophrenics are rarely implicated in big-end-of-town violence precisely because they tend to have disordered thinking that makes pulling off such a complex scheme rather difficult. Plus the reclusive nature of schizophrenia means they tend not to be particularly violent people even if totally paranoid and freaked out. The usual reaction to percieved threats is to try and flee in a panic. When I worked at the MOJ the claremont serial killer investigation was still pretty heated. Cops generally disregarded both calls from and about schizophrenics, because the clls from where usually loopy (I saw her on a UFO!) and because schizophrenics are usually a fairly harmless bunch.

duck monster fucked around with this message at 20:35 on Apr 21, 2013

# ? Apr 21, 2013 20:32

Valentin: Sep 16, 2012

I realize that picking apart her arguments is pretty much beating a dead horse by this point, but this column by Maureen Dowd is so bad that it deserves to be read.

If you don't care to follow the link, at least understand that she complains that Obama isn't doing enough on gun control because he's not enough like a fictional president from an Aaron Sorkin film. She not only fails to understand how American politics actually works, she displays a marked ignorance of what the role of the president is.

Thankfully, she's already been thoroughly eviscerated by people who actually understand what the president does. It's just a little depressing that she still has a column in the national paper of record.

# ? Apr 23, 2013 09:13

MaxxBot: Oct 6, 2003; you could have clapped

you should have clapped!!

Godless liberals such as myself have long scoffed at the idea of "recruiting" kids into homosexuality but now someone has gone through the efforts of writing at length about how this terrible thing could theoretically happen.

http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2013/04/9970/

quote:

A Boy's Life with Unisex Scouts

I see a boy.

Luke is ten years old. He sports a cowlick across his forehead, and a bright smile.

Despite the birth of a child a thousand miles away with vestigial organs of the opposite sex, and despite genetic anomalies that blunt the edge of masculinity or femininity here or there, everyone is certain he is a boy. It took the doctor in the delivery room but a moment to declare, �It�s a boy!�

Luke is outdoors a lot, running after baseballs, footballs, and soccer balls. He has what Marilynne Robinson happily calls �skinny boy strength.� You can see it in the muscles of his chest. His voice is pitched high, but not really�as if a flute were played an octave low.

People who pretend not to know what a boy is will scoff, but he runs like a boy, he makes boyish jokes, he shoots toy guns like a boy, he horses around the yard with a boy�s abandon, and if he helps his mother bake cookies, he does that like a boy, too. It helps that he has a father, who was a boy once, and who still has a lot of the boy in him, as most fathers do.

Consider that boy, Luke.

Look at him through the eyes of his father: that is to say, with philosophical love.

He has the boy�s body that shadows forth the body of a man. He will have sturdy shoulders, and the swelling in his throat suggests the timbre of the man�s voice. He is going to be taller than the average woman.

Fallen creature that he is, Luke stretches to the limit of what his parents allow, but already he is taking into his heart the Rules his mother represents, Rules that make for decent life among other people from day to day, and the Law his father represents, moral truths that can no more change than can the polestar fall from the sky.

He is a boy: vir futurus, a going-to-be man. Meaning: He will join other men, brothers fighting to attain or defend the common good. Greater meaning: He is made for a self-giving that is categorically impossible among his male friends. He is made for a woman. It is the orientation of his body, in its sexual form. It is the orientation of his masculine being, developing in a natural and healthy way.

None of this should be controversial, no more than claiming that the noonday sky is blue. Should someone protest, �It isn�t so! I saw it green once, when a tornado was coming,� we�d look askance, and wonder whether he had lost the capacity for normal communication. A boy is not a girl. A boy grows up to be a man. A man marries a woman, for love and for a family: That goal is stamped upon his body. Even savages without a doctorate in philosophy can figure it out.

Consider Luke, the boy, through the eyes of his father. What does he see?

He sees the vir futurus. He also sees himself, and his own father, and his grandfathers. I�m not just talking about physical resemblance. They share the same sex: They share the same mode of relating to the future of their kind. They are not the bearers of children, but the begetters. They are not the field, but the sowers. They cannot know the body-from-body bond their wives know when they bear children. Theirs is an approach from outside; and they enjoy the strengths and suffer the shortcomings of the far-sightedness that that approach implies.

Every normal and healthy and responsible father wants this for his son. It�s not like wanting the boy to go to Princeton. Such things may happen or not, and are extrinsic to the boy�s nature. It�s rather like wanting that the boy should not suffer scurvy or rickets. The father wants Luke�s bones to grow straight. He wants his soul to grow straight, too.

So does his mother. She�s suspicious of women who like to keep their boys in diapers, as it were. So she nudges Luke toward her husband. She buys them the same kinds of clothes. She admires Luke�s skill in hitting a ball, or painting, or building a tepee�whatever he sets his heart upon.

She becomes to him the best of girls, even when he doesn�t know he likes girls yet. She never ceases to be his mother and to command his respect, but she will also claim his duty as her protector. If the groceries are heavy, she asks him to handle them, knowing that eventually he will overmatch her in strength. When that day comes she�ll boast about it to her friends.

Her love for him is necessarily a love for his nature as a boy. One cannot say, �I love my terrier Whitey, but I wish he wouldn�t wag his tail.� She wants him to grow up to be a man whom a good woman would marry. She cannot encourage that by personal example. She encourages it rather by showing the love of a woman for her husband, regardless of the sparks that attend every union of the sexes. And she encourages it by expectation. She calls him to manhood by letting him practice being the man: as a mother teaches her son to �lead� her in a formal dance.

Such instruction cannot be generalized for all kinds of friendship. Nothing in nature is really like married love. Only in this love does one give of oneself, forever, to someone who stands across a divide in being: the one who begets, the one who bears.

The sex of a human being is marked in the voice, the hair, the shape of the face, the thickness of the bones, the contours of the torso, the quality of the skin, everywhere. A friend of the same sex is an image of myself, an alter ego. He echoes my voice.

But the spouse is no alter ego. The spouse complements my voice. The man to the woman and the woman to the man are suggestions on earth of the totaliter aliter, the wholly other. Well does Scripture compare the union of God with the human soul to the courtship and marriage of bridegroom and bride.

The giving, in this case alone, spans generations past and to come, not in mere intention, but intrinsically. When husband and wife unite in the act of marriage, they bear to one another precious strands of life. They do what their parents and grandparents did, and those ancestors are present in the heritage of the flesh.

The couple may act to thwart the effect of this reality. Disease or debility may thwart it also. But the reality is unalterable. When they unite, they do the time-transcending, child-making thing. They are the cause, effectual or exemplary, of children in the world.

All this they understand in their hearts, whether or not they express it in words.

In a healthy time, they could take for granted the assistance of their neighbors and of teachers at school. It�s not a healthy time. So the father must think things through.

Sometimes Luke and his father go by themselves, or with another father-son pair, for a hike in the woods, or to fish in the lake, or for an afternoon at the speedway�the boys can determine the destination. They separate from the girls, but not out of scorn. Instead the father teaches the boy to honor girls. A wife is not a playmate. Attached to this honor is a natural reticence before the mystery of the other sex.

The pure soul, the reverent soul, senses that the other sex deserves his honor. Thus there are certain things that boys do with boys, or talk about with boys, and not with girls. The occasional separation of the boys from the girls strengthens the sense that each sex is completed in the other. Indiscriminate mingling breeds indifference; but after the company of one�s own sex, the sight of the other is like a paradise upon the horizon, new, fascinating, delightful, and dangerous.

With his own sex, however, there should be naturalness and ease. So the father, on their treks alone, undresses before the boy as carelessly as he would undress before the dog, teaching the boy to do the same. The meaning is clear: You and I are alike. That is why we can do this.

If it were a healthy time, if it were a good time to be a boy, he and Luke and their boyish friends might strip and jump in a lake after a sweaty hike. But it isn�t a healthy time, so the father declines. Yet when he takes Luke to the gym, he will usher him into that man�s world as a wholly normal thing. If he�s shy, he�ll overcome his shyness for the boy�s sake, and stand free and easy in the dressing room, talking to a couple of the guys as unselfconsciously as if they had run into one another on the street. We�re all the same, son. You�re one of us.

Does he talk to Luke about sex? All the time, with words and without: when he puts his arm around his wife as they sit on the sofa together; when he digs a flower garden for a Mother�s Day present, and asks Luke to help; when he tousles the boy�s head, when he pretends to be a monster chasing him about the room, when he rolls on the grass with him and the football as if he were ten years old and not an old guy with sore knees.

He uses words too. �When you�re a man,� he says, introducing duties sometimes, and sometimes glories. �A real man has integrity,� he says. �Good men stand by their words.� �A boy makes excuses, but a man admits his fault.� �A boy thinks it�s brave to be reckless. A man knows the difference.� Sophisticates may snort. Let them, till they see what kinds of men their sophisticated sons have made.

But does he talk to Luke about sex�the mechanics? In a healthy time, he wouldn�t have to, so soon. It�s not a healthy time. So he does, gently, when the boy seems curious. He must protect Luke against wicked and foolish people, even teachers. But he grounds those discussions in reality: husbands and wives and children. He does not vaporize about �when you�re ready� or �when you really love somebody.� Pablum seasoned with poison, that.

The plain truth is that the man�s body is for the woman and the woman�s is for the man, and the child-making thing, the thing that unites them, really does make children, and children need a mother and a father committed to one another forever. Luke understands this. He is innocent, and whatever he sees, he sees clearly. Adults are not innocent, and gaze upon phantasms.

What about aberrations? When Luke asks about them, because of things he�s heard at school, the father says that certain people are confused, and do bad and unnatural things with their bodies. They become prone to terrible diseases. But when he catches Luke in a tiff calling another boy a sissy, he reprimands him severely. Since he would not complicate Luke�s passage to manhood, he grants other men�s sons the same courtesy, especially when those boys are walking a more difficult path.

He and his wife keep destructive images out of their home. No pitching the tent beside a cesspool. Luke doesn�t have a computer or a television in his bedroom. Why should Luke be taught his morals by people who dwell in a world unparalleled for its combination of depravity, stupidity, luxury, and vanity? Better to play with his little sister and brother, and talk to his parents.

Of course, Luke will not be at home all the time. Lately he has been asking to join an old group called the Boy Scouts. Luke�s father has to think about this.

In a healthy time, not so long ago, he would not have had to think about it. He�d have taken for granted that his commonsense view, that a boy is a boy, a vir futurus, meant in the very structure of his body to be for a woman, for the begetting and raising of children, would have been shared by everyone else. In particular, it was shared by the Boy Scouts. For the Boy Scouts were, to quote the pastor whose homily appears in the first issue of Boys� Life magazine, to �quit themselves like men.�

The boy in the title was, if anything, more important than the scout. If a certain boy in the ranks were caught trying to entice others in things unmanly, and here I am including also the unmanly things that boys attracted to girls do, he�d have been taken aside, or sent to the counseling he badly needed, or quietly dismissed from the corps.

Luke�s father now asks what should happen if one of the troubled boys makes his predilections public. He remembers the tumult of puberty all too well. He remembers the confusion of feelings, the longing to be one of the boys, the fear of embarrassment, and the strangeness of girls, many of them for a brief time taller than Luke will be.

He does not want any word, or suggestion, or tale, or touch, to make Luke�s passage through the straits any more troublesome than it must inevitably be. Most especially does he not want a young scoutmaster with an eye for young men to drop a casual hint about his life, as if it were as moral as eating.

Luke�s father has a right to expect that people will not obtrude themselves into his son�s normal growth to manhood. It is wrong to lay a snare in the boy�s path. It is downright wicked to do so, when the life held forth not only frustrates the natural aims of Luke�s parents and the natural fulfillment of the boy�s masculinity, but also leaves those who are snared prone to an array of terrible diseases, both physical and moral.

He notes with wry irritation that Luke�s teachers are apt to wag their fingers at perfectly innocent things, like cupcakes in a lunchbox, but will cheer when a boy publicizes his entry into the bizarre and self-destructive.

But it isn�t just the pitfalls that the father is thinking of. It occurs to him that the Boy Scouts and he have come to an impasse. There is no reconciling them. The Boy Scouts now proclaim that there is nothing to being a boy, and nothing to the boy�s becoming a man; they might as well be the Unisex Scouts, as they are in Canada, where the scouting movement has collapsed.

In other words, Luke�s father is being asked to enroll his son in a group specifically limited to boys, but one that does not recognize the nature of boyhood and its progress to manhood. Thus there is no real justification for the group; that its membership is male is accidental and not of the essence. He and they do not see the same being in Luke. He sees his boy, and the man-to-be; they see a neuter. He sees a father-in-training; they see an immature human thing, a bundle of appetites that are not in themselves subject to moral judgment.

What is the father supposed to do? He can recall that better time, that healthier time, and can name several boys he knew who, if they were boys today, would inevitably be enticed, by loneliness or a trick of the lewd or boredom or a desperate need to be noticed or a despair that they could ever become true men, into the life of the male forever seeking the male.

He knows that most of them weathered the storms, precisely because the assumption that a boy is a boy gave them protection, some breathing space, some time to sort out their feelings and to grow up. He wants for Luke some small survival of that better time.

Where can Luke�s father turn? To the only institution left standing that affirms the goodness of human nature, both masculine and feminine. Grace perfects nature, said Thomas Aquinas. In this time, grace is needed merely to recognize that there is a nature to begin with. In this time, it is impossible to raise any real man without trying to raise a godly man. This is not icing. It is of the essence of manhood and womanhood.

Luke will know, if but intuitively, that his calling as a Christian, to leave his selfishness behind, to enter what Saint Paul calls the glorious liberty of the children of God, implies the just use of his sexual powers: to give, if God calls him, his body and his heart forever to the woman he loves. That won�t teach him how to pitch a tent in the woods. It might teach him how to build a home in a wasteland.

So there you have it, all it takes is one subtle hint from a young scoutmaster and BAM he's on the road to a lifetime of sodomy, AIDS, and eternity in hell.

# ? Apr 23, 2013 20:52

Frog Act: Feb 10, 2012

I only skimmed that whole thing but the first few paragraphs are really weirdly sexual about the young, muscled, nubile boy in question. That's creepy as all gently caress.

# ? Apr 23, 2013 20:55

Alec Bald Snatch: Sep 12, 2012; by exmarx

Fandyien posted:

I only skimmed that whole thing but the first few paragraphs are really weirdly sexual about the young, muscled, nubile boy in question. That's creepy as all gently caress.

Now you understand why these people are so concerned about the gays.

# ? Apr 23, 2013 21:39

Crameltonian: Mar 27, 2010

quote:

What is the father supposed to do? He can recall that better time, that healthier time, and can name several boys he knew who, if they were boys today, would inevitably be enticed, by loneliness or a trick of the lewd or boredom or a desperate need to be noticed or a despair that they could ever become true men, into the life of the male forever seeking the male.

Man, don't you just hate those afternoons where you're so goddamn bored that the only thing to do is go out and suck a few cocks, maybe get yourself a boyfriend? That's how they got me, I was left with nothing to do when the internet went down for a few hours and the next thing I knew I'd signed up to a life of exciting sexual perversion.

# ? Apr 23, 2013 22:43

Prism: Dec 22, 2007; yospos

First off: I read the whole thing. You're right, that's weird, and kind of creepy. The random pseudo-philosophical stuff was kind of offputting, as well as the implicit assumption that the only moral truths are traditionalist Christian.

Second, I like the implication that scouting up in Canada has collapsed because Scouts Canada is unisex.

It hasn't. We do have fewer people involved as a proportion of our population; there's about 100 000 people in Scouts Canada and another 25 000 in the French version, l'Association des Scouts du Canada. There's closer to 2.5 million in the Boy Scouts. Canada has about a tenth the population of the States, so it's about half as popular, I guess.

But it always has been. Scouting has never been as big a cultural thing up here as it was in the States; I didn't know anybody involved in it growing up, or if I did I didn't know they were involved. Plus, there was no significant drop as they gradually added girls starting well before I was born.

Also, we still have Girl Guides. They have cookies, but not so many kinds as in the States.

# ? Apr 23, 2013 22:51

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# ? May 24, 2024 14:08

Harold Fjord: Jan 3, 2004

I found that "Boys and girls cant REALLY be friends" to be the most stupid, rear end-backwards regressive thing I've read in a really long time. Mostly because I stay out of the Freep thread.

# ? Apr 23, 2013 23:06

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Terrible Editorials, Opinion Pieces and Letters to the Editor

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