Politics: J'accuse!

[bilmore]

Oh, goody.

"Two pieces of a highly radioactive fuel rod are missing from a Vermont nuclear plant, and engineers planned to search onsite for the nuclear material, officials said Wednesday. "

("Well, where was it the LAST time you saw it?"

"I put it right there."

"Well, let's look there again.")




http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...type=printable

[notcasesensitive]

Originally posted by Did you just call me Coltrane?
Mine was the opposite. I sense a trend.

Not true for everyone. I was raised by some liberal hippie freaks, went to college at a conservative private university and am now a liberal-leaning no-longer-hippie freak. Living in a very conservative-leaning place. Generally, I blend well.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
I can't believe I agree with this statement, but I do.

I grew up with people who never pushed the envelope. They studied hard, went to church, made something of themselves and moved into nice big houses. I see them from time to time and they talk to me about golf, having kids and balding. I find these people sad, even though they're a lot happier than I am, or probably ever will be.

Life works kind of like Kesey said. You're either on the bus or off the bus. I think the "bus" is experimenting, challenging, exploring the world around you and developing your own value system and world view. I can't converse with the cats who just followed the leader. I'm waay to fucked up at this point to ever be able to put on those blinders, and I wouldn't want to if I could. I just smile, sip my drink and try to avoid saying what I think - instead I just fire off silly one liners and pretend to be interested in whatever they're discussing.

I'd rather off myself from depression than have lived an unexamined life following pre-ordained values. I'm glad I had some radical teachers in high school and college to help spark me to think "Hey, this shit they've feeding me at home and in the community sounds pretty hollow."

I really wish I hadn't had whatever it was that suprred me to question everything. These people who lead simpler existences seem to be so fucking happy. We have a few in the office. They've lead dull, utterly blissful existences. Maybe Nirvana is never knowing how much you don't know. Must make the time you waste at work seem well spent.

Ever seen Liquid Sky?

bird of Paradise looking mid-80's Margaret talking to her hippie college prof former mentor:

Prof: What is with these outrageous costumes
Margaret: You dressed in jeans and boots because you didn't want to wear the establishment uniform of a grey suit, but what you didn't realize is that your jeans were just as much a uniform. at least I know I'm in costume.

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by notcasesensitive
Not true for everyone. I was raised by some liberal hippie freaks, went to college at a conservative private university and am now a liberal-leaning no-longer-hippie freak. Living in a very conservative-leaning place. Generally, I blend well.

Did you feel stifled by the conservatives in college?

[Replaced_Texan]

Originally posted by bilmore
Oh, goody.

"Two pieces of a highly radioactive fuel rod are missing from a Vermont nuclear plant, and engineers planned to search onsite for the nuclear material, officials said Wednesday. "

("Well, where was it the LAST time you saw it?"

"I put it right there."

"Well, let's look there again.")

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...type=printable

When they were reporting on it on the radio this morning (I can't remember if it was Pacifica or NPR) the company that lost the rods said that we shouldn't really worry about it, they're bound to turn up.

[Did you just call me Coltrane?]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
Did you feel stifled by the conservatives in college?

I did. I didn't have nearly as many opportunities to experiment with drugs as I should have.

Granted, I still did. But I wanted MORE opportunities.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by sgtclub
The tactics were to (1) brand me a racist as a way of discounting my substantive points, as if that was the end of the discussion, and (2) not engage on the substantive issue. If that is what they thought, then the rats inside their brains need an LT Coke-Steroid cocktail.

Maybe they thought you were racist.

As for the substantive issue, you haven't said enough for me to tell what their "tactics" were. But I'm not going to defend them.

I do not believe that whether something is racist or someone is a racist is a subjective determination. It should be objective and easy to discern. But that would require adhering to logic rather than feeling, which many are not capable of.

You are still using the term as if it's meaning is self-evident. I think people disagree about what it means.

[notcasesensitive]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
Did you feel stifled by the conservatives in college?

My Chicago-school econ classes were not nearly touchy-feely enough. And the limitation of only one sanctioned day per school year for experimentation with mushrooms seemed sorta restrictive. But somehow I survived.

[Did you just call me Coltrane?]

Originally posted by notcasesensitive
My Chicago-school econ classes were not nearly touchy-feely enough. And the limitation of only one sanctioned day per school year for experimentation with mushrooms seemed sorta restrictive. But somehow I survived.

The UC MBA students here always make fun of the touchy-feely "management" Northwestern MBA students.

My view: the UC kids are smarter; the Northwestern kids get laid more.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Replaced_Texan
When they were reporting on it on the radio this morning (I can't remember if it was Pacifica or NPR) the company that lost the rods said that we shouldn't really worry about it, they're bound to turn up.

Damn, that line never even worked with my parents, and they were gullible.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
You are still using the term as if it's meaning is self-evident. I think people disagree about what it means.

how is the effect of Club's whole class glaring at him when he says the employee should speak english any different than a room full of Christians glaring at the satanist's child who doesn't want to say one nation under god?

Put aside constitutional amendments, and effective responses to the two- is the harm to the child similar?

[ltl/fb]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
Did you feel stifled by the conservatives in college?

I went to a pretty liberal college (or maybe I just took classes that didn't implicate liberal/conservative much, or that had more liberals in them), but I did feel stifled by conservatives in high school. I went to high school in a pretty heavily evangelical/Baptist area (i.e., conservative in many areas, but really conservative in religion) and not going to church regularly was kind of out there (though, I think some people thought I was jewish, and apparently it was OK not to go to services regularly in that situation). I knew seemingly mainstream people who went to ginormous churches with many many members (or parishoners or whatever) who believed that interracial dating was prohibited by the Bible (something about an ass and an ox, I think).

I kept my mouth shut a lot so that I wouldn't be thought of as unprincipled and immoral for not believing in the Bible as written, thinking that Jesus is somewhat of a myth, and being iffy on the whole "god" thing. To some (not a teeny tiny minority, either) people around me, those thoughts meant I was inherently morally reprehensible and probably should not be associated with, except maybe to witness to me and try to get me to convert.

So, club doesn't think whatever he said made him a racist but other people did think it made him a racist, and so he stopped saying stuff anything like that. Stifling. I don't think that not being as one with Baptists makes me deeply immoral but other people did think that it made me that way, and so I didn't talk much about stuff like that.

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by Replaced_Texan
When they were reporting on it on the radio this morning (I can't remember if it was Pacifica or NPR) the company that lost the rods said that we shouldn't really worry about it, they're bound to turn up.

Well, were did they see them last?

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
Maybe they thought you were racist.

As for the substantive issue, you haven't said enough for me to tell what their "tactics" were. But I'm not going to defend them.



You are still using the term as if it's meaning is self-evident. I think people disagree about what it means.

I'm sure they did, but they were just being irrational because someone had challenged the orthodoxy they has been taught (through the UC system, I suspect).

The terms are self-evident.

[bold]rac·ism[/bold] ( P ) n.

1. The belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others.

2. Discrimination or prejudice based on race

[bold]racist[/bold]

adj 1: based on racial intolerance; "racist remarks"

2: discriminatory especially on the basis of race or religion. n : a person with a prejudiced belief that one race is superior to others.

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=racist

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by sgtclub
I'm sure they did, but they were just being irrational because someone had challenged the orthodoxy they has been taught (through the UC system, I suspect).

Yes, well now we've reduced PC to irrational people who have been taught an orthodoxy. Glad we cleared that up. If you learned anything from that class, it's that substantive differences should not be reduced to unanswerable personal attacks on the other person's capacity to reason.

The terms are self-evident.

Hardly. I think one difference is that some people think that the term necessarily connotes subjective ill will towards other races, while others use the term also to refer to unintended historical effects of racial differences.