That’s rich. Swearing marks the end of a golden age of civility, but mass racism is a footnote accompanied by rolled eyes!
I love how some people think predicting their opponents’ arguments effectively nullifies them. Uh, no. Racism is one of the major arguments that shows that your thesis (being “the American 50s were a characteristically civil time period”) is problematic. Do you disagree?
Soitenly!
In the first place, it’s incorrect to say I regard the 50s as being any more civil than any other decade of the twentieth century, pre-1968. You guys are the ones who seem hung up on the 50s.
In the second place, the more civil nature of society that existed before 1968 neither created, fostered nor propogated the racism that had existed virtually from the country’s inception.
So let’s see? How can I put this?..
THE ONE HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THE OTHER!
Mmmkay?
And I never said [public] swearing marks the end of an age of civility. It’s merely a symptom of the more egregious changes that have taken place in society these days.
This is only true if you believe that overt racism (not to mention sexism and religious bigotry) doesn’t count as “incivility”.
The reason that you believe that the “old days” were more civil is that their typical forms of incivility have no power to shock you. It was unacceptable in your day for teenagers ever to use the word “fuck” in public, so it shocks you when they do so now. It wasn’t unacceptable in your day for, say, old men to use the word “nigger” in public (among fellow whites, at least), so when you look back on those days, you aren’t shocked by such behavior.
In short, people nowadays have switched from saying uncivil things that didn’t shock you (because back then, they seemed normal) to saying uncivil things that do shock you. So, naturally, it seems to you that society in general has become less civil. But really, it’s just that the prevailing forms of incivility have changed.
Sorry, but I strongly disagree. Is it your contention that the one bad apple of incivility taints all the other apples of civility? Much progress was made in civil rights in this country prior to 1968, and the slurs that were part of the racism of that day would have gone by the wayside along with seperate water fountains and seats on the bus.
And I’ve outlined several times around here how little civil rights was a motivating factor in the counter culture revolution, so I won’t go into it again other than to assert that it had far more to do with nonconforming clothing, long hair, "upping the Establishment’ (what I refer to now as the more civil society), running naked and fucking in the mud at music festivals - and of course drugs - than anything having to do with racism.
Old men may have used it (my 84-year-old aunt does to this day, and just as a descriptor with no malice intended. It’s odd.)
Still, people in general didn’t use it even in the 50s. As a matter of fact I was taught as a child in the 50s myself that it was a bad word and not to use it. Thus I don’t believe that the term was used then with anything like the prevalence that people have been led to believe, nor do I think the plight of blacks was as awful as people around here have been led to believe. I live in the heartland and have recollections of making friends and playing with black kids on the playgrounds of drive-in movies in the 50s, and believe it or not, neither they, nor their parents, nor I, were lynched on the spot, even here in what is supposed to be a hotbed of bigotry.
There is no question that people in general society today are more crass and rude and beligerent than ever before, and what comes as a shock to me is that so few people even care. I suppose if it’s what you’ve grown up with you don’t know any different and it seems normal, but that doesn’t make it a good thing.
Language is only a symptom. The problem is the overall breakdown of the way society in this country operates. I have no illusions that anything in this regard will change, at least not anytime soon. I just thought it was high time, given the almost insufferable certainty of the wonder of liberalism that permeates this place, that someone pointed out the negative effects liberalism has had on this country, because I think for a lot of people here it will be the first time anyone outside their cocoons of liberal superiority have ever been confronted them with it.
As I’ve said before, millions of lives have been lost or made miserable by the proliferation of drugs and their related crime; criminals in their twenties and thirties, who ought to be in prison, are walking the streets and committing crimes, rapes and robberies because of lenient liberal attitudes on incarceration; abortion, which to me is an abomination at least during the second and third term, has led to millions of sentient little babies being killed, and often in horrific ways; thugs and guns and gang life are glamorized and promoted, which naturally causes even more of the same; and far too many people have become crass, beligerent, aggressive and antagonistic because of too much permissiveness with regard to how people behave.
But then when I raise these issue, everyone zeroes in on the language aspect (and conveniently ignores the larger problems) and so here we are, where people such as yourself seem to think that I’m in high dudgeon simply because someone says fuck in public.
Now to get back to the OP, once upon a time in this country it would have been very unlikely that a 17-year-old girl would get on the phone with the police and demand a ‘fucking ambulance’. And the cop’s reaction is a perfect example of how beligerent, aggressive and vulgar language pisses people off and causes negative consequences. The fact that people defend behavior like that and promote it through their politics and lifestyles is more troubling to me than the words themselves.
Oh shut UP, Starving Artist! She panicked, her father was seizing, and the cop’s behavior was far, far out of line! It was a freaking emergency, for crying out loud. It has nothing to do with defending vulgarity. It’s about defending the fact that it was an emergency, she was frightened, and the cop cared more about lecturing her than saving someone’s life! (As for language, you should read some historical manuscripts!)
You have YET to provide any evidence, any cites, about your so-called ravings about society going downhill, other than what you’ve pulled out of your own ass. You haven’t provided ANY ANY evidence whatsoever. EVER. SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!
Now SHUT THE HELL UP ALREADY!!! We don’t CARE. Please, PLEASE, just start another threat about it already. PLEASE. And offer some cites, statistics, other than your own memories. Because you’re just ONE person.
Shut up?
Not me.
I pay my dues and I post my posts. That’s how it works.
May I suggest the ignore feature? Then you won’t have to see my posts, and I won’t have to read your invariably idiotic spewings in return. Mmmkay?
Then give evidence for your claims.
I don’t know why you pay any attention to that poster. He has never provided evidence for his claims. He will never provide evidence for his claims. His posts are his cites.
Your claim is contradicted by the fact that violent crime rates have actually gone down in recent decades. As you can see from this Department of Justice chart, violent crime rates began to drop steeply in the 1990’s and are now less than half of what they were in 1973. Let’s hear it for the crime-reducing powers of liberal lenience, eh?
Again, let’s run a check on this hyperbole against some actual facts. Elective third-trimester abortions number at most a few thousand per year in the US, so they certainly haven’t killed “millions” of fetuses, “sentient” or not. The vast majority of abortions occur during the first trimester, which according to you is not an “abomination”. So nope, no genocide of “millions of sentient little babies” there.
That’s the same thing that they said back in the 1950s about the “hoodlums” and “punks” and “juvenile delinquents” portrayed by entertainers like James Dean, Brando, and Elvis. Again, it’s largely a matter of you being shocked by what you’re not familiar with from your own youth (entertainment media glamorizing inner-city black teenagers forming gangs and shooting cops) and not being shocked by what you are familiar with from your own youth (entertainment media glamorizing suburban white teenagers forming gangs and shooting cops).
This is just a general “society is going to the dogs” lament, and nothing about it was new back in the days of ancient Rome.
It’s clear that there’s no question in your mind that this is the case. But that doesn’t really prove anything. Maybe society in general really is objectively, significantly worse than it used to be, or maybe you’re just a grumpy old fart.
The latter, obviously. I expected nothing else. Your reputation as a person unable to see beyond your personal experience precedes you.
There are certain areas where human perception can be shown to be unreliable. The difference between you and an intelligent human being is that the latter can when appropriate form a rational view based on data despite what their senses tell them. As I understand it some of the more intelligent chimpanzees are capable of this sort of abstract thought. You aren’t. It’s what you’re famous for. Personally if I were you I’d be embarrassed rather than proud of this.
Actually, it was found in a past thread that his evidence is glurge/right wing spam from relatives; yes, he considers that good evidence.
Oh, you HAVE to link to that one, that sounds too good to pass up!
Sure Guin:
It has the immortal reply from Don’t Call Me Shirley when it was found that Starving Artist’s sister send him the text used in the OP:
No, you sound like a useless cunt, which you manage to achieve regardless of the subject being discussed. So, you’re consistent. Fuck you and your obsession with telling everybody what you think the rules are.
I wonder how long the term “broken record” will stick around. It’s still being used by people of my age group, but what about the kids who’ve never even seen an LP?
Once upon a time I thought, despite the fact that we rarely agreed, that you were a person of integrity. Now you resort to lies and desperation. Lies in making the utterly stupid claim that I get my “evidence” (something which, oddly, your cohorts have just been claiming I never post to anyway) in the form of glurge from my relatives; and desperation by posting a link to an obvious gag thread and trying to pass it off as something I regarded as good evidence of…something.
You indulge in this kind of crap much more and people will begin to recognize that you’re as stupid and dishonest as your witless friend Guinastasia.
Okay, I’m sorry. I take that back.
Guin isn’t smart enough to be as dishonest as you. Her dishonesty generally takes the form of mischaracterizing what I’ve said, and given her diminished brain power, that may not even be her fault. When it comes to you, on the other hand, I have no doubt that you think people around here are stupid enough to swallow your presentation of a joke thread as if I’d meant it seriously, and therefore your dishonesty is the result of cunning (stupid cunning, but cunning nonetheless) and the confidence that comes from knowing your audience will line up with you regardless of the truth because they don’t care for my politics. So in the dishonest dipstick sweepstakes (see what you’ve created, Ed), you are far and away the clear winner.
Oh dear, that was depressing. The Onion? :smack: Oy!
Starving Artist calling me stupid? I consider THAT a compliment!
As Onion articles go, it was at best okay.
God, Starving Artist, what a load of pretentious shit you spew.
Nah, it is just a deduction, every single time we pointed out that you got your ideas from Rush Linbaugh or Fox, you denied it constantly.
So how come your ideas constantly sound like coming from the right wing machine anyhow? Clearly the information then comes from your right wing relatives, that are feeding you their “information”, information that does come for the likes of Rush and Fox.
From where did you plagiarize that apology? 
Only liberals and university hippies are pretentious.
He’s rustic.