# Don't we also have to respect cheaters and sociopaths?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-we-also-have-to-respect-cheaters-and-sociopaths/287204
**Category:** The BBQ Pit
**Created:** [January 28, 2005, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-we-also-have-to-respect-cheaters-and-sociopaths/287204 "2005-01-28T23:25:30Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 10
### Author:  [@Siege](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siege)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2005, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-we-also-have-to-respect-cheaters-and-sociopaths/287204/181 "2005-02-03T16:58:17Z")
Roland, I also love life and enjoy it greatly. It doesn’t mean I don’t suffer from clinical depression and it didn’t stop me from winding up flat on my back in the hospital when I didn’t seek treatment for it. Indeed, the people I’ve known who have clinical depression tend to have great senses of humour when they’re not depressed. People who know a thing or two about mental illness have recommended you seek help. What would you do if one of your patients refused to seek treatment for an ailment they don’t believe they have even though they’re showing several symptoms of it?
CJ
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### Author:  [@Jillyvn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jillyvn)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2005, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-we-also-have-to-respect-cheaters-and-sociopaths/287204/182 "2005-02-03T16:59:13Z")
> [@Roland Deschain](#):
>
> I am extremely “pro life” and consider abortion in most cases to be nothing short of infanticide. Indeed, I consider it a moral wrong on a level that equals slavery and approaches (but doesn’t quite reach) the Holocaust. However, I am told that I MUST respect the position of those who believe that it is an acceptable “choice”. Fine, I will do that at least in the context of secular society when I’m at work and at school. However, I have a hard time getting upset at those who cheat on schoolwork when those who in my mind commit infanticide are welcomed in the circles of respectible humans. I symbolically spit on that value system and all that it stands for and declaire those who subscribe to it to be ethically bankrupt.
Woo boy. I’m jumping on this trainwreck early, 'cause I can’t keep my mouth shut. And since it is the pit.
God damnit I’m sick and fucking tired of the anti-choice assholes out there who insist on comparing abortion to the Holocaust. Hedging your comparison by saying it doesn’t “quite” approach the magnitude of the Holocaust is equally as offensive. I have to say, I’ve met many a person opposed to abortion who I’ve managed to have many intelligent and reasoned conversations with, and I respect their opinion. I DO NOT respect the zealots who jump aboard the choice, between a woman and her body. The Holocaust was the organizeBÏânocide of millions of people (people, mind you, not lumps of cells with the potential to be people). IMHO, you’re not better than those assholes who stand outside universities, family planning and abortion clinics with pictures of dead fetuses.
And, you expect to work in the Health Care profession when you hold these extremist views? I certainly hope you never work anywhere where you might come close to a woman who needs to make this decision.
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### Author:  [@Roland\_Deschain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roland_Deschain)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2005, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-we-also-have-to-respect-cheaters-and-sociopaths/287204/183 "2005-02-03T16:59:36Z")
Here is the analogy like it or not. If the year was 1943 and a Nazi SS member in Berlin said “I cannot stand all of these people who fake injuries to avoid having to fight in the war.” I would not have much respect for his opinion. He is a genocidal zealot bent on destroying much of humanity, in the context of his idelogy those who fake injuries to avoid serving their country would seem to trivial to consider.
In the same way I have a hard time getting upset at those who cheat on computer science programs when many of their professors endorse a practice that I believe to be so evil that it removes them from the ranks of civilized humans.
By the way I passed my most challenging compentencies this week and the instructor said that I did one of the best jobs in the class. It is likely that I will maintain my number one ranking (or at least stay in the top five) and go on to graduate. Since I’ve already taken several NCLEX pretests and scored higher than my wife (who just took the real test and passed with only 85 questions) it is likely that I will go on to become a nurse. Thus, I respectively request that those of you have been insulting kiss my ass.
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### Author:  [@Roland\_Deschain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roland_Deschain)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2005, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-we-also-have-to-respect-cheaters-and-sociopaths/287204/184 "2005-02-03T17:06:40Z")
I consider abortion for reasons other than the life of the mother to be the organized, legalized slaughter of innocent babies. How can someone believe that babies are being legally slaughtered and not believe that it is one of the greatest wrongs in human history? How many millions die each year? What is worse it strikes the poor and minorities to a disproportionate degree. Indeed, it is hard to research the history of Margaret Sanger and others and not to conclude that their support of abortion was largely grounded in their desire to have a society based on their definition of “eugenics” not unlike the Nazis.
Of course some of you may point out that “two wrongs don’t make a right” and on this I have to agree. Cheating is not morally acceptible behavior either. However, it is the righteous “tone” of those who condemn the practice that I oppose in light of the great crimes against humanity represented by abortion.
> [@Rebekkah](#):
>
> Woo boy. I’m jumping on this trainwreck early, 'cause I can’t keep my mouth shut. And since it is the pit.
>
> God damnit I’m sick and fucking tired of the anti-choice assholes out there who insist on comparing abortion to the Holocaust. Hedging your comparison by saying it doesn’t “quite” approach the magnitude of the Holocaust is equally as offensive. I have to say, I’ve met many a person opposed to abortion who I’ve managed to have many intelligent and reasoned conversations with, and I respect their opinion. I DO NOT respect the zealots who jump aboard the choice, between a woman and her body. The Holocaust was the organizeBÏânocide of millions of people (people, mind you, not lumps of cells with the potential to be people). IMHO, you’re not better than those assholes who stand outside universities, family planning and abortion clinics with pictures of dead fetuses.
>
> And, you expect to work in the Health Care profession when you hold these extremist views? I certainly hope you never work anywhere where you might come close to a woman who needs to make this decision.
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### Author:  [@Jillyvn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jillyvn)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2005, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-we-also-have-to-respect-cheaters-and-sociopaths/287204/185 "2005-02-03T17:36:02Z")
> [@Roland Deschain](#):
>
> Here is the analogy like it or not. If the year was 1943 and a Nazi SS member in Berlin said “I cannot stand all of these people who fake injuries to avoid having to fight in the war.” I would not have much respect for his opinion. He is a genocidal zealot bent on destroying much of humanity, in the context of his idelogy those who fake injuries to avoid serving their country would seem to trivial to consider.
>
> In the same way I have a hard time getting upset at those who cheat on computer science programs when many of their professors endorse a practice that I believe to be so evil that it removes them from the ranks of civilized humans.
It never ceases to amaze me how the uneducated masses persist on using Nazi Germany as an analogy for anything, in light of their evident lack of understanding of the history.
It’s not a matter of “like it or not”. Your analogy is spurious and inflammatory, and completely idiotic to boot.
As for your last paragraph… which practice are the professors endorses that is so evil? Are you talking about abortion again? I’m so confused.
> [@](#):
>
> I consider abortion for reasons other than the life of the mother to be the organized, legalized slaughter of innocent babies. How can someone believe that babies are being legally slaughtered and not believe that it is one of the greatest wrongs in human history? How many millions die each year? What is worse it strikes the poor and minorities to a disproportionate degree. Indeed, it is hard to research the history of Margaret Sanger and others and not to conclude that their support of abortion was largely grounded in their desire to have a society based on their definition of “eugenics” not unlike the Nazis.
>
> Of course some of you may point out that “two wrongs don’t make a right” and on this I have to agree. Cheating is not morally acceptible behavior either. However, it is the righteous “tone” of those who condemn the practice that I oppose in light of the great crimes against humanity represented by abortion.
And thus, I quote my favourite pro-choice argument.
How incredibly enlightened of you, from your pulpit of moral authority, to declare the destruction of a fetus “legalized slaughter”. I’m certain that you must have some alternative arrangement in place for women who find themselves pregnant? And don’t quote that bullshit “they can just give it up for adoption” argument. Until you’re willing to give up 9 months of your life, completely altering your body and affecting your ability to work in the last month, only to give a way a child you may or may not find yourself attached to as a result of hormones or whatever, you have no right to demand this of women you don’t even know.
If you love all the babies that are being slaughtered so very much, may I suggest you take them all on? How about supporting the mom who can’t afford the kid. $20,000 a year should do it. And while you’re at it, be sure to put some money aside so jr. can go to school.
All the zealots (not the regular, run-of-the-mill folks opposed to abortion) seem to love the damn fetuses so much, but don’t give a shit about them once they are born.
And now your viewpoint on Margaret Sanger:
> [@](#):
>
> Indeed, it is hard to research the history of Margaret Sanger and others and not to conclude that their support of abortion was largely grounded in their desire to have a society based on their definition of “eugenics” not unlike the Nazis.
I’m assuming you’re getting this junk from sites like this?
[http://www.lancasterlife.com/nazism\_planned\_parenthood.html](http://www.lancasterlife.com/nazism_planned_parenthood.html)
Tell me, Roland. Where is your educational background in the Eugenics policy of Nazi Germany or eugenics in general? Are you aware of social theory and history prior to the genocide?
What a ridiculously extreme viewpoint.
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### Author:  [@sturmhauke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sturmhauke)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2005, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-we-also-have-to-respect-cheaters-and-sociopaths/287204/186 "2005-02-03T22:02:33Z")
You know there are a lot of Jews here, right? One is my wife. You aren’t making any friends with your “abortion is almost like the Holocaust” bullshit. Oh, I forgot, you’re an individualist. Well go be an individualist somewhere else, we don’t like you.
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### Author:  [@Jillyvn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jillyvn)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2005, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-we-also-have-to-respect-cheaters-and-sociopaths/287204/187 "2005-02-03T22:22:10Z")
I think Roland is suffering from a common delusion I find to be prevalent amoungst extremists, whatever stripe they are. Taking things out of context or disregarding completely context. Nuance and research are not the friends of these extremists.
Roland, please read this link: [http://www.plannedparenthood.org/pp2/portal/files/portal/medicalinfo/birthcontrol/bio-margaret-sanger.xml](http://www.plannedparenthood.org/pp2/portal/files/portal/medicalinfo/birthcontrol/bio-margaret-sanger.xml)
The anti-choice information you’ve gotten and which you are now spewing on this board is completely wrong about Ms. Sanger. I enourage you to learn a little history before you start fucking around with comparing someone who has had such a profound effect on the lives of women to Nazis.
And, frankly, the previous poster is correct. The fact that you would co-opt the tragedy of the Holocaust for your own rhetorical purpose is disgusting and won’t win you any friends here. If you legitimately want to pursue an open dialogue, PLEASE do some research before you post like a fucking moron. (this is the pit right? I can say that?)
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### Author:  [@vetbridge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vetbridge)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2005, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-we-also-have-to-respect-cheaters-and-sociopaths/287204/188 "2005-02-03T23:48:11Z")
> [@Roland Deschain](#):
>
> try posting with two or three dogs barking, a Television blaring and your four year old son pulling on your arm
Few things are cooler than a four year old and the impact you can have on the adult he will some day be. One day he will _not_ be pulling on your arm and you may miss his eagerness to interact with you. Compared to your son, the SDMB aint shit. Why not step away from the 'puter and play with him?
/lecture
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### Author:  [@Hal\_Briston](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hal_Briston)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2005, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-we-also-have-to-respect-cheaters-and-sociopaths/287204/189 "2005-02-03T23:49:15Z")
> [@Roland Deschain](#):
>
> For example I am seriously considering Medical Records Abministration something my aunt did until she was almost 80 for nursing homes earning her close to 100K per year (and she was half nuts the last 20 years of her life).
Hey, look, an apple. And it’s right there on the ground, next to that tree.
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### Author:  [@Hamlet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hamlet)
#### Post date: [February 4, 2005, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-we-also-have-to-respect-cheaters-and-sociopaths/287204/190 "2005-02-04T01:05:23Z")
> [@Roland Deschain](#):
>
> For example I am seriously considering Medical Records Abministration something my aunt did until she was almost 80 for nursing homes earning her close to 100K per year (and she was half nuts the last 20 years of her life).
If it’s any consolation, Roland, you’re twice the type of person your aunt was in the last 20 years of her life.
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### Author:  [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)
#### Post date: [February 4, 2005, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-we-also-have-to-respect-cheaters-and-sociopaths/287204/191 "2005-02-04T03:39:32Z")
That’s quite the logical connection: because some people do not oppose abortion, you should be able to cheat on your courses. Right . . . :rolleyes:
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### Author:  [@Roland\_Deschain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roland_Deschain)
#### Post date: [February 4, 2005, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-we-also-have-to-respect-cheaters-and-sociopaths/287204/192 "2005-02-04T05:08:00Z")
No the connection is better stated as “many of the people who protest the ethical shortcomings of cheating are also pro-choice.” I am suggesting that it is difficult for me to understand their “moral” tone about something that is comparitively small potatos relative to the killing of innocents.
Also, I don’t buy this modern “PC” notion that the Holocaust and the Nazis who fostered it cannot be alluded to in order to illustrate other evils. The Holocaust wasn’t just a tradgedy for just one group of people, but rather was a lesson for the whole world. I might have instead said that it would be difficult for me to sympathize with a Hutu that participated in the genocide of Tootsies who also happened to teach a math class and was complaining about his cheating students. Of course for all I know the OP computer science teacher might even be pro-life. I wasn’t talking about his post (which provided the original genesis for this thread), but rather the reaction of many of you (who I know or suspect to be pro-choice from your other posts) with moral indignation at the thought that someone would advocate cheating.
I say that if abortion is a choice then so is cheating and while it is not the best one (for yourself or others) to make it pales in comparison to the choice of killing an innocent life. Furthermore, if I am to refrain from judging those who have chosen to terminate the life in their wombs often for less than profound reasons, then so to must you refrain from condeming those who have chosen to cheat for reasons which may be profound at least to them (or not).
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### Author:  [@Roland\_Deschain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roland_Deschain)
#### Post date: [February 4, 2005, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-we-also-have-to-respect-cheaters-and-sociopaths/287204/193 "2005-02-04T05:10:42Z")
With all due respect giving me a link to Planned Parenthood in order to support your point would be like me offering up [www.RushLimbaugh.com](http://www.RushLimbaugh.com) to you.
> [@Rebekkah](#):
>
> I think Roland is suffering from a common delusion I find to be prevalent amoungst extremists, whatever stripe they are. Taking things out of context or disregarding completely context. Nuance and research are not the friends of these extremists.
>
> Roland, please read this link: [http://www.plannedparenthood.org/pp2/portal/files/portal/medicalinfo/birthcontrol/bio-margaret-sanger.xml](http://www.plannedparenthood.org/pp2/portal/files/portal/medicalinfo/birthcontrol/bio-margaret-sanger.xml)
>
> The anti-choice information you’ve gotten and which you are now spewing on this board is completely wrong about Ms. Sanger. I enourage you to learn a little history before you start fucking around with comparing someone who has had such a profound effect on the lives of women to Nazis.
>
> And, frankly, the previous poster is correct. The fact that you would co-opt the tragedy of the Holocaust for your own rhetorical purpose is disgusting and won’t win you any friends here. If you legitimately want to pursue an open dialogue, PLEASE do some research before you post like a fucking moron. (this is the pit right? I can say that?)
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### Author:  [@danceswithcats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/danceswithcats)
#### Post date: [February 4, 2005, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-we-also-have-to-respect-cheaters-and-sociopaths/287204/194 "2005-02-04T05:40:17Z")
> [@Roland Deschain](#):
>
> I might have instead said that it would be difficult for me to sympathize with a Hutu that participated in the genocide of Tootsies who also happened to teach a math class and was complaining about his cheating students.
So you’re claiming that the Hutus systematically killed chocolate candies or Herb Woodley’s wife, or both?
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### Author:  [@bobkitty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobkitty)
#### Post date: [February 4, 2005, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-we-also-have-to-respect-cheaters-and-sociopaths/287204/195 "2005-02-04T13:20:45Z")
> [@danceswithcats](#):
>
> So you’re claiming that the Hutus systematically killed chocolate candies or Herb Woodley’s wife, or both?
Or a Dustin Hoffman character. Whatever. 😛
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### Author:  [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)
#### Post date: [February 4, 2005, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-we-also-have-to-respect-cheaters-and-sociopaths/287204/196 "2005-02-04T14:20:40Z")
> [@Roland Deschain](#):
>
> I might have instead said that it would be difficult for me to sympathize with a Hutu that participated in the genocide of Tootsies who also happened to teach a math class and was complaining about his cheating students.
It’s _Ayn_ Tootsie.
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### Author:  [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)
#### Post date: [February 4, 2005, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-we-also-have-to-respect-cheaters-and-sociopaths/287204/197 "2005-02-04T14:40:34Z")
> [@Roland Deschain](#):
>
> I realize that you may find some of my posts offensive, but do you have to be so fucking personal in your replies? It’s one thing to say that I’m a creep, and another to say that I’m a potential, deliberate killer.
Yep, we do. Know why? Because we don’t like you. Why do you continue to post things that piss everyone here off and then whine about the results? Do you expect some sort of special treatment? Roland has the right to make absurd, asinine, or offensive statements, and everyone else just has to put up with it? Why are you so unendingly obnoxious if you don’t like being insulted in return?
> [@Roland Deschain](#):
>
> Furthermore, I was trying to illustrate that if you really want this perfect “multicultural utopia” where all values are relative and cannot be judged by anyone else, then you don’t get to pick and choose your values. So you want gay marriage? Fine, then don’t complain when I demand that polygamy be legalized (among consenting adults). You want legalized abortion on demand for women? Fine, then as a man I should be able to dictate that the women I impregnate MUST have an abortion or give the child up for adoption since her choice to keep the child compels me to pay childsupport or fact prison (in other words its my body thats effected too).
It’s funny you would pick these two examples, as they’ve been discussed to death here. Actually, at least on the SDMB, virtually no one is opposed to polyamory, and the only reason we don’t wholeheartedly endorse polyamorous marriages is the simple legal difficulties posed by inheritance, divorce and child custody, etc. And the second point has been argued to death; I won’t even bother to sum up the arguments here because a quick glance through GD would help you understand why this is an untenable view.
But you’re not actually interested in discussion or debate. You’re interested in trying to find positions that seem “individualistic” and “non-conformist”. So you start troll threads like this one just in order to get that warm glow of being outrageous. Sweetie, we ain’t outraged yet. Just annoyed. You’re pretty tame and middle-of-the-road when it comes to most people here.
> [@Roland Deschain](#):
>
> 1. I try never to insult anyone personally or hurt anyone’s feelings. For me this is my personal Prime Directive. Life is often shitty enough without people deliberately saying things to make it worse. Believe it or not I really like most people, even most people who can’t stand me. Instead I try to challenge ideas especially those associated with so called Conventional Wisdom which I normally can’t stand. It is my hope that I occassionally get people to look at an issue from a perspective which they hadn’t previously considered.
That’s very nice. You won’t do well in the pit. See, in here, the SDMB throws out the normal social restrictions on insulting others. You oughta like that, being such a non-conformist and all.
> [@Roland Deschain](#):
>
> 1. Beyond that I say what I honestly think to Hell with the consequences. It doesn’t matter if my wife threatens to leave me for posting, you threaten to ban me or George Bush himself threatened to send me to Gitmo (frankly I operate by the same criteria in most areas of my life operating by to the beat of my own drummer with little regard to the consequences). I must not be that nuts having never been arrested (although occassinoally fired) for my attitudes.
So stop with the constant fucking whining at the consequences. You act like an obnoxious, pathetic idiot, and everyone else hates you. Either stop doing the first, or accept the second with some modicum of grace, because it’s the consequence of the first.
> [@Roland Deschain](#):
>
> 1. I am fairly sure that its Ayn Rand. I made a spelling error which is common for me (try posting with two or three dogs barking, a Television blaring and your four year old son pulling on your arm hoping that you can finish your post before your wife walks in and casts a glance that says “shouldn’t you be studying” and you have a glimpse into my world.) I apply Kant’s conversational implicature to others and expect that they do the same with me. Indeed, I remember taking a logic class many years ago and Kant’s conversational implicature was presented as the central tenet to all civilized discourse.
The reason we laugh at you is because it was such a transparent attempt to try to sound smarter by mentioning the name of someone famous. Turns out we’re familiar with the woman and you’re not. Stop trying to seem smarter than other folks. This is about the only place where I’ve run into people who are smarter than I am; in this circumstance, it behooves you not to try to impress others, because you’ll fail at it clumsily.
> [@Roland Deschain](#):
>
> Your advice is noted. It just never ceases to amaze me how incredibly mean spirited so many people seem to be here.
Too fucking bad, you whiny little bitch. See, here we have the opportunity to be as mean as we like. Notice that it’s rarely taken. It turns out a lot of people here just don’t like you. That’s because of how you act.
> [@Roland Deschain](#):
>
> I have no problem with people saying essentially “you are wrong and here is why you are wrong”, and then listing those reasons. Sometimes as was the case in this thread I realize the logical problems with my assertions almost as soon as I post them (bascially, I was responding to what I thought was an overly negative tone by the Comp Sci. teacher against his cheating students).
It was a moronic post. We’re not stupid here. Perhaps you were a victim of the public schools’ habit of telling the children that every view deserves to be heard, and everyone’s special, and blah blah blah . . . . Well, Roland, here you’ll be glad to learn that we don’t put much stock in that touchy-feely idiocy. So if you have something to say, that’s fine, but if it’s a moronic waste of my time, I don’t have to be nice in response. We expect folks to have the personal responsibility to decide whether their own views have any value. And no, not every view has value, even if it did ooze out of your head.
> [@Roland Deschain](#):
>
> However, people around here often don’t seem satisfied to simply say “that was a bad post, rethink your arguments” they have to “go for the jugular” and suggest I shouldn’t be allowed to continue school, graduate, or practice in my chosen profession. I admit that saying I would use any method **fare** or foul to graduate was over the line.
(Emphasis mine.) So you got your ass kicked by the “fowl” jokes, you say this again, and you spare “fair” wrong this time? 😃 Sorry babe, but even if you’re not going to try to cheat your way through school, you’ve already established that you’re too stupid to succeed in your classes. If this isn’t actually true, then pray explain to us how we’re supposed to determine when you’re being serious and when you’re posting lies just to get a rise out of us? You said it, we believed you (you know, because grown-ups don’t lie when they’re talking about things.) If you don’t like the consequences of lying, stop doing it, fucktard.
Personally, between what you’ve said about your scholastic difficulties, and just your own behavior, it’s clear to me that you’re far too fucking stupid to be a competent medical professional. But competence is a rare trait nowadays. Perhaps I expect too much.
> [@Roland Deschain](#):
>
> IF I stated in frustration that “I’m going to take your advice and drop out of school and dedicate the rest of my life to aiding Al Qaida to cross SARS and Avian influenza to try and create a world wide plague” I suspect that some of you guys would be suggesting that President Bush have me interred at Gitmo as a noncombattent. The bottom line is that people sometimes say things in fits of frustration that are not as well reasoned as they should be. Why not simply contain the responses to “You are proabably wrong here’s why, rethink your position.”
Yeah, that’s what Gitmo’s for. Why, should we look into that?
Jesus, you idiot! Don’t you get it? People here are nice to most everyone else. We just apparently don’t like you. Probably because you’re such an annoying, whiny little bitch. Don’t go around posting lies (at least not ones that make you look bad!) if you don’t want people responding as if they were true. What, you think we have a crack team of investigators to determine whether you’re being honest or just using a moronic sort of rhetorical tool? “Send in the team, guys, we need to see Roland’s grades!”
I mean, what the fuck? What are we supposed to respond to? What you post apparently is sometimes complete lies, sometimes it’s positions you don’t hold (but you want to get a rise out of us anyway) - so how do we know when to take you at face value and when to assume you’re just lying yet again? Why should we have to? Why can’t you argue your points using honest debate techniques like everyone else here? If you have to resort to Rush Limbaugh-style idiocy in order to argue your points, either your points aren’t very good or you’re fucking stupid for GD.
> [@Roland Deschain](#):
>
> I would imagine then that if I took your advice and effectively quit nursing school that you would have no problem if I didn’t pay my $30,000 plus in student loans back? Heck, your tax money has also paid me thousands in Pell and other Grants that have allowed me to get to this point in my education. After all you are advocating that I quit the avenue of education which offers me and my family are greatest shot at escaping a life of poverity. Again, I challenge you to suggest a more appropriate line of work for me (where I can actually get a job) that will allow me to support my family at a level equal to or better than nursing. IF you cannot then I am not inclined to take your advice. On the other hand if you can then I will definitely listen and consider your alternatives.
Look. You’ve established on your own that you’re too fucking stupid to be a nurse. So now it’s everyone else’s responsibility to find you a job you’re not too stupid for? What kind of sense does that make? I thought you were a conservative. You know, self-reliance, honest labor, etc. So I guess you only believe in those things for other people; for yourself, you want everything handed to you. How utterly fucking pitiful.
You know, Roland, despite the fact that I don’t like you, I’m rather fond of all these posts filled with you wallowing in self-pity. Know why? Because when you’re sitting around sobbing about how mean everyone here is to you, it’s about the only thing that makes me forget just how pitiful you are. And the funniest part about you is how you’ve created every one of your problems yourself. You’ve obviously gotten into a profession you can’t handle, you’re married to that castrating bitch, and you constantly, constantly say idiotic, obnoxious things, and then start to cry when people respond. I mean, every one of your problems is your own making, so I can just submit to my worst impulses and enjoy your misery.
Good job being a non-conformist, by the way. No doubt any day your strange, foreign ideas will shock us all out of our slumber! (You know, if you start coming up with ones we haven’t already discussed to death. Man, you’re even a pitiful excuse for a non-conformist.)
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### Author:  [@Jillyvn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jillyvn)
#### Post date: [February 4, 2005, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-we-also-have-to-respect-cheaters-and-sociopaths/287204/198 "2005-02-04T15:14:33Z")
> [@Roland Deschain](#):
>
> With all due respect giving me a link to Planned Parenthood in order to support your point would be like me offering up [www.RushLimbaugh.com](http://www.RushLimbaugh.com) to you.
Sigh.
Fine, Roland. You’re limiting me to web resources, but here we go.
Let us start with this: [(link)](http://www.csu.edu.au/learning/ncgr/gpi/grn/edures/scope.28.html)
> [@](#):
>
> The entry under “eugenics” in the Encyclopedia of Bioethics notes that the term has had different meanings in different eras: “a science that investigates methods to ameliorate the genetic composition of the human race; a program to foster such betterment; a social movement; and in its perverted form, a pseudoscientific retreat for bigots and racists” (V, Ludmerer 1978, p. 457) . Kevles, who places a stronger emphasis than Ludmerer on the degeneration of eugenics, says that by 1935 it “had become ‘hopelessly perverted’ into a pseudoscientific facade for ‘advocates of race and class prejudice, defenders of vested interests of church and state, Fascists, Hitlerites, and reactionaries generally’”
Now, lets talk about Margie:
From NYU’s Margaret Sanger Project: [(link)](http://www.nyu.edu/projects/sanger/msbio.htm)
> [@](#):
>
> With the suppression of the radical left after World War I, Sanger decided to expand support for birth control by promoting it on the basis of medical and public health needs. In 1917 she established a new monthly, the Birth Control Review, and in 1921 she embarked on a campaign of education and publicity designed to win mainstream support for birth control by opening the American Birth Control League. She focused many of her efforts on gaining support from the medical profession, social workers, and the liberal wing of the eugenics movement. She increasingly rationalized birth control as a means of reducing genetically transmitted mental or physical defects, and at times supported sterilization for the mentally incompetent. While she did not advocate efforts to limit population growth solely on the basis of class, ethnicity or race, and refused to encourage positive race-based eugenics, Sanger’s reputation was permanently tainted by her association with the reactionary wing of the eugenics movement.
So now we need to hold hands and dissect the early eugenics movement, which while offensive to us now, was popular at the time. There are two separate branches in the early eugenics movement: one that sought to improve man’s gene pool through selective breeding and one that sought to weed out the undesirables. There is a difference in mindset here, and though both seem equally offensive to us now, the undertanding of these differences is critical in dissecting the radical turn of Margaret Sanger.
The father of Eugenics was Galton. From a New Yorker review of a book on his life: ([(link)](http://www.newyorker.com/critics/books/?050124crbo_books)
> [@](#):
>
> But where Darwin had thought mainly about the evolution of physical features, like wings and eyes, Galton applied the same hereditary logic to mental attributes, like talent and virtue.“If a twentieth part of the cost and pains were spent in measures for the improvement of the human race that is spent on the improvements of the breed of horses and cattle, what a galaxy of genius might we not create!” he wrote in an 1864 magazine article, his opening eugenics salvo. It was two decades later that he coined the word “eugenics,” from the Greek for “wellborn.”
and
> [@](#):
>
> In his long career, Galton didn’t come close to proving the central axiom of eugenics: that, when it comes to talent and virtue, nature dominates nurture. Yet he never doubted its truth, and many scientists came to share his conviction. Darwin himself, in “The Descent of Man,” wrote, “We now know, through the admirable labours of Mr. Galton, that genius . . . tends to be inherited.” Given this axiom, there are two ways of putting eugenics into practice: “positive” eugenics, which means getting superior people to breed more; and “negative” eugenics, which means getting inferior ones to breed less. For the most part, Galton was a positive eugenicist. He stressed the importance of early marriage and high fertility among the genetic élite, fantasizing about lavish state-funded weddings in Westminster Abbey with the Queen giving away the bride as an incentive.
However, the eugenics movement took a distinctly more ominous turn under Nazi Germany. Like many other ideas popular at the time, Hitler and his ilk took the idea of Eugenics and expanded it, morphing it into a twisted justification for thier policy of racial hygeine.
> [@](#):
>
> The co-mingling of science, politics, and Weltanschauung (ideological or religious world view) caused the darkest period for eugenics when Nazi Germans embarked on their “final solution” to the Jewish “problem”, or the Holocaust. The Nazi racial-hygiene program began with involuntary sterilizations and ended with genocide. Beginning with the 1933 Law for the Prevention of Congenitally Ill Progeny, 350,000 schizophrenic and other mentally ill persons were involuntarily sterilized, and marriage or sexual contact between Jews and other Germans was banned. Several hundred black children and 30,000 German Gypsies were sterilized. By 1945, when the allies liberated those remaining in Nazi concentration camps, six million Jews, 750,000 Gypsies, and 70,000 German psychiatric patients had been killed by the Nazis (III, Müller-Hill 1992, p. 47) . As a result of the German experience, eugenic thought dropped to its nadir, and to the present day, the term “eugenics” invokes a sense of horror in some people.
So, what happens amoungst the idiotic faction of the pro-life wing is that they take the complex and multi-faceted history of the eugenics movement and dumb it down to the common perception of the term, “Eugenics = Nazi”. Margaret Sanger subscribed to some ideal of Eugenics, therefor she was a Nazi. Nazis were racist, therefor Margaret is racist. Nazis=bad, therefor pro-choice=Nazi=bad.
It’s extremely faulty reasoning based on fallacious information, intended to provoke an emotional response in undereducated and reactionary people. They rely on the masses not to know better, and you fell into this trap Roland.
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### Author:  [@Jillyvn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jillyvn)
#### Post date: [February 4, 2005, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-we-also-have-to-respect-cheaters-and-sociopaths/287204/199 "2005-02-04T15:20:15Z")
> [@Roland Deschain](#):
>
> Also, I don’t buy this modern “PC” notion that the Holocaust and the Nazis who fostered it cannot be alluded to in order to illustrate other evils. The Holocaust wasn’t just a tradgedy for just one group of people, but rather was a lesson for the whole world. I might have instead said that it would be difficult for me to sympathize with a Hutu that participated in the genocide of Tootsies who also happened to teach a math class and was complaining about his cheating students. Of course for all I know the OP computer science teacher might even be pro-life. I wasn’t talking about his post (which provided the original genesis for this thread), but rather the reaction of many of you (who I know or suspect to be pro-choice from your other posts) with moral indignation at the thought that someone would advocate cheating.
>
> I say that if abortion is a choice then so is cheating and while it is not the best one (for yourself or others) to make it pales in comparison to the choice of killing an innocent life. Furthermore, if I am to refrain from judging those who have chosen to terminate the life in their wombs often for less than profound reasons, then so to must you refrain from condeming those who have chosen to cheat for reasons which may be profound at least to them (or not).
Oh my my my.
Roland, you are severly lacking in the analogy department.
Will someone with a background in philosophy, logic and argument techniques please chime in here and tell Roland why is logic is all fucked up?
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### Author:  [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)
#### Post date: [February 4, 2005, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-we-also-have-to-respect-cheaters-and-sociopaths/287204/200 "2005-02-04T15:36:45Z")
> [@Rebekkah](#):
>
> Oh my my my.
>
> Roland, you are severly lacking in the analogy department.
>
> Will someone with a background in philosophy, logic and argument techniques please chime in here and tell Roland why is logic is all fucked up?
Well, for starters, I’ve eaten tootsie rolls in my time. I hardly think it’s fair to call it genocide.
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