I Pit judgemental pricks

The BBQ Pit
1

I’m normally too polite for the Pit, but I’ve been up all night and I’m in a pissy mood, so here goes:

I Pit all of you judgemental assholes out there who think that how other people choose to live their lives is any of your damn business! Guess what, if it’s not hurting you or anyone else, then let people make their own damn choices!

Oh, and another thing: Making you uncomfortable is not hurting you! If you can’t deal with the fact that not everyone wants to live their life in the exact same way as you, then that’s your problem!

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By the way, for anyone who thinks this is directed at them specifically, there’s probably about forty threads on here that it’s applicable to. It’s not all about you.

Another thing: Before anyone tries to call me a hypocrite for telling other people who to act in a thread about not telling people how to act, let me point out that osctracizing people or harrassing or ridiculing them or discriminating against them or any of the other things that judgemental people do are hurting people, so it is my business (and everyone else’s) to tell you to cut it the hell out!

3

Anything in particular?

4

I can think of at least one thread that Tim has been in that this applies to. No doubt there are many more – it is often the lifeblood of these boards, after all.

pan

5

Well, I’d been posting a bit in a thread about vegetarianism, and then I noticed a thread about public breastfeeding, and I was also thinking back to some debates I’ve had recently with a couple conservative Christian friends of mine (I am not a conservative Christian) about homoseuality, and it just struck me:

A whole lot of people care way to damn much about what other people are doing, whether it’s passing on the hamburger, or pulling up their shirt to feed their kid, or going home and having sex with someone of the same sex. Why the hell are people even paying attention to this stuff? If it has nothing to do with your life, why even give it any notice? And when they do notice it, why do they feel inclined to tell people how horrible they are, or to treat people any differently, or in some of those cases (not the vegetarianism thing) to even want the law to stop people from doing what they’re doing even though it’s really not hurting anyone?

There are other things I could mention, but those are the ones that most inspired me to make the thread. But I’m not really trying to start another thread debating those issues – there’s already a ton of those. To me, though, all the stuff that annoys me about all those topics boils down to this: people need to mind their own damn business and quit judging people for stuff that really isn’t hurting anybody.

6

Ah. I had a feeling that the breast feeding thread inspired this one.

For me, it’s the little things. Like whether one folds the towels in halves or thirds, or mayos the bread instead of the meat, or squeezes the toothpaste wrong. Used to drive my girlfriend batshit when I did these things “wrong”, and it wasn’t just issues of domestics – it was moral degradation on my part.

Of course, when I complained about how she took ice out of the tray instead of emptying the tray into the bucket, it’s because I was being anal and controlling.

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In many cases, the debate arises because the two sides disagree about the activity at issue hurting anyone or not.

For example, I may condemn prostitution because I feel it hurts not only the prostitute, who is arguably free to make an independent decision about plying the trade, but the neighborhood in which the trade is exercised.

I may condemn meat-eaters and extoll vegetarians because 70% of the grain the US grows is fed to livestock; it takes 3.3 calories of fossil fuel energy to produce one calorie of protein from grain for human consumption, but 28 calories to produce 1 calorie of meat for the same purpose. Thus, arguably, persons choosing to eat meat and subsidize the meat industry are using natural resources at a greedier rate than their vegetarian brethern.

  • Rick
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Whilst what you say is true, it was the non-vegetarians that were being the sanctimonious pricks, trying to insist that their lifestyle choice was somehow more righteous. Not the vegetarians.

This may seem nitpicky but I raise it because 99 times out of a 100, it is precisely that way round. Despite endless claims of “militant vegetarians”, I have yet to actually meet one.

pan

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I actually never claimed my meat-eating lifestyle was more righteous. Just that I felt that advocating animal rights is immoral.

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That’s a pretty subtle differential.

But we’re not just talking about you here. The thread was started by someone asking “what’s the point of vegetarianism?” The OP was a bash thereof. It was followed up similarly by other non-vegetarians. There’s not a vegetarian in that thread that was anything other than civil, polite and attempting to genuinely only answer questions that were asked of them. No proselytizing of any sort.

The thing is, if you go back over the history of such threads in the SDMB, you will find more than 20 similar ones started by non-vegetarians and a tiny handful (at most) started by vegetarians. The balance is inevitably that way round. But because it is the vegetarians that are the minority, it is them that get blamed for being “militant” and “in your face”. Sorry, but the facts don’t bear that out.

pan

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Well, I was merely offering examples in an effort to contradict the OP’s depiction of, “Guess what, if it’s not hurting you or anyone else, then let people make their own damn choices!” I was pointing out that often, the dissenter includes in his argument an allegation that he, or innocent third parties, are being hurt.

I imagine a similar case might be made for the meat-eating side: that those who aggressively advocate animal rights are, in fact, hurting not only themselves but society at large.

I am, myself, an enthusiastic meat eater.

  • Rick
12

What an overly-polite, pissy-mooded, sleep-deprived little shit you are! :wink:

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I’m with kabbes about the vegetarian thing. I’ve mentioned that same thing in many of the vegetarian threads (that a good 90% of vegetarian threads on the boards are started by non-vegetarians in an effort to start shit), and the point usually gets ignored.

Interesting.

I also agree with Bricker though, that many of the busy bodies out there do it because they think people are hurting others with their decisions. I don’t think you’ll find many people who advocated telling others how to live their lives just for the hell of it, if they didn’t feel they were hurting either themselves or others.

Still annoying as hell though.

14

You win.

You win again. Bonus points for soundly defeating the “judging the judgementalists” argument.

Thanks for playing, and we’ll see you next time on Who Wants To Be a Civil Libertarian.

15

Go to hell! :slight_smile:

Damn that’s weak. I shouldn’t have gone and gotten some sleep after starting this thing.

Oh wait, yeah I should’ve.

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I don’t want this to turn into the whole vegetarian debate all over again, but I just had to comment, the argument that eating meat is good because it’s subsidising the farming industry more is a rather unusual one; Normally I hear the exact same thing as a provegetarian argument, because they’re consuming less resources. But I suppose if you were to denounce vegetarianism for that reason I wouldn’t really have a problem with it – I wouldn’t agree with it, but I wouldn’t have a problem with it. Unless you did so rudely or obnoxiously, or advocated mistreating or harassing vegetarians, or anything like that. Obviously, there are more ways to be a jerk than just those expressed in the original post.

At any rate, with regard to the whole “maybe some people think it hurts people” thing, yeah, that’s true in some cases. A good example is drugs. Someone might say “Hey I’m just smoking some pot in my basement, how is this anyone else’s business.” But if they bought it from a dealer who’s part of a gang that murders people to keep people from testifying against them, then guess what, you’re financing murder. (I’m specifically thinking of the infamous K Street Crew that existed in D.C. when I was growing up in the area – Fortunately for me, in the area means across the river in not-so-crime-ridden Arlington, VA.) Not to mention you’re financing people who are pushing drugs to kids and such.

However, there are also some times where the only reason someone thinks another person’s actions are hurting them is because they think “Making them uncomfortable” is the same as “hurting them.” If seeing someone breast feed their kids freaks you out, that’s your issue, not theres. Likewise, if some vegetarian is just sitting there minding his own business but you’re convinced that all vegetarians think meateaters are the AnitChrist, then that’s your problem. If on the other hand a vegetarian comes up and starts lecturing you on your meat-eating habits, by all means feel free to tell them off is you’re so inclined.

Another example that’s come up in my arguments about homosexuality is the issue of gays in the military. My Christian conservative friends think that straight men who are perfectly willing to shower among straight men but uncomfortable showering in front of gay men should not be forced to do so. Personally, I think that if you as a straight man are so freaked out by the thought that a gay man might possibly be attracted to you, despite the fact that they aren’t acting on that attraction, then that’s your problem. Why should the gay man have to make accomodations for you, when the problem is all in your head?

Of course, it’s easy for me to say. If I find out that a gay guy is attracted to me, I think “Great! Now I just need to find a woman with similar taste.” :slight_smile:

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My dad once told me that he and the other guys in his college dorm used to get in huge disputes over whether the toilet paper is supposed to go over or under the bar. (i.e. Is it set up so you pull from the top or the bottom.)

That’s Harvard for you. :smiley:

18

Yay!

Woohoo!

Yeah, but I doubt I’ll have a Ken Jennings like streak, because I’ll lose out to people like this guy when the issue of gun control (which I support) comes up. Evidently, he thinks we need guns (among other reasons) to defend ourselves against the police:

Because it’s perfectly acceptable to respond to police misconduct by shooting them. :dubious:
No, but in fairness, he’s not advocating shooting cops, he’s saying the threat that we’ll shoot cops is what curtails police misconduct. :dubious:

Did I just hijack my own thread?