Leave Us Abuse The French.......

The BBQ Pit
121

This, in and of itself . . . I can’t even put into words.

Re: my grandmother’s French tendencies . . . I didn’t see any of them as silly when she was alive. I didn’t see them as French or not French. I saw them as human. People do different things. To this day I don’t know if most of the decisions she made/things she did were because she was French or not. It really doesn’t matter to me. The assholish things she did I’ve seen come from every manner of other cultures/people, and the good things as well.

If you hate all groups . . . my personal opinion is that to hate all groups you must hate your own, which means you extend some of that hate toward yourself. That’s a very sad thing. Maybe some day you’ll change that opinion. I hope you do.

[aside: I define hate as such: wishing evil (the lack of good) on a person, group, whatever.]

122

…And Maeglin asked Scylla “and if there are a thousand righteous men in France, will you withhold your wrath and not destroy her?”

Scylla spoke from the burning bush “Hmmm. yes, If you find a thousand righteous men then I will not destroy her.”

“But Scylla,” begged Maeglin. “What if I can find only one undred righteous men? Would you destroy them?”

“No,” replied Scylla. “If you find but a hundred righteous men, then I will spare France.”

“But again Oh wise and munificent Scylla,” begged Maeglin still not getting it. “What if there is only ten men?”

“Fine,” said Scylla from the Bush. “Ten men, I don’t burn France. Deal.”

“Oh Great Scylla, I appreciate your all-knowing power, but what if there is only…”

“Shut up already,” yelled the bush! “One good man. Find one good Frenchmen and I won’t destroy France.”
Go to it.

BTW. You seem to be under the impression that my opinions in this somehow matter. Contemporary French music is largely derivative of the U.S. I haven’t seen any French plays recently, and the last decent French book (modern) that I read was L’ete de Katya by Trevanian, which I later learned was originally written in English, so there.
France sucks. Bite my franc. Or Euro.

123

Iampunha:

::sigh::

I don’t hate the French or anybody except my sister in law (but that’s another story,) in terms of wishing ill upon them.

I don’t want them to die horribly or anything like that. I hate them rather like cold is to heat. Things aren’t cold, they lack heat. My attitude toward the French is an extreme lack of liking of their cultural tendencies, not an active thing at all.

I don’t hink we oughtta go bomb France or anything. Sheesh. (ok maybe we should bomb that Depardieau guy, and those guys in the thongs, but just them, ok.)

I’ll try it another way. I hate pistachio ice cream, too.

That being said I am not on a vendetta to wipe out Pistachio ice cream or imprison all manufacturers of that ill tasting confection. I don’t even care if you eat it. I may think less of your culinary tastes if you do, but tough shit, you’re a big boy and you’ll have to live with it.

Name any lage roup of people, ethnic group, race, religion, whatever, and as a whole you can validly apply a couple of negative generalizations to them. Big deal. It’s a fact. Pretending it’s not true may be PC, but I’d rather have fun, be real, and risk being lablelled a bigot by small-minded overoffensible wind-bags.

You seem like a decent guy, and it wasn’t my attention to upset or offend you. This board is supposed to be fun.

124

As amusing as your reply is, Scylla, I don’t think there is any more to be said on this topic. Though in all fairness, if you were the burning bush, you’d more likely be in the receiving end of my full bladder than me on the receiving end of your orders. :wink:

If your threshhold for confidence judgments is so low that a few naked Frenchmen are cause to dislike the culture, then so be it. You must be a lot of fun at parties.

MR

125

Scylla, I order you…do not give up the fight! I have effectively eliminated one foul smelling French twerp from my apartment, but the movement cannot stop there.

Scylla, you seem to be in the same boat as I am in: you don’t necessarily * want* to hate every single French person, it’s just that every single one reinforces the clear conclusion: the French suck. As the old Aesop fable sez: You are judged by the company you keep. The French I have met suck, they come from France, there seems to be a fair contingent of people across the nation and across the globe who agree, therefore, I feel validated in this. I also do not wish to drop any crazy bombs on them, I just sorta wish they wouldn’t be. I have opinions on this as strong as the French smell, but everything I wanna say has been said so well by Scylla.

I was watching Tv the other night, and there was an SNL collection of game show parodies on. As I flipped past, I caught a glimpse of a great one, called “Old French Whore” where the contestants could win a skank bitch French ho. Naturally, they tanked their answers on purpose with REALLY scared looks on their faces. I smiled. Ze french, ahh, how du you zay, ahh, zuck.

126

Maeglin:

You said:

"If your threshhold for confidence judgments is so low that a few naked Frenchmen are cause to dislike the culture, then so be it. You
must be a lot of fun at parties. "

Listen meat, if you’d bothered to read more than one post in this thread, you’d see that I listed, nay ranted a plethora of reasons to hate the French ranging from politics to B.O. to Cuisine, to commerce and economics, to attitudes and social mores. Fat men in thongs is just the tip of the iceburg. God, I hate repeating myself to people who can’t even bother to read the thread before they post their obnoxious accusation.

At least Iampunha had the freaking courtesy to respond to the points I made, rather than just jumping into baseless accusations and moronic name calling (which makes him one up on me. ) I got a lot of respect for that guy. Who knows what he might have become if he wasn’t descended from French stock?

As for being fun at parties. Well, Maeglin, that’s what your Mom says so it must be true.

Anyway your arguments have been effectively refuted unless and until you can produce a righteous contemporary Frenchman. Good luck.

Put up or shut up.

127

I’m starting to get the feeling that Scylla is himself a fat-assed, smelly, hairy, thong-wearing, cheese-eating, bread-gorging, culturally illiterate, socially inept old man, who secretly knows just how appallingly loathsome he is, both physically and mentally, to everyone who regrettably comes into contact with him. He cannot bear to face the truth about himself, and he believes that by ranting and raving over some group that supposedly (in his own little pea brain) possesses these same repulsive qualities, he can deflect attention off the fact that he is exactly what he professes to despise. Kind of like what some homophobics do when they know deep down they are gay but don’t want to face the facts.

Methinks Scylla doth protest too much.

128

You got me Miss Bunny! I admit it. My real name Jean-Paul Labushe. I am a Frenchman and it fills me with secret shame. On this board I pretend I am a normal human being, while Actually I am sitting on a beach wearing nothing but a thong.

The shame. The shame. Mon dieu!

No really:

Actually I look like a combination of Brad Pitt and Mel Gibson. My memory is photographic. I play Chess against ten people at one time, and run an orphanage in my spare time.

Actually I’m the first Turing test capable computer program. You think I’m a human being, but I’ve really been encoded by a team of programmers over the last year.

What the hell I am has nothing to do with the discussion here, and your resorting to a personal attack strongly suggests incompetance with the subject.

Throughout this whole stupid discussion (since I’ve been involved, anyway) everybody says “Oh how dare you say that you bigot.”

Why not simply give some recent examples of exemplary traits, behavior and/or accomplishments by the French?

129

Oh, so it’s okay to point out supposed unattractive qualities about a group of nameless individuals, no matter how bigoted or racist those assumptions might be, no matter how untrue they might be about some or most or all of the members of the group, but it’s not okay to point out the same unattractive qualities in a named person. Well, I most sincerely beg your forgiveness then.

Many people have already given recent examples of these things. Oh, you want factual, not anecdotal, evidence? Then why don’t YOU give some recent factual examples of the behavior and/or lack of accomplishments you so fervently believe the entire French nation to be guilty of, instead of spouting your continued ranting?

130

Scylla, is logic really so difficult for you to understand? Whether you don’t like the French for one stupid reason or one hundred stupid reasons makes no difference because they are all stupid. I picked one of them out because I found it amusing.

If you think I am going to try and convince you to like BO in order to refute your fatuous argument, then you are even duller than I thought. I don’t need to make you like French cuisine or respect the French government. The personal opinions of the ignorant are of little concern to me. I am more interested in protracting this discussion because I find your complete unwillingness to recognize that you are a blockhead rather comical.

Oh, just like you responded to the points I made? All I received was a shoddy excuse for humor and sarcasm. Observe.

You responded to this argument exactly how? Perhaps I should restate it, just to make sure that you understand.

Fact is, you probably don’t know jack shit about “French Culture.” You try to get a handle on something large, ancient, and complicated by aggregating all of the things you don’t like. Like I said, no one really cares whether you like them or not. But when you superimpose your own dislikes and pass them off as “French Culture,” then you are being an idiot. You construct culture based on your own dislikes and knock it down accordingly. Your straw man is starting to rot.

Yeah, I guess she has to get her kicks every once in awhile. She must enjoy picking on morons as much as I do at parties.

You are only fooling yourself, Scylla. You have tried deflecting and reducing my arguments, but never have you come close to refuting them effectively. But you really want me to put out? Will you really take my word for it when I describe a righteous Frenchman whom I know?

Now let’s see some substance in your arguments about why the French suck. I don’t think anyone is interested anymore in “Things Scylla Doesn’t Like.”

MR

131

Scylla,

You are an idiot of the worst kind. Your defense to your actions has been “its my opinion, so what”. See, if we allow every bigot who has an opinion to use that out, then we get at best morons like you, and at worse new Hitlers.

In all honesty, I don’t care if you dislike the French. I am not one of them. What disturbs me is your attitude. You seem to say that every sterotype is correct. That is the point of view of someone who lacks basic intelligence. This is how I see you.

In fact, I think you are a troll. You are a poster simply seeking reaction. O.K. in my response you have recieved that response. I will admit I may be FTT.

I will say this . . . piss me off. Please. See, this is my PIT. I want a reason to make you run screaming with your two or three tails between your legs.

Asshole. Great big donkey asshole.

  • NM
132

The obvious difference Missbunny, is that I claim some personal knowledge of the French. How on earth you claim personal knowleedge of my appearance remains a mystery.

How do you expect me to cite a lack of accomplishments? I don’t think anybody has kept track of great things NOT done by the French.

So, once more. Things wrong with French

  1. Fat guys in thongs
  2. B.O.
  3. Not bathing
  4. Hairy armpits
  5. Women are whores who will rip your heart out and laugh whle doing so.
  6. The Yahoo thing
  7. The Libya thing
  8. The Pacific Nuclear weapons testing thing
  9. The Terror
  10. Systematic repression of the Basque culture.
  11. Unsanitary hotel rooms
  12. No hot water
  13. Rotten meat and the bacteria food thing
  14. Getting pissy about mispronunciations
  15. Notoriously rude
  16. Dislike Americans
  17. Rotten service/overpriced
  18. Tipping
  19. Military incompetance/capitulation with enemies
  20. Berets
  21. Brie
  22. Le Petite Prince
  23. They killed Jim Morrison
  24. Created Godzilla (see 8)
  25. They all take the whole month of August off
  26. Petite Dejeuner. I want ham and eggs dammit! Not this Godammn flaky butterpuff pastry.
  27. Bernaise sauce
  28. Jerry Lewis
  29. Smoking. (everybody)
  30. Lack of recent cultural, literary, musical, or technological innovations
  31. Language Nazis. Got yelled at more than once for daring to speak English to my partner while in a Paris Bar.
  32. Their insistence on their own superiority.
  33. Gerard Depardieu
  34. Beady eyes
  35. Great big feet
  36. Walk around going “tweet tweet tweet”
  37. Little noses
  38. Tiny little eyes
  39. Walk around telling great big lies

I don’t want no French people round here

133

Scylla, you need help. See a psychiatrist. They can do wonders for people like you.

134

Nothing man:

You said:

"Your defense to your actions has been “its my opinion, so what”. See, if we allow every bigot who has an opinion to use that out, then we get at best morons like you, and at worse new Hitlers. "

Actually you get Hitlers by not allowing free speech.
Maeglin:

If I missed a point of yours, I apologize. I assure you it was not deliberate.

“Fact is, you probably don’t know jack shit about “French Culture.” You try to get a handle on something large, ancient, and complicated by aggregating all of the things you don’t like. Like I said, no one really cares whether you like them or not. But when you superimpose your own dislikes and pass them off as “French Culture,” then you are being an idiot. You construct culture based on your own dislikes and knock it down accordingly”

Well yes, I guess that’s entirely possible. I may be falsely claiming expertise on French culture based on very limited experience. Perhaps I had a few negative experiences initially, and I allowed them to color my perceptions so that I was missing all the positive things the French were doing and only noticing the negative which then served to reinforce my opinion.

Again, if this is your hypothesis, and you’re interested in doing so, then the best way to refute me would be to point out positive current aspects of French culture, or French personages of high achievement or moral standing. Than I would be shown that the French are just like everybody else, with both positive and negative aspects.

Perhaps that would stand a better chance of having an effect than just saying “you’re an idiot for thinking the way you do (my paraphrase”)

I might not take your word for it if you talked about a righteous frenchmen you know personally. Then again, I might. Who knows. Try me, or better yet, find one in the public eye.

Everybody else:

Yeah. Yeah. I’m an idiot. I’m a moron. I get it.

What about the French though?

Anybody have anything positive to say about them?

135

Maeglin:

From Page 1. Your entire post.

“Why do people think that piddling personal experiences can support sweeping generalizations? How stupid are you people who meet one asshole Frenchman and condemn the entire country? I suppose I just don’t enjoy wallowing in my own ignorance. Bosda, Spider, the whole lot of you are babies giggling in barrels of shit. Typical fucking Americans”

I don’t think I’ve ever seen somebody refute himself so thoroughly in such a short post.

It is tough not to generalize isn’t it?

At what point is it accurate?

At what point is it funny?

At what point does it make one a bigot?

At what point does it do real harm and create prejudice and discrimination?

136

I can do this. Take 'em or leave 'em, but here are a few examples of French culture that I can think of.

Pierre Boulez – a veritable titan of modern classical/electronic music. Composer, conductor, and writer, he is one of the real leaders of 20th century music.

Marcel Pagnol

137

I can do this. Take 'em or leave 'em, but here are a few examples of French culture that I can think of.

Pierre Boulez – a veritable titan of modern classical/electronic music. Composer, conductor, and writer, he is one of the real leaders of 20th century music.

Marcel Pagnol – marvelous French playwright, author, and film director. Very difficult not to like. If you don’t like his charming works “Le Gloire de mon Pere,” then you’ll probably like his darker, more serious ones, like “Manon des Sources.” Depardieu is even in them, though he hardly plays a sexy character and he dies.

Georges Charpak – he won the Nobel Prize in '92. Nuff said. He invented a radiologocal process that subjects people too 100 times less radiation.

Albert Camus – He needs no introduction.

If you are unsatisfied, I can subject more cultural figures to your scrutiny.

Only someone who does not grasp simple distinctions would think that I refuted myself. The only comment I regret is the “typical Americans” statement thrown in for good measure at the very end. Beyond that, I was not generalizing, I was objecting specifically to two individuals.

I don’t want to silence generalizations, nor do I have to develop a consistent rule for when and where they can be efficaciously applied. When someone states an opinion that I disagree with, I will publicly reply with my own reasoning. That’s the bottom line. If you catch me generalizing when I shouldn’t be, then by all means, say so. Either I will agree and back down, or call you an idiot for blurring logical distinctions to make your point. I just take each case as it comes.

MR

138

Ok, he’s pretty cool even if he hasn’t finished anything in twenty years.

He may even be righteous.

But.

He did spend a lot of time in New York and London, and that may have cured him of some of his Frenchness.

::Ducking and running::

139

I meant to preview, to make sure I hadn’t farkled the URLs, but I submitted instead. Hopefully one of the mods will take the first post down.

MR

140

<snickers> Actually, genius or not, I think the man is a total dickhead. Righteous he may be, but he has a sharp tongue.

And as far as spending time in France goes, maybe you can tell the class why Picasso spent almost his entire life in France? Or Chagall? Some people say it’s just that the light is better there, but I’ve always thought that was bullshit.

MR