Most of the people in this country haven’t wanted a lot of the changes that have taken place over the last fifty years. The reason they’ve come about is because of pressure exerted by a small but impassioned and (often wrong-headed) minority, aided by the equally wrong-headed notion amongst much of the populace that even though they disapprove of x,y,z behavior they have no right to impose that belief on others.
So now we have abortion as de facto birth control, young kids using language that would have embarrassed sailors from previous generations, ‘superstar’ music icons being shot to death by each other right and left while their music is incomprehensible on the radio due to edits of their crass, sexist and vulgar language, schools brainwashing students to be PC while passing them from grade to grade whether or not they learn anything about the subjects they’re allegedly being taught, etc., etc., etc., ad infinitum.
So the fact that people may or may not want separate bathrooms has nothing whatsoever to do with whether or not they get or are able to keep them once the SJW set decides they’re the result of some sort of sexism, exclusionism or unfairness…or, heaven forfend, that they lend credence to the antiquated idea that men and women are different.
This is at least partially true – at the time, most Americans (the majority of white Americans but virtually no black Americans) opposed Civil Rights and the activism of MLK Jr. It took years for this to change, and for the majority of everyone to support Civil Rights.
The abortion rate has been going down for quite a while now. Every generation complains about the language and music of the next one – that’s nothing new at all. And while there are problems with schools, that students are brainwashed to be “PC” is just silly. Learning that slavery was bad, and the Native Americans were treated terribly, and that civil rights for minorities and gay people was/is a positive thing, etc., is not brainwashing or PC – it’s just good history.
It’s funny how in discussions like this people like you pick out two or three of the good things that have been accomplished and act like that’s all that’s there is to it. Yes, racism is bad and working to end it is good. Defending and encouraging filthy, sexist music and promoting criminals to celebrity status and glamorizing thug life is bad. And defending and promoting these things and excoriating those who oppose them as “racists” is bad.
Idiotic educational notions like social promotion thoroughly ruin people’s lives and cause more misery than repressed sexual orientation but look what kind of thinking created that. And everyone has become so indoctrinated to seek out injustice everywhere that poor Ellen Degeneres can’t even playfully hop a ride on Usain Bolt’s back without triggering outraged screeches of racism.
And while it’s true previous generations have traditionally disliked younger generations’ music, never before in the history of this (or any other nation, I’d wager) have “shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, and tits” (lol to the last, blame George Carlin) been so ubiquitous (and often publicly so) on the lips of young kids everywhere, even those in elementary school.
These and more offenses go on and on and vastly outnumber in quantity the number of good things that have happened over the last fifty years, because it seems no good can ever be accomplished in this country without dragging 50 harmful things along with it. And those harmful things are a very large part of the reason Donald Trump may well wind up the next president of the United States. If he gets elected people like you will have no one but yourselves to blame (even though we all know this will never happen and you’ll blame angry white guys instead :rolleyes:).
Two things, Guin. First with regard to your last comment. I don’t hate or even disapprove of all liberals or everything liberals have done. On the major issues I believe liberal goals and what liberalism has accomplished are good. I and people close to me and others I care about simply out of humanitarianism have benefitted by them and the country is a better place for them. But it’s necessary to speak in generalities in order to have any discussions at all on these matters, because it’s impossible (and would be excruciatingly tiresome) to try to identify and single out everyone who may possibly not fit some specific complaint. I speak critically of liberals and liberalism and many of the board’s posters criticize conservatives and Republicans. If I’ve given you the impression I think you personally hate conservatives, I apologize.
Secondly, and in regard to your belief that by criticizing liberals and their beliefs it means I must hate them (or that it at least comes across that way), I think this is a result of the different ways liberals and conservatives think. It relates to the old expression, “Conservatives think liberals have bad ideas; liberals think conservatives are bad people”. It seems typical for liberals to be unable to divorce ideas and political stances they don’t like from the people who hold them. The attitude seems to be “If you think this or that thing that we [liberals] abhor or disapprove of, why, then you must be some kind of jerk”. Conservatives on the other hand tend for the most part to recognize that liberals are not necessarily bad people and that often their motives are good, but often they [we] think that either the goals they come up with are wrong-headed, or that their ideas for achieving said goals create more harm than good. But in the end, it’s largely the case that liberals do hate/loathe/despise conservatives because of their beliefs and so it therefore seems to you that I hate liberals even though that hatred is voiced as criticism, while I, on the other hand, tend not to realize liberals are taking it this way because from my perspective I’m criticizing attitudes and behaviors and not the individuals themselves.
Well, I wouldn’t exactly call Trump a model of decorum. Have you heard some of the crap that comes out of that dude’s mouth? If you want to talk vulgarity, it’s not the liberal candidate spewing it right now.
You may not hate liberals, that’s fine. But you come across that way, and even if that’s not what you meant, you are extremely insulting.
And the repeating the expression, “Conservatives think liberals have bad ideas; liberals think conservatives are bad people”, is getting old. I don’t think conservatives are bad people, nor do I think all liberals feel that way. It’s a bullshit stereotype, just like most of the ones you spew.
Stereotypes exist for a reason, and I didn’t say that all liberals feel conservatives are bad people.
The whole point of what I said in the latter part of my previous post was that generalities are necessary in these types of conversation. Without them, discussion would be impossible.
And you say I’m extremely insulting. You must be kidding. Have you any idea how insulting most of the board’s posters are toward conservatives, Republicans, right-wingnuts, etc., and towards the values they hold and the things they believe in?
Furthermore, compared to the type of abuse I and most of the board’s other conservatives come in for, I’m far and away the most polite and least vituperative poster in almost if not all of the political discussions I get involved in. Take for example the polite, considerate and respectful way I answered your previous post to me, coming back to answer it even after some time had past in order that you not feel slighted by my ignoring you, and you respond by accusing me not only of “spewing bullshit” but of doing so often.
Thus illustrating the point that I come in for more abuse than I dish out, albeit in this case the abuse is fairly weak, impotent, and apparently spurred by the fact that I sent you a PM advising you I’d answered your post and thanking you for its civil tone. I guess you decided you’d better throw an insult in there to keep yourself in good standing with the posters who serve as guideposts for your own contributions (such as they are) and who bear me animus. I’d hate for you to find yourself on the outside looking in once again after working so hard to get to the point where you can offer the occasional post without immediately being slammed for following the crowd. I’m disappointed to see you respond this way but not all that surprised. In fact I half-way expected it. It’s been my experience on this board that whenever an adversary approaches me in an apparently conciliatory way, they then respond with abuse once I answer take them at face value and respond with the same curtesy they pretended to show me. But meh, c’est la vie, eh wot?
Both premises can be perfectly true, of course - you can be insulting and many (I don’t know about “most” - I don’t assume more than half the membership gets involved in political discussions at all) of the posters here can also be insulting to conservatives, etc.
“Stereotypes exist for a reason”… Yes, and that reason is racism, bigotry, and other forms of ignorant bias. You can choose to believe that there is a good reason for the stereotype of black men as aggressive predators of white women, but I wouldn’t advise it.
I’ve given this some thought since the thread started and concluded, “Not me.” Sure, she was horrid, but she hasn’t meant anything to me for decades. Bigger fish to fry, and all.
It’s also inaccurate; conservatives tend to think that liberals are monsters who should be killed. It’s not the left that keeps calling for “Second Amendment solutions” against their opponents, or calling their opponents Satanists, traitors or the Antichrist.
I would wager that the number of conservatives who think that liberals are monsters who should be killed is less that 1/100 of 1%. And not much higher for the others you mention. I know a lot of people who are all over the spectrum of conservatism and I’ve never heard a single one express any such idea, and most would be horrified at any who did.
Civil Rights, acceptance of homosexuality, defense of trans people’s rights, etc., are nigh infinitely more “good” then dirty music is “bad”. And there’s nothing new about some level of glamorizing of criminals – bank robbers and highwaymen have always been romanticized… there’s nothing new about this. This isn’t a new phenomenon by any means. Tolerance of homosexuality, and overcoming racial prejudice (to some degree, at least) is a very new and very positive thing.
I don’t know what you mean by “social promotion” and “repressed sexual orientation”. And Ellen being criticized isn’t “outraged screeches of racism”. Some thought the joke was insensitive and said so. What’s the big deal? Why are some conservatives so terrified of criticism?
Right – in the past, it was different words. There’s nothing new about supposedly shocking language in music. Your grandma thought some of the language in your music was inappropriate. There’s nothing new here.
This is a joke. White supremacism resulted in lynchings, no chance of advancement out of poverty, lack of voting rights, interracial couples being jailed, beaten, or even murdered, and more. Homophobia has resulted in the routine beatings and murder of homosexuals, and most homosexuals being terrified to be open about who they are. Dirty music is nothing new and neither is some romanticizing of criminals. There’s no comparison, and the progress has been overwhelmingly positive.
You failed to mention environmentalism, which started in the 1960’s by the “hippies.” We came far too close to making this planet so uninhabitable that we wouldn’t have been able to reverse it. Yet some conservatives still think environmentalism is a joke.
I gather he’s referring to bad students being advanced through the grades when they should fail and repeat them, i.e. letting a barely-literate kid go from fifth to sixth grade because the social cost of him repeating the fifth is too high, will destroy his self-esteem or whatever.
Personally, I think the more obvious solution is to dramatically increase funding to education to allow smaller class sizes and more customized curricula, coupled with abandoning (or least decreasing) the emphasis on standardized testing, but good luck getting American conservatives on board.
