Which of course had and has nothing to do with terrorism. That war was the baby of the GOP, lock, stock and barrel. The only way you can tie terrorism to that war is that the GOP’s propaganda, facilitated by the clickbait press convinced enough of the population that Iraq had the bomb and was going to use it. (Remember “The first sign of a smoking gun may be a mushroom cloud.”) If it hadn’t been for the rampant fear mongering instead of a steady hand that war could have easily been avoided. The failed US had more to do with starting that war than the terrorism that was used as an excuse.
Also, the “middle east” has about 150 years of the west screwing it over. America might be a “sideshow” for them but we are still on their to-do list.
I’m glad to discuss this further in another thread if you want to start one rather than dragging this thread further off point. But I have made the points I wanted to here.
I hereby redact using “Peasant” to describe those who don’t want to get their hands dirty, as corrected by Nava and Little Nemo (It was late/early, I was tired). I now choose the term ‘ergophobic noble’ despite it hitting the ear wrong.
Going off this post you sound like a liberal to me, especially the way you equate ideologies because they use violence, which is strange, because liberals use a tremendous amount of violence to spread their ideas and maintain their economic structures. Or maybe I’m wrong and you’re a vehemently anti-communist libertarian socialist or something whose idea of revolution is peacefully building parallel civic structures until the capitalist state loses its legitimacy and withers away. The capitalists always send their police and militaries to stop the formation of independent social movements, so the idea of a pacifist revolution strikes me as utopian. Knock on wood, I guess.
They’re terrible, but the clumsy war on terror allusions are a delight, especially since it borders on 9/11 truther material. Like how Grievous, the Osama stand-in, is actually on Palpatine’s/Bush’s side the whole time.
Highschool sports are crap. I don’t know why I thought the highschool jocks were so cute when I was in highschool. I was delusional I guess. Why do all former jocks brag on their highschool sports careers?
I’d really like to get invited to your parties, thanks. I miss those spaces.
On other notes:
Sugar may be addictive, but I rarely eat sweets or processed foods, and I’m roly-poly these days. See: cheese.
I don’t hate the Beatles, but I tend to like them for the stuff aficionados sneer at. I still like MMT best, and even things like “Why don’t we do it in the road.” Of course, I’ll never forget my music teacher waxing on about their start in skiffle, and spending way too much time listening to that stuff.
(I still like that kinda stuff)
Hmm. I like generic sodas (f-it, POP) just fine, if I want a pop, and I have a weird fondness for all the variations of ripoff Dr. Pepper.
It is possible to hate Trump but love your spouse who does not hate Trump. But it is very difficult these days.
I don’t know if this counts, but I made my first quasi-feminist statement in decades the other day re: the debacle in Louisiana where the teacher stood up in the school board meeting and got dragged out. I was in tears watching that. I said, that’s pretty typical–a guy does something like that, and he’s “assertive.” A woman does that, and she’s bitchy and aggressive and has to be restrained. There was a minor household disagreement, but I stand by what I said. Further news seems to support my opinion.
Abortion? It sucks. Big time. And morally, I want it to be minimized. But birth control is imperfect, as is human nature in general. Panache mentioned having birth control being a 100% condition until one demonstrates and testifies otherwise–this is actually a nice thought, but science fiction in practice. LOL. I have conceived several children while practicing chemical birth control “perfectly.” I have some very personal and specific things to say on this issue, but maybe this is too lighthearted of a thread.
Star Wars stuff: I don’t like ANY of it! The old stuff, the bits of new stuff I’ve been forced to watch. I hate it all. I’d rather sit through the old Dune three times in a row with my eyelids peeled back (and Dune was pretty damned stinky) than watch any bit of any Star Wars shit. So there. Spaceballs was fun, though.
If Texas secedes, I’d consider moving there. If they’d have me back. (I lived there when I was young) Don’t agree with all of TX culture, but it’s a lot more straightforward than Indiana these days.
Also unpopular: people really hate Gone With the Wind now. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again–I never would have placed on AP US History without having the novel basically memorized. LOL For what that’s worth. But I see the novel as a wonderful snapshot of early 1900s Southern nostalgia, plus a decent early-ish feminist novel. The film may have issues that break others’ hearts and psyches, and I can understand that, but I still stand by what I see in it. It was literally the first film (and nearly the only film) that I ever said “Every still is a painting.” It is a freaking gorgeous picture. If I were immortal, I would paint every 30 seconds of it for my own pleasure. The composition was insanely good. Every detail accounted for. Fleming and his entourage must have been passionate about tenebrism. Georges de la Tour himself would have been beside himself: the early prayer scene, so many images from the trip from Atlanta to Tara (the dying soldiers to the mother in labor, the passionate departure of Rhett and Scarlett, to the meeting of Scarlett with her father and finally the dispatch of the Yankee soldier.) All those scenes were so carefully wrought. And then you have all that juxtaposed with the gaily colored but no less composed scenes before and after. Oh, and besides the artistic merits, (and I haven’t even gone into the acting), there was also the interesting bits about Clark Gable (not the nicest of gents) refusing to appear at publicity gatherings unless Hattie McDaniels was also admitted and recognized as a great actress. So that’s probably my biggest unpopular opinion. I love GWTW, and I’ll stand by that till I die.
Thanks. You raise some good points, as does the linked article. Yes, duplication can be costly. And the Marine Corps is still around probably because of sentimental attachment.
On a side note, today, my former Battalion Commander is being laid to rest at Sacramento Valley National Cemetery in Dixon CA. Rest in Peace, Colonel Rich Klemmer. Say hello to Chesty for me, and I’ll see you when we regroup, when the Good Lord calls me home.
Riffing on this - marriage is nearly always a mistake for people in general, as it’s a bad bargain for both genders with a spectacularly high failure rate.
The failure mode is greater than 50%, and the significant costs financially and emotionally that the failure mode entails for everyone involved are nowhere near offset by the marginal benefits of “if you’re sick / dead, certain things are easier for your spouse.”
And the fact this is a genuinely unpopular opinion was demonstrated repeatedly in this thread.
Edward de Vere is more likely to have been the primary author of Shakespeare’s Plays and Sonnets than whathisname from Stratford.
Human population is way too high: If there was some way to reduce it to just a billion or two in a few generations, we should pursue it.
Rama IX, the late King of Siam, is worthy of great reverence.
I also accept many of the other unpopular opinions that have been proposed:
Al-Qaeda were delighted with the faulty GWB responses.
The 9/11 hijackers could be viewed as heroes in another ideological context — though, IIRC, most of them didn’t know they were on a suicide mission.
Dark chocolate is better than white chocolate, et cetera et cetera.
But at some point I must put my foot down:
Bob Dylan is the essential poet of our time. And his voice is excellent.
Maple syrup or its various substitutes can be afforded for $1 per serving, 25¢ per serving, or 5¢ per serving. If IHOP provided the 5¢ fake syrup with its pancakes I might be happy, but instead it served some imitation fake syrupy crud that it probably paid less than 1¢ for wholesale. Yuck!
Guuuurl!! You and I need to talk! I hold this equally unpopular opinion and I am sick to my back teeth of being slammed for it. First of all, just because I see merit in it doesn’t mean I am defending slavery in any shape, form or fashion. And for that matter, neither was Margaret Mitchell. She wasn’t writing a book that was supposed to be a commentary on slavery, she was writing a story about people in a certain time and certain place and this is how they got through it, with a woman as the central character.
For me, there are 3 distinct angles you have to consider with any discussion of GWTW. 1- The Novel. 2- The Movie. 3- The Making of the Movie. For me, The Novel is and will always be the greater point of interest. Now, that doesn’t mean I can’t go on for hours about 2 & 3, as in Leslie Howard was terribly miscast, Ashley wasn’t that much of a wimp, but from Howard’s portrayal, you’d never know that, and Victor Fleming (who said he didn’t want to do some “woman’s” film) and Selznick seems to utterly forget this was woman’s story, told mostly from a woman’s point of view. Vivien Leigh is who other discussion, so I won’t even start.
However, one really needs to read it to absorb the greatness fully. Scarlett is understood so much better when her entire context and backstory is known, but she wasn’t written for you to necessary like her all the time. But OH! How her life would have been different with access to a little birth control, no? AND there are so many of the black characters that very often portrayed in the novel as the smartest people in the room, having an intuition that the white characters do not. A few have power within their own spheres, such as when Uncle Peter scolds Melanie and makes her cry for talking to Belle Watling on the street, for instance. Rhett is the conscience of the novel, calling out people on hypocrisies and short-sightedness. I feel I can and should be able to praise this beautifully written work and defend it without having everyone in the room look at me sideways. Most people who slam it haven’t read it. Oh, how I do run on…
That’s funny, I thought the responses in that thread were pretty moderate. The only hackles raised were by the implication that women are somehow more to blame.
Your opinion is increasing in popularity among Millennials, for sure. But I stand by my assertion there that not everyone getting married is subject to equal risk of failure. It’s more like starting a business. Businesses have a high rate of failure but that’s at least in part because some people have no business sense. And hats off to anyone who can honestly recognize it isn’t for them. That’s true of marriage, child-rearing or anything else society expects us to do that is just not for everyone.
On the subject of unpopular opinions, I think we are pretty conclusively the product of our genetics combined somehow with our environment and subject to the rule of cause and effect. The logical conclusion is that free will is an illusion. I’m not sure anyone is really to blame for anything that they do, and we have no grounds to take credit for our better natures. The implications of this would be disastrous, however, so we must perpetuate the illusion of free will for the good of society.
I did hate the movie Gone With the Wind. I hate Scarlett. My best friend insists I would love the novel. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time a novel’s message was lost in translation in the film adaptation.
But again, as a legit fan of Catcher in the Rye, I know the pain of loving something people hate.
Drunk/buzzed driving is bad in the extreme cases, but your average person driving home after having 2 or 3 beers isn’t much of a road hazard. Yes there are tragic accidents but those are going to occur any time humans are in control of 4,000 pounds of plastic and metal going down the road.
Oh, then you should listen to your friend and read it. It’s true, you don’t like Scarlett all the time, but you do understand her so much better. She yearned for things women of her time weren’t supposed to aspire to, so she acted based on the knowledge and tools she did have, with disastrous results.
And the other characters are well-fleshed out and fascinating, too. As a young girl, I was all about Scarlett, but now Rhett is my favorite character, and don’t underestimate the “frail” Melanie, who really isn’t so frail at all. She survives everything Scarlett does, but chooses the more conventional path. As Scarlett is jealous of Melanie, not only because of Ashley, but because there is an inner “steel spun” strength in her Scarlett doesn’t feel she possesses.
There is a character named Jeems that wasn’t in the movie who is wonderful. He is the Man Servant of the Tarleton twins, and he has to explain things to them because things go right over their heads they are so dumb.
The novel makes it clear from the opening scene with Scarlett and the Tarleton twins (who have been kicked out of University) that these are clueless, spoiled young people who do not value education and they have no notion at all that their world can be penetrated, let alone shattered.
The Education industry primarily benefits educators.
School is a HUGE waste of time. Consider what students could be learning if they weren’t bored to death 95% of the time they’re forced to sit at a desk.
Medical licensing should be abolished. That’s not a popular opinion now, but if the current trend continues it’ll start to make more sense as a monopoly busting measure.
Further, I believe medical licensing is THE reason why we’re never going to be able to achieve good, affordable health care for everyone. We’re treating the symptoms instead of the cause.
Utopia is not desirable, nor is it an option.
All drugs should be legal, and available without a doctor’s prescription.
Patents and copyrights should be euthanized. At the very least they should both run for the same amount of time.
Police have become the bad guys.
The US should scrap the aircraft carriers and depend on subs if we MUST have a deterrent.
It doesn’t matter if global warming is man made.
The race will weather global warming without much ado.
