Zoe, I appreciate your coming in and writing your thoughts (which are very similar to mine) much more thoroughly and eloquently than I was able to earlier in the thread. FWIW, I don’t think you’re hijacking the thread. Both Whoopi and **Richard Parker ** made the South a main ingredient in this discussion, and your stepping up to help counter their negative stereotyping of the region is germane to the issues raised in the OP.
Now, if y’all don’t mind, I’ll crawl back into the trailer. The kids and dogs have been playing with the meth lab and moonshine equipment that I’ve been keeping in that '74 Trans-Am (the one on blocks just to the left of the old refrigerators in the front) and I’ve got to find a new place to keep the stuff. It isn’t too bad when they get likkered-up (the dogs and kids, I mean), but when they get into the meth it’s just a lot of damn work.
It’s not fair for you to characterize my position as attacking the South. I believe, with some evidence, that there is a subculture of dogfighting in the South. I have acknowledged both that it exists elsewhere, and that it just incidental–it says nothing about the intrinsic nature of the South. Moreover, I have posted, like others, that in my personal experience in the South I did not encounter this subculture. I understand why you and others would be defensive. The South does get regularly attacked in our popular culture. But I’m not part of that attack.
If this pitting was about whether Vick was or was not a member of that culture, it would be a pretty lame pitting at best. But that was not the point of the OP. Read it again. The OP is criticizing Whoopi for defending Vick, which is wrong.
Indeed, as do other media sources interested in making this into a story. That isn’t particularly surprising. They do the same thing to people who try to explain the actions of terrorists. Anyone who says the terrorists attacked us for any reason other than because they hate our freedom gets lambasted for defending Al Qaeda. Which is counter-productive, and it should stop. Wouldn’t this whole Vick story have been much more useful if it were about eradicating the culture of dogfighting? But it’s not, at all. Which is a shame.
Well, let me tell you, I know how it feels because it happens frequently. I’ve already been stereotyped in this very thread. People make wrong assumptions about me all the time, and I’ve only been here for a year. I was in Wisconsin for a few weeks this summer and you wouldn’t believe the things people said about me. Fortunately I didn’t take it hard because I’m from Oregon, the best state in the union.
I’ve been watching this thread from the beginning. Whoopi’s statement was, at best, stupid and ill-thought. I’ve watched it several times, and perhaps the part that sticks out to me is right at the very beginning. They’re discussing where Vick is actually from, and Whoopi says:
So either Whoopi thinks Michael Vick grew up in Georgia where he played football, or if she thinks Virginia is the deep south, I’m in the fucking tropics. She’s clearly got a disconnect between the truth and her brain.
I’m not going to say there’s no dog fighting in Memphis or the rest of the south, but, unfortunately, dog fights can be found all over the country. Vick was trying to look tough, like a gangsta. If it wasn’t so horrifying, I’d almost pity him.
-Lil
The whole excuse explanation thing is really boring so here’s how I actually feel about the Michael Vick Southern Whoopi thing.
I was born and raised in Nashville and then did four years of college in New Orleans. spent the time since then in Chicago and San Francisco. Every part of every country everywhere has its own standards of behavior, rules and values. There is a universal sense, though, of what is right and what is wrong that covers all regions. The biggest differences is how much priority and seriousness we assign to each crime or each rule or value. I don’t think that there is a society in this country that accepts or is even just okay with dog fighting. You are just going to get a different level or moral outrage in different places. Michael Vick no matter where he came from knew better and was not a product of some twisted hillbilly society where this is encouraged. Sometimes, you just dont think you are going to to get in as much trouble as you do. Haven’t you ever been in a situation where people get insanely mad at you and you are like “whats the big deal?”
Remember when Britney Spears got caught with her baby in her lap while driving and she was like “i’m country thats what we did”. I actually related to this because while I wasnt a baby, I remember crawling all over my dads lap when we were outside of nashville in the country. The thing is Britney Spears is too dumb to adapt to her new surroundings and realize that she’s not in a deserted road in Louisiana, she was on a freeway in LA. And for that irresponsiblity as well as for the dangerousness of the act itself, we must hold her responsible. Same with Michael Vick. He knew he had the eyes of the nation on him and he knew that with every day that passes, animal rights is a bigger deal and a more punishable crime especially in the court of public opinion. He didn’t give a fuck. He was cruel anyways. I think the nature of his exceptional cruelty towards animals as well as his egotism shows signs of possible sociopathy. But I’m not a shrink, just gibbering.
I have to say in New Orleans, when I moved into an apartment away from Tulane’s campus, there were signs up that said “dog fighting is prohibited” The fact the city even felt they needed to put up these signs may mean that there is higher prevalance of dog fighting in the deep south. I have nothing to compare it to as I’ve never seen these signs in any other city. While there were signs, they resembled more of the littering violation signs. Punishable, but not the “this is going to ruin my life and career if I get caught” kinda crime. But honestly, I dont know where Michael Vick, the individual at hand was raised and in what kind of society.
Even if he was raised in a society where dog fighting was less of a big deal than in other places, its not an excuse and I will not feel bad for him. Even if you were raised on a planet where if you slit your own mother’s throat you will be thrown a parade in your honor, if you cant get your shit together and realize that you are in America now and you MUST live by the rules and values that we embrace, you will be punished, removed from the free population, or basically just torn apart by the media.
You asserted that explanations=excuses, if and only if all explanations = explanations for bad actions. My “essentially yes” answer is in response to your question about this particular “if” condition. The way I see it, the “for bad actions” qualifier is akin of sticking a “+0” to one side of a mathematical equation. It changes nothing.
If explanations = explanations for bad actions, it DOESN’T follow that all explanations = excuses. It. Just. Doesn’t.
I don’t care what you said ten posts upstream. I don’t care what you’re going to say ten posts downstream. I don’t care what you are saying right now. All I’m saying is that this statement:
Again? Trudge through the tedious outrage just to find an answer that would’ve taken you less effort than this this response? Pass.
Is this a yes or no? One little word answer is all I need. It’s only 2 or 3 letter long.
If you think that every explanation for bad behavior is an excuse for bad behavior, well, that’s just stupid. If you don’t, then what’s your problem with Whoopi?
My problem with you and your asshole buddy Boyo Jim is that I have abandoned that position, cited it numerous times in this thread, and yet you and he keep pounding away at it. Why should I answer a question I have answered over and over again? What is the point of these attacks? What more do you want me to do?
I showed you exactly where I changed my position. Who’s the fucking moron?
All explanations for quantum mechanics require special knowledge. Does that statement assert that all explanations require special knowledge?
*
All explanations for God are metaphysical.* Are all explanations metaphysical?
All explanations for the existence of Atlantis are speculation. Are all explanations speculation?
And so on.
Asserting that all explanations for bad behavior are excuses is not the same as asserting that all explanations are excuses, which is the specific charge I am refuting.
I would not need to assert what I am not asserting if you and your ilk did not keep assigning statements to me that I never made. I am asserting what I am not asserting in response to a post by you. Now you pester me for responding to that post? Wassup?
I have answered that question, unequivocably, half a dozen times at least. Why are you pressing this? Is it that, like Trion, you cannot be bothered to read the thread, and simply want to drive by and snipe?
