You point was (again using caps) that it’s somehow surprising/bad/wrong that when people talk about any of the good things during the 1950’s, all the evil things are brought up.
It’s the difference between “I really wish that the trains would run on a tight schedule, that’s be much better.” and “Man, under the fascists the trains really ran on a tight schedule. That was really good, we should get back to that.”
You want people to dress nicely or what have you? Fine, argue for that. But it’s the same difference as above. “I really wish that people would dress nicely and gun culture was mainstream.” versus “Man, under the anti-civil rights era people dressed nicely and you could carry a gun without being hassled. That was really good, we should go back to that.”
This would all be especially true if someone was reminiscing fondly about how awesome society was under fascism just as SA does about how awesome society was during the anti-civil rights era.
If you don’t want the context of your comments to be objected to, then situate them in a different context.
Perhaps that’s why I’ve said, several times, that some things might have been better but that the nature of the time means that when those better things are longed for in the context of reminiscing about that time period, that the many evils of that time are brought up. I even gave a list of some of them in my first response to you.
It’s a bit different in that that war was bitterly opposed on many fronts while Jim Crow existed for a long time with no serious mainstream challenge, but yah, a bad, bad time in American history.
Well, Finn, this is where you and I differ. I don’t think of the 1950s as “the anti-civil-rights era.” I think of them as “the 1950s.”
Like I said, you will find bad shit in every era. If you want to, you can only label it by the bad things that happened. Instead of the “Revolutionary War Era” you can call it “the slavery era.” Instead of the “industrial revolution” you can call it “the people being exploited era.” If you’re so hung up on racism, then go ahead and define every era only by racism. It’s your call.
The argument you’re using is the exact same argument that the anti-Israel crowd, which you and I both hate, uses. “Israel is oppressing the Arabs, therefore everything about the country is bad, I’ll ignore the fact that it’s the only democracy in the Middle East and it’s an epicenter of technological and scientific development, and a place where people can openly express themselves without fear of being stoned, and there are women’s rights, etc. Instead I’ll just focus on that one thing and define Israel solely by its policy towards Arabs.” You know how foolish that reasoning is.
You accusing other people of arguing dishonestly is the most hilarious thing ever posted to these boards. Not only do you do it, you do nothing but.
But if it’s any consolation, i won’t make gratuitous references to your age, because it’s irrelevant. I believe that you were probably a model of dishonesty in your youth as well.
And I don’t suppose any of the post-1968 “problematic mindset” you quote could ever be laid at the feet of the right wingers who killed MLK or RFK, or the NG shootings at Kent State, or J. Edgar Hoover’s abuse of power, or any of myriad other “conservative” evils? Society’s shameful slide into iniquity was all the fault of The Beatles and free love? If you want to pick '68 as the beginning of the end, there are plenty of examples from the other side of the fence.
As far as your assertion that song lyrics these days glorify misogyny/violence/etc., it’s hard to argue that lines like these are pretty fucked (oops! - I mean fouled) up:
Come here you sweet bitch, give me that pussy let me get in your drawers
I’m gonna make you think you fuckin’ with Santa Claus
Only problem is, those lyrics were from a song written in 1938 by Jelly Roll Morton called “Make Me A Pallet On The Floor”. Ah, the good old days.
You know…abortion was very rampent back in those days too…but it was under the table…and women DIED from it! For crying out loud, abortion is a nessary evil. Sure it would be nice if it didn’t exist, but it’s always going to exist due to various and sundry factors.
I get what you’re trying to say, but that’s a horrible example. Was that song a multi-million-selling single? Did it make Jelly Roll Morton a millionaire and skyrocket him to the top of the charts? Would the average teenager in 1938 be listening to that song or other songs like it?
There was lots of obscenity back then; there just wasn’t the same mainstream tolerance of it like there is now. Don’t get me wrong, I love obscenity. Fuck shit ass bitch cunt, shoo-be-dee-doo-wop. Skippity-bebop, a-Christopher Reeve; Sonny Bono, skis, horses and hittin’ some trees!
I’ll answer this and then I’ve got to leave for the night.
Sam is a great guy. He’s more knowledgeable than I am on a great many subjects and he posts in a much more reasoned and educational style. He is well suited for the Great Debates forum. He also posts much less than I do and so he can take the time to write well-crafted and well-cited posts, but even at that he still comes in for most of the same insults I do, just not so frequently.
My purpose here is not to engage in dialog. Open and educational dialog here is impossible for pretty much anyone to the right of Karl Marx. When I first came here, I actually believed there was some merit in the “fighting ignorance” meme and I tried to honor the Straight Dope traditions that many here seemed to follow, such as acknowledging and apologizing when I wrong, trying to answer cite requests (or demands, more accurately), and tried to engage in honest conversations about the issues.
But that didn’t last long. It soon became apparent that cite demands were little more than obfuscatory attempts to derail comments that my opponents didn’t like. More often than not they were made in regard to subjective things where no legitimate cite could even be said to exist. And further, I’ve yet to see a single cite around here that ever settled anything. I show you one cite and you show me another that contradicts it, so I show you another and you show me another, and on and on it goes, with nothing having ever been settled. Still, I have no problem with probative cites where they exist, but most of the things I discuss don’t lend themselves to data proofs on the internet.
And then there’s the issue of how most posters around here talk about the right, and how much of it is dead wrong. But after about my 100th (or maybe 1,000th) pile-on in an attempt to correct these wrongs, I thought (in my 1950’s way) “Gosh darn, it! If that’s how these guys are gonna act, then I’m just gonna have to fight fire with fire and give 'em as good as I get.” (Okay, I didn’t really think in those 1950’s terms, I confess.)
So now I simply lay it all out on the table and let people make of it what they will. In my opinion, it’s important for people reading these boards to learn that there’s another side to things than the overwhelmingly pervasive (Conservatives/Republicans are teh suxxor/EEVIL) that is virtually all one sees around here in the Pit and GD, and to a lessor but still considerable extent in CS, MPSIMS and IMHO.
I’ve also come to the consclusion that for many liberals around here, the things I say may be the first time anyone has even suggested to them that bad things up to and including deaths and misery can result from liberal efforts, so insulated, self-congratulatory, and ensconced in mental ivory towers they seem to be.
So like I said, I decided to just say what I felt like and let the chips fall where they may. In a sense, I’m the mirror image of most of the anti-conservative posters here, and posting that way has worked out pretty well. I don’t get bogged down trying to walk on eggshells so as not to offend people who are gonna get offended anyway, and I get to present an opposing point of view that many people, I’m convinced, don’t even know is out there.
So in other words, what I try to do is give as good as I (or my ideological brethren) get, put out an opposing viewpoint in the hope that people will see that there are at least two sides to these issues, and then for those who don’t…well, no harm done, at least I tried.
I hate liberals more than you do, and I think you’re a gigantic, racist, sexist, classist asshole. It’s Fox-watching douchebags like you who are responsible for convincing people that conservatism and liberalism are the only possible options, and that these together encompass the whole and entire spectrum of possibility.
I still have to see anything original coming from you.
Like Sara Palin saying “teach the controversy” regarding creationism, you are really wrong into assuming one should give equal value to two sides in an issue.
The reason why I said no before was that in reality evidence or good cites has value, even if you do not believe so. I have seen very good evidence from defenders of gun rights at the dope that has convinced me that banning guns is not a good idea, the reality is that that you are not learning anything nor teaching anything when you do not support your ignorant positions.
Well, you see the problem there is you’re an idiot.
Not only do I not watch Fox (or should I say not more than an hour in six months to a year), but I’ve said nothing around here that any reasonable, thinking person could possibly conclude makes me either racist, sexist or classist. Gigantic is relative though, so maybe you’re right or maybe you’re not. I’ve also said nothing about conservatism and liberalism being the only two options. They are however, the main fronts on which the culture war going on right now is being fought.
But don’t feel bad (or badly, as I was taught in the bad old days of racism). Lots of other idiots around here aren’t right even one in five times.
ETA: Okay, I really am out now. (I really am, Rubystreak!) Please, if any of you have any sense of decency, don’t post anything provocative for the next half hour or so. I must get to sleep.
Ok, this I have to agree with. I remember I didn’t like it when someone did it to me. Back before the 2004 election, I was posting a lot of hotheaded rants because I was angry at so many things, such as Bush’s lies, and the deaths they caused. Anyone reading me might have just pegged me as a hotheaded liberal, but when I happened to post that one of the reasons why I was so angry was because I wanted my granddaughter to grow up in a better world, someone latched onto that and dismissed me thereafter as a “granny” (meaning a cranky old biddy) despite the fact that I’ve held the same liberal views and philosophy since becoming politically aware in my teens. So yeah, I agree that too many people here lack the intellectual honesty to engage solely on the issues if they have some sort of personal information to draw on which which to try to deflect arguments they don’t like. I mean, damn, it was still being done years after the 2004 election.
If you’re around the same age as I am, then you’ve got some explaining to do about how you remember those glorious, polite '50’s. I was born in August 1956, which means I wasn’t quite 3 1/2 when the '60’s came into being. The only thing I remember about the 50’s was the neighbor who molested me on a regular basis and gave me nightmares that took me years to stop having. He musta been a liberal, huh?
Well, he’s got good taste in music, I’ll give him that.
I really don’t know why you people bother. SA’s knowledge stops at the end of his nose. He is convinced only by his own subjective perception of his own experiences, and he’s proud of it. The whole scientific revolution just didn’t happen. Why you would take the time to trade anecdotes with someone who’s thinking hasn’t caught up with the Enlightenment I have no idea. He will quite freely admit that his experience trumps any study. Never mind the 50’s, he’s not past the 1600’s yet.
So what this means, for those trying to figure out why they still bother with you, is that, unlike the good old days when you first posted here, that long-gone era known as the 2000s, you now freely engage in dishonest conversations in which you simply refuse to acknowledge ever being wrong about anything and will not, on principle, support any wild assertions you make on any subject.
Indeed. Rather than stand up to the degradation of the boards/culture by the kids with their hippin and their hoppin and their bippin and their boppin, SA has chosen to embrace it and adopt their posting style/attitude. This is likely because of the permissiveness of the liberals and their accursed media. They’ve finally worn him down.
