# Starving Artist - we remember you **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [December 3, 2014, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starving-artist-we-remember-you/706204 "2014-12-03T04:53:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 13
**Author:** ![El\_Kabong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_kabong/32/496_2.png) [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2014, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starving-artist-we-remember-you/706204/241 "2014-12-05T14:42:38Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Of course you’d characterize it as batshit insane. To do otherwise you’d have to admit culpability for the damage you’ve done. It certainly hasn’t been conservatives who’ve latched onto and defended drug use and mocking attempts to combat it, or created the unbelievably ridiculous practice of passing kids from one grade to the next without learning anything (or created teachers’ unions that make it all but impossible to get rid of bad teachers), or worked so hard to get as many criminals released from prison as soon as possible that three strikes laws were created in an attempt to thwart them. > > Yep, that’s all on you and yours, kiddo. I certainly would have liked to have done all these things, but I’ve been too busy going to work every day for the past thirty years. Maybe I can get to some serious society destruction once I retire. We’ll see. So, what then? Meet up around 6 PM Central time for your next performance? Looking forward to it. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2014, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starving-artist-we-remember-you/706204/242 "2014-12-05T14:52:44Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Nope, just stupidity. Yes, you’re a jerk and a liar afflicted with stupidity. And you have other negative traits too, I’m sure. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2014, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starving-artist-we-remember-you/706204/243 "2014-12-05T15:07:26Z")
> [@Mr.Nylock](#): > > Oh god, I can’t believe I am getting into this thread. But you simply have not talked to any black people who lived through the crack epidemic of the 80’s when you say this. Also you are completely ignoring the devastation caused by things such as white flight. Although I commend you on your openness to talking to other races, if what you are saying is true, you are only talking to a certain type of black person. Aren’t you and **iiiandyiii** both saying that things were worse for black people in the past? ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Nylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/77aa72/32.png) [@Mr.Nylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Nylock)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2014, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starving-artist-we-remember-you/706204/244 "2014-12-05T15:08:39Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > Aren’t you and **iiiandyiii** both saying that things were worse for black people in the past? no. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2014, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starving-artist-we-remember-you/706204/245 "2014-12-05T15:19:42Z")
> [@Mr.Nylock](#): > > no. Things were better for black people during the crack epidemic of the 1980s? ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2014, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starving-artist-we-remember-you/706204/246 "2014-12-05T15:20:45Z")
Oh are you saying things got worse in the 80s than they had been in the 70s? ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2014, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starving-artist-we-remember-you/706204/247 "2014-12-05T15:26:49Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Then why’d you use it, hmm? Because it’s an accurate reflection of your views. > [@](#): > > Yeah, so was effective education, a generally stable home life, a tiny percentage of people ruining their lives with drugs, the streets weren’t awash in violent convicts, etc., etc, etc. Firstly a) No, this was not the real 50’s anywhere outside Mayberry; and b) Irrelevant to the racism of what you said > [@](#): > > I’m sure it has a name for this kind of fallacious thinking, but I’m too tired at the moment to arse myself to look it up. Suuuure you are. There is no fallacy here - politeness, which you value as a 50s cultural marker, is no signifier of a nice place to live. > [@](#): > > At any rate, people can be polite (and shit :rolleyes: ) anywhere. Sharia law, etc., is not and has never been a requirement. I never said anything about Sharia Law. That is a complete _non sequitur._ ---
**Author:** ![Subterraneanus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a183cd/32.png) [@Subterraneanus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Subterraneanus)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2014, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starving-artist-we-remember-you/706204/248 "2014-12-05T15:29:55Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > [bolding mine] > > Thanks. I appreciate your comments. > > I’ve been wanting to come back to perhaps lend a little insight into why my thinking and the things I say might seem morally troubling or lacking in empathy to you. Basically, being a person with a conservative frame of mind, I’m simply far, far less inclined to go ballistic whenever some injustice or crime is inflicted upon somebody than are my liberal counterparts. This isn’t because I don’t care about the people who’ve been victimized, nor is it because I’m an asshole. Instead it’s because I have what seems to me to be a more practical world view in which my reaction is pretty much “well, shit happens”. It isn’t that I don’t care about rape victims, or children who are sexually abused, or women’s rights or any number of other things that get people so het up around here, it’s just that I view them as part of the overall criminality that exists in the world. So when I hear people getting all cranked up over these things I honestly find myself mystified as to what’s the big deal. > > Let’s go ahead and take the case of rape, for example. Sure, rape is bad and traumatic. But so are also a hundred other things that can and do happen to people which are a lot worse in my opinion. A person could be shot, or stabbed, or have acid thrown in their face, or be pistol whipped, or set on fire, or raised in a home with parents who fly off the handle and hit or beat them for no reason at all as far as the child can tell, so they have to live their lives in fear they could be hit or beaten at any time for no reason at all and can never live relaxed or comfortable lives. > > These or any number of other crimes occur routinely and they draw not a peep from anyone around here, nor from liberal quarters in general. > > It’s my belief also that people suffer greater harm and psychological damage from certain non-violent life experiences too, such as those caused by becoming addicted to drugs, or being passed from one grade to the next in school without having to learn a damn thing, which results in their graduating from high school as functional illiterates unable to earn a decent living and probably condemned to live their entire lives as losers who don’t have two dimes to rub together. > > And then we have people who’ve been shot, tortured, robbed, raped and killed by criminals with long rap sheets who ought to be in jail, but instead are out running around the streets still in their late twenties and early thirties, committing more crimes after having been prematurely released time after time from prison terms they were sentenced to. And I think about the pain, grief and sorrow the families of their victims have to bear. > > Frankly, to me all these are much graver crimes and both more traumatic and painful than rape. But do we hear any liberals going ballistic whenever these crimes occur? Or when the criminals perpetrating them are prematurely released? Do we hear condemnation or public shaming of drug addicts? Do we hear word one about the psychological damage to the self-image and self-esteem of the kid who graduates college unable to read and condemned to a life of embarrassment, privation and struggle? > > No, we don’t. And you know why? Because they’re all the result of liberal social attitudes and liberal activism. > > So I’ve come to be of the mind that liberals don’t really care about people – they just care about “certain” people, and “certain” crimes, which happen to punch their buttons as being politically incorrect, while at the same time they’re directly responsible themselves for a far greater degree of harm done to what is likely a far greater number of people, and in more long-lasting ways. > > So yeah, rape is a terrible crime and I don’t mean to suggest it isn’t. But there are a lot of other terrible crimes going on that in my opinion shouldn’t be going on, and until the same people who’re getting so het up every time nothing more than an allegation surfaces about sexual abuse get likewise outraged and start trying to do something to alleviate the pain and suffering caused by their own activism, I’m going to have a very hard team getting as cranked up about it as they think I should. > > You may also be mystified as to how I can make statements implying that someone is too ugly to rape, or suggest using paper towel tubes as surrogate child anuses, but the fact is that I am an honest, what-you-see-is-what-you-get type of person, and when I jab **faithfool** over her supposed lack of sex appeal, or propose the use of a paper towel tube in order to more realistically simulate the physical difficulty a 60-year-old, 6’2" man might experience in trying to carry out copulation in some two feet off the floor, that’s _all_ I have in mind. It never even occurs to me that some dolt might think I’m saying **faithfool** is too ugly to rape, or that someone is going to think I’m recommending paper towel tubes as a substitute for child anuses. To me the notion is utterly ridiculous, and for a long time I thought the people making such claims were full of shit and dishonestly seeking out some interpretation they could use to portray me in a dishonest light. I still feel that way to a degree, but in my discussion with **Bricker** it turned out he too thought I was suggesting the tubes as stand-ins for the children, and given that I have far more respect for him than I do my adversaries here, I began to realize that perhaps their seeing it that way was genuine after all. So now I’m willing to give them at least somewhat of a pass…at least until they keep it up after I’ve offered an explanation. > > All if this is by way of trying to say to you that if I should say something that seems really out there, or outrageous and insensitive, the very likely explanation is that I didn’t mean it in that way to begin with. > > You’ve been honest and reasonable in these threads and I felt I owed you an explanation given the seeming dichotomy between what you rightfully perceive to be my nice and unhateful basic nature and the comments I sometimes make that on the surface appear to contradict that perception. Hopefully you’ll take this explanation to heart because it’s the truth. There’s something wrong with you. ---
**Author:** ![Knowed\_Out](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/knowed_out/32/7380_2.png) [@Knowed\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knowed_Out)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2014, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starving-artist-we-remember-you/706204/249 "2014-12-05T15:42:33Z")
> [@Inner\_Stickler](#): > > IIRC it was predicated on the idea that when Paterno or whoever espied Sandusky in the showers with boys, he was standing straight up. So SA, has this great DIY experiment where you use the tube from a paper towel tube as a simulated child’s rectum, hold it at an angle and height that simulates where it would be on an actual child and then try to fuck it while standing straight up. Very Sherlock Holmes meets rape apologia. Huh… well, not that I’m speaking from experience mind you, but Sandusky probably used the boy’s weight to properly anchor himself. But I guess this has already been discussed thoroughly before, and I feel myself becoming slimier for even thinking about it… ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2014, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starving-artist-we-remember-you/706204/250 "2014-12-05T16:06:03Z")
> [@Mr.Nylock](#): > > Oh god, I can’t believe I am getting into this thread. But you simply have not talked to any black people who lived through the crack epidemic of the 80’s when you say this. Also you are completely ignoring the devastation caused by things such as white flight. Although I commend you on your openness to talking to other races, if what you are saying is true, you are only talking to a certain type of black person. I’ve talked to plenty of black people, younger and older. From what I remember of the conversations with those that were older, they still consider the 80s a better time for black folks than the 50s and 60s. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Nylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/77aa72/32.png) [@Mr.Nylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Nylock)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2014, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starving-artist-we-remember-you/706204/251 "2014-12-05T16:59:16Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > I’ve talked to plenty of black people, younger and older. From what I remember of the conversations with those that were older, they still consider the 80s a better time for black folks than the 50s and 60s. Well, obviosly we have been talking to different black people. ---
**Author:** ![Taber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ac91a4/32.png) [@Taber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Taber)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2014, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starving-artist-we-remember-you/706204/252 "2014-12-05T17:38:53Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > It’s not that he “favors” illiteracy, it’s that he will mock and ridicule efforts to address it, which ultimately has the same effect Oh cool, now it’s totally fair game to claim Conservatives hate the poor, women, and minorities because IMO their policies aren’t good for those groups. I mean I won’t pretend some liberals didn’t already do that, but I always thought it was a fallacy. ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2014, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starving-artist-we-remember-you/706204/253 "2014-12-05T18:24:57Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > Errm, I’m not entirely persuaded that he intended that “kindly…” Yes, it appears that i might have missed the actual point of **Shodan** ’s post. I guess i figured that, as we were having a polite exchange, he was being polite, but i was probably wrong. Anyway, it doesn’t change my overall point. **Shodan** often acts like an asshole. His whole “Regards” schtick is little more than trolling. But i still believe he makes some valuable contributions to this board, and that he is open to reason and logic (on some issues, at least) in ways that the subject of this thread is not. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2014, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starving-artist-we-remember-you/706204/254 "2014-12-05T18:59:13Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > [bolding mine] > > Thanks. I appreciate your comments. > > \ > > You’ve been honest and reasonable in these threads and I felt I owed you an explanation given the seeming dichotomy between what you rightfully perceive to be my nice and unhateful basic nature and the comments I sometimes make that on the surface appear to contradict that perception. Hopefully you’ll take this explanation to heart because it’s the truth. Okay, there is a lot there I disagree with, of course, and perhaps we can unpack some of it later, but I appreciate your willingness to try to explain yourself. Unlike many liberals, I don’t believe that conservative thought is fundamentally rooted in selfishness. I used to suspect that, but I developed a very close friendship with someone who is my polar opposite politically and that relationship has radically altered my view of conservatives. I don’t know if you have ever watched Parks and Rec but I recently told him he will forever be the [Ron Swanson](http://www.buzzfeed.com/juliapugachevsky/if-ron-swanson-quotes-were-motivational-posters) to my Lesile Knope. He humbles me. I suspect I have also changed his view of liberals. For sure we all have our pet issues, but that should not be interpreted as apathy toward other kinds of suffering. It sounds like your view of liberals has not been so radicalized. I think if you took some time to think about it, you would recognize that there are patterns in the kinds of issues that liberals appear to care the most about. They stem from perceived systemic injustice, suffering may be a part of life but it doesn’t follow that we shouldn’t try to prevent harm when we can, particularly if that harm is disproportionally heaped on one subset of the human population or another. Many issues that you ‘‘don’t hear a peep about’’ are actually issues I hear about all the time from my colleagues. I went to social work school and thus half the people I know are deeply involved in some kind of liberal cause or another. The things liberals care about are quite varied, I assure you, and the well-being of children is toward the top of the list. I have fought that particular fight myself by raising money for programs that provide educational services and resources for kids that wouldn’t otherwise have them. When I think about the inequality in our educational system, and the things that these kids have to live with on a daily basis, which I have seen by nature of working in those communities, it makes me spitting mad. But maybe you need to know liberal people and not caricatures of liberals to truly understand our motives for defending our own pet issues. I wish for you an equally enlightening personal experience as the one I have had. ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2014, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starving-artist-we-remember-you/706204/255 "2014-12-05T19:08:37Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > For sure we all have our pet issues, but that should not be interpreted as apathy toward other kinds of suffering. There’s a lot of truth to what you write but it’s not as simple as that. How much symphathy a person has to a group depends in large part on how they view the situation of that group. For example, to the extent that a given person thinks that white men are leading the privileged life on easy street, sailing along with the wind at their backs, then they will lack symphathy for the struggles that a person with that melanin level and chromosone makeup goes through. Now of course, part of the conservative mindset is to refrain from whining about how no one has enough symphathy for you. 🙂 But symphathies are translated into policy, in weighing the competing interests of various groups, and the relative lack of symphathy that a liberal would typically have for some groups has a real impact. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2014, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starving-artist-we-remember-you/706204/256 "2014-12-05T19:53:49Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > There’s a lot of truth to what you write but it’s not as simple as that. How much symphathy a person has to a group depends in large part on how they view the situation of that group. > > For example, to the extent that a given person thinks that white men are leading the privileged life on easy street, sailing along with the wind at their backs, then they will lack symphathy for the struggles that a person with that melanin level and chromosone makeup goes through. > > Now of course, part of the conservative mindset is to refrain from whining about how no one has enough symphathy for you. 🙂 But symphathies are translated into policy, in weighing the competing interests of various groups, and the relative lack of symphathy that a liberal would typically have for some groups has a real impact. I think it’s not as simple as having less empathy, more in viewing problems of the ‘‘privileged’’ demographics to be less a result of systemic problems and therefore less likely to be preventable. Of course, liberals are sometimes wrong about this - bias in the court systems against men who seek child custody is very much a systemic problem, for example. And you are correct that is not a pet cause of many liberals. I’m sharing this incredibly thought-provoking article that explores the reasons one political side might highlight some issues while ignoring others. I think the article is fair to both sides, and the issues it raises are probably worthy of their own thread. I know that for me, personally, it was a difficult lesson to process. [Slate Star Codex: 5 Case Studies on Politicization.](http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/10/16/five-case-studies-on-politicization/) > [@](#): > > Yes, you would think that the systematic rape of thousands of women with police taking no action might be a feminist issue. Or that it might outrage some people on Tumblr, a site which has many flaws but which has never been accused of being slow to outrage. But the goal here isn’t to push some kind of Platonic ideal of what’s important, it’s to support a certain narrative that ties into the Blue Tribe narrative. Rotherham does the opposite of that. The Jennifer Lawrence nudes, which center around how hackers (read: creepy internet nerds) shared nude pictures of a beloved celebrity on Reddit (read: creepy internet nerds) and 4Chan (read: creepy internet nerds) – and #Gamergate which does the same – are exactly the narrative they want to push, so they become the Stories Of The Century. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2014, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starving-artist-we-remember-you/706204/257 "2014-12-05T20:52:15Z")
It’s not about “liberal” vs. “conservative”. That’s one of your biggest flaws – it’s like you see everything as a matter of political views. And life just isn’t like that. > [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > [bolding mine] > > Thanks. I appreciate your comments. > > I’ve been wanting to come back to perhaps lend a little insight into why my thinking and the things I say might seem morally troubling or lacking in empathy to you. Basically, being a person with a conservative frame of mind, I’m simply far, far less inclined to go ballistic whenever some injustice or crime is inflicted upon somebody than are my liberal counterparts. This isn’t because I don’t care about the people who’ve been victimized, nor is it because I’m an asshole. Instead it’s because I have what seems to me to be a more practical world view in which my reaction is pretty much “well, shit happens”. It isn’t that I don’t care about rape victims, or children who are sexually abused, or women’s rights or any number of other things that get people so het up around here, it’s just that I view them as part of the overall criminality that exists in the world. So when I hear people getting all cranked up over these things I honestly find myself mystified as to what’s the big deal. > > Let’s go ahead and take the case of rape, for example. Sure, rape is bad and traumatic. But so are also a hundred other things that can and do happen to people which are a lot worse in my opinion. A person could be shot, or stabbed, or have acid thrown in their face, or be pistol whipped, or set on fire, or raised in a home with parents who fly off the handle and hit or beat them for no reason at all as far as the child can tell, so they have to live their lives in fear they could be hit or beaten at any time for no reason at all and can never live relaxed or comfortable lives. > > These or any number of other crimes occur routinely and they draw not a peep from anyone around here, nor from liberal quarters in general. > > It’s my belief also that people suffer greater harm and psychological damage from certain non-violent life experiences too, such as those caused by becoming addicted to drugs, or being passed from one grade to the next in school without having to learn a damn thing, which results in their graduating from high school as functional illiterates unable to earn a decent living and probably condemned to live their entire lives as losers who don’t have two dimes to rub together. > > And then we have people who’ve been shot, tortured, robbed, raped and killed by criminals with long rap sheets who ought to be in jail, but instead are out running around the streets still in their late twenties and early thirties, committing more crimes after having been prematurely released time after time from prison terms they were sentenced to. And I think about the pain, grief and sorrow the families of their victims have to bear. > > Frankly, to me all these are much graver crimes and both more traumatic and painful than rape. But do we hear any liberals going ballistic whenever these crimes occur? Or when the criminals perpetrating them are prematurely released? Do we hear condemnation or public shaming of drug addicts? Do we hear word one about the psychological damage to the self-image and self-esteem of the kid who graduates college unable to read and condemned to a life of embarrassment, privation and struggle? > > No, we don’t. And you know why? Because they’re all the result of liberal social attitudes and liberal activism. > > So I’ve come to be of the mind that liberals don’t really care about people – they just care about “certain” people, and “certain” crimes, which happen to punch their buttons as being politically incorrect, while at the same time they’re directly responsible themselves for a far greater degree of harm done to what is likely a far greater number of people, and in more long-lasting ways. > > So yeah, rape is a terrible crime and I don’t mean to suggest it isn’t. But there are a lot of other terrible crimes going on that in my opinion shouldn’t be going on, and until the same people who’re getting so het up every time nothing more than an allegation surfaces about sexual abuse get likewise outraged and start trying to do something to alleviate the pain and suffering caused by their own activism, I’m going to have a very hard team getting as cranked up about it as they think I should. > > You may also be mystified as to how I can make statements implying that someone is too ugly to rape, or suggest using paper towel tubes as surrogate child anuses, but the fact is that I am an honest, what-you-see-is-what-you-get type of person, and when I jab **faithfool** over her supposed lack of sex appeal, or propose the use of a paper towel tube in order to more realistically simulate the physical difficulty a 60-year-old, 6’2" man might experience in trying to carry out copulation in some two feet off the floor, that’s _all_ I have in mind. It never even occurs to me that some dolt might think I’m saying **faithfool** is too ugly to rape, or that someone is going to think I’m recommending paper towel tubes as a substitute for child anuses. To me the notion is utterly ridiculous, and for a long time I thought the people making such claims were full of shit and dishonestly seeking out some interpretation they could use to portray me in a dishonest light. I still feel that way to a degree, but in my discussion with **Bricker** it turned out he too thought I was suggesting the tubes as stand-ins for the children, and given that I have far more respect for him than I do my adversaries here, I began to realize that perhaps their seeing it that way was genuine after all. So now I’m willing to give them at least somewhat of a pass…at least until they keep it up after I’ve offered an explanation. > > All if this is by way of trying to say to you that if I should say something that seems really out there, or outrageous and insensitive, the very likely explanation is that I didn’t mean it in that way to begin with. > > You’ve been honest and reasonable in these threads and I felt I owed you an explanation given the seeming dichotomy between what you rightfully perceive to be my nice and unhateful basic nature and the comments I sometimes make that on the surface appear to contradict that perception. Hopefully you’ll take this explanation to heart because it’s the truth. Spoken like a true sociopath. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Nylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/77aa72/32.png) [@Mr.Nylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Nylock)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2014, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starving-artist-we-remember-you/706204/258 "2014-12-05T21:25:48Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > Oh are you saying things got worse in the 80s than they had been in the 70s? No. I am saying what I wrote. I am making no other inferences or exptrapolaions. I am saying that life is not universally better for all black people. Anecdotally, I know of areas that really were hit hard by the crack epidemic, and have met people who have told me about it. There is also the sociological phenomenon of white flight which as far as I know is accepted as a factual thing that does indeed exist. Inner city black people were effected by these things; some neighborhoods deteriorated tremendously. Those who could not get out of them were not in better shape before these event occurred; those who were able to move and adapt probably do have a better life now. It depends upon who you talk to. The loss of factory and union jobs of course is another thing to effect black people. The restructuring of welfare benefits under Clinton also had a polarizing effect: \*But while welfare reform may have initially reduced poverty, it left those still living at that income level worse off than they were before, reaching fewer of them and giving those it did reach less. And our poverty rates didn’t stay low. When they began to rise again, the program couldn’t offer them the support it used to. The recession has been a crystal clear, and incredibly painful, demonstration of this fact. Dylan Matthews has already taken a look at the claim that millions moved off of welfare’s rolls and poverty was reduced. As he writes, the program’s numbers have steadily fallen since 1996: “Since reform, the rolls have shrunk from 12.6 million to 4.6 million.” The number of people in poverty “fell by 6.4 million people under Clinton, whereas the number of people in poverty increased by 7.4 million between 1981 and 1993 (and the rate went from 14 percent to 15.1 percent).” There is a catch, though. “But it’s worth noting that welfare reform led to a huge spike in extreme poverty, as defined as the number of households making under $2 a day,” Matthews adds.\* [The Nation](http://www.thenation.com/blog/169788/clinton-touts-welfare-reform-heres-how-it-failed) So, to me, someone saying that every black person they have talked to thinks life is better just makes me think they have an isolated view. To use that isolated view as a basis for “fighting ignorance” seems silly to me. It’s just my opinion. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2014, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starving-artist-we-remember-you/706204/259 "2014-12-05T21:47:19Z")
Surely there are studies on this sort of thing, detailed statistical analyses stating with high degrees of confidence whether or not Americans blacks feel they are better off and to precisely what extent Starving Artist’s brain was damaged during the extended solvent-huffing phase he went through between 1987 and 2003. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Nylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/77aa72/32.png) [@Mr.Nylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Nylock)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2014, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starving-artist-we-remember-you/706204/260 "2014-12-05T21:49:24Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Surely there are studies on this sort of thing, detailed statistical analyses stating with high degrees of confidence whether or not Americans blacks feel they are better off and to precisely what extent Starving Artist’s brain was damaged during the extended solvent-huffing phase he went through between 1987 and 2003. I’m sure there are; it’s all on the interwebs. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starving-artist-we-remember-you/706204.md?page=12) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starving-artist-we-remember-you/706204.md?page=14)