Your Reading Comprehension 101 exercise for today is this excerpt from the news:
Questions:
What did Friedemann think was a normal and expected consequence of Romney’s behavior?
How does this illustrate the rules of the place and time in which Friedemann lived?
I suppose I’m with tomndebb – this is pretty bad, but it’s less bad than it seems. The culture at the time – esp. in upper crust schools of the type – was incredibly hostile to non-mainstream expression, and hazing was accepted and encouraged, even institutionally. It was so long ago,and Romney was so young, that it’s perfectly reasonable to accept that someone who did something like this has grown up and would be horrified by such behvaior now. (Although there is no evidence that this is true of Romney – his demeanor during his fake “apology” suggests the opposite.)
That said, let’s not lose sight of the fact that the majority of kids didn’t hold down their peers and assault them. My dad, two years older than Romney and one of the more popular kids in his high school because of his spot-on JFK impression, never pulled something like this. Your dad probably never pulled something like this. And it is absolutely not trivial that this shitstain did.
–Cliffy
–Cliffy
I think bullying is more of a character flaw than a personality flaw.
With that said, I totally agree that people can mature, especially young men.
Pretending you don’t remember being a bully when you were a young man is also more of a character flaw than a personality flaw. Generally, I think owning up to what you did is a character trait rather than a personality trait.
Of course if it turns out that the reason he doesn’t remember is because he didn’t do it then…
Yeah but it is a bit mitigated by the passage of time, don’t you think?
I think you’re overstating it a bit aren’t you? Its not totally irrelevant if it fits into a pattern of behaviour.
I know a lot of sadistic kids that grew up to be perfectly well adjusted adults.
Now you’re bullying Martin Hyde with cites and facts. You’re no better than Romney.
Cite please.
Are you under the impression that Democrats are the ones who think they have a monopoly on good ideas?
Are you under the impression that Democrats are more party line voters than Republicans?
Social issues are what is getting them elected.
I generally agree with this except the part about corporate taxation. The response to tax forum shopping by large multinational corporations should be better coordination between developed and developing economies, not a race to the bottom.
I think you understate the problem with Republicans. The biggest long term problem confronting this country today is medicare/medicaid and the health care system in general (Social security can mostly be be solved by removing the cap). If we don’t address this one issue then nothing else will make much of a difference. The Republican solution USED TO BE something that looks an awful lot like Obamacare. Now their solution is tort reform. thats fucking retarded.
Combine this with the laissez faire attitudes that would pave the way for a second economic collapse like the one we just saw and a disregard for science and the environment and you have a party that should either be repalkced or permanently relegated to the role of loyal opposition.
Talking with you is like “message board communication for infants.” Nothing in that article suggests the administration even heard about it, just that his friend “waited to see what happened.”
So the point that he may have “got off” because of his daddy is ludicrous, there is no evidence anyone in authority knew about it. Now, the idea that it would have been a big deal just because Friedemann was waiting to see what discipline came down is faulty logic.
Well, now that we’ve established that you fail basic exercises in English language comprehension, we can kick you out once your side gets that official-language thing taken care of…
A pair of mutually exclusive statements ought to separated by enough filler to maintain the illusion of respect for the reader’s intelligence.
I didn’t respond to those pointless facts when posted because they were meaningless. I say bullying as a child has nothing to do with what type of man you’ll be, because we continue to mature for some time after High School. MoronPeople posts some irrelevant study about how some portion of people who bully at some age are still bullying at age 32. It’s like 25%, according to that study.
If we have evidence Romney was bullying people at age 32 or age 52 or age 62 that would be relevant, in my mind, to assessing the character of Romney the man. It doesn’t matter that there is some “chance” that someone who bullied people at age 14 will still be bullying people as an adult, that’s almost “obvious” there is no reason to even do a study like that.
Obamacare is a bad idea and it was a bad idea when the Republicans proposed something similar in the 90s or when Mitt organized something similar in Massachusetts–at least it is without proper cost controls, which Obamacare lacks. If the individual mandate gets struck down it’ll be even worse.
The reason health care is a looming nightmare is because of out of control increases in cost, far and away higher than the inflation rate. Obama approached it as though the number one problem with health care is lack of coverage for the uninsured, that’s a problem but not the real root problem. The out of control costs have a lot to do with why health care has become so unaffordable, and without a real system to control those costs Obama has just put a huge burden on the American people for years to come.
Come back when make sense. I have trouble understanding morons.
It’s common for the wicked to understand, on some level, that righteous people are better than them and to resent them for it.
I don’t say this is disqualifying but I will answer your question. I voted for Clinton but did not follow anything about the Paula Jones case at the time. Actually I was recently reading something about all of that and it changed my opinion of him.
My typical take on any of this stuff, whether demo or repub is that there is typically some truth, it does say something about the person, nobody is perfect and the problems would have to rise to a significant level or have a consistent pattern before it would influence me.
On the other hand, when someone calls everyone an “idiot” for thinking it’s an issue at all - well, I disagree with that too - it’s too extreme and irrational a position to take.
I can try to explain it to you. You see, you didn’t answer, or even attempt to address the two questions he posted to you. In fact you ignored the entire point of his post and replied as if he said something other than what he said. This is what we refer to as a lack of reading comprehension, or failing to understand what you read. Make sense?
By the way, have you actually called every person in this thread besides yourself an idiot, moron, stupid or some other synonym of stupid? If not, it sure seems like it. What does it say about your position when you feel like every person besides yourself is an idiot? What’s more likely, 99% of people are idiots, or you (1 person) is just wrong? What does probability tell you?
On the SDMB the more leftists who disagree with you the higher the likelihood you are correct in your belief.
Although I’m not sure it’s an expose if the person involved has written about it extensively and candidly.
Leftists huh? Does that make you a rightist?
So you are still standing by your belief that everyone else is a moron besides you then? Must be lonely being the only smart person huh?
So at the same time it has “nothing to do with” and also it’s “obvious” it can have something to do with future behavior.
So it’s both nothing and obviously not nothing at the same time.
Now I know where you stumbled on the IQ test, question #47:
Is “nothing” equal to “not nothing”?
Note: BOOM! point RaftPeople
No Martin is just so much smarter than us that we can’t even understand his logic. Its just way over our poor little heads to try and comprehend.
/sarcasm
I’d pegged you as something of a moron before but I hadn’t realized what a sad hateful little piece of shit you are.
It’s exhausting talking to someone as stupid as you. And not to beat a dead horse but if you really think IQ tests are worth a damn you’re way off base. Even your fellow leftists will probably agree with me on that.
Anyway, you have blatantly misstated my position. I said that bullying as a child has nothing to do with what kind of man you’ll be because you can continue to evolve and grow.
Then I said that it doesn’t matter that there is “some chance” that people who bullied at 14 will still bully at 32, and that it was obvious. That isn’t the same as me saying bullying as a child has anything to do with bullying as an adult–although I actually said nothing along those lines, I just said bullying as a child has nothing to do with what type of man you’ll be.
Once you have fully mature you are going to make decisions and be the type of person that you’re going to be. Some sweet kids turn into assholes, some assholes turn into good men. Your study just shows, as I said, something that is obvious. Take 100 kids at age 14, there is a % chance that some of them will be bullies. Take those same 100 kids when they are 32 year old adults, there is some chance that a % of them will be bullies. There is also some chance that a percentage of the bullies @ 32 will have been in the bully group at 14. All that shows is some people who are bullies as children stay bullies their entire lives, but it doesn’t actually do anything to advance the notion that bullying as a child is indicative of what type of adult you will be, only that some portion of childhood bullies become adult bullies–something that, based on simple mathematics (% of y, % of x, and % of y/x overlap) and probability should be obvious to anyone.
He’s been pretty open about it for a good six years, at least. [
](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=7096205&postcount=80)
This from a guy who, in an early post of his, is talking about how he may have to give his daughter up to foster care because him and his wife may be too incompetent to be legal guardians of a child.
I’ll give the appropriate weight to anything someone like you has to say.