I don’t give a damn what the words are, as long as they’re not directly inciting to violence with a realistic chance of that violence occuring. Yes, I think those words were over a line – but that doesn’t entitle anybody to knock teeth out. Somebody crossing one line doesn’t entitle you to cross an entirely different one.
– thanks, @Left_Hand_of_Dorkness.
That’s a lot better than agreeing with that post of MJ’s.
And of course a lot of the responses are not about the initial issue. Because she keeps on attacking people treating them like garbage. Most of the reactions are to her being awful to others.
If you want to try and tell people to stop being mean, you also can’t have a double standard and apply that to them and not Beck.
That’s what my main objection was to MJ’s post.
Is it worse to say that to a grandmother than, say, a thirty year old man?
I feel like this has to be a trick question. Of course it is.
Imagine for a minute, Mr. Dibble walking up to Beck with IVs in her arm receiving her dialysis, and saying what he said to her face. I hope that he would have the human decency to be embarrassed about it. Regardless of whatever she has said.
Why?
(OK, discourse)
I’d tend to agree with you, except the specifics are getting in the way. You can’t just skip over shitty contributions in threads that you’re interested in.
I generally like Beck as a poster, even though I don’t read any of her threads. I have no interest in the folksy-chatty, sharing stuff about your day or other random thoughts type of threads. But other people enjoy them, and that makes me happy.
But when she brings it into FQ, it derails threads. That brown bear thread is a good example - there’s a factual discussion, and then she chimes in with personal anecdotes and misinformation (or “jokes”). It isn’t only that it adds nothing to the thread; it actively subtracts from it.
And to be clear, she doesn’t need to stay out of those threads. I think she is capable of making good contributions everywhere. It’s the folksy anecdotes centering her that I can do without.
The slut-shaming TWERF bullshit is a whole other thing, but that’s about odious opinions, not behavior, and there’s already been plenty said on that. And no Beck, no one thinks you shouldn’t have opinions or be allowed to share them. But accept that you’ll get plenty of disagreement when you express them.
That would apply to basically everything said in this thread. I don’t see any special difference in what MrDibble said. The line you are drawing seems quite arbitrary, and Beck’s attacks on him were of the same level.
In real life, I agree this would be beyond the pale. But this is the Pit. It literally exists to vent explosive anger.
The only thing I might add, between your insightful distinctions between harmful stuff and harmless stuff (if that’s a fair summary), is that there’s plenty of stuff that’s–well, harmful in the way that capitalism is harmful. I linked before to this really interesting article, but here’s the link again:
I come away thinking that it’s describing something that’s far from a libertine utopia, but is also not clearly worse than any other business with subcontractors. The labor criticisms I’d have of it would be similar to the criticisms I’d have of many restaurants, or factories, or offices.
Stuff is complicated. The article’s worth reading.
Pineapple can be okay, if paired with the right kind of meats, but Cheddar Cheese on a Pizza is a Fucking Abomination!
I’m losing track in a long thread. Who’s MJ, and what do you think I said that agreed with them?
mjmartin. And you quoted him and said you “thirded” him. It was the post where he said everyone else was being “abusive” to Beck but ignored her reactions to others.
Saying that it’s not likely to be convincing is a better argument, and obviously one I share.
That is a fair point.
I honestly didn’t see anything that came to that level. It’s a long thread, I probably missed it.
You (and others) have managed to express all your views without being nasty and personal.
@mjmartin I don’t hold others to my own personal standards when it comes to Pit threads. It is my choice to use it differently.
Not at all. Does the grandmother deserve a different standard of treatment because she’s old? Because she’s female? Because she has adult children?
Sorry, when did dialysis enter the conversation? I thought we were talking about grandmothers.
What size wheels do you recommend for goalposts?
Perhaps I was raised differently than others. Where I grew up, people of a certain age were treated with a certain level of deference. You certainly didn’t have to agree with them, but nor did you go out of your way to treat them like shit.
We are talking about Beck, right? This isn’t a hypothetical person. The two things I know about her is that she’s a grandmother and that she’s on dialysis.
I think I understand what @MrDibble was going for. Beck has repeatedly suggested that men who disagree with her about ruining the career of the teacher in question are motivated by pathetic sexual urges, and she’s been somewhat explicit about those fantasies, both in IMHO and in this thread. @MrDibble, I believe, was simply doing the same to her, suggesting what pathetic sexual urges might motivate her own position.
But I wouldn’t do that. Turnabout isn’t really fair play in this case: explicit and insulting sexual talk toward women just reads different from explicit and insulting sexual talk toward men, IMO. Everything happens in a context, and I think the context makes this turnabout not the best idea.
My take, anyway.
I’m kind of surprised at the vigorousness of the defense for pornographers involved in child care. Even if the pornography is actor-led and non-coercive, I’d feel a bit pensive about leaving a toddler in the care of someone whose side gig is having sex on camera.
Its like catching your sitter having a drunken argument at Taco Bell before throwing up in the trash can and getting a ride home. Sure, none of that is illegal, but it doesn’t display the competent level headed decision making I’m looking for in a child care professional. I’m not exactly a prude, but “I’ll let you watch me suck my husband’s dick for $100” is also not the type of decision making I’m looking for.
Folks are angry that Beck doesn’t want a pornographer being in charge of a classroom of kids, as if they’d say to their spouse “Hey, you’ll never guess who I saw giving a BJ on the internet… Sally! Isn’t that funny? We’ll have to ask her about it when we go to your cousin’s wedding, since she’s watching the kids that night.”
I was raised to believe that being old or female doesn’t give you a pass on being an asshole. Anyway, you’d be hard pressed to find a poster on this board who isn’t “of a certain age” anymore. We’re almost all of us old enough to be grandparents, even if we don’t actually have any.
Right, but you said being mean to her was unacceptable because she’s a grandparent. Then you started talking about dialysis, which, of course, not particularly correlated with being a grandparent. So, is having kidney problems also supposed to be a free pass on being an asshole?
What I’m looking for in a teacher is “doesn’t try to fuck my kids” and “is able to help teach them to be intelligent and thoughtful human beings”.