The OP’s complaint and POV seems pretty clear to me. I just love it when I’m sitting around a group of friends who happen to be minority, or a group of friends who happen to be women, and they feel comfortable around me and starting bitching about “The Man” or men in general and after awhile I get kinda quiet 'cause I really don’t have much to say then one of them remembers I just happen to be a white guy and they’ll say “oh, we don’t me you of course.”
Yeah, who did you mean?
If you haven’t heard it, haven’t experienced it, good for you. But it’s not made up.
I never thought of smiling bandit as a particularly bad or unreasonable guy, but he’s sure taken a disliking to me quickly. In fact, he’s responded to my criticism with burning hatred and animosity, on a personal level that’s quite surprising. Seems to me the only reason someone would get that het up over their critics is because somewhere, deep down, he knows the criticism is right, and he resents the messenger for it.
I long for the days when would one could peruse the Pit and come across ideas that were actually provocative and offensive. There’s nothing controversial about these ideas. How boring.
Now, now, let’s be fair. I’ve interacted with plenty of conservatives on this board, and Lonesome here is the only one who I’ve ever managed to so completely fluster with my arguments that he was left with no recourse but to call me a faggot. So, really, in the interest of strictest accuracy, it should be, “If reactionary, knuckledragging fucksticks who never learned to read past a third grade level couldn’t call people faggots, they’d be struck dumb.”
No, make that, “struck mute.” “Struck dumb,” is obviously redundant, in this circumstance.
There is, but there are enough shitstains on this board who think anyone who disagrees with them is the Antichrist that sometimes the middle gets obscured.
You called him a racist, what did you expect for a reaction? Considering this got moved to the pit, he seems to have stay rather civil.
you with the face: Thank you for proving the point I was trying to make to Skip. You should have read more than the Op. This was a joke started in MPSIMS that got moved to the pit on a mods whim.
True, true. “If you gaze too long into a void, the void will gaze back into you.” I have gazed into the gaping abyss that is **Lonesome’s ** empty cranium long enough that I’m starting to use his debating techniques. Clearly, I need to step back from the precipice.
This thread wasn’t started in the Pit. Skip moved it, and it IMO, moved it purposely so the OP could be mocked and get a new asshole torn out.
The OP didn’t intend for this to be provocative or offensive, I don’t think. He’s feeling depressed about white men being blamed for practically every bad thing that’s ever happened to the world and many of the posters here refuse to allow him that feeling. Either white men never actually get blamed for anything, or white men actually are to blame for everything, and have no cause to feel bad about being blamed for it, or their lives are so rosy and perfect and privileged the very thought they’d feel bad about being blamed for anything is ridiculous.
No, it was moved because underneath all of the silly hyperbole it was a complaint thread that belonged in the Pit. It can sink to the bottom and disappear or float to the top and stay on the first page for a few days; in either case, I don’t really care.
The OP thought he was making a point and decided to use hyperbole to emphasize that point.
Using hyperbole doesn’t turn a non-joke into a joke. He wanted to complain about the way white dudes are treated.
Just to be absolutely clear, since it seems there are people who aren’t clear about this, no one in this thread ever believed that he was seriously suggesting that white men are going to be or should be killed. No one.
People are mocking his poor me post. They aren’t taking his words literally.
I’m sure that he didn’t mean it to be either, but the fact remains that the OP is clearly a rant, and should therefore be in the Pit. Moving something to the Pit is not a guarantee that it will be “mocked and the OP torn a new asshole,” so I don’t think it’s fair or accurate to assign that as a motive to SkipMagic in moving the thread here.
As to the validity of his complaint, part of the problem is that he’s complaining in generalities, which makes it hard to know precisely what he’s complaining about. There are, indeed, some people who are too willing to blame every possible ill on white people. There are also some white people who are willing to dismiss very real racial and/or historical problems as whining or “reverse” racism. Is smiling bandit legitimatly complaining about the first group, or a member of the second group? From this one post, it’s hard to say, and people are most likely going to read it in the context of whichever sort of complaint they’re most familiar with. You seem to have had run-ins with people of the first sort, so you’re more sympathetic to the OP. fetus has had more run-ins with the second, so that’s the prism he sees the OP through. That’s the problem with couching rants in generalities: the people who read the rant are going to associate it with specifics from their own lives, and reach a reasonable conclusion that was never intended by the OP.
I would like to think that if I were called a racist, I would defend my position rather than resorting to invective directed at particular posters. I’ve certainly been criticized harshly on these Boards and in #straightdope, but I can’t even tell you who did it, because I responded to the criticism, not the critic. And when there was truth to it, I like to think that I acknowledged it. I’m not saying I’ve acted like a saint in this thread, I’m just saying it’s amusing to watch smiling bandit grow hotter and hotter under the collar. It’s a form of entertainment found only in the Pit, which I cherish.
Yeah, whatever. You keep telling us that, but have not used an ounce of logic to defend it. “White men are the most trod-upon creatures on Earth” is a weather-beaten, misguided and whiny bit of RO against the world, and the fact that this particular reincarnation of it used hyperbole instead of O’Reillian screaming invective doesn’t mean it belongs anywhere other than the Pit.
If the world is this black-and-white to you, I feel sorry for you.
Make no mistake, I’ve seen plenty of the first too, and been subject to it at times. But it’s an argument that emotionally mature people don’t put forth, and those few that do (blame white people for everything, that is) can be safely ignored because their views have no real impact on the world, or at least very little impact when you consider just how big the kernel of truth inside it is (“very real racial and/or historical problems”, etc.) Those in the second category (the ones who bitch and whine about “reverse” racism) are just as low–if not lower, since they don’t really have anything to complain about: sure, there are lots and lots of poor white people, but that’s not because of the social factors surrounding whiteness, it’s because the majority of the world’s people are poor.
I added that because it seemed like a few people in the thread think that if the OP doesn’t really mean that white dudes are going to be killed that it means his post wasn’t really whiny.
You would like to think that but you’d be thinking incorrectly.
The irony is that I didn’t even suggest this. I put forth an extreme example of a certain way of thinking as a satiric essay. Note that I did not say that White Men have it intrinsically worse or are downtrodden.
That was YOUR prejudice and YOUR assumption and YOUR thining. YOU filled in the blanks without any prompting from me.
So we are NOT allowed to complain about a legitimate grievance unless it reaches some arbitrary level determined by you?
Are you sure it really does have no impact? Don’t you think these attitudes might contribute to violence? (“He’s white; he has everything; I can take what I want from him.”) What about marital strain and divorce? Can you say the more loudmouthed ‘feminists’ (arguing over whether the term is accuractely used to describe them another day) are really fair to men? Do you think that men don’t sometimes become unhappy from watching stereotypes of themselves parade around? I can tell you it gets to me. Sure, no ONE thing is huge, but it does add up; it’s a constant attack on the psyche. As it would be for anyone.
It’s a prejudice even if it does come from the relative low man on the totem pole, and derservces to be treated as such. If someone I meet acts racist or sexist, I’m going to treat them as such. I don’t ignore it, no mater how or why they’re racist or sexist. If it’s unacceptable, it’s unacceptable for everyone.
See, there you go. You dismiss the OP’s feelings because there are “very real racial and/or historical problems.” You’re just not going to allow the OP to feel what he feels. His feelings have no validity because “there are real racial problems.” The world appears to be black or white to you.
The OP’s first post ending with “I"m sad.” His second post was clearly sarcastic, and his third post explained it wasn’t a rant but rather he was depressed about catching shit for being “teh devi1” (whatever the leet spelling is supposed to mean) and ended again with his being sad.
Skip said:
So Skip wanted the OP mauled for his ridiculous ideas, though all I saw were two mostly understandably self-pitying posts and two obviously sarcastic posts containing little in the way of “ridiculous ideas.”
Maybe the OP has a posting history I’m not familiar with. I just don’t see why he’s getting slammed for his original sentiments quite so hard.
Just to be clear, you don’t think I thought that, did you?
You call that burning hatred and animosity? Hang around awhile spunkybutt.
Seems to me it could just be that you’re insufferably annoying. I mean, your reason could be right, sure. Certainly not the only one available, though.