Why apologize? Calling me female is not an insult.
As to your analysis, my “emotional” anecdote meant to illustrate why pushing back against someone else’s aggression is not “inciting” more agression came after your hag comment so probably did not effect your conclusion. What insults I have made have been pretty direct, even if I can’t get angry enough at anyone to keep it up for long. And certainly I am hoping that a sense of decency and group norms of acceptable behaviors within a particular board’s culture will motivate what I see as less objectionable behaviors here, but I see that as neither particularly male or female.
Well in any case, a 50/50 shot at it and you are wrong. Male. 50 years old. Former wrestler. Told by my wife all the time that I am too damn analytic and out of touch with my emotional side … but hey, she’s a social worker!
No problem to me being mistaken for female in an internet message board. No apology needed, once again. Happy to hear I have a softer feminine side!
I don’t see societally imposed behaviors or pressure to conform to those behaviors as being gender based necessarily; I do see how we go about doing it as different*. Just my opinion, but from what I have observed**, everyone wants to be accepted. Men approach this from a currency of respect while women approach it from a position of approval. Both are emotion based (in fact, I think everything we do is at its base emotional to some extent). While both can be gained and lost, ISTM that respect is a more direct approach while approval is more passive. Both draw arbitrary distinctions depending on the parties involved.
I feel like I’m rambling to make a small point. Hope it made sense.
*Please note: I am not espousing one over the other or calling either ‘bad.’ I do feel, though, that pretending the differences we do have don’t exist is just as destructive as stereotyping and over-stressing differences that may not be there at all.
**Again, I’m aware this is a generalization and merely my observation. I am not saying all men or all women fall under these broad categories.
That’s the problem with these new Pit threads… tempers flare, things are said in the heat of the moment and soon enough, somebody’s gone and started a debate thread over it.
Well it is true that if a Pit depends on the likes of me for its venom, well it might be Pit full of garter snakes. (Which interestingly enough have red tongues. In case you were curious!)
First of all, what’s “crazy” about the coincidence? Poly is a trusting person, whose tendency is to take men at their word unless prudence would otherwise indicate. You could probably find hundreds of posts with Poly acknowledging someone’s word or testimony. And second, that was no “vouch”. It was just a declaration of trust, and with a caveat:
Because I feel I can trust Bluesman’s judgment, I have changed my mind there – though I look forward to finding out the truth rather than relying on his word, some time in the future.
Emphasis mine.
Poly’s just a guy who presumes the best about people, unless they give him reason to think otherwise. What the hell is wrong with that?
Go to the link Carnal provided – I stand by what I said. I originally thought that, while Saddam was bad news, there were not sufficient reasons to go to war with him. What Bluesman had to say – and the fact that he was working in an agency where he had access to sensitive material he could not share publicly – led me to give credence to his word, and initially support the invasion of Iraq. Over time, it was demonstrated that Bluesman either deluded me (and Airman Doors) or was deluded by others he trusted to provide him with accurate data (a point that should not escape those out to tar-and-feather him).
I am inclined to take people at face value, at least if they give any evidence of appearing to know what they are talking about. And I did note that I hoped in the future to be able to form an opinion based on the data that was allegedly classified and available to Bluesman but not to me.
Ignoring snark, Carnal, where do you see the problem with that? (Aside from the value of having 20:20 hindsight – which would be wonderful. But few if any people have the gift of foresight to know in advance what is discovered after the fact.)
There’s no huge problem with it. But if you are “inclined to take people at face value” you might want to be more careful throwing around your vouching for people simply because you’ve met them in person. Seriously, it’s strange that you’d be so positive about Liberal’s Dad’s heritage. Surely you didn’t see a couple of pictures of him and think “Yup. That’s a full blood Cherokee if I’ve ever seen one”?
Liberal, what type of coincidence do you think it was? I thought it was a little surprising that my hazily remembered example turned out to be the same person who started this thread.
Well, if that’s all it takes to make a crazy coincidence, then I guess it’s a crazy coincidence that the person I’m responding to happens to be the person who asked me a question. But that really isn’t the point. You called it a “crazy coincidence” as though the fact of it being coincidental had some meaning of some kind. Just to remind you, Poly did indeed vouch for me, but not here. The opening post of THIS thread has to do with a personal attack on Poly. So the fact that he opened this thread does not seem coincidental at all with the seven-year-old quote you produced.
Poly has indeed seen pictures of my dad (presuming he turned on the light in his bedroom). And my dad certainly looks Indian, although he tried to hide it by wearing a cowboy hat and stuff like that. Now, my grandmother (my ay-knee-see moreso than my ay-lee-ses) cannot possibly be mistaken for anything but Cherokee (not just because of her looks, but because of her dress.) But frankly, I don’t care what anybody thinks. Especially with my Tranxene. I’ve never played the “minority card” except to identify with other minorities (like BigGirl) or to tear into murderous filth like Andrew Jackson or Amerigo Vespucci. So why anyone else should give a shit is a mystery. I mean honestly — if you want to live my life, you could at least pay my mortgage. And that’s all I have to say about that.
Can’t say I give a shit about the reliability or unreliability of Poly’s judgment, or how much his vouchsafe means, or what is a “crazy” coincidink, but this
Meh. A good line can stand on its own. But yeah, that’s a good point. No one here is wanting to live Lib’s life for him. Given his description of his life, even post Tranxene, I’m not even sure even Lib wants to live Lib’s life all the time. But still, the line does bring up the point: his obssesiveness is allegedly treated to some good effect now; what is the treatment plan for so many other posters’ obsession with him and his crappness?
Now, Carnal. Don’t play the stupid. It doesn’t come across well on you. The point is about prying into people’s business — wanting to know if you’re a real Injun or if you really have a cat named Amalgamatedaluminum or if you’re as fat as you say you are. Since it’s a message board, and I can’t really tell if BigGirl is black, or if you’re white (or whatever you are), I couldn’t give less of a rat’s ass about it. If you want to tell me, fine. If you just have personal shit you want to get off your chest, that’s fine too. Why would I press you for proof or validation of some kind, unless I have some weird obsession with you? People who obsess over the lives of other people on message boards are just flat out weird, in my opinion. It’s like they protest too much. Like they wish they were you. That’s what it means.
I think the Tranxene is really working, Lib! No, not a sly comment. I mean, by now, you’d have gone off somewhere. You’re staying pretty stable. Congrats!
