April 23, 2012

No, only SOME few women, not all or even most women.

Maybe that is what the problem is. Insulting, slamming, being discourteous, putting down of one person, whatever, is implied to cover the whole range of groups that that one person can belong to. That is ridicules. Nothing any one person can do or say can reflect on the rest of any group that person may belong to. Believing that blames every other person in the group or groups that the perpetrator belongs to with the same offense. If a woman slaps a man, does that mean all women, everywhere can be charged with battery? That is basically what you are saying with the quoited verbiage. Again, that is ridicules. A broad brush cover everything, obliterating facts and falsehoods the same.

So lets stop with the broad brushing of every conceived smear when it is usually obvious from the context that one or only a few are included in the slight and a fine tipped brush was used.

April 22, 2012

Churches do charity work because they can write it off on their taxes.

No, wait, they can't. Also churches have a bad habit of being picky of those they help. Often times, conversion is necessary first.

Twice in our Constitution it mentions "general welfare" What constitutes 'General Welfare'? Does this not cover anything the government does to help its citizens live a better life? To ensure that all citizens have access to the basic necessities of life. Food, shelter and health care.

I really do wish Congress would pass a law reinstating the Constitution as the law of the land.

April 20, 2012

My term for the "word police" or, to use your term "nannies" is

"bullies". The minority groups of bullies that try to coerce other DU'ers into silence from using their word pet peeves. Quite often what some think are "sexists comments" are not only open to interpretation, but are determined not to be by the general DU'ers.
For those words that DU generally agrees on are bad, there isn't much of a problem, now is there? They are stated in the rules and Alerts usually take care of the real problem words and phrases anyway. It is the words that the general DU population does not agree on that is the on going problem for some.

The solution is simple. Respect other DU'ers and they will respect you. Harass and intimate others when they do not adhere to your own made up rules, quite often exported from your protected groups, when we are not in those groups and... Well, that is what is causing the ongoing problem.
If perchance you do succeed in getting some of your pet words and phases banned, some of the rest of us can get very creative with replacements that mean the same thing and will seemlyl pass muster. Censorship is a losing battle.
Respecting your fellow DU'ers will go a long way to alleviating the current problem. Alerting on every perceive slight is not respect.

Democratic Underground is an Adult political web site with people with a very wide range of experiences and locations. Most of us do not need any self appointed members telling the rest of us what words and phrases we can and cannot use in our posts. The written rules cover that.
Most of us, being adults here, can figure things out for ourselves. We do not need nannies to remind us.
As Skinner says, "Don't make DU suck".

April 16, 2012

Think of the workforce we'd have if we would reduce our military to something reasonable.

All those discharged ex military people would have a government funded WPA type job to fall back on. The money for this would come from not attacking or occupying foreign countries, plus not paying for unneeded soldiers, who spend their money overseas. This WPA Pay would be similar to military pay. Being in this country, they would spend it here in this country, thereby helping the local economy.
Being government financed jobs, they would have health insurance. Maybe even Single Payer if the health insurance companies continue to gouge their customers.
We could not only rebuild our infrastructure, but upgrade it to true 21 Century technology. Everything from high speed trains criss crossing this country, having actual high speed internet, 10 gig, instead of what we now call high speed of 3 megs. (on a dry, calm day)
The spin off jobs would kick start the economy again. Social Security would no longer "be in trouble" because all working people pay into it and unemployment would be low.

The only problem with this is the wrong people would be benefiting. The 99%, instead of the 1%. It would be like fighting up the face of a cliff to even start something like this.
As the economy picks up in a few years, this WPA would wind down. With any luck, this could replace military service.

I know I'm hallucinating, but someone has to come up with ideas before anything can even be started to get anything done.

April 8, 2012

Maybe add some words to that:

Alerting on posts that do not, or often just may not maybe, meet your (not necessarily you you) standards, but does still meet real world standards, is a form of bullying. And that is what is causing the derision around here.
A DU cleaned up for children, where everyone is acting like Mr. Rogers, is no adult, Liberal/Progressive political message board that can get anything done.
We are suppose to be adults here, with a wide variety of life styles, experiences, expectations and manners of speaking and writing. Let's treat each other with the tolerance needed for such and stop assuming the roll of babysitters because some here think they need to disciplined others for violating there own personal behavior. The intolerance for others writing/speaking style, words used, reaction to other posters, etc., can often be compared to the intolerance to a person's religion, skin color, sexual preference, whatever. It falls in the same class of discrimination against any of our other neighbors.

April 3, 2012

Then think of what Single Payer, universal Health care would do.

The money saved by not paying for corporate jets, million dollar bonuses and multimillion dollar compensation for CEO's, stock holders dividends and lobbyists paying out our premium fees as bribes to our Congress critters... That money would stay in the pockets of the average citizen to be saved or more likely to be spent on something other than food and rent. Thereby helping the economy to get going again.

Naa, too simple, straight forward and honest. Can't happen here.

April 1, 2012

Or the reverse, people are afraid to post here because of the Word Police and their bullying.

Then the bullying would subside because only the bullies would be left.
At what level is an adult web site to be dumbed down to and who decides what that level is?
Politics itself is not civil. Genocidal wars are fought because of politics. How civil is that? And we are supposed to discuss the politics that is sending this country and the world itself down the drain and be civil about it?
"Please sir, respect me and don't use cuss words in my presents before you kill me." Is that civil enough? Or will you settle for something short of that?

Bullying can take many forms and some members censoring of commonly used words and demanding everyone adhere to their arbitrary level of civil, on a public message board, is one form of bullying. We are adults here, not grammar school children that need to be taught good manners. The lack of respect goes both ways even if you don't think so. Respect is earned, not commanded.
You can request, but you are in no more in a position to demand anything, than any other DU'er. Other DU members are not the problem. We are not the enemy. Our government is. The Republicans are. Karl Rove, Grover Norquist are. Let's use our energy to getting our country back on track and not demonize and bully follow DU'ers for not using an American version of the Queens English.

April 1, 2012

Oh, those poor majorities.

How will Whites and Catholics ever survive being so oppressed? Being killed off for their land. Or hunted like animals. Or being worked to death like a common ox or mule. Convert to Christianity or DIE!

Wait a minute here! That's what Whites to do other people, simple because whites are the majority! Whites have a very long history of oppressing other people, people that have too much melanin to pass for white. Or facial features that do not adhere to white Anglo Saxon standards.

For the most part, it is we whites that need to back off. Most of us have no idea how good we have it. The only sandals/moccasins/foot wear most of us have ever walked in are our own store bought. And yet we sit in judgment of others for not rising to our standards. Never mind that their standards may be even better than ours.

March 29, 2012

The point is that thinking, independent adults do not like to be managed

by self-appointed authoritarians, especially those that want to dumb down someones else's 12 year old progressive, adult political web site to be something safe for kids.
Adults the world over do not talk like people on Sesame Street. Most here have a problem with that.

For myself, I have been responsible for myself and living on my own for 50 years. I do not need nor want some self-appointed authority telling me how to word my posts and what words I had better not use because they personally do not like them. Especially when this is not their web site and they can no more make the rules than I can. I have been here since 2001 and salty language has been tolerated all of that time. If it were a problem with the owners, it is well with in their power for them Clean this site up. But it has never really seemed to be a real problem for them. That said, I will chose my own words, thank you.

March 28, 2012

And the neighbor kid, with help of a couple of his friends, keeps bossing the other kids around

and trying to get them to act how he thinks they should be acting, berating their style of clothes, disrupting their activities, critical of their speaking styles and teen-age 'code words'. Including criticizing them if they use too big of or new or strange words they have learned in school.
The parents mostly ignore this pseudo-self appointed baby sitter. They don't seem to notice the ruckus this kid is causing in the neighborhood. They think that the kids are just being kids.
But most of the neighborhood kids are A and B students. Several are wrestlers. Bad news for the self appointed authoritarian and his friends, who think they know so much.

Meanwhile the rest of the neighborhood kids, being fed up with his BS, start getting together to find ways to set this kid in his place in no uncertain terms.

Sort of like DU is doing right now.