June 16, 2012

Arguing uncivilly against incivility

deserves to be dismissed out of hand. And that is happening, rightfully so.

The backlash cometh, complete with jury nullification. Is this surprising? It shouldn't be. When you are openly mean to someone to make your point about how you deserve so much better treatment from them, they tend to turn off. And then, first chance they get, they will oppose you in any way that is available to them... such as jury votes.

What reaction do we see to this? Do we see getting the point? Nope, we see whining about how unfair it is. Is it unfair? It is cause and effect. It is common sense. It is inevitable. Of course it is fair. It is eminently fair. Arguing uncivilly against incivility deserves a smackdown, and it gets one. The system works, at least sometimes. This is not surprising, it is to be expected.

This whole harangue is a bunch of blather. Slicing and dicing it, and arguing about reasons why, won't give it rationality which isn't there. It is nonsense, from beginning to end and all the way through. It is a dog chasing its own tail.

There isn't misogeny in general on DU. There is rejection of the behavior of some who bring it up. There is a lesson to be learned. Take it, or leave it.

The guardians of civility wouldn't know civility if they tripped over it. That is abundantly clear by now. Once again, we have a case of the blind demanding to lead everyone, and dictate to everyone on a subject they clearly know nothing about. I say "once again" because it reminds me of the right wing. It's the same attitude at work. On DU "the people" have spoken, and will probably (have to) do so again... until the point gets through.

Arguing uncivilly against incivility deserves to be dismissed out of hand. If anyone would like to deny that statement and argue that isn't true, be my guest.

If you want respect, show it. If you want tolerance, show it. If you want equality, show it. If you want consideration, show it. If you want open-mindedness, show it. There really is no way to get consideration from people, with your arguments or your demands, that your own behavior denies. It is very simple. It is human nature. No amount of whining will make that work. It doesn't deserve to work.

June 15, 2012

A few for you.

June 7, 2012

What are opinions on this

Is it ok for members of an "oppressed class" to be hurtful and mean to those in the majority? What do you think, DU? On both an individual basis and on a broad-brush whole-group basis -- is it ok to attack a majority? Do we need to observe the same standards, or are standards of conduct irrelevant if one is in a minority group?

I constantly see members of a minority being extremely picky about how they themselves are treated, and then those same folks turn around and are outright vicious to someone in a designated majority.

Although it's seen in all sorts of threads and it doesn't only pertain to this particular minority/majority situation, this post below crystallized the question in my mind, so I'm including it here for reference. But I'm starting this OP because I'd be interested in seeing what a larger number of DUers think about this question. (Please read the post that the one below was in response to as well -- #123.) Thanks.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1240105603#post153


*** This is intended as an overall hypothetical moral question about standards of conduct, and not as a "dig up history back to the end of time" flame fest about specific posters or groups. Very simply... should there be one standard (that we hold ourselves to and expect the same in return), or should there be a double standard based on minority status?

June 7, 2012

An "oppressed class" has carte blanche to be as nasty as they please, got it.

Well that certainly explains a lot! One of DU's major conundrums has been solved now.

See, I never knew this before. This is what has confused me on DU. I've certainly seen people act that way, and I couldn't understand it. But I never knew that there was a taken-for-granted right to act that way, which was well-known to everyone except me. And I never knew there was an exception like that in the DU rules too... that members of an "oppressed class" of course do not have to consider or show any human respect whatsoever to someone who may be designated as part of a majority, and to think otherwise is hilarious.

Silly me! Of course, that explains it all. Now I get it!

Maybe you can quote that exception for me in the DU TOS and CS.

Oh wait...

June 1, 2012

The 1% are eating the goose that lays the golden eggs

because that's just how damn dumb they are. Expertise, my ass. They are frauds, perpetrating frauds. And the sooner we realize that and take steps like Francois Hollande is proposing to do in France, the better. It's common sense cause-and-effect, not rocket science.

Economics only exists to numberfy and mystify the subject so that more webs can be spun. GHW Bush said it... "smoke and mirrors", "voo doo economics". Every once in a while, one of them tells the truth. I go back to that saying, "when someone tells you who they are, believe them".

This can be turned around, anytime we (the 99%) want to deal with reality and not ideology. To paraphrase FDR, the only thing we have to fear, is bullshit.

Excellent article. Good to see some prominent people are still working on making the case for the obvious. It'll take a lot more for the message to get through to most of the 99%. To a large degree, since Reagan, Americans have been living in a la-la-land sick fantasy. To a large degree, I fault the "intellectuals" on our side for not shooting down this nonsense idealogy adequately. The brains are supposedly on our side predominantly, so I can only think that they were largely bought off. Either that, or they are vastly overrated. We should not have lost the "argument competition" this badly for this long.

The "experts" on our side have a lot of work to do, to clean this thought-mess up. They need to keep at it until "trickle down" is dead and gone forever, never to be revived.

I'm waiting to see when the experts will get brave enough to come out and say that CDS's are frauds which should be declared void and made illegal. That day will inevitably come sometime and it should be now. It should've been 4+ years ago.

May 25, 2012

Link to Top 100 songs each year from 1950 to 2011

For those who are into oldies:

http://www.musicoutfitters.com/top-100-songs.htm

May 20, 2012

Re both language and DU: We have to destroy this village to save it.

(Paraphrase of a quote reported by Peter Arnett about the destruction of Ben Tre village... my metaphor for the Word Wars being conducted on DU.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Arnett




One pill makes you larger
And one pill makes you small,
And the ones that mother gives you
Don't do anything at all.
Go ask Alice
When she's ten feet tall

And if you go chasing rabbits
And you know you're going to fall,
Tell 'em a hookah-smoking caterpillar
Has given you the call
Call Alice
When she was just small

When the men on the chessboard
Get up and tell you where to go
And you've just had some kind of mushroom
And your mind is moving low
Go ask Alice
I think she'll know
When logic and proportion
Have fallen sloppy dead
And the White Knight is talking backwards
And the Red Queen's "off with her head!"
Remember what the Dormouse said:
"Feed your head... feed your head... feed your head"


Some quotes by Lewis Carroll:

"Alice thought to herself, 'Then there's no use in speaking.' The voices didn't join in this time, as she hadn't spoken, but to her great surprise, they all thought in chorus (I hope you understand what thinking in chorus means -- for I must confess that I don't), 'Better say nothing at all. Language is worth a thousand pounds a word!"

"If you limit your actions in life to things that nobody can possibly find fault with, you will not do much!"

"If everybody minded their own business, the world would go around a great deal faster than it does."

"Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee agreed to have a battle; for Tweedle Dum said Tweedle Dee had spoiled his nice new rattle."

" 'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less.' 'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean so many different things.' 'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master -- that's all.' "

"Take care of the sense and the sounds will take of care themselves."

"How cheerfully he seems to grin,
How neatly spreads his claws..."


I am a woman, one who is not at all represented by the most prodigious crusaders against the recent examples of so-called "misogyny". So I'm "through the looking glass" by definition on these discussions at DU. As such for the last week or so, it has seemed to me, as Alice said above, "Better to say nothing at all". I have though, read all of the threads.

As a bystander on the sidelines, these are my observations:

The sheer nastiness of the very few conducting the bulk of the Word Wars is 10 times worse than what they're complaining about. The reason I say that is this...

I did a little experiment a few days ago just out of curiosity. And this was before any mention of 3 anybodies. I don't, and never have, put anyone on ignore. But I noticed, myself, before it was brought up (that I was aware of anyway) that just a few people were monopolizing the most contentious high post-count threads. My number was 4 people btw (including someone who is almost in the same league as to over-posting in threads but not quite, yet).

I wanted to see what one of those awful threads would look like if those 4 were put on ignore. It was interesting. The giant mega-thread suddenly became normal length that way - about 50 posts. That tells me something. And it isn't just one thread, I looked at three more of the same kind while I was at it. Same result. Anyone can try the same experiment, and see for themselves. Repeatable results are not an opinion, but a fact.

The huge number of their posts, and the constant attacks in them, is overwhelming.

The fact is, these few people ARE creating the problem. Those who are saying so are RIGHT, about this. Is there any reason why so few people should be allowed to run amuck like this over everyone else, all the while complaining about OTHERS' behavior! O. M. G. If ever there was anyone with no room to talk about rudeness and insensitivity, it is these few.

Worst of all though, is what is slowly happening to meaning and our ability to even find words to communicate with each other, words which will not set off another "shitstorm" and derail any discussion we try to have about anything. I'm hoping that some of those who are talented in the use of language who have commented on this in various posts, will repeat those thoughts and any others they may have, in this thread too. I think this is the most serious problem of all -- the corruption of language and meaning via enforced redefinition by even well-meaning ideology. The end does not justify the means, and it is not worth it.

When someone "messes with" rationality, which is what the twisting of meaning and logic that we see in these threads is, I don't take that kindly. We see the attacks on rationality clearly enough when it comes from the Right, but do we recognize it when it comes from the Left? It's the same animal, wearing a different outfit -- and for the same purpose... getting us to lay down our own thought and judgement in the service of someone else's agenda. To me, an attack on rationality itself is as serious as any can be, short of violence... much more serious than some passing offense taken. (I learned long ago not to fall for that, which is why I recognize it. Similarly, those here standing against it are least vulnerable to it; those joining in with it on the other hand, have a problem -- one which they are making themselves blind to.)

I'm not advocating that anything in particular be done, and if nothing is done and it goes on this way indefinitely that's fine with me - "no skin off my back" as they say. But there's no doubt about this: the problem will continue as long as this behavior by these few continues, it's that simple. The obvious question is, is it likely that the few will stop on their own? It doesn't seem so, unless possibly some peer encouragement could help.

The one thing I never hear about and can't quite figure out... where does truth figure in? How does truth get through the gauntlet -- that string of prohibited adjectives in the CS? That's where the answer that's provided seems to be "you take your chances". That isn't really good enough. I know how to say what someone wants to hear and/or stay out of trouble, and I know how to say the truth, but I don't know how to do both at the same time. And if I can't talk about what's true, then it's not worth getting into.

If I could speak freely, I could be clearer. But this is the best I can do under the circumstances. Btw I believe in being as gentle as possible with people, but that can't be the only consideration. Content has to matter, truth has to matter - or why do it?

WFE

May 10, 2012

DU's tolerance is almost non-existent.

Anyone can be tolerant toward oneself, or those one likes. That isn't tolerance, it's preference. Just slap the "bigot label" (rightly OR most often wrongly) on anyone, and they can be attacked at will. Even Pres. Obama has been called a bigot here, which shows that almost anyone is fair game. Point out the obvious though, that there's essentially no difference between one rationalized-hate and the other, and the sky will fall.

On the bus pic though: it's effective but also promotes a fallacy, in that only one religion is associated with flying planes into buildings. (And one has to wonder what kind of crap science promotes knowingly false statements?) Secondly, there's plenty of faith in science. The two are flip sides of the same coin. As long as anything is unknown there will be faith in science. Zealots of any flavor have the most in common with each other.

May 8, 2012

To those of us who are missing anyone today...

and to those who are gone from us, whether temporarily or permanently. I think this is really beautiful while at the same time, not too "mushy", and rarest of all... cheerful and upbeat.

May 5, 2012

.

That was so... civil-like.

28,872 posts since July 6, 2003

So (according to some) all that matters is who owns the site -- not the posters who make the content (for free I might add, and pay to be here). Well, the downward spiral is underway. I've seen that exact same sentiment expressed and this same progression of attitudes before on other message boards, and I know how it goes from here. So before we get there, this is for all of us (past and present) as well as the OP... we will all eventually scatter to the four winds one way or another, but that does not mean we are valueless like disposable paper cups that are tossed aside...


"Here where the angels have appeared and are gone
Your face like an ember glows in the dawn

But I want you to remember --
All wild deeds live on... "

(And ps... to misconstrue the lines above as in any way negative, is to have no clue what they mean in which case there is no need to know now. Thanks.)