black321 wrote:
 

Why didn't they just put that on the hat?

 kurtster wrote:
 

Of course there were plenty of good things in the past, and maybe there will come atime when moving backwards is the right thing to do...but in general, no, why devolve, right?
The whole thing is over a campaign slogan,right?  Something most of usnever put much credence, right?  The central point here being, bring the jobs back home, right?  

Would it have been a good idea if we kept more jobs here, rather than exploiting cheap labor, lax regulations abroad?  Maybe, but that's not how capitalism works, right?  So what are we really asking to change?

 steeler wrote:
 

At least we aren't Britain...

Somehow I do not believe that one of our most pressing problems is that some people are saying “Happy Holidays” and not “Merry Christmas.” 

Or that some NFL players were taking a knee during the national anthem.

 kurtster wrote:
 

Wow, you did have a bad day.  

"So everything about the good old days was bad ? There was nothing of any good or value going on back then worthy to aspire to because there were some wrong things also ? So therefore we are to consider the entire era as bad, right ?"


I never said anything like that. What I'm saying is that you remember a time when matters of personal identity and sexuality were more straightforward. I'm saying that things only on the surface were more straightforward, that LGBQT people had to fake it back then. Hell, I found out through my mom that my elementary school music teacher had to keep it quiet that he lived with another man for decades, even through the 80s. Hell, there was a private home about a mile from my house in the Boston burbs that was a secret meeting and support place for gays and transgenders. According to a news piece decades later, the heads of the Tiffany Club were paranoid about screening prospective members to guard against attacks, outings, etc. And MA is a socially liberal state. 

Seems like you remember the bad past times of violent intolerance as well as the good past times, though. But when you complain that some people prefer to the third-person reference of "they" or "ze", I'm asking you to see that as their attempt to make their personal identity public and accepted. Why should they have to keep faking it? So you can feel more comfortable, even though you're not affected by their identity or presence in public?


What do the following three sentences have in common? 


"So now I'm a long haired white boy surfer in redneck Florida getting my ass kicked just because of my clothes and the length of my hair."

"More than a few times I saw colored only signs designating bathrooms in gas stations and other places." 

"L.G.B.T. People Are More Likely to Be Targets of Hate Crimes Than Any Other Minority Group"


When a politician or a demagogue singles out a group of "Other" people—long hairs, surfers, people of color, LGBQTs, Jews, immigrants—they face verbal and physical attacks, discrimination and more marginalization. Trump based his 2016 campaign in part on this and he'll likely do it again. These kinds of discrimination, intolerance and violence have to stop.


"So no, I guess I cannot imagine what it is like to hide your personal identity for fear of being attacked, but I can tell you about the fear of being attacked because of what you looked like. But I know that in the liberal world it doesn't count for anything because of my white privilege."


The crap you had to put up with definitely does count. It was wrong, plain and simple. But here's my question to you: why would you want to think as intolerantly as those redneck @$$h0|es who beat you up? Yes, it may be weird at first to deal with new kinds of people. For one reason or another, I see a lot of transgender people at dusk in a neighborhood near me. At first it startled me. You see a woman at dusk passing you on the sidewalk and then you realize that person was not born a female, to put it euphemistically. But you get used to it, and you realize that the world is a bit more complex than you realized. Not a big deal. 

Social change happens slowly and there are swings of the pendulum. Awareness of discrimination against minorities is on the rise and there's been a backlash against complaints (sometimes excessive) of "white privilege." That backlash is in part why Trump got elected. We've seen some rapid social change and it can be unsettling. But America is still America. There should be room for everyone at the table. America will not collapse if some of the new faces look a bit different from the old ones. 

"So tell me once again that I am imagining all of this heavy duty PC language twisting going on to completely stop meaningful conversations in their tracks before they get started. This is the face of Progressivism to me."


Who's stopping you from speaking your mind or having meaningful conversations? I can understand why you're upset by illegal immigration if you're worried about people breaking laws and Americans should be able to have meaningful conversations about the rate, types and legal nature of immigration into the US. I don't see how PC language is thwarting those conversations. 

As for new pronouns to deal with the emergence of new sexualities and identities into social norms...why be bothered about it? Why not be happy that the 21st century's version of long-hairs and surfers are in the open, trying to be free of the fear of being beaten by a carload of rednecks? If you meet and get to know the new types, you find that they're mostly a lot like the rest of us. 

Hey, if Bobby Axelrod can handle it, so can you:

One final thought: you should take a good long look at the OED before worrying about it being deemed  "a white racist implement of social division and hate." The OED changes, adapts and expands faster and more deeply than you understand. 

 kcar wrote: 
Warning, I had a bad day in retail hell and on the ride home this evening so consider this a rant and proceed at your own risk.

So everything about the good old days was bad ?  There was nothing of any good or value going on back then worthy to aspire to because there were some wrong things also ?  So therefore we are to consider the entire era as bad, right ?

Moving on ...

Just to set the record straight, when I was dragged back East kicking and screaming, the morning before we left Long Beach on November 6, 1968, the day after Nixon was elected POTUS the first time, I was dragged next door to a barber shop and my hair was cut off so I would fit in in the new culture I was about to encounter in Philadelphia in the winter of 1968 and not embarrass my parents.  Subsequently, in the winter of 1970 down in Indialantic, Florida where I was attending FIT, I was walking down 5th Avenue / US 192 after leaving the Squamish frat house and a car pulls up behind me stops, doors open and the next sound I hear are beer cans hitting the street and I hear something like long haired motherfucker and 4 rednecks (real rednecks) from Eau Gallie get out and beat the snot out of me because I had long hair which I had since regrown having escaped my folks in Philly.  I got a hold of the cops and they found the 4 guys and they were arrested and charged with assault and drunk and disorderly, yadda.  So yeah, I was attacked strictly based upon my appearance.  Remember Easy Rider had just come out.  Not to mention that one of the first things that I found out about where exactly I was in Florida, the KKK was holding their national convention inland in nearby Kissimmee.  On my way south from Philly to Florida, at the time there was only 10 miles of I-95 built in Georgia and the rest of the trip was mostly 4 lane US 1.  More than a few times I saw colored only signs designating bathrooms in gas stations and other places.  Same as I saw in places on my original trip back east earlier.  A little more spooky being a 17 year old kid on his first real trip away from home by himself and heading deep into the South.  Me, in a Corvair with long hair, Pa plates and a surfboard on the roof.  Not good.

Allow me some more history for you.  Once upon a time surfers were not considered cool at all.  We were treated like dangerous trash by nearly everyone.  We were seen as dope smoking trouble makers.  Greasers and surfers did not get along at all.  Surfers and scuba divers did not get along.  Surfers and tourists did not get along.  Surfers and life guards did not get along, especially in Newport Beach when the town made us all get licenses for our boards.  Not to forget surfers and cops.  So now I'm a long haired white boy surfer in redneck Florida getting my ass kicked just because of my clothes and the length of my hair.  In HS in Philly I stood out mostly because I was the new kid surfer from California in a tiny school of like 500 total.  Veev and I went to the same HS fwiw.

So no, I guess I cannot imagine what it is like to hide your personal identity for fear of being attacked, but I can tell you about the fear of being attacked because of what you looked like.  But I know that in the liberal world it doesn't count for anything because of my white privilege.  As for hiding my identity for fear of being fired, kept out of jobs, loans and mortgages, having been a cannibus smoker for the past 55 years I might know a little bit about that. I had to quit truck driving when random testing became mandatory.  No, I wouldn't nor couldn't imagine driving a full tilt truck stoned.  Not in my wildest dreams.  But one strike and you are out, all the way out forever, for something that you may have done 30 days earlier was not worth it.  And I took a stand then to never get into any kind of work that had random testing involved.  And have to this very day.  I did give up some lucrative things, but nothing is worth living in fear of discovery for doing something that was illegal based upon government sanctioned lies and ending up becoming permanently unemployable as a result.  But once again, meaningless because of white privilege.  So you are right, I cannot understand any of this you bring up nor empathize because of being white and enjoying white privilege.  Right ?  My personal experiences are meaningless and irrelevant.  
 

I'll start out easy for you.  with the oldest reference I can find dating back to 2015.

To avoid offending transgenders, college changes 'he, she' to 'ZE'
by Paul Bedard
| August 28, 2015 10:39 AM

He? She? Ze? Colleges add gender-free pronouns for students
SEPTEMBER 18, 2015 / 11:22 AM / AP

Mandatory Gender-Neutral Pronoun Rules Are a Threat to Campus Free Speech
By BRAD POLUMBO
August 9, 2018 6:30 AM

Now onto some other examples, though a little more recent ...

Bye-bye, manhole: Berkeley moves to ban gendered language from its city code

“They” will also replace “he” and ”she”  UPDATED: July 30, 2019 at 9:36 pm

and the one that really takes the fucking PC cake is from where else ?  The poster child of progressiveness, the crown jewel of democratic policy, the Sanctuary City and home of Nancy Pelosi, with streets full of shit and fits.  If you don't know what a fit is, look it up.

No more ‘convicts’ or ‘felons’ if San Francisco passes criminal justice language proposal

Just because you have not heard of any of the above does not make it false.  And here is one where I'll even argue with Snopes as I have never seen so much twisting and word bending rationalization to pretend what was actually intended was not intended.

Did a California State Senate Committee Ban Saying ‘He’ and ‘She’?

So tell me once again that I am imagining all of this heavy duty PC language twisting going on to completely stop meaningful conversations in their tracks before they get started.  This is the face of Progressivism to me.  
.
So I repeat because you ignored this, The Oxford Dictionary is now a white racist implement of social division and hate.

Doomed culture warrior(s)... 

 kcar wrote:
 

 kurtster wrote:
 

Wow, are you stealing borrowing from Rush Limbaugh again? You're complaining about the death of US culture because...3.2% of our population is made up of illegal immigrants as of 2017. 

"PC has killed off all possibilities of even having discussions anymore because the meanings of all the relevant words are either being changed or demonized."

Sorry, no. 

"We are no longer allowed to use the pronouns of he and she."

Oh, Kurt. WTAF. 


"We now have more than two sexes."

I cordially invite you to take a walk and consider how hellish life must have been back in the "good old days" for LGBTQ people who didn't fit into accepted social norms and roles. You told us how you caused waves in high school when you moved back East because of your long hair and jeans. Those were part of your personal identity. Imagine if you had to hide your personal identity because people who did come out were attacked, raped, fired or kept out of jobs, loans and mortgages, etc. etc. That kind of hatred still exists. 

There have likely been "more than two sexes" for a very long time—probably for most of recorded history. Social change can be disorienting and disturbing but personally I think it's a good thing when the reach and degree of social acceptance cover all types of people apart from violent and/predatory criminals. Try to find happiness in the fact that fewer decent people have to live in the shadows. 

George Bernard Shaw put it quite well: "Some people think they're being virtuous when they're only being uncomfortable." Relax, buddy. Get to know the people in the world around you. 

 kurtster wrote:
 

Because other RPs and I had to do that for YOU over and over and over when we'd dispute your assertions with evidence...and then you'd forget our posts while repeating yourself weeks or months later. 

You're far more informed and emotionally involved about illegal immigration than I am. It should be easy to back up your claims.  

 kurtster wrote:
 

Please: describe for us the proper alternative. BTW the FBI was investigating Russian interference in our 2016 election before Trump/Russia interaction became an issue. 

 kurtster wrote:




No one paid much mind to the Horowitz report because it pretty much covered familiar ground and faulted Comey for not following FBI/DOJ procedures. We all knew that about Comey anyway. Comey wrote memos to himself about the Flynn investigation and Comey's interaction with Trump about that investigation.

What That Comey Email Report Really Says

For all that Horowitz spent two years on this investigation, there aren’t a lot of new facts—at least not major ones—in this document. The reason is simple: Comey has never been anything but straightforward concerning why he wrote the seven memos in question, what he did with them, whom he shared them with and what his motives were in doing so. On all significant factual questions, the 62-page report merely fleshes out a story that has been known to the public for the better part of two years.


According to the Lawfare opinion piece I quote above, the whole Horowitz report largely cooks down to—what's that phrase?—a nothingburger. Well, maybe not a nothingburger because it's pretty shocking that Horowitz's tirade against Comey largely boils down to one issue: that Comey revealed in a memo given to the NYT that Trump had tried to persuade Comey to shut down the Flynn investigation. Personally, I'd say that Comey had a moral duty to get the information to the public.


More from the piece:


Most of all, however, he’s (Horowitz) upset by Comey’s “unauthorized disclosure of sensitive law enforcement information about the Flynn investigation.”


...

But most of all, Horowitz seems upset because Comey, through Richman (Dan Richman, one of Comey's lawyers and his friend), disclosed the substance of the Flynn memorandum to Schmidt (NYT reporter Michael Schmidt). The fact that the president suggested the FBI director should “let … go” the investigation into Flynn is, Horowitz argues, law enforcement sensitive—though not classified—material. The move was thus the “unauthorized disclosure of sensitive investigative information, obtained during the course of FBI employment, in order to achieve a personally desired outcome” (the appointment of a special counsel).

...

But Horowitz has a big factual problem on this point. Comey, in fact, did not disclose anything about the Flynn investigation in that memo that was not already public. The fact of the Flynn investigation had been publicly disclosed the month before, in congressional testimony by Sally Yates, as Horowitz acknowledges in some footnotes.

...

What Comey’s memo discloses is not that there was a Flynn investigation. That was already public. It was not anything about the Flynn investigation’s contents or activities or subject matter. It was only that the president of the United States tried to stop the investigation.


Summary:

And there it is: the inspector general of the United States Department of Justice taking the position that a witness to gross misconduct by the president of the United States has a duty to keep his mouth shut about what he saw. Remember, after all, that Comey was a witness here as well as the former FBI director. That’s an extraordinary position for a law enforcement organization to take. If that is what FBI policy and an employment agreement required of Comey under the extraordinary circumstances he faced, so be it. I’m glad both were given their due weight.
 

 kcar wrote:

 
The DOJ IG is finally releasing his report(s).  The full report was delayed because Christopher Steele relented and did finally cooperate with the IG providing new evidence and insights that required even more investigation.

Comey is the subject of his first report.  Its been out for a couple of days now (since Wednesday) and no one here has thought it important enough to even mention.  Probably because it is about things that no one wants to hear about or their news sources won't cover it..  His behaviour as FBI Director was so egregious that he got singled out for his own separate report.  Yet he will evidently walk as will everyone else that was in the Obama administration who participated.  

So the Great Pumpkin has finally shown up.  Eh ?

Edit:  a factoid to consider ... all, 100% of official counter intelligence surveillance operations are under the direct supervision of POTUS.  Is not all of which we speak centered around an official FBI counter intelligence surveillance operation of Donald Trump code name Crossfire Hurricane ?  Who would be the POTUS in charge ?  Are you OK with this ?

Let us consider the following ...  We all know that Bernie is a socialist, but what if he is really a commie in disguise ?  It looks like he is going win the nomination.  Say someone plants prints a crazy story in the WSJ about Bernie and Mao and how he met him once and had him autograph his personal copy of the little Red Book.  Hmmm.  Printed story, needs to be investigated.  POTUS launches a counterintelligence operation against Bernie based upon this 'credible' report.  And away we go ...  Would be no different than what happened to Trump.
 
Say what you want but we have defacto open borders.  With an average of 3,000 people a day (and that's only those we capture and know of) showing up and crossing the border at will it is hard to say in my mind at least that we have everything under control at the border.  Plus with all of the Concentration Camps I hear about all along the border where babies are being killed by the angry guards and the only available drinking water is from toilets, how can anyone say that everything is A-OK at our Southern Border ?  At least that is what the Squad members are saying ...  Sanctuary Cities that openly defy immigration laws and enforcement of those laws are part of the open border problem.  If one supports Sanctuary Cities then one also supports open borders.  They are part and parcel of the same thing.  About the only thing that our border patrol does is greet the arrivals and give them a number and let them proceed to where ever it is that they are headed.  Catch and release ... Obama's solution to the problem.
 
Yeah, I'll find something else to keep me busy.  That you missed the arrival of the Great Pumpkin, why should I go digging for other things that you missed because of where you get your news from ?  

 
It is pretty simple really.  We have been doing nothing but kicking cans down the road for so long that there is no point in trying to return to normal anymore.  Few are left who even remember what the old normal was, let alone care.  Saying that it would be nice to go back to a time when it was not necessary to lock your front doors or have a lemonade stand in your front yard to raise money for charities are now considered racist, white supremacist or even worse white nationalists (whatever that is).  PC has killed off all possibilities of even having discussions anymore because the meanings of all the relevant words are either being changed or demonized.  We are no longer allowed to use the pronouns of he and she.  There are now places where you can be fined and even jailed for using those terms.  We now have more than two sexes.  Even thoughts are now being criminalized. Where does this end ?  Those who say y'all are crazy for thinking like this are themselves being called crazy, by the crazy.  

The Oxford Dictionary is now a white racist implement of social division and hate.

Trump was the last chance to reverse this crazy.  When he is gone in a year and a half, we return to crazy as normal and watch crazy take over and run the world for the next 10 years as we wait for the end of the world from climate change.  Barring some unforeseen circumstances, Elizabeth Warren will be our next POTUS.  AOC will be her Veep even though she is too young.  The whole Constitution will be declared unconstitutional because it discriminates based upon age ...

 Red_Dragon wrote:
 
I always thought it was kind of stupid when Reagan made a big deal of revealing grainy pictures of the Soviets helping build an airfield in Grenada to justify his invasion. I mean the Soviets knew what they were doing and weren't trying to hide it.  Could have just sent someone over to the fence-line with a camera. This is a little different because the issue is more about revealing the US intelligence capability, but I still don't think it is a big deal. First the image certainly doesn't reflect the actual resolution, although it shows that the resolution is at least that good. A long time ago I heard that the satellites had about 10 cm resolution and I'm sure every other country already has a pretty good idea of what it really is. Intelligence agencies take the "need to know" concept to the extreme - it is easier for them to keep things secret and helps them compete against other agencies, or heaven forbid, against scientists who could really use the technology for the public good - "Sorry we're already doing that but it's classified." 

So in this particular case I don't see any obvious harm, but obviously I can't know what the real concerns might be. Probably the biggest problem is having a president who doesn't work with the community to understand the issues and loses their trust. He won't get very candid assessments if he is such a loose cannon - as well he shouldn't. 

 BlueHeronDruid wrote:
 

I caught him one night in my yard, hiding behind the juniper bushes, waiting to take my guns.

 Steely_D wrote: 

He has the best, biggest brain.