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I agree that hardworking people can achieve things but the rich have it easier. Inclination and ability matter, but given these things in equal measures, the children of the rich will outstrip the children of the poor.
Of course you are in Canada :p
Actually I would argue that it's actually more likely to work out the other way. Those who have to truly labor for what they have are more likely to manage it well.
Those that simply come into money have a tendency to lose it, c.f. lottery winners.
I remember reading someplace that among the true working rich in the U.S., one of their biggest fears as a statistical group was that their children would not have the right work ethic and would be unable to hold on to what their parents handed them.
edit: though rereading what you wrote, if inclination and ability is the same then starting with more options is always better. But that's life for you. :)
Hey, we're fully informed.
We've all seen 'The Dukes of Hazzard'
It's wonderfully educational about the general level of education and intelligence in the American establishment.
Lets be honest...Roscoe is a dead ringer for Bush...
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I agree that hardworking people can achieve things but the rich have it easier. Inclination and ability matter, but given these things in equal measures, the children of the rich will outstrip the children of the poor.
Of course you are in Canada :p
Actually I would argue that it actually works out the other way. Those who have to truly labor for what they have are more likely to manage it well.
Those that simply come into money have a tendency to lose it, c.f. lottery winners.
I remember reading someplace that among the true working rich in the U.S., one of their biggest fears as a statistical group was that their children would not have the right work ethic and would be unable to hold on to what their parents handed them.
Yeah, I have no idea how many of my friends have completely squandered their trust funds and what-not. People that don't earn it generally do not understand how to manage it, I agree with that 100%.
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 8
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Lets be honest...Roscoe is a dead ringer for Bush...You know we are having a nice discussion. You don't need to go there. :)
This discussion has been pretty polite. Should we call Lisa and tell her we got that political thread thing worked out and the sticky should come down or what?
Lets be honest...Roscoe is a dead ringer for Bush...You know we are having a nice discussion. You don't need to go there. :)
Hey, then I'd love to have Bush with me if I ever get stuck on an island with rabid monstrous shrews.
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 8
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Lets be honest...Roscoe is a dead ringer for Bush...You know we are having a nice discussion. You don't need to go there. :)Hey, then I'd love to have Bush with me if I ever get stuck on an island with rabid monstrous shrews.
** spoiler omitted **
I'll see what I can arrange.
This discussion has been pretty polite. Should we call Lisa and tell her we got that political thread thing worked out and the sticky should come down or what?Lets be honest...Roscoe is a dead ringer for Bush...You know we are having a nice discussion. You don't need to go there. :)
We have been very polite indeed, but given a proper topic and proper people I guess flame war could still be achieved (I notice at least couple of people really good at that have been missing from this thread...)
At least he never made fun of the Special Olympics.
Hey, we're fully informed.
We've all seen 'The Dukes of Hazzard'It's wonderfully educational about the general level of education and intelligence in the American establishment.
Lets be honest...Roscoe is a dead ringer for Bush...
Roscoe or Bush, Heathy?
Oh, Tigger. Is that statement intended as a contrast between the American establishment and the European establishment?
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At least he never made fun of the Special Olympics.
Hey, we're fully informed.
We've all seen 'The Dukes of Hazzard'It's wonderfully educational about the general level of education and intelligence in the American establishment.
Lets be honest...Roscoe is a dead ringer for Bush...Roscoe or Bush, Heathy?
Oh, Tigger. Is that statement intended as a contrast between the American establishment and the European establishment?
I wish I remembered the site that published results of a survey they took in Europe about what was "true" about the U.S. It showed that Europeans (the British, in particular, which was surprising), don't actually know squat about American culture or societal norms. For one, apparently over 50% of Brits surveyed think polygamy is wide spread here.
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I'm still offended, I'm awaiting apologies from you all, and as a gesture to prove you really mean it, I expect every one of you to quit your jobs as you have proven unfit because of your behavior to function in said careers or occupations!
That is the correct course of action right? Demand apologies and insist that they leave their work? that's what you do when someone isn't PC right?
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 8
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I wish I remembered the site that published results of a survey they took in Europe about what was "true" about the U.S. It showed that Europeans (the British, in particular, which was surprising), don't actually know squat about American culture or societal norms. For one, apparently over 50% of Brits surveyed think polygamy is wide spread here.At least he never made fun of the Special Olympics.
Hey, we're fully informed.
We've all seen 'The Dukes of Hazzard'It's wonderfully educational about the general level of education and intelligence in the American establishment.
Lets be honest...Roscoe is a dead ringer for Bush...Roscoe or Bush, Heathy?
Oh, Tigger. Is that statement intended as a contrast between the American establishment and the European establishment?
It's not??!!
*tears up U.S. citizenship application*
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I'm still offended, I'm awaiting apologies from you all, and as a gesture to prove you really mean it, I expect every one of you to quit your jobs as you have proven unfit because of your behavior to function in said careers or occupations!
That is the correct course of action right? Demand apologies and insist that they leave their work? that's what you do when someone isn't PC right?
Jeez, how long do you have to marginalize someone before they just pipe down?
I can't quit my job, I was laid off! :P
;)
Whaddayamean? Mairkurion is right there.
Hee-hee! Multiple levels of meaning, just like I like it...especially if all levels are flammable.
I'll see what I can arrange.Lets be honest...Roscoe is a dead ringer for Bush...You know we are having a nice discussion. You don't need to go there. :)Hey, then I'd love to have Bush with me if I ever get stuck on an island with rabid monstrous shrews.
** spoiler omitted **
Just keep in mind, that in the movie, like most bad "sci-fi", the black guy bit it (or got bit by it in this case) first.
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 8
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Just keep in mind, that in the movie, like most bad "sci-fi", the black guy bit it (or got bit by it in this case) first.I'll see what I can arrange.Lets be honest...Roscoe is a dead ringer for Bush...You know we are having a nice discussion. You don't need to go there. :)Hey, then I'd love to have Bush with me if I ever get stuck on an island with rabid monstrous shrews.
** spoiler omitted **
Well, I'll be sure not to let my avatar accompany you and George.
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So you would keep free speech but eliminate debate, offense and or outrage? Well good luck with that one. There will always be voices that annoy you if you give everyone a chance to say whatever they want. But it's like Robert Frost said, "Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper."
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I wish I remembered the site that published results of a survey they took in Europe about what was "true" about the U.S. It showed that Europeans (the British, in particular, which was surprising), don't actually know squat about American culture or societal norms. For one, apparently over 50% of Brits surveyed think polygamy is wide spread here.At least he never made fun of the Special Olympics.
Hey, we're fully informed.
We've all seen 'The Dukes of Hazzard'It's wonderfully educational about the general level of education and intelligence in the American establishment.
Lets be honest...Roscoe is a dead ringer for Bush...Roscoe or Bush, Heathy?
Oh, Tigger. Is that statement intended as a contrast between the American establishment and the European establishment?
We did??? Really?? Ok. I acknowledge we can no longer make jokes about the stupidity of our colonial brethren with even the shred of credibility we had previously. Where's the survey? Because I can't believe my fellow countrymen are quite that ignorant. Mind you, most of them bought Jordan's biography (and its sequel), so you never know.
Paul
Edited to protect the identity of the guilty.
Paul
** spoiler omitted **
Mairkurion
What...huh? Oh no, Garydee....there's plenty of us worshippers of the Great Pumpkin waiting for him to make his glorious appearance!
Oh, and I think you're confusing Canada with Minnesota...an honest mistake. ;)
What...huh? Oh no, Garydee....there's plenty of us worshippers of the Great Pumpkin waiting for him to make his glorious appearance!
Oh, and I think you're confusing Canada with Minnesota...an honest mistake. ;)
Yeah, that might be it. You can't trust anybody north of the Red River anyways. ;)
However, it is possible to believe that something is morally wrong without advocating violence as the solution to the problem. Most of us who are Christians believe that certain actions are wrong without ever condoning or approving of physically attacking those that engage in such actions.
True enough, I don't ever see adults beating up gay co-workers... but as a high school teacher, I very often saw kids mercilessly tormenting (emotionally and physically) gay students at school. Sadly, many kids don't understand the distinction -- if you tell 'em certain people are unnatural and evil and deserve to be punished, but neglect to stress how punishment is ALWAYS God's purview and never theirs -- well, some of them will try to feel righteous by "giving God a hand" that He doesn't need. That aside, non-violent oppression, if pervasive and hateful enough, can still lead a group to withdraw and stop trying to communicate.
That said, PC ain't the right way to do it, on that point you and I can both agree. A better way might be for more preachers to maybe echo our local Houston celebrity Joel Osteen ("Purpose-Driven Life"), with his message that maybe we should worry a lot less about other peoples' potential sins -- a matter between them and God -- and worry more about our own. I don't agree with him on a lot of things, but on that one I think he hits the nail pretty squarely on the head.
OK, sorry to threadjack the thread back to its title! We now return to regional misrepresentations here in the Colonies.
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Lemme hear it.
Well, more an admission, but as I didn't think the deleted original was being particularly richardish, I felt some sort of humour was called for.
Onto the pithy comeback:
That wasn't stupidity, it was incompetence.
EDIT: And didn't mean to annoy you with the colonial thing. I meant that as an affectionate joke, rather than any sort of insult.
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I'm outta here; I keep turning into a dick on this thread.Dammit. You spoiled my pithy comeback!!! How dare you, sir?!!
That said, I'll avoid adding to the threadjack any further.
I just wanted to say that, as far as I'm concerned, if I start a thread, threadjacking for whatever reason is explicitly encouraged :)
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You know I'm not sure if it's the fact that the weather is getting better, the fact that NASCAR season has started, or if it's the fact that I'm having so much fun playing Mob Wars on Facebook, or if it's something else, I've been feeling very happy and haven't really wanted to talk politics lately. Of course, every time I watch the news I realize that the president and congress are doing more to make my point politically than anything I'm going to say.
I will take this opportunity to announce that I am right-thinking on the Richardian question:
Richard III, King of England, one of the best (and unfortunately shorter-lived) kings of England ever. Who murdered the boys in the tower? Henry Tudor, that's who. People who can kiss my ass: "St" Thomas More, Archbishop Morton, Shakespeare. (Great fictional play, though.)
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 8
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I will take this opportunity to announce that I am right-thinking on the Richardian question:
Richard III, King of England, one of the best (and unfortunately shorter-lived) kings of England ever. Who murdered the boys in the tower? Henry Tudor, that's who. People who can kiss my ass: "St" Thomas More, Archbishop Morton, Shakespeare. (Great fictional play, though.)
I'm a Richardian and proud of it.
When I get a job that pays money, I want to get a Richardian patch and sew it onto a blazer and wear it on campus.
On the one hand, politicial correctness has quiet rightly made it unacceptable to be racist or sexist in public, and i am sorry if it offends your derek, but i fail to see that as a bad thing. So views are unacceptable in a civilised society. People are free to hold them and express them, but frankly the rest of us have a responciblity to make it unfashionable to do so.It was around 1990 or so, and I was stationed in Berlin, Germany. The US Army started a big push towards fighting sexism, and we were regularly pummeled about how just about anything we did could be construed as sexist.
It worked. Perhaps a little too well. It actually got to the point that a group of male soldiers would be walking, see a female soldier, and deliberately cross the street. This had nothing to do about the capabilities of the female soldier, etc., but rather an established fear that having any sort of interaction with her would result in some sort of recrimination. This eventually ended up with us getting all sorts of classes and regular pummeling that we couldn't AVOID them either.
When PC is taken too far, it creates an atmosphere of fear and oppression. The people fear to speak against the powers that be because their very lives are in danger if they do. Are we there yet? No. Can we get there? Yes, quite easily I am afraid. We already have several nations on this planet that practice that exact principle, with the punishment being death.
What you are discribing isn't PC, that is Sexual discrimination legislation, and frankly it was needed.
I am sorry but PC has no teeth beyond behaviour by individuals.I would also put forwards the view that atleast part of why armed forces got so hammered was because their was at the time a huge degree of very deeply engrained sexism within armed forces. One could argue that such is still the case with regards to restrictions on operational roles for woman in many armed forces globally.
PC at the end of the day is a tool for making it socially unacceptable to offend for offences sake, nothing else. No one can be put to death for being none PC in a country that accepts and protects Freespeech. PC does not restrict Free Speech, it is in fact an expression of freespeech in its own way.
We have been very polite indeed, but given a proper topic and proper people I guess flame war could still be achieved (I notice at least couple of people really good at that have been missing from this thread...)
I'm here where is Sam :-)
If you believe its your right to say what you feel. It is also my right to tell you I think you're an idiot for expressing those views if I think they are stupid.
Political correctness is the corruption of common-sense by the morally uptight, so that they can get their kick out suppressing people by taking their version of the "ethical" high ground.
On the other hand it is always best to be polite or if you can't be polite be witty.
"I am but too conscious of the fact that we are born in an age when only the dull are treated seriously, and I live in terror of not being misunderstood." Oscar Wilde
We have been very polite indeed, but given a proper topic and proper people I guess flame war could still be achieved (I notice at least couple of people really good at that have been missing from this thread...)
If you believe its your right to say what you feel. It is also my right to tell you I think you're an idiot for expressing those views if I think they are stupid.
No, actually what you are discribing is in fact the very mechanic which allows PC to work. By asking people who believe it is wrong to use bigitted language to offend, not to express that opinion, you are asking them to self censor.
It isn't the corruption of common sense, it is the logicial outcome of Free Speech in an enviroment in which people hold views on emotive subjects.
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 8
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On the one hand, politicial correctness has quiet rightly made it unacceptable to be racist or sexist in public, and i am sorry if it offends your derek, but i fail to see that as a bad thing. So views are unacceptable in a civilised society. People are free to hold them and express them, but frankly the rest of us have a responciblity to make it unfashionable to do so.It was around 1990 or so, and I was stationed in Berlin, Germany. The US Army started a big push towards fighting sexism, and we were regularly pummeled about how just about anything we did could be construed as sexist.
It worked. Perhaps a little too well. It actually got to the point that a group of male soldiers would be walking, see a female soldier, and deliberately cross the street. This had nothing to do about the capabilities of the female soldier, etc., but rather an established fear that having any sort of interaction with her would result in some sort of recrimination. This eventually ended up with us getting all sorts of classes and regular pummeling that we couldn't AVOID them either.
When PC is taken too far, it creates an atmosphere of fear and oppression. The people fear to speak against the powers that be because their very lives are in danger if they do. Are we there yet? No. Can we get there? Yes, quite easily I am afraid. We already have several nations on this planet that practice that exact principle, with the punishment being death.
What you are discribing isn't PC, that is Sexual discrimination legislation, and frankly it was needed.
I am sorry but PC has no teeth beyond behaviour by individuals.I would also put forwards the view that atleast part of why armed forces got so hammered was because their was at the time a huge degree of very deeply engrained sexism within armed forces. One could argue that such is still the case with regards to restrictions on operational roles for woman in many armed forces globally.
PC at the end of...
So, you're saying when it is toothless, it is PC. How about when it is legislated?
I prefer to call it 'institutional correctness' because the sexual harassment policies at universities, for example, have less to do with the university growing a political conscious than they do with a fear of being sued.
Still, as a non-tenured professor, I have to walk on eggshells around certain topics. The densest of students are the easiest to offend, so I have to be very clear when introducing topics that I am paid to discuss.
See, when the day comes that somebody tries that BS out on me, I'll flash my Richardian patch and they'll know to back off.
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We have been very polite indeed, but given a proper topic and proper people I guess flame war could still be achieved (I notice at least couple of people really good at that have been missing from this thread...)
If you believe its your right to say what you feel. It is also my right to tell you I think you're an idiot for expressing those views if I think they are stupid.
No, actually what you are discribing is in fact the very mechanic which allows PC to work. By asking people who believe it is wrong to use bigitted language to offend, not to express that opinion, you are asking them to self censor.
It isn't the corruption of common sense, it is the logicial outcome of Free Speech in an enviroment in which people hold views on emotive subjects.
Actually, this is one place where PC breaks down for real. I'm sorry, but there should be one set of standards for admission to certain jobs. Firefighter, combat soldier (particularly infantry), police officer, any job where physical strength is a large part of the job. There are women physically strong enough to pass the PT tests that existed before the PC movement took hold. To lower the standards of those tests to allow more women to qualify, particularly in the firefighting field, opens up the potential that someone may die because political correctness allowed someone who cannot pass the test that men have to take.
Physiology and biology know squat about PC, and the laws of physics do not suspend themselves because of gender. No amount of wishful thinking is going to make the average woman as physically capable of some tasks as the average man.
When PC ignores reality, it is a very bad thing.
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One of the guys in my gaming group told me something interesting today. He's a teacher, and one of the kids complained about missing a question on the exam. The answer was "Israel". The kid said dude didn't have the right to mark the question wrong because it is against his religion to acknowledge Israel exists.
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 8
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We have been very polite indeed, but given a proper topic and proper people I guess flame war could still be achieved (I notice at least couple of people really good at that have been missing from this thread...)
If you believe its your right to say what you feel. It is also my right to tell you I think you're an idiot for expressing those views if I think they are stupid.
No, actually what you are discribing is in fact the very mechanic which allows PC to work. By asking people who believe it is wrong to use bigitted language to offend, not to express that opinion, you are asking them to self censor.
It isn't the corruption of common sense, it is the logicial outcome of Free Speech in an enviroment in which people hold views on emotive subjects.
Actually, this is one place where PC breaks down for real. I'm sorry, but there should be one set of standards for admission to certain jobs. Firefighter, combat soldier (particularly infantry), police officer, any job where physical strength is a large part of the job. There are women physically strong enough to pass the PT tests that existed before the PC movement took hold. To lower the standards of those tests to allow more women to qualify, particularly in the firefighting field, opens up the potential that someone may die because political correctness allowed someone who cannot pass the test that men have to take.
Physiology and biology know squat about PC, and the laws of physics do not suspend themselves because of gender. No amount of wishful thinking is going to make the average woman as physically capable of some tasks as the average man.
When PC ignores reality, it is a very bad thing.
But this is also where your definition of PC becomes a bit vague. It's nice to see you practicing inclusivity but do you really need to include every possible liberal policy under one label? Kind of makes it easier to tear it down then I guess but I cease to understand what you are talking about then.
What does PC mean, Derek?
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 8
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One of the guys in my gaming group told me something interesting today. He's a teacher, and one of the kids complained about missing a question on the exam. The answer was "Israel". The kid said dude didn't have the right to mark the question wrong because it is against his religion to acknowledge Israel exists.
I'd have laughed and said, "Good luck with that one."
A colleague told me that one of her students objected to the ESL listening CD that she used in class because before each track was a 5 second musical intro. The student told her it was against her religion to listen to music. My colleague tried to accomodate her. I would have said, "Cover your ears when you see me heading towards the CD player then."