But then again women are hormonal, they may launch the big one when they run out of chocolate. (j/k) ;)
You're the one with a wife buddy, not me :P
No doubt people reducing a woman down to being nothing but meat that they would like to jump on like a fat kid, brought that particular example foremost to my mind. But that isn't the only situation out there when someone would want to use a gun to protect themselves or others from an individual or group of individuals that could potentially harm them. The gun has been a powerful tool to equalize the field for many people. See Crimson's example above.
Now who's the one infering from what Shifty wrote?
As for Crimson's example, the situation might just as well have ended in him killing the guy. Great way to start off one's use of firearms.
No doubt people reducing a woman down to being nothing but meat that they would like to jump on like a fat kid, brought that particular example foremost to my mind.
Right, and women don't oggle Firemen either... uhuh... suuuuuure.
Because expressing any sort of sexual attraction immediately makes one some kind of predatory monster forcing themselves upon the unwilling at the first opportunity.
Are you either:
A) A member of the Taliban?
or
B) Living in the Victorian era?
Both regiemes espoused your point of view as a cornerstone of their beliefs, and allowed unchecked, have been attrocious in the abuses against women in order to 'preserve moral decency'.
Prez Man, you can talk about the Paladin all night; and I'll discus cake with her instead - Cake!.
'Giant BTW, how have you been? I havn't seen you on FB in a while.
Been too busy playing WoW, Pathfinder and woo'ing women. :-D
Only had some success with the first two, though. :-pThanks for asking, though, hope you and the family came safely into the new year.
On another note, I think a lot of people across the spectrum here would find Mike Gravel interesting.
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'Giant BTW, how have you been? I havn't seen you on FB in a while.Been too busy playing WoW, Pathfinder and woo'ing women. :-D
Only had some success with the first two, though. :-p
Thanks for asking, though, hope you and the family came safely into the new year.
We did. It's our daughters birthday so we just stay home and watch movies and play games. Ahhhhh... my wild and crazy life. :P
You want the wife should send you some pick up lines? ;)
We did. It's our daughters birthday so we just stay home and watch movies and play games. Ahhhhh... my wild and crazy life. :P
That's what happens to your life after wife and kids... I've seen it up close. ;-)
You want the wife should send you some pick up lines? ;)
Considering where she works, I'm not sure that's safe. :-p
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We did. It's our daughters birthday so we just stay home and watch movies and play games. Ahhhhh... my wild and crazy life. :PThat's what happens to your life after wife and kids... I've seen it up close. ;-)
You want the wife should send you some pick up lines? ;)Considering where she works, I'm not sure that's safe. :-p
Not safe for work anyway.
Hey, if you want to defend such speech as something noble that should be looked up to, who am I to tell you differently.
I just got to say, at my job, if I talked about women in that fashion, I'd be written up if I was lucky, fired if I kept it up. That seems a pretty indication that such speech is not appropriate, but as I said, different cultures and all.
I just got to say, at my job, if I talked about women in that fashion, I'd be written up if I was lucky, fired if I kept it up
Because it is not appropriate for the workplace, as you should be talking about the job at hand. Notwithstanding the notion that idle chit-chat shouldn't be happening at work, the other reason that this is so is because people can be sensitive to such comments, and it is simply easier not to offend them.
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I understand where you're comming from, and I do appologize for my overly aggresive response. I get very touchy when it comes to the topic of gun control, I'm sure the way things work in your country work for your country. I like being able to own my guns, and keep them here at the house. I grew up in the country, we hunted when we wanted, not had to join a club and pay dues and fees. As for the permits to carry, I would get one myself but I have no reason to. But for a bussiness owner who regularly leaves his shop with large sums of cash? I can see the need.
Actually, I think this really highlights why the right to bear arms is so important to Americans and why people from other countries may not always understand the drive to protect that right. I have much the same history as Moorluck. I had a stepfather that loved to hunt. I grew up with guns all of my life. The idea of restricting all firearms is an alien one to me and not particularly appealing. When I say I support some level of gun control, I do not mean I want this fundamental right to be unduly hindered. I think the solution lies in how to control the method in which criminals receive guns.
My examples will clearly speak about Europe and the US, though I think comparing the US opinion of the right to bear arms versus the same perception of the issue in Asia or Africa would be very interesting. I might be wildly off base, but I think there is a strict difference in psychology that can be easily uncovered if you look hard enough.
The right to bear arms was key in our development and settling of the country. We may not have always used them with wisdom, but we have always had the right to do so. That right directly derives from the events of the Revolution.We have two centuries of history that pushes us towards that issue. And rightly so.
Some European countries, on the other hand, have had weapons control in some form or another since the Middle Ages. And there wasn't the same kind of drive to expand and settle outward, as it were. European Colonialism was driven by rulers and armies, not the common man. While the US army had a strong hand in Westward expansion, it is not quite the same thing.
I think there is a fundamental misunderstanding from some that all of our crime is somehow connected to loose gun laws. It isn't. Some of it does derive from other issues in our society, but very few crimes can be directly attributed to the right to bear arms.
I also think there is a fundamental misunderstanding that those who oppose gun control hoard guns and obsess over them in rather unhealthy ways. That is rarely the case. Are there people who take it too far? Of course. As in all things, there are extreme exceptions to the rule. But most people who own one or many guns understand the nature of responsible firearm ownership. Like all tools, they have their uses and those uses are varied. Some people carry them for defense, some for hunting, some for both. Gun ownership is a desired right for a wide swath of people for more reasons than I can think about.
It also important to remember we do have certain strictures in place, though such restrictions are often imposed by state governments and not the federal government. For instance, you cannot simply walk into a gun store in Ohio and pick up a firearm. There is a waiting period while the store performs a background check and insures the purchase is a legal one. But criminals don't get their guns from gun stores. And there in lies a problem that simple gun control, as we know it, will not fix those issues.
Besides, a guy carrying a gun can be kind of hot. You know...I'm just saying.
Besides, a guy carrying a gun can be kind of hot. You know...I'm just saying.
OMG I feel so sexually objectified!
Excuse me while I wheel out my premanufactured outrage!
... as you should be talking about the job at hand. Notwithstanding the notion that idle chit-chat shouldn't be happening at work...
Wow, and I thought some of my old bosses were strict.... Is your job a no-talking-period zone? I have never had a job where there wasn't some level of friendly chitchat going on somewhere at all times of the day.
... as you should be talking about the job at hand. Notwithstanding the notion that idle chit-chat shouldn't be happening at work...Wow, and I thought some of my old bosses were strict.... Is your job a no-talking-period zone? I have never had a job where there wasn't some level of friendly chitchat going on somewhere at all times of the day.
Indeed, I seriously doubt most restrictions about sexual harassment speech are in place to crack down on people who are doing friendly chit-chat. At least in my culture anyway, I can't speak about others'.
Wow, and I thought some of my old bosses were strict.... Is your job a no-talking-period zone?
In most of the professional white-collar areas I have worked there wasn't usually time to engage in much more than a passing hello and goodbye. At my last job there was often not time to take your breaks or anything of that manner, and the hours could be long.
That being said, when the hourly rates are around $100USD, a 10 minute chat between two or three people starts costing dough :)
Of course, now I'm not engaged in that life is a tad more relaxed (I am my own boss) - however in most places I contract to I still avoid the small talk when the meter is running for good manners.
Off the clock we can chew the fat all day.
That being said, when the hourly rates are around $100USD, a 10 minute chat between two or three people starts costing dough :)
In that case I can see the difference, I've never gotten even a fifth of that myself. :)
Not everyone would though. I have heard soem ultra new age Athiest bash her just because.What the heck is an Ultra New Age Athiest? Sounds like a contradiction in terms.
Look who's coming to visit Pres Man tonight!
** spoiler omitted **
Bookmarked that site. Thanks! :D
Maybe I'm biased, but I find Hitchens to be an amusing read. To each their own.
No doubt people reducing a woman down to being nothing but meat that they would like to jump on like a fat kid, brought that particular example foremost to my mind.Right, and women don't oggle Firemen either... uhuh... suuuuuure.
Because expressing any sort of sexual attraction immediately makes one some kind of predatory monster forcing themselves upon the unwilling at the first opportunity.
Are you either:
A) A member of the Taliban?
or
B) Living in the Victorian era?
Both regiemes espoused your point of view as a cornerstone of their beliefs, and allowed unchecked, have been attrocious in the abuses against women in order to 'preserve moral decency'.
Well said shifty, well said.
Maybe I'm biased, but I find Hitchens to be an amusing read. To each their own.He is amusing, in a Godless Commie sort of way.
Erm, Hitchens is by no stretch a communist. He's actually quite conservative in many of his views.
I miss the mags.
+1 but Kobold Quarterly is nice.I miss the mags.
Would like to see Kobold Monthly. :P
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Erm, Hitchens is by no stretch a communist. He's actually quite conservative in many of his views.Maybe I'm biased, but I find Hitchens to be an amusing read. To each their own.He is amusing, in a Godless Commie sort of way.
As evidenced by the fact that he lost the support of many of his followers because he was pro-Iraq War.
Me too. Everyone keeps telling m how great it is, but I don't have the money for a subscription so I can't find out for myself.Would like to see Kobold Monthly. :P+1 but Kobold Quarterly is nice.I miss the mags.
I don't have a subscription either, but I pick one up on occasion when I see something in the contents I must have. I have enough magazine subscriptions coming here at home that I need to hold off until the woman gets a full time job (I know you understand). Not saying it's the successor to Dragon, but it fills in the niche, you know?
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Erm, Hitchens is by no stretch a communist. He's actually quite conservative in many of his views.Maybe I'm biased, but I find Hitchens to be an amusing read. To each their own.He is amusing, in a Godless Commie sort of way.
That maybe so, that he lost supporters for his pro Iraq war stance,however he still calls himself a Marxist. The distinction maybe small but it is still there.
In 2006 in a town hall meeting in Pennsylvania debating the Jewish Tradition with Martin Amis, Hitchens commented on his political philosophy by stating "I am no longer a socialist, but I still am a Marxist"link. Hitchens affirmed his Marxist theory several times including in 2009 in an article for The Atlantic entitled "The Revenge of Karl Marx" in which Hitchens explains how Marx's economic analysis in Das Kapital has predicted many of the failures of the U.S. economy, including the late-2000s recession.
Erm, Hitchens is by no stretch a communist. He's actually quite conservative in many of his views.Maybe I'm biased, but I find Hitchens to be an amusing read. To each their own.He is amusing, in a Godless Commie sort of way.That maybe so, that he lost supporters for his pro Iraq war stance,however he still calls himself a Marxist. The distinction maybe small but it is still there.
In 2006 in a town hall meeting in Pennsylvania debating the Jewish Tradition with Martin Amis, Hitchens commented on his political philosophy by stating "I am no longer a socialist, but I still am a Marxist"link. Hitchens affirmed his Marxist theory several times including in 2009 in an article for The Atlantic entitled "The Revenge of Karl Marx" in which Hitchens explains how Marx's economic analysis in Das Kapital has predicted many of the failures of the U.S. economy, including the late-2000s recession.
He also identifies himself as a libertarian and a neo-con (well, agreeing with the neo-con foreign policy, primarily regarding the Iraq war) - so would you then also agree that he's a libertarian or a neo-con?
Clearly he, like most of us, is a complex person and his political views cannot be put into a neat and tidy box.It's easy, though, to try and pinhole him into a certain political viewpoint, that has been the great scare in the US throughout much of the last century, and then dismiss anything he says on those grounds. It would, however, also be dishonest.
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Erm, Hitchens is by no stretch a communist. He's actually quite conservative in many of his views.Maybe I'm biased, but I find Hitchens to be an amusing read. To each their own.He is amusing, in a Godless Commie sort of way.That maybe so, that he lost supporters for his pro Iraq war stance,however he still calls himself a Marxist. The distinction maybe small but it is still there.
In 2006 in a town hall meeting in Pennsylvania debating the Jewish Tradition with Martin Amis, Hitchens commented on his political philosophy by stating "I am no longer a socialist, but I still am a Marxist"link. Hitchens affirmed his Marxist theory several times including in 2009 in an article for The Atlantic entitled "The Revenge of Karl Marx" in which Hitchens explains how Marx's economic analysis in Das Kapital has predicted many of the failures of the U.S. economy, including the late-2000s recession.He also identifies himself as a libertarian and a neo-con (well, agreeing with the neo-con foreign policy, primarily regarding the Iraq war) - so would you then also agree that he's a libertarian or a neo-con?
Clearly he, like most of us, is a complex person and his political views cannot be put into a neat and tidy box.
It's easy, though, to try and pinhole him into a certain political viewpoint, that has been the great scare in the US throughout much of the last century, and then dismiss anything he says on those grounds. It would, however, also be dishonest.
And to be fair most people are.
I have been, what was the word used, "twitchy" as of late. Some things Hitchens has done and said have really earked me. I should not take people one sided and in fact that was a leason I learned long ago. Thank you for the reminder.
I'll readily agree that Hitchens can rub people the wrong way. I personally don't care much for his, at times, smug way of expressing himself. I try and look past it, though, because I generally agree with him on a lot of his viewpoints in the religious arena.
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I have been, what was the word used, "twitchy" as of late. Some things Hitchens has done and said have really earked me. I should not take people one sided and in fact that was a leason I learned long ago. Thank you for the reminder.I'll readily agree that Hitchens can rub people the wrong way. I personally don't care much for his, at times, smug way of expressing himself. I try and look past it, though, because I generally agree with him on a lot of his viewpoints in the religious arena.
I agree with few, if any, of his points at all. Religion most of all.
Aw, c'mon, give the conservatives a break. They're going to have to live with 8 years of Obama after 8 years of being embarrassed by Bush. I think they've earned the right to gripe a lot. I know there was a lot of griping by the more liberal-minded during the Bush-Cheney administration.
Besides, not everyone of a liberal mind is exactly ecstatic with Obama so far.
Not to start a flame war or anything like that shadow BUT I dont think obama is gonna see 8. His power base amoungst his own democratic party is very weak and both houses of congress are going to be swept by the coming republican tide turning his last two years into a lame duck presidency.
I didnt vote for him as I would have loved to see mccain in office but even my ultra conservative self can see his own party isnt giving him a fair chance. They honestly expected miracles, how dare he not deliver. I do not agree with his politics and I hope and pray everyday that the republicans will find a way to scrap this horrible illegal alien welfare health care system but even I can see that the man is not being treated fairly by either party.
Not quite a failure, he was a decorated war hero (the thing that gave him marketability as a political candidate)
Brave (and lucky) but not a leader of men. He actually tried to stay in the army after the war but they would not keep him.
and a moderately competent draftsman. His biggest mistake was assuming from one incredibly good lucky guess that he actually was a competent general. (he wasn't and at least a couple of the assasination attempts made against him were by disgruntled army officers who'd had it with his incopetence at military management.)
What was the guess? I can think of some candidates though mainly the ones I'm thinking of fall more into early political decisions as opposed to military ones.
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It is a rare, rare day that I find myself defending pres man. But, as much as I agree with Shifty about gun control, I find his use of two phrases in his posts on this thread things I can't abide: "I'd tap that" and "fat kid on a cake." Why? Because it is fundamentally dehumanizing. I'm not a Sarah Palin fan, but as a woman, and as someone who is told by society that focusing on my weight is "what I should do," I get a little angry at those expressions.
We're not maple trees or faucets or other objects to "tap." Is it too embarassing to come out and say, "Sarah Palin turns me on sexually, even though I'm offended by her politics?" Or is it because saying it that way doesn't marginalize her while shielding you from your emotions (and the actual word S-E-X)? Likewise, "fat people simply have no self control" is a sterotype that marginalizes a whole host of people, in America, mainly poorer people.
They're just common expressions, but beneath the words is a hurtful etymology. Go ahead and call me an overly sensitive PC liberal, maybe I am. But it's because I care deeply about words and their meanings.
While I do agree Zeugma, you have every right to be offended if a guy offers to "tap" you (lord knows our society horribly warps the ideals of feminine beauty) but, understand that this is today's language. I'm a middle school teacher and I hear these phrases being used all the time. The girls are almost all flattered by it, they incourage it. I'm in my late 30's and i'm sure the words I would use to let a woman know that I liked her would seem odd today. I would also like to say that I consider myself a liberal , and I like brunettes, however any attraction Mrs. Palin could ever have caused, is chillingly ruined when she opens her mouth. Try to understand that men are very grounded in the physical (young men especially) its not that it is all that we care about. Thats just usually our starting point. While modern slang may be a bit ... direct, I honestly think its an expression of the society rather than the individual.
While I do agree Zeugma, you have every right to be offended if a guy offers to "tap" you (lord knows our society horribly warps the ideals of feminine beauty) but, understand that this is today's language. I'm a middle school teacher and I hear these phrases being used all the time. The girls are almost all flattered by it, they incourage it. I'm in my late 30's and i'm sure the words I would use to let a woman know that I liked her would seem odd today. I would also like to say that I consider myself a liberal , and I like brunettes, however any attraction Mrs. Palin could ever have caused, is chillingly ruined when she opens her mouth. Try to understand that men are very grounded in the physical (young men especially) its not that it is all that we care about. Thats just usually our starting point. While modern slang may be a bit ... direct, I honestly think its an expression of the society rather than the individual.
Except when the individual makes such a strong effort to defend it as not "sexist". At that point, it becomes clear that it an expression founded in the individual. I mean if someone said, "Yeah, its sexist, but it is how I feel." I could understand that, I would think it was crude but I could see it. But to claim so vehemently that it was not in anyway possibly sexist in any form, well I find that a bit strange.
Except when the individual makes such a strong effort to defend it as not "sexist". At that point, it becomes clear that it an expression founded in the individual. I mean if someone said, "Yeah, its sexist, but it is how I feel." I could understand that, I would think it was crude but I could see it. But to claim so vehemently that it was not in anyway possibly sexist in any form, well I find that a bit strange.
Well, hate to drag you into the 'now', but its pretty common parlance.
Gone are the days when you'd go a courting to the damsel of your desires, and she would be all coy and flutter her eyelids. Sure, you might somehow view those gentler times as less 'sexist', however they were actually MORE de-powering of women - it was against the social mores of the time for women to express their desires (just to be the quarry).Moreso the attitude that the men had a mandate to go forth and sew their wild oats, while women were expected to sit prim and proper and remain virginal. Fortunately these hypocritical double standards have gone the way of the rest of that guff and now women are just as able to come play on the field as we are (as males).
The unforseen and unfortunate side effect of this is that (generally speaking) they just came to our level, rather than bring any real refinement to the table - so hence, they (more often than not) play the game when such course discourse as "I'd tap that" comes into play.
The problem (as I see it) is that you have a rather polarised view that says that if you mention anything to do with sexual attraction in any but the most clinical dispassionate way, then you are inherently sexist and only capable of objectifying the target of your desire as a sex object. In essence, this simplified two dimensional view can only end up causing conflict and angst. and leaves people hung up and unable to convey their desires to their potential dates etc.
If you would prefer a 100 yard stand-off with a potential mate while she does some sort of sempahore signal thing with her fan whilst you do the manly dance of Gilder in a dashing set of stovepipe trousers, then you go right ahead. Meanwhile I'll take the risque and flamboyant banter of today, with all its garish, but unpretentious, language.
On the 'Fat kid with Cake' thing Zeugma, well sorry if you got offended, it certainly wasn't the intention - I'll try be less ostentatious if you try not to seek offence where none is intended and just roll with things at face value.
"fat people simply have no self control" is a sterotype that marginalizes a whole host of people, in America, mainly poorer people.
Well just for the record, I was both at one point - but now I am not.
No biggie, just didn't want you to get the notion that I don't know what it's like to be in that position.