The Boy Scouts of America just went on my shit list. I have spent considerable hours this past week taking multiple online courses, discussing ridiculous schedules by phone and email, filling out sheaf’s of paperwork and dealing with insane women I don’t even like in order to fulfill bizarre safety requirements to perform a mandatory one day, four hour volunteer position so my boys can attend a week long, Boy Scout day camp this summer.
The coup de grace came Friday evening, all volunteers over forty need to have a doctor’s note to volunteer. Yeah, that’s not happening.
We’re a Boy Scout family, both boys participate, my husband has run our middle son’s den for four years. We’re all involved with the BSA, on board with the program, we get it, like it, want to participate. But I’m feeling more than a little disgusted with the long chain of hoops required to volunteer for a simple stint of babysitting. I understand that the litigious nature of society now requires all of these ass saving measures, but it puts one hell of a damper on my desire to participate. I have a low threshold for aggravation on a good day, but I tend to stretch it long for my kid’s sake and the Boy Scout Camping Fascists crossed it this week.
Maybe they should shove the price up from $65 a week to $200 and hire some qualified help. I’d gladly pay, having no real burning desire to mind a hundred small boys running pell mell in the sweltering heat and trying to drown each other in the deep end of the creek. Plus, they expect me to wear an ugly t-shirt and long, khaki shorts. I don’t own long, khaki shorts and I look putrid in pea green with lurid yellow logos plastered front and back. I think the small boys roaming the grounds would recognize by my busty, adult stature that I’m not one of the campers.
I expect I’ll be yanking my kids out of this camp tomorrow, life’s too short to go through this much aggravation for a week spent at the creek, six blocks from the house. Maybe I’ll plan an extra week at the beach, buy a summer membership to the country club or schedule another trip to the horse ranch to make it up. I’d rather deplete my bank account than mess with this annoying nonsense. The simple things in life have become way too complicated. No wonder nobody volunteers anymore, it’s a huge pain in the ass.
Mixed feelings on this one. We are tireless defenders of the Boy Scouts as they face the !!!!OUTRAGE!!!! of the goo-gooders on the phony issues of discrimination against homosexuals, atheists and fat people. But it takes precious little crappy-organization disasters before the point of diminishing returns has been crossed. And I find I can’t criticize you on this decision, because I’ve made the same one.
In our case the aggravation was related to short notice. Out of an entire pack of cub scouts, I was the only single-dad; the only one that lived outside of a patch of ground less than one mile across. I was Sergeant Schultz, I knew nothing. I was getting phone calls after 3 in the afternoon that there was a meeting that night. With my kid living with his mother fifteen miles up the hill. WTF??
But I think you understand with the several pounds of ass-covering forms, the Boy Scouts aren’t even close to being guilty of starting the mess…just of failing to clean it up before it got to you. They are the solution, not the problem. They are worthy of your support, because they are the only spoiler standing between us and a future generation that is even — hard as it is to conceive — whinier than the world we know today.
I love the boy scouts, Morgan. I think they’re a wonderful organization who’ve had to face bucket loads of gross PC shit in the past few years.
I do understand why they’re crossing the T’s and dotting the I’s, but it’s annoying trying to meet all of their endless requirements for a simple four hour a day, week long camp.
I didn’t (and people like me) create this monster of hurdles, liberal assholes did – but I’m fed up with trying to meet fifty different expectations just to watch a bunch of neighborhood boys for a few hours on a Friday morning.
I’m reading a couple of books by this guy right now, kind of fits with your post:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-02-17/are-lawyers-killing-america/
I wouldn’t sign the medical form either. That’s too much.
Daphne – Give them the finger instead of the Scout sign!
You’re playing right into their hands, I think.
That’s the name of the game. Make it such a raging pain in the ass to do something unique, even if it’s as innocuous as rock-climbing on the weekend with your kid instead of stretching out on the couch watching a football game, that eventually nobody wants to step out of the gilded cage. Until all the men are spending their free time watching teevee and babysitting, and all the women are spending their free time at Starbucks or in the mall. Draconian sameness. That way we’re much more easily managed.
Just look at what’s being stigmatized…and litigated. Going to church. Hunting. Nascar. Paintball. Camping outside. Starting your own business. Going to a tea party protest.
It isn’t about making a more harmless world or making a world more accessible to the “differently-abled”; it’s about making us into human ball bearings, so that not a single one of us has a unique story to tell. Think how offensive Boy Scouts are to that vision. They believe in God, and they have these merit badges on their uniforms. You are expected to pull together and help each other out, but if you achieve something as an individual, you are celebrated for that.
You know, somewhere on Thursday or Friday I saw a FARK thread about how, if you were a scout leader and some outdoor activity was coming up, and your height/weight didn’t fit into the charts properly, you could just stay home thankyewverymuch. The FARK kids just went nuts over it. A few of the brighter bulbs figured out the logic involved; most of them revealed, by their comments, unwittingly, that in childhood they had never been scouts. Or done anything strenuous for that matter. “Discrimination!”, they cried. If you’re a 300-pound tub of goo, you should be able to go on a fifty mile hike up a mountain. Yeah, RIGHT.
But that’s the vision. Legislate and litigate and paperwork us into becoming a nation of veal calves.
Like I said, I can’t criticize you for opting out. My advice would be to just make damn sure that the “homeschool adventuring” is properly planned and executed…which knowing you somewhat, I’m sure you will. Brian Boitano thing — make a plan & follow through.
I would rather slide down a slide made out of of razor blades and busted beer bottles and land in a pool of rubbing alcohol than supervise any activity where I’m responsible for children. Good thing I never had any, eh? : )
What’s a FARK? They sound like a bunch of toolsheds. Boy scouts is all about being physically fit and the activities are predominately centered around outdoor activities – hiking, camping, swimming, hunting, etc., sometimes in remote locations as the boys get older. You can’t lead them if you’re obese and obese children wouldn’t be able to participate in many cases either.
Adult volunteering for this day camp is supposed to be mandatory if you enroll your child, I just received an email stating they have only a handful of parents willing to show up, but the organizers aren’t planning on kicking out any of the no-show parent’s kids from the camp. What kind of bull is that?
You know, I’ve never been in a Starbucks. Kind of weird, huh?
Ah yes.
The ‘lawyers’. Those rascals. Along with ‘liberal assholes’ hell-bent on destroying the good old US of A.
Of course the lawyers have a vast market serving folks eager to reduce any hint of risk for their bewildered offspring and themselves.
Liberals are just ‘assholes’ with all that emphasis on a level playing field and working for remedies against discrimination. Go figure.
And of course ‘they’ work day and night to ‘legislate and litigate and paperwork us into becoming a nation of veal caves’.
Except ‘they’ don’t need to do any such thing.
A complacent, self-satisfied population made up of a huge number of folks eager to hang onto the idea we as Americans are somehow special does that all by its ownself.
But it’s always more fun to blame someone else.
Arthur,
You lost me when you insinuated our being lulled into becoming a nation of veal calves, was somehow the consequence of supposedly arrogant people wandering around among us who thought of themselves as special. By “you lost me” I don’t mean to say I disliked what you said; I mean it simply didn’t make any sense. How do you become un-special by wanting to be special?
As far as your asshole liberals “with all that emphasis on a level playing field and working for remedies against discrimination” — what evidence do you have to offer that this is what they really want, other than those asshole liberals just saying so over & over again? Do you have some asshole libs in mind who will crusade just as loud and just as long for the rights of tea party protesters to associate peaceably, as, for example, Cindy Sheehan and her Code Pink cohorts? I can’t help noticing lately, the more power the asshole liberals get, the more asshole-ish they behave, and good old-fashioned discrimination seems to be ratcheted way up to the top of the agenda.
Daphne,
FARK is an electronic aquarium you put in your living room, although its primary purpose is supposed to be as a news scroll, with one thread under each linked article. The “fish” are actually hundreds of people logging in to create comments just like on any other thread, except in this case so many of them have been around for so long, that a community has risen up with a distinct flavoring and lots of cultural memes. They are overwhelmingly liberal (with some exceptions), overwhelmingly sure of themselves, overwhelmingly confident in the good judgment of their own opinions, and underwhelmingly unable to logically explain why their opinion is the right one. That seems to be because around 60% of them are logging in from college campuses. The typical FARK account is just young enough to still know everything.
Great fun to watch. And occasionally to toss a bit of something in, then pull your arm out again as they start fighting over it.
Like I said. An aquarium.
http://www.fark.com
The really fun part is: You m-u-s-t establish an account every time you post a comment. But you can submit links anonymously. You have no idea how much fun that can be until you’ve done it.
Morgan-
I’m referring to a huge number of us who insist on a wasteful, suburban, consumerist lifestyle based on inexpensive petroleum and the constitutional guarantee of free parking :).
And if you can point me in the direction of an ‘asshole liberal’ who has in anyway ‘crusaded’ against the rights of ‘tea party protestors’ then by all means do so.
Well deserved mockery is not an infringement upon the rights of those particular ‘real Americans’.
I’m referring to a huge number of us who insist on a wasteful, suburban, consumerist lifestyle based on inexpensive petroleum and the constitutional guarantee of free parking.
Then since the Boy Scouts show grown boys & men how to subsist without being overly reliant on the megalopolis superstructure, I take it you would support their efforts.
Well deserved mockery is not an infringement upon the rights of those particular ‘real Americans’.
Your pitiful Jedi mind-control techniques only work on the weak-minded. The mockery is intended to deliver a chill effect on free speech, and has that effect. In a rising number of cases, it simply isn’t funny, nor is it indicative of the substance of real events (“I can see Russia from my house!”) and is tossed out there for no purpose whatsoever other than to alter the outcome of political decisions. We know beyond any doubt whatsoever that liberals would be among the first to lay this charge, if such “mockery” was sighted in on other targets more in line with their sympathies.
Mockery also has a liberating effect for the “mocker,” abandoning the obligation and effort to adhere to or represent truth. This is, I think, why you were careful not to say something like “well deserved logical refutation of the points made,” opting instead for the far less demanding “well deserved mockery.” What you really mean, I think, is that you and people like you deserve to use the mockery. You don’t have anything to say that is substantial enough to survive any other rhetorical device; you’re using the mockery as the last refuge of cowardly thought. We’ve seen this repeatedly as The Daily Show’s John Stewart has come under legitimate criticism and, time and time again, taken shelter behind the tiresome trope of “It’s a comedy show, something’s wrong with you because you’re taking it too seriously.”
Other liberals have followed suit; not so much because they admire John Stewart, but because their outrageous beliefs cannot be compellingly presented or defended any other way. So no, the tea parties and their participants are not being mocked because they “deserve” it; they’re being mocked because some medium is needed with some flexibility to it, in order to offer even the appearance of reasonable criticism, and only mockery will suffice for that.
Well, mockery and something else — ugly accusations that tangibly do represent “an infringement on the rights of those particular ‘real Americans’”…
And if you can point me in the direction of an ‘asshole liberal’ who has in anyway ‘crusaded’ against the rights of ‘tea party protestors’ then by all means do so.
Janeane Garofalo, inspiring, inspired by, or in concert with numerous columnists at The Huffington Post, made several pointed comments accusing the tea party participants and organizers of racist intentions and, in some cases, affiliations. To help buttress this claim a number of slideshows have been presented of the “most offensive” picket signs at such protests.
Side note: To take these slideshows as serious evidence of latent racism, you have to believe it is “racist” to call Barack Obama a socialist. Or to arrive at such protests with your kids, to make the point that there is something wrong when they are born into such staggering debt. That’s “racist,” I guess, because the kids happen to be young. Comparing Obama to Hitler is supposed to be racist (??), and to point out this country was started on a tax revolt — which it was — is also racist.
Now then. Let me just get something straight here.
The good name of Arthurstone is being lent to the supposition that there are no liberals, anywhere, who are trying, in effect or in intent, to suppress free speech of those who oppose their policies? None of them are trying, in effect or in intent, to suppress the constitutional right to assemble peaceably? When all these liberals are calling their perceived antagonists “racists,” in the world of Arthurstone, they’re leveling these accusations with the full endeavor and expectation that those antagonists should keep all their privileges and rights to express free speech? Without restriction? That’s why they’re calling them racists for saying things that, in fact, don’t have a hint of racism to them whatsoever? That isn’t meant to cudgel strangers into silence? How ya figger?
There are other examples besides the well-coordinated “Tea Parties Are Racist” meme. There are other examples within our very own government. The Department of Homeland Security just released a report — without any evidence in it to back up the charges whatsoever — that “right wing extremism” is a homeland security threat. It included a footnote that specifically identified returning veterans as being particularly susceptible to recruitment by right wing extremist groups. Definitions to be used for this targeted “awareness” of supposedly dangerous extremist groups, included concerns with single-issues, like (as a specific example) being pro-life. It was an enormous black eye for the administration, it’s still uncertain whether Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is going to survive it…she probably will at this point. But it’s not something on which we need to speculate any further. It’s a well-known liberal tactic, in official positions as well as “on the street,” to try to silence dissent using a number of different methods, most of which involve social stigma. This all would make the typical liberal scream in frenzied outrage, most assuredly, if it was the conservative doing it to the liberal viewpoint rather than the other way around. Even now, as the Senate becomes filibuster-proof and liberals have marginalized their opposition about to the greatest extent they could possibly have hoped to — most liberal energies are spent on marginalizing the opposition further. To actually solve a problem, does not appear to be something that interests them in the slightest. They’re only interested in restricting dissenting points of view, achieving a monopoly on the public discourse they’d never allow to anyone else.
Just drop it, Arthur. They’re discriminatory assholes plain and simple, and you know it. They may babble on about tolerance for diverse points of view, but they haven’t got the slightest idea what such a thing means and they don’t care to learn. They’ve never been interested in dialogue where a monologue will do.
Morgan-
Lots of time on your hands I see.
For one thing Napolitano will be fine. For another re-read your final paragraph and get back to me on the topic of ‘dialogue’. I know how exciting it must be to have your bright, shiny 2009 Vicimhood SUV (8 cylinder) parked in the garage and ready to roll when ‘they’ pick on poor, defenseless Real Americans.
And you lot are going to save Western Civilization from ‘Islamofascism’?
Not likely. You’re wetting yourselves over the likes of Kansne Garafalo.
Morgan-
And thanks for the chuckle.
‘Jedi mind control techniques’.
Excellent.
Exactly what I’m talking about.
Mocking. The last refuge of a cowardly idea. You can’t even state for the record what point it is you’re trying to make.
I’m afraid your side is going to find it much, much more difficult to implement some good ideas that actually work, than it was to campaign. That’s probably why you can’t stop campaigning.
Arthur, Morgan cleaned your skewed clock today.
Alison dismantled it last week.
I’ve treated you with kid gloves so far, might be time for you to head off to softer pastures.
Always good to see our good man Arthur get barbecued. Icing on an already great day!
It never ceases to amaze me how youth activity organizations seem to make a concerted effort to chase off the people that honestly want to help for the sake of making a better experience for the children. The adults that are left behind seem to be the empires builders with their hidden agendas.
I’m going to write a blog entry about 4H this week. It’ll provide a similar story.
Daphne opined:
I’ve treated you with kid gloves so far, might be time for you to head off to softer pastures.
These are ‘softer pastures’ Daphne.
Morgan Freeburg typed:
Mocking. The last refuge of a cowardly idea. You can’t even state for the record what point it is you’re trying to make.
Mocking. You mean like the phrase ‘liberal assholes’ repeated here as a mantra Morgan? The one answer to every question? The entire tone of this blog is one of mocking. The problem is when the lens is turned in the other direction folks hereabouts get all weepy and hurt. ‘For the record’ my point was ‘lawyers’ aren’t killing our nation. They have endless opportunities to litigate on behalf of people from all ends of the political spectrum for the very simple reason doctors, corporations, not-for profits, government agencies, etc. etc. misbehave, lie cheat and discriminate endlessly. And it’s very easy to find an example or two to offend anyone’s sensibilities and hold it up for ridicule for like-minded comrades. Meanwhile courts are filled to overflowing with corporations suing one another over trademark issues, monopolistic practices, unfair competition etc. but somehow the only suits which merit attention from complacent America are those which somehow gain the attention of folks eager to find yet another example of how far we’ve fallen from the ‘good old days’. And the false arguments from insurance companies and medical associations to name but two that ‘frivolous litigation’ adds huge costs to goods, services & care are repeated endlessly. And, sadly, too often believed.
Now I apologize for not making my point a simple right vs. wrong analogue argument but the world isn’t quite as black & white as many bloggers would like. The fact is people have been discriminated against, injured by and even outright killed due to actions of organizations like the Boy Scouts. And the fact is that in a nation of laws that’s where remedies lie.
On a lighter note I can whole heartedly recommend ‘Wise Blood’, directed by Joh Huston, dating from 1979 and starring Brad Dourif, Net Beatty, Harry Dean Stanton and based on Flannery O’Connor’s wonderful novel. An inspired Southern Gothic twist on religion. Hazel Motes (Brad Dourif), in post Korean War Tennessee founds the ‘Church without Christ’. And, as one might expect, things go downhill from there. Flannery O’Connor knew her something about religious fanatics. She’d have done wonders with the Obama/Notre Dame episode.
Cheers!
Mocking. You mean like the phrase ‘liberal assholes’ repeated here as a mantra Morgan? The one answer to every question?
Mocking as a means of obfuscation. As a method of saying stuff while rendering one’s opposition completely unable to pin down what exactly is being said, as a method of deliberately avoiding accountability. Thereby availing oneself of the benefits of free debate without encumbering oneself with any of the associated obligations.
When Daphne used the term “liberal assholes,” she did not do this. It was crystal clear, to anyone with working tissue north of the brain stem, what she was talking about and why she felt the persons under discussion — were assholes.
Your own mocking, on the other hand, seems to be just so many dry ounces of snotty derision without any substance to any of it. Except for…
‘For the record’ my point was ‘lawyers’ aren’t killing our nation. They have endless opportunities to litigate on behalf of people from all ends of the political spectrum for the very simple reason doctors, corporations, not-for profits, government agencies, etc. etc. misbehave, lie cheat and discriminate endlessly. And it’s very easy to find an example or two to offend anyone’s sensibilities and hold it up for ridicule for like-minded comrades. Meanwhile courts are filled to overflowing with corporations suing one another over trademark issues, monopolistic practices, unfair competition etc. but somehow the only suits which merit attention from complacent America are those which somehow gain the attention of folks eager to find yet another example of how far we’ve fallen from the ‘good old days’. And the false arguments from insurance companies and medical associations to name but two that ‘frivolous litigation’ adds huge costs to goods, services & care are repeated endlessly. And, sadly, too often believed.
Okay then. Sifting through all that, I suppose if you are solidifying your point and stating something “for the record,” it is something like this. You cannot comprehend anything negative about a lawyer. You cannot comprehend anything positive about a Boy Scout troop or an insurance company. And you don’t think anybody else should be allowed to comprehend such things, either.
I can’t have an intelligent exchange with you here, or anywhere else, if I don’t understand what point it is you are trying to make. So is that somewhat in the ballpark?
Mocking. You mean like the phrase ‘liberal assholes’ repeated here as a mantra Morgan? The one answer to every question? The entire tone of this blog is one of mocking.
The entire tone of this blog does no such thing and 'liberal assholes' has not been repeated as mantra anywhere on this site.
You are a pathetic liar Arthurstone.
Morgan kicked your decaying teeth down the back of your unsustainable arguments and now you're attacking the integrity of my forum?
Get the hell off my patch of ground if you can't deal like an honest man.
Better yet, don't come bother to come back.
Suggesting ‘lawyers’ aren’t the cause of the destruction of the republic is hardly the same as believing they are without fault Morgan.
And Daphne your out of the blue assertion ‘liberal assholes’ are to blame for the destruction of the Boy Scouts is silly. Come on. You despise ‘liberals’ and make that point over and again.
But I am sorry to have missed Alison kicking my teeth down my throat. And here I thought we weren’t speaking.
Forgive me. Alison ‘cleaned my clock’. Morgan kicked in my teeth.
Got it.
Suggesting ‘lawyers’ aren’t the cause of the destruction of the republic is hardly the same as believing they are without fault Morgan.
Ah, and we’re right back to the nailing-jello-to-the-tree method of liberal arguing. Darn it. And here I just got done with my special efforts to get you to specify something. It’s kinda like doing the dishes in the kitchen…WTF, I just got done cleaning up this place.
Tell you what. How about YOU make a declaration as to how much paperwork Daphne has to fill out just for a routine outing, before you might consider the idea that we’ve been “overlawyered.” Fifty pages? A hundred? Two hundred? A ream?
You know, it’s funny. I’m not sure you’re aware, but there is a seven-chapter film clip making the rounds right now — this twenty-year anti-capitalist advocate is saying we kow-tow to “corporations” too much. Everything she says about corporations could be applied to trial lawyers, especially her primary beef that our government spends too much time, muscle, effort and money shining their shoes.
But she doesn’t call out the lawyers. Just corporations. Corporations that do things for people and actually manufacture goods people need, and provide services they use.
My explanation?
Liberals don’t like people who create things. They like people who destroy things…like trial lawyers, feminists, and terrorists. They’re crazy about going through the motions of creating things while you’re really destroying things…like…people who pursue “cap-and-trade” schemes.
That’s my explanation.
Yours?
What kind of a person, reaching middle-age, has never entered a Starbucks? Exluding Mormons of course, who are caffine-free and therefore don’t count. This is one of those important question never before answered only because it was not asked. Now I am sorry I crossed that line myself in a few careless moments when 7-11 wasn’t close.
We’re never going to be equals now, I admit it. But I am too delighted with your eccentricity too be very disapponted. Funny thing, Daph. This is where Arthur comes in. I hadn’t planned on it, but here he is.
There is a passion in most people for uniformity, however they dress it to deceive themselves. Most of us, not a few. Randomness, uncertainty, inequality; all unnerve. Equality and universality sooth, because we often dislike people, and fear them. There is always good reason for that, but it does not do well as a political philosopy.
Arthur has informed us he is dedicated to the idea that Americans are not special, and indeed he is part of the group of people who demonstrate that fairly well–the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement. To save the planet of course. From Boy Scouts and suburbs and cheap oil.
But the fraternity of Arthur is not spontaneous except unto itself, and fraternity decreed is fraternity annihilated. Not that annihilation bothers them in the least. It is a virtue.
We wish Heinlein was writing science-fiction when he observed that the human race divides itself politically between those who want to be controlled and those who don’t. Arthur just wants to do the controlling. That is his way of not being controlled, like Winston Smith. Orwell missed on the date, not the future. Arthur sees the future, and has prepared for it. Arthur has no stones.
James, the kind that brews her own coffee (plain Colombian, black, one sugar) every morning and starts in on diet coke and iced tea by ten a.m. I seem to be perfectly capable of caffeinating myself without the pricey assistance of a barrista.
I have no desire for Starbucks or the mall or twitter or any number of random things considered to be essential for modern life. I am uncool by most standards, always have been. Fortunately, that has never bothered me.
I think you’ve summed up the Arthurs of the world with scathing precision.
I’d just like to say, you haven’t lived until you’ve walked into the Starbuck’s in New Paltz, NY to order a plain dark roast, in mug, Venti, no room for cream, wearing a “No Hillary” tee shirt.
You are a bad man, Morgan, teasing those liberal like that. ;-)
I keep waiting for an explanation of which ‘liberal asshole(s)’ caused Daphne such pain with her Boy Scout Adventure. We are left with the suggestion that one day some ‘liberal asshole’ woke up and, without any conceivable justification, decided to make things difficult for parent volunteers hoping to work with the Boy Scouts.
And thanks for your kind words James.
It’s nice to have a fraternity. And yes, I’ve got stones and boy oh boy do they bother me after 60 miles on the bike.
Bye the bye. Arthur doesn’t want to do the controlling. Sorry if that goes against your core beliefs but frankly I’d rather argue. And there are endless opportunities for argument here in blogoworld where the players seem to be ‘liberal assholes’ (i.e. libtards, Marxists, PC phonies, secular humanists etc.) vs. ‘conservatives’ (i.e., rugged individualists, real Americans, John Galts, Randians, etc.) with rest of the planet seemingly an audience to this titanic ‘struggle for civilization’.
And Morgan many, many thanks to you.
‘Liberals don’t like people who create things. They like people who destroy things…like trial lawyers, feminists, and terrorists. They’re crazy about going through the motions of creating things while you’re really destroying things…like…people who pursue “cap-and-trade” schemes.’
‘That’s my explanation.’
So it is. And what an ‘explanation’.
Arthur,
After reading perhaps hundreds of blog posts from individuals like yours, enduring congressional and presidential campaigns that spend hundreds of millions of dollars over multiple years to get the message out, after observing wave after wave after wave of conservatives and liberals alike “finding a better messenger” and “finding a core set of beliefs” and “crafting new and better ways to get the message out”…after sixteen solid years of living in America’s premier nanny state…after living just like the rest of us for seven and a half years in the Hot War between the Taliban and the civilized world, after 23 years before that living in the Cold Taliban War that it ended…after a lifetime spent watching feminists intellectually writhe around like angry fornicating ferrets, desperately trying to figure out if they’re trying to say men and women are different or if they’re exactly the same —
After all that, I’ve yet to see a better explanation. From anyone.
If you think you’re man enough to do a better job wresting that sword out of the stone, consider yourself welcome to give it a go. In the meantime, its hilt rests in my hand.
Morgan. Morgan. Morgan.
Poor you.
‘Angry fornicating ferrets…’
It never ceases to amaze me how frightened of women and women’s sexuality some men can be.
Man-up buddy!
Morgan (directly to Arthur):
If you think you’re man enough to do a better job wresting that sword out of the stone, consider yourself welcome to give it a go.
Arthur:
(Yet more obfuscating bullshit…)
The pattern continues.
Well, if I wanted to destroy things while pretending to create things, I’d probably change the subject constantly too.
Thanks for playing.
Heh. heh.
Morgan (directly to Arthur):
If you think you’re man enough to do a better job wresting that sword out of the stone, consider yourself welcome to give it a go.
Seriously Morgan I have no single unifying theory which explains the general f**kedupedness of the world.
And if I did I wouldn’t share it. 8>)
Now tell me more about the ferrets…
Well, it’s encouraging to see you’re not afraid of strong women, anyhow. After your generally schizoid behavior in dealing with our hostess, I was starting to worry about you.
So when exactly did you pull your head out and join the Palin supporters like me?
Yes, Arthur, liberals do wake up each day looking for ways to…think well of themselves. They need no other reason. One day they woke to find the Boy Scouts doing well without them, and set about to do something about that. The Boy Scouts did not come looking for them.
Tocqueville foresaw your method, because the French were far ahead of you. Government covers the surface of society with a network of small, complicated, rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men seldom forced to act by it, but restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but compresses, enervates, extinuishes, and stupifies a people until all are reduced to a flock of timid and industrious animals of which the government is the shepard.
What he meant to say is that liberals suck.
Above this flock stands Arthur.gov, alone responsible for looking after their enjoyments and looking out for their destiny. He is absolute, meticulous, ordered, provident, and kinkly disposed. He would be like a fatherly authority, if, fatherlike, his aim was to prepare children for adulthood, but he seeks only to keep them in perpetual childhood. He works readily for their happiness but wishes to be the only provider and judge of it. Why could he not remove from them as well the trouble of thinking and the bother of life?
Thus he seeks to reduce daily the value and frequency of the exercise of free choice, to gradually remove autonomy itself from each citizen. We will be prepared for all this and even to see him as a blessing.
Liberty, equality, fraternity to you also Art. The hardest part about holding an opinion is not imposing it on someone else. So many opinions, so many rules. But looking at the bright side, things did not turn out so well for the French revolutionaries, and Robspierre died on the guillotine after his victims. In fact, he was the only one to die face up. Special.
The only fornicating ferret feminist aka destroying Liberal I can think of is Hugh Hefner. The man who bankrolled Roe v Wade and forever skewed that lil debate whilst extracating himself rather neatly from the blame. That liberal did so much for female sexuality and women in general I really don’t know how to ever thank him. I’d send him a fornicating ferret or two but he already lives with a mansion load of ‘em.
I’m tired and a little fed up today so my mind was a tad slow – I meant to write ‘the most significant’ not ‘the only’.
James
Your comment reminded me of something and then it twigged what.
Your comment on childhood and the French revolution reminded me that the sharpest challenge to French revolutionary Rousseau’s widely shared attitude toward women came only in 1792, with the publication of Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights ofWoman. (It’s her anniversary this year).
A spirited writer – she deplored the fact that society kept women (in her words) frivolous, artificial, weak, and in a perpetual state of childhood. While men praised women for their beauty and grace, they hypocritically condemned them for a concern with vanity, fashion, and trivial matters and yet refused to treat them as rational human beings who could contribute to society as much as men.
Men like Rousseau who were busy making hay with any entertainment of basic simple equality on that score. Heh.
Wollstonecraft took particular aim at Rousseau’s Emile.
(Your point about Robespierre also brings to mind Charlotte Corday, whom she quoted at her trial)
While it’s certainly true Hugh Hefner played a major role in the triumph of the ‘sexual revolution’ his major contribution was to encourage men to wear better clothes, drive nicer cars, get a decent haircut, travel and in a multitude of other consumer habits add a veneer of ‘sophistication’ and ‘class’ while remaining true to their greedy nature. Many, many men bought in.
As far as liberating long suppressed women’s sexual desire Helen Gurley Brown is your woman. Finance, work, dating and sex were addressed (endlessly) in her role as editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan in ways never before seen for a rapidly expanding audience eager to hear her message that women could and should take charge of all aspects of their lives.
It’s a little funny the strong minded women around here allow Mr. Freeberg to dismiss independent, thoughtful women as ‘angry fornicating ferrets’. Go figure.
And james wilson. The other day I had a ‘fraternity’ today I have Arthur.gov. But your point is well taken. One day it’s a 35 MPH speed limit the next it’s off with their heads.
What will your over-heated imagination come up with next?
Feminists are independent and thoughtful?
Expand on that, please.
Oh no thanks Morgan. I’ve read your ‘glossary’ & explored your site. Several lifetimes of audience tested boilerplate ready to be rolled out on command. Clearly there’s plenty more where angry fornicating ferrets’ came from.
Lost in the smoke from this latest exchange is this interesting bit in the original post:
“Plus, they expect me to wear an ugly t-shirt and long, khaki shorts. I don’t own long, khaki shorts and I look putrid in pea green with lurid yellow logos plastered front and back. I think the small boys roaming the grounds would recognize by my busty, adult stature that I’m not one of the campers.”
Not only are the boy scouts in danger from the ACLU and various and sundry other ‘liberal assholes’ but even the volunteers are in revolt.
My father was a scout in the 1930′s and scoutmaster in the 1950′s. I was a scout in the early 1960′s. Dad was a life time scout & stayed in contact with fellow scouts and attended the odd jamboree well into his 70′s. He earned twenty-odd merit badges during his scouting days. I earned none (probably peaked too early, winning the pack’s pine box derby my last year as a Cub) in a short and undistinguished scouting career. Regardless. I keep his sash (dark olive with ‘putrid yellow’ & red merit badges) and his ‘pea-green’ shirt hanging in my loft. I did attend camp on a couple of occasions and always there were parents acting as chaperones and additional supervision. Back in those days the adults wore at least a kerchief and most the pea green buttoned shirt. All of us wore shorts. Certainly helped everyone get into the spirit of the thing.
So much for tradition.
So lawyers are helping preserve civilization more than destroying it, we have a wasteful, consumerist lifestyle with a constitutional guarantee of free parking, liberals really do want a “level playing field,” feminists are independent and thoughtful. And whenever you’re called out to bolster these arguments you can’t do any of it, all you can do is confuse, obfuscate and spare a disparaging remark or two for whoever doesn’t drink the kool-aid.
Thought so.
I keep waiting for an explanation of which ‘liberal asshole(s)’ caused Daphne such pain with her Boy Scout Adventure
The liberal assholes who keep suing the BSA over perceived discrimination have pushed the organization to the point that they now require a two hour in-person training course, plus four online certification courses, plus a doctor’s note to help out for an afternoon with the neighborhood kids on local church grounds with an organization we’ve been involved in for the past five years. And yes, ugly shirts, Arthur – which are usually only worn by scouting leaders and boy scouts. No one other than scouts or leaders wears a kerchief.
This is the first year they have required such detailed documentation for helpers, when I asked why they said fear of lawsuits – they are currently fighting hundreds of petty, expensive lawsuits across the country filed by aggrieved atheists, homosexuals and angry progressives, and they just can’t afford to take any chances. Literally, they can’t afford it.
You don’t seem to know much about how neighborhood groups of adults involved with organizing, leading, and helping out with children’s activities normally behave. We actually know one another, our kids spend time outside of activities together, we have a certain level of trust that these parents will act in the best interest of our children. These people are our friends and neighbors. The increasing amount of internal regulatory hoops, prompted by external forces, will disconnect more parents from volunteering in organizations like the BSA and ultimately reduce the number of children involved these good programs.
The liberals suing BSA aren’t creating a level playing field or vanquishing discrimination – they’re slowly killing a wonderful organization that they had no intention of ever joining because it offends their sensibilities.
If you are going to continue to insult me, Arthur, I would suggest that you go somewhere else to vent your spleen. I’ve spent the last three years arguing with hardcore liberals on a political site and don’t feel like doing it anymore – it’s a waste of time and I don’t find it fun anymore. I don’t think liberals like you are inherently bad people, quite the contrary, I’m sure your intentions are good and that, on the whole, you’re decent, intelligent, wonderful individuals. You want things to be fair and nice. You want to alleviate suffering and pain. You truly want good outcomes for people, but fail to see that your constant celebration and push for acceptance of individuality and differentness is at glaring odds with your chosen course of action, which results in banal homogeneity. You’re (collectively speaking) convinced that your brand of thought is the only acceptable version of a good reality and seek to force that mindset on every aspect of society. You don’t really want diversity of lifestyle or opinion, you want your own personal version imposed on all facets of public and private (boy scouts for instance) life.
Some of us are a little tired of well intentioned liberals trying to retread every aspect of our lives.
As far as your accusation that my posts consistently mock liberal positions, I think you know better. You seem to only comment when you disagree, you go into hiding when I write from a position you might find agreeable and watch from the sidelines when the conservatives beat me up. You’re awfully good at casting stones and conspicuously absent at voicing your support when we’re close to the same page. That makes it hard for me to take your criticism seriously, actually it makes you look like a troll.
Who’s over-heated imagination are you talking about, Arthur? Mine or Tocqueville’s? Mine is not so developed as it should be. It has often taken years between the learning of a thing and accepting it’s truth. I never would have understood your true nature without men like Tocqueville, or perhaps even my own. We can hardly learn a thing without realizing we were wrong about it.
That is just not an experience you are going to endure. No one here expects that of you. But you are essential in helping us to understand our tremendous limitations and challenges.
Morgan, what do you expect? He brags about his multi-degreed wife voluntarily spending time chopping cane in Cuba alongside the proletariat peeps.
Bet he hasn’t read Yoani Sanchez.
You’re awfully good at casting stones and conspicuously absent at voicing your support when we’re close to the same page. That makes it hard for me to take your criticism seriously, actually it makes you look like a troll.
I turn up when the topic turns to ‘liberal assholes’. Terms always joined hereabouts
I happily find myself on the left of the political spectrum. My parents were as well (Mother even further left than the rest of us) .
A couple of things stand out.
I remember as a child in the late 1950′s my parents recalling friends who had been hauled before the Canwell Committee to discuss their political activities at the University of Washington during the 30′s and 40′s.
I remember the hew and cry over a proposed Open Housing Ordinance which would work to end discrimination against blacks in buying real estate in Seattle. I remember my parents losing friends over their support for the measure.
I don’t ever, ever recall my parents describing an ‘asshole conservative’ or a ‘reactionary asshole’. Nor have I.
Times change I guess
I remember the hew and cry over a proposed Open Housing Ordinance which would work to end discrimination against blacks in buying real estate in Seattle. I remember my parents losing friends over their support for the measure.
The way this is worded, reveals a mindset likely to lose ones’ friends. And should be.
Laws, you see, don’t end discrimination. They can’t. They can’t even make a dent in it. They can take a feeble attempt at ending the decisions made based on discrimination…and the only way that can possibly work, is to define a broad class of decisions that might conceivably result from someone discriminating. And then forcing all instances of that class to prove their innocence in some way.
It seems like a swell idea, to someone who’s never been placed under such a microscope and isn’t likely to be. For reasons that have never been adequately explained to me, in liberal land, the people who aren’t placed under such scrutiny, are the only ones who can comment compellingly on what life is like for the people who are.
Which makes them assholes.
It’s possible for someone intelligent, with a sense of fair play and civility, to be pre-disposed toward a liberal slant on things. That’s absolutely true. And ironically, that simple fact makes liberals even bigger assholes. Because if you have a sense of fairness and even-handedness about you but you have sympathies for liberal ideas, you’ll acknowledge that while carbon-cap-and-trade, the death tax, moratoriums on drilling, laws against discrimination, minimum wage hikes et cetera might be wonderful ideas, they do have a price. And it’s only fair to evaluate what that cost is, to see if it’s worthwhile.
You’re right, Arthur. Times change. Today’s liberals won’t acknowledge there’s a cost involved in their plans. They aren’t allowed to. A law against discrimination…will just magically get rid of it. No downside. Like magic! Let’s go full tilt, laws against guns, laws against smog, laws against gravity pulling down on our butts too hard.
That makes them simpleminded assholes.
They don’t debate the substance of their arguments. Like I said and like you’ve proven countless times: They just make it known the low regard they hold for anyone who dares to disagree. Especially pretty girls like Carrie Prejean and Sarah Palin.
Which makes them sexist assholes.
I don’t think liberals like you are inherently bad people, quite the contrary, I’m sure your intentions are good and that, on the whole, you’re decent, intelligent, wonderful individuals. You want things to be fair and nice. You want to alleviate suffering and pain. You truly want good outcomes for people…
Daphne, I salute you for your generosity and spirit of open-mindedness on this one. Personally I have difficulty envisioning how anyone convinced of their own decent character, way deep down inside, would be so desperate to prove it over and over and over again. Seems to be a case of compensating for something.
Heinlein said something else wise: If you don’t like yourself, you can’t like anyone else. Perhaps that’s why four full months into our new Age of Aquarius, liberals, while running everything, have yet to achieve a damn thing besides spend lots of money and insult Republicans.
Assholes come in all political stripes, I’ve ripped a good share of conservative ones, too. I’m a little surprised that you’d take the phrase so personally and to put a finer point on your false accusation, that’s the first time I’ve uttered that particular slur on this site. Care to detract your repetitive lie?
Sorry your parents had a hard time challenging the ugly biases of the time and it’s nice to know you were raised by politely mouthed, genteel people who did the right thing, but we’re living in the year 2009 and we’re not discussing some current imaginary housing discrimination – we are talking about the systematic destruction of one good institution that benefits children by liberals who disagree with its tenets.
Admit it, you find yourself fascinated by a woman who refutes many of your liberal assumptions about how “all” conservatives think and find it necessary to mock and rebuke the parts that neatly fit your closed mindset while ignoring the pieces where we might share common ground. I have no problem with you politely disagreeing with my point of view or arguing, but you don’t want to talk, you want to insult. I’m assuming this anti-social behavior somehow makes you feel good, Arthur and that’s a little tweaked.
Morgan, I think most of them are truly well meaning and decent people…its just that they’re stupefied. They can’t see the forest for the trees or make the leap from A to Z without a linear finger tracing of every letter. They’ve been taught to think in a particular groove and never bother to poke their heads out for a glimpse of another side of the equation.
The smart liberals are dangerous, but they aren’t in the majority. Unfortunately, they have too many quislings, thanks to the cesspool of mediocrity known as public education.
Daphne, with most of what they’re taught that might be true. To a weak and feeble mind, you say “pass a law to raise the minimum wage” and my goodness, who with a decent conscience could ever oppose that?
However, some of it wouldn’t have a snowball’s chance of taking root, if there wasn’t some internal nastiness in the host to keep it nourished. I’m speaking here of some of the liberal policies that are, overtly, about trying to destroy things. Like the Boy Scouts for example. I am well aware of the euphemisms — but I call bullshit on the idea that anyone, anywhere, in their heart-of-hearts thinks it will make life more bearable for anyone else if a wedge is driven between the Boy Scouts and the United Way. That right there is a desire to destroy something — period, full stop. That’s a “we’ll show you.”
All of these might start with benign intentions (or, to be more accurate about it, an obsequious effort to showcase decency that possesses only a remote chance of actually being there).
There have been lots of folks who started out liberal, and then when the liberalism inevitably twists and mutates into a perverted form of its former self and starts to become evil, becomes all-concerned about destroying whoever doesn’t fit in — leave. Charlton Heston did it. Ronald Reagan did it. That means anyone can.
But when Napolitano put out that DHS report, the only folks I saw protesting, were the ones who called themselves conservatives. If liberals were really about decency, that would have been the point of an irreversible mass exodus.
Morgan – I don’t think these things start with benign intentions, they’re calculated assaults, but they gain the support of well meaning Arthurs who buy the sugar coated platitudes they’ve been fed since birth.
It takes fortitude and intelligence to rationally dissect lifelong beliefs and pick out the truth from the chafe – it’s much easier to ride the line, especially if your social identity would be destroyed in the process.
I’m fairy convinced most people have average to substandard IQs, this majority would refute a hard fact if it hit them in the face and they might even brag about the bruise to their fellow flock. Thinking requires work, defining your beliefs and publicly stating them takes balls, a willingness to stand against popular tides is an anomaly in human behavior.
Liberals don’t care about diversity or decency, they want conformity to their constantly evolving mores.
Actually things never change.
The same tiny minded complaints raised regarding, for example, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 or the Seattle Open Housing Ordinance of 1968 are echoed here in the conservative blogosphere.
But I must say the level of condescension has gone up.
One of the beauties of anonymity.
Sorry folks. Progress is made regardless. We aren’t going back to Jim Crow. Or ending Social Security. Or allowing polluters free reign. And as the nation’s demographics continue to evolve…
As a fer instance the response of the students at Notre Dame to President Obama is particularly heartening. Given the bedwetting going on by the ‘pro-life’ crowd and Bill Donohue it’s gratifying to see young people moving past the zero-sum reactionary politics of far too many on the right.
Cheers!
Daphne typed:
Admit it, you find yourself fascinated by a woman who refutes many of your liberal assumptions about how “all” conservatives think and find it necessary to mock and rebuke the parts that neatly fit your closed mindset while ignoring the pieces where we might share common ground.
Which begat:
Liberals don’t care about diversity or decency…
Ready when you are.
8>)
When you want to start dealing as honestly with me as I’ve dealt with you, I’ll bother again, Arthur. You never answer my points directly or engage in dialogue. You sling shit. Admit it, you’ve sidestepped every direct question, ignored direct statements and slapped down any attempt at common ground.
What are you doing here?
Don’t be surprised to see yourself ignored or banned. I’m having a bad week as is and you’re tugging the tether about as far I’m willing to go. I have no time for unpleasant, obstinate smart asses. Been there, done that.
Daphne, I have come to believe it is a mistake to think the liberal is well intentioned. T. S. Eliot’s famous description is extremely accurate. They do not mean well, they are, rather, absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves. In that, they succeed wildly.
Arthur is proud of himself, his family, and his ideology for bringing the black man onto the liberal plantation. Arthur’s type of benevolence grew from contempt, and the result shows constantly in his victims. To help people until they can no longer help themselves is not a kind of a redemption, but a kind of enthrallment.
There is sublime theiving in giving–
Hoffer
James, you may be right. I do try not to judge individuals with a broad bush. Some mean well out of ignorance and I dislike impugning evil intent as a knee jerk reaction.
James. I may run a post on your comments. You are a sweet treasure of a man.
Well Daphne, I’ve been considerably clumsier in dealing with my disagreements with you, than I have been in dealing with my disagreements with Arthur. That’s probably because, being the very picture of a true moderate, I have greater faith in humanity than your gadfly “friend” but I’m somewhat more cynical than you are.
I think of the slightly-left-leaning friends I have, and I recognize there is a great deal of truth in what you say. About just some liberals. My uncle had this affliction; he’d receive these fliers from AARP and it seems it never once occurred to him, for an instant, that there might possibly be another side to the story. He was a man of boundless intellectual capacity for absorbing new information but he was kind of like the horse that had to be led to water. In the last year or two before his demise I persuaded him to turn his opinion of President Grant completely upside down.
We also have a friend who’s a “blue-dog” and we have dinner with her and her husband now and then. She’s in the same league. These people do not have the dark nature to which I referred earlier. They’re making a common and simple mistake of believing everything they read. Arthur, on the other hand, has been nailed down with pinpoint precision — by yourself, by Mr. Wilson, by me, and by that Heinlein quote I embedded above. Poor dude’s got a giant hole in his soul he can’t fill.
The point is…most of these unfortunate liberals are on a downward slide, from “I Only Read AARP,” to the deep dark end of the pool occupied by the deeply corrupted people like Arthur. From receiving this propaganda, and reading-up on only one side of an issue before they pronounce themselves to be centrist experts, they too often open a window into their darker selves. Their ego becomes invested. From that point on they can’t bring themselves to admit someone on the right side of the spectrum might have a good idea, EVER, or that someone from their corner can ever have a bad one.
In the year 2009, one does reach one’s saturation point, what with watching Obama & pals mess everything up, with all His oh-so-adorable minions unable to admit their mistakes.
Morgan, I believe you’ve handled yourself in this debate with grace and honesty. You never impugned his person, always laid out your arguments clearly and invited his response. There was nothing clumsy in your writing or tone. It was a wonderful read for those of us sitting on the sidelines, my husband asked me to offer you his kudos – he thought some of your responses were downright elegant, he reads you daily by the way.
What more can a man do in a debate with a man who refuses to address the substance?
Who the fuck wants to go back to Jim Crow or gross pollution? What kind of ignorantly obscene statement is that? Where do you come up with this garbage?
Social Security in its current form should be scrapped and returned to its function to secure the lowest denominators against abject penury.
By the way, Morgan, I reconsidered my decision to volunteer because you were right – if we let them drive us out these good things will cease to exist. I even offered more days, then I received a slurry of extra requirements and finally folded.
Turns out they expected the volunteer helpers to actually run the entire camp. Only one Scout Leader was involved and he had to limit his time to one day. It’s a boys camp run by women this year. No men were available.
Sorry I’ve upset you Daphne. But to choose only one of countless examples you & your fans have posted on this thread ‘liberals lack decency’ is not an argument. It isn’t a fact.
Cheers.
But it is the level of the discussion from your side.
A shame you can’t roll honestly, Arthur.
Miss Daph, of course it is true that people must undergo a metamorphosis though all the stages of their lives, and we judge ourlselves and others with that understanding. When what is ignorant in one stage becomes evil in another, that idea which becomes evil teaches us that it was never only ignorant. It was always malignant.
Hayek put it most eloquently–We will not grow wise until we learn that much we have done was very foolish.
I’m not upset, just disappointed in your ability to argue points and deal without diverting every answering comment onto another topic or segueing into some impertinent ramble.
I thought you might be better that. I was hoping you might have held up to some the fine European liberal minds I’ve spent the past few years debating. They’d write you off as silly chum and give Morgan one hell of a serious workout.
I think we’re done here. Goodbye, Arthur – hope life treats you well.
Thanks for trying, D. And for delivering the timely, albeit miniscule, corrections in course I might have required.
Perhaps by antagonizing us in this way, Arthur has made it possible for some of our friends to be rescued through our benevolent and sensible intervention.
Morgan and Daphne are both a lot more charitable toward the Left that I would ever be. In Dapne’s shoes, I would have accused Arthur of being a despicable, disgusting man-child bent on the total destruction of Western Civilization, piece by piece…then banned his ass from my blog.
It’s like I said to Morgan on HIS blog…I have trouble seeing Obama as anything other than “something which might have dropped out of my ass.” Morgan chastised me for sounding like the very forces we oppose, but the truth of the matter is that I have no trouble with calling these people filthy names. The fact is that I hold them responsible for the attempted demolition of all that I hold dear. I don’t make any excuses for them based on their ignorance or good intentions. The end result is the same.
If I had my way, they’d all be stripped of suffrage and expelled from the USA.
Cylar, thanks for stopping by – I used to react in a similar manner, but I know too many liberals who are devoted to their spouses, loving, responsible parents, hard workers, church going, etc. They’re just wrong thinking, not bad people. I’ve chosen not to have a black and white, good vs. evil point of view towards folks who hold liberal positions and, at the end of the day, feeling that much anger was draining the life right out of me. They aren’t worth wasting my emotions on.
I took a look at your blog, that picture sure looks like it was taken in the Texas Hill Country. Am I right?
Hmmm…. now try doing it with a “No Barack” T-shirt and then tell the cashier in a loud voice to “Keep the Change” when you pay her. Or him. Or whomever.
And have someone secretly videotape the whole thing.
Please.
:-)