Pink triangles and barbed wire

[wolf]

Originally Posted by Elspode

Why can't we make murderers, thieves and child molesters the objects of our scorn and constant moral outrage, and leave people who just want to do each other in mutual peace and harmony alone?

Because in current parlance, they are not responsible for their actions ... they are these things because of some defect or sadness in their upbringing. Personal responsibility, whether it be for good things or bad things, is a concept of the past. It's the rotary dial telephone of the new millenium.

[Trilby]

wolf! some things are genetic!

[Elspode]

Don't get me started on Victim Mentality. Sheesh.

[Trilby]

Originally Posted by Elspode

Don't get me started on Victim Mentality. Sheesh.

do your worst, els. Enlighten me.

[Elspode]

Simply this...at some point, we have to suck it up and take responsibility for our own actions, or we are doomed, both as individuals and as a society. I don't see much of that anymore. Anything that goes wrong in someone's life is almost always dismissed as the psychological/physical/emotional effects of someone else's actions, and that is a crippling disease in and of itself.

I'll leave it at that, lest I risk offending. I know people have hard lives. I've had one, too.

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by wolf

How is it that you can equate the deaths of 6 million Jews and countless others with gay marriage? There aren't any death camps, and as far as I can tell, nobody's being systematically killed.

You could make the same argument about the Civil Rights movement in the 60s. How can you equate segregated bathrooms with death camps? You might as well say that all injustice is now OK, because the holocaust was worse.

[slang]

Originally Posted by Elspode

.... it is the hardliners and fanatics that make it tough for everyone........

Yes, it's this group that concerns me greatly. It's not because I'm in that group but that there are more than a few in the family.

I have this lifeskill of being able to relate with a wide variety of people also and that allows me to hear who is saying what about who.

It's frightening.

[Trilby]

I have SOOOO sucked it up. Tell me where I've gone wrong.

[Elspode]

I don't know you well enough to know that you *have* gone wrong. From what you've told us here, you admit to having made some serious relationship and career mistakes, and you are now attempting to be self-sufficient and improve your lot in life through education and the making of better decisions.

That doesn't sound like a victim mentality to me. Or did I miss something?

You're a witch last time I checked, Bri. You know the relationship between magick and personal responsibility. Sounds to me like you're doing your best to put that into play and live by those precepts. Keep it up.

[slang]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

You might as well say that all injustice is now OK, because the holocaust was worse.

Sorry for butting in here.

No, not OK but of the same urgency? Of the same degree of injustice? That's for the fence sitters to decide, not coming from one extreme or another.

People being killed by the millions versus people that cant get insurance for their sig other. Granted, a tragedy. Any true comparison is just laughable to the middle roaders. THOSE are the people that you need.

(Not YOU specifically HM but as a whole of the movement )

[Happy Monkey]

Like I said, you could say the same about the Civil Rights movement. It was of much less urgency and injustice than the holocaust, but it was still happening and worth fighting. And just like your listing of "can't get insurance", I can diminish the Civil Rights movement to "have to use a different bathroom". But it was and is much more than that in both cases.

[richlevy]

Originally Posted by wolf

How is it that you can equate the deaths of 6 million Jews and countless others with gay marriage? There aren't any death camps, and as far as I can tell, nobody's being systematically killed.

This is why I used Germany in the 30's. This was before the 'final solution', when unpopular groups were being disenfranchised and isolated.

I don't expect death camps in the US. Resettlement camps? Reeducation camps? How about a law declaring homosexuality a mental illness? I don't know where this country is headed, but if you look back to the early 20th century when racism and anti-semitism were institutionalized, it is possible to see how bad it could get.

When I mentioned similarities to the civil rights movement, I was thinking of all of the laws on mixed marriages, some of which were written into states constitutions. For over 100 years states were allowed to prevent members of different races from marrying. I don't know if this was based on pseudo science, or if everyone just admitted that it made them uncomfortable, but for a very long time this was a fact of life embedded in society and law.

I went to a Jewish school and had to study the Holocaust. One lesson that I learned that some people don't remember is that it did not happen overnight. Death camps did not spring up on the outskirts of towns in a single year. The period from the first discriminatory laws to the 'final solution' was about 8 years. The rise to power came from a manufactured 'crisis' and the gradual dissolution of Constitutional checks and balances.

Especially on the Internet, people automatically are suspicious of playing the 'Nazi' card. Look at the timeline and see if you notice any parallels with events today.

The difference today is that Jews and other minorities would see it coming. While conservatives are rolling back affirmative action, there is no chance for them to attempt active racism or anti-semitism today. However, gays do not have any significant legal protection and can provide the same visceral response to the 'base' that Jews did in Nazi Germany.

Death camps? No. Active disenfranchisment and legalized discrimination? Maybe.

BTW, we like you too Wolf.

[wolf]

"Affirmative action" needs to be rolled back.

You can't have true equality without a level playing field.

Affirmative action sets under-educated, but over-promoted minorities up for failure. [url=http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/ewp_03.htm]only 51% of black students graduate high school, compared to 72% of whites, and only 20% of black students are judged to be "college ready."

Relaxed admissions standards do not help these students, as they are expected to work at the same level as their classmates who did meet admission standards for entry.

I do think that expectation plays a large part in performance. If you expect more, you get more. Expect little or nothing, and you'll get that too.

[slang]

Originally Posted by wolf

......"Affirmative action" needs to be rolled back.....

And here I though **I** was opening a can of worms in this thread!

[Urbane Guerrilla]

I guess it falls to me to state the crushingly obvious: affirmative action has the systemic problem that synthetic discrimination is no more attractive than the organic variety.