The fact still remains that this man is demonized politically, not for anything he's ever really done. The concrete things he's done involve rallying a new sector of the Republican base that wasn't very political before. And he wasn't even a sole leading figurehead in that, it was a reactionary movement to the so-called liberation of the late 60s and 70s that would have likely continued with someone else acting as its voice. He's had ideas on segregation and homosexuality that most of us here wouldn't agree with and which history will most likely denounce if it hasn't already. But he was far more compassionate and moderate in those misguided ideas than the man you guys want to believe he was.
We get that you think he was a solid dude and everything, we just think you're wrong and don't care because this thread is about whether or not the dead by default deserve special-treatment. He's just the most current-events-y example.
We get that you think he was a solid dude and everything, we just think you're wrong and don't care because this thread is about whether or not the dead by default deserve special-treatment.
True, and it wasn't really my intent to start defending him. Feel free to ignore that last paragraph.
Like I said, they don't deserve special treatment. You're free to continue hating his life and his contributions now as much as before. You're right, debating that hatred is a different topic. Celebrating a person's death is the fucked up train of thought I'm mainly addressing. Unless death was the goal, death isn't the victory.
We get that you think he was a solid dude and everything, we just think you're wrong and don't care because this thread is about whether or not the dead by default deserve special-treatment.
True, and it wasn't really my intent to start defending him. Feel free to ignore that last paragraph.
Like I said, they don't deserve special treatment. You're free to continue hating his life and his contributions now as much as before. You're right, debating that hatred is a different topic. Celebrating a person's death is the fucked up train of thought I'm mainly addressing. Unless death was the goal, death isn't the victory.
Am I only allowed to celebrate victories? Getting old isn't my goal, so a birthday isn't a victory. So should I return my model-kits? I'm not going to, mind. They're my giant-robots and you can't fucking have them. But should I mourn my birthday next year since I don't want to get old?
Am I only allowed to celebrate victories? Getting old isn't my goal, so a birthday isn't a victory. So should I return my model-kits? I'm not going to, mind. They're my giant-robots and you can't fucking have them. But should I mourn my birthday next year since I don't want to get old?
I want your model kits and I want them NOW.
As for birthdays... did you celebrate Falwell's birthdays, knowing they brought him ever closer to eventual demise? Why not?
Am I only allowed to celebrate victories? Getting old isn't my goal, so a birthday isn't a victory. So should I return my model-kits? I'm not going to, mind. They're my giant-robots and you can't fucking have them. But should I mourn my birthday next year since I don't want to get old?
I want your model kits and I want them NOW.
As for birthdays... did you celebrate Falwell's birthdays, knowing they brought him ever closer to eventual demise? Why not?
Most people here tend to celebrate the fact that the reactionary old farts in charge are getting closer to death, yes. All that "we just need to wait for the old people to die".
Am I only allowed to celebrate victories? Getting old isn't my goal, so a birthday isn't a victory. So should I return my model-kits? I'm not going to, mind. They're my giant-robots and you can't fucking have them. But should I mourn my birthday next year since I don't want to get old?
I want your model kits and I want them NOW.
As for birthdays... did you celebrate Falwell's birthdays, knowing they brought him ever closer to eventual demise? Why not?
Seriously, why is it so hard to understand that you can be happy someone is gone without sitting around every day plotting or hoping for their demise? You are just being obtuse...
Sentry on
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
wrote:
When I was a little kid, I always pretended I was the hero,' Skip said.
'Fuck yeah, me too. What little kid ever pretended to be part of the lynch-mob?'
Seriously, why is it so hard to understand that you can be happy someone is gone without sitting around every day plotting or hoping for their demise? You are just being obtuse...
I think I've explained several times why I think such happiness is horribly misguided. You're free to disagree, but I'm not being obtuse about it.
But care to explain again? How exactly can you both want and not want something? The "martyr" argument is so very thin.
Yar on
0
FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
But care to explain again? How exactly can you both want and not want something? The "martyr" argument is so very thin.
Occasionally, a coworker from down the hall will stop by and tell me some story about what he did over the weekend. I don't really like the guy: his voice is kind of annoying, and his stories always suck. I'm always happier when he walks away and goes back to his own desk.
Am I a hypocrite for being polite and listening to his story? Are my only options "make excuses about how I'm too busy to listen" and "rudely interrupt him and tell him to go away"?
Vrtra Theory on
Are you a Software Engineer living in Seattle? HBO is hiring, message me.
You're right, debating that hatred is a different topic. Celebrating a person's death is the fucked up train of thought I'm mainly addressing. Unless death was the goal, death isn't the victory.
I don't, and never did, to the best of my introspective knowledge, hate Falwell. I have similar sentiments about Fred Phelps, David Duke, and pretty much the gamut of the evil and crazy end of the spectrum, up to and including Hitler.
I am happy he is dead because he was a terrible person who did terrible things. His death is, though certainly not the end of homophobic, theocratic, antisemitic rhetoric and political influence, one less powerful figure out there.
Seriously, why is it so hard to understand that you can be happy someone is gone without sitting around every day plotting or hoping for their demise? You are just being obtuse...
I think I've explained several times why I think such happiness is horribly misguided. You're free to disagree, but I'm not being obtuse about it.
But care to explain again? How exactly can you both want and not want something? The "martyr" argument is so very thin.
No. If you can't see the difference nothing I say will enlighten you. Frankly, I find the idea that you can't discern the difference to be rather frightening.
Sentry on
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
wrote:
When I was a little kid, I always pretended I was the hero,' Skip said.
'Fuck yeah, me too. What little kid ever pretended to be part of the lynch-mob?'
Am I only allowed to celebrate victories? Getting old isn't my goal, so a birthday isn't a victory. So should I return my model-kits? I'm not going to, mind. They're my giant-robots and you can't fucking have them. But should I mourn my birthday next year since I don't want to get old?
I want your model kits and I want them NOW.
As for birthdays... did you celebrate Falwell's birthdays, knowing they brought him ever closer to eventual demise? Why not?
Most people here tend to celebrate the fact that the reactionary old farts in charge are getting closer to death, yes. All that "we just need to wait for the old people to die".
There is some truth to this but it's not the point. I'm not the one saying we can only celebrate victories, and I've certainly never said that we are required to celebrate every teeny-tiny partial-victory. Beyond that, I'm not bothering to dispute whether or not his death is a victory at this point, but rather pointing out that it doesn't have to be for people to be justified in being glad he's gone. What Yar is doing here is challenging his own arguments while attributing them to me. It's frankly hilarious.
Understanding that he's a bigoted, homophobic hate mongerer only makes him easier to hate. Knowing his reason for hating doesn't absolve him of being a fuckstick.
Knowing the real and personal reasons that someone holds their deeply held convictions aught to make them harder to hate. It does for me. If I find out a racist was beaten and raped by someone of the group they hate it doesn't make them any more right, but it does make me understand them better, and less likely to hate them. Rarely have I found someone's personal reasons for something so contemptible that I've been more likely to hate them. By the way, it's just an analogy. I have no reason to believe anything so extreme happened in relation to Jerry Falwell.
Like I said hatred and disagreement are not the same thing. To not hate someone is not to feel their racist, anti-gay, anti-immigrant, and anti-anythingnotchristian is not to feel those things have validity. It's just not having a mindset that allows or encourages anger to the point of shutting out what other people say and think, whether you agree with them or not.
That should be repharsed for clarity:
Like I said hatred and disagreement are not the same thing. To not hate someone is not to feel their racist, anti-gay, anti-immigrant, and anti-anythingnotchristian ideas have validity. It's just not having a mindset that allows or encourages anger to the point of shutting out what other people say and think, whether you agree with them, or not.
This has gotten silly. I don't even like this guy. If someone really wants to discuss the validity of hate, they can start a new thread, which I would be happy to participate in, if they are on the level.
Understanding that he's a bigoted, homophobic hate mongerer only makes him easier to hate. Knowing his reason for hating doesn't absolve him of being a fuckstick.
Knowing the real and personal reasons that someone holds their deeply held convictions aught to make them harder to hate.
Actually it aught to depend upon what the reasons are, ace.
If someones died that you had pretty hateful thoughts for someone (justified or not) it makes sense let them known just as if you'd loved them.
If someones a dick their being dead doesn't change that, so it probably won't change many peoples opinions of said person. By all means feel sorry for their family but that doesn't mean that you have to have a change of heart on his/her opinions.
Note: The protesters? Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church.
hahaha... yeah, next time people are so quick to condemn Muslim extremists while extolling the virtues of Christianity, I'm going to remind them of the Liberty College student who brought a bunch of bombs to Falwell's funeral.
Sentry on
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
wrote:
When I was a little kid, I always pretended I was the hero,' Skip said.
'Fuck yeah, me too. What little kid ever pretended to be part of the lynch-mob?'
Note: The protesters? Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church.
hahaha... yeah, next time people are so quick to condemn Muslim extremists while extolling the virtues of Christianity, I'm going to remind them of the Liberty College student who brought a bunch of bombs to Falwell's funeral.
To kill other fundies, too. It's fundy civil war!
(yes, I know it's not really)
Oh well. Phelps is really old, the reaper will get him in due time.
MuddBudd on
There's no plan, there's no race to be run
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
Note: The protesters? Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church.
hahaha... yeah, next time people are so quick to condemn Muslim extremists while extolling the virtues of Christianity, I'm going to remind them of the Liberty College student who brought a bunch of bombs to Falwell's funeral.
To kill other fundies, too. It's fundy civil war!
(yes, I know it's not really)
Oh well. Phelps is really old, the reaper will get him in due time.
And then I'll get criticized again for celebrating that asshole's death.
He's definately someone who I would never want to see martyred though.
Note: The protesters? Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church.
hahaha... yeah, next time people are so quick to condemn Muslim extremists while extolling the virtues of Christianity, I'm going to remind them of the Liberty College student who brought a bunch of bombs to Falwell's funeral.
To kill other fundies, too. It's fundy civil war!
(yes, I know it's not really)
Oh well. Phelps is really old, the reaper will get him in due time.
And then I'll get criticized again for celebrating that asshole's death.
He's definately someone who I would never want to see martyred though.
That's why this would have been perfect. He would have been killed by another right-winger.
Although honestly he probably would have hit some innocent bystanders or one of the Westboro kids who still isn't an asshole yet, so it's just as well.
MuddBudd on
There's no plan, there's no race to be run
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
Note: The protesters? Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church.
hahaha... yeah, next time people are so quick to condemn Muslim extremists while extolling the virtues of Christianity, I'm going to remind them of the Liberty College student who brought a bunch of bombs to Falwell's funeral.
To kill other fundies, too. It's fundy civil war!
(yes, I know it's not really)
Oh well. Phelps is really old, the reaper will get him in due time.
And then I'll get criticized again for celebrating that asshole's death.
He's definately someone who I would never want to see martyred though.
That's why this would have been perfect. He would have been killed by another right-winger.
Although honestly he probably would have hit some innocent bystanders or one of the Westboro kids who still isn't an asshole yet, so it's just as well.
I think the Westboro kids are pretty much ruined from the time they learn speech. Even one of the two Phelps kids who escaped and lived apart from the cult eventually went back.
Understanding that he's a bigoted, homophobic hate mongerer only makes him easier to hate. Knowing his reason for hating doesn't absolve him of being a fuckstick.
Knowing the real and personal reasons that someone holds their deeply held convictions aught to make them harder to hate.
Not if the reasons are blind and irrational it aught not.
EDIT: Wow, and here I thought Hitchens was a tool. Hannity is, like, a thousand orders of magnitude more of a tool than Hitchens could ever be.
Understanding that he's a bigoted, homophobic hate mongerer only makes him easier to hate. Knowing his reason for hating doesn't absolve him of being a fuckstick.
Knowing the real and personal reasons that someone holds their deeply held convictions aught to make them harder to hate.
Not if the reasons are blind and irrational it aught not.
EDIT: Wow, and here I thought Hitchens was a tool. Hannity is, like, a thousand orders of magnitude more of a tool than Hitchens could ever be.
Posts
We get that you think he was a solid dude and everything, we just think you're wrong and don't care because this thread is about whether or not the dead by default deserve special-treatment. He's just the most current-events-y example.
Like I said, they don't deserve special treatment. You're free to continue hating his life and his contributions now as much as before. You're right, debating that hatred is a different topic. Celebrating a person's death is the fucked up train of thought I'm mainly addressing. Unless death was the goal, death isn't the victory.
Am I only allowed to celebrate victories? Getting old isn't my goal, so a birthday isn't a victory. So should I return my model-kits? I'm not going to, mind. They're my giant-robots and you can't fucking have them. But should I mourn my birthday next year since I don't want to get old?
But not all celebrations are about victory.
What VC said above, also.
As for birthdays... did you celebrate Falwell's birthdays, knowing they brought him ever closer to eventual demise? Why not?
Most people here tend to celebrate the fact that the reactionary old farts in charge are getting closer to death, yes. All that "we just need to wait for the old people to die".
Seriously, why is it so hard to understand that you can be happy someone is gone without sitting around every day plotting or hoping for their demise? You are just being obtuse...
But care to explain again? How exactly can you both want and not want something? The "martyr" argument is so very thin.
Occasionally, a coworker from down the hall will stop by and tell me some story about what he did over the weekend. I don't really like the guy: his voice is kind of annoying, and his stories always suck. I'm always happier when he walks away and goes back to his own desk.
Am I a hypocrite for being polite and listening to his story? Are my only options "make excuses about how I'm too busy to listen" and "rudely interrupt him and tell him to go away"?
I don't, and never did, to the best of my introspective knowledge, hate Falwell. I have similar sentiments about Fred Phelps, David Duke, and pretty much the gamut of the evil and crazy end of the spectrum, up to and including Hitler.
I am happy he is dead because he was a terrible person who did terrible things. His death is, though certainly not the end of homophobic, theocratic, antisemitic rhetoric and political influence, one less powerful figure out there.
No. If you can't see the difference nothing I say will enlighten you. Frankly, I find the idea that you can't discern the difference to be rather frightening.
There is some truth to this but it's not the point. I'm not the one saying we can only celebrate victories, and I've certainly never said that we are required to celebrate every teeny-tiny partial-victory. Beyond that, I'm not bothering to dispute whether or not his death is a victory at this point, but rather pointing out that it doesn't have to be for people to be justified in being glad he's gone. What Yar is doing here is challenging his own arguments while attributing them to me. It's frankly hilarious.
Hannity's Falwell apologia is so horrid it makes Yar seem less stupid for his.
Knowing the real and personal reasons that someone holds their deeply held convictions aught to make them harder to hate. It does for me. If I find out a racist was beaten and raped by someone of the group they hate it doesn't make them any more right, but it does make me understand them better, and less likely to hate them. Rarely have I found someone's personal reasons for something so contemptible that I've been more likely to hate them. By the way, it's just an analogy. I have no reason to believe anything so extreme happened in relation to Jerry Falwell.
That should be repharsed for clarity:
This has gotten silly. I don't even like this guy. If someone really wants to discuss the validity of hate, they can start a new thread, which I would be happy to participate in, if they are on the level.
--LeVar Burton
Actually it aught to depend upon what the reasons are, ace.
Why love what you can hate? Seriously, that's the most retarded non-argument I've seen thus far.
If someones a dick their being dead doesn't change that, so it probably won't change many peoples opinions of said person. By all means feel sorry for their family but that doesn't mean that you have to have a change of heart on his/her opinions.
That woman is highly entertaining. I find her other jokes about penises to also be hilarious.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=3201543&page=1
Note: The protesters? Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church.
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
hahaha... yeah, next time people are so quick to condemn Muslim extremists while extolling the virtues of Christianity, I'm going to remind them of the Liberty College student who brought a bunch of bombs to Falwell's funeral.
To kill other fundies, too. It's fundy civil war!
(yes, I know it's not really)
Oh well. Phelps is really old, the reaper will get him in due time.
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
And then I'll get criticized again for celebrating that asshole's death.
He's definately someone who I would never want to see martyred though.
O, get over it.
That's why this would have been perfect. He would have been killed by another right-winger.
Although honestly he probably would have hit some innocent bystanders or one of the Westboro kids who still isn't an asshole yet, so it's just as well.
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
I think the Westboro kids are pretty much ruined from the time they learn speech. Even one of the two Phelps kids who escaped and lived apart from the cult eventually went back.
EDIT: Wow, and here I thought Hitchens was a tool. Hannity is, like, a thousand orders of magnitude more of a tool than Hitchens could ever be.
Hitchens is made of awesome and bastard.