The Tone for Debate
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@Tin-Man
First, I admire your sacrifice. I hate the clique "thank you for your service" but thank you.
I worked 10 years in the Office of Surface Mining as a Reclamation Specialist. Which is a fancy word for Inspector. I was originally assigned to Eastern Kentucky. Very tough! Just watch Justified. We used Federal Marshals for backup. We were prohibited from carrying a firearm and I am glad. Because it would have just given some an excuse to kill us. I was one of the Inspectors on the Virgil Bishop case. You might find it in google. He kept us pinned down in a mining pit. We finally found a cut in the high wall and escaped. We went back with Federal Marshals and he threatened to kill us and the Marshals. The lead federal Marshal decided we needed to exit. The federal Marshal Service went back that evening with a whole force, including State Police. Long story.
I was only in Eastern Kentucky for 3 years. I issued Cessation Orders against a renegade company in Maggofin County. The owner threatened to burn my house and threatened my family. The OSM district manager transferred me to Denver in 1980 to get me and my family out of harm's way. That is how I got to Colorado from Kentucky. I stayed out west for 30 years and spent my last 22 years with the USEPA.
@BR
I've never watched a full episode of "Justified" but I have seen several clips fom the show on YouTube. (The wife and I rarely watch television. We even had our cable service disconnected.) From what vid clips I have seen, though, it looks like a show I would enjoy. I really like the attitude/style of the main character.
Re: "We were prohibited from carrying a firearm and I am glad."
Yikes! Honestly can't say I would have been fully comfortable with that. At the same time, though, I do understand the policy, despite that it seems counter-intuitive. Having been a Bama boy my whole life, I am well-acquainted with the "backwoods mentality." Down here, though, we call them Rednecks... *chuckle*... And, oddly enough, for the most part they do have and hold to their own personal "code of honor." The trick, as you may know, is to determine what that code is without first getting your ass kicked or killed... *chuckle*...
@Tin-Man
I don't watch much TV but you should get the series on disc. It is dramatized but for backwoods guys like you and I, it will keep you entertained for several weeks.
You are correct on the code. It works both ways, if they like you, they will adopt you and give you the shirt off their back. I worked for a boss in Hazard, Kentucky who invited me to supper about one night a week. His wife was an old fashioned cook. Her gravy was worth killing for.
@Bright Raven
"I will not stay here if this is what we are."
Really?
And I, we, should do as you suggest exactly why? ---We have a goodly number of folks her who are pretty good at serious debate. Most of us can tell the difference between well deserved ridicule of absurd ideas vs ridiculing the person.
EG I have a positive opinion of Joy as an essentially good, decent person . However, I contemptuous of the absurd claims she (?) makes, without once having provided any credible evidence. . In my opinion, her behaviour is often smug, arrogant, patronising, and dogmatic,.I don't suggest she is like that all the time . I suspect her day-to-day behaviour is perfectly fine when she isn't discussing her personal beliefs .
I do not respond well to threats in real life. Leave you to work out my response to a threat from some stranger on an internet forum . So, bye, don't let the door hit you or the horse you rode in on as you leave
@cranky47
I prefer to call them observations rather than suggestions. I stand fully behind my observations.
@Bright Raven
"I prefer to call them observations rather than suggestions. I stand fully behind my observations."
I'd call saying you will leave if you don't get your way a threat.
However, if you say you were only making a suggestion , fine. Please consider your suggestions considered and ignored. Mkay. .
@cranky
I think you are confused.
The thread contains mostly observations.
Bright Raven: "The thread contains mostly observations."
Someone does not know the difference between an observation and an opinion.
@ cranky
I've just realised that this John Wayne aficionado and avid watcher of James Stewart has absorbed a veneer of Hollywood's "old West Culture". Where gentlemen say "ma'am", never swear even (except an occasional and sotto voce "gosh darn" as a pesky owlhoot shoots his gleaming white stetson off his head) while the hero has his hand up a cow's pink bits.
Like most of his ilk, and many theists, he has no idea of the deep seated antipathy that Aussies have (as do the Scots and Irish) to patronising comments, however well meant.
Who was to know this was an international forum?
@Old man shouts
"Who was to know this was an international forum?"
Yair . Fancy.
I'm aware Oz is a small country* and many Americans can't find it on a map. More than a few foreigners seem to think our casual manner says it all .
To those who have not had the great good fortune to be born in OZ----- Do not mistake our habit of calling everyone 'mate' for a deep desire to be friends with everyone. (or to be loved by everyone, like the Americans)--we call everyone 'mate' because we can't be bothered remembering names. Although in my case, these days it's as much because I can't remember anyway.
Quite right about the anti authoritarian attitude as a national trait. I prefer "tall poppy syndrome" . This also gives many Aussies a healthy contempt for politicians, and clergy as well as various other forms of humbuggery and pond scum. .
*in population. In area we are about the same size as the contiguous USA.,but an island, with over 16000 MILES of coastline, with thousands of fantastic beaches.
@ Cranky
"We call everyone 'mate' because we can't be bothered remembering names."
Other people have names? For real? well, strike me pink with a dead dingo's arsehole, mate. You'da thought some flaming galah woulda seen me right. I've been calling me brother Maaate and me Dad Maaaaaate for years now. Who knew?
Well, excuse me while I go swallow some flamin flies and grab me tucker daan the pub while sinking a few tinnies, or maybe a few ponies unless he's got these midis on the side now.
Flamin' Septics will be the death of me.
@Cranky Re: Oz
Alright, alright already! You've convinced me! Just show me where I can sign up to be a permanent resident there. Sounds like my kind of place. And I'm sure my wife would love it too. She is as much anti-authority, anti-politician, and anti-clergy as I am.
@Old man shouts
@cranky47
I apologize for offending you two gentleman. I am concerned that the expression of my observations offended your sensitivities.
I have what is actually a suggestion. Why don't the two of you use whatever space you need to vent your frustrations? Post whatever will make you each feel better.
I will even give you a sort of security blanket. I promise not to post a rebuttal to your "whining sessions". But being big tough guys from AUSTRALIA, you guys probably don't need it.
Now, a one and a two and a three, GO.
@ Bright Raven
I think you will find your comments (sorry "observations") got up the nose of a few Poms (ooops Limeys) as well as at least a couple of your own compatriots, and possible a few others who are raising their eyebrows at your attitude.
Anyway I am about a sensitive as a wart on a roo's arse so don't mind me. I will continue to call a digging implement a fucking shovel and annoying theists will continue to have their ideas ridiculed, be taunted, insulted and generally farted upon from a distance.
In addition I will continue to rub their noses in their collective ignorance of the origins of their own faiths. I know I wont change the rusted on theists, but there are many "lurkers" on these forums who NEVER post but absorb, like sponges, the knowledge we disseminate and also have a good laugh at the lampooning that goes on.
Many are in a situation that they WISH they could say what many of us say but cannot for fear of death, exile, torture or worse.
But then, newbie, how were you to know?
@Bright Raven: Hiding behind good manners does not make you a better person. It just makes you hypocritical and disingenuous.
Something I picked up from Haiku class.
Feelings like a sneeze
are misery when suppressed.
Sneeze, and feel expressed.
Having manners is in no way a reflection of what one has to say, but rather, how they say it. Arguments and opinions stand on their own regardless of the form of delivery. Don't miss the forest because you are focusing in on a tree.
@Cognostic
Will you permit me to say I totally disagree?
Civility is the grease that lubricates human interaction. One would not last a week in federal service without common civility.
@Bright raven: Limiting your vocabulary to half of all available human communication is not creative. Civility is the lubricant of lying politicians, add campaigns, and manipulation. An ASS by any other name is still an ASS.
@ BR
Genuine good manners are the oil that facilitates contact with strangers.
They have to be reciprocated to be effective. Both the initiator and receptor of the contact need to have a common understanding (culture) for such things to be effective.
No "manners" are universal. The anglo world is the most deceptive as it contains umpteen different cultures with very different ideas of what is, and is not, acceptable.
I had a young man come here from near Bristol in England, very polite. He had a culture shock with Australian culture. He absorbed it but still told the story of a Aussie bloke with scraggy shorts and cutaway shirt striding up the golf fairway an asking passers by if they had seen "his fucking ball for crissake". A lack of golfing manners that would have got him banned for life in England but was relatively normal in the milieu
We warned him not to enter his local English pub and slap his best mate on the back while bellowing "how the fuck are you you hairy nosed bastard" a behaviour he had gotten very used to over here. It is a term of endearment and a sign of genuine affection and understood by all the natives...he forgot of course and ended up with a two black eyes and very copious nosebleed.
Similarly your "manners" are yours, your culture.. Attempting to foist them on a mutitude of different backgrounds, ethnicities and cultures will end only in your tears.
If you tried that approach with the Appalachian natives I am not surprised you had to flee for your very life.
Most of us are very tolerant of differences in culture on these forums and find them fascinating, often conversation starters off forum.
What I do not tolerate, will lampoon and deride, is Joy's (for an example) attitude of foisting morality on the general populace of strangers...it differs little from your attempts to to do the same with your particular US small town "manners" culture.
Back off pardner.
@Bright Raven
" I apologize for offending you two gentleman."
I wasn't offended. You made threat and I called you on it.
"I have what is actually a suggestion."
What you call suggestion, I call unsolicited advice.
My unsolicited advice for you actually comes from the gospels ;
Mathew 7:5 . "Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye;
and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye." (KJV)
For something more recent, there's Oscar Wilde " “I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it. It is never of any use to oneself.”
Is the whining session over?
@Bright Raven
Unfortunately no.matter what you say "they" will turn it against you. Just like any group of people anywhere in the world, you will find all the same stereotypes here as well. Are atheists and theists different? Not in my opinion.
@In Spirit
Yes. People are the same. Whether right or left, theist or atheist, American or Russian, etc. Etc.
I disagree that "they" turned anything against me. I made my point. I did it within my rules. That is as good as it gets.
Ok, folks, this horse now appears to be beaten to death.
@ Cyber
Very much agreed.
@Cyber: RE: "This horse seems to be beaten to death." Obviously you are a city girl. That is a cow! :-)
Re: Cyber - "This horse seems to be beaten to death."
... *looking around in confusion*... What?... Wait!... Hold on a sec!... I just got back and just finished reading up to this point!... And now it's over?... *shoulders slumping in disappointment*.... Awwwww.... Fiddle-faddle-doggie-poop-scoop!... *stomping foot*.... Every time! EVERY time!... I was just about to jump in and have some fun, but then I get the door slammed in my face. Grrrrrr..... *stomping out of room*.... *brief pause*.... *sticking head back through doorway*.... Fish-farting-pig-squealing-donkey-humping-moon-pie-cherry-coke!.... *quickly running away down hallway*...
Tin, go to your room!
@Cyber Re: "Tin, go to your room!"
... *head lowered*... *sullen voice*.. Can I take my blankie with me?
And ... it's time for the editorial response ...
What part of "the regulars here have seen so many canards and outright lies from the mythology fanboys, that we can detect them in our sleep" do you not understand?
Also, what part of "unsupported assertions are a free-fire zone for whatever invective we choose to unleash thereupon" do you also not understand?
While on the subject of "things you don't understand", there's also the expression of satirical humour that has evolved over time among the regulars here. An acquired taste admittedly, but I quickly recognised it for what it was within, oh, about 12 hours of arriving here.
Though I'm also aware, as a result of seeing this in action over a period of 12 years encompassing numerous different forums, of the manner in which mythology fanboys not only fail to understand various applicable elementary concepts, but have a habit of wilfully refusing to understand said concepts.
Wrong. What you see here, is the entirely predictable expression of exasperation, as yet another mythology fanboy turns up here with the same tired old canards, bullshit and outright lies, thinking that said tired old canards, bullshit and outright lies that have been destroyed repeatedly in the past, constitute some killer brand of "wisdom" with which said mythology fanboy thinks he's going to "stick it to the stupid atheists". This has happened so often here and on other rationalist forums, that if I had been paid £20 every time I observed this in action, I would now be retiring to a 200 foot penis-extension Bond villain yacht in Monte Carlo on the proceeds.
This is, not to put too fine a point on it, bullshit.
If you bother to stick around here, you'll learn that what matters most of all to those of us who paid attention in class, is respect for the proper rules of discourse. Rules of discourse that are frequently subject to flagrant and egregious violation by mythology fanboys. Among which, the more important ones are:
[1] Assertions do not equal fact. Assertions, in the absence of test remedying the requisite epistemological deficit, retain the status "truth value unknown" until said test is performed.
[2] The methods of test of assertions that have thus far been demonstrably reliable are:
[2a] Error-free derivation within an appropriate formal system (see: pure mathematics);
[2b] Correspondence with observational data (see: the empirical sciences).
Anyone who wishes to claim that a different method of test is purportedly superior to the above, is required to provide not only a detailed exposition of the underlying methodology and its operation, but evidence of the reliability of said alternative.
[3] In the absence of submissions fulfilling the criteria set out above, assertions are discardable entities. Indeed, ideas themselves are discardable entities, the moment relevant data or deduction informs us that specific ideas should be discarded, except for pedagogical purposes.
Failure to understand the above will result in a rough ride here. We're not going to lower our standards to accommodate the incompetence of hubristic and entitlement-riddled newcomers.
Frequently, we let them do just that. Or had you failed to observe this in certain relevant threads?
Quite simply, the moment known and repeatedly destroyed canards are detected, it's time to launch the discoursive ICBMs. To borrow an aphorism from the movie Till Dawn's Early Light, it's 2-1-Zebra time.
Have fun digesting the above, and learn what we actually are.
@southernCali
" there's also the expression of satirical humour that has evolved over time among the regulars here. An acquired taste admittedly".
Oh come now, you know that's what made you stick here. Reminds me of the late great Hoags, who back in college put his drunken self behind the wheel and found out way too early whether or not there was an afterlife, and once drunkenly told a sorority girl who had rejected a vulgar pass, and I quote,
"Shut up bitch, I know you want it."
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