Dumb Political Correctness

Discussion in 'West Mall' started by Mr. Deez, Feb 8, 2012.

  1. Joe Fan

    Joe Fan 10,000+ Posts

     
    • Like Like x 2
  2. Mr. Deez

    Mr. Deez Beer Prophet

    Yes, but those seem like secondary priorities to "knife control." However, my biggest complaint here is with the shaming of people who carry knives for protection. This mayor can't get a crime wave under control but has the audacity to shame people who want to protect themselves. It's not his fault that crime has gone up in London. Big cities have spikes in their crime rates from time to time, and very rarely is it because of anything city leaders have done or failed to do.

    However, if you tell individuals that they are not permitted to protect themselves, I think that puts a special obligation (morally and ethically, though not legally) on you to protect them. The more you restrict their ability to protect themselves, the greater and more onerous that obligation is. If you're telling people that they can't protect themselves in any way, you better be able to virtually guarantee their safety. Obviously, nobody can do that, so perhaps the Mayor should direct his limited resources to breaking up and prosecuting gangs and other criminal enterprises rather than trying to bust people who might have decided to carry a pocket knife on them because he's having a hard time doing his job.

    And again, we're talking about knives, not guns. The dynamics are very different.
     
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  3. Seattle Husker

    Seattle Husker 10,000+ Posts

    I just found it ironic that a UK liberal took the stance of American conservatives.
     
  4. Statalyzer

    Statalyzer 10,000+ Posts

    I'd sure want a knife if I were a woman in London.
     
  5. Mr. Deez

    Mr. Deez Beer Prophet

    I don't really see those proposals as conservative. Plenty of liberals advocate them too. They just advocate them along with gun control.
     
  6. Joe Fan

    Joe Fan 10,000+ Posts

  7. Garmel

    Garmel 5,000+ Posts

    I've heard a lot of conservative groups complain about it.
     
  8. ProdigalHorn

    ProdigalHorn 10,000+ Posts

    Of those two, which one looks like the one that should take a DNA test to confirm that he's a human?
     
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  9. ProdigalHorn

    ProdigalHorn 10,000+ Posts

    At least Hitler didn't feed his kid a PB&J sandwich while shopping at Target. That would REALLY have made him a monster.

    https://www.sfgate.com/living/article/Mother-peanut-butter-allergy-Target-child-12826097.php

    The original poster (OP) explained, multiple times, that her daughter ate the sandwich neatly and didn't smear any peanut butter and her hands were wiped afterwards, but it didn't make any difference.

    It only got worse. Here is a sample of the responses:

    —"Your total disdain for the safety of other kids is awful. Feeding your kid a PB&J in a Target shopping cart is the epitome of low brow. For the love of God at least feed her in the car if you absolutely can't feed her at home! Everything about your post is vile."

    —"You're the worst kind of person. Just understand that raising a child with an I don't care about others attitude means they will be obnoxious insufferable kids just like their mom. A grown up would tell their kids we can't eat that right now because it may cause another child to get sick. Period. Why do we need to explain this to you?"

    —"It's not impossible to feed your child BEFORE or AFTER putting them in a shopping cart, especially peanut butter. You are awful."

    —"So gross - you packed a pb&j for your kid to eat at Target? There's so much wrong with this it needs to be fake."
     
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  10. Htown77

    Htown77 5,000+ Posts

    ^ If you are not angry at other Americans over nothing, you are not living life in this decade the right way.
     
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  11. Seattle Husker

    Seattle Husker 10,000+ Posts

    I HATE the "my child has an allergy so everyone else must conform to their needs" parents. If your child has a severe nut allergy but plays on a youth sports team...bring your own snack. In school, don't expect kids to consider your kids needs when they bring cupcakes for the class on their birthday. If you are a parent of a special dietary needs child then prepare them for living in a world where everyone isn't aware of their needs.
     
    • Like Like x 7
  12. ProdigalHorn

    ProdigalHorn 10,000+ Posts

    The article says that something like 1 percent of the population has peanut allergies, and in testing, they've found that the instance of a severe reaction beyond skin breakouts is incredibly rare. I'm not sure how we've gotten to the point where somehow there's a whole bunch of kids ready to drop dead at the first whiff of peanut.

    Oh wait, I remember. Social media happened and everyone went nuts.
     
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  13. ProdigalHorn

    ProdigalHorn 10,000+ Posts

    Did you see what I did there? Huh? Huh? Get it? With the "nuts" thing?
     
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  14. Seattle Husker

    Seattle Husker 10,000+ Posts

    Hellicopter parents happened. I blame it on my generation that felt the need to script our childrens success.
     
  15. ProdigalHorn

    ProdigalHorn 10,000+ Posts

    That's part of it, but there's something else going on. I don't remember a time when so many people were absolutely consumed with fear, anger, and concern over something that MIGHT happen to someone else, but which they have no concern will actually happen to them. Combine that with the fact that social media amplifies an individual, isolated incident into some sort of global pattern that MUST be addressed TODAY, and now we basically believe that everything is conspiring to kill us. I remember seeing a study a couple of years ago where a majority of people thought the economy was doing poorly, even while they said it was going fine for them. They were more reliant on anecdotal accounts from other people than they were the things that they were actually experiencing and seeing. So all of a sudden, a tragedy takes place in one town due to massive corruption and incompetence as well as one really screwed up individual, and I'm convinced that every school in America is under siege.

    Is it any wonder people are depressed and unhappy? I am rightly concerned about what's going on in Syria, but does it impact me? Probably not in most cases. Can I do something? Sure, possibly, but that would require diverting attention away from issues going on in my own backyard that also need and warrant my help. So now I'm confronted with a world full of pain and I'm racked with guilt that I'm not "doing" something. And my inflated sense of worth convinces me that I am the missing ingredient to all this - if I would just shout louder, get angrier, march more, do something to get people's attention, then all the bad things would finally be addressed.

    Righteous indignation always makes us feel better. It can be like a drug - no matter if you're liberal or conservative. Maybe I'm not saving starving kids in Africa, but I'm really mad about the injustice of it all, and I'm going to make sure I make someone else miserable as a result of it. Because if I'm racked with guilt, no one else around me gets to feel good about things. To some extent, I think we all do this. We get mad about something and we want everyone else to be as mad about it as we are. And there's a boundless supply of injustice out there in the world that's right there for me to access.
     
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  16. BrntOrngStmpeDe

    BrntOrngStmpeDe 1,000+ Posts

    Exactly. Social media really is a big part of the problem. The anonymity allows people to be nuts without being so judged by their friends and neighbors.

    It allows folks to paint their own little corner of the world with conspiracy theories and allows the circle jerk of conspiracy reinforcement with like minded boneheads.

    Happens on both sides of the political spectrum and with stuff that isn't even political.
     
    • Like Like x 2
  17. Seattle Husker

    Seattle Husker 10,000+ Posts

    We've found that there are a lot more "crazy" people than anyone realized on any issue. They feed on each other in groups.
     
  18. Garmel

    Garmel 5,000+ Posts

    My favorite one is that shape-shifting lizard people are the ones who really run the world.
     
  19. ProdigalHorn

    ProdigalHorn 10,000+ Posts

    That one sounds fun. I'd like to subscribe to that - send the brochure! :D
     
    • Like Like x 1
  20. Joe Fan

    Joe Fan 10,000+ Posts

    What is it about liberals and the double-standard?
    Do they not see it?
    Or, do they just not care?

     
  21. Crockett

    Crockett 5,000+ Posts

    I'm not a conservative, but I love the chicken, the service, the cleanliness, the franchisees' connection to the community and the business model of giving employees Sunday off. God Bless Chick-fil-A.
     
    • Like Like x 7
  22. Garmel

    Garmel 5,000+ Posts

    Just type "lizard people" in Google. Interesting stuff. :smile1:
     
  23. ProdigalHorn

    ProdigalHorn 10,000+ Posts

    This guy represents everything I hate about the Northeast.

    "It’s worth asking why Americans fell in love with an ad in which one farm animal begs us to kill another in its place. Most restaurants take pains to distance themselves from the brutalities of the slaughterhouse; Chick-fil-A invites us to go along with the Cows’ Schadenfreude."

    "I noticed that word—community—scattered everywhere in the Fulton Street restaurant. A shelf of children’s books bears a plaque testifying to “our love for this local community.” The tables are made of reclaimed wood, which creates, according to a Chick-fil-A press release, “an inviting space to build community.” A blackboard with the header “Our Community” displays a chalk drawing of the city skyline. Outside, you can glimpse an earlier iteration of that skyline on the building’s façade, which, with two tall, imperious rectangles jutting out, “gives a subtle impression of the Twin Towers.”

    This emphasis on community, especially in the misguided nod to 9/11, suggests an ulterior motive. The restaurant’s corporate purpose still begins with the words “to glorify God,” and that proselytism thrums below the surface of the Fulton Street restaurant, which has the ersatz homespun ambiance of a megachurch. David Farmer, Chick-fil-A’s vice-president of restaurant experience, told BuzzFeed that he strives for a “pit crew efficiency, but where you feel like you just got hugged in the process.” That contradiction, industrial but claustral, is at the heart of the new restaurant—and of Chick-fil-A’s entire brand. "

    "Defenders of Chick-fil-A point out that the company donates thousands of pounds of food to New York Common Pantry, and that its expansion creates jobs. The more fatalistic will add that hypocrisy is baked, or fried, into every consumer experience—that unbridled corporate power makes it impossible to bring your wallet in line with your morals. Still, there’s something especially distasteful about Chick-fil-A, which has sought to portray itself as better than other fast food: cleaner, gentler, and more ethical, with its poultry slightly healthier than the mystery meat of burgers. Its politics, its décor, and its commercial-evangelical messaging are inflected with this suburban piety. A representative of the Richards Group once told Adweek, “People root for the low-status character, and the Cows are low status. They’re the underdog.” That may have been true in 1995, when Chick-fil-A was a lowly mall brand struggling to find its footing against the burger juggernauts. Today, the Cows’ “guerrilla insurgency” is more of a carpet bombing. New Yorkers are under no obligation to repeat what they say. "
     
    • Like Like x 2
  24. Crockett

    Crockett 5,000+ Posts

    Yeah, I know what you mean. He's like the hostile Yelp! reviewers ranting over trivial or imaginary slights. The not so subliminal message of their writing is -- "look a me.... have you ever seen such a jerk!"
     
    • Like Like x 1
  25. mb227

    mb227 de Plorable

    Pretty much this...they seem to treat their employees well (even the gay ones, of which there are several locally) and they make a damned good spicy chicken sandwich. They were also very responsive to customers who had been outspoken about the change in the BBQ sauce, to the point of sending messages when possible letting people know the original had been restored to the stocks.

    I may not agree with the politics of the management, but it is a private company and is free to spend their money as they see fit...meanwhile, my desire to have a good sandwich overrides my desire to participate in any manner of boycott of them.
     
    • Like Like x 8
  26. Joe Fan

    Joe Fan 10,000+ Posts

    "We must stop the chicken sandwich menace before its delicious food spreads Christianity all across the globe."
    - some dude at the New Yorker ​
     
    • Like Like x 4
  27. Joe Fan

    Joe Fan 10,000+ Posts

  28. ProdigalHorn

    ProdigalHorn 10,000+ Posts

    He actually hits all the buttons for his audience: the snooty urbanite New Yorker:

    - disdain for meat-eaters? Check
    - contempt for suburbia? Check
    - resistance to the idea that the New York "community" should extend beyond the community theater/woke hipster set? Check
    - suspicion that if Christians are nice and provide good service, that's just their way of trying to brainwash people? Check
    - hatred of non-NY chains? Check
    - sneering superiority over any misspellings and bad grammar that aren't sprayed on a building or written in chalk? Check
    - Overly woke approach to selecting businesses (so long as they aren't run by muslims)? Check
    - General distrust of restaurants where workers actually give a crap about their job? Check
     
    • Like Like x 6
  29. Mr. Deez

    Mr. Deez Beer Prophet

    Yep. What a pretentious handjob this guy is. And make no mistake. He's really only pissed that the company is run by outspoken Christians. All the drivel he spouted about how the company operates is just filler. He wouldn't care about any of that stuff if the ownership was liberal. He could have just written, "outspoken Christians suck," and he would have communicated just as much substance as he did in his rambling critique.

    Also, the religious angle of Chik-fil-a is way overblown by the Left. They make it sound like the restaurants have a mess of John Hagee starter kits roaming the restaurants preaching at customers. I've been to Chik-fil-a countless times over the last 20 years. Never have I been preached at or even approached about religion in any way. Their real Christian proselytizing is in how they treat people. They serve an outstanding product (for fast food) in a clean environment, and they're nice to customers. If Jesus opened a fast food place, it would operate like Chick-fil-A.
     
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  30. Mr. Deez

    Mr. Deez Beer Prophet

    Preferably without pickles and on whole wheat. It's a beautiful thing. If Chik-Fil-A opened in Germany, I'd gladly drive 2 hours and pay double the price to eat there.
     
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