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PD.com: "a rather irritating form of hermetic terrorism".

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Messages - navkat

#47
Quote from: Queen Gogira Pennyworth, BSW on April 12, 2013, 10:47:46 PM
Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on April 12, 2013, 10:25:05 PM
Quote from: Queen Gogira Pennyworth, BSW on April 12, 2013, 10:13:03 PM
OH MY GOD POST OFFICE ON A FRIDAY AFTERNOON

I hear ya.

Well, they're all out now, except Waffles. I'm gonna do a separate batch of seriously shelf-stable ones for him.

Everyone who's getting cookies: I cannot guarantee that everything makes it there not stale or broken, in fact I'm pretty sure a bunch of things are going to break in transit. As long as nothing gets lost in the postal system, nothing will have the chance to go seriously bad, and the mix of baked goods should keep everything at close to the optimal moisture levels. The chocolate balls contain alcohol as a preservative, do not feed them to small children.

Sweet mother of Alice! I'm gonna eat the TAR out of those.
#48
Quote from: Alty on April 12, 2013, 09:25:39 PM
If I found out someone was cheating on me through nefarious ways I wouldnt actually taunt them, I'd just end it

Jesus.

I'm not saying you would. I think you misunderstand. I'm saying that everyone feels justified in acting shitty when they feel slighted but acting on it and feeling righteous about it indicates a certain level of possessiveness. I mean, whatever your reasons, you're describing a certain level of entitlement to inflict.

PLEEEEASE don't take that the wrong way. The example I used was more severe for a reason, and only to raise the point about how blurry the lines can be.And I don't think it'd make you a person who would go around hurting people. Also, after reading Nigel's anecdote, I admit, I can see how these things aren't always cut-and-dried but Nigel did say it was extreme, she wasn't happy with herself for doing it and if she'd come up empty, she'd still have seen it as a sign of sickness in the relationship on both their parts. That's the most clearly defined part of that to me: spying on people is fucked up and that fact isn't relative.
#49
Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on April 12, 2013, 08:59:43 PM
I didn't know that he was inviting strange men from Craigslist to my house. I didn't know WHAT was going on. All I knew was that things weren't right, on some massive level that I couldn't comprehend. I mean, there were little things... like, what is this washcloth doing in his car? Why does he want me to go out for the evening, and why does he care so much about when I'll be back? Why does he keep leaving at odd times? Why is he acting so strange?

But there was nothing that really "justified" me looking at his email, other than my inner sense that something was horribly awry.

I'm just saying that yeah, it's not always a black-and-white situation.

If I take no other lesson from this mess when I'm finally healed, I hope it's that I never again allow myself to get hooked into a situation with someone again where I can't easily just bolt as soon as something's feels off.

I never thought there could ever possibly be anything worse than not knowing but there is: Finding out for certain what a horrible person they are and being unable to easily untangle yourself and/or knowing that they will never feel guilty or get their come-uppance is a constant burn that eventually eats through your faith in concepts like "justice," burns you out and robs you of your will to keep pushing. It kills even your sense of self-preservation after a certain point.

I ever get in a relationship again and the dude starts going through my shit, I hope to christ I've finally got the self-discipline and personal empowerment to vomit that boy and his belongings onto the sidewalk before the screen has a chance to timeout.
#50
Quote from: Queen Gogira Pennyworth, BSW on April 12, 2013, 08:56:01 PM
WHO'S GOT TWO THUMBS AND TWELVE BOXES FULL OF COOKIES FOR THE POST OFFICE?

Even better than TWELVE thumbs and TWO boxes of cookies!
#51
Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on April 12, 2013, 08:41:13 PM
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on April 12, 2013, 06:01:18 PM
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on April 12, 2013, 05:58:58 PM
ECH, not that I think poorly of you, but it must be asked, if only to be put aside:


ARE you cheating?

Doesn't really have much relevance, for the same reason we (supposedly) require warrants for searches in a legal sense.  The ends do not justify the means; the result does not justify the bad act.

I'm gonna debate that. I was at my wits end, going completely crazy, and had asked my husband over and over again what on earth was going on because everything felt JUST NOT RIGHT and he kept telling me that there was nothing. I finally lost it and looked at his email, and discovered that he was not only cheating, but that it had been going on for a while and that he was hooking up with people off Craigslist on a regular basis, sometimes in our house while I was gone, with the kids asleep in the house. Not only total strangers, but a risk to me and my kids.

Do the ends justify the means? I think that question doesn't even apply in a situation that messy, with lives that intertwined and with that many levels of shit going on. If I'd found nothing, I would have confessed and we would have ended up in counseling either way because shit was falling apart. It had to be bad for me to go to that kind of extreme.

On the other hand, snooping a boyfriend or girlfriend's phone because you "feel insecure" is just wrong, and I don't think it's a habit that can easily be trained out of someone. If they do it once, on some level they feel like their insecurity trumps your privacy, and that means they'll keep on doing it, and it will probably get worse.

Having lived with someone who would do shit like search my backpack when I wasn't looking, I am very sensitive to it. But I don't think that it's as simple to dismiss as "the end justifying the means" because in some cases, by the time a scrupulous person gets to that point, especially in a committed long-term partnership, something is very very wrong.

Yeah, that's admittedly more complex. I'd say this:
QuoteNot only total strangers, but a risk to me and my kids.
is the delineating factor. And:

QuoteIt had to be bad for me to go to that kind of extreme.
Sounds like a good rule of thumb.
#52
Quote from: Alty on April 12, 2013, 07:23:41 PM
If you are cheating, actually are cheating, and your other finds out you have bigger things to worry about beyond the snooping because you've already betrayed the other person.

If I DID snoop, which I wouldn't, and I found out some bad shit I would feel no remorse. Because they were a bigger asshole.

That's not the same as The Ends Justify The Means, it means You Cheated You Motherfucker, La La I can't hear you.

At that point its not about justification, its about a broken heart. The damage is done.

"I don't wanna hear about it. You were planning to leave behind my back, right?"

"Yeah, but that's my..."

"NO-HOHHH! Were you or were you NOT planning to leave?"

"That's not the..."

"Answer the fucking question! It's a simple yes or no question! Yes or no? That's all I wanna hear out of you! I already know the answer, I just wanna hear YOU say it."

But you...

OHHHH!!! You can't do it, can you? You can't answer a simple fucking question! Are you stupid? Are you hard of hearing? Do you need me to repeat the question? You need me to repeat the question, Jenn? Huh?"

Yeah, I know all about self-righteous "La la, I can't hear you." Everyone thinks they have a good reason for the fucked up shit they do. The problem is, when you get into the business of crossing lines and justifying that, it becomes a slippery slope of perspectives and perpetual shittiness.

Don't get into the business of being a turd. I've made a fuckton of mistakes in my relationships but the only things I ever regret are ones where I've either crossed one of my own integrity lines or allowed them to cross mine. Take this from someone still digging her way out of a nightmare. The bars on my cage are alternating columns of hopelessness and obliterated self-esteem and the padlock on the hasp is my own guilt for shit I did that makes me little better. If they are
doing you dirty, you being a dick back becomes a tool with which they will manipulate your broken heart into giving them another chance since "now you're even." It's a giant pit-trap full of excrement. Don't get in and grab a shovel.

If I could hop in the Delorean and go back to fix my shit, I'd kick my own ass and say the same things I'm saying now. The moment you start crossing lines too instead of severing yourself with your integrity still intact, you give them a partial right to posses a part of you because now they get to hold you accountable for something...and if you have any kind of conscience or empathy, this is more compelling than you'd ever believe.
#53
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on April 12, 2013, 06:01:18 PM
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on April 12, 2013, 05:58:58 PM
ECH, not that I think poorly of you, but it must be asked, if only to be put aside:


ARE you cheating?

Doesn't really have much relevance, for the same reason we (supposedly) require warrants for searches in a legal sense.  The ends do not justify the means; the result does not justify the bad act.

Beat me to it.
#54
Quote from: Alty on April 12, 2013, 05:13:31 PM
I hate snoopers. They generally are repeat offenders, and depending on how AWESOME the person is, I guess I would allow it to happen twice before dropping them. Once is a fuckup, twice is a pattern.

Dan Savage says snooping is acceptable so long as what's found outweighs the crime of snooping. So, rarely ever. I just think trust is important, if you can't trust the one you're with enough to leave their damned phone alone, why torture yourself staying with them?

So the ends justify the means? That makes about as much sense as the men who justify crippling my independence as long as it keeps me from leaving them.
#55
I love that he asked the children to step out AFTER the "anal licking" segment of the talk.
#56
A week ago, I would have said yes. My tablet was stolen and my kid has a video game addiction I'm addressing so neither of us will be playing for awhile.
#57
Quote from: Balls Wellington on April 12, 2013, 09:26:08 AM
OK, PD, I need a head-check.

ECHGF 2.0 snooped my phone. Now, I haven't been hiding anything from her or doing anything I wouldn't want her to know about. There's no reason for her to have any suspicions that would even come CLOSE to justifying that sort of thing, if indeed anything ever justifies that sort of thing. Her stated reason for feeling suspicious and insecure enough to snoop my phone is that I'm still friends with my ex-GF and talk to her alot, which is true depending on your definition of "alot", in that we exchange texts a few times a week. I have never kept that hidden or a secret. I explained to her right from the start that if I liked someone enough to spend 7 years with them, even if things didn't work out romantically I'm still going to want to be friends with that person. None of our conversations veer into anything inappropriate or threatening to my current relationship. Not to mention that my ex lives 200 miles away. I've seen her once in the last 7 months, when I stopped by to pick up a load of my stuff.

Now, with regards to the current GF, this is the first time she's ever done anything that's actually UPSET me (not talking about normal everyday annoyances) and the first time she's ever shown any hint of maybe having a touch of the crazy. She is, by and large, a very sweet and intelligent woman who makes me laugh alot and enjoys enough of the things I enjoy that we don't drive each other nuts with our quirks.

And yet....SHE SNOOPED MY MOTHERFUCKING PHONE. THAT IS NOT EVEN A TINY BIT OK. And trusting people is very difficult for me and being able to trust someone is pretty much my number one prerequisite for wanting to be in a serious romantic relationship with them. So I ask you, PD, if I decide that this is a deal-breaker for me, am I overreacting? 

This may be a deal-breaker for me.

No. You are not.

I can tell you from experience that if you allow this to slip by "unreacted about," the natural progression of things leads to you becoming their property and your shit being their right to search.

It's possible this has been done to her and she doesn't know what big line this is. If that's the case, you can have a serious talk and explain that this must never happen again, then let it go but if she does it again, it probably means she can't help herself and it's never going to stop. Be glad it reared its ugly head before you ended up stuck with her somehow.
#58
That's his argument. It had to do with an argument I made for marriage equality and he said the GLBT community should take the path of least resistance and let the religious keep their marriage and just accept civil union. I replied that a "tiered" system of inequality was still unequal and encouraged society to return to a "separate but equal" attitude about people different from themselves which was NOT COOL in my book.

He then brought up eliminating state-recognition of unions ALTOGETHER because it's unconstitutional and unfair and suggested people should be allowed to just contract themselves to whomever, whenever, however, privately and without intervention. At some point, he challenged me to come up with one thing a marriage or civil union could allow partners to do that a contract could not and I replied with the survivor benefits thing. He insisted a contract or Will could take care of that too.

So, appealing to his obv libertarian side, I told him theoretically, that's a great idea but realistically, it'll lead to fraud and a whole lot of worse messes as private contracts CAN be challenged in court by surviving birth relatives and marriage can NOT as easily be challenged. I mentioned that in such instance, we really *would* have people doing fraudulent things like contracting themselves to their pets and stuff on paper and a host of issues due to improperly or unwitnessed contracts. and the like. I postulated that there would be MORE infringing government intervention as the courts became bogged down trying to sort out which of these contracts constituted intent to bind together in union two (or more) adults, which were unlawful, which were jokes, etc. (I didn't even really get INTO matters with children or access to medical and financial access type stuff).

Then he said something like "Well what's wrong with unwitnessed contracts? The government has no business, yadda yadda. And why CAN'T I will my dog to receive survivor benefits after I go? I pay too. It isn't fair."

So after the ice cream headache subsided a bit from THAT, I explained to him that those benefits are a safety net for partners suffering from the loss of the other team member who shared burdens and obligations with them. They are not a windfall, not intended for pets and they aren't there so that he can Will his best friend in Colorado a new car, just because he croaked.
That if he wanted his dog cared for when he bit the big one, he was welcome to buy separate insurance for that but that we all pay into a system that's there to ensure widows are still able to provide for the children if daddy dies and 80 year old grandmas don't have to eat cat food.


Then, before I had a chance to make a double-post, delving into what a bad idea it is allowing unwitnessed contracts with no regulation that no governing body is allowed to enforce or deny and ask him how that system would prevent breech of contract and someone cleaning out everything and leaving the other partner with nothing, he accused me of wanting to legislate morality and infringe on his rights as a single man who intends not to marry by not granting him the same rights and benefits as people who are married, he went off again, whining about how unfair it is to him and that I don't really stand for EQUALITY, I wanted to assign rights to my favorites. That I was all about equality until it comes to HIM. (He's white, male and well-heeled. Did I mention that?)

I almost lost it.

"Wow. Yeah, because you're so oppressed," I said.

To which he replied:
"Never said I was oppressed. Just not treated as an equal. I love it though. Rather than shoot for the right thing and get our government out of our lives, you'd like to solve problems like this with more government.

...and yes, I guess I am sort of oppressed. I won't get to enjoy the same benefits and rights as the rest of you and all because I don't want to get married in order to have those rights and benefits. You've got a lovely double standard there. Keep it up." and:

"...but I do enjoy how you turn to sarcasm when you've got nuthin'."

So I said:
"MORE GOVERNMENT? Are you serious? It's creating more government to keep religious people from infringing GLBT right to marry? Wow. And they used to call ME a Libertarian nutter..." And:

"And I don't understand. Using your logic, I'm being oppressed too because I'm not needy and therefore, can't collect food stamps. Saying you're entitled to widower benefits even though you never intend to be a widow makes about as much sense."

His response:
"Keep typing. All I see is equality for everyone. ...except you and you and...

Using my logic, there would be no inequality for anyone. ANYONE. We would all be given the same rights, benefits, etc.

Using your logic, I would continue to lose defense contracts because I'm not a minority run business. I understand why they USED to call you a libertarian. A true libertarian is against government intrusion except where it is absolutely necessary."

(RIGHT, BECAUSE I SAID MINORITY GROUPS COME BEFORE WHITES WHEN IT COMES TIME TO ASSIGN DEFENSE CONTRACTS!!! GRRR!!!)

And then he flounced with:
"I'm out. It's clear to me that you don't want to treat EVERYONE equally.

Sorry for blowing up your post Cedric. I sincerely hope that someday soon you'll be treated as an absolute equal with all the accorded rights and benefits that we ALL deserve."

Exactly which motorcycle is..? Where..? What the..?

#59
I was just accused of oppressing a well-heeled, American white male for suggesting survivor benefits should go to widows and children of the deceased and that a self-declared eternal-bachelor should NOT be allowed to sign a contract naming his DOG a beneficiary of survivor benefits, just because HE paid into the system too.
#60
Think for Yourself, Schmuck! / Re: Redemption
April 11, 2013, 06:31:37 PM
The running theme is you have to do something to fix what you broke.

Death row is filled with remorseful child-rapists who killed their victims by tearing up their internal organs in their zeal. Forgiving George Wallace because he's sick and sowee is akin to racism and classim and is further enablement of white, rich men in suits doing whatever the hell they want to people because they can always hire a PR guy later and apologize.

Fuck that.

Get off your ass and go help all the people of Alabama you fucked over. I can show you some pictures of people still living in cardboard shacks around the formerly-all-black College that is now Bishop State, if you need a place to start.

Otherwise, GTFO. Damage is done, you racist fuck.