Principia Discordia

Having thought about it all last night, I have come to a conclusion:  Pixie was 169% right.  An Irish-American is just an American.  There is no connection between myself, except in genetics, between myself and a person from Cornwall.  This isn't butthurt talking, it's observable fact.

There are some interesting implications that come with having no cultural heritage...Or at least a severely abbreviated one.  Our culture was born in war, expanded with war, and slaps a pastiche of theft and/or commerce-based "culture" on itself.

An example would be our holidays.  Consider:

Thanksgiving:  Thanks for the help, Native Americans!  Have some blankets.

Mother's Day:  Fabricated wholecloth by the Hallmark Greeting Card Company.

Labor Day:  The day when all the proles go work long overtime to support sales to the middle class & wealthy.

July 4th:  The day we celebrate kicking out the forces of law & order, because teabagger.

Christmas:  Starts before thanksgiving.  Buy some shit, already.

Halloween:  Here, kids, have some processed sugar.  Sorry about that, England.

Veterans/Memorial Day:  We used up a bunch of people, so YOU should feel bad about that twice a year.

Without heritage, there is no culture.  Without culture, there are no social norms.  Without social norms, there are no morals.  Since people can't operate that way, we made some shit up.  Given the fortress mentality of our founding, the shit we made up is based on imperialism and the cult of the gun.

So, no, we aren't Irish-Americans or German-Americans, or anything like that (with the occasional exception of Native Americans, specifically those who have preserved their culture).  No, we - and this includes 2nd+ generation immigrants - are just Americans, and we do what America does.  We we aren't doing that, we practice it on ourselves.

This has led to societal abominations like the school-to-prison/military pipelines, etc.  This fills the two basic requirements our society requires; fear and fresh troops.  And while some yahoos still think it's about FREEDOM, the only "freedom" you have here is the privilege of not yet having been noticed by the system.

Our police dress like stormtroopers, and our population whimpers about "being safe" and "stomping the gonads out of anyone who doesn't show respect".  The government no longer has to police the thoughts of the citizenry; they are now self-policing.

In a teenager that isn't wanted by his/her parents, abberant behavior becomes normal.  In a society not wanted by their parent societies, you see the same thing.  This is why I am puzzled by people who wonder why the United States is so damn dysfunctional, and why we hardly ever seem to give a shit what your opinion is, nationally speaking, on anything.  Why should we?

And that is the culture of America, historically and currently.  Not a nation of immigrants, but a nation of convicts and militaristic yahoos.  What were you expecting from a nation of street urchins, whose parents have told them "You're not our son".

Or Kill Me.

I'm not Italian. I'm not Irish. I'm American. I was born in New York to American born parents and happen to carry names from the old world. That's it.

Hello, my name is Lyndon B Nixon, and I'm a millwright.  I have a 4 bedroom rental in Tucson, a wife, 2 kids, and two cars.  I was a soldier, my son is a marine.  My family doesn't go back too far...In fact, as far as I can see, I didn't actually exist until 8 years ago.

I have many electronic devices, some of which I have a basic understanding of.  I have a firearm or two, it's every American's patriotic duty to pack iron for no apparent reason.  I own a dog whose previous owner beat him frequently, and as a result the dog is partially crippled and affection-starved.

We're just doing our best out here, you know?  We work hard, or my name isn't Franklin S Truman.  I'm a dead man walking around pretending to be alive, just like all my friends.  We have parties on the weekends.  Nothing outrageous, these days, just a collection of my fellow corpses over for coffee and maybe a bit of bourbon.

I have a good chunk of privilege, but I don't spend a lot of time thinking about it.  Not because I'm spoiled or anything, so much as the subject never really comes up.  We're good people, we make active efforts to not shit on people, though I must admit that we're not always successful.  And we don't air our dirty laundry or our rotting corpses in front of the neighbors.

Drop by sometime!  Just give us a call so we can spray some fabreeze around.  Jenn will put some burgers on, everyone likes burgers, right?  Damn straight, or my name isn't Spiro T Reagan.  I'm employed somehow, though I don't understand the details.  I am not required to.  I just do my thing, and I try not to get in the way of you doing your thing.  I am the embodiment of the enlightened American future, and hardly anyone I know is in the penitentiary.

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on April 17, 2013, 04:35:41 PM
the only "freedom" you have here is the privilege of not yet having been noticed by the system.

This is an amazing line.

Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on April 17, 2013, 04:58:08 PM

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on April 17, 2013, 04:35:41 PM
the only "freedom" you have here is the privilege of not yet having been noticed by the system.

This is an amazing line.

What's more amazing is that we are not, as a nation of immigrants (and some locals that kinda got stepped on), able to distinguish between ourselves from an ancestry background.

THAT IS NOT A SLAM ON PIXIE, THAT'S THE TRUTH.

On Saint Patrick's Day, suddenly everyone and their grandmother is Irish.  Not to celebrate Ireland, but to change from our regular uniform to our green shirt & jeans uniform.  And if everyone who claimed to be of Native American blood WAS of Native American blood, they'd run the place, and we'd be in a very small reservation on the site of the Roanoke colony.

It's all bullshit.  All of it.

You can take my word for it, because I'm Clint Wayne, and I'm a real American.  Wife, 2 kids, and a mangled & neurotic dog.  4 bedroom rental in Tucson.  2 cars.  Loads of electronics.  Every day is the same, and that's the way I like - DEMAND - it.

I'm so mixed, it's like I'm not enough of anything to count, even if we DID have cultures here.
My mom's people got here in 1640 and it was fuck, drift, fuck, drift, fuck drift ever since.

Quote from: stelz on April 17, 2013, 05:13:33 PM
I'm so mixed, it's like I'm not enough of anything to count, even if we DID have cultures here.
My mom's people got here in 1640 and it was fuck, drift, fuck, drift, fuck drift ever since.

Put anything in a blender for long enough, you get America.  Soft, sludgy, and nobody really wants to look at it.  I'm Woodrow Taft, and I work 9-5, just like all my pals.

It occurs to me that some people may take this thread as sarcasm.  It isn't, not in the slightest.

I'm George W Ford, and I do my part.  Just like any good American.

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on April 17, 2013, 05:14:22 PM

Quote from: stelz on April 17, 2013, 05:13:33 PM
I'm so mixed, it's like I'm not enough of anything to count, even if we DID have cultures here.
My mom's people got here in 1640 and it was fuck, drift, fuck, drift, fuck drift ever since.

Put anything in a blender for long enough, you get America.  Soft, sludgy, and nobody really wants to look at it.  I'm Woodrow Taft, and I work 9-5, just like all my pals.

I'm Eleanor Fillmore and I work a swing shift, keep a nice trailer, save at WalMart and still find time for the Steve Wilkos show.

Quote from: stelz on April 17, 2013, 05:27:05 PM

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on April 17, 2013, 05:14:22 PM

Quote from: stelz on April 17, 2013, 05:13:33 PM
I'm so mixed, it's like I'm not enough of anything to count, even if we DID have cultures here.
My mom's people got here in 1640 and it was fuck, drift, fuck, drift, fuck drift ever since.

Put anything in a blender for long enough, you get America.  Soft, sludgy, and nobody really wants to look at it.  I'm Woodrow Taft, and I work 9-5, just like all my pals.

I'm Eleanor Fillmore and I work a swing shift, keep a nice trailer, save at WalMart and still find time for the Steve Wilkos show.

I'm John Quincy Madison, and I like to listen to talk radio.  It smooths things out, and I don't have to worry about politics.  I'm a Police Tactical Squad member, and I do what I have to do, even if I don't like it, because I can't let my pals down.  FOUR BEDROOM RENTAL.  TUCSON.  DOG.  WIFE.  2 KIDS.

I'm Millard S Eisenhower, I'm a goddamn patriot, and I'm afraid of anyone who doesn't look like me.

Damn good shit, Roger.

A people without a history or a connection or a sense of place are just drifting, aimless, and shallow.

However, people have always been migratory, so the thing that can fix it is the passage of time.

More time than you or I will spend being alive, but it'll happen, eventually, if we can settle down long enough to let it.

Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on April 17, 2013, 05:31:33 PM
I'm Millard S Eisenhower, I'm a goddamn patriot, and I'm afraid of anyone who doesn't look like me.

The fortunate thing, Millard, is that everyone does look like you.  Everyone.  This is America, and we're all the same.  We're so all the same that sometimes we get a little bugged about it and make up phony differences.  Then, to convince ourselves that we're different, we engineer awful acts of violence in Colorado, NY, and Boston to PROVE TO THOSE BASTARDS THAT WE'RE DIFFERENT.

I'm Richard M Roosevelt, and I HAVE A DOG.  2 KIDS.  2 CARS.  WIFE.  4 BEDROOM RENTAL.  TUCSON.  I have lots of electronics.  I don't think about it too much, because then I might remember that I don't exist below the knees and I've only been around 8 years, and I've been dead the whole time.  We don't breathe here.

Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on April 17, 2013, 05:34:27 PM
However, people have always been migratory, so the thing that can fix it is the passage of time.

More time than you or I will spend being alive, but it'll happen, eventually, if we can settle down long enough to let it.

I'm reasonably sure there's more America than there was when I was a kid.  It's a jangled bit of RNA that gets into other cultures and reproduces itself.  As a great Japanese man said, "EVERYWHERE is America".  And he was right, or my name isn't Jimmy Clinton.  I have a dog.

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on April 17, 2013, 05:17:43 PM
It occurs to me that some people may take this thread as sarcasm.  It isn't, not in the slightest.

Never took it as sarcasm, on account of it's pretty much everyone else's view of america and has been since forever. Don't beat yourself up over it, tho, having a culture is grossly overrated.

Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on April 17, 2013, 05:33:32 PM
Damn good shit, Roger.

A people without a history or a connection or a sense of place are just drifting, aimless, and shallow.

And, I am reliably informed, slightly dangerous, like a deep fat frier with no lid.  You can spot the Americans, because their feet are on fire, and they eat the bark off the North sides of trees.  If they catch you, you turn into one.  The Micmac tribe knew us well, they understood us better than we understood them (which is why I don't know if they were a tribe or a nation or just a bunch of clans that had the same language).  But they are in the past, and right now it's TOMORROW, with a SMILE ON ITS FACE, and I have a four bedroom rental in Tucson.

It's MINE, too.  Belongs to me.  Herbert Eisenhower.  You can't have it.

Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on April 17, 2013, 05:39:40 PM

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on April 17, 2013, 05:17:43 PM
It occurs to me that some people may take this thread as sarcasm.  It isn't, not in the slightest.

Never took it as sarcasm, on account of it's pretty much everyone else's view of america and has been since forever. Don't beat yourself up over it, tho, having a culture is grossly overrated.

I don't need a culture.  I have electronics.  And a dog.  And 2 cars.  I have 312 million names, and no identity whatsoever.

I'm Dolly Todd Hoover, and my mother told me we were Black Dutch. We're all white. Black Dutch just means Germans with dark hair.

Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on April 17, 2013, 05:39:40 PM

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on April 17, 2013, 05:17:43 PM
It occurs to me that some people may take this thread as sarcasm.  It isn't, not in the slightest.

Never took it as sarcasm, on account of it's pretty much everyone else's view of america and has been since forever. Don't beat yourself up over it, tho, having a culture is grossly overrated.

I know.  We have no connection to our ancestors, no sense of continuity at all.  Which I am sure is overrated.

We also know, and have known, how you feel about us.  Since forever.

Forever being the time span from 2009-present.

Question: If you don't really have an identity, is the tendency to cobble something anyway?

Culture and heritage can carry ugly diseases like blood feuds and generational grudges. You get "Us vs. Them" conflicts that stretch back beyond all sense, all because someone's Great*8 Grandpappy may or may not have wandered off with a goat that wasn't his.

So we cut out that bit from ourselves, like an appendix.

But it grew back, and now it's all weird and deformed and covered in scar tissue.

Quote from: stelz on April 17, 2013, 06:10:50 PM
Question: If you don't really have an identity, is the tendency to cobble something anyway?

If you're isolated, the tendency is to become clannish.  All hate is focused outside of the group.

The results are historically documented, and as predictable as the sunrise.

Quote from: Cainad on April 17, 2013, 06:15:32 PM
Culture and heritage can carry ugly diseases like blood feuds and generational grudges.

We've managed that without any culture or heritage.

QuoteYou get "Us vs. Them" conflicts that stretch back beyond all sense, all because someone's Great*8 Grandpappy may or may not have wandered off with a goat that wasn't his.

You mean like the Hatfields and McCoys, maybe?

QuoteSo we cut out that bit from ourselves, like an appendix.

That's what we like to tell everyone, anyway.

QuoteBut it grew back, and now it's all weird and deformed and covered in scar tissue.

No.  We grew guns and money.  And shortly, there won't be any money.  But we'll still have incredible stockpiles of weapons, both military and private, and a history of never having to pay for our aggression.

And there's 6.9 billion other primates on the planet.  All alone.  With nobody watching.

I don't look forward to the inevitable, but I can see it for what it is.

This is maybe the stupidest speculation in the history of this board, but is it possible that people get all overinvested in being a Teatard or a Westboro Baptist or a libertard or a PETAtard or whatever because they don't know who the fuck they are? Maybe they do it for identity?

I mean, if they still had their culture, it would provide a thing to belong to, a common understanding ("this is the way we do it"), plus all the blood feuds and generational grudges that Cainad mentioned, that some people seem to thrive on.

I mean, if you take it away, do people make something up that's worse?

Quote from: stelz on April 17, 2013, 06:21:07 PM
This is maybe the stupidest speculation in the history of this board, but is it possible that people get all overinvested in being a Teatard or a Westboro Baptist or a libertard or a PETAtard or whatever because they don't know who the fuck they are? Maybe they do it for identity?

Yep.  For the same reason kids with no family structure tend to fall in with gangs more often than those with tight families.

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on April 17, 2013, 06:20:35 PM

Quote from: Cainad on April 17, 2013, 06:15:32 PM
Culture and heritage can carry ugly diseases like blood feuds and generational grudges.

We've managed that without any culture or heritage.

QuoteYou get "Us vs. Them" conflicts that stretch back beyond all sense, all because someone's Great*8 Grandpappy may or may not have wandered off with a goat that wasn't his.

You mean like the Hatfields and McCoys, maybe?

QuoteSo we cut out that bit from ourselves, like an appendix.

That's what we like to tell everyone, anyway.

QuoteBut it grew back, and now it's all weird and deformed and covered in scar tissue.

No.  We grew guns and money.  And shortly, there won't be any money.  But we'll still have incredible stockpiles of weapons, both military and private, and a history of never having to pay for our aggression.

And there's 6.9 billion other primates on the planet.  All alone.  With nobody watching.

I don't look forward to the inevitable, but I can see it for what it is.

People get along a lot better when there's enough to go around.

No money and a fuckload of weapons...yeah. Inevitable.

I'm Nancy Rockefeller and I'm an alcoholic. I make mildly offensive jokes to get a few laughs and distract people from my own insecurities. I do have the latest iPhone - do you want to see? I use it to take pictures of my 2.3 cats and white picket labradoodle. 

My name is Betsy W Anthony and I walk barefoot on the brick sidewalks laid down two hundred years ago. I have a two bedroom rental downtown with a cat that I don't let into the basement because the rats are bigger than her and meaner, too. I don't have a car but I use a rental on the weekends. I visit a lot of museums. I can see the past where I walk, feel it under my feet in the smuggling tunnels the rats have taken over. I can taste the saltwater from the harbor and it smells like ancient tea, and in the winter a tree arrives from Halifax because we never forget. I don't know where I fit in it. I guess I'll go bake cookies and try not to think so much. Things stopped happening here a long time ago.

I'm Martha Carter and I don't have any cookies or tea and I don't get paid until the beginning of the month, but if you want to come in, I'll tell you about my surgeries.

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on April 17, 2013, 06:20:35 PM

QuoteSo we cut out that bit from ourselves, like an appendix.

That's what we like to tell everyone, anyway.

Yeah, I guess that's what I really meant.

Quote from: Cainad on April 17, 2013, 06:31:59 PM

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on April 17, 2013, 06:20:35 PM

QuoteSo we cut out that bit from ourselves, like an appendix.

That's what we like to tell everyone, anyway.

Yeah, I guess that's what I really meant.

Yep.  Tired of acting like I'm happy with it, though.

I'm not a WOMP Messiah, or The Thread Toolboxer. I don't live on a Scottish Sheep Farm... [some audience members camply say "oh! ewe..."], or own a set of bagpipes. I don't know anybody named Hamish, Tam, or William Wallace.  And no, I've never had green vegetables, but I'm sure it'd be quite an evening. [Pomp and Circumstance begins playing.] I speak English and French, not Lowland Scots! I drink Labatt's, not Bells Whisky (Okay, that's a lie. I fucking hate Labatt's)! And when someone says to me 'Furry boots is 'at?', I seriously mean it when I say, 'wut?'. My hometowns name is not Auchtermuchtie, it's Chilliwack [nude picture of LMNO shown on screen]. And Nessie was people, not real animals. PEOPLE! And when I MS Paint, I never, ever draw like Every. Spag. Is. Its. Own. Portrait. I live in Southampton, but I was hand reared in Williams Lake. And I believe in PD.com, where you never have to pay full price for getting shat on, insomnia, and Reverse-Reverse-Politics! I've appeared to be totally fucking wrecked on park benches in Princes Street, in Emergency Rooms, under a tree in a hospital ground, and every PD Meatup ever. And, yes, I've worn kilts with no tighty whities, but... I was in Aberdeen and I was set upon by two dozen drunk and lairy quines! My name is William Shatner Steve Payne, and I am Canadian!

Quote from: Maj. General Paynetraus on April 17, 2013, 06:53:41 PM
My name is William Shatner Steve Payne, and I am Canadian!

Canadians are different.  So is Twid, on account of he has an official passport.  Given that cultural identity has to be validated or it doesn't count.

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on April 17, 2013, 06:55:52 PM

Quote from: Maj. General Paynetraus on April 17, 2013, 06:53:41 PM
My name is William Shatner Steve Payne, and I am Canadian!

Canadians are different.  So is Twid, on account of he has an official passport.  Given that cultural identity has to be validated or it doesn't count.

Of course I don't actually believe that.  Twid is basically a token, a means by which certain people make themselves feel better about their attitudes.  He'll figure that out, one fine day.

Canadians are no different.

In fact, Canadians are worse.

The complete lack of a true identity at the root of being Canadian leads to some pretty hideous appropriation of other's cultural and social distinctiveness, all whilst being terribly terribly nice about it.

I don't have any anger over this, in fact I find it quite amusing. The need to fill the literal and metaphysical landscape with suitably epic history (even if you have to manufacture it) misses the point of what it means to exist in that epic landscape in the first place.

Most people are, for the most part, only human. The massively complex myths we tell ourselves about what it means to be from a certain place or a certain time can be comforting for some, but it is only sticking your head in the sand ignoring that ultimatey the world is going to wear you down and eat you in the end.

People who get angry at other people stealing "their" lies are often missing the point just as badly, but the other way.

I on the other hand want to be left in a box in the forest somewhere, and I pray to god no one informs the authorities and does some messed up shit with my corpse first.

Mythologise that, assbags!

Payne rides the correct sheep-powered motorcycle, right through this fread!

FTR I am Oxygen-Carbon-Hydrogen-Nitrogen-Calcium-Phosphorus-Potassium-Sulfur-Sodium-Magnesium-Copper-Zinc-Selenium-Molybdenum-Fluorine-Chlorine-Iodine-Manganese-Cobalt-Iron-Lithium-Strontium-Aluminum-Silicon-Lead-Vanadium-Arsenic-Bromine, and I happen to have been born in a star.

Quote from: The Portree Kid on April 17, 2013, 07:02:35 PM
Canadians are no different.

In fact, Canadians are worse.

The complete lack of a true identity at the root of being Canadian leads to some pretty hideous appropriation of other's cultural and social distinctiveness, all whilst being terribly terribly nice about it.

I don't have any anger over this, in fact I find it quite amusing. The need to fill the literal and metaphysical landscape with suitably epic history (even if you have to manufacture it) misses the point of what it means to exist in that epic landscape in the first place.

Most people are, for the most part, only human. The massively complex myths we tell ourselves about what it means to be from a certain place or a certain time can be comforting for some, but it is only sticking your head in the sand ignoring that ultimatey the world is going to wear you down and eat you in the end.

People who get angry at other people stealing "their" lies are often missing the point just as badly, but the other way.

I on the other hand want to be left in a box in the forest somewhere, and I pray to god no one informs the authorities and does some messed up shit with my corpse first.

Mythologise that, assbags!

I can only operate on the information I am given, and things I can observe.

Pixie has made very clear her disgust and revulsion with the very idea of Americans having Irish cultural identity.

P3NT has been kind enough to rub in what I'd already figured out; we are despised.

I'm okay with that.  I'm Hamish Howl, and I'm a maintenance chief.  I have a 4 bedroom in Tucson, a wife, 2 kids, a dog.  I own two cars.  I have many electronics.  That's what Americans need...Or it's what we get, anyway. 

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on April 17, 2013, 07:12:50 PM

Quote from: The Portree Kid on April 17, 2013, 07:02:35 PM
Canadians are no different.

In fact, Canadians are worse.

The complete lack of a true identity at the root of being Canadian leads to some pretty hideous appropriation of other's cultural and social distinctiveness, all whilst being terribly terribly nice about it.

I don't have any anger over this, in fact I find it quite amusing. The need to fill the literal and metaphysical landscape with suitably epic history (even if you have to manufacture it) misses the point of what it means to exist in that epic landscape in the first place.

Most people are, for the most part, only human. The massively complex myths we tell ourselves about what it means to be from a certain place or a certain time can be comforting for some, but it is only sticking your head in the sand ignoring that ultimatey the world is going to wear you down and eat you in the end.

People who get angry at other people stealing "their" lies are often missing the point just as badly, but the other way.

I on the other hand want to be left in a box in the forest somewhere, and I pray to god no one informs the authorities and does some messed up shit with my corpse first.

Mythologise that, assbags!

I can only operate on the information I am given, and things I can observe.

Pixie has made very clear her disgust and revulsion with the very idea of Americans having Irish cultural identity.

P3NT has been kind enough to rub in what I'd already figured out; we are despised.

I'm okay with that.  I'm Hamish Howl, and I'm a maintenance chief.  I have a 4 bedroom in Tucson, a wife, 2 kids, a dog.  I own two cars.  I have many electronics.  That's what Americans need...Or it's what we get, anyway.

I don't despise you, and I can attest that Pixie does not either, though I know she gets angry and stressed as all hell at or around you.

I also know little of what the recent heated discussions have been. Last night was D'n'D night, straight after work, and then collapse into a coma as soon as I finally got home for a little over 4 hours of shitty sleep, so I'm not really qualified to speak to that matter.

Soon, I will have my own internet connection again, and then I will make my triumphant and fabulous return. Oh yes, you'll all see.

There's going to be sequins.

Quote from: The Portree Kid on April 17, 2013, 07:17:02 PM
I don't despise you, and I can attest that Pixie does not either, though I know she gets angry and stressed as all hell at or around you.

I read what I read.

Starts here:   http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php/topic,34445.msg1253972.html#msg1253972

Goes on for a while.

No dogs or Americans.  We have to think of our cultural purity.

Suddenly the name Marilyn Manson makes sense.

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on April 17, 2013, 07:20:14 PM

Quote from: The Portree Kid on April 17, 2013, 07:17:02 PM
I don't despise you, and I can attest that Pixie does not either, though I know she gets angry and stressed as all hell at or around you.

I read what I read.

Starts here:   http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php/topic,34445.msg1253972.html#msg1253972

Goes on for a while.

No dogs or Americans.  We have to think of our cultural purity.

Yeah, what I see there is you both pressed each others buttons there. I see the point about replying by reflex in the first instance, but then of course when someone else pushes your button you have no choice but to reflexively answer too.

Fine in most circumstances, but perhaps not in the specific context.

But while Pix may be sat next to me, I'm not really here to hash this out.

In fact the attempt to do so would go against what I said to her earlier, to wit: "Why stick your head into the middle of a conflict that is at least decades old when you don't really have to?" when referring to the funding that some Americans (mostly of Irish descent) have given to both sides of the interminable conflict in Ireland. Sticking my head in between this particular debate between Ye and She is not going to win me anything except two angry people shouting at me, and I get enough of that at work these days.

Quote from: The Portree Kid on April 17, 2013, 07:31:20 PM
But while Pix may be sat next to me, I'm not really here to hash this out.

Neither, apparently, is she.  I think she made her views known, so what's to hash out?

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on April 17, 2013, 07:32:55 PM

Quote from: The Portree Kid on April 17, 2013, 07:31:20 PM
But while Pix may be sat next to me, I'm not really here to hash this out.

Neither, apparently, is she.  I think she made her views known, so what's to hash out?

Possibly nothing, but I have a habit of trying to resolve these things, or at least used to when I was a regular in these here parts.

I generally don't fare to well in discussions of this nature with Pixie either, as it happens.

Quote from: The Portree Kid on April 17, 2013, 07:36:34 PM

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on April 17, 2013, 07:32:55 PM

Quote from: The Portree Kid on April 17, 2013, 07:31:20 PM
But while Pix may be sat next to me, I'm not really here to hash this out.

Neither, apparently, is she.  I think she made her views known, so what's to hash out?

Possibly nothing, but I have a habit of trying to resolve these things, or at least used to when I was a regular in these here parts.

I generally don't fare to well in discussions of this nature with Pixie either, as it happens.

Well, it's good to know where I stand, anyway.  You know, with Those People.  That's been going around.

If it's any consolation I don't hate Americans. They're the same dumb apes we all are. I hate America. I hate the holy and most sacred constitution which has accomplished nothing other than turn a nation into drooling idiots, chanting "freedom" and "ammendment" and actually believing that it's any different from any other holy and sacred fairy story.

It just so happens that America is the current dominant empire. I hate it just like I'd hate Germany if Mr Schicklgruber had won the last Olympics or even Britain if they hadn't pissed away their little slice of the planet by giving it all back to the people they stole it from at a generous discount.

I hate nations and I hate nationality. I hate any single thing that reinforces the whole notion that I can't have something because my genes are the wrong colour. I think in terms of humanity. Collectively our species has done a lot of cool shit and made a whole bunch of cool things to do and to eat and to sing and anyone who tells me I can't do or eat or sing such and such, cos I'm not a fifth generation sub-species can go fuck themselves.

I'm more than happy to piss all over their cultural identity. I hope they choke on their authenticity.

Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on April 17, 2013, 07:45:08 PM
I hate nations and I hate nationality. I hate any single thing that reinforces the whole notion that I can't have something because my genes are the wrong colour. I think in terms of humanity.

Careful there, P3NT.  There's always more room in the doghouse.

Also, I didn't say "hate", I said "despised", and you didn't say "America", you said "you".

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on April 17, 2013, 07:41:48 PM

Quote from: The Portree Kid on April 17, 2013, 07:36:34 PM

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on April 17, 2013, 07:32:55 PM

Quote from: The Portree Kid on April 17, 2013, 07:31:20 PM
But while Pix may be sat next to me, I'm not really here to hash this out.

Neither, apparently, is she.  I think she made her views known, so what's to hash out?

Possibly nothing, but I have a habit of trying to resolve these things, or at least used to when I was a regular in these here parts.

I generally don't fare to well in discussions of this nature with Pixie either, as it happens.

Well, it's good to know where I stand, anyway.  You know, with Those People.  That's been going around.

I have not understood "You know, with Those People", which may be a construct around which a greater sense of meaning is assumed. Like Curly and The Lost Highway.

But I think you stand as you always have with Pixie, annoying the hell out of her, but usually in a good way. Much like you do with most people in my experience.

It always awed me how you did it, but I never got the rhythm quite right to emulate it.

I live in the doghouse, mate. I like it. It's cosy and I'm surrounded by things that accept me being there even though I'm not one of them. I decorated it with Che Guevara posters and native american headdresses I stole from Primark cos that's just how I roll.

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on April 17, 2013, 07:46:49 PM
Also, I didn't say "hate", I said "despised", and you didn't say "America", you said "you".

Sincere apologies. I've fallen foul of that particular habit of mine on here before  :oops:

Half of my family are Hungarians living in Serbia, and that DNA has probably been passed back and forth so many times over that border town so as only to be recognizable as Eastern Peasant.

The rest are from Arkansas, and we won't talk about what happens to DNA down there.

None of them live in Alaska, which is hardly America, except me.

Thus, I tend to view most cultural norms as very elaborate LARPing. Its nice and all, but what's it got to do with me? Do I *have* to play?

I grow very fucking weary of the double standard that's oozed around here, recently.

Examples:

1.  Hating straights is totally different than hating strays, and if you have a problem with that, it's because YOU don't understand that YOUR privilege excuses MY bigotry.

2.  Fear of "CISHETs" justifies bigotry.  Never mind that this logic justifies the odious "gay panic" defense.

3.  Shitting on people is okay, as long as it's You People, not real people.  It's just that the definition of "You People" has changed.  Equality was NEVER the issue with some; instead, the issue was to change from shit-ee to shit-er. 

4.  It's okay to lump ANYONE in with the pigfuckers, as long as the person involved is part of the population subset approved for the purpose.

5.  It's okay to shit on someone if you have a "berserk button", which means you can stop thinking and start pooping.

6.  Friendship is a very distant second to The Cause.

Quote from: Alty on April 17, 2013, 07:51:28 PM
Thus, I tend to view most cultural norms as very elaborate LARPing. Its nice and all, but what's it got to do with me? Do I *have* to play?

No.  You're in America now, which severs all links with family, culture, etc, immediately and automatically.  Calling yourself "Hungarian" is "reverse colonialism".

So you're on solid ground, here.

Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on April 17, 2013, 07:50:15 PM
I live in the doghouse, mate. I like it. It's cosy and I'm surrounded by things that accept me being there even though I'm not one of them. I decorated it with Che Guevara posters and native american headdresses I stole from Primark cos that's just how I roll.

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on April 17, 2013, 07:46:49 PM
Also, I didn't say "hate", I said "despised", and you didn't say "America", you said "you".

Sincere apologies. I've fallen foul of that particular habit of mine on here before  :oops:

No problem.

Yesterday one of the directors of the company I work for rather rudely ended a conversation on the hands-free car phone with "Steve I can't ever understand what the fuck you're saying in that whiny Scottish fucking accent" and hanging up.

The guy driving was absolutely livid, but all I really thought was "But I'm actually a Canadian, so I WIN".

Having dealt with exactly this kind of bullshit from people my entire life - for being Canadian in Scotland, being Scottish in Canada and for being Scottish/Canadian/Irish/South African/American/Dutch/Australian or any number of other things in England (seriously, people have assumed I have been each of those nationalities at one point or another), I tend to consider that yet another example of implacable ignorance is reason to ponder my eventual total victory over them.

I will prevail because I am none of those things, and never will be, but they will always be in box that's too tight and almost but not quite completely not impervious to sharp pointy things.

Quote from: The Portree Kid on April 17, 2013, 07:58:49 PM
Yesterday one of the directors of the company I work for rather rudely ended a conversation on the hands-free car phone with "Steve I can't ever understand what the fuck you're saying in that whiny Scottish fucking accent" and hanging up.

The guy driving was absolutely livid, but all I really thought was "But I'm actually a Canadian, so I WIN".

Having dealt with exactly this kind of bullshit from people my entire life - for being Canadian in Scotland, being Scottish in Canada and for being Scottish/Canadian/Irish/South African/American/Dutch/Australian or any number of other things in England (seriously, people have assumed I have been each of those nationalities at one point or another), I tend to consider that yet another example of implacable ignorance is reason to ponder my eventual total victory over them.

I will prevail because I am none of those things, and never will be, but they will always be in box that's too tight and almost but not quite completely not impervious to sharp pointy things.

How would you feel if I did it, with a straight face?

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on April 17, 2013, 08:00:05 PM

Quote from: The Portree Kid on April 17, 2013, 07:58:49 PM
Yesterday one of the directors of the company I work for rather rudely ended a conversation on the hands-free car phone with "Steve I can't ever understand what the fuck you're saying in that whiny Scottish fucking accent" and hanging up.

The guy driving was absolutely livid, but all I really thought was "But I'm actually a Canadian, so I WIN".

Having dealt with exactly this kind of bullshit from people my entire life - for being Canadian in Scotland, being Scottish in Canada and for being Scottish/Canadian/Irish/South African/American/Dutch/Australian or any number of other things in England (seriously, people have assumed I have been each of those nationalities at one point or another), I tend to consider that yet another example of implacable ignorance is reason to ponder my eventual total victory over them.

I will prevail because I am none of those things, and never will be, but they will always be in box that's too tight and almost but not quite completely not impervious to sharp pointy things.

How would you feel if I did it, with a straight face?

Probably the same, but I tend to believe there is a difference between you and Dan The Man - you would do it just to see what happened, Dan does it because he cannot ever pretend to be anything other than an asshole.

You have brain flukes. Dans brain is all flukes.

So while I might feel the same, I wouldn't be so sure of myself.

[edit - changed Think to Feel, to actually answer the question properly]

This is why "Causes" are inherently self-defeating.

Because the True Believers always move in, pull blankets over their heads and breathe their own farts, until they get giddy and extremist enough to start believing that the ends justify the means, and that their newfound zealotry means they have to be exclusionary.  And that hatred or disdain towards a population subset is the best way to show people how committed they are to the cause.  It's instant credibility.

"Passport entitlement or GTFO".  WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?

HOW ABOUT THIS?  THINK FOR YOURSELF OR GTFO?

or maybe THINK FOR YOURSELF OR KILL ME.  Shouldn't be hard, I'm technically not human.

Quote from: The Portree Kid on April 17, 2013, 08:03:01 PM

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on April 17, 2013, 08:00:05 PM

Quote from: The Portree Kid on April 17, 2013, 07:58:49 PM
Yesterday one of the directors of the company I work for rather rudely ended a conversation on the hands-free car phone with "Steve I can't ever understand what the fuck you're saying in that whiny Scottish fucking accent" and hanging up.

The guy driving was absolutely livid, but all I really thought was "But I'm actually a Canadian, so I WIN".

Having dealt with exactly this kind of bullshit from people my entire life - for being Canadian in Scotland, being Scottish in Canada and for being Scottish/Canadian/Irish/South African/American/Dutch/Australian or any number of other things in England (seriously, people have assumed I have been each of those nationalities at one point or another), I tend to consider that yet another example of implacable ignorance is reason to ponder my eventual total victory over them.

I will prevail because I am none of those things, and never will be, but they will always be in box that's too tight and almost but not quite completely not impervious to sharp pointy things.

How would you feel if I did it, with a straight face?

Probably the same, but I tend to believe there is a difference between you and Dan The Man - you would do it just to see what happened, Dan does it because he cannot ever pretend to be anything other than an asshole.

You have brain flukes. Dans brain is all flukes.

So while I might feel the same, I wouldn't be so sure of myself.

[edit - changed Think to Feel, to actually answer the question properly]

No, I mean if I did it and MEANT it, after knowing you all these years.

Not to butt in, but that would be extremely weird.

Quote from: Alty on April 17, 2013, 07:51:28 PM


Thus, I tend to view most cultural norms as very elaborate LARPing. Its nice and all, but what's it got to do with me? Do I *have* to play?

I understand this. It's ceremonial of sorts, Labels have always seemed to be a way to make yourself part of something larger or tag an external group with a quick name. To me, the former has elements of insecurity and delusion. The latter contains "the Other" and that can be twisted however suits.

It's a very monkey thing to want to have a past and history. Ties to things larger than yourself that make mortality easier to deal with. "I'm X and My children will be X'ers too" That level of cultural identity can become really crazy. For example, with all the bitching as a result of my confusion about why the idiots round here would blame the IRA of all people led the focus to X-Americans. That's a problem too as we're all still thinking of the US as "the Other" in this fashion. The flow of idiot nationals sending resources to idiots "Back home" and vice-versa has been occuring since "Greek Steve" of Troy said you could totally trust Greeks. Or something. A fucking while. It's every idiot that's the problem in this regard. Lets not even mention Israel either. Where was I?

Oh right. Labels.

I tend to treat people in the manner they act. If you insist on slapping a bunch of letters on yourself, fine. If you need to do this in order to talk about the weather, I reserve the right to add exactly 7 letters after my name.

Fun Game - Guess the 7 letters.

I have no idea what I've typed.

Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on April 17, 2013, 08:08:23 PM
Not to butt in, but that would be extremely weird.

Yeah, it is.  It's very fucking weird.  In the space of 7 days, I have had two people I've known for years essentially state that I am in fact a second-class human.  Then they get pissed because I got pissed, because I have contradicted the high epopts of blanket fart huffing.

Let's just try this one on for size:

YOU ARE EXCLUDED AND EJECTED FROM YOUR HERITAGE BECAUSE YOU ARE A YANKEE PIGFUCKER.

Yeah, you don't get to have any fucking roots.  You don't get to have any link to your ancestors.  You have been judged and found wanting.  PASSPORT ENTITLEMENT OR GTFO, YANK.

Quote from: Junkenstein on April 17, 2013, 08:09:33 PM

Quote from: Alty on April 17, 2013, 07:51:28 PM


Thus, I tend to view most cultural norms as very elaborate LARPing. Its nice and all, but what's it got to do with me? Do I *have* to play?

I understand this. It's ceremonial of sorts, Labels have always seemed to be a way to make yourself part of something larger or tag an external group with a quick name. To me, the former has elements of insecurity and delusion. The latter contains "the Other" and that can be twisted however suits.

It's a very monkey thing to want to have a past and history. Ties to things larger than yourself that make mortality easier to deal with. "I'm X and My children will be X'ers too" That level of cultural identity can become really crazy. For example, with all the bitching as a result of my confusion about why the idiots round here would blame the IRA of all people led the focus to X-Americans. That's a problem too as we're all still thinking of the US as "the Other" in this fashion. The flow of idiot nationals sending resources to idiots "Back home" and vice-versa has been occuring since "Greek Steve" of Troy said you could totally trust Greeks. Or something. A fucking while. It's every idiot that's the problem in this regard. Lets not even mention Israel either. Where was I?

Oh right. Labels.

I tend to treat people in the manner they act. If you insist on slapping a bunch of letters on yourself, fine. If you need to do this in order to talk about the weather, I reserve the right to add exactly 7 letters after my name.

Fun Game - Guess the 7 letters.

I have no idea what I've typed.

NOT THE POINT.

POINT:  SOME PEOPLE CAN BE EXCLUDED BECAUSE THEY BELONG TO A POPULATION SUBSET THAT IS SOCIALLY ACCEPTABLE TO MARGINALIZE.

I'm amazed there was even a point in that mess.

Fuck I'm tired.

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on April 17, 2013, 08:05:09 PM
This is why "Causes" are inherently self-defeating.

Because the True Believers always move in, pull blankets over their heads and breathe their own farts, until they get giddy and extremist enough to start believing that the ends justify the means, and that their newfound zealotry means they have to be exclusionary.  And that hatred or disdain towards a population subset is the best way to show people how committed they are to the cause.  It's instant credibility.

"Passport entitlement or GTFO".  WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?

Generally: An attempt to break down a confusing tangle of socio-historic cultural identities as expressed by some group or other that has come to represent in microcosm everything that was unjustly and unfairly levelled at the individual stating it. If only those who are entitled to carry an Irish passport can call themselves Irish-Anything, then perhaps fewer people would be inclined to feel guilt over their emigre status, donate money to their own cause, fund a bombing (http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/march/20/newsid_2544000/2544121.stm) or two (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-17124016) and suddenly you are shunned because your last name is a little too close to that of an IRA hitmans.

Specifically: Because Pixie should probably have woken up a bit and thought on it before posting that reply, and then perhaps could have stood back a little to see that she'd pulled one of your triggers as much as you'd pulled one of hers. I do note that she has a lot to say on the topic as I write this, but it is seemingly my turn to hog the internet connection so she's not getting to say anything directly at this time with the benefit of having sat back and thought about it. I think she's still annoyed, but not in the same way or about the same thing, and maybe in a slightly better way.

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on April 17, 2013, 08:07:18 PM

Quote from: The Portree Kid on April 17, 2013, 08:03:01 PM

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on April 17, 2013, 08:00:05 PM

Quote from: The Portree Kid on April 17, 2013, 07:58:49 PM
Yesterday one of the directors of the company I work for rather rudely ended a conversation on the hands-free car phone with "Steve I can't ever understand what the fuck you're saying in that whiny Scottish fucking accent" and hanging up.

The guy driving was absolutely livid, but all I really thought was "But I'm actually a Canadian, so I WIN".

Having dealt with exactly this kind of bullshit from people my entire life - for being Canadian in Scotland, being Scottish in Canada and for being Scottish/Canadian/Irish/South African/American/Dutch/Australian or any number of other things in England (seriously, people have assumed I have been each of those nationalities at one point or another), I tend to consider that yet another example of implacable ignorance is reason to ponder my eventual total victory over them.

I will prevail because I am none of those things, and never will be, but they will always be in box that's too tight and almost but not quite completely not impervious to sharp pointy things.

How would you feel if I did it, with a straight face?

Probably the same, but I tend to believe there is a difference between you and Dan The Man - you would do it just to see what happened, Dan does it because he cannot ever pretend to be anything other than an asshole.

You have brain flukes. Dans brain is all flukes.

So while I might feel the same, I wouldn't be so sure of myself.

[edit - changed Think to Feel, to actually answer the question properly]

No, I mean if I did it and MEANT it, after knowing you all these years.

Because I like and respect you, it would pain me deeply. I would feel remorse, and to be honest when I got to a safe place I would probably cry.

Betrayal hurts a lot more than ignorance and Jingoism.

Quote from: The Portree Kid on April 17, 2013, 08:16:23 PM

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on April 17, 2013, 08:05:09 PM
This is why "Causes" are inherently self-defeating.

Because the True Believers always move in, pull blankets over their heads and breathe their own farts, until they get giddy and extremist enough to start believing that the ends justify the means, and that their newfound zealotry means they have to be exclusionary.  And that hatred or disdain towards a population subset is the best way to show people how committed they are to the cause.  It's instant credibility.

"Passport entitlement or GTFO".  WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?

Generally: An attempt to break down a confusing tangle of socio-historic cultural identities as expressed by some group or other that has come to represent in microcosm everything that was unjustly and unfairly levelled at the individual stating it. If only those who are entitled to carry an Irish passport can call themselves Irish-Anything, then perhaps fewer people would be inclined to feel guilt over their emigre status, donate money to their own cause, fund a bombing (http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/march/20/newsid_2544000/2544121.stm) or two (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-17124016) and suddenly you are shunned because your last name is a little too close to that of an IRA hitmans.

Stop and think about primates a bit.  Is that reaction more likely to do that, or more likely to make people DEMAND to be whatever it is you're telling them they aren't?  The politics of exclusion lead to the aneristic principle, EVERY TIME.  And that wasn't the fucking point to begin with.  The point was to keep the filthy fucking yanks out.

QuoteSpecifically: Because Pixie should probably have woken up a bit and thought on it before posting that reply, and then perhaps could have stood back a little to see that she'd pulled one of your triggers as much as you'd pulled one of hers. I do note that she has a lot to say on the topic as I write this, but it is seemingly my turn to hog the internet connection so she's not getting to say anything directly at this time with the benefit of having sat back and thought about it. I think she's still annoyed, but not in the same way or about the same thing, and maybe in a slightly better way.

Oh, I pulled a trigger, did I?  Yeah, objecting to turds dripping down the back of my neck is TOTALLY pulling a trigger.  Sort of like how a woman fighting back against a rapist is "just getting into it", I suppose.  Glaring difference in the level of abuse, but the principle is the same.

I mean, Jesus Christ, look how I was dressed!

But, then again, I am yankee scum, and can't be expected to understand the finer points of these sorts of things.  My knuckles drag on the ground, and I've got food down the front of my shirt.  Ook.

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on April 17, 2013, 08:11:38 PM

Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on April 17, 2013, 08:08:23 PM
Not to butt in, but that would be extremely weird.

Yeah, it is.  It's very fucking weird.  In the space of 7 days, I have had two people I've known for years essentially state that I am in fact a second-class human.  Then they get pissed because I got pissed, because I have contradicted the high epopts of blanket fart huffing.

Which two people?

Quote from: The Portree Kid on April 17, 2013, 08:18:08 PM
Because I like and respect you, it would pain me deeply. I would feel remorse, and to be honest when I got to a safe place I would probably cry.

Betrayal hurts a lot more than ignorance and Jingoism.

Yep.  And my reaction is to harden my heart against the betrayer.  Getting scars is no shame; getting them twice from the same person is just stupidity.

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on April 17, 2013, 08:20:54 PM

Quote from: The Portree Kid on April 17, 2013, 08:16:23 PM

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on April 17, 2013, 08:05:09 PM
This is why "Causes" are inherently self-defeating.

Because the True Believers always move in, pull blankets over their heads and breathe their own farts, until they get giddy and extremist enough to start believing that the ends justify the means, and that their newfound zealotry means they have to be exclusionary.  And that hatred or disdain towards a population subset is the best way to show people how committed they are to the cause.  It's instant credibility.

"Passport entitlement or GTFO".  WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?

Generally: An attempt to break down a confusing tangle of socio-historic cultural identities as expressed by some group or other that has come to represent in microcosm everything that was unjustly and unfairly levelled at the individual stating it. If only those who are entitled to carry an Irish passport can call themselves Irish-Anything, then perhaps fewer people would be inclined to feel guilt over their emigre status, donate money to their own cause, fund a bombing (http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/march/20/newsid_2544000/2544121.stm) or two (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-17124016) and suddenly you are shunned because your last name is a little too close to that of an IRA hitmans.

Stop and think about primates a bit.  Is that reaction more likely to do that, or more likely to make people DEMAND to be whatever it is you're telling them they aren't?  The politics of exclusion lead to the aneristic principle, EVERY TIME.  And that wasn't the fucking point to begin with.  The point was to keep the filthy fucking yanks out.

QuoteSpecifically: Because Pixie should probably have woken up a bit and thought on it before posting that reply, and then perhaps could have stood back a little to see that she'd pulled one of your triggers as much as you'd pulled one of hers. I do note that she has a lot to say on the topic as I write this, but it is seemingly my turn to hog the internet connection so she's not getting to say anything directly at this time with the benefit of having sat back and thought about it. I think she's still annoyed, but not in the same way or about the same thing, and maybe in a slightly better way.

Oh, I pulled a trigger, did I?  Yeah, objecting to turds dripping down the back of my neck is TOTALLY pulling a trigger.  Sort of like how a woman fighting back against a rapist is "just getting into it", I suppose.  Glaring difference in the level of abuse, but the principle is the same.

I mean, Jesus Christ, look how I was dressed!

But, then again, I am yankee scum, and can't be expected to understand the finer points of these sorts of things.  My knuckles drag on the ground, and I've got food down the front of my shirt.  Ook.

I'm not saying I agree with it, I'm saying that this is what I believe Pixie feels. You asked me a question and I answered as best I could.

Quote from: The Portree Kid on April 17, 2013, 08:22:25 PM
I'm not saying I agree with it, I'm saying that this is what I believe Pixie feels. You asked me a question and I answered as best I could.

Well, there's an obvious solution for this, then.  If I cannot speak to her without pulling her triggers and all.

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on April 17, 2013, 08:22:06 PM

Quote from: The Portree Kid on April 17, 2013, 08:18:08 PM
Because I like and respect you, it would pain me deeply. I would feel remorse, and to be honest when I got to a safe place I would probably cry.

Betrayal hurts a lot more than ignorance and Jingoism.

Yep.  And my reaction is to harden my heart against the betrayer.  Getting scars is no shame; getting them twice from the same person is just stupidity.

I am not that way, and sometimes I wish I was.

I'm actually a genuinely scared, sensitive and submissive fellow with too much going on in my brain and no way to ever really say what I really feel honestly.

I would probably just cry and never be able to bear to speak to you, or someone else I care for as much who did the same thing.

~~~Payne: Not such a tough guy, after all.

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on April 17, 2013, 08:11:38 PM

Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on April 17, 2013, 08:08:23 PM
Not to butt in, but that would be extremely weird.

Yeah, it is.  It's very fucking weird.  In the space of 7 days, I have had two people I've known for years essentially state that I am in fact a second-class human.  Then they get pissed because I got pissed, because I have contradicted the high epopts of blanket fart huffing.

Let's just try this one on for size:

YOU ARE EXCLUDED AND EJECTED FROM YOUR HERITAGE BECAUSE YOU ARE A YANKEE PIGFUCKER.

Yeah, you don't get to have any fucking roots.  You don't get to have any link to your ancestors.  You have been judged and found wanting.  PASSPORT ENTITLEMENT OR GTFO, YANK.

Sometimes I get fed up with this shithole country and I look at ways OUT and get the same thing: Not Dutch ENOUGH. Not German ENOUGH. Etc.
stelz
mongrel

Quote from: stelz on April 17, 2013, 08:25:27 PM

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on April 17, 2013, 08:11:38 PM

Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on April 17, 2013, 08:08:23 PM
Not to butt in, but that would be extremely weird.

Yeah, it is.  It's very fucking weird.  In the space of 7 days, I have had two people I've known for years essentially state that I am in fact a second-class human.  Then they get pissed because I got pissed, because I have contradicted the high epopts of blanket fart huffing.

Let's just try this one on for size:

YOU ARE EXCLUDED AND EJECTED FROM YOUR HERITAGE BECAUSE YOU ARE A YANKEE PIGFUCKER.

Yeah, you don't get to have any fucking roots.  You don't get to have any link to your ancestors.  You have been judged and found wanting.  PASSPORT ENTITLEMENT OR GTFO, YANK.

Sometimes I get fed up with this shithole country and I look at ways OUT and get the same thing: Not Dutch ENOUGH. Not German ENOUGH. Etc.
stelz
mongrel

Yeah, I think I'll stay put.  I don't want to piddle on someone's carpet.

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on April 17, 2013, 08:24:36 PM

Quote from: The Portree Kid on April 17, 2013, 08:22:25 PM
I'm not saying I agree with it, I'm saying that this is what I believe Pixie feels. You asked me a question and I answered as best I could.

Well, there's an obvious solution for this, then.  If I cannot speak to her without pulling her triggers and all.

I think the obvious first step is to first give her a chance to say her own bit and respond to the parts of this conversation with her own voice, and then maybe we can proceed to the obvious solution after that.

It would, after all, only be fair.

And while no one seems to be thinking of overall fairness here , only what is fair to them personally, I think a sense of communal PD style justice and freedom of expression demands it.

Quote from: The Portree Kid on April 17, 2013, 08:28:16 PM

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on April 17, 2013, 08:24:36 PM

Quote from: The Portree Kid on April 17, 2013, 08:22:25 PM
I'm not saying I agree with it, I'm saying that this is what I believe Pixie feels. You asked me a question and I answered as best I could.

Well, there's an obvious solution for this, then.  If I cannot speak to her without pulling her triggers and all.

I think the obvious first step is to first give her a chance to say her own bit and respond to the parts of this conversation with her own voice, and then maybe we can proceed to the obvious solution after that.

It would, after all, only be fair.

And while no one seems to be thinking of overall fairness here , only what is fair to them personally, I think a sense of communal PD style justice and freedom of expression demands it.

I have been willing to listen.  She hasn't been talking, past the first couple of hours last night.

In fact, that's what's made the rage monkey grow.  The drive-by nature of the whole thing.

And I'd be just as pissed if someone here said that Irish-Americans can't really be Americans.

This isn't about me, personally.  It's about exclusion in general.

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on April 17, 2013, 08:29:42 PM

Quote from: The Portree Kid on April 17, 2013, 08:28:16 PM

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on April 17, 2013, 08:24:36 PM

Quote from: The Portree Kid on April 17, 2013, 08:22:25 PM
I'm not saying I agree with it, I'm saying that this is what I believe Pixie feels. You asked me a question and I answered as best I could.

Well, there's an obvious solution for this, then.  If I cannot speak to her without pulling her triggers and all.

I think the obvious first step is to first give her a chance to say her own bit and respond to the parts of this conversation with her own voice, and then maybe we can proceed to the obvious solution after that.

It would, after all, only be fair.

And while no one seems to be thinking of overall fairness here , only what is fair to them personally, I think a sense of communal PD style justice and freedom of expression demands it.

I have been willing to listen.  She hasn't been talking, past the first couple of hours last night.

In fact, that's what's made the rage monkey grow.  The drive-by nature of the whole thing.

I think that was explained though:

She woke up late, posted while still waking up but had to head off to our D'n'D game, and she's been out having to suffer the travails of spending time with her mother today too, most of the day.

Pix hasn't had a chance to reply at all really, except for when she's still been a little less than calm about it, and now I'm hogging the only internet connection we have.

I realize it may be too late now to back to the OP, but I wanted to add something.

I think the truth is inbetween the idea that Americans have a severely abbreviated culture and Hyphenated-Americans are Really Really Hyphenated People.

America was colonised in waves, and those waves often consisted of people from distinct linguistic and cultural groups, usually settling in similar areas to each other.  The parents bring the culture with them, from their homelands, but the children born there...well, they exist in a different geographical, legal, political and economic climate to the one their parents did, alongside other emerging or distinct foreign cultures as well.

Thus you have a case of divergent cultural evolution.  Much like the way Canadian French is different from Modern French, but related historically and linguistically, you have an Irish Tradition with an offshoot - the American-Irish tradition, and the Irish one.  Conditioned by outside factors and the course of history, there is inevitably going to be a major difference in how those traditions are percieved and what kind of behaviour they result in.

The only reason Irish Irishness is considered more legitimate than American Irishness is because the former controls the state of Ireland, and thus the percieved homeland of Irish Tradition by both sides.

Quote from: The Portree Kid on April 17, 2013, 08:32:34 PM

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on April 17, 2013, 08:29:42 PM

Quote from: The Portree Kid on April 17, 2013, 08:28:16 PM

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on April 17, 2013, 08:24:36 PM

Quote from: The Portree Kid on April 17, 2013, 08:22:25 PM
I'm not saying I agree with it, I'm saying that this is what I believe Pixie feels. You asked me a question and I answered as best I could.

Well, there's an obvious solution for this, then.  If I cannot speak to her without pulling her triggers and all.

I think the obvious first step is to first give her a chance to say her own bit and respond to the parts of this conversation with her own voice, and then maybe we can proceed to the obvious solution after that.

It would, after all, only be fair.

And while no one seems to be thinking of overall fairness here , only what is fair to them personally, I think a sense of communal PD style justice and freedom of expression demands it.

I have been willing to listen.  She hasn't been talking, past the first couple of hours last night.

In fact, that's what's made the rage monkey grow.  The drive-by nature of the whole thing.

I think that was explained though:

She woke up late, posted while still waking up but had to head off to our D'n'D game, and she's been out having to suffer the travails of spending time with her mother today too, most of the day.

Pix hasn't had a chance to reply at all really, except for when she's still been a little less than calm about it, and now I'm hogging the only internet connection we have.

Well, then I guess I can't actually listen to her, then.

Quote from: Cain on April 17, 2013, 08:33:05 PM
I realize it may be too late now to back to the OP, but I wanted to add something.

I think the truth is inbetween the idea that Americans have a severely abbreviated culture and Hyphenated-Americans are Really Really Hyphenated People.

America was colonised in waves, and those waves often consisted of people from distinct linguistic and cultural groups, usually settling in similar areas to each other.  The parents bring the culture with them, from their homelands, but the children born there...well, they exist in a different geographical, legal, political and economic climate to the one their parents did, alongside other emerging or distinct foreign cultures as well.

Thus you have a case of divergent cultural evolution.  Much like the way Canadian French is different from Modern French, but related historically and linguistically, you have an Irish Tradition with an offshoot - the American-Irish tradition, and the Irish one.  Conditioned by outside factors and the course of history, there is inevitably going to be a major difference in how those traditions are percieved and what kind of behaviour they result in.

The only reason Irish Irishness is considered more legitimate than American Irishness is because the former controls the state of Ireland, and thus the percieved homeland of Irish Tradition by both sides.

Thanks Cain. Your five concise paragraphs spared me an hour of typing, getting logged out and losing an hour's worth of typing.
Nicely put.

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on April 17, 2013, 08:30:37 PM
And I'd be just as pissed if someone here said that Irish-Americans can't really be Americans.

This isn't about me, personally.  It's about exclusion in general.

Fair point, and one I happen to agree with.

Hyphenated-Americans (or Brits or anything else) can sometimes make my teeth itch, but I get to call myself Scots-Canadian so it's hypocritical of me to in any way act on it.

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on April 17, 2013, 08:33:51 PM

Quote from: The Portree Kid on April 17, 2013, 08:32:34 PM

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on April 17, 2013, 08:29:42 PM

Quote from: The Portree Kid on April 17, 2013, 08:28:16 PM

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on April 17, 2013, 08:24:36 PM

Quote from: The Portree Kid on April 17, 2013, 08:22:25 PM
I'm not saying I agree with it, I'm saying that this is what I believe Pixie feels. You asked me a question and I answered as best I could.

Well, there's an obvious solution for this, then.  If I cannot speak to her without pulling her triggers and all.

I think the obvious first step is to first give her a chance to say her own bit and respond to the parts of this conversation with her own voice, and then maybe we can proceed to the obvious solution after that.

It would, after all, only be fair.

And while no one seems to be thinking of overall fairness here , only what is fair to them personally, I think a sense of communal PD style justice and freedom of expression demands it.

I have been willing to listen.  She hasn't been talking, past the first couple of hours last night.

In fact, that's what's made the rage monkey grow.  The drive-by nature of the whole thing.

I think that was explained though:

She woke up late, posted while still waking up but had to head off to our D'n'D game, and she's been out having to suffer the travails of spending time with her mother today too, most of the day.

Pix hasn't had a chance to reply at all really, except for when she's still been a little less than calm about it, and now I'm hogging the only internet connection we have.

Well, then I guess I can't actually listen to her, then.

Roger, I love and respect you. It's always good to chat, but this is the point where I have to hand over to her because yes you can't listen to her (because I'm being greedy and enjoying being back here).

Take care man, I'll be back in a few weeks when I get my own connection. Back with sequins!

Quote from: Cain on April 17, 2013, 08:33:05 PM
I realize it may be too late now to back to the OP, but I wanted to add something.

I think the truth is inbetween the idea that Americans have a severely abbreviated culture and Hyphenated-Americans are Really Really Hyphenated People.

Hyphenated-Americans are that way because our history and heritage is about 30 minutes long.  We don't have a sense of cultural identity, because our society is a mish-mash of hundreds of cultures, none of which particularly want to learn about each other, because that might weaken the non-existent ties to their parent culture.  But I see you covered this:

QuoteAmerica was colonised in waves, and those waves often consisted of people from distinct linguistic and cultural groups, usually settling in similar areas to each other.  The parents bring the culture with them, from their homelands, but the children born there...well, they exist in a different geographical, legal, political and economic climate to the one their parents did, alongside other emerging or distinct foreign cultures as well.

QuoteThe only reason Irish Irishness is considered more legitimate than American Irishness is because the former controls the state of Ireland, and thus the percieved homeland of Irish Tradition by both sides.

And it was inevitable that the dog in the manger thing would start sooner or later.

Several Native American nations had this happen when they started seeing revenues from casinos (the ones that didn't get fucked out of those revenues, anyway).  Suddenly there were tests or one kind or another, or standards, as to who was actually "of the tribe".  It was amazing how exclusive it all got...And I'm not talking about Johnny-come-latelies who moved onto the Rez after the Casinos were built, I'm talking about life-long residents who turned out to have a White, Black, or Hispanic grandparent.

There's obviously no jackpot to split for being Irish, but the principle is the same.  If they let just ANYONE be Irish, then being Irish isn't as special.

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on April 17, 2013, 08:39:31 PM

Quote from: Cain on April 17, 2013, 08:33:05 PM
I realize it may be too late now to back to the OP, but I wanted to add something.

I think the truth is inbetween the idea that Americans have a severely abbreviated culture and Hyphenated-Americans are Really Really Hyphenated People.

Hyphenated-Americans are that way because our history and heritage is about 30 minutes long.  We don't have a sense of cultural identity, because our society is a mish-mash of hundreds of cultures, none of which particularly want to learn about each other, because that might weaken the non-existent ties to their parent culture.  But I see you covered this:

QuoteAmerica was colonised in waves, and those waves often consisted of people from distinct linguistic and cultural groups, usually settling in similar areas to each other.  The parents bring the culture with them, from their homelands, but the children born there...well, they exist in a different geographical, legal, political and economic climate to the one their parents did, alongside other emerging or distinct foreign cultures as well.

QuoteThe only reason Irish Irishness is considered more legitimate than American Irishness is because the former controls the state of Ireland, and thus the percieved homeland of Irish Tradition by both sides.

And it was inevitable that the dog in the manger thing would start sooner or later.

Several Native American nations had this happen when they started seeing revenues from casinos (the ones that didn't get fucked out of those revenues, anyway).  Suddenly there were tests or one kind or another, or standards, as to who was actually "of the tribe".  It was amazing how exclusive it all got...And I'm not talking about Johnny-come-latelies who moved onto the Rez after the Casinos were built, I'm talking about life-long residents who turned out to have a White, Black, or Hispanic grandparent.

There's obviously no jackpot to split for being Irish, but the principle is the same.  If they let just ANYONE be Irish, then being Irish isn't as special.

CISamericanhet.   :x :x :x

Is being Irish (or anything) special? Unless you are a real minority in a global sense, there's probably several million other very similar people with the same badge.

About the Casinos/rewards for heritage thing, I would say the fact that personal financial reward is once again the leading factor in the exclusion mindset. Share with you = Less for me.

This seems to extend to non-tangible things like being X.

Which explains a lot. I've seen some dumb shit done just because not doing it would be "less manly" implying that there is a finite supply of masculinity. This probably isn't coming out well.

Quote from: stelz on April 17, 2013, 08:45:33 PM

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on April 17, 2013, 08:39:31 PM

Quote from: Cain on April 17, 2013, 08:33:05 PM
I realize it may be too late now to back to the OP, but I wanted to add something.

I think the truth is inbetween the idea that Americans have a severely abbreviated culture and Hyphenated-Americans are Really Really Hyphenated People.

Hyphenated-Americans are that way because our history and heritage is about 30 minutes long.  We don't have a sense of cultural identity, because our society is a mish-mash of hundreds of cultures, none of which particularly want to learn about each other, because that might weaken the non-existent ties to their parent culture.  But I see you covered this:

QuoteAmerica was colonised in waves, and those waves often consisted of people from distinct linguistic and cultural groups, usually settling in similar areas to each other.  The parents bring the culture with them, from their homelands, but the children born there...well, they exist in a different geographical, legal, political and economic climate to the one their parents did, alongside other emerging or distinct foreign cultures as well.

QuoteThe only reason Irish Irishness is considered more legitimate than American Irishness is because the former controls the state of Ireland, and thus the percieved homeland of Irish Tradition by both sides.

And it was inevitable that the dog in the manger thing would start sooner or later.

Several Native American nations had this happen when they started seeing revenues from casinos (the ones that didn't get fucked out of those revenues, anyway).  Suddenly there were tests or one kind or another, or standards, as to who was actually "of the tribe".  It was amazing how exclusive it all got...And I'm not talking about Johnny-come-latelies who moved onto the Rez after the Casinos were built, I'm talking about life-long residents who turned out to have a White, Black, or Hispanic grandparent.

There's obviously no jackpot to split for being Irish, but the principle is the same.  If they let just ANYONE be Irish, then being Irish isn't as special.

CISamericanhet.   :x :x :x

Well, it's like this:  I am descended from Cornish stock.  I do not consider myself "Cornish-American", because I don't know much about Cornwall, I don't know anyone in Cornwall, but most of all I personally don't need a cultural identity cluttering up my already fucked up personal identity.

But I can see how some people NEED some form of cultural identity.  They HAVE to have it...And it costs the REALLY REAL Irish folks NOTHING to have a bunch of groupies way the fuck on the other side of the pond. 

Twid comes to mind, here.  His cultural identity is extremely important to him, to the point where he nationalized.

How this is somehow insulting to the Irish is utterly beyond me.

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on April 17, 2013, 08:39:31 PMIf they let just ANYONE be Irish, then being Irish isn't as special.

This! It's the culture identity / heritage game in a nutshell. Here's the choice. You can be special because of something that happened to you at birth or you can become special the hard way - because of something you've done.

Most monkeys are real fucking lazy

ETA: Yeah, I did the "you" thing again. Read that as "someone", eh?

Quote from: Junkenstein on April 17, 2013, 08:48:35 PM
Is being Irish (or anything) special? Unless you are a real minority in a global sense, there's probably several million other very similar people with the same badge.

About the Casinos/rewards for heritage thing, I would say the fact that personal financial reward is once again the leading factor in the exclusion mindset. Share with you = Less for me.

This seems to extend to non-tangible things like being X.

Which explains a lot. I've seen some dumb shit done just because not doing it would be "less manly" implying that there is a finite supply of masculinity. This probably isn't coming out well.

Nope.  You're right on the money.

Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on April 17, 2013, 08:52:17 PM

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on April 17, 2013, 08:39:31 PMIf they let just ANYONE be Irish, then being Irish isn't as special.

This! It's the culture identity / heritage game in a nutshell. Here's the choice. You can be special because of something that happened to you at birth or you can become special the hard way - because of something you've done.

Most monkeys are real fucking lazy

That may be part of it.  Mostly, though, I think it's the impression that there's a Law of Conservation of Irishness/whatever.  If all those yanks in Boston get to be Irish in some fashion, even in their own heads, then the perception of being Irish loses some of its appeal.

It brings to mind the old Aerosmith fans vs the new Aerosmith fans garbage of the late 90s.

"I was doing this before it was cool."

Definitely!

Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on April 17, 2013, 05:33:32 PM
Damn good shit, Roger.

A people without a history or a connection or a sense of place are just drifting, aimless, and shallow.

A person without a cultural environment is a person without culture.

(ETA:  Which was the point of the posts with weird names and explanations on pages 1-2.)

Well, I can't wait around any longer, stuff to do.

I'll check back in later.

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on April 17, 2013, 08:51:45 PM

Quote from: stelz on April 17, 2013, 08:45:33 PM

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on April 17, 2013, 08:39:31 PM

Quote from: Cain on April 17, 2013, 08:33:05 PM
I realize it may be too late now to back to the OP, but I wanted to add something.

I think the truth is inbetween the idea that Americans have a severely abbreviated culture and Hyphenated-Americans are Really Really Hyphenated People.

Hyphenated-Americans are that way because our history and heritage is about 30 minutes long.  We don't have a sense of cultural identity, because our society is a mish-mash of hundreds of cultures, none of which particularly want to learn about each other, because that might weaken the non-existent ties to their parent culture.  But I see you covered this:

QuoteAmerica was colonised in waves, and those waves often consisted of people from distinct linguistic and cultural groups, usually settling in similar areas to each other.  The parents bring the culture with them, from their homelands, but the children born there...well, they exist in a different geographical, legal, political and economic climate to the one their parents did, alongside other emerging or distinct foreign cultures as well.

QuoteThe only reason Irish Irishness is considered more legitimate than American Irishness is because the former controls the state of Ireland, and thus the percieved homeland of Irish Tradition by both sides.

And it was inevitable that the dog in the manger thing would start sooner or later.

Several Native American nations had this happen when they started seeing revenues from casinos (the ones that didn't get fucked out of those revenues, anyway).  Suddenly there were tests or one kind or another, or standards, as to who was actually "of the tribe".  It was amazing how exclusive it all got...And I'm not talking about Johnny-come-latelies who moved onto the Rez after the Casinos were built, I'm talking about life-long residents who turned out to have a White, Black, or Hispanic grandparent.

There's obviously no jackpot to split for being Irish, but the principle is the same.  If they let just ANYONE be Irish, then being Irish isn't as special.

CISamericanhet.   :x :x :x

Well, it's like this:  I am descended from Cornish stock.  I do not consider myself "Cornish-American", because I don't know much about Cornwall, I don't know anyone in Cornwall, but most of all I personally don't need a cultural identity cluttering up my already fucked up personal identity.

But I can see how some people NEED some form of cultural identity.  They HAVE to have it...And it costs the REALLY REAL Irish folks NOTHING to have a bunch of groupies way the fuck on the other side of the pond. 

Twid comes to mind, here.  His cultural identity is extremely important to him, to the point where he nationalized.

How this is somehow insulting to the Irish is utterly beyond me.

I can't think of a reason, except that america has a really, really shitty rep, which probably isn't relevant here at all.

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on April 17, 2013, 07:52:18 PM
I grow very fucking weary of the double standard that's oozed around here, recently.

Examples:

1.  Hating straights is totally different than hating strays, and if you have a problem with that, it's because YOU don't understand that YOUR privilege excuses MY bigotry.

2.  Fear of "CISHETs" justifies bigotry.  Never mind that this logic justifies the odious "gay panic" defense.

3.  Shitting on people is okay, as long as it's You People, not real people.  It's just that the definition of "You People" has changed.  Equality was NEVER the issue with some; instead, the issue was to change from shit-ee to shit-er. 

4.  It's okay to lump ANYONE in with the pigfuckers, as long as the person involved is part of the population subset approved for the purpose.

5.  It's okay to shit on someone if you have a "berserk button", which means you can stop thinking and start pooping.

6.  Friendship is a very distant second to The Cause.

First off, I'm not one of the radical queer crowd, because apparently I'm not queer enough for them.

Secondly, I'm kind of pissed that you are lumping me in with Hovercat / Juana Go? and Signora Paesior, over a thread that happened over SIX FUCKING MONTHS AGO. My memory ain't that long, and it's been a kind of fucked up space I was living in from March last year till December just gone, being excluded and marginalised in my OWN FUCKING HOME by people me and Payne tried to help, resulting in 3 months of HIDE THE SHARPS and panic attacks, listening to Shitty Ginger Housemate yell and scream at his girlfriend from the time I woke up to the time I went to sleep and worry over keeping the roof over my head (YAY TORIES?). 

Thirdly, you seem to be constantly (of late) making assumptions as to what I think, and what i think about you. I've never considered you "part of the problem" when it comes to misogyny, rape culture, homophobia, transphobia etc. Can't speak for Hovercat and their thoughts though, because I am not Hovercat. Just as YOU want to be treated as an individual, so do I. The reason I come back here is because I don't want to become part of an activisty hive-mind, and my communication style is sometimes far too aggressive for those spaces.

Finally, the whole Irish-American thing..  Yesterday i dun fucked up. Said as much in the thread in the limited time i had available. Working off emotions rather than logic from basically viewed as "other" and potentially dangerous as a kid by ignorant little shits, and the funding of the IRA by some Irish-Americans has always provoked an emotional response in me, and yanno IN THAT THREAD, not very bipedal. I knew it at the time and still opened my gob.

And since i've not had the opportunity to respond there have been 3? 4? threads over one ill thought out sentence/ emotional response, and it's been "hey, lets kick a Pix". (again, a subjective emotional response).


I love you, Rog, you've seen me through some dark assed brain shit, but today's response was disproportionate as fuck.

Oh, and I see whilst I was typing this that you fucked off.

{edited to add} ok, you have shit to do. we all have shit to do, that last sentence was OTT, sorry.)

Quote from: Pixie on April 17, 2013, 09:26:23 PM

First off, I'm not one of the radical queer crowd, because apparently I'm not queer enough for them.

I feel ya.  I'd advise, though, that this happens in EVERY RADICAL COMMUNITY of any kind.

QuoteSecondly, I'm kind of pissed that you are lumping me in with Hovercat / Juana Go? and Signora Paesior, over a thread that happened over SIX FUCKING MONTHS AGO.

Nope.  I didn't find anything you said back then to be offensive.  The above statement was deliberately not directed at you, but at the community as a whole.

QuoteMy memory ain't that long, and it's been a kind of fucked up space I was living in from March last year till December just gone, being excluded and marginalised in my OWN FUCKING HOME by people me and Payne tried to help, resulting in 3 months of HIDE THE SHARPS and panic attacks, listening to Shitty Ginger Housemate yell and scream at his girlfriend from the time I woke up to the time I went to sleep and worry over keeping the roof over my head (YAY TORIES?). 

See above.

QuoteThirdly, you seem to be constantly (of late) making assumptions as to what I think, and what i think about you. I've never considered you "part of the problem" when it comes to misogyny, rape culture, homophobia, transphobia etc. Can't speak for Hovercat and their thoughts though, because I am not Hovercat. Just as YOU want to be treated as an individual, so do I. The reason I come back here is because I don't want to become part of an activisty hive-mind, and my communication style is sometimes far too aggressive for those spaces.

Understood.  My concern was that the same sort of thing was happening, with a different flavor.  If I am mistaken, my apologies.

QuoteFinally, the whole Irish-American thing..  Yesterday i dun fucked up. Said as much in the thread in the limited time i had available. Working off emotions rather than logic from basically viewed as "other" and potentially dangerous as a kid by ignorant little shits, and the funding of the IRA by some Irish-Americans has always provoked an emotional response in me, and yanno IN THAT THREAD, not very bipedal. I knew it at the time and still opened my gob.

I certainly haven't ever done that.   :lulz:  Like once a day.

QuoteAnd since i've not had the opportunity to respond there have been 3? 4? threads over one ill thought out sentence/ emotional response, and it's been "hey, lets kick a Pix". (again, a subjective emotional response).

Pixie, you've seen me kick people.  This wasn't a kick.  No matter how much you might ever piss me off, you're not on the kick list.  I believe I mentioned that twice on page 1.

QuoteI love you, Rog, you've seen me through some dark assed brain shit, but today's response was disproportionate as fuck.

I have a problem with that, yes.   When the rock hits me, I holler.

QuoteOh, and I see whilst I was typing this that you fucked off.

Actually, my boss called me over to his office.  Back now.

Quote{edited to add} ok, you have shit to do. we all have shit to do, that last sentence was OTT, sorry.)

No worries.

Look, my main concern here isn't the subject matter, or prior subject matters.  It's the politics of exclusion.  While I agree in principle with cultural appropriation being a bad thing, I see it as a bad thing when the person doing it has no claim at all on that culture (White middle class student in dreadlocks, ancient hippie in a dashiki, etc).  In this particular case, the people in question DO have some claim on that culture, and that - to them - is extremely important.

Yes, that has a downside (it makes them easy marks for IRA bagmen, for one thing).

But having no cultural anchors whatsoever is a worse problem.  A man with no culture to rely on is a man with no societal norms, and a man with no societal norms is a man with no moral structure.  Such a man is capable of anything.

Example:  The best way to combat rape culture is to attack the culture itself.  To do this, you need a competing culture that can overwhelm the rape culture until rape is considered a shameful crime by damn near everyone.  Cultures can't really be kickstarted in the time we have, so we have to rely on existing cultures.  If no existing cultures are available, or the ones we have are WORSE (hello, America!), then you have no tools with which to accomplish the task.

You have a choice here.  You can have everyone in your cultural tent pissing out, or you can sit in the tent alone, trying to ignore the streams of piss coming IN.  It really is one or the other.  Cultures should not be predatory, but the best cultures will allow admission to those who have the minimum requirements to fit in.  In this case, Irish ancestry and a strong identification with that ancestry.

And, IIRC, Irish tradition has its ways of dealing with rapists and wife beaters.  Something about sewing them into the bedsheets when they're drunk and beating them with everything in the house, IIRC.

Or just working on that existing culture so that rape/abuse becomes odious among that culture's people.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0tLTm0kaHQ

Payne insists that I post this so everyone gets the reference.

Quote from: Pixie on April 17, 2013, 10:19:53 PM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0tLTm0kaHQ

Payne insists that I post this so everyone gets the reference.

I shall have to look at it at home, after work and after the gym.

So does this mean im getting my token card taken away now? Its so shiny.

Quote from: Queef Erisson on April 17, 2013, 11:54:31 PM
So does this mean im getting my token card taken away now? Its so shiny.

nope. Still my favourite

Well, that will teach me to calm down and post a rational response.

Next time, I'll just stick to one liners.

GAME ORVER.

PIX & TWID WIN.

Ya know, fuck this.  I'm out.  You guys have fun.

Roger i was just trying to make a lighthearted joke. I apologize.

I wasnt offended when you said i was a token so im not trying to be a smart ass.

Quote from: Queef Erisson on April 18, 2013, 12:26:32 AM
Roger i was just trying to make a lighthearted joke. I apologize.

also asshattery on my part.

Also, twid is the ONLY Irish American I know, so, default favourite.

So, anyway, I've been thinking about this a little, and I agree about the politics of of exclusion thing. It's rather silly in any form. But when applied to some sort of geographic location it gets weird as well. Because being an American is a pretty straightforward thing. It's really only a matter of citizenship and a blanket culture, or, 4 room rental and a dog, as you put it. And, you know, maybe that's part of why Bostonians and me in particular tend to identify strongly as Bostonian, or Irish, or both. It has a long history here, and politicians wear green and roast each other on St. Patrick's Day. Indeed, on St. Patrick's Day this year, I was carrying around a Norwegian flag, which amused a bunch of Asian dudes decked out in green, and they struck up a conversation with me. I noted that I was amused that a group of Asians were so obviously throwing themselves into the spirit. America assimilates, and makes things it's own. St. Patrick's Day is an American holiday that Irish people also just happen to celebrate. Mostly because it's fun to have a big festival where it's socially acceptable to start drinking at 10 am. Who doesn't love that? And that's America.

But, what of Ireland itself? What does being Irish entail there? Is it a piece of paper like the one I have sitting on my desk? Is it a place of birth? Is it genetics? Is it being raised there? Is it culture? It's all of these things, of course, but what if some of those boxes aren't checked off? Is a child of two African immigrants but grows up in Dublin without ever gaining citizenship an Irishman? I saw a short film once, that is called Yu Ming Is Ainm Dom (My Name Is Yu Ming). The gist of it is this guy in China hates his job, and decides that he wants to move wherever his finger lands on a spinning globe, finger lands on Ireland, looks up the info on it, and decides to teach himself Irish, and disappointment ensues until everything gets fixed (you may also be asking where they found an Irish speaking Chinese guy, but I'll get to that). But he's thrown himself entirely into the idea of adopting Ireland as his home. Is he Irish? I'd say that they both would be, since the Irish are essentially genetically identical to the Scots and the Welsh and the English, so genetic make up is largely unimportant. As for finding an Irish speaking Asian, he grew up there, and Irish is a compulsory subject, though, as I understand it most people don't give a shit about it, and proceed to forget it as soon as they graduate, the language being about as useful as Latin but less widely understood. Is the actor Irish? Sure, I'd say so. He's an Irishman of Chinese descent. I guess I perceive Irishness as some difficult to define connection with Ireland and stuff that originates in Ireland. You can adopt it. If some Mexican dude suddenly decides that he wants to adopt Irish culture and develops a taste for bangers and tea, let him. The more the merrier. People will mock him if he describes himself as Irish, because people expect him to be Mexican and identify with Mexico. Even though Mexico also has some historical ties with Ireland, and, I could be wrong but I believe St. Patrick is also the patron saint of Mexico City and they have a big parade too. But that's weird for people, you know? They expect him to prefer a sombrero over a flat cap, maracas over the bodhran, tequila over whiskey.

We laugh at the bearded man wearing a dress, because he's wearing the wrong uniform, and we want him to wear the right one. He can wear the dress, but he's gotta shave and change his name to Janet or wear a tie and watch football. Those are his options. For our aspiring Irish friend Pedro, his options are to act like a Latino or act like a white guy. Ok. So he picked a specific kind of white guy. It's not only the people within one group that tries to set up exclusive boundaries, people outside those boundaries define them too, and actively enforce them. I'm not sure about origin of the Hyphenated-American, but I imagine it was in the United States. You can remember where you came from, but you're one of us now. We are excluding you from that group, since you are now in ours.

As for why I got my Irish passport, the rationale was that I could. I do identify strongly with being Irish, but that wasn't the impulse. If the Irish government's rules on what constitutes a citizen already included me, why not get the passport? It could come in handy someday. Normally I use it to irritate doormen and bartenders who card me (I think my hairline is sufficient evidence that I'm not under 21). But it does allow me to stay in Ireland indefinitely, which, again, might come in handy someday. Irish consular services might be preferable to American ones in some places. If I end up losing one, I don't have to miss my flight (though I might get fingerprinted and retinal scanned). I am quite glad that I have it, and I can also now confer dual citizenship on any offspring as well (my grandkids are SOL though). Hell, it even gives me voting privileges in the United Kingdom for some weird reason.

Quote from: Queef Erisson on April 18, 2013, 12:26:32 AM
Roger i was just trying to make a lighthearted joke. I apologize.

No sweat.  Thing is, there's nothing like a dismissive one liner following a long post, which is why I was pissed.

Nuff said.

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on April 18, 2013, 02:49:44 AM

Quote from: Queef Erisson on April 18, 2013, 12:26:32 AM
Roger i was just trying to make a lighthearted joke. I apologize.

No sweat.  Thing is, there's nothing like a dismissive one liner following a long post, which is why I was pissed.

Nuff said.

That's fair.

Quote from: Queef Erisson on April 18, 2013, 02:41:57 AM
So, anyway, I've been thinking about this a little, and I agree about the politics of of exclusion thing. It's rather silly in any form. But when applied to some sort of geographic location it gets weird as well. Because being an American is a pretty straightforward thing. It's really only a matter of citizenship and a blanket culture, or, 4 room rental and a dog, as you put it. And, you know, maybe that's part of why Bostonians and me in particular tend to identify strongly as Bostonian, or Irish, or both. It has a long history here, and politicians wear green and roast each other on St. Patrick's Day. Indeed, on St. Patrick's Day this year, I was carrying around a Norwegian flag, which amused a bunch of Asian dudes decked out in green, and they struck up a conversation with me. I noted that I was amused that a group of Asians were so obviously throwing themselves into the spirit. America assimilates, and makes things it's own. St. Patrick's Day is an American holiday that Irish people also just happen to celebrate. Mostly because it's fun to have a big festival where it's socially acceptable to start drinking at 10 am. Who doesn't love that? And that's America.

America is all the FUN SHIT from other countries, without all the HORRIBLE SHIT that inspired the FUN SHIT.

Cinco de Mayo, for example.  The story behind THAT one is a little grim, and everyone except the Mexican army forgot about it, then it was discovered by beer companies, and the ritual drunk done by the Mexican military to mark the date became just another excuse for frat kids to throw up in the taxi.

QuoteBut, what of Ireland itself? What does being Irish entail there? Is it a piece of paper like the one I have sitting on my desk? Is it a place of birth? Is it genetics? Is it being raised there? Is it culture? It's all of these things, of course, but what if some of those boxes aren't checked off? Is a child of two African immigrants but grows up in Dublin without ever gaining citizenship an Irishman? I saw a short film once, that is called Yu Ming Is Ainm Dom (My Name Is Yu Ming). The gist of it is this guy in China hates his job, and decides that he wants to move wherever his finger lands on a spinning globe, finger lands on Ireland, looks up the info on it, and decides to teach himself Irish, and disappointment ensues until everything gets fixed (you may also be asking where they found an Irish speaking Chinese guy, but I'll get to that). But he's thrown himself entirely into the idea of adopting Ireland as his home. Is he Irish? I'd say that they both would be, since the Irish are essentially genetically identical to the Scots and the Welsh and the English, so genetic make up is largely unimportant. As for finding an Irish speaking Asian, he grew up there, and Irish is a compulsory subject, though, as I understand it most people don't give a shit about it, and proceed to forget it as soon as they graduate, the language being about as useful as Latin but less widely understood. Is the actor Irish? Sure, I'd say so. He's an Irishman of Chinese descent. I guess I perceive Irishness as some difficult to define connection with Ireland and stuff that originates in Ireland. You can adopt it. If some Mexican dude suddenly decides that he wants to adopt Irish culture and develops a taste for bangers and tea, let him. The more the merrier. People will mock him if he describes himself as Irish, because people expect him to be Mexican and identify with Mexico. Even though Mexico also has some historical ties with Ireland, and, I could be wrong but I believe St. Patrick is also the patron saint of Mexico City and they have a big parade too. But that's weird for people, you know? They expect him to prefer a sombrero over a flat cap, maracas over the bodhran, tequila over whiskey.

I agree with all of that.  Inclusion by the act of wanting to be included is the difference between a vibrant nation, and a sour one.

Quote from: Pixie on April 18, 2013, 12:33:02 AM

Quote from: Queef Erisson on April 18, 2013, 12:26:32 AM
Roger i was just trying to make a lighthearted joke. I apologize.

also asshattery on my part.

Also, twid is the ONLY Irish American I know, so, default favourite.

S'ok.

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on April 18, 2013, 02:54:59 AM

Quote from: Queef Erisson on April 18, 2013, 02:41:57 AM
So, anyway, I've been thinking about this a little, and I agree about the politics of of exclusion thing. It's rather silly in any form. But when applied to some sort of geographic location it gets weird as well. Because being an American is a pretty straightforward thing. It's really only a matter of citizenship and a blanket culture, or, 4 room rental and a dog, as you put it. And, you know, maybe that's part of why Bostonians and me in particular tend to identify strongly as Bostonian, or Irish, or both. It has a long history here, and politicians wear green and roast each other on St. Patrick's Day. Indeed, on St. Patrick's Day this year, I was carrying around a Norwegian flag, which amused a bunch of Asian dudes decked out in green, and they struck up a conversation with me. I noted that I was amused that a group of Asians were so obviously throwing themselves into the spirit. America assimilates, and makes things it's own. St. Patrick's Day is an American holiday that Irish people also just happen to celebrate. Mostly because it's fun to have a big festival where it's socially acceptable to start drinking at 10 am. Who doesn't love that? And that's America.

America is all the FUN SHIT from other countries, without all the HORRIBLE SHIT that inspired the FUN SHIT.

Cinco de Mayo, for example.  The story behind THAT one is a little grim, and everyone except the Mexican army forgot about it, then it was discovered by beer companies, and the ritual drunk done by the Mexican military to mark the date became just another excuse for frat kids to throw up in the taxi.

QuoteBut, what of Ireland itself? What does being Irish entail there? Is it a piece of paper like the one I have sitting on my desk? Is it a place of birth? Is it genetics? Is it being raised there? Is it culture? It's all of these things, of course, but what if some of those boxes aren't checked off? Is a child of two African immigrants but grows up in Dublin without ever gaining citizenship an Irishman? I saw a short film once, that is called Yu Ming Is Ainm Dom (My Name Is Yu Ming). The gist of it is this guy in China hates his job, and decides that he wants to move wherever his finger lands on a spinning globe, finger lands on Ireland, looks up the info on it, and decides to teach himself Irish, and disappointment ensues until everything gets fixed (you may also be asking where they found an Irish speaking Chinese guy, but I'll get to that). But he's thrown himself entirely into the idea of adopting Ireland as his home. Is he Irish? I'd say that they both would be, since the Irish are essentially genetically identical to the Scots and the Welsh and the English, so genetic make up is largely unimportant. As for finding an Irish speaking Asian, he grew up there, and Irish is a compulsory subject, though, as I understand it most people don't give a shit about it, and proceed to forget it as soon as they graduate, the language being about as useful as Latin but less widely understood. Is the actor Irish? Sure, I'd say so. He's an Irishman of Chinese descent. I guess I perceive Irishness as some difficult to define connection with Ireland and stuff that originates in Ireland. You can adopt it. If some Mexican dude suddenly decides that he wants to adopt Irish culture and develops a taste for bangers and tea, let him. The more the merrier. People will mock him if he describes himself as Irish, because people expect him to be Mexican and identify with Mexico. Even though Mexico also has some historical ties with Ireland, and, I could be wrong but I believe St. Patrick is also the patron saint of Mexico City and they have a big parade too. But that's weird for people, you know? They expect him to prefer a sombrero over a flat cap, maracas over the bodhran, tequila over whiskey.

I agree with all of that.  Inclusion by the act of wanting to be included is the difference between a vibrant nation, and a sour one.

Exactly. If people can adopt a group of friends and call them their family, why can't they also adopt a national identity and call it their culture? I mean, there is pressure to stay with in your own group, because THIS is the way WE do things, and THAT'S the way THEY do things. Why do you want to do it THAT way? Maybe you just like it better, you know? But I imagine that that sort of thing will become more acceptable as time goes on, since people can have multiple labels, and they get exposed to more and more labels and they can mix and match as they see fit.

And as far as America, why would America want all that baggage attached to Party Time^TM? That's going to harsh your buzz.

At the risk of derailing, when thinking about the politics of exclusion, what about Pinealists?

They call themselves Discordian, and I want to compartmentalise and exclude them from "My" Discordia.

Because fuck those guys. But aren't I doing the same thing we're saying is wrong?

Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on April 18, 2013, 04:59:27 AM
At the risk of derailing, when thinking about the politics of exclusion, what about Pinealists?

They call themselves Discordian, and I want to compartmentalise and exclude them from "My" Discordia.

Because fuck those guys. But aren't I doing the same thing we're saying is wrong?

But do you still recognize them as Discordian and following a legitimate, if inane, subset of it?

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on April 18, 2013, 02:54:59 AM

Quote from: Queef Erisson on April 18, 2013, 02:41:57 AM
So, anyway, I've been thinking about this a little, and I agree about the politics of of exclusion thing. It's rather silly in any form. But when applied to some sort of geographic location it gets weird as well. Because being an American is a pretty straightforward thing. It's really only a matter of citizenship and a blanket culture, or, 4 room rental and a dog, as you put it. And, you know, maybe that's part of why Bostonians and me in particular tend to identify strongly as Bostonian, or Irish, or both. It has a long history here, and politicians wear green and roast each other on St. Patrick's Day. Indeed, on St. Patrick's Day this year, I was carrying around a Norwegian flag, which amused a bunch of Asian dudes decked out in green, and they struck up a conversation with me. I noted that I was amused that a group of Asians were so obviously throwing themselves into the spirit. America assimilates, and makes things it's own. St. Patrick's Day is an American holiday that Irish people also just happen to celebrate. Mostly because it's fun to have a big festival where it's socially acceptable to start drinking at 10 am. Who doesn't love that? And that's America.

America is all the FUN SHIT from other countries, without all the HORRIBLE SHIT that inspired the FUN SHIT.

Cinco de Mayo, for example.  The story behind THAT one is a little grim, and everyone except the Mexican army forgot about it, then it was discovered by beer companies, and the ritual drunk done by the Mexican military to mark the date became just another excuse for frat kids to throw up in the taxi.

At the risk of being flippant in a somewhat serious thread, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTZC-j48JWg

additionally, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUj6Pcu71kk

Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on April 18, 2013, 04:59:27 AM
At the risk of derailing, when thinking about the politics of exclusion, what about Pinealists?

They call themselves Discordian, and I want to compartmentalise and exclude them from "My" Discordia.

Because fuck those guys. But aren't I doing the same thing we're saying is wrong?

Not quite, because I think the feeling is mutual. I mean, you can say Pinealists don't rise to a meaningful definition of Discordianism, but they usually say the same thing about you. They're not trying to join your group, and you're not trying to join theirs, so nobody's being excluded despite (or because of) a genuine desire to join. You don't consider them part of "Discordia," but so what? You don't get to say what a Discordian is, so it doesn't matter (same with them).

Here's an interesting thing about identity. There's how a person thinks about themselves, and there's also how other people think about that person. How I identify you may not be how you identify yourself.

The interesting thing about identity, really, is that while social identities can come and go and morph depending on environmental factors, personal identity is primarily internal and independent of how others view you, if you have a strong sense of self. Some people, particularly those with personality disorders, have a very weak sense of identity which is very affected by other people's impressions of them, but most of us have a pretty resilient sense of personal identity.

So, whether a person has a personal identity that includes, say, being Apache is almost completely independent of whether they have social acceptance from other Apaches or whether their social group perceives them as Apache. It's almost not even worth discussing, because honestly we all have about as much business telling other people how they "should" identify themselves as we have telling other people whether they "should" be gay or not.

That said, in my opinion Irish-American is not Irish, any more than Irish is Irish-American or Gullah is Angolan. We have distinctive cultures here that are heavily influenced by the culture of their ancestral community, and that is valid, worth recognizing, and also should not be conflated with their ancestors' culture in its county of origin, because the two have evolved separately.

However, I will wrap up by saying that I think that people who feel the need to talk about their ethnic heritage all the fucking time when it's in no way relevant to the conversation at hand are probably really insecure in their self-identities.

Here's a thought for you; because of my heritage I hold several different identities (as do most of us, actually, in one form or another) but the most difficult to reconcile one is of being both an American, and not-an-American, by virtue of the fact that Natives are not exactly members of the same political/social system as other Americans. So in a way I often feel like I'm inside the outside, looking in. Which probably doesn't make any sense.

I just don't feel like I belong to America, exactly. It wasn't made FOR me, it was made DESPITE of me, and I have to live in it whether I want to or not because it plonked its fat ass right on top of where I was living, and then it fucked me and made babies and that's how I was born.

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on April 17, 2013, 08:11:38 PM

Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on April 17, 2013, 08:08:23 PM
Not to butt in, but that would be extremely weird.

Yeah, it is.  It's very fucking weird.  In the space of 7 days, I have had two people I've known for years essentially state that I am in fact a second-class human.  Then they get pissed because I got pissed, because I have contradicted the high epopts of blanket fart huffing.

Let's just try this one on for size:

YOU ARE EXCLUDED AND EJECTED FROM YOUR HERITAGE BECAUSE YOU ARE A YANKEE PIGFUCKER.

Yeah, you don't get to have any fucking roots.  You don't get to have any link to your ancestors.  You have been judged and found wanting.  PASSPORT ENTITLEMENT OR GTFO, YANK.

Jesus fucking christ, dude. You're seriously picking a fight that isn't there. I mean, it's your thread so trash it if you want, but the INSTANT RAGING MASSIVE BUTTHURT at the slightest perceived slight just seems pointless.

I'm a hyphenated arbitrary two points in the sand.

As to Irish-Americanism here is the official Irish stance: Your lands may be different but your money is Green, cousin.

I was born in Greece, Lived in London, Now Live in Ireland, my mother is Irish, My grandfather and great grandfather are respectively Canadian and Egyptian.

Do I use Hyphens for all those.

What happens if any of those annex or get annexed by an another country?

Quote from: Faust on April 18, 2013, 12:04:42 PM
I was born in Greece, Lived in London, Now Live in Ireland, my mother is Irish, My grandfather and great grandfather are respectively Canadian and Egyptian.

Do I use Hyphens for all those.

What happens if any of those annex or get annexed by an another country?

Actually, the annexation is an interesting question. I supposed it depends on how well one destroys the other's identity.

You could use hyphens for all of those, I imagine, if you identify strongly with them. But what order do you place them in? Are you an Irish-Greek or a Greco-Hibernian? Usually what we do over here is pick one and tack it on to the word American. A lot of Irish-Americans here are just as much Italian, or Polish or something. We all think of my drummer as Italian, even though he's only a quarter. He just looks and acts like an Italian-American. That's what he thinks of himself as. Calling him an Irish-Lebanese-Scottish-Italian-American is a bit cumbersome.

I don't really identify with any of them. The place I have lived in longest is Ireland and I carry an Irish passport but I don't FEEL Irish any more then any other place I've been.

Quote from: Faust on April 18, 2013, 12:50:51 PM
I don't really identify with any of them. The place I have lived in longest is Ireland and I carry an Irish passport but I don't FEEL Irish any more then any other place I've been.

"Faust" should be sufficient then.

And, really, so should "Twid" but Irishness is part of being a Twid. Actually, I might describe myself as a Twid if it comes up when meeting someone new, regardless of what the question happens to be.

I actually think about death more often than my ethnicity. Maybe I should start calling myself a Morbid-American.

I guess, if nationality was just the equivalent of personal expression and fashion I would be happier.

Irish people don't view me as Irish, and UK people do. Both with EQUAL disdain. Nationality is something I naturally mistrust and judge people on for identifying with it. Not because there is anything inherently wrong with nationality, but patriotism is a swear word to me, and so are the idea of the Us/Them division.

I can see that. Especially in europe where lines can be less blurred. Over here it means what parade you go to and what you eat with your family. Its an interesting little factoid. Because at the end of the statement youre still an -american.

Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on April 18, 2013, 07:00:09 AM
Here's a thought for you; because of my heritage I hold several different identities (as do most of us, actually, in one form or another) but the most difficult to reconcile one is of being both an American, and not-an-American, by virtue of the fact that Natives are not exactly members of the same political/social system as other Americans. So in a way I often feel like I'm inside the outside, looking in. Which probably doesn't make any sense.

I just don't feel like I belong to America, exactly. It wasn't made FOR me, it was made DESPITE of me, and I have to live in it whether I want to or not because it plonked its fat ass right on top of where I was living, and then it fucked me and made babies and that's how I was born.

Native is a kind of exception to me, at least until I get my mind around more things.

If you're of Irish ancestry and raised in the south, you don't get the culture. (Boston Irish seem to know a lot of the culture.) So, (and this is ill-thought-out, I know, but I'm still hashing things.) So you're ethnically Irish but seem less Irish (to me), at least until you've learned that green beer is frowned on and visited the mother country a time or two. I guess I'm seeing degrees of "being something."

But an Irish person in the south has opportunites, they have to go out of their way more than Boston Irish, but the opportunities exist. OTOH, part of the Native experience often seems to be NOT getting the culture, because genocide/blood quantum rules/fucked up adoptions/etc.

Quote from: stelz on April 18, 2013, 02:05:48 PM

Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on April 18, 2013, 07:00:09 AM
Here's a thought for you; because of my heritage I hold several different identities (as do most of us, actually, in one form or another) but the most difficult to reconcile one is of being both an American, and not-an-American, by virtue of the fact that Natives are not exactly members of the same political/social system as other Americans. So in a way I often feel like I'm inside the outside, looking in. Which probably doesn't make any sense.

I just don't feel like I belong to America, exactly. It wasn't made FOR me, it was made DESPITE of me, and I have to live in it whether I want to or not because it plonked its fat ass right on top of where I was living, and then it fucked me and made babies and that's how I was born.

Native is a kind of exception to me, at least until I get my mind around more things.

If you're of Irish ancestry and raised in the south, you don't get the culture. (Boston Irish seem to know a lot of the culture.) So, (and this is ill-thought-out, I know, but I'm still hashing things.) So you're ethnically Irish but seem less Irish (to me), at least until you've learned that green beer is frowned on and visited the mother country a time or two. I guess I'm seeing degrees of "being something."

But an Irish person in the south has opportunites, they have to go out of their way more than Boston Irish, but the opportunities exist. OTOH, part of the Native experience often seems to be NOT getting the culture, because genocide/blood quantum rules/fucked up adoptions/etc.

The Irony being that Irish people tend for the most part to be quite a racist people. They would not consider anyone born outside of Ireland Irish.

Yeah thats pretty true. I hear a comment or two whenever im over. One time it was pretty overt and directed at the bartender.

Quote from: Faust on April 18, 2013, 01:04:35 PM

I guess, if nationality was just the equivalent of personal expression and fashion I would be happier.

Irish people don't view me as Irish, and UK people do. Both with EQUAL disdain. Nationality is something I naturally mistrust and judge people on for identifying with it. Not because there is anything inherently wrong with nationality, but patriotism is a swear word to me, and so are the idea of the Us/Them division.

1st generation, off the boat paddys have a reason for all this - they remember the blarney and guiness and fuck the pope/queen

2nd and subsequent generations - WTF?

Strikes me there's a lot of bullshit going around this. Like some american tourist will get chatting to me in a bar and they'll proudly announce that their great great  grandparents were scottish. As if that means fucking anything. At all. Like they have a pass to "fit in" or some bullshit. Truth is they don't fit in. They have a funny accent and they've never gotten drunk on buckfast. Do I hold it against them? Fuck no. They have as much right to be on a given acre of this solar system as I do.

Quote from: Balls Wellington on April 18, 2013, 11:41:54 AM

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on April 17, 2013, 08:11:38 PM

Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on April 17, 2013, 08:08:23 PM
Not to butt in, but that would be extremely weird.

Yeah, it is.  It's very fucking weird.  In the space of 7 days, I have had two people I've known for years essentially state that I am in fact a second-class human.  Then they get pissed because I got pissed, because I have contradicted the high epopts of blanket fart huffing.

Let's just try this one on for size:

YOU ARE EXCLUDED AND EJECTED FROM YOUR HERITAGE BECAUSE YOU ARE A YANKEE PIGFUCKER.

Yeah, you don't get to have any fucking roots.  You don't get to have any link to your ancestors.  You have been judged and found wanting.  PASSPORT ENTITLEMENT OR GTFO, YANK.

Jesus fucking christ, dude. You're seriously picking a fight that isn't there. I mean, it's your thread so trash it if you want, but the INSTANT RAGING MASSIVE BUTTHURT at the slightest perceived slight just seems pointless.

I was referencing something said in another thread.  Pretty sure I linked to it.

Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on April 18, 2013, 04:59:27 AM
At the risk of derailing, when thinking about the politics of exclusion, what about Pinealists?

They call themselves Discordian, and I want to compartmentalise and exclude them from "My" Discordia.

Because fuck those guys. But aren't I doing the same thing we're saying is wrong?

I don't say they aren't Discordians.  Just that they're different Discordians than I am.

Quote from: stelz on April 18, 2013, 02:05:48 PM

Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on April 18, 2013, 07:00:09 AM
Here's a thought for you; because of my heritage I hold several different identities (as do most of us, actually, in one form or another) but the most difficult to reconcile one is of being both an American, and not-an-American, by virtue of the fact that Natives are not exactly members of the same political/social system as other Americans. So in a way I often feel like I'm inside the outside, looking in. Which probably doesn't make any sense.

I just don't feel like I belong to America, exactly. It wasn't made FOR me, it was made DESPITE of me, and I have to live in it whether I want to or not because it plonked its fat ass right on top of where I was living, and then it fucked me and made babies and that's how I was born.

Native is a kind of exception to me, at least until I get my mind around more things.

If you're of Irish ancestry and raised in the south, you don't get the culture. (Boston Irish seem to know a lot of the culture.) So, (and this is ill-thought-out, I know, but I'm still hashing things.) So you're ethnically Irish but seem less Irish (to me), at least until you've learned that green beer is frowned on and visited the mother country a time or two. I guess I'm seeing degrees of "being something."

But an Irish person in the south has opportunites, they have to go out of their way more than Boston Irish, but the opportunities exist. OTOH, part of the Native experience often seems to be NOT getting the culture, because genocide/blood quantum rules/fucked up adoptions/etc.

Irish-American is a subculture. Being part Irish does not necessarily make you Irish-American. There are subcultures around the country that are distinct enough to be described and named, like the German-American communities in Wisconsin and the Italian-American communities in New Jersey.

The point I'm trying to make is that there are actual American subcultures with these hyphenated names, which are distinctly different from being of Italian or Irish descent. They also have little to do with visiting the mother country, unless that's an intrinsic part of the subculture.

Huh, that's interesting. I've become aware recently of such a community but could not understand it, I assumed they're just racists, until now.

There's all kinds of Nordic stuff here, Nordic Ski, Finlandia Hall, Sons of Norway. They're really active together, especially with cross country skiing, they go bananas for that ski shit. I refer to them as Ski Jerks because snowshoes are more badass and I enjoy petty, needless rivalry.

I could not figure it out, but it makes sense if people build a subculture based on heritage. Thanks for pointing that out.

It IS elaborate LARPing, kinda.

It's everywhere, in all walks of life and at all levels. Reason? Basic monkey psychology, I guess. The popular (and totally fucking wrong, IMO) opinion seems to be that you can only be doing it right if everybody else is doing it wrong.

The kayak community is no different. On one side you've got people jumping in ultra-modern carbon or polythene boats, and getting their freak on touring around, exploring, expedition or extreming and on the other you have "greenland paddlers" who use boats styled after the original sealskin hunting boats and paddles that look like lollipop sticks and they get real anal about being able to do all 32 Inuit rolls and shit. And there are arguments aplenty, all stemming from one side telling the other they're doing it wrong.

Some twat in a weird costume that looks just like the sealskin thing the eskimos used to wear tells me I'm doing it wrong? What the fuck does he even know about what I'm doing? He's part of some historical reenactment society and I'm an athlete. Who's doing it wrong?

Neither of us, from where I'm sitting. Why is it so fucking hard for everyone else to accept this?

Quote from: Alty on April 18, 2013, 06:09:53 PM
Huh, that's interesting. I've become aware recently of such a community but could not understand it, I assumed they're just racists, until now.

There's all kinds of Nordic stuff here, Nordic Ski, Finlandia Hall, Sons of Norway. They're really active together, especially with cross country skiing, they go bananas for that ski shit. I refer to them as Ski Jerks because snowshoes are more badass and I enjoy petty, needless rivalry.

I could not figure it out, but it makes sense if people build a subculture based on heritage. Thanks for pointing that out.

It IS elaborate LARPing, kinda.

Try thinking about it like this; a group of people from the same culture who all speak the same language emigrate to an area, often a remote area, where they are strangers in a strange land. They understand each other and have the same food, holidays, and customs, so they form a community. Generations pass, and the community evolves and is influenced by the surrounding culture, and perhaps they all now speak the language of the dominant culture around them, but retain customs, cuisine, and celebrations, and continue to primarily associate with and marry within their group.

That isn't LARPing, that's how ethnic subcultures are formed.

Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on April 18, 2013, 06:35:39 PM
Neither of us, from where I'm sitting. Why is it so fucking hard for everyone else to accept this?

AND P3NT WINS THE INTERBUTTS.

Also, an Irish person really has no grounds to be offended by the idea of Irish-Americans.  It's none of their business what Americans call themselves.  I mean, if we're applying their standard.

I agree with all of this. There dominant culture also tends to shun new immigrant populations so they have to stick together. And as they evolve into the hyphenated american their customs become regional celebrations for outgroups too. Hence the asians wearing the green. Another side of that is once an immigrant population becomes well established in an area new immigrants from the same point of origin favor those areas. Hence dad coming to boston for temporary work and meeting mom. And aer lingus flying directly out of boston and new york.

Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on April 18, 2013, 06:36:31 PM

Quote from: Alty on April 18, 2013, 06:09:53 PM
Huh, that's interesting. I've become aware recently of such a community but could not understand it, I assumed they're just racists, until now.

There's all kinds of Nordic stuff here, Nordic Ski, Finlandia Hall, Sons of Norway. They're really active together, especially with cross country skiing, they go bananas for that ski shit. I refer to them as Ski Jerks because snowshoes are more badass and I enjoy petty, needless rivalry.

I could not figure it out, but it makes sense if people build a subculture based on heritage. Thanks for pointing that out.

It IS elaborate LARPing, kinda.

Try thinking about it like this; a group of people from the same culture who all speak the same language emigrate to an area, often a remote area, where they are strangers in a strange land. They understand each other and have the same food, holidays, and customs, so they form a community. Generations pass, and the community evolves and is influenced by the surrounding culture, and perhaps they all now speak the language of the dominant culture around them, but retain customs, cuisine, and celebrations, and continue to primarily associate with and marry within their group.

That isn't LARPing, that's how ethnic subcultures are formed.

Ah, like Cajuns! Thanks, Nigel.  :)

"You don't have the right to wear the traditional clothing of my people"

"You don't have the right to sing Give Me Shelter, cos you're Justin Bieber"

"You don't have the right to open an Indian cuisine restaurant, cos you're Norwegian"

"You don't have the right to eat meat cos you're squeamish about killing animals"

"You don't have the right to call yourself Punk cos you're fifteen and/or Green Day"

"You can't attend this cultural festival cos you're the wrong colour"

Trollbait!

You have as much right as anyone else to take an interest in the customs and traditions of your ancestors whether you bear any resemblance to those ancestors whatsoever, or not.

You have as much right as anyone else to take an interest in the customs and traditions of people who aren't your ancestors whether you bear any resemblance to those ancestors whatsoever, or not.

You have the right to pick up bits and pieces of any culture and tradition, mix them up with other shit, add your own personal invention and call it whatever the fuck you damn well please.

If you take the hump with this, then that's your bitch - go fuck yourself while you're getting over it.

What we're talking about, to a greater or lesser degree is "Racial Purity". What Hyphenated-Americans and, to the same degree, hyphenated-anythings are, is a bunch of fucking mongrels, arguing from on a stance of racial purity.

Does it get anymore retarded than than?

I'm not sure but I hate to say "never" on issues of retardedness. :lulz:

Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on April 18, 2013, 07:35:22 PM
"You don't have the right to wear the traditional clothing of my people"

"You don't have the right to sing Give Me Shelter, cos you're Justin Bieber"

"You don't have the right to open an Indian cuisine restaurant, cos you're Norwegian"

"You don't have the right to eat meat cos you're squeamish about killing animals"

"You don't have the right to call yourself Punk cos you're fifteen and/or Green Day"

"You can't attend this cultural festival cos you're the wrong colour"

Trollbait!

You have as much right as anyone else to take an interest in the customs and traditions of your ancestors whether you bear any resemblance to those ancestors whatsoever, or not.

You have as much right as anyone else to take an interest in the customs and traditions of people who aren't your ancestors whether you bear any resemblance to those ancestors whatsoever, or not.

You have the right to pick up bits and pieces of any culture and tradition, mix them up with other shit, add your own personal invention and call it whatever the fuck you damn well please.

If you take the hump with this, then that's your bitch - go fuck yourself while you're getting over it.

What we're talking about, to a greater or lesser degree is "Racial Purity". What Hyphenated-Americans and, to the same degree, hyphenated-anythings are, is a bunch of fucking mongrels, arguing from on a stance of racial purity.

Does it get anymore retarded than than?

I'm not sure but I hate to say "never" on issues of retardedness. :lulz:

This is kind of the correct motorcycle.

While I agree that people have the RIGHT to do all of these things, I have the right to laugh at Justin Beiber for attempting to do the Rolling Stones.  I have the right to laugh at white people wearing dashikis.  I have the right to laugh at damn near anything people do in an attempt to be someone else.

But you are correct about cultural purity being a wee bit too close to racial purity.

Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on April 18, 2013, 06:36:31 PM

Quote from: Alty on April 18, 2013, 06:09:53 PM
Huh, that's interesting. I've become aware recently of such a community but could not understand it, I assumed they're just racists, until now.

There's all kinds of Nordic stuff here, Nordic Ski, Finlandia Hall, Sons of Norway. They're really active together, especially with cross country skiing, they go bananas for that ski shit. I refer to them as Ski Jerks because snowshoes are more badass and I enjoy petty, needless rivalry.

I could not figure it out, but it makes sense if people build a subculture based on heritage. Thanks for pointing that out.

It IS elaborate LARPing, kinda.

Try thinking about it like this; a group of people from the same culture who all speak the same language emigrate to an area, often a remote area, where they are strangers in a strange land. They understand each other and have the same food, holidays, and customs, so they form a community. Generations pass, and the community evolves and is influenced by the surrounding culture, and perhaps they all now speak the language of the dominant culture around them, but retain customs, cuisine, and celebrations, and continue to primarily associate with and marry within their group.

That isn't LARPing, that's how ethnic subcultures are formed.

Think there's such a thing as cultural speciation? Like at some point (maybe when the hyphen's dropped, or the pidgin becomes a creole) does the subculture become a wholly unique culture? Are Cajun or Gullah their own thing?

I laugh at most shit. I don't even think that's part of the same issue although maybe it's related. I don't feel the need to campaign to have my government ban those people from making me laugh, I guess is what I'm talking about. On a side note, laughing in their face about it is rude.






... even when I can't help it  :evil:

Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on April 18, 2013, 08:17:35 PM
On a side note, laughing in their face about it is rude.

So is farting in an elevator, and if you say you don't do that, I'm going to laugh in your face.

TGRR,
Lights that bastard up.

Every people and their associate culture is a mutt anyway. In the case of the irish were a mix of gael scandinavian saxon french and whatever. Irish culture isnt the same as it was when we kidnapped that patrick dude since were not in the habit of animal sacrifice or owning slaves and the such. The idea of purity in any form is ridiculous since culture tends to be assimilative or it stagnates. Simultaneously people tend to resist change so it happens slowly. But i imagine more irish  americans drink guinness than the irish do. Irish people drink stuff like carlsberg. I drink guinness because i like it. I also drink sam adams cuz i like it. I drink pbr if its priced appropriately.

Quote from: Queef Erisson on April 18, 2013, 08:20:46 PM
Every people and their associate culture is a mutt anyway. In the case of the irish were a mix of gael scandinavian saxon french and whatever. Irish culture isnt the same as it was when we kidnapped that patrick dude since were not in the habit of animal sacrifice or owning slaves and the such. The idea of purity in any form is ridiculous since culture tends to be assimilative or it stagnates. Simultaneously people tend to resist change so it happens slowly. But i imagine more irish  americans drink guinness than the irish do. Irish people drink stuff like carlsberg. I drink guinness because i like it. I also drink sam adams cuz i like it. I drink pbr if its priced appropriately.

In other words, the culture being emulated stopped existing in Ireland some time ago.  So it moved from one place to another.

Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on April 18, 2013, 07:35:22 PM
"You don't have the right to wear the traditional clothing of my people"

"You don't have the right to sing Give Me Shelter, cos you're Justin Bieber"

"You don't have the right to open an Indian cuisine restaurant, cos you're Norwegian"

"You don't have the right to eat meat cos you're squeamish about killing animals"

"You don't have the right to call yourself Punk cos you're fifteen and/or Green Day"

"You can't attend this cultural festival cos you're the wrong colour"

Trollbait!

You have as much right as anyone else to take an interest in the customs and traditions of your ancestors whether you bear any resemblance to those ancestors whatsoever, or not.

You have as much right as anyone else to take an interest in the customs and traditions of people who aren't your ancestors whether you bear any resemblance to those ancestors whatsoever, or not.

You have the right to pick up bits and pieces of any culture and tradition, mix them up with other shit, add your own personal invention and call it whatever the fuck you damn well please.

If you take the hump with this, then that's your bitch - go fuck yourself while you're getting over it.

What we're talking about, to a greater or lesser degree is "Racial Purity". What Hyphenated-Americans and, to the same degree, hyphenated-anythings are, is a bunch of fucking mongrels, arguing from on a stance of racial purity.

Does it get anymore retarded than than?

I'm not sure but I hate to say "never" on issues of retardedness. :lulz:

At what point does respect come into play, though? I'm thinking here of the gay bar which is plenty friendly to straight people who wanna come in sit and have a drink, but more than a little off-put by weird ass gawkers who's sole purpose is to come in and call dude's "girlfriend," while they giggle and take pictures of their safari into gay culture.

If you're not welcome somewhere, you're not welcome. Gawking in that kind of way is kinda creepy. Creepy should be never welcome.

I would say they diverged but still influence each other to a degree. Plus america has the philosophy of do it bigger. Dont year a little green. Wear obnoxious amounts and shades of it.

Here's the thing that strikes me about culture - culture evolves and grows and changes and sometimes it stays exactly the same only because it imposes itself on a younger generation who are brainwashed by their predecessors with a load of shit about "you have to keep our great culture alive and pure cos of roots and who you are and all that good kool-aid shit"

And your holy culture must not be appropriated or diluted or changed in any way cos then it won't be your great culture anymore. Thing I can't help thinking is that if the culture can't stand up to being "raepz0rred" and it dies with the last old fart that just want's to do shit exactly the same as it's always been done then good riddance. The culture was shit. Humanity has voted.

Quote from: NoLeDeMiel on April 18, 2013, 08:23:27 PM

Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on April 18, 2013, 07:35:22 PM
"You don't have the right to wear the traditional clothing of my people"

"You don't have the right to sing Give Me Shelter, cos you're Justin Bieber"

"You don't have the right to open an Indian cuisine restaurant, cos you're Norwegian"

"You don't have the right to eat meat cos you're squeamish about killing animals"

"You don't have the right to call yourself Punk cos you're fifteen and/or Green Day"

"You can't attend this cultural festival cos you're the wrong colour"

Trollbait!

You have as much right as anyone else to take an interest in the customs and traditions of your ancestors whether you bear any resemblance to those ancestors whatsoever, or not.

You have as much right as anyone else to take an interest in the customs and traditions of people who aren't your ancestors whether you bear any resemblance to those ancestors whatsoever, or not.

You have the right to pick up bits and pieces of any culture and tradition, mix them up with other shit, add your own personal invention and call it whatever the fuck you damn well please.

If you take the hump with this, then that's your bitch - go fuck yourself while you're getting over it.

What we're talking about, to a greater or lesser degree is "Racial Purity". What Hyphenated-Americans and, to the same degree, hyphenated-anythings are, is a bunch of fucking mongrels, arguing from on a stance of racial purity.

Does it get anymore retarded than than?

I'm not sure but I hate to say "never" on issues of retardedness. :lulz:

At what point does respect come into play, though? I'm thinking here of the gay bar which is plenty friendly to straight people who wanna come in sit and have a drink, but more than a little off-put by weird ass gawkers who's sole purpose is to come in and call dude's "girlfriend," while they giggle and take pictures of their safari into gay culture.

In my experience, the gay tourists get either laughed at, read to filth, and take their money.

On a scale of "Friend of a friend met someone who seen one once" to "Last night the bar was exclusively gay tourists all looking disappointedly at the bar staff" just how common is this gay tourist phenomenon?

Never heard of it before but it's making me chuckle a bit.

Quote from: NoLeDeMiel on April 18, 2013, 08:12:32 PM

Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on April 18, 2013, 06:36:31 PM

Quote from: Alty on April 18, 2013, 06:09:53 PM
Huh, that's interesting. I've become aware recently of such a community but could not understand it, I assumed they're just racists, until now.

There's all kinds of Nordic stuff here, Nordic Ski, Finlandia Hall, Sons of Norway. They're really active together, especially with cross country skiing, they go bananas for that ski shit. I refer to them as Ski Jerks because snowshoes are more badass and I enjoy petty, needless rivalry.

I could not figure it out, but it makes sense if people build a subculture based on heritage. Thanks for pointing that out.

It IS elaborate LARPing, kinda.

Try thinking about it like this; a group of people from the same culture who all speak the same language emigrate to an area, often a remote area, where they are strangers in a strange land. They understand each other and have the same food, holidays, and customs, so they form a community. Generations pass, and the community evolves and is influenced by the surrounding culture, and perhaps they all now speak the language of the dominant culture around them, but retain customs, cuisine, and celebrations, and continue to primarily associate with and marry within their group.

That isn't LARPing, that's how ethnic subcultures are formed.

Think there's such a thing as cultural speciation? Like at some point (maybe when the hyphen's dropped, or the pidgin becomes a creole) does the subculture become a wholly unique culture? Are Cajun or Gullah their own thing?

Definitely! Like there's a language here called Chinook Jargon, it started as a trade language and it's a cobbling together of a bunch of indian languages, French, and English. When the Grande Ronde tribes were forced together onto a reservation (five unrelated tribes, each with their own language) the only way they had to communicate with each other was the shared trade language. Chinook Jargon is now the official language of the Grande Ronde, and most of the original languages of the five tribes are extinct. The Grande Ronde are a unique new culture in their own right, as are the Warm Springs.

Irish-American is really its own thing, in my opinion, regardless of the fact that the name is hyphenated. So is African-American and Italian-American. After a couple hundred years, if a group maintains its own distinct cultural identity, it's it's own thing regardless of what it's called.

Quote from: NoLeDeMiel on April 18, 2013, 08:23:27 PM

Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on April 18, 2013, 07:35:22 PM
"You don't have the right to wear the traditional clothing of my people"

"You don't have the right to sing Give Me Shelter, cos you're Justin Bieber"

"You don't have the right to open an Indian cuisine restaurant, cos you're Norwegian"

"You don't have the right to eat meat cos you're squeamish about killing animals"

"You don't have the right to call yourself Punk cos you're fifteen and/or Green Day"

"You can't attend this cultural festival cos you're the wrong colour"

Trollbait!

You have as much right as anyone else to take an interest in the customs and traditions of your ancestors whether you bear any resemblance to those ancestors whatsoever, or not.

You have as much right as anyone else to take an interest in the customs and traditions of people who aren't your ancestors whether you bear any resemblance to those ancestors whatsoever, or not.

You have the right to pick up bits and pieces of any culture and tradition, mix them up with other shit, add your own personal invention and call it whatever the fuck you damn well please.

If you take the hump with this, then that's your bitch - go fuck yourself while you're getting over it.

What we're talking about, to a greater or lesser degree is "Racial Purity". What Hyphenated-Americans and, to the same degree, hyphenated-anythings are, is a bunch of fucking mongrels, arguing from on a stance of racial purity.

Does it get anymore retarded than than?

I'm not sure but I hate to say "never" on issues of retardedness. :lulz:

At what point does respect come into play, though? I'm thinking here of the gay bar which is plenty friendly to straight people who wanna come in sit and have a drink, but more than a little off-put by weird ass gawkers who's sole purpose is to come in and call dude's "girlfriend," while they giggle and take pictures of their safari into gay culture.

That right there is the difference between self-identification and being a dick.

Back to the golden rule:

Don't be a dick.

Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on April 19, 2013, 12:05:09 AM
On a scale of "Friend of a friend met someone who seen one once" to "Last night the bar was exclusively gay tourists all looking disappointedly at the bar staff" just how common is this gay tourist phenomenon?

Never heard of it before but it's making me chuckle a bit.

If it's a true Boston gay bar, the straights will become massively uncomfortable when they realize the queers really DON'T GIVE A SHIT and will blow each other in the corner and openly mock the straights.

If at the drag show, they'll embarrass the straights into spending their money under the guise of entertainment.

Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on April 19, 2013, 04:42:32 AM

Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on April 19, 2013, 12:05:09 AM
On a scale of "Friend of a friend met someone who seen one once" to "Last night the bar was exclusively gay tourists all looking disappointedly at the bar staff" just how common is this gay tourist phenomenon?

Never heard of it before but it's making me chuckle a bit.

If it's a true Boston gay bar, the straights will become massively uncomfortable when they realize the queers really DON'T GIVE A SHIT and will blow each other in the corner and openly mock the straights.

If at the drag show, they'll embarrass the straights into spending their money under the guise of entertainment.

This.

There was one bar in Colorado that was unfortunately located right next to the skeeviest meat market in town, and it was horrible there. People would fucking go in on dares and shit. It was pathetic. The staff was predictably rude as fuck to straight people in general until you had proven that you weren't a fucking asshat. And it took quite a while to earn that trust.

OTOH, The Eagle up in North Portland, Bear Bar, dicks and fur and leather and altar-boy porn and such--yeah...not really so much of an issue with gawkers there.