... the Israel Arab conflict ...

[sarcasm]
You mean that wasn't settled during the Clinton Administration when Arafat and Rabin were the co-winners of the Nobel Peace Prize? [/sarcasm]

 

...for life... I guess that's the key. In order to keep this country together, we need a war. We need a war every generation, so that every person gets to experience that bond in their life time.

If the only thing that will keep your family together is to fight and kill other people then a divorce might help

 

If the only thing that will keep your family together is to fight and kill other people then a divorce might help

Lol of course I was being hyperbolic there. Expressing dismay with what I perceive to be true human nature.

This divorce you speak of, I think that's what's happening. We aren't fighting and killing people, so we're growing stale in marriage and divorcing. But there will be a rebound marriage and we will get back to fighting and killing soon enough.

 

I wonder if next they're going to demand banning the letter "K" from the alphabet:

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/students-rename-building-called-lynch-president-35657225

 

I wonder what the U.S. Attorney General has to say about that.

 

I wonder if next they're going to demand banning the letter "K" from the alphabet:

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/students-rename-building-called-lynch-president-35657225

Has anyone else noticed how all of these "spontaneous" student demands bear real strong resemblances to each other. Gee, almost seems like they're being orchestrated.

In this case, I wonder how many of these protestors are even faintly aware of where the term originated. Although there is some debate, my understanding is that it dates to the American Revolution in which a Virginia plantation owner who headed a county court jailed British Loyalists without trial. There was nothing racial in his actions at all -- in fact I believe he refused to punish several black men accused of murder because he didn't feel there was sufficient evidence -- and I don't even know that any of his punishments were capital. After the war, he pushed Congress (not the U.S. Congress, which didn't exist yet, but the Congress of the Confederation under the original Articles of Confederation) to pass a law exonerating him, which I believe that it did. This law was derisively nicknamed the "Lynch Law" and "lynching" referred to ANY punishment of ANY kind done outside the legal system. However, "lynching" (by other names) has been around forever and still goes on in places throughout the world on a regular basis.

The demands by these students reveal, more than anything else, how poorly educated they really are AND how they are incapable of comprehending that a word used in one context is often completely unrelated to that same work used in other contexts.

As an aside, why aren't they complaining about the chief law enforcement officer of the United States being named "Lynch" -- that should sent nightmarish tremors throughout their bodies. Yet it doesn't appear to bother them at all. Wonder why.

 

...Gee, almost seems like they're being orchestrated.

In this case, I wonder how many of these protestors are even faintly aware ...

... that their protest is orchestrated?
... who is orchestrating the protest they're engaging in?
... that the ideas they're vomiting aren't their own original thoughts?
... that they're parakeets?

Even if you could get them to listen to you long enough to prove all this to them, they would dismiss it; they wouldn't care. It would be as if you had said nothing at all, or, actually worse than that probably - you'd be a bigot.

Because they need a boogeyman and they've already selected a suitable candidate.

 

[QUOTE="strantor, that their protest is orchestrated?
... who is orchestrating the protest they're engaging in?

Well that's PC. for you. No more blackboards, no more black and white films, only coloured (sorry that might be offensive to some). Even in The Netherlands the old tradition of Sintaklaas has been changed. He formerly used to turn up on December 5 with his helper Zwart Piet. Now that has all changed. It was considered to be demeaning to non-white people. For example the BDS campaign on university campuses. How many students (or for that matter professors) have really any idea as to what it entails? They just follow blindly - just like in '1984'..

 

If your first thought about a word is negative, maybe you should grab a dictionary to see what the word means.

Your lack of comprenhension is your problem, not mine.

 

If your first thought about a word is negative, maybe you should grab a dictionary to see what the word means.

Your lack of comprenhension is your problem, not mine.

Not anymore. If you use a word that makes someone feel uncomfortable, then YOU are the guilty party and must publicly apologize and pay penance. Otherwise you are blaming the victim.

 

Sumat depends on your job. Most times I just walk away.

 

Not anymore. If you use a word that makes someone feel uncomfortable, then YOU are the guilty party and must publicly apologize and pay penance. Otherwise you are blaming the victim.

I think that the question here is, how did it come to this?
I mean, this didn't just happen overnight.

 

I think that the question here is, how did it come to this?
I mean, this didn't just happen overnight.

Have you read the article in the OP and the subsequent ones that have been offered up? If not, you might find them enlightening. They talk, in part, about how we got here and how damaging "here" is. Not a lot new and surprising, though it does tie a few things together that might not have been obvious. But basically it's what has been talked about for years -- we are raising kids with the notion that they have to be protected from anything that might hurt their self-esteem and pampering them into believing that they deserve to be pampered and should not have to suffer any negative consequences for anything that they do.

 

We have met the enemy and they are us. There are too many with guilty consciences and they too have no concept of the language.

Their comprehension is weak. The contemporaneous definition is NOT the only use for a word. Their vocabulary skills need to improve.

That is one problem moderators deal with when a forum has multiple generations in their membership in another forum I visit.

I wish them luck when their feelings are hurt because they didn't get that high five figure job. But at least they will learn a new phrase ... do you want fries with that?

 

I think that the question here is, how did it come to this?
I mean, this didn't just happen overnight.

Oh, and no, it did not happen overnight. It almost certainly started (or at least significantly accelerated) with the baby boomers. The WWII generation, having come out of the depression and the nightmare of global war and into a nuclear-threatened world, overcompensated and wanted to give their kids all the things they didn't have and wanted them to enjoy life before all the mushroom clouds started appearing. With the advances in technology and the post-war economic boom, doing so was not only possible, but very easy for many of them. Not too surprising that these kids became grew up to become the "flower children" of the 60's. Each generation has just been turning the slide downward at ever steeper angles.

 

Have you read the article in the OP and the subsequent ones that have been offered up? If not, you might find them enlightening. They talk, in part, about how we got here and how damaging "here" is. Not a lot new and surprising, though it does tie a few things together that might not have been obvious. But basically it's what has been talked about for years -- we are raising kids with the notion that they have to be protected from anything that might hurt their self-esteem and pampering them into believing that they deserve to be pampered and should not have to suffer any negative consequences for anything that they do.

I've read every article posted in this thread, and found them fascinating. My question is still the same, because it bothers me that things have gone on a one way street only. First loud minorities demanded tolerance, then they demanded acceptance, and now they demand that their views be imposed on the majority. And it hasn't stopped there, now they're intolerant, unacceptant and aggressive on those who disagree with them. Things have now come full circle.
So, yes, I agree that the articles posted here make a pretty good case on some of the root causes. But I can't help but feel that something is amiss here. My personal view is that the masses have forgotten the past, that they have either been fed a whitewashed or simply a false version of historical events, and are now making judgements and taking actions that go against the grain of everything that our civilization has worked so hard to attain. It's like if our previous generation was impregnated with guilt, and now this one is determined to get payback for everything that in their imagination and twisted sense of justice was done upon them.

 

I've read every article posted in this thread, and found them fascinating. My question is still the same, because it bothers me that things have gone on a one way street only. First loud minorities demanded tolerance, then they demanded acceptance, and now they demand that their views be imposed on the majority. And it hasn't stopped there, now they're intolerant, unacceptant and aggressive on those who disagree with them. Things have now come full circle.
So, yes, I agree that the articles posted here make a pretty good case on some of the root causes. But I can't help but feel that something is amiss here. My personal view is that the masses have forgotten the past, that they have either been fed a whitewashed or simply a false version of historical events, and are now making judgements and taking actions that go against the grain of everything that our civilization has worked so hard to attain. It's like if our previous generation was impregnated with guilt, and now this one is determined to get payback for everything that in their imagination and twisted sense of justice was done upon them.

I think you are in the ballpark at least. Certainly what is happening defies any simple explanation and there are lots of complex factors all interacting in complex ways. There are probably a handful of key factors that, if any were removed or altered, would have had a fundamental impact on the path we have taken, while many other factors would have just altered the trajectory somewhat. I think one of the fundamental factors is that our (and not just the U.S., but much of the developed world) have enjoyed such a quantum shift in productivity and standard of living that lots of people that previously would have spend all their time and effort just feeding, clothing, and sheltering their family now have time to worry about less fundamental needs and desires with an aim of improving things and, at the same time, feeling guilty because they have that time and others don't and still struggle just to meet the essentials. Another major factor, somewhat related, is that people are able to meet the basic needs with far fewer skills and less knowledge than in previous generations and so many of them are willing to settle for having fewer skills and less knowledge. They also then tend to place less value in skills and knowledge in general. Add to that the plethora of people that are willing to promise the moon for free (or, even better, that "the rich" will pay for it) in exchange for some of your freedom, and you have a positive feedback system that runs amok since the people making the promises know that their tactics are more effective as more and more people become more and more unskilled and less and less knowledgeable.

 

I think you are in the ballpark at least.

Thanks for the compliment.

more people become more and more unskilled and less and less knowledgeable

That's usually the red flag signaling the beginning of the end of a civilization. I also consider the knowledge of history as part of those skills being lost, and not just the technical ones. And when that happens, a complete misunderstanding of the reality of human nature is spawned, and people start demanding and accepting things that are, if not self-destructive of the individual, then of society as a whole.

 

That's usually the red flag signaling the beginning of the end of a civilization. I also consider the knowledge of history as part of those skills being lost, and not just the technical ones. And when that happens, a complete misunderstanding of the reality of human nature is spawned, and people start demanding and accepting things that are, if not self-destructive of the individual, then of society as a whole.

Absolutely agree. Can we say, "Bread and circuses"?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses

 

Are they being orchestrated? Are they being orchestrated?!?

I apologize for the repetition...

Or is the combination of the similarity of the participants, similarity of their motivations and the relevance (or lack thereof) of the protest cause, meld into a common perceived experience?

Like many of you, I was of an impressionable age in the late 60s, and saw another generation of protests. Read “Loose Change” by Sarah Davidson to get an idea of the era’s zeitgeist. It was not altogether altruistic! I see many of today’s protests as a mirror of the 60s protests. Let’s get together and damn the man and have a little nookie on the side.

Just my 2 cents...