posted
I don't think Rabbit thinks she's admirable, judging from her previous comment. I think Rabbit's just done what I've been trying to say-- she's been accurate in order to correct somebody.
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quote:The blunt, pathetic reality today is that a little old lady has died, who in the winter of her life had to water roses alone under police supervision. If you behave like there's no such thing as society, in the end there isn't. Her death must be sad for the handful of people she was nice to and the rich people who got richer under her stewardship. It isn't sad for anyone else. There are pangs of nostalgia, yes, because for me she's all tied up with Hi-De-Hi and Speak and Spell and Blockbusters and "follow the bear". What is more troubling is my inability to ascertain where my own selfishness ends and her neo-liberal inculcation begins. All of us that grew up under Thatcher were taught that it is good to be selfish, that other people's pain is not your problem, that pain is in fact a weakness and suffering is deserved and shameful. Perhaps there is resentment because the clemency and respect that are being mawkishly displayed now by some and haughtily demanded of the rest of us at the impending, solemn ceremonial funeral, are values that her government and policies sought to annihilate.
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: You could say the same for Stalin. Doesn't make him admirable.
Teshi pretty much nailed it. My intent was to correct factual errors of a somewhat sexist nature that had been posted and not to imply any admiration for Thatcher. If anything, those I pointed out traits lower her in my regard. She has no one to blame but herself for the mistakes she made.
I've never found power be to a reason to admire a person, regardless of how it's won. After all, Hitler also rose from fairly modest beginnings to become the democratically elected leader of a major nation.
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That 'democratically elected' bit, in Hitler's case, needs a big old asterisk.
Anyway, recognizing skill and perseverence don't necessarily guarantee admiration. I can say to continue an example that Hitler was an excellent or even brilliant orator in a particular style, but I in no way admire him for it-in fact his perversion if that skill is one of many transgressions.
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quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: That 'democratically elected' bit, in Hitler's case, needs a big old asterisk.
And why would you argue that? The Nazi party undisputedly won the 1933 elections in Germany. What about that deserves 'a big old asterisk'?
If you want to talk about democratic elections that deserve a 'big old asterisk', let's start with George W. Bush, (or really any US President).
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I want to be much snarkier than simply referring to the possibility of being snarky, given your second paragraph, but I'll avoid the (extra) snarkiness, above and beyond mentioning it, and simply point out the recurring words such as violence, intimidation, and of course one particularly dubious act of arson.
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I want to be much snarkier than simply referring to the possibility of being snarky, given your second paragraph, but I'll avoid the (extra) snarkiness, above and beyond mentioning it, and simply point out the recurring words such as violence, intimidation, and of course one particularly dubious act of arson.
Your link went to a cut-down article, for some reason. Here is the full Wiki link:
But yeah, to call the 1933 German elections "democratic" isn't quite accurate. The Nazi party had rather un-democratic tactics:
Widespread ban for newspapers that supported opposing parties. Violent attacks on party meetings. Intimidation of party officials. Burning down the parliament building and successfully blaming the opposing party, etc.
In the 1932 elections - The last relatively free elections in Germany - The nazi party lost popularity and got 33% of votes. This resulted in Machtergreifung - Essentially a take-down of the government by the Nazi party. Which gave them a better position to terrorize other parties, and to rig the election to their benefit.
Even then, they got just 43% of votes. A coalition with other parties allowed them to change the laws and turn Germany into dictatorship.
Without Machtergreifung and the rigged elections, this would have never happened. Nazi party was losing popularity, and they fought back, resulting something that hardly can be called a free and fair election.
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Yeah but that all pales in comparison to Bushitler.
. . . It really, inordinately depresses me that my iPhone does not try to autocorrect Bushitler, despite my never having typed it in before now. Jeez iPhone, partisan much?
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I have a hard time believing Rabbit knew about the history of the 33 elections and still held up Dubya as a worse example.
As for your iPhone, it's not uncommon for words to go uncorrected if you either start out with a capital, which for Bushitler I suspect you did, or when you don't if it stretches out into something strange. I just tried on mine and when I capitalized, no autocorrect offer at all but when I didn't there were offers on nearly every letter except the first and last.
Hitlerbush no autocorrect. Stalincheney offered Stalin Henry. As for Mussobama when I started at the beginning of a sentence, many offers presumably because the capitalization meant less but when I tried in the middle, and capped it, no autocorrect.
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Bush won because of the institutions failing to uphold popular will due to partisanship on ideological grounds. Hitler got appointed because of stresses the nascent German Democracy could not have withstood.
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That's just absurd. Even the strongest, harshest criticism of the 2000 election that doesn't descend into Truther-level conspiracy doesn't include things like campaigns of violence, mass imprisonments, and Congress being torched and pinning it on a Democrat.
It does not 'depend on perspective'.
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quote:Originally posted by Elison R. Salazar: Bush won because of the institutions failing to uphold popular will due to partisanship on ideological grounds. Hitler got appointed because of stresses the nascent German Democracy could not have withstood.
You know, I consider myself a fairly literate person, and am pretty used to reading dense, dry, convoluted articles and manuals. But I can't even begin to decipher this. What the heck are you talking about?
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quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: That's just absurd. Even the strongest, harshest criticism of the 2000 election that doesn't descend into Truther-level conspiracy doesn't include things like campaigns of violence, mass imprisonments, and Congress being torched and pinning it on a Democrat.
It does not 'depend on perspective'.
Um yes it does, because in one case the system should and could have prevented an undemocratic result but it failed, leading to human death and suffering. While the other result was a system that could not under any circumstances of prevented a undemocratic result leading to human death and suffering.
It doesn't matter here, whether the german undemocratic result was a result of intimidation, and so on, because a long standing democracy with strong institutions would have prevented or held out against it.
While to repeat, the OTHER result SHOULD have been prevented, there's every reason to believe so, if it weren't for a 5-4 decision.
Right now you have the GOP being Lite Nazi's in their own voter suppression efforts, but there's push back; the courts are for the most part holding out. Sometimes the VRA is outright preventing voter suppression from happening at all. So the United State's democracy is strong and has plenty of evidence to suggest it is capable of preventing undemocratic results.
But, down to one state and its EC votes, hinged on about a few thousand uncounted votes (iirc) and they weren't counted because of a partisan SC decision.
I am saying this is worse, because of the shame of it, it was preventable, the other wasn't.
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quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: I have a hard time believing Rabbit knew about the history of the 33 elections and still held up Dubya as a worse example.
As for your iPhone, it's not uncommon for words to go uncorrected if you either start out with a capital, which for Bushitler I suspect you did, or when you don't if it stretches out into something strange. I just tried on mine and when I capitalized, no autocorrect offer at all but when I didn't there were offers on nearly every letter except the first and last.
Hitlerbush no autocorrect. Stalincheney offered Stalin Henry. As for Mussobama when I started at the beginning of a sentence, many offers presumably because the capitalization meant less but when I tried in the middle, and capped it, no autocorrect.
I appreciate your evenhanded attitude. Heh.
The sad thing is that I didn't capitalize it. The iPhone auto-corrected in the capitalization. Similarly, "kenyobama" doesn't autocorrect but I think that's just a function of it being so long and inexplicable. It didn't auto-capitalize or anything.
In fairness, though none of the examples you've got had anywhwere near the traction of Bushitler. It was a pretty widespread meme for a while there. So it may not be partisanship on Apple's part so much as acknowledgment of the word.
Also I guess it's possible maybe I made fun of the Bushitler meme once before on my phone and I forgot. For true impartial testing I'd need to wipe my dictionary and try it again, but I'm not willing to do that.
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quote:Um yes it does, because in one case the system should and could have prevented an undemocratic result but it failed, leading to human death and suffering. While the other result was a system that could not under any circumstances of prevented a undemocratic result leading to human death and suffering.
Could we please-please-skip this process this time? You said something absurd. Perhaps in your head it wasn't absurd because you meant to say something different. That's fine! If so, consider restating your thoughts in a different way and we'll move on. It's fine. People do that all the time-myself included.
Rabbit originally suggested that the 1933 elections in Germany were more democratic than the 2000 elections in the US, and you said this depending on 'historical perspective'. It doesn't. I have actually seen posts of yours that convince me you know more about the history of the runup to WWII than to actually believe this.
Your objections don't even make sense. Even if your assertion that American electoral institutions are only in place to put forward popular will-there's more to it than that-it still would be ridiculous to suggest this is an equivalent sign of a flawed democracy to massive campaigns of terror and violence.
And Nazi-Lite? You're than this, and less froth-mouthed. For everyone's sake and not least your own, because I know you hate where this conversation will be heading if it keeps this path, please be that smarter dude.
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posted
On a further related note, the Weimar Republic government could absolutely have prevented the violence and intimidation leading up to the 1933 elections had many prominent actors high on politics and the military at the time not decided, for a variety of reasons, not to regard Hitler and the Nazis as either a solution to other problems or something that could be coopted and later set aside.
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quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: It does not 'depend on perspective'.
Well, in a way it does. You can have a wrong historical perspective, and convince yourself of such comparisons using it.
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quote:"But, down to one state and its EC votes, hinged on about a few thousand uncounted votes (iirc) and they weren't counted because of a partisan SC decision."
Frankly, the change of a electoral result by the mere suppression of a few thousand votes in a nation of dozens millions, indicates an "undemocratic-ness" of the result which is only one part in ten thousand.
If we're to quantify undemocracy wouldn't you say it's less undemocracy if the winner cheated his way e.g. a rightful 49.9% up to 50.1%, vs someone who cheated e.g. a rightful 7% up to 50.1%?
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quote:Well in fairness to me, I was celebrating Chavez's death as well.
In fairness to the people who celebrated Chavez's death, he was also an active leader and therefore they thought his death may have done good on the whole.
So was Osama Bin Laden, another death people celebrated. He was an active leader of Al Qaeda.
While Margaret Thatcher has not been involved with politics in a long time for more that a decade, and not been a political leader for more than TWO decades -- nd nobody is actually thinking her death might turn UK to a positive direction. The expressed joy over death seems less like actual joy over an actually good event, it seems just sadistic glee.
Anyone who is joyful over her death, anyone who thinks her death is a good event, were you calling for her to be arrested and sent to prison for whichever crimes you think she committed? If she deserved death for her deeds, she must have surely deserved imprisonment, right?
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She was an evil person, she did and said evil things, and the news of her death brought me honest pleasure. I'd have strangled the bitch myself if I could have. I don't really care what that says about me, I already know what I am. I care even less what it makes some Greek whose country lives and eats off the work of every other European country think of me. And for that matter, most of the Americans commenting on her don't really know anything about her either. La di dah, first woman prime minister. Maybe tomorrow we can celebrate the first senior citizen to do a mass school shooting.
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Keesh - Lol. There's nothing tough about strangling a senile old lady. If you think there is, I suggest you hit the gym.
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quote:Originally posted by Dan_Frank: Also I guess it's possible maybe I made fun of the Bushitler meme once before on my phone and I forgot. For true impartial testing I'd need to wipe my dictionary and try it again, but I'm not willing to do that. [/QB]
Okay, so I tested it on another iPhone of the same model. Her iPhone's autocorrect helpfully suggested "busboy let" so it looks like Apple's off the hook.
I must have typed Bushitler at some point in the past. I take back my ridiculous and unserious outrage.
posted
For the record, I didn't think you were seriously outraged. I was actually curious myself about whether the word would be recognized.
Tittles, oh, my, you're right. Killing people is so easy and it's just a matter of muscle. Sooooo tough and cynical! And the way you have regret about being that way. Dreamy. Not anything like the amusing posturing of an Internet badass, oh no.
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Keesh, what exactly is your point, here? Are you claiming that, given the chance, I wouldn't do it? I guess you'll have to win this one by default, seeing as how the old bag is dead and gone already. But congrats upon your victory. Ride forth, brave internet warrior.
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And people kill other people all day, every day. You might think it's tough. They don't seem to.
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I could, perhaps, if I hadn't given up already. I regret the circumstances and my own crap choices that led me to where I am. But now? I am what I am, and unfortunately I'm the only me that I have. So I'll continue to plod along and support my family until they hopefully put their lives into some semblance of order, and then I'm going to paint my walls a lovely grey matter color. Until then, people can deal.
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For those in disbelief about how I feel, I wasn't alone. Too bad I was on the wrong side of the pond, or I would have joined one of the parties.
posted
I like how in that article the words celebrate and party were continually put in quotation marks, as if the editorial board disagreeing with it made it so the party goers weren't really celebrating and enjoying a party.
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quote:Originally posted by Tittles: For those in disbelief about how I feel, I wasn't alone. Too bad I was on the wrong side of the pond, or I would have joined one of the parties.
If people celebrate your death, you're doing it wrong. Maybe.
I wonder what will happen when Dick Cheney dies. I might just break my diet and have a couple of cold beers, a large cheeseburger with a side of chili, and some cheese fries...and then, about 24 hours later, make a deposit on his grave.
posted
Eight million pounds of the public's money is going to pay for this worthless hag's funeral. This champion of reduced government spending and privatization.
I mean, for that much you could buy every Scotsman a new shovel, have them dig a hole straight to hell, and hand the bitch over to Satan personally.
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I'm waiting to see what kind of security and surveillance is going be around her gravesite. Because if it's not good next time I visit the motherland I'm definitely going to get a picture of me pissing on her grave.
Hmm, I wonder if that'll turn into a new facebook or reddit group over the next few years. "Post your (unidentifiable!) picture of you defacing Thatcher's grave."
Nah, probably not. They'll have armed guards and cameras on it. They know what'll happen otherwise.
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posted
Nothing about your behavior around here lends credibility to your little sob story of grimly endured suffering, but since you're so deliberately a jerk so consistently it's tough to gauge what part of that evaluation is simply bias and what isn't. It's laughable that you would apply the label 'Internet warrior' to anyone around here, given how neatly you fit so many of the species.
If y'all wanna gloat over Thatcher's death, sure, have fun-as much for many for the pleasure of being seen doing it, no doubt. But the next time we manage to kill another bin Laden type, remember this, and keep your sanctimonious prattle to yourselves.
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quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: Nothing about your behavior around here lends credibility to your little sob story of grimly endured suffering, but since you're so deliberately a jerk so consistently it's tough to gauge what part of that evaluation is simply bias and what isn't. It's laughable that you would apply the label 'Internet warrior' to anyone around here, given how neatly you fit so many of the species.
If y'all wanna gloat over Thatcher's death, sure, have fun-as much for many for the pleasure of being seen doing it, no doubt. But the next time we manage to kill another bin Laden type, remember this, and keep your sanctimonious prattle to yourselves.
I wasn't unhappy when Bin Laden finally got deaded. I just worry about who ELSE might be trying to blow me up besides that bunch of wild and crazy guys. There's no point in celebrating when there are still dangerous mofos out in the world.
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Oh, I'm sorry, I'd forgotten the part where I wept bitter tears over Bin Laden's death. Perhaps because it never happened? I hear strawmen make for good beating, though, so carry on.
And god forbid that I not look credible to you, Keesh. Lol. Mayhap you can spare us some of your psychiatric knowledge. If I were REALLY a bitter, angry, suicidal asshole with no way out of my many problems, how would I REALLY act? Do tell.
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quote:I wasn't unhappy when Bin Laden finally got deaded. I just worry about who ELSE might be trying to blow me up besides that bunch of wild and crazy guys. There's no point in celebrating when there are still dangerous mofos out in the world.
Then by all means, kindly pipe down about Thatcher, as there's no shortage of politicians-prominent ones in leadership positions of major countries and institutions-who respect her methods and ideals.
Did you even think that response through, at all?
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quote:Oh, I'm sorry, I'd forgotten the part where I wept bitter tears over Bin Laden's death. Perhaps because it never happened? I hear strawmen make for good beating, though, so carry on.
Since that's not actually what I said, your accusation of straw man is, well, very in character for you.
As for the rest, I don't know what such a person might do. I do know what the deliberate jackass variety of Internet Warrior does, though, so for you I'm thinking horse and not zebra. But if I was wrong and you were being honest, I'm uncertain why on Earth you'd care about Internet opinion in the midst of your grim, bleak existence with crushing burdens.
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There are plenty of politicians that piss on her ideals and policies. How will we sort this out, then? Whoever has the most votes wins?
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Oh, I'm sorry, what exactly did "keep your sanctimonious prattle to yourselves the next time a Bin Laden type dies" mean? Was I wrong to assume that meant that we were the pansies crying about Osama getting executed without trial? What DID it mean, then?
You're missing the point. I don't actually care. But I'll be sure to use sarcasm markers next time, to help you out.
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quote:I wasn't unhappy when Bin Laden finally got deaded. I just worry about who ELSE might be trying to blow me up besides that bunch of wild and crazy guys. There's no point in celebrating when there are still dangerous mofos out in the world.
Then by all means, kindly pipe down about Thatcher, as there's no shortage of politicians-prominent ones in leadership positions of major countries and institutions-who respect her methods and ideals.
Did you even think that response through, at all?
Perhaps the celebrations can act as some kind of deterrent to other, living politicians. Certainly quietly accepting a lack of compassion in elected officials is not necessarily always the best response.
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According to Steven, it doesn't make sense to celebrate bin Laden's death because there are many more like him left.
There are certainly, even and perhaps especially in the worldview that considers her noxious, many more like Thatcher. So...celebrate why, exactly?
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quote:Perhaps the celebrations can act as some kind of deterrent to other, living politicians. Certainly quietly accepting a lack of compassion in elected officials is not necessarily always the best response.
That's a lovely false dichotomy you've got there, did you make it from scratch?
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