NEW DELHI — Rohail Manzoor thought he had what it took to work in a telephone call center. All he had to do was pick up the phone and answer queries from American customers about their long-distance bills. He was armed with lessons on how to speak English like the Americans — adjust the r’s, say “zee” instead of “zed,” “mail” instead of “post.”
He even called himself “Jim,” and figured he would pretend to be an American customer service agent.
Rohail Manzoor, a soft-spoken call center employee in New Delhi, has dealt with many hostile U.S. callers. A survey said the calls are “psychologically disturbing” for workers. (Rama Lakshmi For The Washington Post)
But nothing prepared him for the shower of curses that came his way when he picked up the phone one night on the job.
” ‘You Indians suck!’ an American screamed on the phone,” recalled a soft-spoken Manzoor, 25. “He was using a lot of four-letter words, too. He called me names left, right and center.”
Call center executives and industry experts say abusive hate calls are commonplace, as resentment swells over the loss of American jobs to India.
[SNIP]
“When some callers are unhappy with the service, their frustration often turns racist,” said Amit Narula, 25, a call center agent. “They would say, ‘This is why you should not handle our work. Indians are not good enough.’ “
PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) can cause counter-racist behavior. It can cause people to be afraid of not only citizens of a nation, but also people from any group imaginable even including political parties. I’m not saying that it is justified, but that it is understandable.
Even animals have to be retrained after having been subjected to abusive owners.
People’s first impressions about a nation sometimes can occur by the very first experience and/or person that they meet. But if they are repeatedly abused (in this case, Indian call center agents), their counter-racist (or prejudiced) behavior can be more severe and outrageous. It could eventually turn violent.
A member of a Canadian Forum called Vivelecanada, said the following which really hit me hard:
Collective guilt is a fundamentally flawed concept. Germans were not collectively guilty for Hitler’s crimes in any way that humanity in general wasn’t guilty for in producing such a monster.
Races, families, tribes, nations, bridge clubs or gangs do not commit crimes. Individuals commit crimes. Individuals can cooperate in the commission of crimes, but each are individually guilty only for their own specific role.
These evils arise when we classify people according to convenient labels and collectivize them. Lepine and Hitler both collectivized their respective enemies, and this is their first step in dehumanizing them.
It’s easier to hit or kill a stereotype, a label, a proxy for a group or a faceless mass of people than it is an individual human being. Collectivization is the first step in dehumanization. The next step is the atrocity.
If you’ve ever picked up a pet from the Humane Society and notice really, really odd abnormalities with your furry fellow, it can be narrowed down to PTSD where the previous owner was abusive. Dogs, for example, react to “first impressions” or “repetitive impressions” similar to that of humans. They may begin to hate all mail-men as the dog was victimized by one, for example.
This is what started the Nazi regime. Hitler had it in for the Jews. The story of Adolf Hitler has many versions. Maybe we’ll never know what really happened. But from what I had learned, Hitler’s father was a Jew. He was extremely abusive toward Hitler. Hitler then developed an unwavering hatred toward Jews as a whole, and he got the nation of Germany to believe that Jews (and other groups as well) were evil due to his pseudo-nationalist party. I say pseudo because it was just a way to grab the hearts of the Germans (with a hidden motive) being that there was a world-wide depression going on at the time. He won over the German people due to what good he DID do as a leader. He actually DID help Germany in many ways – at least enough to persuade the German people that he was genius and “for the people”.
Once he had the Germans where he wanted them, via “racial cleansing”, he began to exterminate the Jews among other groups as well. Deep down inside, he was really Right-winged. If he had initially started out leading from the far Right, I wonder if he would have had the support from the people like he did.
The hatred these Indians are receiving over the telephone is not tenant of the “American culture”. Replace the US with another country, and you’ll find people doing the same or worse. People are somewhat anonymous over the phone, you know. Surely, the receiver of the call knows YOU, but your family, co-workers, and friends (the people you may put on an act for) don’t know that you resorted to racist and hurtful insults to the Indian guy on the other line.
I used to work for both travel agencies and one major airline as a call center representative. I became jaded and a bit hardened after that experience because customers can be assholes ranging from subtle condescending language to foul and blatant abusive attacks. I intellectually exaggerated that the majority of whom I spoke with were rude, but in reality, they were the minority. The exaggeration that I made it out to be at the time, was a way for me to cope.
The reasons customers can be so abusive over the phone is because they are anonymous and they are taking out their miserable lives on YOU. Additionally and most importantly, customers know that you cannot fight back or you’ll get fired!! This is mainly why some prey on telephone operators. There’s a big difference between taking a REAL issue with an airline that needs to be resolved and becoming personal with the agent on the other end who has NOTHING to do with your problem. I am 100% American, and I experienced what the Indians are experiencing now in New Delhi and other places where American businesses have planted themselves. The difference between me and the New Delhi agent is that the attacks made upon me weren’t racist.
If YOU have ever worked in a call center before, you know EXACTLY where I’m coming from!! It is pure HELL. You learn that not Americans (I worked for an international airline/travel agency), but ALL PEOPLE —– SUCK!
It is my opinion, however, when people are attacked more than a few times, they make a mountain out of a molehill and exaggerate their experiences. A LOT doesn’t mean the majority! After I calm down and revisit the nightmare experiences that I had with customers, I realize that the asshats in proportion to the neutral or nice ones, were the minority.
What I am trying to say is that all it takes is enough or one bad experience with “a type of species” to develop a sweeping hatred toward the group that the abuser came from. If counter-racism should occur, those attacks and the victimization will just get worse. The victim is just further victimizing himself. Counter-bigotry, in my opinion, should be dealt with on a more professional and peaceful level as in — see a therapist!!
Now, we have to figure out what differentiates a person who is a victim of racial attacks and doesn’t resort to collectivism versus one with the same experience who does? Child abuse? What do YOU think?
Do you think we Americans take for granted how good we have it here in some respects? Do you think there may be a reason why some coming back home from other countries learn that Americans aren’t so bad after all?
Unlike Europe, Americans seem to need expert guidance for everything, from how to wash clothes properly, cook an omelette, invest in shares or have sex. Every small aspect of their life seems to be guided by research findings, which are often doctored by the media to fit corporate and government interests. If they travel, they have travel staff and books giving them directions and guidance for every small aspect of their trip.
When I speak of Americanophobia and Ignorance, the above is what I’m talking about. It’s almost sad how grossly misinformed these people are. But I believe this is part of the “Americans are so spoiled, stupid and entitled” that they often speak of on their blog – hence my bringing it up here. And being that it’s so far-out-there and wickedly funny, I couldn’t but hesitate to share!
Maybe some of you can help me out – or bring perspective here in case I’m genuinely missing out on something.
What is “expert guidance”?
Expert guidance to do laundry? How can I get an expert to come to my home and show me how to make my husbands dirty socks from years ago look brand new? Any takers? A laundry expert? Let me check the Yellow Pages….
To cook an omelette? Oh, sorry… I forgot. In Europe, people are born knowing how to cook an omelette. Europeans don’t need instruction from anyone. It’s all innate. Damn they’re smart! Is there an “expert way” versus the traditional way that I’m missing out on here?
Surely, human beings from all over the world learn from their parents… But an expert guidance to cook? What in the world would that entail? I’m sincerely curious, here. My mother, for example, loves to cook and she’ll watch some cooking shows on TV to get IDEAS, but she’s good enough a cook to be able to do it HER way. Even beginner cooks have to get some ideas from somewhere in the case that they didn’t have a mother kind enough to show them the ropes.
Has any American tried cooking Japanese Ozoni before? I taped my friend cooking it in Japan so that one day I can make it on my own.
Oh shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit! I am guilty as charged!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am a stupid American!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Expert guidance to have sex? There are people all over the world that have problems with erections, having an orgasm, have performance anxiety, and have problems in that area in general. I know for a fact that *some* sexual abuse victims have a hard time enjoying sex again following the horrific event of being raped and need intense therapy.
I’m not stupid enough to believe that problems with sexual function is an “American phenomenon”. What are these poor people supposed to do? Stay a virgin or unsexed the rest of their lives as it would be “too American to seek help”??? That falls under psychological and sometimes physical problems.
I reckon that in Europe, there exists no psychiatrist, psychologists, proper doctors, self-help books of any kind, or knowledge of PTSD. No sex therapists? Sorry. I’m not gullible enough to fall for that.
Investing in shares? How do you not get expert guidance in doing so? Obviously the author of that blog has never 1) lived in the states, and 2) never needed to invest shares in this country. Most people that help are crooks, so without guidance, we lose our hard-earned monies.
Every small aspect of our lives need expert guidance? Really? How? Where? Why? When? And proof please that this is “all-American”? How compared to 194 other countries out there? Yoga started in INDIA. It is medicinal both to aid physical and emotional problems. There is ALWAYS a yoga pose that can be done for every little ailment one may have. And that’s no exaggeration! So, I suppose that citizens living in India are Americanized – all the way back from thousands of years ago before America’s birth???
When my doctor told my husband to cut his toenails from the top and not the sides, does this make him one of those “typical yanks” that need “expert guidance”? I’m genuinely confused.
Apparently we all research too much. We want to make the best out of our lives. We want to do things right. Perhaps, we don’t have the time to “guess at things” or can afford to play “trial-an-error” when we’ve got a family to raise and both mom and dad are working through the day?
Ironically enough, the above excerpt from the zany chauvinists puts Americans in a GOOD light, if you think about it.
It shows that …
We are perfectionists, or don’t like to make mistakes
We can get VERY passionate about our hobbies
We are humble enough to seek knowledge and ask questions
We are curious and have a deep thirst for knowledge
Research keeps us broad-minded and away from having narrow perspectives
We are critical thinkers and encourage opinions from other sources
We are INNOVATORS because we always find the best ways to do things!
Yes. You can look at it that way too, you know. How is ignorance cured? By learning. This is as basic as breathing. Who knows? Maybe Americans are the most intelligent people around? Ok. That may be a far stretch, but it’s something to think about.
The most important lesson I brought back from high school and college is the importance of asking questions. This reminds me of a favorite Chinese proverb:
“He who asks a question is a fool for five minutes; he who does not ask a question remains a fool forever.” – Chinese Proverb
If you read Bruce Bawer’s “Hating America”, it just reinforces how Americans aren’t afraid to admit to ignorance. The difference between an American and an Americanophobic snobby European is that while we are both ignorant, Americans are honest enough to admit it. Just because one hides their ignorance doesn’t mean they’re not ignorant.
At least where I have received my education, my teachers generally encouraged classroom participation as in answering “on the spot” questions from our teachers, being encouraged to ask questions, and being able to debate and discuss current events or whatever the topic at hand was. Of course, it depended on the class I took, but philosophy, psychology, history, logic, law, criminology and the like brought on mental stimulation. The mental stimulation comes from learning to think for oneself which in turn allows for one to use “critical thinking” over the “herd-mentality” or the “because she said so” thinking.
I don’t know how other country’s citizens are taught in school, but if classroom participation and raising your hand is an American phenomenon, than our education really isn’t as bad as made out to be. I’d rather become intelligent or a critical thinker than be good at solving a calculus equation, know exactly how long it takes to get from Mars to Venus, or learn how to memorize a lot of stuff that won’t be utilized later on in life. Priority and practicality is key.
Does anyone else not find it curious that we are criticised for not reading enough, and then when we do read, we are criticised? I mean, we read travel guides, travel books and carry them to Europe and other countries. But the Canadians, Japanese, Brazilians, New Zealanders, Moroccans, Jamaicans, South Koreans, Chinese, Mexicans, and Colombians don’t? I reckon the creation of tour guide services and travel books were created just for dumb Americans?
Actually, it is more common for the Japanese to use tour services when on vacation than Americans, but that’s a whole ‘nother topic.
I like Americans very much. In fact, I adore them. Americans are an open book. We wear our hearts on our sleeves. It is evident by this that we care less compared to other countries about what others think of us. We are confident. We are also down to earth. What makes me proud of my own people in general is the fact that we are open and don’t hide our weaknesses and ignorance. We don’t have as many airs about us, comparatively. There is a lot wrong with my country, but this is where I love this place so much. It’s a place where people are allowed and even encouraged to be human.
This is American-style freedom.
That totally rocks!
Speaking of what rocks, some of the best “expert advice” I received was when I was living in Japan. If anyone has lived in Japan for any length of time, people would realize that Japan and the US aren’t different in this regard at all. Actually, believe it or not, despite a lot of differences, the Japanese, S. Koreans, Canadians, the Chinese and the Americans share A LOT of cultural similarities when it comes to the so called “expert guidance culture”. Wanna bet that this includes Europeans too? That’s why it bugs the hell out of me to hear so much redundant ignorance coming from the flapping traps of the over-confident and self-aggrandizing Hitler sympathizers hiding behind a veil of puritanism.
Because of this blog, I am realizing how much I had been taking for granted in my country. Americans are honest. And I cherish honesty – even if its something I don’t want to hear. I am damned lucky to live among honest folk. (No, not our politicians, but the average man in the street)
So, Aby and co., thank you for this opportunity to make me even more grateful toward my fellow compatriots. It’s one of those benefits of Americanophobia that I speak of. You alienate us whilst bonding Americans and making us learn things about ourselves that we should feel proud of. Thank you for the cultural comparisons.
Since Nationalism is the center of a lot of cross-border debates, I find it important to introduce this article on Canadian and American Nationalism. While the focus is on relations between Canada and the United States, some of what is mentioned in this literature is relevant beyond Canada and extends to Europe and the rest of the world.
My personal comments will be based upon the text that I have bolded out.
Nationalism unites people of different classes and ideologies. It can create harmony, link our past to our present and give a people a sense of identity. But nationalism is also a tool used by dictators, despots and power-hungry politicians alike. It can create violent and mighty forces as well as divide people from different geographies. It is used to exaggerate differences, foster generalizations and cause discriminatory thinking. These two halves of nationalism can perhaps best be viewed in the context of World War II. Churchill, Roosevelt and King used nationalism to unite their nations against brutal enemies for the preservation of democratic civilization. Hitler, Mussolini and Tojo exploited nationalism to fuel an expansionist voracity the likes of which the world had never seen before. Therefore, we observe from history that nationalism can be a force for self-preservation, heroism and honor, or for vengeance, conquest, enslavement and dishonor.
This is why I am beginning to learn that those people from other countries that are bigoted toward Americans (not critical of US policies, but bigoted – big difference!) are staunch Right-wing nationalists in their own country. Those individuals I had once thought were on the far Left, are on the Right with a few exceptions.
[SNIP!]
While nationalism is a strong force in both the US and Canada, the expression of it is quite different on people divided by the arbitrary border line. The difference is not due to ideology or culture, but should be understood in historical and psychological terms. In many ways, the imagined differences are more powerful and divisive than any true realities.
One of my major complaints about Sarah Palin was her divisive speech and politics. Whether she was aware of what she was doing or not, she was encouraging a more clear split down the middle to separate America into two Americas: Right America vs Left America.
Americanophobes are equally guilty of dividing the masses as opposed to uniting them. But what else can we expect from xenophobic organizations?
The author then proceeds to explain how Canada was born. Then a psychologist takes the stand:
“If you step back, it’s very hard in objective terms to plot out what are the true differences between Canadians and Americans… Humans have a strong capacity to construct identities for themselves. It’s largely a social process of construction. Some of it is taking small differences and making them seem bigger. A lot of it comes not from the differences, but from feelings of a sense of identity. It’s tough to find things on which to hang an identity for all the English-speaking Canadians. It’s not really a language that makes them distinct. It only makes them distinct from French-speaking Canadians. It makes them more like the U.S. to focus on language. Food doesn’t work very well because, by and large food in Canada is the same as in the United States. What are you left with? Well there’s geography. It’s clear that if you live in Canada as opposed to the U.S., there’s a border between the two. There aren’t a lot of things onto which you can pin a distinctively Canadian culture, other than growing up and learning that you’re Canadian and not American. It’s identity by negation rather than affirmation.“
Thousands of Americans personally? Naw. Nobody with half a brain would fall for that. In my 40 years of being alive, I’ve never met so many people.
Visits to the US? Being a “captain” in the military, this wasn’t for pleasure, but for business. I wouldn’t consider that to be “seeing” the US.
Working and living with Americans for more than a decade? That’s very vague. And still, nobody will believe that all or even most of the Americans you met were these evil monsters that you make them out to be.
Rape is more prevalent in Canada and Australia. In the US, Americans rape Americans every day. Justice is not always absolute – anywhere in the world.
So, what is this guy’s point?
There is A LOT that Canadians should be proud of. There really isn’t a reason in modern times to identify themselves with negativity. Rather, the focus should be on the positives.
Pamala Sutton, a Canadian Expatriate living in the states tried to challenge her fellow Canadians in asking them if they could focus on a POSITIVE Canadian identity rather than the tired cliché “I AM CANADIAN because I’m not American” ho hum. It’s quite a challenge for some Canucks, you know?
Back to the original article:
There are of course many differences between Canadians and USAmericans, but there are few, if any, national differences that one can point to beyond the psychology of understanding that you are Canadian or USAmerican. As noted Canadian journalist and author, David Frum has pointed out:
“What we have here is one large, English-speaking North American culture with a number of components, of which Ontario is one, Western Canada is another. It’s true that you can get in a car at Anchorage and drive diagonally southeast until you hit Miami and speak the same language, use the same credit card, pump gas the same way. I think you’d be struck much more by the similarities than the differences. And the places where you would notice dissimilarities would not match the border.”
And more importantly…
While Canadian nationalism can often be described in these reactive terms, as largely an identity based on non-Americanism, the reverse is not true in the United States. As Canadian poet Margaret Atwood once said, this leaves Canadians looking through a one-way mirror into the United States, with USAmericans largely blind to on goings behind that mirror. USAmericans are far less likely to compare and contrast themselves and their country to Canada and Canadians. If they do, they are even less likely to look at Canada with contempt and righteous indignation. USAmericans largely look towards Canada with friendly feelings, and see Canadians as cousins or even as brothers and sisters, which of course was literally the case before the American Revolution.
This is what irks me the most about Americanophobia! The same can be said about Europeans as well. Both Europeans and Canadians are favored by the majority of Americans. Our media is generally good to them as well (with the exception of France on occasion). It’s really the case of “We’re nice to you, but you’re not nice to us”.
Try to imagine making this more personal. Think about being nice to someone because you like them just to have them be mean to you and all the people you know on top of it.
Since this second-class citizenship is undesirable, and since Canada could never match the United States in measurable terms due to relative size of populations, many Canadians often describe themselves as more civilized, peaceful and kind. Canadian historian George Woodcock notes it in this manner, “Canadians make up for their physical weakness by assuming an air of moral superiority towards the Americans, not unlike that which Scots assumed towards the English”. One example of Canadians acting out this idea is the strong Canadian belief that Canada is a nation of peacekeepers. According to the UN, Canada ranks 38th in UN peacekeeping, with 233 peacekeepers abroad working in UN peacekeeping missions as of Dec 2003, supplying less than 1% of international peacekeepers. Ghana commits about ten times the number of peacekeepers, at 2,306 while only having 60% of Canada’s population. Many will then go on to contrast their imagined leading role in international peacekeeping against the world policing of the United States. Even though Canadian soldiers have stood side-by-side with USAmericans in nearly every military action (UN-mandated or not) the US has taken. The only two notable exceptions being the Vietnam War and the recent Iraqi conflict, both of which were highly debated in both countries.
I really wish, not just Canadians, but everyone to stop telling Americans that they’re “peacekeepers”. People have really bastardized what that word means!
I would also like to point out that contrary to popular belief, Canada *DID* invade Iraq with the US. It’s amazing how many foreigners don’t know this.
So the next time a proud fellow citizen tells you that Canada didn’t join the Iraq War, remind them of Mark Twain’s famous quip: “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”
To continue with the article…
Many other Canadians have attached themselves to the belief that Canada is “a kinder and gentler nation” (ironically a phrase taken from President George H. W. Bush). Yet, when put to the test in terms of philanthropy “Americans give over two-and-a-half times more of their income to charity than do Canadians”, according to a Fraser Institute of Dec 2003 report. The average value of charitable donations in the United States is $3,494 US; the average value of donations in Canada is $998 CDN ($760 US). An argument could be made that this difference is largely due to higher levels of disposable incomes in the US coupled with a less demanding tax burden. However, little can be shown to prove that in contrast to the United States, Canada is a nation consisting of kinder gentler individuals. Finally, United Nations ratings in Human Development have often been used in the past as a basis for Canadians to point out their superiority. Since the most recent report ranks Canada one spot below the United States, this sort of talk has subsided into sullen silence.However, it was not that long ago that many argued loudly that this mere collection of three basic indicators: Life Expectancy, Literacy/Enrollment and PPP, determined which was the greatest nation on earth. The same individuals who trumpet this sort of thing usually ignore reports done by other institutions that put Canada beneath the United States. Of course, this is not a phenomenon unique to Canada. Comparisons such as these, which match up countries often, help fuel nationalism everywhere.
Helping fuel nationalism: I’ve read through many, many blogs of all sorts and rantings from those all over the world. Is it not very telling that if you venture into an Americanophobic blog that you will, without a doubt, find “research” that compares…
The Swiss to Americans
The Brits to Americans
The Canadians to Americans
The French to Americans
What is this? It’s called Nationalism.
—>Will we ever find the Swiss being compared to Equadorians?
—>Will we ever find the Brits being compared to Canadians?
—>Will we ever find Canadians being compared to New Zealanders?
—>Will we ever find the French being compared to the Japanese?
Nope.
All foreign research is [Country A] vs [America].
That speaks volumes right there. This probably also explains why many Americans attribute this juvenile behavior to jealousy and/or short man syndrome.
In any event, why the need to compare and contrast cultures, anyway? I can understand comparing the health benefits of dark chocolate vs milk chocolate, but comparing cultures in quasi-formal “studies”? How is this useful other then intending to hurt the feelings of others?
Some Canadian nationalists will point to differences in medical care, gun control, capital punishment, drug laws and more recently gay marriages. But these differences are in governance, not culture. British Columbia and Alberta have made moves to offer privatized medical care, but this makes them no less Canadian. California and Oregon have tried moving towards more universal healthcare programs, but they do not become less USAmerican by doing so.
JFK once said, “Let us not seek the Republican answer or the Democratic answer, but the right answer.”
One could say the same about America and Canada when change is trying to take place. Just replace the words “Republican” and “Democratic” with “American” and “Canadian”.
Another argument offered by those who believe that imaginary lines draw real differences, is that Canada is more left wing than the United States. Although a large number of liberals reside in northern North America, describing Canada in ideological terms offers at best a momentary snapshot of an evanescent state of affairs. Just as in the United States, Canada has experienced several shifts from left to right and back again over the course of its political history. Indeed, Canadian politicians in the late 1800s touted Canada’s lower taxes in contrast to the tax-and-spend USAmericans.
Anyway, yes, the US goes through political stages between Right, Left, and in between throughout history just as any other nation out there. Does not anyone remember Margaret Thatcher? How did Obama get elected by a supposed “right-wing dominant country” such as America?
Nearly all the lavish social programs in Canada, that some say define Canada today, were first created by the United States. Still, it is hard to dispute that today there are small differences between the attitudes of average Canadians and USAmericans.
[SNIP!]
All the major differences we find between Canada and the United States are regional. For example, the people of Arkansas when compared with the people of British Columbia are vastly different (in North American terms). They speak with a different accent; they have slightly different customs, cuisines and cultures. In short, if you put the average British Columbian in the middle of Arkansas, everyone would know that he/she wasn’t from there. But put that B.C.er in Washington State and it would difficult for a native Washingtonian to know he/she wasn’t a Washingtonian. One might argue Seattle and Vancouver are virtually identical, especially when compared to Little Rock. The same could be said when comparing Manitoba and Minnesota to Newfoundland, Ontario and Michigan to Wyoming, the Maritime Provinces and New England states to the Yukon, etc. Overall, the differences between the United States and Canada are best seen regionally, not nationally. We do not have thousands of years of differing histories; we do not have generations upon generations brought up to believe completely different societal values; and we do not speak different tongues or exist within confined communities unable to travel outside our own borders.
When will people understand that the US is way too diverse to pigeon-hole? We aren’t one or the other. We’re a little bit of everything – despite what the BBC, the CBC and trashy tabloids will brainwash you with.
One such region that does speak a different tongue, and one that some would describe as a nation unto itself, is Quebec. Quebec nationalism is perhaps the biggest irritant to Canadian nationalists, because without Quebec, Canada would be much smaller and much less culturally different from the United States, overall. Quebec is also often used by Canadian nationalists as an example of what makes Canada unique. Although most Canadians outside Quebec know little French, there is a strong tendency for English Canadians to attach themselves to French Quebec as a means of distinguishing themselves from USAmericans. This is directly related to the anti-American sentiments that many have. From time to time Quebec has risen up and attempted to separate from the rest of Canada, but each time the rest of Canada (and in the past Britain) has managed to quell the movements. English Canadians will vehemently argue that Quebec belongs in Canada. Yet, they do so somewhat hypocritically. They rally and cry that the differences between Quebec and English Canada are slight and we ought to be together, yet the differences between Canada and the US are too great, and we ought to be separate. It would appear that based on this view the true defense of the sovereignty of the political entity known as Canada is defined by “the narcissism of small differences” as Sigmund Freud would say.
Let’s once and for all set the record straight, shall we?
ENGLISH CANADA IS NO MORE BILINGUAL THAN THE UNITED STATES! Canadians speak as much French as do Americans speak Spanish as their second language.
Even Euronationalists that brag incessantly about being “multilingual” are full of toad poop!
Some of the positive aspects of Canadian nationalism include ideas such as freedom, democracy, peace, good government and multiculturalism. Of course, the same ideas also define the United States. Canadian multiculturalism is sometimes distinguished from US multiculturalism as being diversity vs. assimilation. This is reinforced in Canadian minds by the USAmerican habit of describing the US as a melting pot. To many USAmericans multiculturalism and melting pot are interchangeable. Certainly, there is quite a bit of assimilation within US culture. People are encouraged to learn English, and often find it most convenient to conform to North American norms. This isn’t really any different from Canada, where the government also awards learning English (and French) and helps people acclimatize themselves to North American lifestyle. A Farsi-speaking Iranian cannot move to Canada, work there and live a normal life without adapting to his surroundings, just as he would have to if he moved to the United States. Both countries welcome diversity.
This entire essay basically spells out Canadian ignorance.
Despite the large overall commonalities of North Americans, when contrasting USAmerican nationalism against Canadian nationalism, few parallels can be found. As mentioned previously, these are largely self-made identities created by the human mind. If one accepts this notion, it would be safe to assume that, for example, a US-born flag-waving US nationalist who has a propensity to embellish the greatness of his native USA, if born in Canada, instead would be a flag-waving triumphalist Canadian nationalist, and vice versa.
People all over the world believe that it is only the Americans that are nationalists. Yet, another example of the ignorance that stems from hate.
Contrary to what Juan McDaniel and his Nationalist Eurosociopath pack of wolves believe, I personally don’t think that America is the best country in the world. I don’t even know if there is a formula to determine such a complexity? But I will say that I am not ashamed or apologetic to give Americans credit where its due. I will be quick to passionately defend my people as well. I am an American patriot. I am grateful to be an American. This is not nationalism – this is patriotism. At the same rate, I will also call out America where she deserves harsh criticism. This is not unpatriotic as some of my fellow Americans would like to believe – either.
There is good and bad everywhere, and what separates a nationalist from a patriot is ignorance outside one’s borders and even within.
Feel free to read more about Nationalism here. I’m willing to bet that most Americanophobes don’t even know what that word means.
The first point I want to make I feel is the most important point. Americans don’t have any more of an arrogant self-entitlement syndrome than your average European nationalist or child abuse victim from any country.
In case you missed it, America is a Neo-Capitalist nation. (Not by my choice – not by my liking) In the USA, we are on our own. We must fend for ourselves. We grow up learning that we must WORKfirst to get what we want. And we work damned hard to get what we want. Yes, even harder than Japan. In other parts of the western world, the pressure to work is unmatchable compared to Americans. People of Europe, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia all have the envied luxury of being taken care of by their Nanny government. You can work if you want to or find any excuse in the book NOT to work.
Some Americans like myself started working since they were fifteen. Aside from Christmases and birthdays, as I was approaching my mid-teens, there was nothing that I was “entitled” to unless I worked for it even if that meant doing household chores. I got my first real salary from a company at age 15 washing people’s hair in a beauty shop, working in a rectory, babysitting, and doing other odd jobs here and there. I learned to appreciate the value of a dollar at a very young age. This is the life I have gotten used to – the norm. I wasn’t alone. Most families here in the states work very alike – not because we want to as much as because we HAVE to. Because we cannot fall into the erect nipple of Nanny Government anywhere nearly as easy it is to do in say, Europe.
A Euronationalist extremist group who seemingly has spent time looking for watching “American” tourists has come to the conclusion that Americans have a “sense of entitlement” problem. To quote this person who calls himself by multiple names – one being “Captain (Dr.) Alexandr Vasilevski”…
If you don’t like the criticisms, close down that American sense of entitlement and arrogance.
First of all, INDIVIDUALS should be criticised – not groups based on one’s origin unless you’re into Neo-Nazi-collectivism.
So… What is an “American sense of entitlement?” – I asked myself. And then I remembered something. I worked for a major airline for several years. My customers were from all over the planet. I must say that some Americans got under my skin for being overly demanding in situations that didn’t warrant it. This made my job VERY hard. Being the “uncouth boor and wild savage” that I am, it took a lot of tongue biting to get through the inanity of it all. However, being that I worked with international customers as well, I had also learned that there were certain other nations equally guilty of the “me me me” mentality. Those groups of people I will not mention. I will say, however, that the majority of these people came from third world countries.
And those from developing countries are ANYTHING but spoiled.
You see, the Americanophobes believe in some sort of a misconception that Americans are all spoiled and rich and that must explain how arrogant they act overseas.
I would like to take this time to challenge my Americanophobic and even non-Americanophobic audience on this particular stereotype.
Most people make the same mistake as they think of America as being one of the richest and most powerful nations. After reading my link up above, you’ll see that we are far from spoiled, and in all actuality, quite the opposite. Americans as well, also mistakenly think that we are the most spoiled, but that’s only because those same Americans don’t know what life is like in other 1st world countries.
I sometimes jokingly call the US “the most developed third world nation”, but if you think about it, we have been mirroring some similar qualities you’d find in a developing nation.
Which brings me to my point.
Those people who possess the “me me me” mentality are only that way due to not having been brought up in a loving, warm, and well-disciplined family structure. Some form of child abuse calls for this type of annoying behavior because truly happy and stable people aren’t self-aggrandizing and do not expect or demand waivers or favors in a situation where it’s not justified. This has nothing to do with being “spoiled”. This is neither a phenomenon of the “rich” or those that hail from the United States. This is a trait of a LARGE percentage of HUMAN BEINGS out in the world.
Having an abnormal sense of entitlement comes in all shapes, sizes, flavors, colors, and textures. Some Euroelitists may not see the ill of their own due to “blind nationalism” – hence they put the blame on another nation. The one they love to hate:
America. At least when you’re in doubt…
This is one example of how reflexive Americanophobia results in confusing Australians with Americans.
An 8-year-old Arizona boy charged with premeditated murder in the deaths of his father and another man shot each victim at least four times with a .22-caliber rifle, methodically stopping and reloading as he killed them, prosecutors said Monday.
I’m not going to share my opinion just yet, but let me ask some rhetorical questions:
Can children be born evil?
Well, let’s see… he had the perfect all-American dad. His dad taught him how to hunt, spanked him regularly and was innocently trying to discipline his child. With that said, why is his child a bad boy? Don’t we usually blame the lack of spankings on such violent kids of our modern times?
Right? Every time kids commit violent crimes, the conservatives blame it on “lack of spankings”. Well,… this little boy got his.
Although investigators initially said they thought the boy might have suffered severe physical or sexual trauma, they have found no evidence of abuse, said Roy Melnick, the police chief in St. Johns, Ariz., where the shootings occurred. Psychologists say such abuse is often a factor in the extremely rare instances in which a small child murders a parent.
What in the world constitutes “evidence” of abuse? Just because a psychologist says…….
An investigation found no evidence that the boy had had disciplinary problems at school or shown signs that he was troubled, Chief Melnick said. “That’s what makes this case somewhat puzzling,” he said, adding that the court had ordered a psychological evaluation for the boy. “Our goal is to get him some help.”
Puleeeeezzz. This case is not puzzling. The fact that some find this case “puzzling” just goes to show you how dim some people are.
Why is an 8 year old child getting training on how to use a gun and to hunt? HE’S EIGHT YEARS OLD! Back in my day, boys were playing softball, soccer in the streets, basketball in their front yards, climbing trees, and throwing eggs at random passing cars. The most violent were using bb-guns and their own fists.
The boy in Arizona was no stranger to weapons — his father, an avid hunter, reportedly trained his son to shoot prairie dogs — and psychologists said that might have played a role.
DEFINITELY! The kid learned that life was insignificant. And at such a young and impressionable age. That in and of itself is child abuse. You never expose the innocent to that.
This particular case says a lot more about our times, doesn’t it? Interestingly enough, it is around that age and earlier that little kids start to be trained on how to use guns in the MIDDLE EAST.
Parents are very rarely parents any more. They are just breeders. The only reason they have kids is to gain control over the powerlessness they feel as adults. Mistakes in family generations are repeated. The cycle continues. This kid was only doing what he was taught. Violence was all he knew. The concept of Life meant nothing. He became desensitized by learning how to kill for the sake of the kill.
“The wrinkle here,” Dr. Heide said, “is that this boy is so young, it could possibly be immaturity and impulsivity.” In children as young as 8, parts of the brain that weigh decisions and consequences are so underdeveloped that a child might not understand the finality of death.
Didn’t he learn from his hunting lessons that when you shoot, the subject DIES. Look at the methodical style he used against his dad? The kid knew what he was doing.
Mr. Carlyon said the boy told the police that he had been spanked at home the night before because he was having trouble at school. But, the prosecutor said, the boy “did not say that was the reason he committed any of the acts.”
Well, of course he’s going to deny the reason. He’s protecting himself from embarrassment. His father taught him to be “a man”, not a weenie Liberal who can’t take a beating and some “rough-housing”.
I sympathize with the kid. Hopefully this will teach a lesson to future parents or people having sex to use condoms when they’re not ready to procreate.
My readers who know me realize that I’m ultra-conservative when it comes to crimes and punishment, but for this one — give the kid some counseling. I don’t think he’s too old to figure out the dynamics of what just took place here.
End Note:Just in case any knee-jerk reactionaries come here, I DO support the 2nd amendment. But this particular case goes above and beyond that. There’s a big difference between gun owners for self-defense and gun-owners who are irresponsible. This little boy’s dad was, sadly, the latter.
WASHINGTON, Nov. 5 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Marc R. Stanley, Chairman of the National Jewish Democratic Council (NJDC), released the following statement:
Although some votes are still being counted, there are three certain outcomes to this election. The next leader of the United States of America will be President-elect Barack Obama, the Democrats have increased their lead in both the Senate and House, and American Jewish voters have once again overwhelmingly supported the Democratic Presidential nominee.
Obama clinched the vast majority of the Jewish vote, receiving 77% according to MSNBC exit polls Tuesday evening (Senator John McCain received 22%).
We congratulate Obama and Vice President-elect Joe Biden on this historic victory. This year, the American people and Jewish voters sent a clear message rejecting a continuation of four more years of failed Republican policies and leadership.
With Obama’s victory, we selected a candidate who shares the values of the vast majority of American Jews, including the separation of church and state, a strong U.S.- Israel relationship, and reproductive freedom.
American Jews have always made up the majority of our Progressive population here in the United States. Additionally, it is common knowledge that Jewish Americans are critical thinkers and more intelligent than your average American. Most of them graduate from high school and college with honors, they are self-sufficient, less violent, rarely do you find them on welfare, most of them are in very professional careers, and they make more money than most.
They are family oriented, good looking, health-conscious, get married and have children.
Jews – religious or not – are rarely found to be fanatical and obsessive about their religion. It is a private issue for them. They are not interested in “spreading the word” or “recruiting new members”. I respect them for that. That alone makes them more tolerant and considerate of their neighbors.
Jewish people have a deep thirst for knowledge, and can be very kind people too. THAT’S why they are liberals. Not the estranged far Leftists, but Liberals – by its very own definition.
Republicans secretly (and sometimes not so secretly)hate Jews for this. Republicans hate the amount of money Jews make and they are jealous of their success. And to find out that they are *gasps* Liberal Progressives, only cements that hatred.
Jewish people are, by far, the most successful people. They are always winning Nobel prizes. As of today, they are up to their 159th Nobel prize and counting! They havedone more for the US than we’ll admit or even begin to appreciate.
And the above is what irritates Republicans. Neo-Conservatives want the Liberals to be the “blacks-n-Mexicans on welfare” party so badly. And they are pissed that it isn’t the case. When you ever hear a Neocon talking about “socialism”, you’ll hear them make derogatory generalizations about the Democratic party saying that we are all just “lazy jobless welfare-mongers” out to get a free ride (of course with the exception of Joe the Plumber ). When they hear that 78% of the Jews voted for Obama, they realize that the stereotype of the the liberal is incorrect.
So, they press the panic button.
They go into a sweaty-palmed frenzy and try to brainstorm reasons as to why the Jews mostly vote liberal. I have heard all sorts of wild and desperate justifications that just make me shake my head:
Jewish Stockholm Syndrome: “The Jewish Americans have always been oppressed by the Democratic Party that they have bonded (aka trauma-bonding) to their oppressor and can’t let go”. (In other words, they have a severe cast of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder that they’re in denial of.)
They have “Jewish Guilt Syndrome”. (Once again, a suggestion that they are neurotic)
“Voting for Obama is pretty much like lining up to enter the boxcars.”(Here suggesting that they are suicidal and/or very depressed individuals – again shows mental instability.)
“The majority of American Jews are non-observant, and therefore have no vested interest in Judaism or Israel. Observant Jews understand what they face under Obama, and rightly voted for McCain.” (Heavily suggesting here that there is a correlation between being God-fearing and informed, and that those who aren’t God-fearing are ignorant and clueless.)
This is what the far Right would rather believe that all Liberal Democrats just want to stay at home, play video games and get paid by Hitler Obama to do so…. which is just utterly ridiculous. And it says quite a lot about the far Right’s own intelligence and mental disposition that THEY are in denial of.
Sadly enough, the Right-wingnuts have deduced Rahm Emanuel to not being pro-Israel as he is a “Liberal” too. And a Liberal cannot possibly be pro-Israel. However, the Left are upset because they feel Obama has already abandoned them.
Go figure…
Just look at the below blog entry and comment section over at Moonbattery.com. The far Righteous 10-commandment-following Right is supposed to be the party of “Judge not less be judged”, tolerance, and most importantly pro-Israel and pro-Jew. I thought it was supposed to be the far Left that were anti-Semites until I read the comment section following this post:
Now, I do not believe that general American liberals are anti-Semites. I’m sure there are some on the far Left in the US. But where this bigotry is the most noticeable for me is in other western civilizations such as Europe, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia. To them, Jews (no matter their place of birth) are Americans. And your average American is hated passionately in these areas by the Americanophobic Left-wingnuts.
Unlike the far Right, the far Left Americanophobes are unaware that American Jews are progressive-minded. Once these people find out that American Jews like Obama, they will be equally sweaty-palmed and confused as their far Right-wingnut counterparts.
Under McCain’s plan, a family is given a $5000.00 tax credit. Ooooh. But if you’re single or don’t have kids, you only get $2,500.00. Your employer gets taxed under McCain’s plan which means that the overall costs of your insurance (if you think it’s bad now) is going to go up! Now, if you are the type of person that gets a cold once every two years and indigestion once a year, you should be fine. But if you have complex and/or serious medical problems, you are (as they say in France)shit out of luck.
If you are currently unemployed, looking for a job, in between jobs or whatnots, and you are looking for an insurance company with pre-existing health problems, once again, you’re shit out of luck.
Obama isn’t proposing a UHC (Universal Health Care) program. He’s realistic enough to realize that it doesn’t work – especially in the US. It doesn’t really work just right all the time in Canada either. What may work for us is a private-public system that is in Europe. France is rated for having the best health care in the world. And they have the closest system to ours, believe it or not. The only difference is that for those who have pre-existing conditions that can’t afford health care, it is available as Medicare is available right now for the elderly.
The majority of Americans have health care (over 250 million). Those people wouldn’t be effected. They will be able to get the best quality care because they can afford it. However, those who don’t have insurance, will be able to receive it at a lower cost and without having to worry about pre-existing conditions as a road block.
I am open to the possibility that I may be wrong as to whether the French health care system would be fitting for the US, but just to pick your brains, what do you think about this information?
Are you worried about “slavery” aka Socialism? We are already somewhat socialized if you look at the police, the fire department, public schools, school buses, the ER for those with no health care, the military, the president, the senate, the house, the department of state, the local government, the mayors, the city council, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Disability, the VA, Welfare, Public Library, The Judicial System, Roads, highways, traffic lights, jails, and prisons.
All that’s coming out of my taxes too!
I used to live in Japan where they had nationalized medicine and I was very pleased with the service. Quality service – that is. People in Europe claim to find that nurses and doctors are nicer and helpful. It’s easy for me to believe, and here’s why.
I have multiple medical problems. And the meanest, most absent-minded, ignorant and bitter people I’ve ever met were those in the medical community. Not to place all medical professionals under the same umbrella, but I’m certainly not the only one to notice that only half of the time can I find someone who knows their stuff and won’t treat you disrespectfully. I am talking from 40 years of experience. Now, with common everyday issues like having a cold – that’s a different story. But if you’ve got a complex problem, things are difficult here. You win top notch care if you have a PPO and some money in savings. You lose if you have an HMO with barely any money to spare regardless of how hard you’re working. HMO = Help Me Obtainqualitycare, in case you didn’t know.
I pay taxes for other people’s care. But I want to pay taxes for other people’s care. Why? Because if I run into trouble, I want them to care for me. I find that system more civilized – civilized being the operative word here.
Naturally, too much of anything is bad. But don’t you agree something needs to be done about our system?
I believe that you would find (and this theory is quite borne out throughout history) that if people are free, they WILL take care of one another. And the care will be much better than you can ever dream of getting from forced labor from the impersonal government.
According to Orge and many other conservatives, the above is their philosophy.
I replied…
Aaah… I see what you mean, but I just don’t trust my fellow man to come through for me if I can’t afford a surgery that will save my life or if I’m dependent on dialysis. I think we are a cut-throat dog-eat-dog society of jaded people who, for the most part, only think of themselves. Kind of a pessimistic way of thinking, isn’t it? But that’s how I see too many people. It’s taking a risk to wait for someone to come through for you or to even ask for help – which is very humiliating!!
The Fear of the Unknown: Will private charities really come through for me when my family won’t?
I mean, even as our society exists today, there are many genuinely helpless people out there dying and rotting away from our current system. Private charities are great, but they are either usually donated overseas or to those who attend church regularly.
I fear that if all socialist programs were to die out, the quality of life for those making low wages will get even worse. How do you expect people to be productive at work if their health is running ragged? You don’t have to be dying of cancer to call out a low quality of life. Sometimes it could just be someone who cannot afford their insulin that will get lost in the shuffle. And once again, I’m talking about people who work for a living!
While I was living in Japan, I had root canal done. I got excellent care and service (the Japanese are updated with America). The cost for all three visits were about 40-50-ish dollars total. My aunt had root canal done in NY for 950.00 out-of-pocket! But even if her root canal had cost 400 dollars, that’s nothing like what I paid for excellent service in Japan. I went to college with the Japanese and every time one had a problem with their teeth, it was more cost-effective for them to fly back to Japan to get their dental work done!
We only think that we have the best quality health care in the world because
Someone else said so, and
Because people from other foreign countries come here for care
Fair enough. People fly to M.D. Anderson in Houston, TX from different parts of the world to receive treatment for cancer, brain surgery, and heart problems because it’s the best. We’ve got the Mayo Clinic, John Hopkins, and all sorts of medical facilities that top the charts with the best quality doctors in the world. And that’s true. People come here from all over the planet to our universities to get degrees and get trained in the medical field. We are allowed to boast about this. But! What many don’t realize is that most Americans cannot afford care at these top notch facilities. Their HMO’s require them to only see doctors on their respective lists. So, naturally, they’ve got dolts taking care of them. Oh yeah. Every once in a while, an HMO doctor will know his stuff and actually send you off for tests despite how taboo it is. (They actually get bonuses if they don’t often send patients to specialists or for tests if necessary.)
Yes, in the “Greatest Country on God’s Green Earth”!
France may be in economic hard times, but the US economy is worse as at least with us, it’s trickled down to the people. The rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer doesn’t say too much about our economy, does it? The extinction of the middle class mirrors that of developing countries. Even “socialist” Canada is doing better than the US economically.
If “slavery” was truly what other countries were experiencing under a private-public health care system, wouldn’t you think they’d be unhappy people? If you think they are all miserable people, the statistics beg to differ.
I have something to compare America to: Japan. I even got better treatment over there for just having a fever. In Japan, they gave me a shot. The fever went away instantly, and I was able to return to work. In the US, you take aspirin and pray that it goes away fast. Sometimes you’re in bed for a few days. Even those “flu pills” take forever to kick in. Not in Japan. Like all other countries, Japan’s system wasn’t perfect. You realistically have to expect something wrong with every system out there. But if you ask me, to say America’s system is flawed would be an understatement. Why do you think others all over the world mock our system? Becaues they’re jealous? I hear testimony after testimony from those living abroad (in other 1st world countries) that they are happy with their care. Could they be lying?
Canadians sometimes visit us. So, instead of waiting for 3 months to get an MRI, they come to the US to get it done within a week. If you have Cushings Disease, America’s the place to be, but our HMO’s don’t pay for those specialists who give the best treatment here. I am in remission from Cushings disease right now, so I know many people who have it. My friend cannot get her brain surgery to cure the disease because she has to pay out of network for the specialists and the best neurosurgeons as they are few are far between here. She doesn’t have the money. And she’s getting sicker and sicker.
Some people from the US go to Germany, Japan, Mexico and other countries to get dental work and surgeries done.
I really think our government’s wanting to take away socialized services is not because they care about our freedom but because they want the money for themselves to “nationalize” with. Look how our elite classes are catered to hand and foot, but the little people must mind “personal responsibility”. Why can’t everyone be personally responsible? Or. Why can’t everyone be socialized?
I honestly don’t think our government cares about the welfare of its citizens.
I just ask myself – why are Americans complaining about health care, and those in other countries aren’t? You have to look at the complaint rate in all other developed countries.
Something needs to be done here, and McCain’s health plan depresses me in more ways than one.
I am finally beginning to understand Canadian Americanophobia. All I had to do was watch the movie, “Bowling for Columbine”. All of my answers as to how the AA Canadian public got their information was getting increasingly obvious. I used to blame it all on the education, child rearing in the homes, the CBC and the BBC. But there’s another element to consider:
Had I underestimated the power of Snake Oil Salesman, Michael Moore?
“The Culture of Fear” was tossed into my lap several times from so called “experts” on American culture. So, I thought about it and realized that this label is both accurate and inaccurate at the same time. Let me explain. But before we continue, it’s necessary for me to point out that there are two different definitions of the word, “fearful”.
My main point with this blog entry is to explain the reasoning behind people owning guns (aside from hobbyists), why Americans look or act paranoid, and possible reasoning as to why Americans are more homicidal than those from other developed nations. Also as a disclaimer, please keep in mind while you’re reading this that I am *not* defending criminals. That’s the job of the Americanophobes – not me.
My opinions as to how we got so violent and out of control:
(1) First off, I don’t think many are aware of how most Americans are raised. Forget about history and past wars. If Americans walk around feeling “fearful” all their lives, there’s got to be a reason for it, no? One must look no further than how we are raised. Most Americans learn the difference between right and wrong via very violent and painful punishments in the home as toddlers, kids, and as adolescents. And many of our ancestors used to get their ass kicked in school by the nuns. There are gray areas when it comes to child discipline, and I’m confident to say that many forms of discipline over here are actually child abuse just veiled under the term, “discipline” to make the offenders feel better about what they do. Violent discipline varies from family to family and can happen on several different levels. We learn to fear our parents. If we are good boys and girls, we are only doing so to avoid a “can-o-whoop-ass” from our parents. We are not behaving because we have “learned” or because “we want to”. We don’t know the answers or why we do what we do, but for the most part, we’ll do anything to please our parents (until the end) and to avoid as much pain as possible in the process. We go out into the world as an “independent” adult carrying that same fear – although irrational.(Please keep in mind that I am generalizing here. If you want specifics on how I feel about violent discipline, read this.)
But wait. This way of being brought up isn’t specific to Americans. This “doing things to avoid an irrational or rational fear of getting spanked” isn’t specific to American culture either. I would like to bet, however, that there is more domestic violence (especially of the torturous kind i.e. tying kids to bed etc) in the US compared to any other developed nation. Or is it just that America talks about her violent problems more? Australia being similarly jaded, I’d be curious of what their crime rate is in comparison to America’s.
One in three Americans girls and one in 5/6 American boys are sexually abused in the US, and these are just the stats that are reported. There are symptoms of being sexually abused and those include hyper-vigilance, watchfulness, and the inability to trust like the unabused are capable of doing. This is to be expected. Even those victims who claim that they are over the rape still possess a somewhat paranoid nature to them that is to be expected. Another name for this is Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Add this in with the mixture of violent attacks on innocent Americans (whether it be coming from the home, school, or in the big wide open spaces) and you get a lovely cocktail of jaded Americans. Because that’s what we are.
Americans are jaded. This is a more accurate way of describing us. By calling us fearful (in the form of schoolyard bullying) is actually belittling and mocking all the victims of crimes here. It’s a condescending and pretentious way of spitting on people that have been hurt. Let’s see you do any better considering the circumstances. The fact of the matter is that one’s place of birth does *not* dictate how one deals with a traumatic experience. Unless you’ve been there yourself under the very same circumstances and past, you have no right to get on your high-horses and preach how someone is to feel their feelings – especially when you don’t even live here in a less than modest neighborhood to know what the hell you’re talking about. Now, this is no excuse for people to wave their guns at every suspicion, but that’s not what we’re talking about here. We’re talking about paranoid and fearful Americans, right? Americanophobes aren’t angry at the criminals here because they mourn their death when they get the death penalty. Americanophobes are mad at the peaceful gun-holders and non-gun-holders in America. Even though I don’t own a gun myself, I defend the responsible and peaceful law abiding citizens living here who are being unnecessarily attacked. Anyway, after reading this, I grew confused. It shows that Australian and Canadian rapes far outweigh American rapes. Hmm…. I am positive there is a connection between rape and jaded behavior, but am not convinced it causes violent behavior leading to one’s death.
(2) If you look at other developed countries, America is the only country where one must look after himself. We do have social services and welfare programs here, but compared to the rest of the world, the US stands alone and its people stand alone and must fend for themselves. It’s about the “I” not the “we”. This is verystressful for everybody living in the statesexcept for those people who GENUINELY love their jobs (which are the minority). There’s much contempt here for others that don’t work as hard regardless of their excuse. (Who woulda thunk it?) There’s also much contempt for those countries that have more free time, work less, live longer, and enjoy life more. Superfrenchie displays very good examples of this here and here. There are many in the US who pretend that they love to work long and hard hours at stressful jobs, but deep down inside they are bitter, jealous, angry, and resentful and take out these frustrations on other people – namely those who are defenseless (their kids) and not working as hard.
(3) Putting the blacks through slavery has much to do with our violent beginning as well. Not that the evil whities weren’t already violent to begin with (hey, weren’t the British who were powering the world for 300 years with THEIR blazing firearms white too? Oops!?!? ), but it doesn’t help that the Blacks fought back very violently (and justifiably so!). Has not anyone ever heard the term, “violence begets more violence”? It doesn’t matter who’s the perpetrator or who’s the victim. Violence simply begets more violence. Now, whites beat/kill each other up, blacks beat/kill each other up and so on. Many countries (both past and present) have been guilty of keeping slaves (both black, white, and other races). And Americans held on to slaves the longest.
(4)Poverty: There is more unemployment in Canada and other socialized countries compared to the US. But this doesn’t mean that they are poverty stricken. My bet is that there’s more poverty in the states. My bet is that this contributes significantly to our crime rates.
(5)Could it also have something to do with the fact that we don’t have proper institutions for the mentally ill here as other countries have? Most of our severely mentally ill are the homeless that you see when you come here. Thanks to our “compassionate” government, this may be just another of several reasons why there is more crime here.
(6)More examples of bad parenting in America:Read from 1-4 in this article written by “Mohammed”. It is an opinion, but I concur with all that he says because I see this too much over here. It is hard to live in America, in my opinion. Don’t be fooled by the sunshiny smiley faces. Some of us pretend that we are happy just to keep our sanity. Life is very stressful here compared to other developed nations. Some Americans make bad decisions to have too many kids that are shoved into daycare centers while mom and dad work all day. They trust day care as the kids’s virtual parents more than they trust themselves. Parents don’t pay attention to the signs when their kids come home from school or the day care depressed or acting funny. If America has shown anything, it has shown that kids living here are not important. They are too little to worry about as adults are struggling for survival and have their own “adult problems” to worry about daughter and son. All of these bad choices and stressful living conditions that we are subjected to and subject ourselves to is bound to show on the people…somehow…someway, wouldn’t you think? Kids are treated here with no more respect than dust particles, so in the end they act the way they are treated: no self-esteem and running on auto-pilot until they crack. This is not a rocket science.
It’s not that uneducated and stressed-out people hump more than others. It’s that they don’t use birth control and want to make more kids so that they can feel in control and have others to powerhouse. These reckless parents come out of abusive homes too, and the cycle continues from one generation to the next. Where one feels powerless in their lives due to past abuses, they feel the need to establish power through making babies – or by making babies to have someone love them unconditionally, for once. It’s sad. And it’s a continuous cycle in America which begs that each of you reading this watch the movie, IDIOCRACY. Once seeing that, everything I’m typing here will make more sense.
With that said, those suffering from severe cases of PTSD and/or (REAL!) Paranoia will more than likely be purchasing a gun. Or not? PTSD is not just for vets and is more complex than what people make it out to be. Let’s look at the symptoms:
* sleep problems including nightmares and waking early
* flashbacks and replays which you are unable to switch off
* impaired memory, forgetfulness, inability to recall names, facts and dates that are well known to you
* impaired concentration
* impaired learning ability (eg through poor memory and inability to concentrate)
* hypervigilance (feels like but is not paranoia)
* exaggerated startle response
* irritability, sudden intense anger, occasional violent outbursts
* panic attacks * hypersensitivity, whereby every remark is perceived as critical
* obsessiveness – the experience takes over your life, you can’t get it out of your mind
* joint and muscle pains which have no obvious cause
* feelings of nervousness, anxiety
* reactive depression (not endogenous depression)
* excessive levels of shame, embarrassment
* survivor guilt for having survived when others perished or for not having done more to help or save others
* a feeling of having been given a second chance at life
* undue fear
* low self-esteem and shattered self-confidence
* emotional numbness, anhedonia (inability to feel love or joy)
* feelings of detachment
* avoidance of anything that reminds you of the experience
* physical and mental paralysis at any reminder of the experience
This is not something to laugh at, by the way, as Canadians and people all over the world suffer from PTSD too. Even animals suffer from this.
All I’m trying to say is to dig behind and beyond the simplicity of just thinking all white Americans are born evil, non-human, and inherently violent, nuts, and paranoid. This is yet another case of the Americanophobes taking a COMPLEX subject and looking at it with a narrow black and white view. What else is new in Anti-America?
Can people be born evil? Or are the Americanophobes claiming that all white Americans are born evil? Most of us? Only the white people? Or just the white people BORN in America? If you say that people aren’t born evil, than you’ll be forced into a more complex route of admitting that the Americans that ARE criminal are under environmental duress and past abuse. Whichever the case, both answers show criminals to be victims as well. Criminals: victims or not should be treated as such: not with sympathy, not with empathy, but with punishment, in my opinion. However, the people the Americanophobes yell at are the non-criminal gun holders and non-gun holders which is very curious. Does anyone have any answers for THAT?
If you’re talking about those who possess guns and leave them lying around loaded for any kid to pick up and start shooting, then you’ve got an argument. We are then talking about irresponsible gun holders. If the access to guns decline in the US, so will the accidents. This is a HUGE problem here. I still stand by the 2nd amendment, but what I don’t stand by is how easily obtainable they are (just like in Canada and Switzerland) as background checks are a joke. There should be a more formal process in which the person trying to buy a gun is examined mentally with a fine tooth comb.
I am no arm-chair psychologist or anything. I, just like other curious people, wonder why we kill people so easily as we know it’s not so much to do with firearm possession as it is to do with the gun owners themselves! Suffice it to say, there are plenty of stabbings, stranglings, and other forms of homicide here that don’t involve guns.
One Brit flaunts his expertise on Guns in America.
(sic) Sorry, do americans not have fists like the rest of the world?
Since when was shooting a acceptable method of self defence? As for killing food, that can be done with other means.
He goes on to explain his point further:
(sic) My point is, it isnt exactly an acceptable reason to have a gun. If someone is armed with a knife, then its only right then that you defend yourself in the same way.
What would be better, getting rid of guns and decreasing the amount of deaths or keeping it for self defence and having those deaths at the same level?
Theres a reason, besides the huge population that USA has such high crime/homicide rate.. Its because the majority of the rest of the world dont let you own a gun for no reason. Just seems stupid that they continue to have it for self defence, when their are so many alternatives.
What are we debating here? Criminals (who kill PEOPLE as a sport) or gun holders (who are responsible and using it for defense or other hobbies not relating to murder)? You can’t conveniently blur these two together. There IS a difference. Irresponsible people with guns ARE the minority.
Do the Anti’s not realize that there are very nice law abiding citizens who have guns that only use them for defense and not offense? Do the Anti’s not realize that most of the people in the US who commit homicide out of OFFENSE are holding ILLEGALLY OBTAINED or stolen firearms? Do the Anti’s not realize that even though we own guns here, that British people have found the US to be a more peaceful place to live? Do the Anti’s not realize how EASILY accessible firearms are in Switzerland and how most males have them (and the same with Holy Canada)? As you can see here, simply HAVING a gun is VERY different than having urges to kill innocent people for fun. Is this concept too hard to grasp? If it is not just holding a gun that automatically makes one a criminal, then what is it? This just simply proves that we must look deeper to find the answers as to why Americans are more violent. And we ***shouldn’t*** just limit our research to gun crime, it should be ALL crime! It’s most curious how the Americanophobes talk more about gun control in America than they do about crime where a gun wasn’t used. Those crimes are completely blacked out. It seems more likely that they just want guns prohibited than wanting crime to decrease. I don’t think that the Far Left really care about innocents getting killed at all as their agenda to flex their supremest muscles at the yanks are more important than anything else. This is what the “morally superior” Far Left is all about: their agenda (not human lives).
Michael Moore was comparing the violence in the US with Canada. You’d have to be retarded *not* to understand why Americans are more fearful. The stupid Americanophobic Leftists are thinking that Americans live day in and day out thinking that some Black or Arab “boogie-man” is hiding in the bushes waiting to kill us whether we’re in our own countries or abroad. Naturally folks, where violence is MORE prevalent, the normal response to lock your doors and not walk alone at night in some areas of town is NOT“racially motivated” nor is it “unique” to Americans. I feel almost retarded myself for having to explain the obvious.
I was amused. One Canadian woman was interviewed by Micheal Moore in this movie (Bowling for Columbine) and she stated that her home was broken into AND vandalized while she was sleeping at night. She stated that the incident didn’t scare her , and that she continues to *not* lock her doors at night because that would be, yanno, too Americanshe doesn’t want to disconnect herself from the rest of the world. I think she’d feel very comfortable over here in the US as we harbor the most mentally ill people in the civilized world, so she’d feel right at home. Welcome, drunk Blondie!
*sighs*
You know, it’s these people like HER that deserve to be vandalized and robbed! As a matter of fact, I could use some things as money is a little tight where I am. I wonder if she’d give me her address in Canada, and then I can come over and take what I like while she’s sleeping? She seems very generous to me. And hey, aren’t the AA Canadians all about sharing their money with the less fortunate? She should have gone one step further and just gave her address out publicly considering how “open to visitors” she is. One question, though: Do Canadians lock their door when they have sex? Hmm… OK, I know I’m getting hammy here, but if you had watched the film, you’d see what I mean. We UHHMERICANS are considered anti-social and again, insular, for locking our doors as well. After all, that’s not friendly behavior, right?
Surely, Americans are painfully and clinically “guilty” of locking their doors more than Canadians, but Michael Moore gives this impression that none of us over here leave our doors unlocked. And as a matter of fact, there are certain towns and neighborhoods where people feel comfortable keeping their doors unlocked in the US – just as there are town, cities, neighborhoods in CANADA where people LOCK their doors. How stupid does Michael Moore and Co. think Americans are??? And I don’t believe that ditsy Canuck who said that she wasn’t scared after the break-in. She was TERRIFIED. She’s just trying to make Canada out to be something that it’s not. I don’t care what country one is living in. At the end of the day, we are all people just trying to get by in the world. We all bleed the same blood and cry the same tears and feel the same feelings. I am not convinced, otherwise.
It’s funny how Americans are looked down upon for locking their doors, yet that was also the case in Japan when I was living there. I also had never heard of a girl living living in an apartment alone in Japan that kept her doors unlocked. (I’m sure they leave their doors open in the country areas, though.) My Japanese friends even told me to avoid certain areas as they were deemed “dangerous”. Hmm…. (are they ‘fraid of the blacks too?) Has any research taken place in other developed countries regarding this “issue”? Naw. It’s just got to be America, right? Well, of course!! Let’s not defeat the purpose of Americanophobia!
To move on, the perceived uniqueness of learning by “cause and effect” is not a phenomenon peculiar to the “American Culture”, either. Once again, look at the violence here in proportion to people “acting careful” to prevent such things happening to them.
Another question comes to mind. Should our media not cover crime news or perhaps not cover it as much? We know for a fact that it is real. It does happen. And anybody with 1/4th of a brain should realize that crime news is hardly covered in Canada because it DOESN’T HAPPEN ANYWHERE NEAR AS MUCH IN CANADA. So, what ARE the benefits of covering crime news? Is it just there to cater to the gore-loving, blood-thirsty audience? Is it there to make Americans realize what’s going on out there so as to take precaution and promote safety? What if there’s someone in the neighborhood that is a sniper killer? You know, it is so easy for a Canadian living in Peaceful Canada to lecture Americans on what and what not do do regarding safety. Don’t you think? What about the black people in the US that have guns and lock THEIR doors? Have you a fitting label for them? Paranoid? Fearful? Mentally Ill? Republican? They need to take measurements because they’re defending against the evil whities? Which is it?
Here’s my answer: I think that people all over the world should never be over-confident in thinking it’s not going to happen to them. I also think that people all over should never live in fear, either. What ever happened to this concept we call, “balance”?
Can we not learn anything from crime? I think we can. No. When I say “learn from crime”, I’m not talking about (after watching the news) running around waving your pistol because you heard that Jane Doe was brutally raped and murdered and the perpetrator’s on the loose. What I mean is that without crime news, we’d be a very naive and over-confident society leading to people trusting everyone thereby putting innocents in harm’s way. We don’t want THAT, do we? Learning from crime, makes intelligent people look for why these things take place to begin with as what was done here. My belief is that if we know what makes a killer, we someday will know how to prevent a killer. But you don’t figure these things out by having the reality of the world cut off from you. It may very well be the case that American local news is too centered on crime, and I can only guess it is there to raise people’s eyebrows. However, thanks to Michael Mooreisms, other countries are now successfully brainwashed to believe that the US media reports homicide only to make white people hate black people. Never mind the high number of crimes committed everyday between the Black and Mexican communities (gangs). Never mind the fact that most serial killers and sexual predators are WHITE!!!! Yes, that’s on our television channels too, people!
WE CAN SEE VERY CLEARLY THAT WHITE PEOPLE COMMIT CRIMES TOO! WHITE CRIMES, BLACK CRIMES, BROWN CRIMES, YELLOW CRIMES, PURPLE CRIMES, GREEN CRIMES, AND ORANGE CRIMES ARE ALL REPORTED E-Q-U-A-L-L-Y! But you clowns wouldn’t know that unless you lived over here! Or are living here with your eyes OPEN and not living in grandma’s basement.
At the end of the day folks, what does TOO MUCH CRIME NEWS do? It makes people numb and desensitized. Yes, you heard that correctly. Crimes news does *not* make the average American “paranoid”, or “fearful” nor is that why we “search the bushes for the boogie man”. Hearing on the news about another homicide for us is like hearing a commercial for Crest toothpaste. The reaction is the same, really. Some stories touch us and make us cry or shout at the TV, but generally speaking the surprise revolved around crime just isn’t there anymore. And in America, if we don’t want to watch about violence in the news, a remote control and cable television was invented for that very purpose.
Additionally, it was absolutely deplorable to hear Michael belittle the victim’s families of 9-11 calling them and anyone else affected “a culture of fear”. If you don’t think that a terrorist attack has a effect on its people, you are callous and have just as much blood on your hands as the terrorists themselves. Interestingly enough, it is those countries living peaceful lives taking for granted what they have, that are the ones mocking the reactions of trauma survivors. You will always see the Americanophobic Canadians and Brits cry for those at the hands of our Capital Punishment system in America. But you won’t get that same “understanding” and “sympathy” from the Americanophobic scumbags regarding those “victims” that WERE ACTUALLY INNOCENT. There’s the blatant hypocrisy right there. Anti-America says that 3,000 innocent Americans from all over the world deserved the Death Penalty on 9-11 (even though 24 Canadians died in the towers as well). As the saying now goes:
“As someone who takes human rights seriously, I’m appalled by the lack of sympathy the left feels toward the victims of any regime other than the Bush administration. Let’s shout it to prisoners everywhere: If you’re not harmed by an American, your suffering doesn’t count.” –Erik Svane
When Americans watch “Bowling for Columbine”, they do so with a grain of salt (for the most part). Even liberal Americans do and even some leftists. We live here. We see what happens in our country. We know “Bowling for Columbine” is for entertainment’s sake and not to be taken too seriously. We are also well aware that Michael has lied and fabricated stories in his past pieces. We are aware of the manipulative tricks that he does with his footage to make people believe things that aren’t true. We know. We’re Americans.
BUT…
Those living elsewhere will take “Bowling for Columbine” to heart and because they hate Americans as well, will hang on to Michael’s e-v-e-r-y word. That is where Americanophobic Canadians and Brits go for their comfort food: The Michael Moore library.
And we know it’s not just UHHMERICANS that are vigilant after major disasters. Take 9-11 for example. Do some research on how following that day, people traveling coming from other countries took a downward spiral…for years. I was working at the airlines during that time and flight routes were canceled to and from other countries for years. Only in the last couple of years has travel from abroad increased since the attacks. Uh. Could it actually be that tourism declined because those from elsewhere were afraid of the Muslim that could be hiding in the bush to behead them? Hmm… Why, after 9-11, did the Japanese government begin fingerprinting all foreigners coming into the country if it is only Americans that are “taking precautions” against further attacks. In all actuality, nothing too drastic a change in the US has happened post 9-11 to show that we are seriously preventing further terrorism. The Iraqi war (creating more terror, in my opinion) and the Patriot Act are laughable. Airport security is a joke as it’s always been. Innocents from other countries as well as American citizens are unnecessarily being detained and abused too often while people board the planes with all sorts of weaponry. America is still a place where you can standby for a flight check in your luggage, miss the flight, and have your luggage travel alone (if that doesn’t say anything). What I’m trying to say is our “paranoid” measures to be a more secure country are about other things – NOT about being “fearful”. Please! And before you Anti’s get into your diatribe about “stupid Americans’, read this first and learn how you’re just as dumb if not more.
Right-wing Americans are always talking about “the war on terror” and how it’s “protecting us”. Propaganda is put out so that we do fear terrorists and submit to silly wars out of pure greed. But I’m also going to say that Americans are no more fearful than your average Canadian is about America turning on its side and squishing Canada. All this fear that the AA’s perceive is rather hype; it’s about following the crowd, the leader, the authority, it’s about the desire to belong and the inability for one to take responsibility for his own shortcomings. Weak people are seduced by power. This is the same way Americanophobia works. And it’s not too different from Nazi propaganda.
If you really want to explore racism in America, here might be a good start.
You want to pin an “Ugly American”? How about your beloved and millionaire Michael Moore himself?
MOORE MANIPULATES VICTIMS:
Moore held a screening of Bowling for Columbine in Littleton and charged admission the families of the victims.
• Columbine victim mother Anne Hechter: “It’s laughable that Moore attempts to portray himself as an anti-establishment liberal who is the voice of the common folk, when in fact he is no better than the greedy capitalists he shuns. Maybe now that he has made millions of dollars off the blood of our children he could toss a DVD or two our way to view.”
• Mark Taylor, one of the victims that Moore took to K-Mart headquarters, on Moore: “I am completely against him. He screwed me over. I had no idea what Moore’s agenda was. And he had an agenda. He had it all planned out, completely. I believe that every American has the right to have a gun. We should have the right to protect ourselves.”
Read more here about how “Bowling for Columbine” was a FICTION documentary along with the rest of his work. Credits to Mike, however. He is brilliant at what he does. His work is also very entertaining.
Lastly, when we examine the word, “fearful”, we must ask ourselves:
Are all 300+ million Americans feeling this fear or just the gun-holders and the evil whities?
What percentage of these people are fearing something real?
Is it irrational fear brought on by a degree of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
Is this fear really just Paranoid Schizophrenia that is being experienced?
Something interesting to note. The Americanophobes frequently call us “paranoid” and “fearful” by having invaded Iraq. But those same Anti’s said that we went to Iraq for oil and money for Bush’s rich buddies. Which is it? You can’t have your cake and eat it too. You don’t want to sound like an opportunist, do you? So, pick one and stick with it.
Secondly, in the beginning of “Bowling for Columbine”, Michael shows how Americans weren’t reactive enough when suspicious noises from crimes being committed were happening nearby. But then later, he accuses us for not being suspicious enough. He needs to take a pick too.
For all I know, everything I write in this blog may be a fallacy. So, take me with a grain of salt as well. All I’m trying to say here is to not always take to heart everything you read and see in the media. If you Americanophobic Canadians and Britons are truly the smarter and superior ones, question and challenge the literature you come across and make sound and balanced arguments in the public forums you use to communicate. Only then can you say that you’re better than Americans. The Americanophobes are so obsessed with Anti-American news that the concept that there are other ideas out there is unknown or thrown out immediately without properly looking at all the angles in its complexity.
If you truly want to learn about American culture, take courses or read books about Anthropology, Sociology, and Criminology. Actually live in the US and move around while you are here with an open and curious mind. If you don’t know why these three subjects are important to understand groups of people, culture, sub-cultures, and society, than you are part of the dumbing down of the world.
To say that Americans are just simply fearful for the sake of fearing alone is to deny that America is a violent country. And you don’t want to deny such if you are Americanophobic.
Canada is afraid of America. Now, how’s that for a blanket statement? Sleeping with the elephant, right?
I understand that disapproval of the policies of the US government is not bigotry against the American people. I do find that many Canadians subscribe to stereotypes about Americans, as many Americans do about Canadians.
I wonder if Laura Kaminker from “We Move to Canada” can find as much evidence as I have on the “just as much as” part of her argument on the stereotypes Americans and Canadians have about each other? From having read some posts on her blog and having personally interacted with her, this woman has a tendency to make things up to aid her agenda and gets very defensive when shown proof of any sort in the form of a link that may have a contradictory opinion. So, I’ve learned that she’s not as credible as she tries so hard to portray. Surely, there are more Canadians and Americans like her around that drink the same kool-aid.
Anywhoo…..
We both have stereotypes about each other. But which of these two stereotypes are more hurtful? Let’s have a look, shall we?
The Canadian stereotype:
All Canadians ride polar bears to get where they’re going
All of Canada is snow 24/7
All Canadians say “aboot” and “eh” after every word
All Canadians live in igloos
Everybody knows everybody in Canada
If that’s the worst things that Americans can come up with, you Canadians ought to consider yourselves lucky! And you’re right. These yanks that think this stuff about you guys, really ARE clueless as to what the real problems are with Canadians and Canada. But you all should appreciate the fact that the misconceptions stop at just plain old ignorance and misunderstood jokes.
I am sure that there are more stereotypes, but these cliches that Canadians moan about aren’t hurtful, and the above cliches are the ones that they ALWAYS mention when discussing American’s feelings about Canadians. These stereotypes, however, don’t discriminate or represent hate. They simply come from ignorant Americans (not that Americans are the only people that hold these stereotypes about Canucks). However, in person, most Americans would be nice to Canadians and not discriminate against them because of their place of birth. I wish the the opposite were true, though.
Ok.
Now, let’s have a look at the American stereotype as depicted by our neighbors to the North, shall we?
Like the stereotypes Americans have toward Canadians, these also stem from ignorance, however, also coupled with abuse and discriminative behavior.
Even if one were to say “most Americans”, it’s still offensive and just as ignorant because how could one prove that – out of over 300 million people from all over the world that live in the US? How could one ever be an expert on the American people unless they’ve lived and been to several different states holding an open mind? Or what about having an open mind period?
Every bigot needs a reason for their hatred to make themselves feel better about it, so naturally, a bunch of self-righteous, shoulder-patting, muscle-flexing lemmings will come here saying, “but at least what WE think about YOU is true haha!”. ….Which of course only proves the points I am making.
What about the stereotypes toward black people?
All blacks are criminals
All blacks are poor
All blacks wait on government handouts
All blacks are uneducated
All blacks are illiterate
All blacks are lazy
All blacks stink
All blacks have bad taste in clothes
All blacks are fat
All black men abandon their wives and children
All blacks are oversexed
All blacks don’t use birth control
All blacks play the victim card and/or the race card
All blacks like gansta rap
All blacks are liberal
What about the stereotypes toward Japanese people?
All Japanese carry a camera everywhere
Every Japanese woman wears a kimono in Japan in the streets
All Japanese men wear eye glasses
Japanese men cannot satisfy any woman because his dick is too small
All Japanese women are subservient
All Japanese people are the same as Chinese or Korean
What about the stereotypes toward the French people?
All fat people are selfish and stealing the food out of South Africans’ mouths
All fat people are in denial that they’re fat
All fat people are stupid
All fat people are poor
All fat people are rich
All fat people pretend to be ill to justify being fat
All fat people live in the bible-belt south
All fat people have guns and commit incest
All fat people will die young
Here’s what’s true.
Every group of people is stereotyped
All stereotypes do not represent the majority of any group
All stereotypes stem from a rumor or a biased organization
All stereotypes are repeated over and over again in the form of propaganda
People who create stereotypes do so out of having unresolved issues within themselves and are on a mission
People who believe stereotypes and leave them unchallenged and unquestioned are as stupid as the people who create stereotypes
The desire to want to hate all members of a group because of the mistakes of one or a few is only human. It’s proof that we’re alive. It’s proof that we react to our surroundings. Normally, once the anger is released, decent people realize later that labels are silly. Decent people also don’t carry their xenophobic attitudes and long-held grudges to public platforms either. If they say, “those fucking Americans”, they’ll only say that within their own private peer groups so as to not hurt the feelings of the target group that just may happen to be listening or reading.
Losers however, will continue their prejudice, try to find more people who agree, join a group that feels the same (an alliance) and attack and bully the race, creed, ethnicity, sex, body type and etc. in a PUBLIC forum in hopes to change, intimidate, and/or make their opponent surrender. Some eventually do quit the schoolyard bullying and intimidation tactics, move on, and mature. Or so I’d like to think.
Why do people have the “ALL” mentality when one or a few committed a wrong? It is because our anger is that strong (intense enough to fit the magnitude of an “ALL”) and our target is that unattainable. It’s rage that needs to be let out. It feels better and more satisfying to lump all individuals from a group along with the one or few that we’re pissed off with. I don’t know why that is exactly, but it works. It makes people feel better. I will speculate as to why this happens. For example, if I know some people from some country are behaving in such a manner that frustrates me (irrational anger) and I know that I cannot tell them directly how I feel (when I say “them” I mean those very people whom have committed the act that has me obsessed), I HAVE to make myself believe that all or most of their countrymen do the same. Why? Because it takes the responsibility off of myself and my unreasonable anger. Then it is displaced on to that person being a part of a group that all thinks alike. “That’s why they’re like that; they all are – they’re a part of that group after all!” “It’s not me and my irrational anger – it’s THEM! It’s THEM”“ I can say to myself that I have a good reason to be upset – that they’re the ones with the problem (whether that is the case or not). Anti-American Americans do this too. They like to think that all errors are a unique phenomenon of THEIR own country. Ask any left-wing or smug elitist American! Interestingly enough, the Anti-American Americans feel pretty much same way about Americans that the Brits and Canadians do. It’s ironic, really.
The above stereotypes depicted about Americans are globally felt especially by Canadians and Brits. We know this is irrational anger – an anger that people overreact to. Only when you are truly and directly hurt by another person can the anger be rational. However, if the anger becomes an obsession and is overreacted to, the one feeling angst needs to look within themselves as the problem is much deeper than an American eating 814224545422 Twinkies for dinner.
People only think of themselves. And I will never believe that Joe Canadian is genuinely concerned about Jane Doe in India who is starving from not enough Twinkies in Mumbai due to American over-consumption of said product (that is used to make rocket fuel anyway).
What makes a temporary heated knee-jerk reaction into into a life-long prejudice is within the individual’s own personal issues yet to be resolved that have nothing to do with the group that they’re mad at.
In both situations, we need not look at the group targeted, but the group or individual who holds strongly and publicly what they call their “justified” hatred.
I await the Americanophobes to come here and justify the unjustifiable and make an effort to sugar-coat the words “hate” and “anger”. It will be fun. As always. Brainwashed imps are fun toys to play with.
My question: Has anyone collected data as to how many Canadians, New Zealanders, Australians, Chinese, Japanese, South Americans, etc have passports that was used to visit Europe et al? Isn’t it interesting how exclusively and carefully America is watched under the microscope while other nations are ignored all together?
The title of this entry is the all time biggest obsessed over complaint that Americans receive from the “morally superior” and “refined intellectuals” that come from Canada and Europe. Just as the “you’re the fattest” and the “you’re the stupidest“, the “Americans don’t have passports” argument in an effort to “humble” and “humiliate” Americans is equally weak and easy to debunk.
If you think that we’re insular and don’t care about other countries,think again. And thinkone more time.
I don’t think we Americans have more or less curiosity about the world and other cultures than Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Japan, China and other non-European countries. The continent of Europe is VERY similar to the country of the US regarding travel and borders. In Europe, kids are practically born with passports. It’s a necessity! Let’s say for example, if you live in England, you can just hop on thechunneland be in France or many other places in a jiffy(as what’s done state-to-state in America). A LOT of countries in Europe are about less than half the size of California and border several other countries that border even more several other countries. (This also explains the multilingualism, but not necessarily the fluency.) You can probably visit a few countries in a day without getting too exhausted. Plus you have the luxury of sitting on a train instead of having to catch a plane or drive a car! What a convenience!!
I currently am living in Texas, and it takes 12 hours just to get OUT of the state! It takesforeverto drive through Florida and California too. If the driving gets too much, we have to spend money for a hotel!!
But what about Australia that is a VERY large country?
Americans DO travel to Mexico and Canada.We used to not be required to hold a passport to travel there and to the Caribbean as well! Mexico is VERY famous for their beaches, for American honeymoons, and some Americans take a cruise (who have money) to Cancun. Canada and Mexico are our only borders. We DO travel to those places (including the Caribbean), but that’s the only variety we have unlike Europe (i.e. Germany shares borders with 9 countries.) And again, it’s about how much money and time we have to spare.
Western nations are indoctrinated from birth to grow up hating Americans due to the grudges held over past wars (perhaps some to a lesser degree) – in the same way some people in the US are taught to hate black people, the Muslims and the French. (Some fall for the propaganda; some don’t.) Americanophobia has very little to do with Bush, Gitmo, Global Warming, Neo-Capitalism, Abu Ghraib, or the Iraqi War.
Aaron Hotfelder explains more about why Americans don’t travel as much. Please visit his site.
Last but not least, what’s wrong with Americans travelingWITHINtheir own country? First you criticize us for not knowing enough about ourowncountry, then you mock us because we travelwithin. I have done many cross-country travels in the US, and have lived in 3 different states. There is an extraordinary amount to be seen, a lot to be done, and a lot to belearned- something that an old textbook in grade school cannot begin to teach you. I guess some foreigners perceive the locals traveling within the US (that nobody has time to see in a lifetime) as yet another act of“patriotic arrogance”?
WHY DO YOU KNOW MORE ABOUT US THAN WE KNOW ABOUT YOU?
The British have taken this article and are having a field day with it in this group on Facebook.
Sure, the US has very little international news when compared to China, but that’s mostly because it’s illegal to report on negative domestic news in China. The news in other major Asian countries is just as inward-focused as that of the US.
The above quote was in response to this article written by a Chinese Americanophobe. From having lived in Japan for 6.5 years, I can testify that this is correct.
I just want to say that America has done some stupid things…we ALL do stupid things. It just so happens when you are a country that is as powerful as the US, stupid things get noticed.
Additionally, American Globalization has a lot to do with your knowing more about us than our knowledge of you albeit it all being about stereotypes, mind you.
It is actually true that local channels (not cable) don’t cover as much world news as does Europe. But for the love of all that’s holy, there’s a reason why.
“USA citizens are not given world news in the same way as most the other developed nations, and may well be genuinely unaware that much of the world is as poor as it is. European news is highly world-centric, whereas due to its size most USA news does not have enough time to cover news in all neighbouring states, let alone news from around the world. ” –Vexen Crabtree
And finally, all of your “research” on “other countries” is …:::limited:::… to the United States (out of 194 independent countries in the world). Why? Because you’re obsessed with America and are looking for any reason and any flaw to put us down. It would be one thing if you had your facts consistently accurate about us, but even THAT is not the case! For the record, there are 193 other countries out there to explore – including your own. To avoid sounding hypocritical, you ought to study them too.
WHAT ABOUT OUR KNOWLEDGE ABOUT YOU?
Only unless you make a move that will effect everyday American life, will we pay attention.
People, please be realistic. Everyone (and I mean everyone – no matter what country you’re living in) only listens to and learns about what matters to them and what effects their immediate lives. I don’t care how “intellectual” that you think you are or you want me to believe you are, this is the reality. Human beings, by their very nature, are a selfish species. Like it or not, nature dictates that our interests come first.
Ever heard of the Arkansas Mafia? It’s not very likely a Canadian or a Brit has heard of this. Urban legend or not, it’s just more proof that you only learn what your media and parents feed you.
Is “learning” about another country from the news media really learning about another country? Actually all media systems are responsible for four things:
reporting the facts
sensationalizing and exaggerating them to keep you focused, hot, and bothered
twisting the facts subtly to meet a particular agenda
and leaving certain facts (good stuff!) out that could possibly give you a balanced perspective.
Besides your obsession with tabloids, is this how you Americanophobes learn about the lives of all 300 million Americans?
It’s unfortunate to bring this news to you, but it is not just Fox news et al that are guilty of brainwashing and having political spins. Your media outlets are guilty of the same. Reporters across the world are only doing their jobs, and it is those 4 key points that I bring up – that is part of what they HAVE to do!
Once our presence in the world is usurped by another nation (and I can’t wait for this to happen so that everyone will STFU!), EVERYONE’S focus will be shifted. If history teaches us anything (keeping the British Empire and Imperialization in mind), it teaches us that the most powerful nation on the world stage is the most talked about, the most “learned” (<—notice the quotes) about, and the most hated. History has also taught us that everyone wants to be the most influential and powerful and that once that power is gained, it will be abused. This is life. Just open up a history book.
The media is a good starting place to learn about other nations, however, if you truly want a balanced and well-informed perspective on an issue, you need to do your research using a myriad of sources and literature. Ever hear the expression, “there are two sides to every story”? What ever happened to asking questions, critical thinking, objectivity, and open-mindedness? Yeah. This is why I’m outraged when pseudo-intellectuals have the colossal nerve to call Americans “ignorant“.
I’m a Canadian who has lived in the USA for the past 5 years, and I’ve also travelled throughout Asia during this time. In my experience, most people in most countries are most concerned with what is happening closest to them, and almost always think for some absurd reason their own news deserves to be heard around the world. The fact of media anywhere (including state run media like in China and Canada) is that it is an industry built to sustain those who it directly feeds. In the case of the USA, the fact is that Americans don’t look outside their own borders for media content because they simply don’t need to; there is ample sensational material at hand. In contrast, the fact is that, for example, in Canada, very little of the sensational nature actually happens, which makes for pretty boring television. Hence, CNN is popular with Canadians, but Canadians get pissed off because it lacks much Canadian content. Whatever.
And finally, there’s one more point that I want to make. The last time I checked, traveling is supposed to make one more open-minded and tolerant. Am I right? However, all these cultural elitist snobs that hail from other countries love touting their 955100258787 page passport while (ironically) having a fierce xenophobic attitude toward those simply being guilty of having been born in the United States. Not everyone who travels acts like snobs – only some do. But the difference between those people who travel and snobs that travel is one thing: curiosity.
There are just too many people out there that flex their passport muscles. But its pointless. These people haven’t learned from traveling. They are still small minded, petty, and ignorant. Traveling doesn’t make you a better person. Curiosity does.
As Annie Rhiannon states in her blog as an English citizen,
90% of Americans don’t even have passports
Why is it always the British who use this (greatly exaggerated) statistic smugly, as if it somehow proves us to be so much less ignorant than them? Um, it doesn’t. We need passports just to get over to France for 40 quid on the Eurostar — otherwise we’d end up camping in our own gardens twice a year.
All you Americanophobes have proven to me so far is one thing: you’re no different from us regarding ignorance, cultural awareness, and tolerance outside one’s borders.
————————————
UPDATE!
AMERICANS TALK BACK!
After reading the comments on this blog entry written by a Brit, there appears to be more insight as to why Americans are so… “insular” and “Amerocentric”.
Hear from the Americans here for the short-cut version.
Edited to add:TO SET THE RECORD STRAIGHT TO THE SELF-RIGHTEOUS CULTURAL ELITISTS WHO KEEP COMMENTING HERE, … YES, I HAVE LIVED IN ANOTHER COUNTRY AND HAVE TRAVELED TO SEVERAL PLACES AROUND THE WORLD. IF YOU’D READ MY BLACK BOX DOWN BELOW, YOU’D KNOW THAT. BEFORE YOU MAKE INANE ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT SOMEONE YOU DON’T KNOW….. R-E-A-D! If not, your own comments won’t be read in full and will automatically be deleted! I have no patience for people that comment on posts that they haven’t read, and no patience for those who haven’t read my disclaimer!
The percentages of passport holders among those who travel between the two countries might help to make better comparisons with Europeans travelling between countries. (21 Nov 2005)
For those that have known me as a blogger since 2005, also know that this is one of the few topics that I discuss here. And I have … a lot if you look through my archives under crime, bullying, etc.
I feel that this is a passionate topic for most of us, and it usually winds up being the liberals vs conservatives and/or the atheists vs the believers – where I don’t see a relationship, but that’s where it goes. And then it comes down to a lot of name-calling, swear words, that serve no purpose in the debate but to humiliate one for their views.
So, I approach the most daring topic! This one, at least for me, is what I consider a “touchy topic” more so than the abortion debate, the prayer in schools debate, the illegal immigration debate, and the list goes on.
Some reading this will know that I’ve been peering into other blogs, and found this being discussed! You’re right. I have an opinion on this too. I hope that this can be intelligently discussed. I will do my part as well to respect the opinions of others. Keep in mind, that there’s a big difference between a liberal and a leftist elitist. I’m not the later… at all. So, don’t shake my crib too hard, ya hear?
These are just opinions, anyway – and there’s no harm intended.
The reason why this debate is so hot-headed (my self-included) is because no line is drawn as to what “discipline” is as opposed to what “abuse” is. We’ve drawn these lines between marital partners and between friends, right? But not when it comes to children.
This is a debate that, unlike popular belief, has A LOT of gray areas. There’s no black and white… as least the way I see it.
Let me first just start out with the many questions I want people to ask themselves. You don’t have to answer them here.
- What is discipline? EVERYONE who spanks, beats or whatever… calls it “discipline”. This is true!
- How do we spank? How hard is too hard? Should the panties be up or down? What part of the body do we recommend? What instrument do we use? Is it only abuse when our instruments leave a mark? Do marks indicate more pain? Which is child abuse – which is discipline?
- What calls for it? What did the child do to deserve the spanking? Did he spill a glass of milk? Did she interrupt mommy while she was talking to daddy? Did he pee on the kitchen table or scream in the store to get his way?
- Why are the noisy brats that run around aimlessly in restaurants and inside planes automatically associated with the ” modern liberal no spank society” when we cannot see what actually happens in the home? How do we know that these parents aren’t just putting up a “project no spank”facade only because they’re in public? Heck, my mom showed one face in public and another one in the home.
- Are parents telling their children WHY they’re getting physically punished? Or are these parents assuming that the child is fully understanding what is going on?
- Does spanking provide TRUE strength for men or does it just turn them into guys like these?
-What is “being spoiled”? How do we determine what spoils a child? The term “being spoiled” can mean two totally different things:
The child is spoiled because everything they ask for, they get. “Mommy mommy, please buy me…” “Well, sure honey….”
The child is spoiled because from “too much” love and affection? Sure this can go to an extreme. But we all must come to some agreement here that a child needs comforting words and touch, encouragement, support, and feel safe and secure in their own home (you know the basic emotional stuff). No?
- Are a child’s feelings any less important because they’re a child, don’t pay bills, don’t know “true misery and heart break”, don’t have to work yada yada yada? I will tell you from my own personal experience that being an adult rocks! The best years of my life were my adult years. So, if any toddlers are listening, don’t pay attention to the hype. Being an adult ain’t so bad.
- Is child research and child-psychology a myth or a liberal “agenda”?
- The Freedom of Speech debate is often thrown into this topic by the “spankers”. Why? Conservatives claim that by the government ruling a “no spank” regime, they are taking away freedom of speech in the home and therefore “fascists”. But what about those people in Alabama that want to masturbate with dildos? What about companies dictating no smoking in the home because it makes insurance too expensive? Why can’t I smoke a joint in my own home when studies show that alcohol has a worse effect on my brain and temperament? There are liberals who feel, just as well, that the government is invading their freedom of speech too. It works both ways.
- Are you going according to your natural instinct to spank or are you literally going against your will to spank your child for their benefit?
- As a parent, do you ever admit to any wrongs? Do you feel there is room for improvement? Are you open to different styles of parenting? How do you feel when something new is placed on the table – new research development? Or do you just feel that all things coming out of a liberal’s mouth is incorrect by default? Have you ever taken the time to thoroughly research this topic looking at both sides fairly? Do you agree with medical advancements? If so, why do you disagree with any advancements in parenting or child psychology? What’s the difference between a medical advancement and a psychological one? At the end of the day, aren’t they both one in the same? Don’t they both affect each other?
-Do you feel that when a child or adult smiles that they are genuinely happy?
- Why can’t we hit adults or other’s children we don’t know outside school? Some will argue that we must spank kids at certain ages because at that time, they’re growing and need to learn right from wrong. My husband thinks that I misbehave sometimes, but if he strikes me, he can get into trouble for that, no? – especially if he hits me in public! If your child starts to annoy me at the dinner table talking way too loudly, and my hand just happens to be quicker than yours, can I whack him across the face? Can I do the same to your husband, brother, sister, mother, father etc if I feel they’re misbehaving? Is misconduct only specific to children? Is the necessity to learn proper conduct only specific to children? Should employers spank their employees? What about prison inmates?
- Do you ever stop to analyze why a a child is acting a certain way or even ask them to explain? Do you always feel that a child manipulates EVERY SITUATION to get their way?
- Do you believe that such things as “denial” and “repression” exist or is this more made up bologna from the liberals?
- What distinguishes one who can come out of a spanking home successful vs one who is non-successful in life?
What is “successful”, anyway? Having more money, two dogs, a good job, a Yale graduate, two cars, and mauve window blinds or being happy just getting by from day to day?
The successful ones were spanked and the non-successful ones were abused?
(Keep in mind again, EVERYONE calls what they do to their kids, “discipline”. EVERYONE! We NEVER get a chance to see for ourselves what ACTUALLY happens (!!) behind closed doors!)
- How do you feel after you spank the subject? Relieved, shaky, guilty, refreshed, like a good mommy/daddy?
-Why do both sets of parents on both sides say what they do works? Who’s lying? Who has a reason to lie? Is there such a thing as “trauma-bonding/Stockholm Syndrome” or do kids honestly say how they feel no matter how humiliating, scary and painful? Are adults always honest about their past?
- Should a child learn out of fear? If he learns something out of fear, is he/she really learning? Do you believe in such a thing to be able to learn a right from a wrong without fear? Is it even possible?
- Why do we sometimes sit in confusion when there’s a major shooting in a school, a mass murder, or serial killings? Is Criminology just more “liberal rhetoric” devised to take freedom from conservatives?
- Why do the conservatives blame crime and suicide on “not enough spankings”?
- Why do the liberals blame crime and suicide on “too many spankings”?
- Why do we think that crime and suicide is a “modern-day-trend” when it truly dates back to ancient times!!??
- Why is this such an emotional topic for most people? No. Really.
-Just because your parents did it, does that make it right? If it feels good, does it mean it’s right?
- Are parents … just because they’re parents exempt from any criticism because … they are parents? Should we just be thankful that they fed us, gave us a roof over our heads, clothed us, and anything else goes!?
- How do you judge your success in life – by your own parent’s doing or by your being able to think independently from them or a little bit of both?
- When someone says that they’ve never been spanked, do you believe them?
(Of course, we still have to determine “what is spanking”, and also consider “denial” + “repression” (understanding how dynamic this is in regards to survival) and be open to the fact that unless we’ve seen it for ourselves, we don’t know what happened in anybody’s home….ever!)
Let me tell you that I remember vividly getting spanked. My dad was ‘old fashioned’ and threw us across his lap, pulled down our pants and underwear. As a child I was petrified. Some would say well behaved b/c I didn’t even speak around my dad. I found it beyond humiliating and felt helpless. Even then I knew it was way overboard for teaching me not to do something. As an adult it makes me sick. It is very violating, particularly for a girl. And..no surprise..I like sex on the violent side. Psychologists could have a field day. Now when I see a child get spanked or hear a child get ‘warned’ it makes my stomach turn. Perhaps that is the key- a quick swat on the butt is one thing, but being held down, being violated by having your pants/underwear forced to be removed just to get the pain factor up a bit is sick and very detrimental. I am one adult that lives with those bad memories daily.
- Do people just talk about wanting a free country only when it suits them?
- Is it a coincidence that the crime rate is higher where corporal punishment exists?
OK. I’m done with the questions!
Some random thoughts I have on this topic:
In my opinion, time outs are unsuccessful when they are, because THE KID IS IN THEIR ROOM WITH TOYS, VIDEO GAMES ETC!!
There’s research all over the internet with actual PARENTS using non-violent means to raise their children with success. So, they say. I didn’t watch it happen, so….. I don’t claim to be a professional on this topic, either.
People say verbal abuse is WORSE than physical abuse. Really? I say that physical abuse IS verbal abuse – it’s action speaking LOUDER than words! Again, we have to define “what is abuse” because that’s going to be the core of this whole argument.
I don’t think liberals like being told how to raise their kids, either!! But we all have our opinions, right? It’s not like either one of our camps are enforcing our beliefs down the throats of others although secretly we’d like to. We both feel right. No doubt about that. We both have our fair share of “how dare you’s” to be tossed about. This topic is emotional for a very good reason. It hits us all V-E-R-Y close to home.
As a child abuse survivor myself, this is with no intention to belittle those who too have been abused. And no! I don’t consider a pat on the hiney “abuse”!! But I will argue that there are “degrees” or “levels” of abuse. We could all sit here and discuss our child life and past abuses, but that won’t solve anything at all. Why? Because then it will be a debate about who had it the worst, and when the conversation goes in THAT direction, it’s already ended. It’s stupid. Pain cannot be measured or compared. Let me give an example that’s already been over-done and tired: *yawns*
Person A says:“My mom used to light a match to each of my fingers for coming home from school late, so as an adult, I’m bla bla bla……..”
Person B replies:“That’s belittling true child abuse because when I was little, my mom set fire to both my legs, so as an adult, I’m bla bla bla…..”
We can agree that both of these experiences are horrific to some degree or another – even though it has nothing to do with spanking. All I’m saying is that we will ALWAYS, in our lives, find people who’ve had it worseandbetter! Child abuse is not a black and white topic as it’s very broad and covers many ranges – just as the word, “crime” has its degrees from petty theft to rape and murder.
Before anybody accuses me of trying to get a “no spank project” legislated in the United States, I tell you now, that I have not voted on this issue, I have not demonstrated, I have not picketed, I have not written to congress, or tried to take these “freedoms” away from you.
I don’t believe this issue has to do with freedom of speech, anyway.
I would be curious what you all think of this.
From “The Men They Will Become”
Eli H. Newberger, M.D.
Chapter 6 – Discipline and Punishment
Men can lead perfectly honorable lives based on observing norms of behavior they have learned from others and that are promoted by, others – by their families or communities, or by their professions or the religions or philosophies they adhere to. But there is always a question of how men will behave in a situation beyond the direct influence of those institutions. Some individuals revert to behavior that is unworthy of their usual standards when they believe they can get away with it. Others, however, have deeper resources that enable them to remain consistent with their publicly scrutinized behavior. They have internalized values; their self-disciplined behavior doesn’t depend on anyone’s reminding them what the rules are.
Perhaps there is no more confused subject in childcare than the issues that swirl around discipline and punishment. In relation to character development, the word “discipline” has acquired several different meanings. As used most broadly, it connotes training, which corrects, molds, strengthens, or perfects – in other words, character formation itself, particularly as it is guided from without by a parent or mentor. (“Discipline” and “disciple” have the same root.) The word is also a synonym for punishment or chastisement – he was disciplined by being denied permission to play outside. Still another usage points to the control gained by enforcing obedience, the control implied, for example, in the phrase, “military discipline.” Finally, the term can refer to rules or systems of rules that are meant to affect conduct. Except when used with the prefix “self,” all of these meanings point to something that is imposed on a boy from outside and that relies heavily on rules of conduct.
Spanking a child in the US is not violating ANY law by any means… AT ALL. So, why is the spanking crowd so worried about being called by Child Protective Services? Can’t you just defend yourselves by saying that you use spanking as a means to discipline? Wouldn’t that be the end of it? What about out in public? So what if someone sees you spanking your child? Why would you care? Let the “loony lib” call the police. How far can they really go considering that you “have done nothing wrong”?
To conclude, so long as people stay in the dark (whatever that means for you) regarding child rearing, the violence in the US will never stop. Is this to imply that everyone subjected to physical “tough love” growing up are going to be violent as adults? Nope. It IS to say, however, that …. isn’t funny how every violent crime committed or suicide involves a person from a violent background? And we know this didn’t come from taps on the hiney-bump because the child must feel the pain in order to learn, right?
In my opinion, I believe you just have to look at where in MODERN society there is less crime and less obesity and measure that with their corporal punishment laws, and you’ll get the answer.
I will drag my definition along with the video that sums it up over here for easy viewing:
Q:What is Anti-Americanism (aka Americanophobia?)
A: Anti-Americanism is *NOT* about the disapproval of Bush and the Iraqi War; it’s *NOT* about the disapproval of past wars and whatever our government has failed to do right, and it’s *NOT* about hating the Republican Conservative individuals in America. Anti-Americanismistheindiscriminatehatred toward the American people (the white folk only)as a wholeregardless of any American’s political positions and voting preferences. For more clarification, watchthis video. It defines Anti-Americanism in depth.
Now, let’s determine what “Racism” really means:
Racism is the belief that a particular race is superior or inferior to another, that a person’s social and moral traits are predetermined by his or her inborn biological characteristics. Racial separatism is the belief, most of the time based on racism, that different races should remain segregated and apart from one another.
Racism has existed throughout human history. It may be defined as the hatred of one person by another — or the belief that another person is less than human — because of skin color, language, customs, place of birth or any factor that supposedly reveals the basic nature of that person. It has influenced wars, slavery, the formation of nations, and legal codes.
While I haven’t developed a solid opinion as to whether or not Americanophobia is a form of racism, one of my British friends, David wrote in his blog how he defines it as such.
So does Mish from New Zealand who wrote the following in my comment section – you may go here for the full story.
We can agree, perhaps, that “racism” IS an ambiguous term, but it’s hard to disagree (aside from those two cutting examples above) that it’s not overused and rather misused by insecure knee-jerk reactionaries as a crutch in an attempt to appear “morally superior” in front of the crowd because he really does feel “above all”. The formula for this knee-jerk reaction is simple:
I don’t like what you just said + you used the word “white” = You are a racist.
I don’t like what you just said + you used the word “black” = You are a racist.
Never mind the context in which the term “white” and “black” is used in. That’s irrelevant to one with an agenda. And ultimately, only HE knows what that agenda is.
However, what the mis-usage of “racism” really does is belittle those people who have actually been the target of racism and cause more friction between the masses (not less). The likes of Richard Warman automatically want to believe that someone is “racist” or “Islamophobic” even though they DON’T know what the word means! They are the cultural elitists/radical leftists, and in my opinion, the most INTOLERANT people out there! As a matter of fact, the same person that told me that I was a “racist” also unashamedly admitted to being an Americanophobic. They only care about themselves. Their “mission” to get the whole world undivided and all holding hands is disingenuous. Once again, we see the hypocrisy in Americanophobia. While Americanophobes may not be “racist”, we can all (free-thinking people) certainly agree that it’s prejudice, it’s bigotry, it’s discriminative and it’s *not right*.
Depending on where the Americanophobic person comes from, all depends on if they hate all Americans as a whole or just the white folk. My blog concentrates on the Americanophobes that live in Canada, Europe, New Zealand, and Australia. Why? Because I find them to be the most vocal about it. What about the middle east? They hate us the most. This is true. But we Americans expect middle eastern countries to hate us.
If you’re going to call me a “racist”, then you better call Michael Moore, in his book, “Stupid White Men” a “racist” too. Why? Because his principles are aligned with the Americanophobic sentiment that I speak of in my blog.
Yes, he DOES point out valid flaws within the US, however, a lot of his work has been based on LIES, LIES, LIES, so have his movies!
But why just the “white man”?
Leaving Michael Moore’s book aside, when Americanophobes make blanket statements about Americans, they ARE referring to the “white man”. Please keep in mind the stereotype that you use to describe us:
Now, ask yourself if you apply this to the “white anglo-saxon protestant (WASP)” or do you apply the above including the Blacks, Mexicans, Cubans, South Americans, Asians, Haitians and all those who’ve become naturalized citizens of the US?
Perhaps some Americanophobes DO wipe that big brush over ALL Americans regardless of where they came from or what their national heritage is. But will they a-d-m-i-t to even hating the minorities and include them too?… that…. is a whole different thing.
Americans have faces. Don’t treat us as a face-less nation.
Keep in mind, this is my opinion. While I may be wrong, I feel strongly about this issue that I bring up.
American citizens can be Asian, African, or Hispanic/Latino too. Heck, there are even naturalized citizens that have in recent times come from Canada, Australia, and Europe and the list goes on! These people are exempt from the wrath of Americanophobia because of the huge backlash (due to the strain of censorship in a politically correct society) that would result in public humiliation for the offender. They would be called a “racist” and that is the biggest nightmare of the holier-than-thou and “morally superior” multicultural elitists. The big fat greedy white American guy is always fair game because it is more socially acceptable. Remember the video that you just watched about how it’s frowned up on in Britain to slander a Chinese person? (it doesn’t matter if he’s Chinese or a Chinese American!)
In a recent conversation with a Canadian that is against Americanophobia, the following only reconfirmed what I had previously felt. She states…
In Canada, one cannot say anything derogatory about any other culture without being politically incorrect or racist. Save the natives and the Americans, who are fair game. This is so ingrained in the “Canadian” culture that Canadians cannot/ do not think for themselves. If I said “French men are rude”, then GASP – Jenny! You are so rude and judgmental and how on earth can you look yourself in the mirror stereotyping an entire country like that! Yet, someone from Ohio comes into town and all the Canadians are whispering “That fucking American. He probably doesn’t even know we have a different currency up here. He is so ignorant and rude.” There is a blatant double standard here and I get treated like a pariah when I point this out.
In my opinion, it doesn’t matter if he were a French Canadian or a French American.
The likes of Richard Warman and political correctness having gone to such an overboard extreme, prevents people from taunting Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians (that have become or are US citizens) in the streets of Britain and Canada (or even online – once their heritage is discovered).
Here’s a hint.
—> Because being “racist” is one of the most typical stereotypes handed to us, WHO, really, are being called the “racists”: The minorities or the whites?
—> When you call Americans “white trash”, WHO, really are you referring to: The minorities or the whites?
—> When you say Americans are “oppressed”, WHO really are you referring to as the “oppressors”, the minorities or the whites?
—> What makes Canada so great and American so bad? Canada is “multicultural”. Who do Canadians believe are keeping America from being as “multicultural” as Canada: The minorities or the whites?
—> What will you tell America if Obama isn’t elected as president? What will you say if he gets assassinated?
Think about it.
I received this message from a Canadian who shared the following with me:
(sic) Its the fact that the american people and government are to ignorant to be able to embrace their multiculturalism and try to make everyone the same fat, stupid, greedy, obnoxtious asshole american people that the world tends to HATE.
A French TV comedy shows an interesting example of this.
At 9:50 (toward the end of this video), a reference is made suggesting that the American military is “out to destroy the commies and the blacks”!
Why is comedy so funny? Because TRUTH can be found through comedy. Yes, it’s funny. Yes, it’s a joke. But this IS the way the Americanophobes DO view us. They sympathize with the minorities and dodge the “white folk”. This evidently is not a reality that Americanophobes want to accept as, like I mentioned earlier, none of these self-righteous elitists want anybody to think that they are racist. What do I think? I think they are projecting.
But the radical left Americanophobes are damned either way. They’re in a really rough position as — if they really do hate all Americans meaning that they include literally ALL AMERICANS, couldn’t they be considered racist as they are including the minorities or those immigrated from other countries? If they are only talking about the “whites”, that is odd to me too because what makes America, America is EVERYONE – not just the white people. Come here and see for yourself.
Everyone makes this place what it is and contributes to any stereotype delivered to the “all American folk” determined by the Americanophobes.
This is why I define Americanophobia to be geared toward the white folk.
When Michael Moore did his research on “American Ignorance“, he evaluated indiscriminately, but named them in his book, “Stupid White Men”. See for yourself!
Do I feel like a target of reverse discrimination? Absolutely not. I’m just simply defining Americanophobia for what it is.
In short, the word, “racist” has been downgraded to mean anything, but “racism”.
I’m going to post an entire documentary here. While this is good for the whole world to see, I find it just as important – if not more, for Americans to see. At least for me, it made me appreciate the feelings that Europeans have concerning their relationship with the United States.
Note:If you have any problems getting any of these videos to play, try refreshing the page. If that doesn’t work, click the link above each video so that you can watch it on the Youtube site. Also keep in mind that my feedback about each video will be at the bottom of each one (not the top).
It will take an hour of your time to go through all of these videos, but I cannot begin to stress the importance of this material for those genuinely concerned about America’s relationship with Europe. As much as I’d like Europeans to open their minds a little bit about us, I feel that we, as Americans, should at least try to understand them. This is not to say, however, that I won’t be leaving my usual sarcastic and sassy comments in response to some of the odd misconceptions/distortions they have about Americans. In any event, please watch. It’s certainly an EYE-OPENER!
We live in a very “black and white” world where if you’re not a slut, you must be prudish. If you agree that a conservative person was right about something, you must be a neo-con. If Obama doesn’t get elected as president, all Americans are racist. If Hillary doesn’t get elected, all Americans are sexist and primitive. If you openly admit you didn’t vote for Bush, you must be an acid-tripping-tree-hugging-bleeding-heart hippie leftist. If you’re into moderate politics, you must be either a radical liberal or a radical conservative hiding underneath. If you say that you’re agnostic, some people think that you’re just too scared to say you’re an atheist. If you’re against Americanophobia, you must be pro-Bush. If you welcome the freedom of Christians to practice their religion, you are automatically assumed to be a bible-thumping red-neck Fundamentalist. If you support Israel, you’re automatically pinned as “hater” of Islam. If you feel that invading Afghanistan was justified, you are to be presumed a “war monger”. If you support the troops, you are thought to be FOR the war. If you make friends with liberals, you are to be assumed that you are one too. If you make friends with conservatives, you are assumed to be one of “them”. If you are against the violence of Fundamental Islam, you are considered to be “Islamophobic”. If you’re an American, you must be white, fat, lazy, stupid, individualistic, ignorant, arrogant, a greedy capitalist, a racist, a homophobe, materialistic, rich, overly patriotic, a religious fundamentalist, a neo-conservative, a war-monger that is obsessed with McDonalds, guns, violence, SUVs all while stepping on the poor man’s toe to obtain it all. This is how Americanophobic nationalists from other western countries perceive Americans.
But does this mean that if you’re a non-American, you are non-Caucasian, slender, politically correct, hard-working, intelligent, generous, humble, tolerant, don’t buy expensive things (because you’re saving that money to send to South Africa), you’re poor or belong to the lower middle class, you share your money with those that need it without question, you say “we” instead of “I”, you’re not patriotic, you’re an atheist, a radical Noam Chomsky liberal, against all wars, eat very healthy, exercise a lot, have no guns, are non-violent, you drive a tiny car, and if someone you know at work wants to get ahead or promoted, you do whatever you can to cooperate to help your co-workers move up in the company sacrificing your own status. You are a very nice and self-less person who never throws his trash on the floor?
This is the world we live in. Simple-minded people come from all over.
Critical thinking is beginning to phase out little by little as insecure, bitter, and lazy individuals find it always easier to follow whatever the popular hype is at the time. They find strength in numbers. They are blind. They are sheep. They refuse to see the world in the complex shades of gray that it really is. Forget America. The entire world is dumbing down. The media has latched on to many people and have taken them hostage. Is it really the media’s fault, though? In my opinion, no. It’s always the fault of the one who chooses to be manipulated. Canadians and Europeans (the Americanophobic ones) will claim that their media is flawless. I find it natural for them to say this. If you are correctly brainwashed, you WON’T realize that you’ve been brainwashed. Your ears, to anything other than the popular consensus, are closed. Your eyes are forever shut to anything “out of the ordinary group think”.
Many Americans are brainwashed too.
But one thing that I admire about Americans is that we tend to vary more in our political opinions and opinions in general. We don’t have here a majority that thinks one way to such a degree that if someone were to deviate from “the norm”, we’d be considered a pariah.
Here are my questions: If you are European or Canadian and aren’t an Americanophobe (see definition), can you have friends that are Americanophobic and visa versa? Can you speak about any positive feelings about the US publicly in your country? How about Australians? Or New Zealanders? I’d be most curious. My guess is that it’s easier to have diversity of thought in a land that has over 300 million inhabitants such as America.
In a recent conversation with a Canadian that is against Americanophobia, the following only reconfirmed what I had previously felt. She states…
In Canada, one cannot say anything derogatory about any other culture without being politically incorrect or racist. Save the natives and the Americans, who are fair game. This is so ingrained in the “Canadian” culture that Canadians cannot/ do not think for themselves. If I said “French men are rude”, then GASP – Jenny! You are so rude and judgemental and how on earth can you look yourself in the mirror stereotyping an entire country like that! Yet, someone from Ohio comes into town and all the Canadians are whispering “That fucking American. He probably doesn’t even know we have a different currency up here. He is so ignorant and rude.” There is a blatant double standard here and I get treated like a pariah when I point this out.
Some say that all Americans do is watch Fox news and are brainwashed to believe that whatever Bush does is correct. But then we have people like Bill Maher, Howard Dean, George Carlin, Rosie O’Donnell, Michael Moore, Madonna, and literally TONS of American folk (or how about almost ALL of Hollywood) that speak out for the liberal party. Our press, as well, for the most part is liberal. You can find information on that here. Micheal Moore is a millionaire. If all of his profits were just made overseas, he wouldn’t be the success he is right now in the US. He has MANY fans here. But Americanophobes still run their mouths and complain that everything we touch, see, hear, smell and feel in the US is stars-and-stripes coated conservatism…. which is not true.
Of course the Canadians, Europeans, and South Americans etc. are not alone in feeling ill treated. Many Democrats have a visceral dislike of the Bush administration and their feelings are reflected in American population as a whole. Literally millions upon millions upon millions of Americans simply loath the man; one result of this is that Bush bashing is a billion dollar industry in the States. Another result of this is that while Bush bashing is international in scope it has distinctly American face to it. Michael Moore is arguably its most recognizable figure and a good number of critiques have a Chomskyian like flavor to them. Of course, South Korea’s Roh Moo-hyun and German’s Schroeder are not the only politicians to capitalize on the phenomena either. Howard Dean was the first American politician to capitalize on it and his doing so set the tone for the Democratic primaries.
How come people from other countries cannot see this??? Bush is hated just as much in the US. It’s the “black and white” simplistic-world-view phenomena. A bottled-up hatred that needs an outlet finds [insert nation] as a convenient target for its release. Whether it be temporary anger or anger-management issues in general, an angry person only sees “black and white”. However, a person willing to look at an issue at several different angles seeing all of its complex shades of gray is not an angry person with an ax to grind. I’ve watched myself make sweeping generalizations before, and in retrospect, I realized that I had been furious. When you’re angry, there’s no will or time to reason and explore both sides of anything. Your vision is narrow and you’re on a mission. Seeing the shades of gray would only cause a person to look inward and find faults within themselves. And when you’re angry, you don’t want to see that!
Here’s a black and white example for you:
“Anti-Americanism is at base a totalizing, if not totalitarian, vision. The peculiar blindness of fanaticism can be recognized in the way it seizes on a certain behavior of the hated object and sweepingly condemns it, only to condemn with equal fervor the opposite behavior shortly after–or even simultaneously….According to this vision–in the sense that Littre confers on the word: a ‘phantom projection, a credulous fantasy of fears, dreams, delusions, superstitions’ – Americans can do nothing but speak idiocies, make blunders and commit crimes; and they are answerable for all the setbacks, all the injustices and all the sufferings of the rest of humanity.” — Jean-Francois Revel
Being a moderate, it is hard for me to find other Americans that share the same views I have. I know that they’re out there though. I base my political stances on what the issue is. I know that I’m in the minority here. This is one political class that you don’t find as often in the states. We find more a mixture of liberals, radical liberals, conservatives, radical conservatives, and “apathists” (my new term for those that just don’t care).
Anyway, America is very diverse in thought. And while we are not an entirely a free country in every aspect, how many other countries out there would put up with a person who aggressively challenges its government, and globally exposes his country’s weaknesses via creating books and movies one after another? What would YOUR country do about a Micheal Moore equivalent?
AUSTRALIA has become the fattest nation in the world, with more than 9 million adults now rated as obese or overweight, according to an alarming new report.
The most definitive picture of the national obesity crisis to date has found that Australians now outweigh Americans and face a future “fat bomb” that could cause 123,000 premature deaths over the next two decades.
This is nothing to celebrate over. It just goes to show you how the Americanophobic stereotypes don’t hold much weight, do they? (no pun intended)
In yet another futile attempt to humble imperialistic America off of her self-absorbed, “high and mighty” throne, Canadians and Europeans (both equally guilty on this one) remind us about the obesity epidemic in America on a daily basis… as if we didn’t know. “You yanks suck cuz you’re all FAT!” – I hear over and over and over again. I am genuinely clueless as to how our problem with obesity is affecting these people so much as to become obsessed with Fat America? Where is the hurt and anger coming from? Or is it one’s insecurity needing to be built up to feel secure? Is it about control? Is it envy? American Obesity is useful ammunition for those taking digs at the US. What does this accomplish, though? Nothing. Will we still be fat? Yes. Will we humble up and realize that we’re aren’t …. all that? No. Why? Because FAT-O-PHOBIA exists in the US as well…. believe it or not. Quite naturally, the BBC with an Americanophobic agenda won’t tell you something like that. They want YOU to think we’re “obesity-loving”. They also fail to provide the correct facts. Let’s take a look at the REAL statistics. Sixty million Americans are obese. This is 20% of the population unlike the “over 50%” that you learned on the CBC or the BBC. Could it be that your media got us confused with the middle east where over 50% of the women are obese? Aaah… I’ll let that one slide. You ARE aware that over 300 million people live in the US, right? So, how would YOU explain for the 240 million that AREN’T obese? I’ll wait on that answer, but let’s continue…
The article postulates that fatness and obesity are directly related to poverty and ignorance; that rich, educated people are rarely fat. Also, it says, “Obese means not just podgy, but dangerously, disablingly, distastefully fat, as in American fat.”
Not just in this article, but whenever I travel outside this country, I find the topic comes up an inordinate number of times. “Oh, you live in America; isn’t everyone beastly and fat over there?” To which, after today’s article, I can now respond “No, only the poor, stupid ones, apparently.“
I’d like to take some time here and clear up some misconceptions that people all over the world have about American Obesity.
First off, we invented it. It’s ours. Stop copying us. Obesity is one of those precious freedoms our ancestors fought for. We get to keep it.
On a serious note, according to this article, Australia is tied with the US in the “fat wars“.(They ARE one competitive group, aren’t they?)
Australians are now equal with Americans as the most overweight people in the world, with a new study showing that the rate of obesity in Australia has more than doubled in the past 20 years.
Professor Zimmet said an obesity summit held in NSW last year estimated it costs the nation up to $13 billion a year.
Nearly a million Australians now have type 2 diabetes. The figure has quadrupled in the past 20 years and led experts to coin the term “diabesity”.
This site addresses issues regarding the obesity crisis among adolescents in Australia.
Unfortunately, weight problems are common among adolescents in Australia. At least 1 in 4 young people in high school in Australia are overweight or obese.
OBESITY cost Australians $21 billion last year in direct spending, disability and premature death, according to a report to be released in Canberra today.
And it is likely to get worse, with the Access Economics report estimating that by 2025 as many as 7.2 million Australians or 28.9 per cent of the population could be obese — and that’s obese, not just overweight.
Australia is now one of the fattest nations in the developed world, according to a new international report which singles out the country’s sky-rocketing obesity rate.
But again, 1 in 4 Australians….
But it was one of the worst performers on obesity, thanks to new statistics showing almost one in every four Australians now has a body mass index (BMI) over 30.
Australians are gaining weight even faster than people in the US, a notoriously fat nation.
“Using consistent measures of obesity over time, the rate of obesity has more than doubled over the past 20 years in the United States, while it has almost tripled in Australia,” states the report, Health at a Glance 2007.
Here’s my biggest problem: Nobody ever thinks to mention other parts of the world who are having similar problems. It’s always “The Americans“. My guess is that Americans get far way too much television and generalized media exposure across the globe. What can I say? We’re so “hated” that the world is obsessed with us. At the end of the day, Bush and the Iraqi War have very little to do with the collective bigotry toward Americans.
Also in regards to being simply over-weight, here’s an interesting chart that lists 194 countries and the “fat rank” in each one. And with that said, Canada doesn’t have TOO much to brag about.
To debunk another myth about obesity in America, it is thought by people from other countries that we are apathetic toward this crisis or even insomuch to embrace it with pity, adoration, and admiration. In this topic on Facebook, “Why does America have a bad image?“, one member suggests the following:
(sic) It’s a perculiar social quirke that drug addiction is often perceived as so evil, along with self-harm, and yet obesity is overlooked. Even though as you have said over-eating is a form of self medication and a form of self-harm. So shouldn’t that be looked upon in the same way?
It is probably due to misconceptions that obesity is a sign of wealth, that being fat is not looked down upon as drug addiction is.
Any Americans reading this with a half a brain would know that the above couldn’t be farther from the truth. While it IS true that Americans are more tolerant (somehow the Anti’s conveniently confuse tolerance with adoration) toward obese folk, fat people are far from being overlooked, and we ARE looked down upon *significantly* MORE than drug addicts or anyone else with unhealthy addictions.
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Who’s going to get more pity: Fat people or druggies?
Druggies.
Who’s going to get more dates? Fat people or druggies?
Typically druggies are thin, so… druggies.
Who’s capable of giving a better first impression? Fat people or druggies?
Druggies. They aren’t stoned ALL the time. They are, again, mostly slender, and looks are EVERYTHING when it comes to 1st impressions.
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America is just as superficial as every other country in the world. The only reason America appears to be “fat-loving” is because there are so many of us and also because victims of any societal prejudice and mindless cliches tend to be quite loud — and RIGHTFULLY SO! Being against the target of stereotypes is not the same thing as being “Pro-Fat”. Still not convinced?Try seeing a doctor or land in an emergency room in the US about a problem unrelated to obesity and be FAT. I’d be curious to hear your results. In the US, only a minority of doctors don’t bully or condescend to fat people. Read this and the comments(it’s very long but if you’re not American and/or fat, I can assume you’re not lazy, right?) that follow the article.
In fact, in America the fat are looked down upon MORE than murderers/criminals. Criminals get all sorts of letters in prison from women and men all the time. The worse the crime, the more love letters they get. There is much lust in society even on a global level for serial killers. If you didn’t already know this, shame on you!
And for the love of all that’s ‘holy’, OBESITY IS *NOT* A SIGN OF WEATH. Rather, just the opposite is true. The media outlets in Europe and Canada (because they are the “peace-loving” elitists staunchly against the evil capitalists), want YOU to believe that Americans eat out of pure greed and are a part of the “I-want-it-ALL/Evil-Capitalist-hog-resource-leeching-syndrome”. Some of you Europeans and Canadians are conveniently confusing the general public with the Corporate Giants that rule the US. The rich make up the smaller percentage in the US.
At an upcoming conference at the University of Chicago, researchers will investigate why obesity is now a bigger threat to poor people than starvation in the United States, and is growing in danger across the world. As scientists declare a “global epidemic of fat,” the University’s Center for Gender Studies will host the Obesity and Poverty Conference on Friday and Saturday, March 1 and 2, to address the sometimes surprising cultural and medical reasons why the poor in post-industrial nations are now more likely than the rich to be dangerously overweight. This interdisciplinary conference will bring together doctors, scientists and humanists to analyze a paradoxical new world situation.
We shop at Whole Foods (a healthy, largely organic food supermarket) and Publix (a major supermarket chain). It is patently obvious upon simply perusing the receipts that when we do a weekly shop at Whole Foods, we are paying around $100 more than when we do it at Publix.
Healthy, natural foods are more expensive than processed crap. I recently heard an old lady in the checkout line explaining, as though ashamed since no one had asked her, that she was buying a loaf of 20 cent supermarket-brand white bread because it was all she could afford.
Eating right, new research shows, is getting so expensive that millions of Americans can’t afford it.
In what is believed to be the first study of its kind, researchers at the University of Washington focused on the cost of eating foods that are rich in nutrients, and low in calories, like fresh vegetables, whole grains, fish and lean meats. That’s the stuff we’re told we have to eat if we are going to shed a few pounds and remain healthy.
But when the researchers checked prices at numerous stores around the Seattle area, they found that the good, healthy foods had soared in price over a two-year period, jumping by nearly 20 percent compared to a 5 percent increase in the overall food price inflation. And during that same period, high-calorie foods had remained about the same price, and in some cases had actually dropped.
Many of our stereotypes about fat people, besides being cruel, are myths. Recent medical research shows that being overweight may not be a sign of prosperity at all, but of past poverty and starvation. The body has natural defenses against starvation, and when it experiences enough of it, it slows down the body’s metabolism to make less food go further. Because poor people are more likely to go through periods of starvation than rich people, they are more likely to trigger these natural defense mechanisms.
One can exercise, right? After all, it’s free! Wrong. Eating nothing but crap makes you feel like crap, and the last thing that you want to do is exercise (especially if you suffer from depression). And before you call Americans, “lazy”, read this.
To also debunk the myth that most Americans just simply don’t care about their weight….
(sic) American society has a neurotic obsession about weight. It worships an ultra-thin “ideal” personified by gaunt models and waif-like celebrities. So intense is the social pressure to conform to this unnatural weight that 200,000 American women suffer anorexia nervosa each year from trying. (1)
The flip side of this neurosis is intolerance towards fat people. And when such people also claim to be poor, critics can — and often do — erupt in open hostility.
Like so many prejudices, this one is rooted in myth. Dr. Martin Seligman, an authority on obesity, writes: “Nineteen out of twenty studies show that obese people consume no more calories each day than non-obese people. In one remarkable experiment, a group of very obese people dieted down to only 60 percent overweight and stayed there. They needed one hundred fewer calories a day to stay at 60 percent overweight than normal people needed to stay at a normal weight.” (2)
What’s going on here? In 1995, Dr. Jules Hirsch of Rockefeller University published the results of a landmark study that proved that the body has a “thermostat” when it comes to maintaining its natural weight. His research team recruited 18 people who were obese and 23 who had never been overweight. They were required to live at a clinical center while their diet and activities were carefully controlled. In volunteers who gained weight, metabolism was speeded up by 10 percent to 15 percent. In those who lost weight, metabolism was 10 percent to 15 percent slower than normal. (3)
In other words, when people fall below their natural weight, their bodies slow down metabolism to try to regain it. When people gain weight, it speeds up metabolism to burn it off.
Other critics of fat people will accuse them of making up excuses and also think that fat people are happy.
My question is
Why would someone want to purposefully gain weight just for the sake of it?
How on earth could a fat person possibly be content in a world where they are globally harassed, mocked and ridiculed by the majority?
Fat people are unhealthy. When you’re unhealthy, you don’t feel well. When you don’t feel well, you’re not happy. Even on the rare occasion where an obese person is loved and accepted by friends and family members, NOBODY is happy being LARGE. It’s unsexy. It’s VERY inconvenient, and it’s harder to move, have sex, take a shower, climb stairs, and participate in the things in life that give us pleasure that slender people can do effortlessly. There’s no rhyme or reason why anybody would envy the obese.
Read this blog post written by a doctor and then read the comments for an eye-opener.
And if you’re still not convinced that fat-a-phobia doesn’t exist in the US, read this.
FEBRUARY 1–Mississippi legislators this week introduced a bill that would make it illegal for state-licensed restaurants to serve obese patrons. Bill No. 282, a copy of which you’ll find below, is the brainchild of three members of the state’s House of Representatives, Republicans W. T. Mayhall, Jr. and John Read, and Democrat Bobby Shows. The bill, which is likely dead on arrival, proposes that the state’s Department of Health establish weight criteria after consultation with Mississippi’s Council on Obesity. It does not detail what penalties an eatery would face if its grub was served to someone with an excessive body mass index.
More examples of fat-o-phobia in America can be found, here, here, and here.
Here are some clues as to how people can get fat. (It is much more complex than than the overly simplistic black and white views that fat people get fat simply from eating too much of the wrong foods.)
There are some diseases and other physiological problems that actually cause obesity. Let’s take a look at them.
Obesity has become an all too common condition in many of the world’s industrialized societies today and is continuing to rise at an alarming rate. In the United States, which currently has the highest rate of obesity of any country in the world, some 60 million (out of 300 million) adults are classed as being obese and a staggering 9 million adults are considered to be severely or morbidly obese.
Although at first sight it might seem that this is simply the result of changes to our diet and a dramatic drop in the level of physical activity for many Americans in recent years, the reality is that scientific studies into the causes of obesity show that the condition results from a complex combination of factors. One such factor which has come under increasing examination over the past ten years or so is genetics and, in particular, the genes involved in the regulation of leptin within the body.
High-carbohydrate meal changes the odds in favor of tryptophan by increasing insulin, which pulls competing amino acids out of our blood and into our cells. Even though the actual amount of tryptophan in the blood hasn’t changed, more passes into the brain. This helps to explain why people often feel comforted after eating carbohydrate-rich foods (e.g., cake) and depressed people tend to binge on more carbohydrates.
For those that gain weight from over-eating fatty foods do so due to depression and post-traumatic stress disorders. This is fact. Fatty foods aid the brain to secrete a chemical called, “serotonin” which relieves depression temporarily. It is a trend that with those sexually abused as a child, grow to become very fat. This is a fact that cannot be disputed. Eating too much is not the result of ALL mood disorders, of course. However, those that over-eat are, in fact, not happy and are self-medicating. Everyone copes in their own way and over-eating is one of them. Canadians would be just as susceptible as Americans, right? But it could very well be that we’re a more depressed nation. Just ask yourself which is the most dangerous country to live in out of all the developed countries out there?
The reason it is so difficult to alter bad eating habits is that depleted, low levels of a chemical communicator in the brain called Serotonin, create overpowering cravings for junk-food carbohydrates (chips, bagels, sodas, sweets, white breads, pastries, chocolate, etc.) These ferocious cravings are referred to as hormone depleted cravings and they can be more savage than the cravings experienced by drug users for illicit street drugs.
In fact, the over-consumption of junk-food carbohydrate is the primary reason America has become the worlds fattest nation. The body instinctively knows that eating junk food will cause the brain to produce a burst of this feel good hormone, Serotonin.That is the reason it is often referred to as mood-food, comfort-food, or emotional eating. The problem is the price you pay for this short term fix is the overproduction of the fat storing hormone insulin.
You can read more on the link between depression, junk food, and serotonin here.
New research suggests that lack of sleep and environmental toxins are just as likely to cause obesity as eating fast food or failing to exercise. Dr. Sydney Spiesel, a Yale Medical School professor and a contributor to Slate, talks with Madeleine Brand about new research that lists other possible causes of obesity.
I think the obesogenic environment has a LOT to do with the obesity epidemic. It’s definitely not all genetics. If you look back 30 or 40 years, you see fewer processed convenience foods on the shelves, more people doing physical work, and more opportunities for exercise on a daily basis. That doesn’t mean that people are just doomed to be obese now; it just means that we have to be more conscious of our health decisions. I’m betting that a lot of obese people, if put in an environment from say 30 or 40 years ago, would lose weight almost without trying.
Read this article to find 10 factors that are the cause in the rise of obesity.
Next, I stumbled upon a blog entry written by a gentleman who had lived in Europe for several years. He cites an independent source and applies his own personal experience that is VERY eye-opening. Please take a look at it: “Why Americans are Fatter than Europeans”
Has anyone heard of addictions?
“America is a nation of addicts. We’re addicted not just to one thing, but often to several – like cigarettes, food, television, music, drugs, sex, even work. Each of these things is a kind of drug — because each temporarily gets your mind off of your pain.” –John Bradshaw (motivational speaker and family therapist)
Obviously America’s not the only offender here. But Interestingly enough, I found the above quote when reading an article on how to quit smoking. More importantly to consider, those people who whine, moan, and groan over fat people are addicted to something too.
You still think fat people are happy? I know one thing for sure. The fat-o-phobics out there can’t possibly be happy if they have to continuously taunt fat people to build themselves up. I cannot think of any other reason why others (including the fat-o-phobic Americans) would dislike a fat person other than the fact that his(it’s usually MEN that hate fat WOMEN) own mother was an angry, fat, slave-driving woman, and now as and adult, fat women will always remind him of his control-freak mother!
On Youtube in the comment section under the Cushings Disease video, someone posted the following that I totally agree with:
(sic) I am so sick of the campaign of hate that is going on in the name of health. You should never judge a fat people because you don’t know why they are fat. Why isn’t the medical community and more people standing up and reminding and educating people the fact that there are many reasons people are fat. They are reinforcing stereotypes to make people prejudice, as if this is going to help the problem. It’s wrong, and it’s not helpful.
Another common reason that slim people hate fat people: I often hear the following: “If they cannot take care of themselves, how are they going to take care of ME?” This is not only why slim people hate fat people, but it is why most people hate those with illnesses (especially those that are invisible like this one or this one). My answer is why are you looking for someone to take care of YOU??? Take care of yourself! If you have to depend on someone to take care of you and are over 18, you’re in pretty sad shape. Your mother should have already cut the apron strings and stopped the nipple by now!
And to those from other countries that accuse “yanks” for being “loud, rude and obnoxious“, your mocking obesity says that you’re not all too different from Americans after all. The hypocrisy in your criticism of us is overwhelming.
Last but not least, I’m getting tired of those from other western countries around the world whining that the reason their population is becoming so obese is “America’s fault” because of the “influence” we have on other countries. The last time I checked, the foods that you decide to eat are YOUR choice. The last time I checked, good parents watch after their children’s diet. No “evil Americans” have a gun to your head dictating you on how to live your life. Take responsibility for yourself! Additionally, if you get a disease that causes you to gain weight, that’s not “America’s fault” either. Quit playing the “blame game”. But I understand. It’s always easier to blame every little thing that goes wrong in your lives on “the Americans”. If anything, you should appreciate us more because if it weren’t for us, you’d have nothing to use as a crutch for your OWN shortcomings!
In conclusion, America has problems. BIG ones. We’re aware of it. Bullying us is only going to cause the arrogant to become more arrogant, and the nice people to become arrogant. Hatred serves no purpose for the common good. Give us something to look up to. If your country is truly superior to America, lead by example. The last thing you want to do is be hostile as that’s the same word you use to describe Americans. Consequently, we won’t listen.
There are some people that often wonder why the younger generation preoccupies themselves with the the superficial things in life such as TV, video games, getting drunk, and you name it. The same critics also wonder why the youth of today is not spending their time worrying about the starving people of the world and not stopping the wars all over the world.
I would just like to defend the youth and why they’re like this.
In my opinion, it depends on what’s going on in the home. If the teen is a subject of domestic violence, sexual abuse or having serious problems in schools or whatever, they use TV, getting drunk and whatnots as a form of ESCAPE and escape only! People preoccupy themselves, generally speaking, with their immediate problems – even if they don’t admit to one. This is why, even though perhaps unconsciously, the greater picture of the world is not something that interests these people.
Watching MTV: It’s.. yes, very superficial. It’s not going to teach one anything. It’s simply a form of entertainment, and it is this kind of superficial entertainment that is the most popular form of escape or a means to cope with realities these young adults DON’T want to face.
So, this cannot be helped.
One is more capable of being altruistic and concerned about those outside themselves when their needs have been met to some degree. It frees up positive space in the mind allowing other things to be thought of. Although, one can just as soon argue that people are obsessed with helping others as a way of helping themselves. Either way, the *self* is the primary focus.
I will tell you that when I was a kid, I was the same way. I wasn’t curious and I didn’t care about the world. I was inwardly focused. I was strategizing and coping with my own realities. I was “guilty” of escaping too. As an adult now, I can say I’m passed all of that and have done a 180. I am currently VERY curious, concerned, and wanting to LEARN. I am political and trying to best that I can to keep up with the latest.
However, I would also like to mention that being OVERLY political or OVERLY concerned is also not a good thing. There needs to be a HEALTHY balance between the two. To mock these kids is not making ourselves any more superior at all. We are mocking and criticizing without taking any time to understand why the younger generation is as superficial and apathetic as they are. I strongly concur with Aristotle’s position that all things should be in moderation – even if that’s something that I cannot successfully juggle myself.
For example, as I said earlier, I do care about the world that I live in and preoccupy myself with politics and all the deeper things in life. But if that was all I did, I’d be bored out of my mind. I still long for the escape into superficial hobbies such as playing games, going to karaoke, listening to music and dancing, getting drunk on occasion (when my health permits these activities, of course!), watching the stupidest TV shows ever – just because they’re stupid, and I love a good laugh! The world needs to laugh more, and some people are just way too serious.
By the way, in school, I was MORE concerned about the hottie sitting a few rows from me than whatever topic was being discussed by my teacher! Now, I’m making up for it. Because it feels right for me now.
We all deserve to escape. Some people come home from an exhausting and highly stressful day at work. What do they want to do when they come home? Work more? A lot of people want to RELAX. What is relaxing? For some, that means resting the mind into a less cerebral an activity so that they can be alert for the next battling day at work. So, it all depends on what job one may have? How’s their financial situation? Are they in the middle of a divorce? Are they being over-worked? Did someone just die? Do they or a loved one have serious health problems? Do they have children that are consuming all of their sanity and energy? Some people don’t even know where they’re going to get the money for their next bill! People have stuff going on in their lives EVEN if they’re not a kid!
So, all I’m trying to say is to let’s not judge these people. Nobody is holier than another. There’s a valid explanation for everything – even though we may not understand it or agree with it. Once again… all things should be in moderation. Happy play. Happy work. Those are the healthiest people, anyway. Life, as we know it, is too short, and one should start out thinking of the self. Because if YOU’RE happy, well… then you can make another person happy too!
Yikes! What’s the latest rage about girls in their early teens losing their virginity so young? What’s up with that? If you ask me, I think it’s pretty sad. No. Correction: It’s not pretty sad; it’s VERY sad. And before I get all the way into this, I would just like to note that I am not a religious person, and that my feelings on this issue have nothing to do with religion AT ALL.
Is it peer pressure? I believe that it’s part of it. Having sex between the ages of 12 – 16 is considered “cool” and “in”. If you’re still a virgin at this age, you’re considered “weak” and a “prude” and will probably be made fun of as you stand alone among all the other girls who are proudly sexually active.
Does this have anything to do with loneliness, lack of self-worth or self-esteem?I do think this does play a role. This does not mean that if you have low self-esteem that you’re bound to humping everything and anything within arms reach. However, if you are proud of your body, you will not give it up so easily. Sex should be an act of intimacy where both partners love each other or at least have some intentions of committing themselves to one another – even though things may not work out in the end. (And when I say, “having sex”, I do not mean, “fucking” because to me, they are two different things all together!)I strongly believe there are many women out there that think their bodies are just a plain old piece of meat that they can easily give up to any and every “hot guy” that shows any signs of approval or likeness toward them. And they’ll do whatever it takes to keep receiving that attention from that “hot guy”. “Hey someone likes me! He wants to fuck? Bring it on. I don’t want to lose the attention from him.” Perhaps these loose women never got their basic needs met from their own parents, so they crave approval and the desire to be “wanted” outside the family. So, they’ll do something stupid enough like giving their body up just to keep the guy around. But as we all know, most teenage boys don’t hold on to their ladies. They’re playing the field and will eventually get tired of the girls they’re with. So, this desperate, insecure female will spread her legs wide open again for the next “hot guy” that comes around.Last, but not least, some girls just plain old can’t handle being alone. They will do whatever it takes to please their partner (even if that means unprotected sex) so as to not ever have to be without one. Have you ever asked yourself why these girls can’t handle being alone? The answer’s pretty obvious to me.
Does this have anything to do with hormones causing one to crave sex constantly?Well, actually, I DON’T think so. Following puberty, yes, some will feel sexual all the time because of the change in hormones. Everyone reaches their peak at different ages. But this is NO EXCUSE to give up your body to every Tom, Dick, and Harry that looks you pleasingly in the eye! I’m not going to get into detail here, but there are other things that women or teenagers can do to relieve sexual tension and cravings. Trust some of us women out there that it DOES WORK.
Does this have anything to do with the way Sex Education is taught in schools or by the parents of teens? As far as school is concerned, I can’t really say for sure because I don’t know how it is taught these days. However, I think more of the focus here should be on the parents for either not giving a fuck and not teaching them, or for teaching them and leaving out how the the body should be regarded with pride. Teens, if they’re overly sheltered by over-protective parents, just may go out and do everything that they know is wrong so that they can feel free. That’s a bit far fetched, but in some cases it is the case.
What I find to be as frightening as hell are those teens or young adults that are actually proud of being sexually active and having lost their virginity to abusive men at an age where children are supposed to be children! It never ceases to amaze me, actually. That’s something I wouldn’t be proud of nor would it be something I’d share with another person. Scary. Sad. Weird.
As far as casual sex is concerned or “Friends with Benefits”, I’m all for it so long as it’s mutual. And so long as
protection is used.
they are at least 18.
they aren’t confusing this casual relationship with “true love”.
they don’t lie to others saying that it’s their boyfriend when he’s really a “fuck buddy”.
they don’t brag about it.
they don’t make fun of others who haven’t involved themselves in casual encounters.
No. Casual sex isn’t anything to be proud of either, but it’s a lot easier for me to digest compared to Child Porn Stars that think they’re the shit. They’re really filthy, disgusting, dirty, used-up sluts who have no clue that they’ve got a huge problem. Child Porn Stars wouldn’t be so much of a concern for me if they admitted that they had/have a problem.
Now, if I’m a sexist for not mentioning male “Child Porn Stars”, I just may be. We always hear about how men are “players”, right? What about the women? Who ever spends time discussing how slutty they are? Not too many. Is that because it’s the men that are the horny ones? I think not. Women are just as sex-starved and promiscuous as men – if not more. “Men always think with their ‘head’”? Naaah, a lot of women think with their ‘lips’. It’s not always what appears to be obvious, that’s true. And this is why I’m only writing about women.
Side note:Before anybody accuses me of having a “religious motive” behind this post, I don’t believe in God!
Most of us tend to make jokes of or laugh at the whip me harder, hurts so good, tie me up, fuck me hard, spank me, the handcuffs, the chains, the bondage, the being tied to the bed, the tape over the mouth, the nipple biting, and the brutal spankings that lead one to bleed or leave marks that last a long time.
Don’t think my husband and I don’t make jokes about this too! In light of the situation or depending on the context it is being brought up in, I find myself giggling about stuff like this as well.
However, if I remove myself from the chuckles, and the comedy, it’s a very sad thing. Sad, in that, I can see where it’s coming from.
This is not to criticize those who engage themselves in Sadomasochism. I come from the “to each his own” camp. While I don’t judge these people, I feel very sorry for them (whether they’re feeling happy about it or not).
There’s a reason for this type of behavior that may surprise you all.
Read this. This is the story of Dorothy, a Child Abuse Survivor. I’m going to quote some of the things written in this woman’s blog and then add some of my own comments. (She is fully aware that I’m doing this too.)
Sexual abuse has been going on perhaps since the beginning of time, but the difference between THEN and NOW is that people are starting to come out of the woodwork to talk about it.
The innocence of a child, will not allow their mind to comprehend what terror is being put upon them during abuse. They can no more think killing their abuser than they can a fly. It worsens when the child knows the abuser, because they have a love and trust that is so innocent, they cannot mistrust. This is where the confusion is set deep into their psyche, causing them to have conflicts with feelings throughout their life. In place of learning love through hugs and smiles, they are taught love through sexual abuse and threats. They have already learnt that the world is not safe. Children quickly learn through instinct to remove their minds from their bodies. They also can manipulate their bodies to go numb in order to not feel any physical contact with the abuser. Abused children are also taught to mistrust any form of verbal love and appreciation.
I think this also has to do with a child’s capability to cope with the extreme emotional pain they’re experiencing at the time because if they did allow themselves to feel it, they would die.
Speaking of children “removing their minds from their bodies”, check out what Primal Therapy has to say about this:
This separation of oneself from one’s needs and feelings is an instinctive maneuver in order to shut off excessive pain. We call it the split. The organism splits in order to protect its continuity.
The fact that they can “manipulate their bodies to go numb” is fascinating. I know a few people that can tolerate heaps of pain and not even bat an eye lash. I know a woman who says that her husband hits her and that this is normal in a marriage. This also reminds me of Sadomasochism where most commonly women play the submissive role. And they continue to do it. There’s a reason for it. A psychological one.
What about people who cut themselves? Ever noticed WHY they do that? It is supposed to be painful and disgusting to watch your blood running out of your flesh. One would normally think this, right?
Why do people do this? I found this to be most interesting:
Some people who cut have had a traumatic experience, such as living through violence, a disaster, or abuse. Self-injury may feel like a way of “waking up” from a sense of numbness after a traumatic experience. Or it may be a way of reinflicting the pain they went through, expressing anger over it, or trying to get control of it.
The abuser will tell them things like, “Daddy loves you and wants to show you how much”, or ” I am teaching you what daddy’s teach their daughters so that you will grow up and know how to be a good woman”.
I find this very frightening. Why? Because children believe everything their parents tell them. Watch how children (even adults that are victims of abuse!) always defend their parents. They can do no wrong. When cops, social workers, or anyone in the legal profession get a hold of them alone, children still do not admit that they are being abused. Amazing! But according to The Stockholm Syndrome, this is what to expect.
So much deception and lies from someone that a child holds dear to their heart. To doubt their abuser when it is their father, only makes them feel like a bad child. They know that their father wants them to love them and smile for them. This makes daddy happy. It is what every child is naturally driven to do. They thrive on their parents smiles and happy feelings. This is the exact thing that an abuser takes advantage of and also poisons through the abuse they inflict on the child.
We all are creatures of need. We are born needing, and the vast majority of us die after a lifetime of struggle with many of our needs unfulfilled. These needs are not excessive–to be fed, kept warm and dry, to grow and develop at our own pace, to be held and caressed, and to be stimulated. These Primal needs are the central reality of the infant. The neurotic process begins when these needs go unmet for any length of time. A newborn does not know that he should be picked up when he cries or that he should not be weaned too early, but when his needs go unattended, he hurts.
At first the infant will do everything in his power to fulfill his needs. He will reach up to be held, cry when he is hungry, kick his legs, and thrash about to have his needs recognized. If his needs go unfulfilled for a length of time, if he is not held, changed or fed, he will suffer continuous pain either until he can do something to get his parents to satisfy him or until he shuts off the pain by shutting off his need. If his pain is drastic enough, death may intervene, as shown in studies of some institutional babies.
Very interesting, indeed. Depending on the severity of the child abuse, most of us as adults are not able to realize that we need. Our actions show that we do, but deep down we don’t realize it and when we see another person expressing their needs, we yell at them. Because it’s what WE feel too inside that we’re unable to express.
Back to the story:
The child will also think in two identities if the abuser is her father or her uncle. She will think simply in two parts. Good daddy, bad daddy. This helps her to keep her good daddy image safe, where he is suppose to be. The second daddy will be a figure in a bad dream, not real to her world at all. A child may turn to drawing pictures of her good daddy and bad daddy. Or write very obscure, negative, even offensive poems or stories. These are true signs and most certainly cries for help. Please do not ever underestimate the power of the pen. It will either be a cry for help from someone that cannot use words, or it could be the key to ones doors of healing.
“A cry for help”. This is significant here. While the child (of any age) may not be consciously aware of what’s happening to them, the “cry for help” can take form in many different ways. It is an outlet. The pain’s got to go somewhere. It does not just sit, rot, die and go away like many people believe. Many people out there think that children cannot feel. Those same people think that infants cannot feel. Those same people think that the gestation stages aren’t important in shaping the child. Why? Because they cannot feel. These same people say that children don’t have the problems that adults have. As a result of this, the pain of a child is almost always minimized.
Even adults are crying for help in their own way. They don’t know why. They don’t know where it’s coming from. Their problems are still unresolved because they’ve conveniently forgot or repressed EVERYTHING. It’s a way of coping.
…they continue throughout life exerting a force, channeling interests, and producing motivation toward the satisfaction of those needs. But because of their pain, the needs have been suppressed in the consciousness, and so the individual must pursue substitute gratifications. He must, in short, pursue the satisfaction of his needs symbolically. Because he was not allowed to express himself, he may be compelled to try to get others to listen and understand him later in life.
HERE’S WHAT’S IMPORTANT!
When the abuser is a family member, this factor alone robs the child of what would be known as a safe nest. The child will never know what a healthy role model is. Nor will this child ever have the experience of innocent nurturing.Unless this child through years of growth, learns to identify with their abuser and confront the abuse, their healing will never begin. Without this inner healing and peace, one is likely to repeat this horrible act of abuse that they were lead to believe to be a common practice in parenting.
This is what many of us don’t do. It’s not because we’re wrong or bad. It’s because most of us feel “safe” (ironic enough as that sounds) to keep the truth hidden from us. Not “facing the wolf”, if you will, is just another one of those coping mechanisms.
And you see it everyday – the cycle is being repeated down from one family to the next. To heal, you need to realize that you have a problem. (Again, this doesn’t mean you are bad or wrong). A lot of people fear that realizing they have a problem makes them look weak or that they are bad. It’s actually the contrary. You are strong when you realize that something’s the matter with you!
Next, you need to find out what your “bad habits” or act-outs are, find out why you do them, and if you can, stop doing them, and your true hidden feelings will surface. Once they surface you may feel anger, tension, anxiety, sadness and the like. Don’t deprive yourself of these feelings. Once you let yourself take ownership of them and feel them, you are less likely to put others through the same pain, and you, yourself, will be able to move on with your life.
Next, you need to realize that what happened to you was WRONG. Unless you realize this, than you’ll (without shame) take it out on another defenseless person.
Most importantly, you need to have either a counselor, a good friend or family member that you can trust or whom doesn’t belittle your pain – help you through this.
But we belittle our own pain. That’s why most of us when we hear that someone else is talking about having been a victim of sexual abuse, we tend to want them to just “shut up” and “get over it already”. We have no patience for those who are aware what has happened to them and choose to discuss it. Why? Because the same thing happened to us and we minimize our own pain. That’s why we minimize everyone else’s pain.
This is why it is so hard for a rape or molestation survivor to stand up and talk about it. Nobody believes them or feel that it’s a lame plea for attention. They tell them to forget about it and move on in a very callous and harsh manner. Those that say “get over it” are people that are very bitter, angry, and hateful that have still yet to heal. What they don’t realize is that they will never heal this way.
For these hardened and jaded folk – they will never be happy, but for them it’s more comfortable to feel “safe” than happy. And in the process, they piss on those trying to get through the rough times.
So for these reasons, I think healing from Sexual Abuse is not only hard, but next to impossible.
There are, however, very few that are as courageous as Holly. It is people like Holly that are able to face what they went through (even though it was extremely painful for her), and move on and that’s when and ONLY when their status changes from VICTIM to SURVIVOR.
Those of you who ignore it and think that you’re being “strong”, you’re dead wrong.
Victims have no choice but to survive. If they do not commit suicide, they learn to cope. I have mentioned in another article that some use drugs, alcohol, food, cutting ones self and even sex. These are common coping strategies. NO they are not good ones, but for most of the victims that choose that road, it’s the better of the two evils.
As I said before, it’s got to come out somehow. We should all try to develop a better understanding for those addicted to drugs (even though it’s hard).
Other victims choose to forget it ever happened, down play the abuse or rationalize it as if it were nothing more than a simple hug or touch. They even go as far as excusing their abusers actions or temper, saying that he was drunk or too stressed out from working. Victims will even try to understand and feel sorrow for their abusers. Anything to not accuse them and have to deal with the confusion of the why’s. Some even become so withdrawn into themselves, fearing that they may talk too much, or give a clue to someone about their nightmare. Then all their shame will be seen. So they choose silence instead of risk.
I have a friend that was a victim of repetitive sexual abuse by her own father. At one point she said that she hadn’t come out of the house for a year and that she didn’t say one word. She said that she was “physically unable” to speak even if she tried.
Denial is another way around facing the reality. But denial has a way of twisting around and returning with a vengeance. To not allow your pain to come up front so you can deal with it, only gives it more time to grow inside of you and get a stronger hold of your mind.
I continue to show you patterns that are caused by neglecting yourself and allowing yourself to be totally absorbed by an action that was NEVER in your control. Now it is in your control. Now you can do something about it. SO, what are you waiting for? FIGHT!!!! Fight like you are trying to save the life of someone dear to you. Fight like a master and use your power to say, “Go to hell“. Scream this as loud as you can, “I see you, I hear you and I will not allow you to abuse me any longer!” You must feel the freedom that comes with this new fight that is awakening inside you. Once the fight is over, you will live a new life. A new book has just been written.
You are FREE! Free to Live, Love and Laugh!!
This is the difference between the WEAK and the STRONG.Holly and Dorothy are the tough ones, and are even kind enough to help others. They are the REAL tough ones. Won’t you join them?
I’ve always wanted to type of a post about logic as I see flaws in logic all over the place on message boards, blogs (especially about POLITICS!), and of course in real life. Most people don’t know how to debate or just don’t care. I am no professional at logic, but tend to use more logic than others when debating an issue. This is not to say that my emotions don’t get involved, though. This is also not to say that if I’m personally attacked that I’m not going to retaliate either. Debating and fighting are two different things.
I’m going to post a similar entry to that of zandperl, but in my own words, of course.
An ad hominem fallacy consists of asserting that someone’s argument is wrong and/or they are wrong to argue at all purely because of something discreditable/not-authoritative about the person or those persons cited by them rather than addressing the soundness of the argument itself. The implication is that the person’s argument and/or ability to argue correctly lacks authority. Merely insulting another person in the middle of otherwise rational discourse does not necessarily constitute an ad hominem fallacy. It must be clear that the purpose of the characterization is to discredit the person offering the argument, and, specifically, to invite others to discount his arguments. In the past, the term ad hominem was sometimes used
more literally, to describe an argument that was based on an individual, or to describe any personal attack. But this is not how the meaning of the term is typically introduced in modern logic and rhetoric textbooks, and logicians and rhetoricians are widely agreed that this use is incorrect.
You’ll find this more on Cyberspace than anywhere else. Most people have in their disclaimers, “Don’t attack ME, attack the subject”. People never learn to play nice, but I never bat an eyelash when I see this happening. Let me introduce S.P.Q.W as a repeat offender in this case. His best art work is exemplified in all of the comment sections in the Two Guys from Kabul Blog toward other Americans especially found in this post.
An Appeal to Authority is a fallacy with the following form:
Person A is (claimed to be) an authority on subject S.
Person A makes claim C about subject S.
Therefore, C is true.
People repeat like parrots the words from the president and religious figures. But I’d have to say the most annoying one for me would be those parroting their parents. Sure it’s all good and “wholesome like” to respect your parents and your elders. But any good parent would only hope that when their child becomes an adult, that their children develop their own mind, their own values, their own religion, their own political beliefs, and most importantly they hope that their children become independent thinkers.
I strongly believe that most people are sheep. I also strongly feel that grown-ups are still trying to please mom and pop (even though they may have already passed away) or are too old to really care. As far as I’m concerned, these nipple-sucking goody-two-shoe types may have developed physically into adulthood, but intellectually and emotionally they are still attached to the umbilical cord. I’m guessing this is due to an irrational fear of possible rejection from their parents.
I came to Augsburg with no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I felt forced into a higher education because it felt like my family expected that of me. Both of my parents went to the U of M,so it felt like there was an expectation there. I lived most of my life trying to please my parents because I was scared to let them down or them being disappointed with me. I guess college made me grow up a lot!! I was more immature back then, then I knew. I came to Augsburg with the intention of just trying to get through with a degree. I am sure that is most freshmen’s idea of college. But, college really changes you. It shows you that getting better education is what you need to excel in this world.
I understand that some parents want the best for their children and need to guide them in such a way that so that their kids can achieve success. This is only natural. But kids shouldn’t be driven to do that out of fear. Kids need to want to become successful NOT for their parents, but for themselves.
Also I can understand a little girl or boy living growing up in a threatening environment placating the hell out of their parents to either shut them up or avoid a beating.
However, I would expect grown-ups to be able to split from their parents and have the ability to think independently from them. And if they are not able to – to at least admit that they cannot because they still fear their parents. I have nothing to back this up with, but I’m willing to bet that this is a very common fear.
Appeal to belief
Yet another sheep-minded Logical Fallacy. “Most people are for the Iraqi War, so it’s got to be right”.
“Most woman think Vin Diesel is handsome, so then he’s handsome.”
Next Fallacy: Some parents are very guilty of this one:APPEAL TO FEAR!
Next…
Argument from ignorance
Example: I can’t believe that such a young, handsome, innocent-looking, and rich guy such as Scott Peterson could kill another person, therefore he’s innocent.
KING: Anti-terrorism. It appears — you can say all you want about it,
we haven’t had an attack on this soil since 9/11.
MAHER: Yes. That doesn’t mean that’s because…
KING: We must have thwarted something.
MAHER: Why?
KING: That’s a pretty good guess, that we’ve thwarted something, isn’t it?
MAHER: Well, actually that’s a logical fallacy.
KING: A logical fallacy?
MAHER: Yes, just because A — B follows A, doesn’t mean that B was caused by A. You know that that’s a logical fallacy.
KING:I see. In other words, no speeding ticket was given on Wilshire Boulevard today doesn’t mean no one sped?
MAHER: Right. Exactly.
Now, look, I think on the local level, even on the federal level, lots of good people have been doing a lot of good work to thwart terrorism. So I don’t want to discount their efforts. But it also could be, for a number of other reasons, like they work — they, meaning the terrorists — work on a much different timetable than we do. They’re much more patient, much more patient. I always say if they had a sitcom on al Jazeera, they’d give it, like, 50 years to catch on.
I am with the ROCHA family, that “skank” Amber Frey pretented to be a voice for Laci & Connor! Turns out, Amber is a bitch, tramp, whore & more.. I have a daughter & I cherish her, like Sharon did her’s (LACI). Amber is now milking all she can to get $$$! I hope that skinny cunt who pretends to love the Lord, she will soon meet SATAN… Greedy Bitch!!! BURN IN HELL.
Written by Lynn.
…that if there’s another case similar to that of Scott Peterson’s in the future, if there’s “another woman” involved, she may keep a low profile and distance herself from the case as much as possible. If that’s so, that’s pretty sad. Sad for people who like to see bad guys go to prison.
We only know very vaguely what brought the jurors and Judge Delucci to believe the Death Sentence for Scott Peterson to be appropriate. It is possible that Amber Frey’s tapes are what tightened the nails in the bastard’s coffin.
I can only speak for myself here, but if I were ever in a similar position as Amber Frey, I would keep my mouth shut.
(1) I don’t want my sex life and all the private details of my past shed all over the U.S. and throughout the world.
(2) I don’t want the whole world making judgments about me based on the twisted lies of a hyperactive sensationalized media.
(3) I don’t want untruths being spoken about me.
(4) I don’t want to be the topic of discussion at the dinner table, internet chat rooms, message boards, blogs, news sites, and the like.
I will keep quiet. Even if it hurts the case. My private life is just that: private! I may be a whore, I may be a lesbian, I may be bisexual, I may be a meth addict, I may weigh 500 pounds, I may be bulimic, I may be an alcoholic, I may have a bad habit of biting my toe nails in public, I may be a lap dancer at night, or be secretly rich.
Whatever the case may be, it’s nobody’s business unless “I” decide to talk about it.
I’ve listened closely to every tape recorded conversation between Amber and Scott, and have read most of the transcripts regarding this case – especially Amber’s testimony. What I find most interesting is how the public can be so gullible as to believe and latch on to every word the sensationalized media has to say about Amber. People don’t know the facts.
Secondly, what’s wrong with being a whore (that is, if she is one)? If you’re a woman and decide to sleep with every Tom, Dick, and Harry, isn’t that sexual agreement a mutual one? How does that make a person bad? I feel sorry for whores because they must think so little of themselves to be tossing their precious bodies out to strangers like hot potatoes! It’s a sickness, it’s a shame, but that doesn’t make them bad or mean.
Can you prove to me that Amber knew Scott was married and made an active choice to destroy their marriage enough so that he killed his own wife and unborn child? Can you prove to me that the recorded tapes show a sign of home wrecking malice on Amber’s behalf? Can you prove to me that Amber was lying under oath when she testified? Do you even know that much? Maybe “I” don’t know that much. But if I have a choice to pick and choose, I prefer to listen to the legal facts over the media any day of the week.
You know, that’s another thing. Women commonly blame the “other woman” and make no mention of men who run around on their wives. Don’t you find that a bit odd? Ironic? Strange even? Does Amber strike a nerve in you because of your OWN problems keeping a man?
In a Cornell University study, men who perceived their masculinity to be maligned displayed more homophobic attitudes, tended to support the Iraq war more and would be more willing to purchase an SUV over another type of vehicle. In other words, men overcompensate when they feel their masculinity is threatened.
“Masculine overcompensation is the idea that men who are insecure about their masculinity will behave in an extremely masculine way as compensation,” explained study leader Robb Willer in a news release announcing the study findings.
Bottom Line: If ya gotta prove it, ya ain’t got it.
There are 8 million bloggers out there and 32 million people who READ blogs. Why are so many of us addicted to both writing and reading blogs? The answer is quite obvious. You can easily keep a personal journal and keep it private, but bloggers write to be heard.
Some or most of us say things in our blogs that we wouldn’t normally say face to face to anybody. The anonymity of the internet is a huge advantage in getting out our most controversial or non-controversial messages out there. I think this is a good thing. Some may think it’s “cheating”, but I think it’s great that we take advantage of our “secret selves” and “just say it”. Sometimes I may cause some feathers to fly, but I can handle the backlash.
Now that I got out the “whys” and the “need to be heard” element out of the way, I must say that there’s one thing that I don’t understand about some bloggers out there. It makes me scratch my head.
If someone could help me with this…. why are so many of you concerned about the AMOUNT of comments you get and/or the amount of viewers you get per day? Are you comparing yourselves to The Instapundit who gets approximately 300,000 hits per day? Or perhaps other popular bloggers? Are you THAT insecure about yourself that you need to make comparisons that determine your self-worth?
I won’t deny it myself that back in the day when I was blogging like a bat out of hell, I was constantly checking my stats and of course, looking for comments. I also won’t deny the fact that I am flattered to see that people are listening to me and/or taking the time to comment (good or bad). However, I don’t judge my intelligence, the richness of my blog content, my self-worth, whether I’m a good person or not by the amount of viewers and commenters I receive. I want more of both – yes, but I don’t fall prey to suicidal impulses or make an emergency call to my psychiatrist when I don’t. I wouldn’t even go as far as complain about it. Lastly and most importantly, whether I get 10 views a day or 300, this will not stop me from blogging. It’s what I like to do.
Am I supposed to feel inferior or that the content of my blog needs to be in check because I only get comments from just a few people?
When I see people like you out there complaining about “blog stats”, it actually makes me feel like I’m not as crazy as I think I am. While my mental health may be unstable at times, I feel that as far as my sense of “worth” is concerned, I’m not doing that bad.
I am a member of sites which help get my blog out there for the world to see (only used when I blog regularly). I want attention just as you do! But, I will not change my blog content because I’m not getting enough comments from a lot of different people. My blog content is ME! I’ve got my 10 viewers a day. I’m happy and those that don’t like me or my blog have a choice as emphasized in my disclaimer that I keep going on and on about.
Everyone has choice. It’s up to you to decide to make them or let others control you. Which do you prefer?
Why are kids suffering from mental/emotional disorders, called rotten? If you do the research, that is the mainstream word for a child. Forget that he’s in pain too and needs help. He was just born evil. Yes, that’s what it is.
Is it nature or nurture?
Did God create “rotten kids”?
Do storks carry them and drop them at our doorsteps?
Is the responsibility being conveniently shifted from parent to child?
A tendency to stress the negative or unfavorable or to take the gloomiest possible view: “We have seen too much defeatism, too much pessimism, too much of a negative approach” (Margo Jones).
The doctrine or belief that this is the worst of all possible worlds and that all things ultimately tend toward evil.
The doctrine or belief that the evil in the world outweighs the good.
My biggest most burning question is — Is there any proof that people on the internet are any more of a liar than those people that we meet face to face?
When we meet people face to face, can we really read into what kind of person they are? Really? Are you really sure?
Do Fox News,CNN, and other professional journalists always keep their story unbiased and straight?
What about our own spouses? When they respond to us saying that they’re “not cheating” (even though there’s evidence) can we trust that they’re telling the truth?
THE image of internet dating as a “fickle world” full of liars and chancers is far from the truth, according to research released today.
Instead, relations formed in cyberspace enjoy a 94% success rate, an academic study has shown.
Men who go online for love are more committed to the relationship and more emotionally dependent on their “e-partners” than women.
The study shows that where couples build up a “significant” online relationship by emailing or chatting and then meet face-to-face, 94% went on to see each other again.
Relationships lasted on average seven months, with 18% lasting over a year, according to the University of Bath research.
Dr Jeff Gavin, who carried out the survey, said: “Given that the most successful relationships lasted at least seven months, and in some cases over a year, it seems that these relationships have a similar level of success as ones formed in more conventional ways.”
He said because men went deliberately online looking for love they tended to be more committed, whereas women tended to be more cautious and safety aware.
“Men open themselves up more when chat is anonymous,” he said. “Rather than lying to each other, this means couples can form deep relationships by being more honest than they would be face-to-face.”
Sexual
Women tend to be more sexual online than they would normally as they cannot be judged when anonymous, he added.
And although there may be still a stigma attached to online dating for older generations, for younger people meeting people online is just the same as meeting in a bar, he said.
Some couples who have met online even spend their anniversaries chatting with their partners in cyberspace as the place they met “is special to them”, he added.
Some 229 people, aged between 18 and 65, were interviewed online for the study.
More on People and the Internet
As far as good old fashioned dating is concerned, let’s say that us ladies meet (face to face) a very nicely dressed man who has a very good job, a good education, a perfect IQ, talks very intelligently, is very good looking and tall, comes from a wholesome and religious family, he is rich, and has a good sense of humor to boot.
While there are whackjobs out in this world that are so obviously “criminal-looking” where we can spot them out in a heart beat, there are those who aren’t “criminal-looking” that fool even the most vigilant type of people.
You can do your part to a certain extent to be safe, but we only have so much control.
New research in hamsters now suggests that without companionship, wounds on the animals don’t heal as fast.
Researchers looked at the effect social contact had on wound healing in stressed hamsters. Results showed that skin wounds healed nearly twice as fast in the hamsters paired with a sibling. These animals also produced less of the stress hormone cortisol than unpaired hamsters.
“Stress delays wound healing in humans and other animals, and social contact helps counteract this delay,” said Courtney DeVries, the study’s lead author and an assistant professor of psychology and neuroscience at Ohio State University. “Our goal is to understand the physiological mechanisms by which social support improves health.”
She and her colleagues also treated a group of socially isolated hamsters with oxytocin, a hormone released during social contact and associated with social bonding in monogamous animals. Oxytocin treatment seemed to ameliorate the effects stress had on wound healing, as the treated animals healed about 25 percent faster than the untreated lone animals.
Now we understand why such support groups such as alcoholics anonymous work. They help raise the oxytocin levels and by so doing suppress the pain. Conversely, if there had been love very early on, the levels would be high and pain levels low.There would have been no need to drink. So the support groups are patching up the lack generated early in life by the absence of love.
The right OBFC (orbitofrontal cortex = “a key structure that enables a person to experience conscious-awareness — that is, to have conscious-awareness of feelings of pain that have been of too great force to feel. ) A Keeper of connection to our history:
The prototype, as I have stated, involves all manner of biochemical processes. Thus, we may carry around very low oxytocin levels which help determine how warm and close we can be to others. The brain’s neurochemistry, the levels of stress hormones and other activating chemicals, are all under right brain control. When these are altered they influence how we relate to others and to ourselves. In brief, we are rendered a different personality.
Watching this video makes me happy, but sad at the same time when I think of all the children in the world who are forced to sit quietly all the time like Katharine Hepburn. This is not to say that I condone parents allowing their children to run wild throughout the grocery stores and restaurants. One has nothing to do with the other.
However, there are too many children forced into adulthood from the time they come out of mommy.
No crying
Don’t be loud
No singing
No dancing
No laughing out loud
Not allowing to express their happy feelings
Not allowed to explore and ask questions as they are new to the world. (Asking “why” seems to be the most criminal because that forces a parent to give an answer that they… well, don’t have.)
Those children deprived of a real childhood cope by either repeating the cycle with their own kids or by never growing up still seeking out ways to let the child in them come out. The most extreme example of this would be Michael Jackson.
Adults can just be plain weird. They complain when their kids are happy and innocent, and they complain when they carry weapons to school and shoot people.
So I ask you again… how many of you were actually allowed to be a child growing up?
You minimize the trauma because either you’ve never been bullied yourself or you have been bullied and not one person was there for you to show you that what happened to you was wrong.
Barry Loukaitis, a quiet, 14-year-old honor student, shot and killed two classmates and a teacher at his school in Moses Lake, Wash., in 1996. He said other students had bullied him and called him “faggot.” He was convicted as an adult and sentenced to life in prison without parole. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)
I don’t blame him. If I could go back in time, and if I had a gun, I’d do the same thing.
I bet nobody think’s he’s a fag anymore. A man is measured by how rough and tough he is. If it takes putting a bullet through someone’s head, so be it.
Calling someone a “faggot” is a very common bullying tactic. Very. A big bunch of cowardly (usually beaten in their own homes) fucks tend to go after men and women that “look” vulnerable.
…:::NEWSFLASH:::….
You are no less of a man if you are kind, have a tender heart, are quiet, like Classical music, sing in the choir, play in the school band, or like to study.
Let me tell you what a REAL man is. If you are a real man and want to fight, you do it one on one so that it is fair. THAT is a real man. Period.
Dragging your friends and going after one man is cheating – not only that, but it’s the most cowardly act of all. Nobody can win a fight against 10 men going after you. How is that possible? If you can come up with the answer to this, please do so in my comments section.
Unless you have a gun like this guy,this guy,this guy, or several other piston pissin’ bully-fight-back retaliaters, the bullying will never end.
Here again, we go after another vulnerable person:
COLUMBUS, Ohio — A 16-year-old disabled girl was punched and forced to engage in videotaped sexual acts with several boys in a high school auditorium as dozens of students watched, according to witnesses.
Authorities are investigating and no charges have been filed in the alleged attack last month at Mifflin High School. Four boys suspected of involvement were sent home and have not returned to class.
Also, the principal, Regina Crenshaw, was suspended and will be fired for not calling police, school officials said. And three assistant principals were suspended and will be reassigned to other schools.
Crenshaw had no comment Tuesday.
The girl was forced to perform oral sex on at least two boys, according to statements from school officials, obtained by The Columbus Dispatch.
Part of the alleged assault was videotaped by a student who had a camera for a school project.
School officials found the girl bleeding from the mouth. An assistant principal cautioned the girl’s father against calling 911 to avoid media attention, the statements said. The girl’s father called police.
Her father said the girl is developmentally disabled. A special education teacher said the teen has a severe speech impediment.
(Just to let you know – the boys responsible never did get punished.) You see, bullying is STILL not yet recognized as “bad behavior”.
What a shame, isn’t it? But then, some of you say these type of events is “just kid stuff” and “natural”. Sure it’s natural if you’re beaten to a pulp at home by parents who cannot control their anger and you have no other outlet but to take YOUR OWN BOTTLED UP ANGER out on a defenseless classmate.
Some of you numbskulls say it makes you stronger. Are you people living on Planet Earth?
Jealosy is another factor, I’m guessing. Male or Female: those that have tender hearts and are not mean people become of product of other’s jealousy. They think it’s not fair that – that little cute, sweet, fragile girl is looking peaceful. In a bully’s eyes, nobody should be walking around like that. They should all be feeling the same pain of the bully himself. Let’s make her feel it too and dunk her head into the toilet bowl while my friends crowd around and laugh. Why not? What doesn’t kill you just makes you stronger. Right?
But I’m learning myself, day in and day out, that you have to be a mean bitch to survive in this world. If you’re not, people will walk all over your ass and try to get away with what they can. You have to show these little, cowardly bullies that they’re not going to get away with it.
It sure is a sad day when nice people have to grow mean just to survive.
If yah can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em, right? Sounds good to me!
And now, this: Jim West, the Republican mayor of Spokane, a longtime serious player in regional politics and the former majority leader of the state senate and a potential Republican gubernatorial candidate and apparently one of the fiercest and most hot-tempered and most powerful Republicans in the state of Washington, is in deep trouble.
Claims are now rampant that West has used his position of power for years even since the ’70s, ever since he was a Scout leader, ever since he was handing out cute plastic trophies to young preteen boys exactly like me and actually to me in particular (I won a couple — what can I say?), West has used his position to lure men and teenage boys into having sex with him.
If you know anything about the Mayor of Spokane (Jim West), you’ve heard about his constant Anti-Gay preachings and rants – a very staunch homophobe.
Well, so what? No big deal, so far. Creepy and deceptive though it may be, West has, so far, done nothing horribly illegal. Just another powerful, closeted, hypocrite Republican (the antichoice West voted for the invidious Defense of Marriage Act in ‘98 and once proposed that teen sex be outright criminalized — not just intercourse, mind, but all sexual contact, of any kind) showing his true colors and leveraging his power to work through his rather sad boy-toy fantasies and insodoing giving all true open-hearted gay and bisexual humans who just want to celebrate their love and be left alone a very, very bad name.
Okay, let me get this straight: It’s okay to bang and fondle little boy’s private parts ruining the rest of their lives – (not to mention the whole act being non-consensual), but it’s NOT okay to have sex with someone you love before marriage?
And there it is. Not merely a sad closeted gay Republican mayor using his office to cruise for and have regular sex with all manner of incredibly young but still of-age males, but allegedly a true-blue pedophile, a child molester, a bona fide, first-class, card-carrying demon. Could it be possible?
Oh sure it is. Here are some more characteristics of a closet fags:
He has a macho-machismo persona
He brags about how tough he is
He’s usually very well-built and tall
He’s an emotional retard and has never cried once in his adult years
He often reminds you of his gun collection (GTL , I know you have a gun or guns too, but you don’t brag about it or try to use it to defend your manly-hood.)
He’s a born again Christian and whips about the bible when he’s at a loss for words.
Let’s just say he’s a little bit overly masculine – almost like he’s over-compensating.
So, if you know a person like this – even if he’s your next door neighbor and he’s very, very nice, think again. And know that every night he’s fantasizing and dreaming about having his own Neverland Ranch.
And someone should really do a national, once-and-for-all study to back up what everyone already knows — which is, of course, that the more repressed and sanctimonious and uptight you are about sex and love and gender and religion, the more likely you are to be involved in secret kink, in deep perversion, illegal perversion, perversion that crosses the line from healthy and slippery and delicious to degrading and morally reprehensible and Karl Rove.Just ask — did I say this already? — the Catholic Church.
Amen to that!
There is, of course, zero causal link between homosexuality and pedophilia. I couldn’t care less that West might be gay, or bisexual, or whatever the hell else he tells himself he is when he goes to sleep at night and dreams of, I don’t know what. Bunnies. In leather chaps. On fire.
Here’s what does it. Here’s what makes West and people like him rife with potential for, well, some of the nastiest and most dishonest and dangerous abuses humans are capable of.
What do you think causes this type of behavior among little ones? Are children born evil? Is this just their normal way of asking for things when they go to the store?
No.
And
No.
You know just as well as I do that Dr. Phil doesn’t get it right too many-a-times. However, I have to give Dr. Phil credit for this one. I’ve seen a few shows of him bitch-slapping parents for their lack of consistency in disciplining their children. Spot on, Phil!!!
It’s because stupid parents too often give in to the temper tantrums that the kid behaves like this. If “no” always meant “no”, kids wouldn’t use their fits of rage to manipulate to get what they want. So, yeah, it’s the dingy parents fault. I know parents that beat the bejesus out of their kids and their kids are STILL out of control. When will people learn? And if you can’t handle the responsibility of having a kid, wear a condom! I think more ADULTS need spankings, if anything…. Seriously.
What all too often happens in the home is a child begging to do something or begging to have something they don’t have. Mom and dad say no. Child has a fit. Mom or Dad gives in. They can’t handle the blood curdling cries.
Senorita learns that all she needs to do is have a temper tantrum, and she gets what he wants.
This is not rocket science, folks. Hell, give more credit to the children. They’re smarter than most of us are. They pull the blinders over their parents every time. Parents are stupid to give in to them – recreating this type of behavior each time the kid wants something. If I was a child and knew a manipulation tactic that worked with my parents, I’d use it. Ask my mother! Anything to get those ….shiny new toys.
If and when a child learns that when his parent says “NO” that it means “NO”, even after screaming bloody murder in the living room, they will learn that fits don’t buy their way into “getting the goods”.
I don’t see anything wrong with allowing a child to create blood curdling screams in the living room. Let them have at it. But the important thing is here is not to “give in” to them from the very first time they have their fit. Let the kids get it all out of their system. My guess is that their first fit is probably genuine. It’s only after they learn that their 205 decibel screeches WORK that they, from that point on, fake the tantrums to manipulate their parents. Duh.
Then the worst of the worst happens….. You take them out in public. They want something. You say no, and experience the most embarrassing moment of your life when little junior throws himself on the floor and goes into a convulsive hyper-criminal-like state-of-the-art fit-o-rama! Everybody’s watching you and giving you dirty looks. They probably want to kill your little junior. Or better yet, handcuff and restrain their ass and off with the police they go!
Ever watch Super Nanny? I just needed to watch this show once, and I felt right away that Super Nanny knows her stuff. And she has kids. Do you see her teaching parents to beat the innards out of their children? Nope. It can be done non-violently.
Spanking kids is the easy way out. However, taking the time to discipline children is hard work that consumes a great amount of time and requires a significant amount of patience. Most parents don’t have this. Most parents aren’t prepared to have children. They idealize ahead of the time that “anyone can do it”. This is so untrue.
Raising children requires a gift that many breeders out there don’t have. All parents think about is that they want kids, pop ‘em out, and …presto! Any parent out there knows that even with just one child, it’s a pain in the ass.
Being a parent requires that you give up most of YOUR needs, wants and desires and use every cell in your body to take care of that little one. It’s about giving yourself up for a while. This is what I believe causes Post Partum Depression. It’s saying, “good-bye self” and “hello 24/7 child”.
Depending on the degree and the person, if you were deprived of your basic needs as a child yourself (touch, love, encouragement, support, etc), following the birth of your own child will cause your un-met needs to resurface. While you won’t tell anyone you feel this way, you will probably think to yourself , “why should I do all this – I didn’t even get that myself”.
It can go the other way too. If you come to the stage in your life where you feel you’ve recovered from the damage done to you as a child, you might go out of your way to spoil your child with love. And there’s nothing wrong with that. But spoiling your child with love doesn’t mean giving them every dagnabbit thing they want. Spoiling with love means just that. Unlike the popular myths in the US, it does *not* damage a child.
This is all just common sense or so it appears that way to me.
The discussion got very interesting when they went over medication. Probably a lot of you reading this are currently taking medication or have been on it at some point in time in your life.
KING: Do you take medication?
DANO: I may. I’m not opposed to that. I’m now, as I said, going through this. I’m sort of weighing that as an option.
KING: You are depressed now, then?
DANO: Yes. Yes.
KING: This event-oriented depression, Dr. Swartz, common?
SWARTZ: Often, there’s a trigger, that people will look in their life and be able to say, this seems to have tipped the balance and put me into the depression. And, unfortunately, sometimes that can be a major loss, such as a death of a loved one, but, alone, too, being such a large stress.
Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD, is a psychiatric disorder that can occur following the experience or witnessing of life-threatening events such as military combat, natural disasters, terrorist incidents, serious accidents, or violent personal assaults like rape. People who suffer from PTSD often relive the experience through nightmares and flashbacks, have difficulty sleeping, and feel detached or estranged, and these symptoms can be severe enough and last long enough to significantly impair the person’s daily life.
PTSD goes further. The event only has to be perceived as traumatic by the victim. In reality the incident might not pose a serious threat to life, but if the incident is genuinely considered to be life-threatening, then the victim has experienced an event outside the range of normal human experience. More recent evidence has shown that PTSD can result from sexual abuse, and from bullying. I believe that the drastic increase in PTSD is very much the product of modern living. PTSD case numbers rise in ratio to advances in technology. The more advanced today’s world becomes, the greater the scope for the existence of severe life stresses and traumatic situations. The more advanced our communications networks become, the more our minds are filled with plausible traumatic imagery. I suspect the incidence of PTSD cases will continue to rise.
So as you can see here the timing of a trauma is irrelevant. It just simply has to happen. I reckon that it’s safe to assume that the majority of us have PTSD to some degree or another. Depending on our backgrounds, individuals vary on how they cope with it.
Back to the Larry King Show…
KING: Now, Chad, you don’t take any medication? Does it work for you?
ALLEN: No, I don’t take medication right now. My sister does, although none of it’s ever really been all that effective, and I think, to talk about treating the illness of depression, and leave out both the emotional and spiritual component is a recipe for disaster. I think that recovery from…
KING: But if medication would work, you’d take it, wouldn’t you?
ALLEN: But I don’t think it can only just be medication. To simply, just think that this magic can come in a pill is not even half the battle, and to go through this and not be able to talk about what’s going on in the emotional front, it’s not going to happen.
Sometimes the pill alone can do wonders, but sometimes we have to take the pill and utilize other coping mechanisms to get by. Common sense, right?
KING: Is it doubly depressing, Dr. Swartz, when a person in depression gets bad news?
SWARTZ: It can be. It’s interesting, because sometimes when people are in treatment — I have had patients on medication that get very serious news, such as a cancer diagnosis, and sometimes it will trigger another depressive episode, and sometimes they do well through it. And so each time, you have to be vigilant, to pay attention to see if the symptoms are going to come back.
KING:Is it true that over 20 million people have it?
SWARTZ: It is. It’s about 5 to 10 percent of men and 10 to 20 percent of women that some time in their life, will have a depressive episode, the kind of depression that’s an illness.
This is interesting. Twenty million people have Depression. Can you imagine if we were to add those that don’t even know they have depression? Whoa!
What’s also interesting here is the different ratio between men and women! This doesn’t mean that men don’t walk around with as much baggage as women. What it means is that women are much closer or aware of their feelings compared to their male counterparts. Remember how I mentioned in my last entry on Depression on how Society teaches us not to feel? Surprise! Boys and Men have feelings too. The only difference is – is that society is much tougher on boys, sadly. Men can choose to feel if they want to, but most don’t because they remember their daddies beatings to “make them men”. And when the boys cried during their beatings, they remember being told the number one cliche line: “SHUT THE HELL UP OR I’LL G-I-V-E YOU SOMETHING TO CRY ABOUT!”
Did anybody watch Jay Leno the other night when Laura Bush was on?
If anybody watched that, you heard her saying (in reference to the No Child Left Behind Act) that boys suffer greater than girls do growing up and how they need the same type of nurturing that girls get.
Perhaps Trelease has a revealing insight into the problems boys seem to have when it comes to academic achievement. Boys are more likely than girls to repeat a grade or drop out of school. They suffer more from learning disabilities, are three times more likely to be enrolled in special education classes, are more likely to be involved in criminal and delinquent behavior, are less likely to be enrolled in college preparatory classes, have lower educational expectations and do less homework (Riordan, Sommers, 2000, 1996).
Laura Bush continued that the percentage of women attending college these days is drastically higher than than men.
Plain and simple. Women and men are raised differently. A man can still be raised as a man, sure. But they should be allowed to express themselves. Too many people think they’ll grow up as fags if they cry when they’re 2 months old. No, I’m serious here.
More on Medication from Dr.Swartz from the Larry King Show:
(If anyone you readers have made it THIS far, please read the below. It’s very important!)
SWARTZ: There’s a small group of people for whom that’s probably the treatment of choice. But for most patients with depression, they’re so severely affected that they’re not able to really engage in that kind of intensive psychotherapy. The other issue is that for some people that are taking medication, it’s often a problem if they don’t get an adequate dose of the medicine for long enough for it to really get a chance to work. Often, people have side effects, or they give up on the medication before they’ve had a chance to see if it’s really going to be successful.
This is so common. People try medication for a few days, get undesirable side affects, and never try medication again!
Why does this happen? I have my own theories:
People think they are contaminating their bodies with poisons.
If you’re used to feeling bad all the time and know no other feelings than “bad”, to feel good would actually make the depressed feel even worse because of the contrast. Feeling good simply means you are feeling, and for those whom have never felt good before literally freak out.
People are afraid to admit to themselves that they have a problem. They feel taking medication means that they are “bad” or “wrong” or “crazy” and finally “undesirable”.
When agree to take a medication, you are also agreeing to give up the wheel into the hands of the medication and re-live what “powerlessness” is. This is something that control freaks cannot do.
And last but not least, people are afraid of the unknown.
This stubborn behavior will keep them in their stupor. People have a choice, though. And that is the choice that makes them happy, so you really can’t blame them.
On Becoming Immune to Medications from the Larry King Show:
CALLER: And it’s really for the doctor, my question is really for the doctor. There is absolutely no way that I cannot be on medication. When I go off, it cycles down. I’m high. I’m great, and then it’s a spinning cycle down. Can you become immuned to like — I was on Paxil for a long time and it just wasn’t working anymore, and I really had to fight my doctor to change that medication, and I think other people should know out there, if that’s a fact.
KING: Doctor, do you switch medication often?
SWARTZ: Well, you make sure you’ve given the medication a good chance, in the sense of getting to a full dose and staying on that, usually for four to eight weeks. But, if something has stopped working, it’s as important that you try something else. You don’t want to just keep with something that’s not helping you, and there are so many good options now that it’s important to move on to something — to try something else. And it can happen that a medication that’s been helping for, even a few years, can lose its effectiveness.
Last but not least, one more important thing about medication:
KIDDER: I did. I wanted to say a couple of things to the woman who talked about going off her Paxil. There is a withdrawal from anti-depressants. It’s well-documented, and it’s documented also by the companies who make them, although they don’t like to publicize it. They don’t call it drug withdrawal. They call it discontinuation syndrome, but you will get depressed, unless you withdraw really, really slowly from any psychiatric drug, in particular, antidepressants.
And it’s really important to know that, because it’s quite dangerous, so, what I want to say is, I don’t want anyone out there getting the idea that, oh, Margot got better without her medication, so I’ll just throw mine out. If you throw your medication out and try and just – like an alcoholic — you will end up in the bin.
So, to all you people that are suffering with anxiety/depression and don’t like living that way, there is hope.
Did any of you watch Larry King the other night (April 21st)? He had a panel discussing the treatments for depression. It was very interesting. What made it even more interesting was that famous television personalities participated and discussed the severity of their depression and talked about how they’re still being effected by it and/or what they all did to help it.
The problem with depression is that people (and yes, even those going through it themselves that don’t even know it) just don’t understand it. It was discussed on the show that in the old days that those whom were suffering from this were thought to have been possessed by the devil.
But I’d like to elaborate on this. Depression to our elders is thought of as an excuse to be “lazy”. It’s an excuse to procrastinate. It’s an excuse to generally not have to do the things that everyone else is responsible for doing. If there are any myths about depression, this has got to be T-H-E biggest and most popular myth out there. And for those seeking for help were thought to have been using their help “as a crutch”. Therapy and medication is a crutch. “Oh and religion isn’t”? Gimmie a break!
Our elders say that strength is recognized by keeping yer mouth shut, holding it in, biting your bottom lip, and over-working yourself till you drop. …..”As if there are no side-effects from that.”
Nothing can be more antiquanted and so remote from the truth.
It’s very sad because those suffering from depression have a much harder time going through it if those that surround them (family and friends) deny the severity of this illness, place blame on irrelevancies, and just as worse, think the illness doesn’t exist at all in the first place.
This makes an illness that’s curable, incurable. People can make something that IS hopeful, hopeless. Do any of you ever stop to wonder why there are so many suicides all over the world?
That’s all it’s about. You are not a bad person, or crazy, or weak, or flawed, because you feel suicidal. It doesn’t even mean that you really want to die – it only means that you have more pain than you can cope with right now. If I start piling weights on your shoulders, you will eventually collapse if I add enough weights… no matter how much you want to remain standing. Willpower has nothing to do with it. Of course you would cheer yourself up, if you could.
What part about this do people not get?
Don’t accept it if someone tells you, “that’s not enough to be suicidal about.” There are many kinds of pain that may lead to suicide. Whether or not the pain is bearable may differ from person to person. What might be bearable to someone else, may not be bearable to you. The point at which the pain becomes unbearable depends on what kinds of coping resources you have. Individuals vary greatly in their capacity to withstand pain.
This is yet another well known myth. Dear Lord…… pain cannot be compared from one person’s pain to the next.
Here’s another example from the Larry King show:
TANYA TUCKER, MUSICIAN, AUTHOR “100 WAYS TO BEAT THE BLUES”: From there, I got progressively worse. The more people told me that, you know, wow, you should be so blessed. Don’t you feel blessed? And you have all this — mansion and all these beautiful things.And I said, you know — the more they told me that, the more depressed I got. At one point, I didn’t get out of bed for, I think, three months, and I went down to the bottom of the hill one day and I had to call somebody to get me to come back up – come pick me up because I couldn’t physically walk up the hill.
I wish people would understand that when you try to cheer up depressed people, they only get worse. I’ve been around many-a-depressed people in my day, and this is the case. I’m hoping that this is an eye-opener for some!
When pain exceeds pain-coping resources, suicidal feelings are the result. Suicide is neither wrong nor right; it is not a defect of character; it is morally neutral. It is simply an imbalance of pain versus coping resources.
You can survive suicidal feelings if you do either of two things: (1) find a way to reduce your pain, or (2) find a way to increase your coping resources. Both are possible.
As emphasized on the Larry King Show about Depression, coping resources include family and friends: family being the most important.
SWARTZ: Anti-depressants are absolutely medications that have saved lives. The best way to prevent suicide is to treat depression, and we know that anti-depressants are, in many ways, the most tried and true treatment for depression, but, I agree that medicine alone is not the
treatment of depression. It needs to be combined with psychotherapy, support from your family, learning about what you have, and also being responsible. So, that might mean not using drugs and alcohol, that might mean getting enough sleep and doing other things to reduce stress in your life.
Not to misunderstand the “learning about what you have and being responsible” part. While it’s a nice thing to know you are loved, that doesn’t exactly do the trick. And in order to get to that place, one needs to be understood. Responsibility is only possible after one has gotten to a certain level in their depressed phase. No two people are alike. This should also be digested using “case by case” logic.
TUCKER: And if I can help anyone out, I’m glad to talk about it. But the main thing is that medication, too, is not all the help. It’s very important, I think, that you have a very well-educated doctor that knows what he’s doing. And I know there’s probably a lot that aren’t so educated out there, but you’ve got to find the right doctor and have your family close by.
Well this is only so if your family is supportive. I don’t blame those who aren’t supportive, though. They are in pain too but refuse to do anything about it.
As always, the first step to recovery is realizing that you are hurting.
Another common myth is that people think depression simply means that you are down, slow, sleeping all the time, unmotivated, expressionless, and apathetic. This is so untrue it’s not funny.
SWARTZ: I think that many people when they’re depressed feel an anxiety or a tension. And I think it’s true that it would be rare for someone in the midst of a depression to describe themselves as relaxed. It’s a torturous ordeal for someone to go through.
Depression and Anxiety pretty much go hand in hand.
ALLEN: Dietary-wise, I avoid caffeine. Caffeine was a huge trigger for the anxiety that was coupled with my depression. Anything that brought me up was going to drop me right back down again.
WHAT IT MEANS TO BE DEPRESSED
While everyone experiences depression in quite a similar way, it DOES differ depending on the person.
CHAD ALLEN, ACTOR, BECAME DEPRESSED, HAS HAD SUICIDAL THOUGHTS: You know, I never made what would classically be defined as a suicide attempt. My sister — I have a twin sister — she made several very real suicide attempts. However, I am familiar with what it feels like to feel suicidal, to want to die, to not be able to wake up in the morning and feel like I can’t lift up my head, I can’t get out of the house today. What am I going to do?
Many people don’t understand this, but when you can’t move, you simply cannot move. Period. This is a very common symptom.
Imagine what Homosexuals go through. Something that not too many people care about or empathize with.
ALLEN: You know, I first started — since probably 12, 14 years old. I also started drinking alcohol and using drugs right about the same time. So for me, that was my first — my first sort of coping mechanism I used. And when I finally got sober when I was 24 years old, I finally felt what it was I was hiding from. First, it was anxiety, which is kind of the evil twin sister of depression, and then those feelings of absolute just despair and sorrow, you know, I can’t get out of here today, what am I going to do?
KING: You were in the closet, right?
ALLEN: Yeah.
KING: Did being gay, do you think, had anything to do with it?
ALLEN: Absolutely, we started a campaign…
KING: Absolutely yes?
ALLEN: Absolutely, had a lot to do with it. We started a campaign called the talk-about-it campaign, to address the issue of depression in the gay community. The gay community has an almost 18 percent, if not higher, instances of depression than the community at large. You
know, people are always asking me, why is that? And I say, you know, I hosted the Tulsa, Oklahoma pride festival last year. I get in my car and I’m all set to go down the street — Tulsa, Oklahoma is famous for its Christian protesters — and one man was holding up a sign; the sign said “how come the community that calls itself gay has the highest suicide rate?” With almost no understanding of the irony that maybe it had something to do with him standing there holding that sign, you know.
The fact is, there’s a lot of things that we’ve had to deal with, and coming out and being who I am, that’s part of it. But it’s been a tough battle.
Accepting WHO you are and WHAT you’re all about and allowing yourself to be YOU and accepting that, is a huge step in the battle.
Before we go to calls, Chad, you recently lost a close friend, right?
ALLEN: I did, yeah.
KING: He died suddenly of a heart attack at age 31.
ALLEN: Correct. Yeah.
KING: How did that affect what you already have?
ALLEN: Well, you know, it was a horrible event, you know. And the fact of the matter is, I know now that when stuff comes up for me that is going to create an emotional response, what I have to first focus on is not running away from my feelings. And that took me a lot of years to learn, that, A, it’s OK for Chad to be sad. And this is what it feels like. And it sounds odd, but for me being sad was not OK, and I think a lot of times, the world that we live in, we’re taught being sad, being angry, these so-called negative emotions, they’re not OK.So, I started going, you know what, I’m going to take good care of you today, Chad. You’re going to be sad for a while, and that’s all right.Whatever it looks like, I’m going to take good care of you, and I’m not going to leave your side, I’m not going to run away from you.It helps.
Well, there you go. If this is not sad in itself, I don’t know what is. Society dictates that we’re not supposed to show our feelings. Could this be a cause of depression? Absolutely. When you’re taught not to feel happy when you are, to feel sad when you are, to feel angry when you are, to cry when you feel like crying, to laugh when you feel like laughing, — we die inside.
You see this type doesn’t look depressed as much, do they? No, because they take care of their problems with addictive habits and violence. This is why they can function in society.
But what about those that don’t engage in these type of act-outs?
Yes, you got it (hopefully). All the anger is internalized. This causes depression, my friend. But those depressed are taunted by society as weak, lazy, irresponsible, and even more unloved by those they expect and need it from the most..
Likewise, it is helpful to understand that anger is contextual and social, Tavris adds. When anger fails to fill a constructive framework, however, it can morph into undesirable expressions of the emotion, anger experts say. Anger externalized can turn into violence and aggression; anger internatlized can cause depression, health problems, and communication difficulties, they note.
Anyway, depression is more than little kids whining that they don’t want to do housework. It much more than that.
Society, keep up the good work. Maybe with a little more of your help, we can create even more monstrous murderers and criminals.
I eat all kinds of meat – even Korean raw meat (Yuk’oe).
I am a big fish eater. I even it it raw. (Japanese Sashimi)
Shame on me…. I also eat eggs. I even eat them raw in Japan. (Japanese Onsen Tamago)
God forgive me…. I’m also guilty of eating milk, cheese, and yogurt!
I’m sure there’s more that I eat that comes from living things including plants. There’s not too much out there that I won’t eat and that includes horse tongue and pigs ears!
I kill bugs. (or I just have my husband do the deed)
I don’t condemn people who wear fur. Hell, I used to own a fur coat ages ago!
But, I’m thinking that I must be a hypocrite because…
I condemn very strongly the killing of animals merely just for pleasure. Those that go hunting make me sick to my stomach. I hate them all and I curse them. Now, if they were starving and needed to, I wouldn’t care, but these Right Winged Cowardly Extremists take the lives of the innocent and defenseless as an outlet for the tormented anger they have bottled up in them. What if a larger form of life were to come up against your defenseless existence and take YOUR life? How would you like that?
I despise those that take the life of their own animals and eat them.Some may be joking about this little habit of theirs, but I can’t even come up with a word that describes this kind of treatment towards domesticated animals.
I cringe at those who ignore the advice of professionals and continue to beat their pets or even kill them because their pet was bad, the owner wanted to taste cat, rabbit, or dog meat (yes, this does happen), or to set an example for their children.
The last group of people who hurt animals are the worst. These are people who intentionally hurt animals because they enjoy hurting things, or because it makes them feel powerful. Many of these people would hurt other people if they could get away with it, they just choose to hurt animals because animals are more helpless than people.
Why do these people do this? There are different reasons. A lot of these people want to have control over others. They will hurt an animal because they think this means they control the animal. Or they may hurt the animal to control another person. For example, a husband might hurt the family’s pet to show his wife what he could do to her if she doesn’t obey his commands. Someone else might make his dog kill other dogs because he thinks that makes him powerful.
Others simply enjoy pain and violence. Those who enjoy violence might also destroy inanimate objects as well as animals and people.
All of the people in this last group suffer from serious, psychological problems that will probably not go away on their own. They often need the help of licensed professionals–like a psychologist. We are not 100% sure why people become like this–most are probably born with
their problems, but others can get their problems from brain damage, poisonous environments, or by being treated badly themselves. Without help, the psychological problems these people have can haunt them for their whole lives.
To sum it up here, I’m strongly against violence and the killing of domesticated pets. And if I had it my way, the prison sentences and Capital Punishment that’s used in the conviction of human homicide, pet torturers and killers would receive the same fate.
Religious Hypocrites are a lot of fun to point out. Nine out of ten of them are Extremists on the Right Wing side.
Tonight I ventured over to one of my favorite Liberal blogs, Preemptive Karma. The entry that reads, “Bite Me” received a comment from your typical hit and run troll. The comment is as follows:
Stay off my message board, bitch.
Wow. It reminded me of the frequent troller, Maddie Dog, that prowls through liberal blogs leaving nasty comments. Maddie Dog even left a really nice comment for me on this entry. Mind you, Extremists from the right side hate celebrity talk. Do you think people are just sometimes too lazy to read your blog description and/or your category section? I don’t know about you, but if I run across a blog or a blog entry that I don’t like, I just move on. Life’s too short to ruin your entire day over what a stranger has typed into their blog. And if that’s their biggest worry in life, I call them very lucky.
Going back to the Preemptive Karma Blog and this entry where a troll left this friendly message, if you click on the troll’s blog, you’ll notice that she’s a self proclaimed “Christian” and ‘appears’ to be very “religious”. She also has an in depth comment policy plus a rant (in another entry) where she complains about the habits of other bloggers. It is most interesting to see that she is guilty of doing EXACTLY what she tells her own readers what not to do. I couldn’t help but to laugh. And boy, did I hear that pot calling the kettle black!
But those are your Religious Hypocrites for yah.
There are only a very few people that call themselves Christians, that are actually very kind and “Christian-like”. All the others are extremely evil, violent, insensitive, callous, greedy, materialistic, intolerant, judgmental, racist, and filled with hate.
The Depth of the Scandal
How bad are things? What is the depth of the scandal? Unless we face these questions with ruthless honesty, we can never hope to correct the problem.
Whether the issue is divorce, materialism, sexual promiscuity, racism, physical abuse in marriage, or neglect of a biblical worldview, the polling data point to widespread, blatant disobedience of clear biblical moral demands on the part of people who allegedly are evangelical, born-again Christians. The statistics are devastating.
Materialism and the Poor
John and Sylvia Ronsvalle have been carefully analyzing the giving patterns of American Christians for well over a decade. Their annual The State of Christian Giving is the most accurate report for learning how much Christians in the richest nation in human history actually give. In their most recent edition, they provide detailed information about per-member giving patterns of U.S. church members from 1968 to 2001. Over those thirty-plus years, of course, the average income of U.S. Christians has increased enormously. But that did not carry over into their giving. The report showed that the richer we become, the less we give in proportion to our incomes.
In 1968, the average church member gave 3.1 percent of their income—less than a third of a tithe. That figure dropped every year through 1990 and then recovered slightly to 2.66 percent—about one quarter of a tithe.
As evangelicals we claim to embrace the Bible as our final authority. One of the most common themes in the Scriptures is that God and his faithful people have a special concern for the poor. Why this blatant contradiction between belief and practice?
Racism
In 1989 George Gallup Jr. and James Castelli published the results of a survey to determine which groups in the U.S. were least and most likely to object to having black neighbors—surely a good measure of racism. Catholics and nonevangelical Christians ranked least likely to object to black neighbors; 11 percent objected. Mainline Protestants came next at 16 percent. At 17 percent, Baptists and evangelicals were among the most likely groups to object to black neighbors, and 20 percent of Southern Baptists objected to black neighbors.
To say there is a crisis of disobedience in the evangelical world today is to dangerously understate the problem. Born-again Christians divorce at about the same rate as everyone else. Self-centered materialism is seducing evangelicals and rapidly destroying our earlier, slightly more generous giving. Only 6 percent of born-again Christians tithe. Born-again Christians justify and engage in sexual promiscuity (both premarital sex and adultery) at astonishing rates. Racism and perhaps physical abuse of wives seems to be worse in evangelical circles than elsewhere. This is scandalous behavior for people who claim to be born-again by the Holy Spirit and to enjoy the very presence of the Risen Lord in their lives.
Roland Lussier, left, comforted son Roland Jr. after a wake for his older brother, Chase, last week in Red Lake, Minn. The last funeral for the 10 who died in the March 21 shootings is scheduled for today, and observers said many young people on the Red Lake Band of Chippewa reservation are still on edge.
(Richard Tsong-taatarii — Star Tribune Via AP)
“There may have been as many as four of these kids who were active participants in the plot,” said the official, who declined to be identified discussing an ongoing investigation. “The question is, how many other kids had some knowledge of this or had heard about it somehow? We think there were quite a few.”
FBI agents plan to perform forensic analysis on 30 to 40 computers seized Friday from the high school computer laboratory, FBI and school officials said. Investigators hope to learn more from the school computers, since much of the alleged discussion and planning among Weise and his friends occurred through e-mails and instant messages, the law enforcement official said.
The mysteries about Jeff Weiss are unfolding. Here are some disturbing and chilling clues into his mind before he committed these crimes:
(sic) So fucking naive man, so fucking naive. Always expecting change when I know nothing ever changes. I’ve seen mothers choose their man over their own flesh and blood, I’ve seen others choose alocohol over friendship.
I sacrifice no more for others, part of me has fucking died and I hate this shit.
I’m living every mans nightmare and that single fact alone is kicking my ass, I really must be fucking worthless. This place never changes, it never will. Fuck it all.
(sic) That is just messed… My dad committed suicide, recently, a girl everyone knew at our school committed suicide.
Why do I care?
I believe in no religion, flame me, call me whatever you want as you won’t/can’t convert me and won’t change me in anyway.
I think it takes alot of courage to accept death, if you think that you go to Hell or whatever God-forsaken pit after this life for ending your own personal suffering then you’re just… Nevermind.
I think most people who say this type of thing have never dealt with people who HAVE faced the kind of pain that makes you phsyically sick at times, makes you so depressed you can’t function, makes you so sad and overwhelmed with grief that eating a bullet or sticking your head in a noose seem’s welcoming.
If you think you’re better than those who take their own lives; you’re not. If you think you’re stronger than those who have taken their own lives; your not.
It takes courage to turn the gun on your ownself, takes courage to face death. Knowing you’re going to die and actually following through takes heart, I don’t care who you are.
This is my opinion, I do not claim to know all the answers or claim to be better than anyone. I just know my own opinion… Flame me all you want, if it makes you feel better to belittle someone you’ve never met than by all means go ahead. I don’t get pissed over text.
He had some “weird dreams” too.
(sic) Hello all, I’m new here. I’m not exactly sure what this post is about but hopefully by the end of it what it’s about will be clear.
Lately I’ve been having some really strange dream’s, they seem very realistic and filled with colour and sound’s, they really are more realistic than dream’s from like last month, but a few night’s ago I had this dream where I saw this very evil, very creepy canine’s face coming toward’s me, and I heard someone say “Shoot!,” either way everything went black and I could feel my whole body jerking and shaking, and while this was happening I could hear very loud and very distinct gunshot’s, mostly machine gun fire… I found it very weird and woke up immediately after feeling a little disoriented…
I don’t know what’s up, but anyone have any idea why this kind of stuff is just happening now?… I hope I posted this in the right forum…
I read a lot about criminology and have found that a lot of serial killers join the military at some point in time. It looks like that’s something even Jeff Weise had on his mind too.
(sic) The dog seem’s to represent the military? Funny, just woke up a little while ago but I had a dream about war, seemed real enough too… Sometimes times these dream’s scare me with their realism. Thank’s for replying.
(sic) Last night, or yesterday evening, something very weird happened…
I came home from school because I was “sick,” (although in truth, I wasn’t… I was BSing because I didn’t want to be there anymore… Really stupid reason why I wanted to go home… If you want to know, ask, I’ll tell you), anyways. I was so depressed I felt like sleeping… So I went to bed at 1 PM and slept till 6, got up for about 10 minutes — was still feeling down so I went back to sleep… It was somewhere during this period (from 6 to 12 AM) that…
I was laying in my bed, facing my computer and TV, I could see my alarm clock across the room, it’s red numbers, and the yellowish glow the light on the extension cord gives, I could see this black figure. It was really well defined against the darkness, sort of darker then dark (I know that sounds weird but thats how it was), about 3 ft tall… For some reason, I reached for it (I was in the dreamy state — but I could tell I WASN’T dreaming), and touched it. I was sort of scared, but it was then (after touching it) I fell right back into a deep sleep…
Events like this usually follow a tingly feeling I get before going to bed… Or a really “drained” feeling that makes me really tired when I’m lying in bed… This happens every once in awhile… Any ideas on what the heck happened?
If nobody had known who Jeff Weise was, we’d probably assume he’s just another confused teenage boy just trying to figure out what’s wrong with himself.
I’ve been studying Primal Therapy for over 10 years, and it’s quite evident by his dreams and his hallucinations his body was actually reliving sequences from his earlier childhood. His dreams represent the life of fear he lived. He asked WHY he was 3 ft. tall in his dream. Very easy. He was the little guy about to become attacked by …. possibly his father? The little guy was himself when he was about that tall. Seems pretty real to me. Remember his dad committed suicide. Doesn’t look like his dad had it all together, huh?
I think the bits and pieces of this puzzle are coming together. If psychiatrists and psychologists would open their minds and do a little more research and stop calling Primal Therapy, “Primal SCREAM Therapy”(thinking that patients just run around rolling on the floor screeching)and get a real clue, they’d BE ABLE TO STOP these kinds of things BEFORE THEY START.
Jeff Weise appears to have been wondering what was wrong with him. At that stage he could have been helped. He was on medication, so we know he was going to a psychiatrist. Did that psychiatrist not see the scars on his arms from his cutting himself? Did he not know about his dreams? Everybody thinks depression is a f’n chemical imbalance. The stupidity of our Mental Health System is disturbing and extremely antiquated.
According to the most modern therapy (Primal Therapy), it is only natural for one to subconsciously re-live whatever prior traumas happened in order to heal. Our bodies whether physically sick or mentally sick are continuously trying to heal themselves. You know when there’s bacteria in our bodies, our anti-bodies chip in to help out to heal us. It’s a similar process for psychological healing.
Repressed pain divides the self in two and each side wars with the other. One is the real self, loaded with needs and pain that are submerged; the other is the unreal self that attempts to deal with the outside world by trying to fulfill unmet needs with neurotic habits or behaviors such as obsessions or addictions. The split of the self is the essence of neurosis and neurosis can kill.
That pain is the result of needs and feelings that have gone unfulfilled in early life. Those early unmet needs create what I call Primal Pain. Coming close to death at birth or feeling unloved as a child are examples of such Pain.The Pain goes unfelt at the time because the body is not equipped to experience it fully and deal with it.When the Pain is too much, it is repressed and stored away. When enough unresolved Pain has occurred, you lose access to your feelings
and become neurotic.
The problem in our society today is that we put the blame on everything else but the parents. The parents are always good, they always wonder what happened to their happy child, they can’t understand why their child sleeps all the time, why he’s doing poorly in school and etc.
The blame is ALWAYS put on either video games, reading the wrong books, listing to rap or heavy metal, the blame is put on playing with the computer too much, it’s put on the friends they hung out with, and it’s put on the TV they watch. These are all examples of the SYMPTOMS; not the problem.
So, unless there’s a huge change in society, these things will continue and continue and continue, and we’ll all still be wondering why, why, why.
Primal Therapy costs so much because it’s unpopular and controversial. The therapy is based on what Freud said about how our past shapes our present. Primal Therapy just took it one step further. But people are afraid of learning about it because to learn about it means that we have to be brave and face reality which nobody’s courageous enough to do.
And when a kid shows he’s in pain, nobody listens. We just simply look the other way.
Do you think we’ll learn something from all this? Probably not.
In a situation recalling the recent death of Terri Schiavo in Florida, an 81-year-old widow, denied nourishment and fluids for nearly two weeks, is clinging to life in a hospice in LaGrange, Ga., while her immediate family fights desperately to save her life before she dies of starvation and dehydration.
The dehydration is being done in defiance of Magouirk’s specific wishes, which she set down in a “living will,” and without agreement of her closest living next-of-kin, two siblings and a nephew: A. Byron McLeod, 64, of Anniston, Ga.; Ruth Mullinax, 74, of Birmingham, Ala.; and Ruth Mullinax’s son, Ken Mullinax.
AGE should have nothing to do with this. Regardless of whether one is as young as 1 or 110, if a patient in a hospital has expressed their wishes to live in writing and legally backed up, they should be honored their rights to live. Again, like the Terri Schindler case, Mrs. Magourik is not terminally ill, not comatose, nor is she in a PVS.
Some people think, “Oh just let her croak already – she’s 81 years old — it’s her time…..”.
Why is it that some people think that the family and friends surrounding an elderly woman or man mourn less, grieve less, or are not phased by their death because “it was their time to go” or “they’ve lived long enough”. I find people who think like this to be callous, cold, and just plain insensitive!
The death of any loved one should not be rated.
The death of any loved one should NOT be belittled or compared with the death of another.
Regardless of age, someone you love is still someone you love and someone that you will miss considerably when they’re gone. Period.
This is the biggest load of horse-poop I’ve read in a long time. This article was probably inspired by some dingbat parent who got a little too enthusiastic “disciplining” their child and is trying to point the blame on external, unrelated BS so that he/she doesn’t have to feel responsible for his/her son/daughter bullying in school.Guilty parents do this all the time. They refuse to take responsibility for their actions.
If your kid watches too much TV, wouldn’t you think the kid is trying to escape from his problems? Any type of addiction is a way for someone to run from their problems. It’s a convenient distraction. It’s how people cope with a reality that’s too hard to accept.
CHICAGO — Overweight adolescents are more likely than normal-weight children to be victims and perpetrators of bullying, a study released Sunday found, bolstering evidence that being fat endangers emotional as well as physical health.
Ahhhh… Here AGAIN, guilty parents putting the blame everywhere but on themselves. Over-eating is just yet another distraction that keep people from either killing themselves or another person. It’s called…
Interestingly, from other interview-based research conducted at other Midwestern middle schools, noted Dr. Espelage, “kids who bully a lot also say they’ve been victimized too. Nearly 80 to 90 percent of adolescents report some form of victimization from a bully at school.”
THE MYTH: Bullies suffer from insecurity and low self-esteem. They pick on others to make themselves feel more important.
THE RESEARCH: Most bullies have average or above-average self-esteem. They “suffer” from aggressive temperaments, a lack of empathy, and poor parenting.
Or how about lazy parenting? Most parents resort to violent disciplinary tactics rather than the more time consuming ones that would work better.
THE MYTH: Bullies are looking for attention. Ignore them and the bullying will stop.
THE RESEARCH: Bullies are looking for control, and they rarely stop if their behavior is ignored. The level of bullying usually increases if the bullying is not addressed by adults.
Those kids that are victims of domestic violence feel powerless, and bullying is a way some of them re-gain CONTROL.
THE MYTH: Boys will be boys.
THE RESEARCH: Bullying is seldom outgrown; it’s simply redirected. About 60 percent of boys identified as bullies in middle school commit at least one crime by the time they are 24.
THE RESEARCH: Physical differences play only a very small role in bullying situations. Most victims are chosen because they aresensitive, anxious, and unable to retaliate.
THE MYTH: Victims of bullies need to learn to stand up for themselves and deal with the situation.
THE RESEARCH: Victims of bullies are usually younger or physically weaker than their attackers. They also lack the social skills to develop supportive friendships. They cannot deal with the situation themselves.
This is one of the biggest myths of all. How do you expect a little boy to overpower and combat a group of other boys??? If anybody can tell me how this is possible, I will shut up.
THE MYTH: Large schools or classes are conducive to bullying.
THE RESEARCH: No correlation has been established between class or school size and bullying. In fact, there is some evidence that bullying may be less prevalent in larger schools where potential victims have increased opportunities for finding supportive friends.
THE MYTH: Most bullying occurs off school grounds.
THE RESEARCH: Although some bullying occurs outside of school or on the way to and from school, most occurs on school grounds: in classrooms, in hallways, and on playgrounds.
THE MYTH: Bullying affects only a small number of students.
THE RESEARCH: At any given time, about 25 percent of U.S. students are the victims of bullies and about 20 percent are engaged in bullying behavior. The National Association of School Psychologists estimates that 160,000 children stay home from school every day because they are afraid of being bullied.
THE MYTH: Teachers know if bullying is a problem in their classes.
THE RESEARCH: Bullying behavior usually takes place out of sight of teachers. Most victims are reluctant to report the bullying for fear of embarrassment or retaliation, and most bullies deny or justify their behavior.
HAHAHAHA! And if they DO know, they don’t do a godamned thing about it. Parents too. They think it’s good because “it will toughen their kids up”. Well, if THIS is what tough is…….. alrighty then.
THE MYTH: Victims of bullying need to follow the adage “Sticks and stones will break your bones, but names can never hurt you.”
THE RESEARCH: Victims of bullying often suffer lifelong problems with low self-esteem.They are prone to depression, suicide, and other mental health problems throughout their lives.
You know those crazy and wild kids you see running around free like lunatics in restaurants, shopping malls, and grocery stores? THEIR PARENTS ARE BAD TOO. If you read the above link, there are ways to get your children to be more civilized without resorting to violence! It’s been done before by parents WHO HAVE KIDS!
I realize that a lot of you who were spanked very harshly or severely physically abused as children have grown up to be decent people. I am in no way trying to imply that all victims of domestic violence wind up being bullies or anything else, for that matter. In my opinion, EVERYONE HAS THEIR OWN WAY OF COPING, AND ONE OF T-H-E MOST POPULAR WAYS OF COPING KNOWN TO MAN IS ONE WORD:
..::DENIAL::..
So, if you chime in telling me that your parents whooping your ass has helped you to become a better person, I ain’t gonna believe you.
Have you ever wondered how those Japanese people use their toilets? It was quite a big mystery to me when I went lived in Japan at first! Let me just tell you this. I had been using those damn things bass ackwards for several months until I figured out the trick! —>Please click this link to view the tutorial on how to use a Japanese toilet<—
This is a pay toilet. It costs 100 yen (about 1$).
I think it is too expensive to use it.
But it smells good. It is very clean and very large.
It is larger than the bathroom at my home.
Shimbashi Station(Yurikamome line)
It is rare for a toilet to be this clean in a Tokyo station. There is no smell,no dirt and a lot of toilet paper.There are both Japanese style toilets and Western style toilets.
Yurikamome line is not always crowded and the restrooms there are clean too.
Hamamatsu cho Station(JR yamate line)
This toilet is simple and clean. I think this toilet is a little known hot spot.
It is rare for a toilet to be this clean on the Yamate Line.
This is toilet in a Pachinko shop.(Pachinko is like a mixture of pin ball and slot machines)
This toilet is like a toilet in a hotel and with “Washlet”. Washlet is
the machine that automatically wash your “you know whats” after doing your business.
I can’t tell you how rare it is to find a clean toilet at a train station in or around Tokyo.
Now, let’s take a peek at what these toilets REALLY look like. (Well, most of the time.)
Tabata Station(JR yamate line)
This toilet is down the stairs to a platform in a lawless zone.
There was poopie outside of this bowl and the worst smell. Help me!
After taking this picture I felt nauseated.
Shinjuku Station(Subway Marunouchi line)
This toilet is famous. Because the Aum put sarin here.
Door of toilet is broken and cannot close. Floor of toilet is very wet. This toilet is not only dirty but poisonous. It is hard to smell whether it’s shit or sarin.
(By the way, I had to edit some of the English in these descriptions as I believe the original author was a Japanese.)
But, are you kidding me??? This is nothing compared to what I had seen in the ladies room!!! Nothing! The men’s little toilets are a Martha Stewart collection compared to the ladies toilets. In fact, if there were pictures of the ladies toilets in Japan on a website, I sure wouldn’t be able to post them here! I’d have to submit them to either Rotten Dot Com or to Funky Fresh Freddie’s blog.
But I’m not surprised. I’ve spoken to men. Ladies public restrooms are BY FAR THE MOST NOTORIOUS FOR BEING THE MOST DISGUSTING ON THE PLANET. Why? The homes of most women are very neat no matter what country you live in. They are pressured by society to keep their homes a certain way, so when they DO use a public toilet, they let all their hatred out by way of being inconsiderate to the next person that may be using the toilet after them. They can only keep their “Martha Stewart” facade up so long. Public restrooms are their only outlet to say “Fuck it. I’m doing what ‘I’ want!”.
As for me, I’m a slob. So, when I use public bathrooms, I’m very neat and tidy and carefully consider the feelings of the person coming after me. I think more people should be slobs at home!
It is a very common practice for parents to instil their beliefs on to their children. Sometimes we can assume that before the child reaches adulthood, he will carry the beliefs that his parents held.
After having been in school, having socialized with others, and having done independent research, one has seen both sides and then makes their own decisions. Sometimes this doesn’t happen, though. Some children feel that it’s “betrayal” if they allow themselves the freedom to have a unique thought from their parents. I guess this depends on how strongly the parents opinions are forced down their children’s throat.
That’s all good and well, though. We can expect these types of things to happen all the time.
A person who likes anything and everything that “everyone” likes (trends, etc.) for the sake of being cool. Once that trend ends and everyone stops liking it, they promptly start disliking it and it becomes the worst thing in the world. They also mock the people that continue to follow the “uncool” trends.
Billy: Wrestling’s so gay, why do you watch that? I can’t stand that crap.
Billy (3 years earlier): Stone Cold rules!
You know, I can understand why kids do this, but I’d like to think that when people have matured to a certain age that they start thinking on their own, and doing WHAT THEY LIKE and believing in what THEY TRULY believe in. But some folks never grow out of that. They can’t stand being in the minority of ANYTHING. I guess they believe that if the “moral majority” think one way, then it’s right.
.::NEWSFLASH::.
There is no right or wrong when it comes to OPINIONS!
These kind of people, I also call puppets and parakeets. OR… SHEEPLE!
People unable to think for themselves. Followers. Lemmings. Those with no cognitive abilities of their own.
All the teens were wearing bell-bottoms because they were sheeple.
Or…
A individual that forfeits their right to choose in favor of inclusion in groupthink and what is viewed as popular or elite group. Allowing the influences of different forms of media and group members to hold great sway in the formation of attitudes, behavior and opinion.
To accept the group mentality and opinion as fact without examination.
Not only to be told what to do, but accepting the paradigm of thought as absolute thereby removing the weight of personal responsibility in the making of decisions.
All of these puppets have a leader. Sheeple are seduced by power and authority. For example, the puppet will believe in something like breast feeding in public, but once they hear from somebody who symbolizes “strength” to them, they go with what that person thinks.
So, sheeple, puppets, and parakeets not only go out of their way to follow the “moral majority”, they also emulate the thoughts of those that mark strength in their behavior. They figure if the strong man says “breast feeding in public is offensive” , well…then it’s offensive. Their own opinions change as fast as lightning streaks the sky. It’s truly amazing to watch these kind of people in action in a social gathering. Simultaneously, it’s very sad.
It’s quite a cowardly behavior, don’t you think? In the American society, we women have progressed so much that individualism is currently looked upon as being mature, sexy, brave, unique, feminine, strong, and intelligent. Apersonality trait that the modern man looks for in a woman – a real woman.
It’s a pity to notice someone who sacrifices the euphoric feeling of being ones self to gain acceptance from others. They don’t care if the person being accepted is not their true selves. They are just THAT needy and desperate. And I thought that “neediness” only applied to children. I was wrong. Adults can be sheeple too.
The radical left and right wing “individuals” in today’s society are guilty of being “sheeple”. Xenophobia is a sheeple concept… and so is Americanophobia!
Mind you, these sheep are the same people that will chastise you if your opinion differs from theirs. Or God forbid, you’re not doing what the common man does. If you try to debate them or reasonably discuss their views, they have NO argument to offer other than insults. You can always expect personal attacks from those sheeple who cannot supply rhyme or reason as to why they feel they do because they’ve plagiarized their beliefs from another person. So, how can we expect them to have a logical argument? How can we take sheeple seriously?
There’s something I don’t quite understand. Whether it be in real life or on the Internet, if someone insults another person and that person retaliates, why are they called a pussy? Why are they told to get over it?
“You can dish it out, but you can’t take it” is my favorite saying. And that’s just because it’s so true.
People who are “serial bullies” cannot handle “back talk”. They are unable to drink the same poison they deliver. Now, who’s the weakling? Who’s the coward? Do we have a vote? If you can dish it out and you aren’t strong enough to accept the response, you are just plain weak and thin-skinned.
I always find it funny how the victims of bullies are called the “crybabies”. Don’t you think?
Let’s explore what a serial bully is. Some people when they’re young and in middle school, they bully a few times and they grow up and move on. Some of these people when they reach adulthood even feel bad about what they had done to their classmates when they were a child. I have personally known those to have felt remorse for having bullied in the past. These are temporary bullies.
But then there are those who continue bullying into their adulthood and will take that character with them to their graves. This is what is called a serial bully.
is a convincing,practiced liar and when called to account, will make
up anything spontaneously to fit their needs at that moment
has a Jekyll and Hyde nature – is vile, vicious and vindictive in
private, but innocent and charming in front of witnesses; no-one can (or wants to) believe
this individual has a vindictive nature – only the current target of the serial bully’s
aggression sees both sides; whilst the Jekyll side is described as “charming”
and convincing enough to deceive personnel, management and a tribunal, the Hyde side is
frequently described as “evil”; Hyde is the real person, Jekyll is an act
excels at deception and should never be underestimated in
their capacity to deceive
uses excessive charm and is always plausible and convincing when peers,
superiors or others are present (charm can be used to deceive as well as to
cover for lack of empathy)
is glib, shallow and superficial with plenty of fine
words and lots of form – but there’s no substance
is possessed of an exceptional verbal facility and will outmaneuver
most people in verbal interaction, especially at times of conflict
is often described as smooth, slippery, slimy, ingratiating,
fawning, toadying, obsequious, sycophantic
relies on mimicry, repetition and regurgitation to convince others
that he or she is both a “normal” human being and a tough dynamic manager, as in
extolling the virtues of the latest management fads and pouring forth the accompanying
jargon
is unusually skilled in being able to anticipate what people want to hear
and then saying it plausibly
is emotionally retarded with an arrested level of emotional development; whilst language
and intellect may appear to be that of an adult, the bully displays the emotional age
of a five-year-old
is emotionally immature
exhibits unusual and inappropriate attitudes to sexual matters, sexual behavior
and bodily functions; underneath the charming exterior there are often suspicions
or hints of sex discrimination and sexual harassment, perhaps also sexual dysfunction,
sexual inadequacy, sexual perversion, sexual violence or sexual abuse
in a relationship, is incapable of initiating or sustaining intimacy
holds deep prejudices (eg against the opposite gender, people of a
different sexual orientation, other cultures and religious beliefs, foreigners, etc -
prejudiced people are unvaryingly unimaginative) but goes to great lengths to keep this
prejudicial aspect of their personality secret
is self-opinionated and displays arrogance, audacity,
a superior sense of entitlement and sense of invulnerability and untouchability
has a deep-seated contempt of clients in contrast to his or her
professed compassion
is a control freak and has a compulsive need to control
everyone and everything you say, do, think and believe; for example, will launch an
immediate personal attack attempting to restrict what you are permitted to say if you
start talking knowledgeably about psychopathic personality or antisocial personality disorder
in their presence – but aggressively maintains the right to talk (usually unknowledgeably)
about anything they choose; serial bullies despise anyone who enables others to see
through their deception and their mask of sanity
displays a compulsive need to criticize whilst simultaneously refusing
to value, praise and acknowledge others, their achievements, or their existence
shows a lack of joined-up thinking with conversation
that doesn’t flow and arguments that don’t hold water
flits from topic to topic so that you come away feeling you’ve never
had a proper conversation
refuses to be specific and never gives a straight answer
is evasive and has a Houdini-like ability to escape accountability
undermines and destroys anyone who the
bully perceives to be an adversary, a potential threat, or who can see through the bully’s mask
is adept at creating conflict between those who would otherwise collate
incriminating information about them
is quick to discredit and neutralize anyone who can talk knowledgeably
about antisocial or sociopathic behaviors
may pursue a vindictive vendetta against anyone who dares to held
them accountable, perhaps using others’ resources and contemptuous of the
damage caused to other people and organizations in pursuance of the vendetta
is also quick to belittle, undermine, denigrate and discredit anyone
who calls, attempts to call, or might call the bully to account
gains gratification from denying people what they are entitled to
is highly manipulative, especially of people’s
perceptions and emotions (eg guilt)
poisons peoples’ minds by manipulating their perceptions
when called upon to share or address the needs and concerns of others, responds with impatience,
irritability and aggression
is arrogant, haughty, high-handed, and a know-all
often has an overwhelming, unhealthy and narcissisticattention-seeking
need to portray themselves as a wonderful, kind, caring and compassionate person,
in contrast to their behavior and treatment of others; the bully sees nothing wrong with
their behavior and chooses to remain oblivious to the discrepancy between how they like to be seen
and how they are seen by others
is spiritually dead although may loudly profess some religious
belief or affiliation
is mean-spirited, officious, and often unbelievably petty
is mean, stingy, and financially untrustworthy
is greedy, selfish, a parasite and an emotional vampire
is always a taker and never a giver
is convinced of their superiority and has an overbearing belief
in their qualities of leadership but cannot distinguish between leadership
(maturity, decisiveness, assertiveness, co-operation, trust, integrity) and bullying
(immaturity, impulsiveness, aggression, manipulation, distrust, deceitfulness)
often misses the semantic meaning of language, misinterprets what is
said, sometimes wrongly thinking that comments of a satirical, ironic or general negative
nature apply to him or herself
knows the words but not the song
is constantly imposing on others a false reality made up of distortion and fabrication
sometimes displays a seemingly limitless demonic energy especially when
engaged in attention-seeking activities or evasion of accountability and is often a committeeaholic or apparent workaholic
Do you know anybody like this? They are very similar to Narcissists.
A pervasive pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration, lack of empathy, as
indicated by at least five of:
1. a grandiose sense of self-importance
2. is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal
love
3. believes that he or she is “special” and can only be understood by, or should
associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)
4. requires excessive admiration
5. has a sense of entitlement, ie unreasonable expectations of especially favorable
treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations
6. is interpersonally exploitative, ie takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own
ends
7. lacks empathy and is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of
others
8. is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her
9. shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes
If you are a strong person, you will not eat the shit that the bully spoons out. If you are weak, you will dish it out and expect the other person to gracefully tolerate it.
Of course, like any other electronic polls out there, these results aren’t scientific. This poll was an unsuccessful one. Not too many people voted, and I get an average of 530 visitors a day. I might have to start creating XXX polls to get your lazy butts to vote. But to all those who voted, thank-you!
I’m just trying to see if I’m the only one with no life. No seriously, I’ve just been curious what my visitors do. Not too many students come by, and the majority appear to be working full-time.
I can see where the temptation is there for people to think those who interact with strangers on the Internet for hours a day have no life. I thought about this a lot, actually. I could be wrong, but I think it’s because interacting electronically with strangers could be thought of as talking to objects (not real people). I’m guessing that some people think that if you cannot hear their voice or see their face, that the communication is not real.
Let’s say if you spend your days talking to your pillow or your teddy bears that you would be thought of as a lonely person with no life, right? Especially if you think they’re talking back to you! On the Internet, it’s the same. There are, again, no faces or voices – just a bunch of typed words that appear on our computer screens.
More than anything else, it’s the friendly interaction with strangers. Off-line on-lookers who question the quality of our lives assume the interaction between others electronically to be that of a “friendship”. I can only speak for myself, but this is not the case with me. I may call these people “online friends”, however this is not the case when I define the word “friendship” carefully.
I love attention. This is probably the major reason I blog. I love the interaction with others as well. While we aren’t “friends” per the strict definition, it’s brings to me much stimulation and entertainment. I also love to observe people and learn about them as well.
I don’t necessarily feel that if we can’t see the face or hear the voices of others, that they cannot be real or worthy of any trust. Well, it really depends on WHERE in Cyberspace you’re having this communication. For example, if you spend all your time in chat rooms trying to hunt down a “love match” for yourself, I find it a tad bit harder to trust the person on the other end. I’ve heard people to have lied about their weight or their looks so that they can find someone who will fall in love with them. But I guess it all depends on WHO you’re talking to. This whole phenomenon should only be judged on a “case by case” basis.
Those whom have trusted before and have been betrayed badly will probably not trust the Internet as a means to communicate with people.
I think all situations should be judged “case by case” as in real life (face to face interaction), we’ve all been let down, betrayed, used and abused by those we thought loved us. This reminds me of the BTK Killer. He was the president of his church, had a wife and two kids, and worked for the boy scouts. He was trusted, and we all found out the truth in the end. Do you know who your neighbors really are?
Vulnerable and innocent children who put all their faith, love, and trust in their parents get betrayed by them everyday in all sorts of ways in this world. The people whom we expect to protect us, wind up hurting us and turning our souls vigilant, paranoid, and a loss of innocence takes place where the world and it’s people must be interrogated thoroughly before we can trust again.
So, it’s not just the average Joe on the Internet that we cannot trust. In my opinion, we don’t know who ANYBODY is face… or no face.
it’s whether or not she has a good quality of life.
TERRY NEVER WANTED TO LIVE LIKE THIS. it’s been decided and proven in a court of law that she never wanted to live like this.
i think it’s an ethical nightmare to force someone to live in a vegetative state (which literally means her mind operates like that of a piece of celery, or a potato.)
she is a zombie, and it’s shameless the way “right to lifers” are all over this story, when it’s not even a right to life case!!!
This is the problem. There’s no proof that Terri said she doesn’t want to live in “this kind of state”. If you are going strictly by the letter of the law, the letter of the law states that “hearsay” is always thrown out of court!
This garble is coming from the same “husband” who received several hundreds of thousands of dollars FOR REHABILITATION several years ago and never spent a penny on it. This is coming from the same “husband” who refused to let “certain” doctors evaluate Terri. This is also coming from the same “husband” that now has a new woman in his life, going on his second child with her AND REFUSES TO DIVORCE TERRI because if he were to, he’d lose out on the insurance money. This is coming from the same “husband” who publicly said he loves his wife and will remain with her forever no matter what.
In America, money talks. Michael Schiavo’s lawyers happen to be stronger. Shit loads of evidence proving that she’s NOT in a persistent vegetative state was NOT ADMITTED INTO COURT.
Also, how could you condone her dying of starvation rather than the lethal injection so she can go painlessly.
I’m not citing any sources here, because that’s all I’ve been doing for the last several days.
I’m in favor in Euthanasia. But this is not a Euthanasia case.
Also, I’d be curious to know what you’re answer is to this:
Denise (MiracleChild)wrote the following message in our comments section of this post:
I have a disabled daughter. At 4 months of age, a highly respected UCLA neurologist told us based on her MRI’s and his physical inspection of her that our daughter’s cerebral cortex area of her brain was hugely gone. He went on to further say that we should just try to make her as comfortable as possible, and not to invest in any therapies as they would not help. As you could imagine, this news devastated my husband and I….it did not however deter us.
While Amy (now 4) still cannot swallow her own saliva (and Terri can), through a long process we taught her to eat everything by mouth. Due to intense physical therapy and other alternative treatments, Amy is taking assisted steps and beginning to sit. We did not give up on her.
I have looked at Terri Schiavo’s videos, I have spoken via e-mail with Mr. Schindler, and I am 100% positive that Terri is no different than my daughter. Even with the many years that Terri has been left with no therapy and stimulation, there is still hope. Will she ever have full capacity, the answer is no. But I have seen the eyes of my little girl daily for 4 years and I have seen the eyes of Terri. Terri is not brain dead she is alive.
Secondly, how much about this case do you know? It’s also been proven that she’s not in a “persistent vegetative state”. She’s brain-damaged, NOT BRAIN DEAD. There’s a HUGE difference. I’ve cited the facts numerous times from reliable sources in the “Terry Schiavo” category of my blog.
I’m so sick and tired of dealing with those who get all the information from the boob tube and not knowing or even caring about the facts.
This is a case won over money; not one won over the best interests of Terri.
I think to one degree or another, we’ve all suffered at some point and time in our lives. Everyone’s trauma means something different to them, and we all have our unique ways of coping. Some healthy and some not. The “Getting Over It” dilemma is a very controversial issue. Everyone has something different to say about it.
Can someone define what “Getting Over It” means? To help you out a bit, let me give you all some choices to choose from:
Keeping a stiff upper lip because the ones that say “I care for you” don’t give a shit and internalizing the hurt and anger inside you like a “pressure cooker” until you have had enough and either get physically sick , have a nervous break down, become a hermit, become a priest, become addicted to blogging or go on a killing rampage like this person or like these people?
suicide
So, which one is it?
Science speaks. And evidence speaks even louder.
The “pressure cooker” theory reminds me of earthquakes. Since I’ve been alive (and I’m 36) the hugest, most disastrous earthquakes typically happen in places where there are very, very few tremors or none at all. Folks, what does that say?
I lived on the outskirts of Tokyo for almost seven years and that place was shaking all the time, yet there were no BIG earthquakes. Remember the Big Kobe Earthquake in Japan in 1995? No, tremors, no shakes, no nothing…………… then BOOM!
Aren’t we humans like that? Don’t you think we need to shake and rattle a bit to avoid a BIG BOOM?
repress[Show phonetics] verb[T] 1to not allow something, especially feelings, to be expressed: He repressed a sudden desire to cry.
2to control what people do, especially by using force
repressed[Show phonetics] adjective repressed anger/sexuality English people are notoriously repressed and don’t talk about their feelings.
2the process and effect of keeping particular thoughts and desires out of your conscious mind in order to defend or protect it: an attitude of unhealthy sexual repression
repressive[Show phonetics] adjective a repressive (= cruel) military regime sexually repressive
When you do not like, or even fear, certain feelings and attitudes in yourself, you block awareness of them. This amounts to obstructing the stream of feelings that should flow freely. Use the analogy of the stream, though it is not new of course, as a fresh approach, so that you can visualize the damage done by repression. You need a new impetus in order to be inspired to remove the barricades. So, my friends, try to visualize each emotion, each attitude and response as a stream. If you barricade a stream, what happens? It is possible to dam up a river. The water will flow to the dam and will then be stopped. But the more water accumulates behind the dam, the greater the energy of the accumulating water will become until it bursts the dam, overflows, and destroys not only the dam itself, but all the natural and healthy vegetation and structures alongside.
Destroying the barricade in such a violent way is not necessary. The dam in your soul never needed to be erected, but since you chose to build it, it has to go. You can make gradually and systematically remove it by your own efforts: this is the conscious process of self-confrontation. Waiting until nature takes its course means that the barricade will be swept away by the force of the waters. When life handles you roughly, when the accumulated destructive attitudes whose origins lie behind the barricade finally break loose, you experience crises and breakdowns of different kinds and degrees.
By not damming up the river, you let the dirt and residue float freely to the surface to be eliminated. The ever-regenerating water in its purity and freshness will finally sweep the river free of the debris. Is this not a fact in nature? The same applies to your soul-currents. By fearing and not looking at the debris of your past hurts and their subsequent destructive tendencies, you accumulate them behind the barricade, and they are bound to swamp you one day when you cannot control what happens. But there is nothing to fear when you allow the debris to reach the surface.
When you begin to remove your blocks you will start to experience negative emotions unlike any you have felt before. The temptation is then to put the lid on again. Beware of this temptation. The warm, positive, generous, loving, unselfish feelings must follow eventually, and the negative feelings will no longer be detrimental to you. Not wanting to see the negative does not eliminate its existence. When you struggle against your insecurity, denying its existence, it rises up behind the dam, like swelling waters. As long as the dam holds, you will feel a vague discomfort. You will feel inhibited without understanding why, and you will sense that some of your best potentials are underutilized. You will not have a grasp of the situation, nor will you feel the full force of the insecurity that becomes stronger as it builds up behind the barricade.
One day certain outer events will swamp you with all the despair of helplessness and insecurity you had never dared to face. So by struggling to repress your insecurity, you actually increase it. By denying its existence, you make it bigger and stronger than it otherwise would be. The same holds true for any other emotion or attitude — fear, doubt, hostility, or whatever — the principle is the same. The natural laws apply to all created forces, whether they be actual rivers or the rivers and streams of feeling. Is it not much wiser to remove the barricade? Waiting until nature breaks it down will render you helpless. The feelings will swamp you and you will not understand their meaning because their accumulated momentum has become too strong. Do not wait until such times. All too often one waits for a crisis before one is willing to take stock of oneself.
Nice analogy. This also reminds me of another one of my favorite quotes.
“The number one killer in the world today is not cancer or heart disease, it is repression.” -Dr. Arthur Janov
Now, get over people who aren’t getting over it and move on!
I just got a personal response from Senator Nancy Argenziano! She asked where I got the info about Terri being able to sip some water. I directed her to the nurse’s affidavit at terrisfight.org. You might want to follow up with her.
Re: Nancy Argenziano, 850-487-5017
Urgent – Since Nancy’s phones are very busy, will everyone please keep trying to get her and let her know that Terri can take-in water and has actually taken water, jello, and pudding. Please direct her to HERE on BLOGSFORTERRI since it’s easy to find that specific post here.
Please advise her that she can get more information at BlogsForTerri.com if she would please just check it out herself instead of listening to the media. We need Nancy’s help.
There’s a huge difference between being “brain damaged” and “brain dead”. For all those people in support of the tube being removed from Terri, you obviously haven’t been following this case and are unaware of the facts. You have no right to voice your opinion as firmly and definitely as you are. Ignorance in this kind of case is unacceptable!
And for all of you that think this is none of my business or anyone else’s, let me ask you this. Do you not voice your opinion whether it be written or vocal when you see something wrong in our society? If you’re going to follow the “it’s none of your business logic”, than it should apply all around — not to just Terri’s case.
But you’re right. It IS none of my business, but that doesn’t mean I cannot voice my opinion or fight for her in any way. That’s how things get changed in society. If you just sit on your bum, nothing gets done!
Another thing I don’t understand is that if they’re going to “let Terri die”, why don’t they just give her a lethal injection so that she can go painlessly? Has anyone ever thought of that? If you read up on her case, it’s already been proven that Terri reacts to pain. BRAIN-DEAD people don’t do that! Those in a Persistant Vegetative State don’t do that either!
The affected individual is alive but is not able to react or respond to life around him/her. Coma may occur as an expected progression or complication of an underlying illness, or as a result of an event such as head trauma.
A persistent vegetative state, which sometimes follows a coma, refers to a condition in which individuals have lost cognitive neurological function and awareness of the environment but retain noncognitive function and a preserved sleep-wake cycle.
Terri Schiavo feels pain, she smiles, she tries very hard to use her voice to communicate, she cries, and on a couple of occasions, she’s spoken. Watch the videos and see for yourself either here or here.
Many people have said this already, and I agree with it. “Prisoners on Death Row get much better treatment!” Again, I don’t believe in her being put to death, but if you’re going to do it, let her die painlessly with an injection for God sakes!
Hmm… Looks like Liberals aren’t the only ones who protest!
Thanks to the Republicans, there actually may be some hope!
I came to the conclusion long ago that those who write poison pen letters to those people in the public eye getting attention from the media, did not get their basic needs met at childhood. You know, the things that all children need such as touch, love, attention, encouragement, and support. Here’s the perfect example of one who didn’t get that.
Are you familiar with Heather Armstrong from Dooce.Com? If you haven’t had a chance to read her blog, I highly recommend it. Heather is an amazing woman with a superb sense of humor. For those that don’t know Heather, she was fired from her job a few years ago because of her blog — and these entries. Read them. They are hil.ar.ious! She admitted that she knew the risks involved, and when she was terminated, she wasn’t all that bitter; nor was she surprised. If you ask me, she took it very well.
From what I’ve read in her blog, she appears to have a wonderful husband and child. As we all know, nobody has the “perfect” life, but she seems to have what apparently jackson.matt@att.net doesn’t. Matt Jackson is the cretin that sent Heather Armstrong that nasty email.
Oh, and here’s his address just in case you didn’t get it the first time: jackson.matt@att.net jackson.matt@att.net jackson.matt@att.net jackson.matt@att.net
You know, these losers are so transparent, it’s not funny. It’s actually quite amazing and predictable of people of his ilk to get so riled up because someone else is getting loads of attention. If they only knew that they are the ones, attention-starved and needy. They cannot stand someone getting more attention than them. For what they didn’t receive in childhood, they crave so much as an adult now. And they will attempt to destroy those that either got it or are getting it.
For the record, Heather is not asking for attention. The media comes to her. She agrees to talk to them so that others will learn from her mistake. Believe me, I’ve learned a lot from those that have already lost their jobs from blogging. I thank the media and the bloggers willing to cooperate with them. I’m sure because of people like Heather Armstrong, a lot of people are more cautious now or at least know the risk they are taking. And this is why I’m more anonymous than ever! God forbid the people out there find out I’m a Liberal! Ack!
So, you sulkers and cry babies out there that hate to see these people in the spotlight, too damn bad. Blame the media!
Could this be why Republicans hate celebrities so much?
Pretty much the same thing happened to Amber Frey. I know there are a lot of reasons why people hate Amber, but I know some of them are secretly jealous of all the attention she has received.
Moving on back to the fired bloggers, take a look atQueen of Sky’s most recent entry. There are several users at that damned Journalspace who are whining that their server has slowed down since Queen of Sky has been getting so many comments and hits to her blog following her termination. Is this not ridiculous or what? Leave it up to Journalspace users to come up with this kind of crap! If a server cannot handle the bandwidth necessary for a few bloggers to have popularity, they shouldn’t be in business. Blame the f’n server, not the one who is getting all the attention! There are so many blogging platforms out there like Typepad, Blogger, WordPress, Squarespace, Moveable Type, Xanga, Bravenet, Modblog, Blogdrive, Blog City, Mindsay, and more. I have never once heard this problem on another server where the bloggers attack those bloggers who receive a massive amount of hits and using that as a reason the server is slow. Heck, I was a member of Journalspace about a year and a half ago, and that server was all too often slow as all hell! I don’t mean to defame all members of Journalspace, but man-o-man, I have never seen as many crackpots and whackjobs in another blogging community before in my life!
Attention seekers are in denial. They will argue that they don’t need attention and that they don’t seek it. Don’t pay attention to these people. They have never taken the time to look inwards. They are too busy pointing the fingers and whining like big babies for their mama. They look something like this:
…or this:
Go get your OWN attention, and stop sucking on sour grapes!
You’re all blithering idiots! Sorry I had to be that blunt but I spent the morning cruising from blog to blog and seemed to keep stumbling upon these sites that just, quite simply, had nothing to say. It seems like they spend all their time and energy spinning hate and disgust for the other side. Instead of spending time trying to come up with one constructive thought about what’s going on in the world they regurgitate what they just read on their favorite editorial site and then proceed to bash the opposite side for not seeing it their way.
I find it hard to believe that someone could actually believe their side is 100% right. Instead of bashing the other side maybe, and sit down when you read this, you might spend your time actually thinking of ways to better the political party you so staunchly protect, hold your leaders accountable for the promises they make and break, both parties have them.
No side is worse then the other because collectively they wouldn’t be able to come up with one original thought to better themselves or mankind. Rather, they seem quite content with being pigeon holed in their own private hells.
I couldn’t agree more! I actually never outwardly bashed the Republican Party until recently. Now, I see myself participating in the bashing. Like I commented in the above entry, written so beautifully by The Bastard , I am sick to death of the bully-like insults, name calling, and the relentless YOU’RE WRONG! WE’RE RIGHT!, bullshit. I got fed up and now I’m bashing them back.
What’s funny is (and I know I’ve mentioned this before), is that the Liberals think I’m not Liberal enough. I’m way to conservative on many issues for them to consider me a part of their group or even their web-rings. (The third one I’ve tried for is at the bottom of this page, and it appears I haven’t been accepted into that one either.)
However, according to the Republican Party, I’m stupid, I’m a hippie, I’m a commie, I’m a vegetarian, I’m psychotic, I belong to PETA and spend all my waking hours protecting fish (if they only knew I EAT THAT STUFF RAW), I’m un-Patriotic, I hate America, I sit on my ass waiting for the government to feed me, I’m insensitive, I hate freedom, I spit on soldiers, I’m a whiner, I worship Saddam, I love Clinton, I’m just a Liberal to get attention, I burn flags, and I beat up Republicans in the street. Is that the best argument you extremists have? I mean, is that the best argument “for Bush” that you have? Really?
Ummmm……
::::NEWSFLASH::::
I’m neither one of those things.
Why oh why, can’t the Republicans accept that?
You know, when I say Republicans here, I’m speaking of the EXTREME Republicans. I’m aware that there are Republicans out there that are level-headed and maintain some kind of balance in their lives.
Even though I’m a Liberal and I feel right about my views, that doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m right. I will listen to the arguments from the other side with an open mind. It doesn’t necessarily mean I will change my mind, but you never know. The truth of the matter is, if one in favor of the Iraqi War poses an intelligent argument WITHOUT bullying the other side, I will listen. In fact, there were times in the past, I have re-thought the way I feel about things because of a good argument I heard.
In part two of our investigation into the liberal mind and the syndrome of NAPPS (Narcissistic Peter Pan Paranoid Schizophrenia), we look into what has recently been termed the Peter Pan Syndrome. PPS is not an actual syndrome in psychological terms, but it is a label most of us innately understand. It refers to, in essence, those people who will just ‘never grow up’. People whose development has all but stopped in the adolescent phase. People who will avoid responsibility at all costs. People whose fear of the future, fear of failure, and fear of inadequacy has held them in a seemingly permanent state of dependency. This mental problem seems to be more common now than ever…
You gotta love that! Us Liberals need to “grow up”. This is actually funny more than anything else. We need to grow up? Why… because we share a different view? If not sharing common ground with your self-righteous blather is what YOU call being
How many babies and little kids do we know that cry and throw a temper tantrum when they don’t get their way? If you’re talking about issues concerning insecurity and immaturity, can you Right Wingers explain why your panties knot up in a ball when you read blogs written by Liberals? You must fight them. You must go out of your way ‘prove them wrong’. Your demeaning, sarcastic, and mean spirited comments only show
that you are hurt.
From this entry one can only assume that you know something about Psychology. If that is the case, anyone in that field professionally will tell you that anger comes from hurt!
And YOU call yourselves “Wide Awake”? Are you kidding me?
And YOU call yourselves “mature” and “mentally stable”? If the answer to this question is “yes”, than please tell me to sit down first because I will wet my pants laughing so hard. I’ve already went through too many packages of Depends laughing at you people, already. No, seriously.
PPS may not, in itself, be recognized by the mental health community; however there is a psychological syndrome that embodies many of the symptoms we use here to describe PPS.
It is Dependant Personality Disorder. Persons with this disorder are described here:
1) A yearning for a strong figure who will provide the resources for their survival and happiness (sounds like the left’s definition of government to me)
Well partner, looks like Bush is doing something for YOU or you wouldn’t have voted for him. Everybody’s for himself. That’s the way people are. Don’t give me any bologna that you voted for him for the common good for our country. Hogwash. You had your own best interests somewhere – even if it was to please mom and dad. Give me a break!
2) The need for support (ever hear of the term ‘entitlements’?)
Excuse me? YOU don’t feel entitled to anything. Really? You expect nothing from our government until something happens to you or your family. Then you’ll be squealing with the rest of us. That’s how hypocritical you people are. I know a soldier that lost all the movements in his hands due to driving over land mines in Iraq. He’s back in the U.S.now. And guess what? HE’S ON DISABILITY! And where’s that money coming from? YOUR TAX DOLLARS! According to your ‘logic’, he should just wither away and die of starvation without an income. Well, that is your ‘logic’. But I welcome you to correct me if I’m wrong.
If I’m not going to receive Social Security when I’m 70 years old, than why the hell am I putting money into Social Security with every pay check I get? Yes, I feel entitled. That’s my hard earned money! That money’s going to support the rich. While everyone’s entitled to get what they earned, the rich are getting more than that off of Bush being president. While the rich are getting more than they earned, there are those less fortunate that are busting their butts working 3 jobs just to get by.
So, you’ve got it backwards. It’s the Rich Republicans that feel entitled to more. Face it. Nobody thinks about anybody else but themselves. And the more you people deny that, the more foolish you come off.
3) Desiring help from other people (and if necessary, of course, that help will be forced by the penal power of government through the redistribution of wealth.)
Redistribution of wealth? Which democrat is expecting to get more than what they earn at work?
You must be talking about those living off welfare and disability. There are quite a few people that take advantage of the system. There are also those who pop out one baby after the next, wind up with 6 kids and are on welfare. I agree with you there. It’s not right. But there are people who genuinely need it – like that soldier who cannot use his hands at all. And I’m sure he’s not the only soldier on disability eating off your hard earned tax dollars.
4) Subservience and subordination (through the ceding of one’s rights for the feeling of safety)
What the…. Can anybody make out what this means? More power to yah if you feel you don’t deserve to live in a safe country. By the way, what are you doing sitting at home?
1) Feelings of helplessness (in themselves and thus projected onto others)
2) Fear of independence and having to do things for oneself (why be independent when the nanny state can take care of all one’s needs?)
3) Fear of rejection or criticism (remember the Narcissist? And what happens when he feels criticized or rejected? Uh oh.)
In the end, those with PPS/Dependent Personality Disorder wish to avoid, by any means, the world most of us know simply as adulthood. They refuse to acknowledge the need for independence and personal responsibility. They refuse to face the fact that life can be sometimes hard and mean. And, as perpetual adolescents, refuse to uphold their own duty to society. And, it is this refusal of the ‘Peter Pan’ to face true reality that ultimately leads directly into the next subject of this investigation and the next post…Paranoid Schizophrenia.
The above is priceless. Really. Fear of rejection or criticism? And ……. this behavior is only specific to Liberals??? Give me a f’n break?
Somebody, please tell me this person isn’t serious.
Could this not be you? I mean you spend so much of your time fighting Liberals. And if you’re so educated in the field of Psychology, you would know that if you were really secure in your Right Winged stances, you wouldn’t waste your time off work insulting us.
That’s the problem with you Extremists. You can’t handle a difference in opinion. You immediately go into hysterics, and again calling us “stupid” and “insecure” and making ridiculous assumptions about us. What’s that all about? If you ask me, that’s about YOUR insecurities. One doesn’t even have to major in Psychology to know that spewing out insults or pointing out grammatical/spelling errors as a substitution for what could be a clean, intelligent debate, is without doubt a mark of insecurity.
With the kind of attitudes you hateful Extremists have, you can go on and on and on preaching about god and conservatism until you’re blue in the face, and you’re not going to convert any of us. Just as much as I think I’m going to convert you….. it ain’t gonna happen. Get used to it.
None of this is to say that I’m perfect, I’m right, and that I never make hypocritical statements. However, I can proudly admit that I can debate without resorting to insults. If you insult me, though, you’re a fool’s fool if you don’t think I’ll bite back or just simply ignore you.
BOSTON
- Defrocked priest Paul Shanley, whose crimes shook the Roman Catholic Church, was sentenced to 12 to 15 years in prison on child rape charges Tuesday to a burst of applause from some of the many who accused him of molesting them.
Shanley will be eligible for parole after eight years. He was sent away despite warnings from some inmate advocates that the notorious child-molester would be a marked man behind bars and that prison could amount to a death sentence.
I’m generally against prison violence, but when it comes to rapists and child molesters, I say, “Go get ‘em!” because that child’s life is basically ruined and he will have to carry those memories (repressed or not) with him for the rest of his life.
Judge Stephen Neel condemned the former priest for using his revered status to prey on a little boy. “It is difficult to imagine a more egregious misuse of trust and authority,” he said. Shanley, once known for a being a hip “street priest” who reached out to troubled children and homosexuals, was convicted last week of repeatedly raping and fondling a boy at his church during the 1980s.
Is this not the norm? You know, the “altruistic humanitarian” type who successfully portrays himself as such. Everybody thinks he’s wonderful. This is the face he shows when he’s got his pants on. Nobody can believe he could possibly do such a thing. For those idiots who believe in his innocence, let me ask you a question: Do you think if a priest is secretly banging little boys behind closed doors, do you think he’s going to say mass and walk around in public wearing a shirt that says, “I DiddleLittle Boys”? In your naive, idealistic, “the world is perfect” little mind of yours, do you actually think he’s going to expose that side of himself to his parishioners – like he wants to get caught with his pants down? (pun intended). Give me a break!? And yes, Scott Peterson is guilty too. Cute people are capable of bad things as well.
We have a lot of criminals who are known to others as altruistic. Remember Ted Bundy?
Friends remember Bundy as witty, kind, and attractive, as well as charming. These were all to be his assets as a killer. Ironically, Bundy worked for some time at a crisis clinic, answering phones, and talking people down from suicide. In 1970, Ted saved a 3 and 1/2 year old from drowning in Green Lake. As far as most people were concerned, he saved lives, he didn’t take them.
We can somehow accept the fact that a few people go “crazy” sometimes and start shooting others. However, it is more disconcerting to learn that some of the “nicest” people one meets lead a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde life: a student by day, a killer of coeds by night; a caring, attentive nurse who secretly murders sick children, the handicapped, or the elderly; a building contractor and politician who enjoys sexually torturing and killing young men and burying them under his home. When we discover that people exist who are not considered to be insane or crazy but who enjoy killing others for “recreation,” this indeed gives new meaning to the word “stranger.”
Do you ever notice how whenever the media asks the next door neighbors of a psychopathic serial killer what the guy was like, the neighbors always say how nice, quiet, and peaceful the guy was? They also usually mention how nicely the guy kept up his lawn for some reason. They always talk about what a nice neighbor he was. Well, the media just seems to be shocked by the whole thing. I’m not saying anything about the other aspects of their personalities, but could it be possible that psychopathic serial killers actually do make the best neighbors in America? Everyone wants to move far away from these people; maybe the best way to avoid being their next victim is to, in fact, live next door to them. They’ll let you read the morning newspaper in peace, or blast your music at night all you want, as long as you don’t mind them sawing people into “convenient for the freezer” sized pieces or the occasional loud shriek of terror by a helpless victim.
The point of me saying this was not to say that psychopathic serial killers actually make better neighbors than anyone else, but to show the absolute stupidity behind the news media asking these questions of the neighbor. Of course they were peaceful, THEY DIDN’T WANT TO GET FUCKING CAUGHT, COLUMBO! What did they expect these people to say, that the guy stood around all day in his front lawn with a South Park T-shirt on, an iced tea in one hand, a bloody axe in the other, with an insane glaze on his eyes as he leered at passing children.
So, next time you find a quiet, reserved, friendly man living in your neighborhood who seems like a pretty good neighbor, take him over an apple pie or something. After all, he could be a serial killer, and you wouldn’t want an outstanding neighbor like that to move out of the neighborhood.
The organized killer is usually socially adequate and has friends and lovers, often even a spouse and children. They are the type who, when captured, are most likely to be described by acquaintances as ‘a really nice guy, he couldn’t hurt a fly’.
Now, back to the Pedo-Priest…..
I leave you with the following quotes:
More than two dozen people have accused Shanley of molesting them, but this was the only case to result in criminal charges.
The victim’s wife told Shanley in court:
“No words can ever explain my disgust for you. You are a coward. You hid behind God.”
“You robbed my little boy of his innocence,” the accuser’s father said. “You destroyed his understanding of good and bad and right and wrong.”
Evil Clown is very quick with a joke, but his jests always have a barb. He has little patience for in-depth discussions and will often disrupt exchanges between serious forum participants by introducing irrelevant topics, fatuous quips, and offhand comments. His greatest thrill is to taunt and humiliate weaker or more plodding Warriors with his snappy ripostes. Not a particularly powerful Warrior, Evil Clown will attempt to avoid defeat by accusing his attacker of having no sense of humor.
The excuse, “You don’t have a sense of humor!” or “You can’t take a joke???” has grown tired, has it not? My favorite response to that is, “A joke is supposed to be funny”. I believe most of us DO have a sense of humor, yet we are all different as to what is funny and what is not. When in doubt, one should know the person they are communicating with before introducing a joke that YOU know may potentially hurt that person. It’s common sense. In any event, I do strongly believe that those who want to make an insulting comment to another that out of fear of confrontation and the repercussions of said insult, cover themselves up with the cliché, “It was just a joke – lighten up!” if there is retaliation.
PAPD resistance to external demands is manifested in oppositional and obstructive behaviors. These individuals resent having to conform to the standards set by others. On the other hand, they fear direct confrontation. The combination of resentment and fear leads to passive, provocative behavior (Beck & Freeman, 1990, p. 333) and defiant compliance (Benjamin, 1994, p. 276).
Can you tell the truth?
Garble is a mystery: Is he a foreigner with only tenuous grasp of English? Is he on drugs? Does he suffer a serious mental debility? Is he typing wearing boxing gloves? Garble’s rampant typos, malapropisms and execrable grammar can’t be blamed solely on poor typing skills. Garble is all the more puzzling because if one manages to hack his way through the tangled muddle of his messages a discernable idea will often emerge. For example, in a forum discussion about a painting he might say, “Sorry the picchr the har is wrog. The culir. I liike the lips bot teh Paintng is sucs”. When someone refers to his random capitalization Garble might say something like, “oPS i HITTED THE CAPDLOCK”. Garble drives Grammarian and Nitpick absolutely nuts, but he disdains all efforts at correction, and if complaints persist he will indignantly sign exit saying, “yuor forum si stupef. bYE!” HINT: Garble may be Net Rat.
Hahahahahaha! I find the “Garble” very funny. Now, how could we take this type seriously?
Xenophobe is usually a long-term discussion forum participant and he thinks of the forum as his private compound. Xenophobe regards new forum arrivals as mentally deficient and perhaps even having criminal tendencies, and they are invariably approached with suspicion and condescension. Xenophobe will mount a furious attack if a Newbie has the temerity to make critical observations about the forum’s social dynamics, or questions its prevailing opinions.
It was a peaceful and productive forum; lively, congenial and a bounteous source of useful information. Then one day, completely without warning, Godzilla arose from the depths and blew his scalding breath on everything in his path. A phalanx of Warriors mobilized to attack the monster, only to be crushed like so many toy tanks under Godzilla’s mighty feet. Godzilla soon reduced the forum to searing and consuming flames. Just as abruptly, he rumbled back beneath the waves, leaving all to tremble in fear of his return. Net life would never be the same. Sadly, many netizens who survive a Godzilla attack will become Xenophobes.
Aaaaah. This one is too funny!
Grammarian usually has little to contribute to a discussion and possesses few effective weapons. To compensate, he will point out minor errors in spelling and grammar. Because of Grammarian’s obvious weakness most Warriors ignore him.
Every forum has one of these. Heh. When a “supreme being” doesn’t like what you have to say, your grammar and spelling mistakes will be pointed out and corrected. The fact is – is that these “Grammarians” cannot come up with an intelligent, logical response to your argument. They have nothing to say. Your grammar/spelling mistakes fill in the gap for what could be a clean and stimulating debate.
DO keep in mind, if this happens to you, be proud. This just means that YOU are right. If your argument was really wrong, these “Grammarians” would come up with more than resorting to attacking your petty typos.
Grunter always responds to discussion forum messages with a single word or a short phrase, and he NEVER edits quoted material. Profundus Maximus, Philosopher, Tireless Rebutter, and other verbose Warriors find Grunter a particularly exasperating opponent because he will answer their lengthy pontifications with a simple “Yeah!”. “Get a life.”, “Whatever”, “I agree.” “Wrong.”, etc. While Grunter is not a strong Warrior, he is very elusive and difficult to engage in direct battle, and only by his extended silence is there any indication that he has been vanquished.
Only a man, right? This gives validity to the expression, “less is more” because a lot of the times it is! Actually, I admire the type of person who can say everything with just a couple of words. I really wish that I could do that. But I’m the polar opposite and tend to be long-winded. And that’s the female part of me that shines through, I guess. The Cyber Sisters love the long-winded because it gives them even more of an opportunity to put words in your mouth.
Jerk is sarcastic, mean, unforgiving and never misses an opportunity to make a cutting remark. Jerk’s repulsive personality quickly alienates other Warriors, and after some initial skirmishing he is usually ostracized. Still, Jerk is very happy to participate in electronic forums because in cyberspace he is free to be himself…without the risk of getting a real-time punch in the mouth.
I’m assuming that most of you who have your own blogs have experienced being a subscriber to a message board at one time or another. If not, that’s okay because what I’m about to show you, I’m sure some of you will relate to, somehow. Being a part of online communities, journals, blogs, and the like, we’ve probably all ran across these personality types. Or maybe one or two of them … could be you?
ALLCAPS attempts to compensate for his limited rhetorical weaponry through the extravagant use of capitalized words – something netizens refer to as SHOUTING. Sure, a sprinkling of capitalized words can add some zip to a thrust, but they should be used sparingly. Even worse from a tactical point of view, too much shouting alerts other Warriors to the opponent’s verbal WEAKNESS and emotional EXCITABILITY.
People who type in all caps never really bothered me that much. My only complaint about it is that their words are a lot harder to read.
Although sometimes a male, Crybaby is usually a female, and often a close ally of Innocence Abused. When teased or attacked Crybaby will pitch a loud public temper tantrum, holding her breath and kicking her feet. If that defense fails she will run to Nanny for comfort.
Errr…. this sounds somewhat like the way I used to be, and still sometimes am. Ug!
Cyber Sisters are an extremely fierce confederation of fighting females who act something like a shrill Greek chorus, echoing and amplifying one another’s voice until their foes retreat in disarray. They are generally leaderless, but anyone who challenges one Cyber Sister can expect to be savagely attacked by the others. Only the most powerful and battle-hardened of Warriors is strong enough to weather a Cyber Sisters attack.
Oh my… this is the most notorious and the most common behavior I’ve ever (unfortunately) experienced on the internet. I’ve never been apart of this mob-mentality in cyberspace. It’s everywhere. Before you dissent or begin any kind of “touchy” or controversial topic, you better make sure you’re bonded with the popular,“I’m a bitch and I’m proud”, catty, combative, and the evil force of overly female poison. If not, you will be pounced upon and smashed to the ground by a pack of sexually frustrated female clique of wolves. They don’t mess with the popular people because they can dish it out but can’t take it back in return by a group. They are cowards and only go after the newbies or ones not involved in a click. They know in advance that you don’t have a support group or have an entourage everywhere you go. They know if they strike at you, that they will receive support from their catty coalition. And you will be dead and will know better the next time to keep your opinions to yourself! So, in short, if you’re going to voice a strong opinion, do it after you’ve connected with the “girls club”. It’s at that time, you can say whatever you please. Even if they disagree with you, you won’t know about it because they’re ON YOUR SIDE!
Yes, (believe it or not) a lot of these women are in their mid twenties, thirties, and forties. You’d think you were back in elementary school again.
I’ve never seen this type of behavior among men. However, before I had gotten married, I joined a couple of (cough) … ALL FEMALE message boards consisting of engaged prima-donnas or married soccer moms, Stepford wives and trophy wives. After these experiences of being a member of an ALL-FEMALE message board, I never went back and never intend on joining a community like that again!
Men are more logical and so much easier to get along with. They argue with more reason, and if you point out to a man that he dissed you, (if you were really undeserving of an attack by a male and you know it), more than likely, they will apologize to you! No, seriously. Too many women are too strongly driven by their emotions, and don’t have time to stop and think about what they’re doing or saying. If you point out to them their wrong-doings, you will get stomped on again —- but this time EVEN HARDER!
For Ego, the discussion forum is all about him, and he regards discussions that stray from that topic as trivial dalliances. Although tolerant of an occasional shift in focus, Ego grows increasingly restive when the forum’s attention shifts away from his interests, and he will often provoke conflict to reestablish himself as the subject at hand. Ego is one the the fiercest of all the Warriors and will fight to the death when attacked.
“Can we please stay on topic here?!”, “You’re not only off topic, but……”, and along with all other hostile ways of informing a member that they’re off topic — is very commonplace. I had always thought these cries directing people to stay on topic were so petty that it was laughable. What makes it even more humorous is the fact that if you say something nice, nobody mentions a thing. I always found that funny because the measures to get some people “on topic” were only directed at either those of whom weren’t liked or those that said something disagreeable. But if you are a really good boy or girl, you will be sure to post an “O/T” before you speak.
The same applies to blogs in blogdom. I could care less if someone puts comments in my blog that are off topic. I don’t have a problem as long as someone isn’t selling Viagra, Penis Enlargement pills, or attacking the person instead of the subject. But as long as everyone’s conversing and having a good time, so be it. I feel that life is way too short to get all riled up about stupidity like that.
Enfant Provocateur likes to stir up trouble because…because, well…just because. This species of Flame Warrior is almost always young and male – it could be just a hormone thing.
I must admit… I really enjoy this type.
I will continue this topic either later tonight or tomorrow. Please stay tuned for Part II of Flame Warriors!
Finally, these two circus freaks have been arrested.
They were found here.
They fled the state driving all the way from Tampa, FL to Utah when they were required to attend a hearing regarding the torture of their adopted children.
The arrest ended a search that attracted national media attention Friday. CNN and America’s Most Wanted posted mug shots of the Dollars on Web sites and broadcasts.The children told investigators that the Dollars starved them, shocked them with electricity, pulled out their toenails with pliers, bound them with chains and strips of plastic and struck their feet with hammers.
A 16-year-old boy weighed 59 pounds. Twin boys, age 14, weighed 36 and 38 pounds, the Sheriff’s Office said.
DCF released documents that showed the Dollars adopted three children in Hillsborough County in 1995; at that time, they already had five children.
This had been going un-noticed for years because The Dollars had all the children bound to the home. They were never let outside of the home – which is also the place where they received all their schooling. Mrs. Dollar was a stay home ‘mother’ and home-schooled her children.
Friends and neighbors, meantime, described the Dollars as religious and strict, and said the children hardly ever were seen.
Now, is it just me that keeps hearing stories of child abuse where their parents are so called ‘devout Christians’? Religious? Why do I keep hearing stories of ‘religious’ parents committing the most heinous
acts? Typical.
The investigation began Jan. 21 when Mrs. Dollar called an ambulance for her 16-year-old son, said sheriff’s spokeswoman Gail Tierney. The boy was taken to Seven Rivers Regional Medical Center near Crystal River, where he was treated for head and neck injuries.His injuries weren’t the only thing that caught the attention of law enforcement. No one in the family seemed able to explain how he got the injuries, including red marks around his neck, Tierney said.
The children were kept hidden for years while The Dollars kept moving back and forth from Tennessee and Florida. Between that and the fact that these two psychopaths fled like a bat out of hell following the unexpected accusations of said crimes, one would have to have their head up their bum to not see the obvious Consciousness of Guilt there.
One very frightening thing: One of the children was starved to death so much that it was said that this boy who looked as if he were six years old was really sixteen!
On Monday, the Dollars failed to appear at a hearing where the court system would determine, among other things, whether their children would remain in DCF custody or be returned to their parents, Tierney
said.When the Dollars didn’t show, authorities went to their home and found two of their vehicles missing and much of their belongings cleared out, Tierney said.
A breakthrough came late Friday morning when investigators found the couple’s motor home abandoned in a Polk County RV park.
After tracking the couple’s cell phone calls, law officers determined the Dollars were near Salt Lake City and likely traveling in their gold Lexus SUV, which the motor home had been towing.
“I was shocked,” said Frank Stanley, who knew the Dollars years before, when they lived in Indiana. “When I knew them, I never ever thought they would do that.”
What else is new? Who do you think you REALLY KNOW? Isn’t it becoming a cliché now that every time a crime is committed, the neighbors are surprised? I don’t blame the neighbors. But people would have to be really stupid not to realize that what YOU see is not always what is really there! Do you actually think if one of your Bible Thumping, friendly and loving neighbors were to be doing illegal stunts behind closed doors that they would not go out of their way to keep their little secrets hidden?
“They seemed to move around a lot, and they seemed to acquire children everywhere they’d go,” Stanley said.Stanley said the couple moved frequently between Florida and Tennessee.By 1995, the couple had adopted five children and were looking to adopt three more, according to DCF records in Hillsborough County.
EGADS!
In applying for a foster care license, John Dollar described himself as a commercial real estate appraiser with a bachelor’s degree. Mrs.Dollar said she was a housewife with a master’s.Mrs. Dollar wrote that she “would be interested in adopting (a) sibling group that would jell into our family unit to share lifetime of love.”She listed “time out, spending time alone in room, loss of rewards, discussions” among the forms of discipline she found most effective.
John Dollar said Mrs. Dollar was his third wife and guessed she would call him a “loving, caring, good father and a good provider, hardworking,” the records showed.
“We have 5 adopted children and have seen what we can do to help those less fortunate,” he wrote. “We see so many
children who need special care, love and an opportunity to be a part of a warm, loving, caring home atmosphere.”
He said he was looking forward to “seeing a child’s eyes response, and attitudes change from fear, neglect and apprehension to one of being accepted, loved and needed.”
Uh huh.
Well, enough of that. You can read the rest of the story and the tidbits I left out here.
One more thing I’d like to add…. You know how we adults get together and discuss how today’s teens are so out of control, filled with angst, rage, and rebellion? I think from now on it is best to try to understand where they came from.
We’ve got teenagers who
are suicidal or commit suicide,
are overdosing on drugs,
are suffering from extreme introversion or depression,
kill their parents or another family member or are violent with them,
get into trouble with the law,
run away from home, and
are addicted to sex.
Does anybody ever stop and wonder WHY?
Hypothetically speaking, if the children of Mr. and Mrs. Dollar were ever to be surrounded by people or have gone to school outside the home, would we not see something different about them? In any way? They
don’t necessarily have to be “mean”. Imagine how some people would criticize them and stop — right there — looking no deeper.
This happens way too often.
In most cases, children defend their parents and keep the lives that they have behind the closed doors of their own home a BIG SECRET.
“Many children are far too young to understand what has happened to him/her. Unable to communicate verbally what has happened. Remember sexual abuse knows no age limits. Unfortunately, it can and does happen to even the smallest of children whom are only weeks old.
Children are often threatened and or bribed by the abuser to keep the abuse a secret just between the two of them. It is a scary thing for a child to have their life or the lives of family members threatened if the tell the secret. Often they are afraid that even if they do tell no one will believe them. We must prove them wrong. It is very rare that young children lie about (word omitted) abuse. You must let them know you believe them. Assure them it is not their fault, they did nothing wrong and they are not being punished. This kind of attention can be confusing, causing them to feel ashamed and embarrassed and stirring up mixed emotions especially if it is someone they know, love and trust. They then worry about getting into trouble themselves or getting a loved one into trouble. —Children Are Worth saving…. C.A.W.S. —caws.com”
With that said, I’ve always believed that no child is born evil.
Employers have recently tried every carrot they can think of — including cash incentives and iPods — to persuade employees to quit smoking. Now some are trying the stick.
Pointing to rising health costs and the oversized proportion of insurance claims attributed to smokers, some employers in California and around the country are refusing to hire applicants who smoke and, sometimes, firing employees who refuse to quit.
A sheriff’s office in Florida is asking job applicants who have a recent history of smoking to pass a polygraph test proving they no longer smoke outside of work.
Employees, workers’ rights groups and some unions are decrying the smoking bans as an invasion of individual rights. “What you do in your own home after work or on the weekend is none of your bosses’ business,” says Lewis Maltby, president of the National Workrights Institute in Princeton, N.J., a spin-off of the American Civil Liberties Union. “The last time I checked, tobacco is a legal product.”
Critics of the smoking bans say it’s not clear that smokers are more costly than other workers, such as people who are obese. Though some studies have shown that smokers have higher absentee and lower productivity rates than nonsmokers, economists say the research is limited. It’s possible, they say, that smokers don’t dramatically increase health costs with chronic and expensive conditions like emphysema, heart disease and cancer until they’re much older, when they may be employed elsewhere or retired.
“It sounds right for employers to say, ‘If we get rid of them, we’ll save money.’ But no one has the concrete data to prove that right now,” says Tom Morrison, senior vice president of Segal Co., an employee benefits consulting firm in New York.
Critics are concerned that if more companies follow suit, it will lead to other employer intrusions on workers’ lives. What is to stop companies from telling workers they can’t ride motorcycles? Or eat junk food?
Maltby, of the Workrights Institute, says employees are facing a variety of challenges to their freedoms outside of work. A worker in Texas was fired in 2003 for having an affair off the job. This fall, a woman in Alabama lost her job for refusing to remove a John Kerry bumper sticker from her car. (She was later hired by the Kerry campaign.)
Wow! Now, Big Brother’s watching our sexual activity and denying our right to have an opinion?
I understand the prohibition of smoking in the work place or in an area where non-smokers are located, but I find it very absurd that some employers are now not hiring or even firing employees that smoke even in the privacy of their own homes. Insurance costs? Really? Do these people not take in consideration that there are many who die from lung disease, lung cancer, and emphysema who have never even touched a cigarette? Do they not realize that there are several factors that can lead people to get ill or even terminally ill? I know people that spend several hundreds of dollars a month alone on psychiatric drugs. What about the food we eat? What about obesity and the very common heart conditions that come from it? If they start firing smokers, then they’re going to have to start firing obese people too! What about those that are anorexic or bulimic or those that just plain don’t eat right? Look at the health risks there!! They fail to think about heredity. What if an employee has a predisposition to certain illnesses, cancers, or diseases? Should they fire those people too based on thier family’s medical history?
If employers are so “worried about the cost of insurance”, they should follow through with the program and hire only healthy people. However, in order to carefully monitor each employee’s health, the privacy one has in their own home will no longer exist. Big brother will be watching you. Big brother will be making sure you work out at the gym everyday. He will be making sure you eat your veggies and stay on a proper and balanced diet.
I don’t see any consistency here. So, that’s what brings me to believe that these companies have an ulterior motive in their “no smoking laws”. I also believe this because I have personally known people that go absolutely berserk when they discover that someone they know is a smoker. What someone chooses to do that could potentially harm their body is their own business unless they’re bringing someone else down with them.
There is a strong hatred and prejudice against smokers in this society. My question is do they really care about YOU and YOUR health? If they did, then why do they get so angry and want to avoid you all together even if you don’t smoke around them. People just like to control others they hate for their own political and selfish reasons. It’s not the second hand smoke; it’s just that your smoking reminds them of some painful memory in their past that they have not recovered from. The smoking just merely symbolizes a person of their past that they hate. The hatred is then misplaced on an innocent smoker in their present life. What else could this be? The anti’s are carrying around years of baggage and are using smokers as a scapegoat so that they don’t have to deal with their own problems. People that really care about you won’t alienate you or get angry. If anti-smokers have any warm and fuzzy feelings in their heart than they will understand that people who wish to smoke do so for their own personal reasons and they will respect that because well, .. they just like you and want you to be happy. They will mind their own business because they know that “preaching” doesn’t work as there is nothing more incredibly annoying than unsolicited advice. These smoker-haters love to hide behind the “because I care” mantra. Well, that’s just one theory I have.
Of course, I understand “second-hand smoke”, but that’s not what we’re talking about here.
Look at all the existing hatred toward the obese! They aren’t hurting anyone but themselves. Some people are very openly cruel to them. I wonder if they have a plan to monitor people’s drinking habits too?
This type of predjudice reminds me of the Neo-Nazis, the KKK, and the God Hates Fags group. Same thing. Different prejudice. And when these control-freaks are given a position of high authority, they take advantage of their power to make the lives of those people they don’t agree with, miserable.
It’s all very simple, folks.
While we ARE technically free here in America, little by little our government and justice system are protecting the elitists and easily-offended, consequently jeopardizing the privacy and the “freedom” of those people who just go about their own business. The control-freaks pretty much prevail and get what they want.
Just for the record, I do realize that third-world countries DO have it worse than we do. And no, I don’t wish to leave this country for another one. It’s just that when you are used to having certain freedoms, just to have them taken away, doesn’t sit very well with me. But if I have to pretend I’m “Pro-Bush” to get or keep a job, so be it. How else are the bills going to get paid?
When Clyde Blount’s non-violent, relentless efforts to protect his son failed, the bully, Lonnie Hillery, had to learn his lesson the hard way. While my opinion is not a politically correct one, and one that is emotional and extreme, I’m glad dad got rid of the bully.
Too many victims of bullies eventually begin to feel that they deserve the beatings and their self-esteem goes down the drain and the trauma follows them for a life time, but I’m willing to bet the bullied son (C.J.) will grow up remembering what his father taught him: Bullying is wrong.
The ones who feel it deserved (even if subconsciously), will just continue the cycle.
It’s too bad it had to end the way it did. I also feel for the son who has to live years without seeing his father, whom I believe loved him very much.
While I don’t condone something as final as a murder as a resolution, the bitter, sour part of my heart is rejoicing the outcome. As biased I am on this topic, I would never be able to sit on on a jury for a case like this. Clyde Blount is obviously guilty, indeed. He was wrong for taking the law in his own hands — no doubt about that. It also frightens me to think that he could have shot another student in the crowd accidentally. So, please don’t get me wrong. I realize the father made a mistake, but again (not able to separate my feelings from the law), I am happy about the conclusion and hope that the jury finds him guilty of manslaughter rather than second degree murder! Unfortunately, he won’t be found innocent.
You know why his father went to this extreme? That’s right! The school’s faculty and staff didn’t give a hoot. They just merely told Lonnie Hillery not to do it again. Like that’s going to work? What does history prove? They should have expelled him!
The schools never do anything to solve this predicament. Well, I’ve only heard of a couple success cases, but they are few and far between.
CANORA, SASK. – The town of Canora is struggling to come to grips with the recent suicides of two teenagers who may have been victims of bullying at school.
On Monday night, hundreds of people packed a school gymnasium in the town to talk about whether the way the youths were treated by their peers contributed to their deaths in December.
One of the teenagers, 16-year-old Travis Sleeva, was subjected to harassment over an extended period said his parents, Gary and Carol Sleeva.
The school failed to deal with it, said the couple, who were at the meeting.
Look at this. Here again, the school didn’t take the matter in their hands and do anything about it.
A few weeks after Sleeva died, a female Grade 9 student also took her own life. Other students say fighting and intimidation are part of the daily routine at the town’s high school. Some parents are blaming the school for not doing enough to curb the problem.
“I’ve had no response from anyone,” said Carol Sleeva…
Parent Tracy Hannotte says the bullying problem must be stopped.
“There’s no repercussions for bullying,” she said. “I don’t think the teachers
are doing enough and I don’t think the parents of the bullies are doing enough.”
Some students walk out of meeting
The meeting upset many students, and a dozen walked out halfway through the event.
“I expected some of the problems to be confronted,” said one student. “This was just covering it up.”
This makes me even more enraged. Why is it that teenagers can see what these stupid adults can’t?
In November 2000, Dawn-Marie Wesley, 14, of Mission, B.C. hanged herself shortly after three teenage girls called her. Wesley’s suicide note said that she had been threatened by bullies and she believed death was her only escape.
In her ruling, B.C. Provincial Court Judge Jill Rounthwaite said that it was clear that one of the accused had bullied Wesley repeatedly, giving the victim reason to fear for her life.
Rounthwaite noted that bystanders added “to the power of the bully” by letting the harassment go on without intervening.
“None of those people had the moral strength to tell the bully to stop or go away,” the judge said.
Well, there you have it. You know, it’s no wonder Clyde Blount killed his son’s bully. Remember Clyde tried
the civil way to stop the relentless torment against his son. It didn’t work. I suppose years in prison for Clyde is worth it all to save his son.
Unreal. Should we just kill the bullies from now on? It seems like the only resolution.
In his suicide note, Hamed mentioned that when he was bullied in school, he always pretended that it didn’t bother him. He would just walk away and ignore the bullies. He continued that even though he put up an “I’m okay” facade, that he was really crying inside. This is very common, I believe.
The straw that broke the camels back was when he was punched in the stomach. Following that, he took his own life.
I know somebody that was continuously harassed because he didn’t take showers after P.E., and a gang of bullies tried to force him into the shower. On another occasion, he was punched in the stomach in the rest room. One day he tried to defend himself upon being made fun of, and he decided to stand up for himself. He made an appointment to meet his bully after school where he tried to fight his bully by pushing him. He
was then sent to the principal’s office and he got the beating of a life time on his behind. He told me that it hurt him so much physically that he was “dancing afterwards”.
That was my husband. An update? He says he doesn’t think about his school days of being perpetually taunted and beaten. When he goes back in retrospect, he feels that it means nothing to him today. Yet, by his behavior, to an intuitive person, it is very obvious that today at 49 he is still affected by that experience.
I believe that this is very normal. Our defenses work so very hard to repress the horrid memories, and to make one believe that it either never happened or that it was no big deal. Some have better defense mechanisms than others. For those that have, by nature, weak defenses, I guess wind up killing themselves. On the flip side, while our defenses save a lot of lives (thank God, including my husband’s), we wind up in denial of the memory and subconsciously, the “school-day torture” haunts us throughout the rest of our lives.
When my husband’s mother found out that the school’s administration did nothing to fix the problem, she persevered until more than half the staff got fired and were moved to different schools.
Hamed, in the above video documentary, said that he often gave out non-verbal signals to his parents. He said that he doesn’t blame his parents that they didn’t understand, and that he still loved them.
What about in the days where it was acceptable for teachers and principals to hit or whack their students as the parents not only condoned it but celebrated this ritual. Remember those days? For any students being bullied back then, can you imagine them coming home to mom and dad about being bullied by their classmates? Impossible. Children know that if mom and dad think it’s great that their child’s receiving regular “paddling sessions” for being naughty, what makes you think they’ll come home to report abuse from their “peers”? Especially if their being bullied by their own parents.
Give me a f’n break! And for the dolts that think bullying is a modern phenomenon as a result of minimal or no corporal punishment, you’re wrong! Bullying has been going on since ancient times — yes, including those days when teachers could do ANYTHING they wanted to “bad” pupils.
It’s 2005. Do you think adults have gotten the message by now? When’s the wake-up call? Do we have to sit on our rears waiting for more children to kill themselves for a few more years before some
action is taken?
Comes home with torn, damaged, or missing pieces of clothing, books, or other belongings
Has unexplained cuts, bruises, and scratches
Has few, if any friends, with whom he or she spends time
Seems afraid of going to school, walking to and from school, riding the school bus, or taking part in organized activities with peers (such as clubs)
Takes a long, “illogical” route when walking to or from school
Has lost interest in school work or suddenly begins to do poorly in school
Appears sad, moody, teary, or depressed when he or she comes home
Complains frequently of headaches, stomach aches, or other physical ailments
Has trouble sleeping or has frequent bad dreams
Experiences a loss of appetite
Appears anxious and/or suffers from low self-esteem
What to Do If You Suspect That Your Child Is Being Bullied?
If your child shows any of these signs, this does not necessarily mean that he or she is being bullied, but
it is a possibility worth exploring. What should you do? Talk with your child and talk with staff at school
to learn more.
1. Talk with your child. Tell your child that you are concerned about him or her and that you’d like to
help. Here are some questions that can get the discussion going.
Some direct questions:
“I’m worried about you. Are there any kids at school who may be picking on you or bullying you?”
“Are there any kids at school who tease you in a mean way?”
“Are there any kids at school who leave you out or exclude you on purpose?”
Some more subtle questions:
“Do you have any special friends at school this year? Who are they? Who do you hang out with?”
“Who do you sit with at lunch/on the bus?”
“Are there any kids at school who you really don’t like? Why don’t you like them? Do they ever pick on you or leave you out of things?”
If I’ve gotten my message across to at least one person, I’ve done my duty. Parents, teachers, and school administrators really need to keep their eyes open. I have hope that some day, this problem will be nipped in the bud.
Before you right-winger extremists start reaming me a new one, let me first start off by saying that the US would not survive without a military, and while I don’t agree with THIS particular war, I support our military and the need for a strong defense. It wasn’t our military’s decision to go to Iraq. I don’t blame them. Yet, I support them – good war or bad war.
However, this whole Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal makes me furious. Every time I watch the news or see the
headlines everywhere, I’m outraged. And those that support the few involved with this scandal are no better. I am happy that justice is being served although I find their Mickey-Mouse-sentences not matching up to their crimes.
I can hear the righties right now already busting to say,
“Watch it there! It is those soldiers that are out there risking their lives and protecting your right to free speech so that you can spew out all this drivel.”
My answer: If they’re fighting for my right to free speech, than, by golly, I’m gonna use it. Because if I don’t then they died and are dying for nothing!
Getting back on the subject, I do realize that our military is under a great deal of stress over in Iraq. And the term, *stress*, I realize, is not even the tip of the iceberg as to what kind of emotions must be grilling inside them. They are separated from their families and loved ones. Not only that, but they probably never know if
they will make it through the next day alive – when they wake up everyday. It must be horrible to have to live like that day after day after day. My deepest sympathy extends to them and their family members. I don’t need to see all that tired propaganda spun throughout the internet, newspapers, and broadcasted on TV for me to realize what kind of ordeal this must be for them.
But this is the way I see it:
This wasn’t a draft. When you sign up and become accepted into the armed forces, you are well-informed. When you sign your name on that dotted line, you are agreeing that (should a war be deemed necessary), it may be you called for duty on the battlefields. This is something so elementary and basic. Nobody’s putting a gun to anyone’s head to sign up!
Finally, and most importantly, why must it be acceptable to make innocent POWs of Iraq suffer because the heat of the war is getting too much? I have no problem with those under life-threatening, horrific situations venting, getting upset, complaining, yelling, screaming, crying, kicking an object or what have you. Again, the military has my sympathy there. And they have every right to express somehow, the terror they feel inside or whatever emotion it is. But I think the line should be drawn when it comes to taking it out on innocent, and defenseless POWs who have done nothing wrong other than defend their own country.If this notion is too hard to grasp, let’s turn the tables around here. Think about it. Our defense team in the USA doing nothing but their jobs, handing their weapons in, and finally being detained in a prison camp. Imagine that. Our soldiers being subjected to the following:
IMAGINE THIS HAPPENING TO OUR MILITARY?!
Punching, slapping, and kicking detainees; jumping on their naked feet;
Forcing groups of male detainees to masturbate themselves while being photographed and videotaped;
Positioning a naked detainee on a MRE Box, with a sandbag on his head, and attaching wires to his fingers, toes, and penis to simulate electric torture;
Writing “I am a Rapist” (sic) on the leg of a detainee alleged to have forcibly raped a 15-year old fellow detainee, and then photographing him naked;
Sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick.
Beating detainees with a broom handle and a chair;
Breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid on detainees;
Pouring cold water on naked detainees;
Placing a dog chain or strap around a naked detainee’s neck and having a female Soldier pose for a picture;
Arranging naked male detainees in a pile and then jumping on them;
Allowing a military police guard to stitch the wound of a detainee who was injured after being slammed against the wall in his cell;
Using military working dogs to frighten and intimidate detainees with threats of attack, and in one instance actually biting a detainee.
Not enough? Just click this link to view the photos. Just keep in mind, these pictures are very graphic and can be disturbing!!
Now, is this kind of behavior justifiable? If duress gives free rein to sadism, torture, and finally homicide to those that are innocent, then why don’t we excuse people like THIS?
In some cases, the abuse of children by their parents is barbaric, and it seems little wonder that anything but a fledgling serial killer would come from such horrible squalor. As a child, the “Boston Strangler” Albert DeSalvo was actually sold off as a slave by his alcoholic dad. Many sadistic murderers portray their childhood as an endless chain of horrifying sexual abuse, torture, and mayhem. Some stories of torture may be exaggerated for sympathy (it is always to the killer’s advantage to concoct wicked parents as an excuse) but some have been corroborated by witnesses. Even families that appear healthy on the outside may be putting on an act. Children can learn the “Jeckyl and Hyde” routine from parents who are outgoing and social with neighbors and co-workers, but who scowl at their kid’s inadequacies when they get home.
In his book Serial Killers, Joel Norris describes the cycles of violence as generational: “Parents who abuse their children, physically as well as psychologically, instill in them an almost instinctive reliance upon violence as a first resort to any challenge.” Childhood abuse not only spawns violent reactions, Norris writes, but also affects the child’s health, including brain injuries, malnutrition, and other developmental disorders.
Some parents believed that by being harsh disciplinarians, it would “toughen” the child. Instead, it often creates a lack of love between parent and child that can have disastrous results. If the child doesn’t bond with its primary caretakers, there is no foundation for trusting others later in life. This can lead to isolation, where intense violent fantasies become the primary source of gratification. “Instead of developing positive traits of trust, security, and autonomy, child development becomes dependent on fantasy life and its dominant themes, rather than on social interaction,” writes Robert Ressler, Ann Burgess and John Douglas in Sexual Homicide: Patterns and Motives. When the child grows up, according to these authors, all they know are their fantasies of domination and control. They have not developed compassion for others. Instead, humans become flattened-out symbols for them to enact their violent fantasies.
In looking to the parents for explanations, we see both horrifying mothers and fathers. The blame usually falls on the mother, who has been described as too domineering or too distant, too sexually active or too repressed. Perhaps the mother is blamed more because the father has often disappeared, therefore “unaccountable.” When the father is implicated, it is usually for sadistic disciplinarian tactics, alcoholic rants, and overt anger toward women.
Serial killers, rapists, and all other violent people are unhappy and feel bad too because of what they had to grow up with all their lives.
Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Yes, I do wholeheartedly understand that I cannot compare our military with serial killers. That’s NOT what I’m trying to do. I am just asking you to step away from the Iraqi War for a bit and just try and see that no matter how much someone has suffered, no matter who they are or where they came from has absolutely no excuse to take it out on an innocent, defenseless person. That’s all I’m trying to show here. It’s very simple if you put your emotions aside and look at the logic.
Look at all those beheaded in Iraq? Right? Weren’t some of our people victimized of that? I sure saw the stir that it caused here in the US: Tears, sorrow, anger, outrage and disgust. But why is it that we like to pretend that what happened at Abu Ghraib… never was?
“Women in their late 30s who have gone for careers after the first flush of university and who are among the brightest of their generation are finding that men are just not interesting enough,” said psychologist and professor at Nottingham University Paul Brown in The Sunday Times.
Claire Rayner, writer and broadcaster, said in the article that intelligent men often preferred a less brainy partner.
“A chap with a high IQ is going to get a demanding job that is going to take up a lot of his energy and time. In many ways he wants a woman who is an old-fashioned wife and looks after the home, a copy of his mum in a way.”
Brainy, knowledgeable, someone you can sit down and have an intelligent conversation with, substantial, a thinker, someone who thinks outside the box, non-squeamish, and the woman who doesn’t fear to show the
little bit of testosterone in her, was and still is (to some extent) considered unfeminine to some men and outside observers. And for those poor women who are intelligent, are forced to hide it. They giggle softly a lot at nothing with their hands over their mouth, bat their eye lashes, and look as dumb as they can be. That turns a “real man” on.
After women fighting all these years to become an equal, there are still men out there that prefer the ignoramus, ditzy-blonde, robotic, phony, Stepford Wife type.
If you ask me, these men in the aforementioned article, while they may be intelligent (book smart), they must be insecure to be looking for women who don’t allow themselves to mature outside the bedroom and the kitchen.
Well, according to this article, women were not allowed outside the home without being escorted by a man. They were also not allowed to be educated. Look how they had themselves covered. God forbid they had an
identity of their own, an opinion, a thought, or wanted to do something independently. Now, I understand this is an extreme example, but weren’t we once treated this way? Have you ever heard people say, “Have you been living under a rock all your life?” Some women had been trained to live under the rock and sadly, very sadly, in the free US of A some women, by choice, live under that rock. But I guess these are the “feminine kind” that men lust after — the plastic, robotic, sex-on-demand, the always smiling and cheerful, Trophy Wife.
A slight tangent here, yet somewhat related….
Now, let’s talk about education. Too many people have misconceptions about it that I’d like to clear up once and for all. A college education does not make you smarter nor does it make you more intelligent. Why do so
many people think that? And where does it say that a college education promises that you will become a smart and flawless person incapable of making silly mistakes or even big ones after graduation? Where does
college promise that you will come out capable of doing every little nitpicken’ thing the “right way” up to and including perfect grammar usage, perfect spelling, perfect sentence structure, perfect usage of words, and the capability of pronouncing and knowing every word in the unabridged dictionary?
A long time ago, some people must have gone around boasting that those with college educations are brighter than those without them. I’d like to slap those people for all the trouble they have caused. What do you mean by “trouble”? Well, for one, it hurts the feelings of those without a college education who are bright bulbs and have found success and happiness without one. And secondly and most importantly, for those that have graduated from college, they have to continuously be criticized for every nitpicken’ mistake they make “because they should know better with a college education”. It’s digs like these that college graduates will hear until the cover of their coffin is finally closed.
Why are women going to college now? In my personal opinion, women aren’t going to college now to become “smart” or “perfect”. Women are going to college now to either get a very specific type of job in a field of their dreams or because it’s much easier to get a job that way. You can’t argue that. It’s not impossible to get a job without a college degree, but you cannot argue the fact that there are many more jobs available to you when you have a degree. It’s as simple as that folks. College does not teach you to look both ways when you cross the street.
This is not to say you can’t gain anything from being in college. By studying in a university, one can be known to learn analytical thinking, imaginative thinking, integrative thinking, and most importantly, critical thinking (that is, if you apply yourself). Students with an open mind will be encouraged to learn the following by professors:
Lectures: You may of course directly teach critical thinking principles to your students during lecture, but this is neither required nor advisable. Stay with your subject matter, but present this is such a way that students will be encouraged to think critically about it. This is accomplished during lecture by questioning the students in ways that require that they not only understand the material, but can analyze it and apply it to new situations.
Laboratories: Students inevitably practice critical thinking during laboratories in science class, because they are learning the scientific method.
Homework: Both traditional reading homework and special written problem sets or questions can be used to enhance critical thinking. Homework presents many opportunities to encourage critical thinking.
Quantitative: Exercises Mathematical exercises and quantitative word problems teach problem solving skills that can be used in everyday life. This obviously enhances critical thinking.
Term Papers: The best way to teach critical thinking is to require that students write. Writing forces students to organize their thoughts, contemplate their topic, evaluate their data in a logical fashion, and present their conclusions in a persuasive manner. Good writing is the epitome of good critical thinking.
Exams: Exam questions can be devised which promote critical thinking rather than rote memorization. This is true for both essay question exams and multiple-choice exams.
Some may argue that we got all the critical thinking taught to us that we needed in elementary school. The author of the above website disagrees with this.
“The purpose of specifically teaching critical thinking in the sciences or any other discipline is to improve the thinking skills of students and thus better prepare them to succeed in the world. But, you may ask, don’t we automatically teach critical thinking when we teach our subjects, especially mathematics and science, the two disciplines which supposedly epitomize correct and logical thinking? The answer, sadly, is often no. Please consider these two quotations:”
“It is strange that we expect students to learn, yet seldom teach them anything about learning.” Donald Norman, 1980, “Cognitive engineering and education,” in Problem Solving and Education: Issues in Teaching and Research, edited by D.T. Tuna and F. Reif, Erlbaum Publishers.
“We should be teaching students how to think. Instead, we are teaching them what to think.” Clement and Lochhead, 1980, Cognitive Process Instruction.”
I thought that was quite interesting although not a surprise in the least. This can be corrected in college depending on you and your professor.
This Chinese proverb says it all:
“He who asks a question is a fool for a minute; he who does not remains a fool forever.”
However, you don’t have to be a college graduate to be a critical thinker. Children explore and ask a lot of questions by nature. The freedom of questioning things, expressing feelings, or having an individual thought — if encouraged — can lead to this child growing into a very bright adult.
Critical thinking is a learned behavior. Sadly enough though, there are still some chauvinist apologists that don’t find the “thinking type” to be the one they find men want to make love to. They just don’t pass the estrogen test. And some of these chauvinist apologists have the nerve to call these women lesbians. Really?
Male chauvinists are becoming more hard to find these days. Men looking for plastic dips on a stick are becoming few and far between.
“Critics hector Teresa Heinz for not gazing adoringly enough at her husband John Kerry. The New York Times’ Maureen Dowd complains, “Her attention rarely seems to light on her husband when she’s at a microphone with him.”
And, of course, there’s the much-written-about revival of “The Stepford Wives,” in which submissive, robot-like women cater to their husbands’ every whim.
But, in fact, do men want robotic, accommodating women? A number of studies published in the past few years have found that while “Stepford” may be good for a few chuckles in a movie, it’s far off the mark as far as most men and women are concerned.”
Sadly there are still some ladies that are brainwashed by the media and the girly fashion magazines. And it’s those women that think that everything that’s on the TV show “Friends” is Gospel and imitate every fashion trend and expression that Jennifer Aniston makes. So the vicious cycle continues for some, if you’re not married by 30, you’re a lezbo or an “Old Maid” that needs to change right away for that macho machismo man whose hormones are out of control, hot and bothered and waiting for a wife to serve him. Our elders and chauvinist supporters will be swearing until their graves at this revolution, but I along with other women out there applaud you ladies that are searching for a marriage of substance or for a partner that you can actually talk with “brain to brain”. If you wait it out patiently and don’t change yourself, you will find the right man. I did. And I’m not Jennifer Aniston.
“Scott Peterson, accused of murdering his pretty wife Laci is being bombarded with letters from love-hungry ladies begging him to marry them!
Sources inside Stanislaus County Jail in Modesto, Calif., say the handsome 30-year-old fertilizer salesman has received marriage proposals from desperate gals of all shapes and sizes since his arrest April 18.The kooky letters are delivered to the 6-foot-by-9-foot cell where Peterson is being housed alone to keep other prisoners from killing him in retaliation for the alleged murders of his wife Laci, 27, and their unborn son Conner.
He gets to spend as long as he wants with his lawyers. And he can respond to love letters in his spare time. But none of his passionate penpals have been invited to see him.
Peterson can have two personal visits every seven days. So far, he’s only met with family members — and none of his sicko fans.”
Female Clone
Scott Peterson has been penpals with Kristin Rossum, who is now serving a prison term for killing her husband. If you read the linked blog above, it’s interesting to see these two are a match made in Heaven as they have an amazing amount of things in common. It’s no wonder these two have found each other.
Scott Peterson doesn’t have his own website yet, but perhaps he will have one of those organizations or a friend or family member create one for him once he starts his prison term so as to enable him yet even more nation-wide publicity. And when I speak of a “website”, I mean one like THIS! Just dare to scroll down some and look at all the losers soliciting themselves to other loony tunes who are willing to support them, befriend them, or marry them. But in case any of you out there are seriously considering marriage with a prisoner, you may want to read How To Marry a Prisoner first and see if it’s really for you.
If you’ve made up your mind on marriage or just want to start out corresponding with a prisoner as friends, pen pals, or support all those convicted because you believe that they were “falsely accused”, why don’t we just start out at PrisonPenPals.com. Search alphabetically – take your pick. The “Gold Star Ads” and the “Platinum Ads” have much more information.
Here’s another dose of reality of a true experience of one who went on a visit to San Quentin. It’s quite an interesting read. There are other links on this site that may interest you as well. Enjoy.
WHY OH WHY DO WOMEN CHASE PRISONERS?
Richard Ramirez and new wife Doreen Lioy “Satanists Don’t Wear Gold” (The marriage of Ramirez and Doreen Lioy)
“The long-haired brunette who longed to be the Night Stalker’s bride had first contacted Ramirez after his arrest in 1985 and had written him nearly 75 letters during his incarceration. He finally proposed to her in 1988, but prison rules delayed their wedding. Other women tried to steal him away from her, visiting him in prison and lavished him with all kinds of attention. Doreen often ran into them when she came to for her visits, and at least one woman threatened physical violence if Doreen didn’t abandon her claim on the Night Stalker. But Doreen persevered, and in the end she got her man.
Obviously Doreen chose not to believe the mountain of evidence that had been presented at her husband’s trial, especially the testimony that described his gruesome methods. Richard Ramirez typically came in the night, sneaking into his victims’ bedrooms. Males were dispatched quickly, usually with a bullet to the head. Females were kept alive to be savored after he ransacked the homes, looking for valuables. After raping and degrading the women, sometimes repeatedly, he would most often kill them, or at least try to. Amazingly, some of his victims managed to survive his vicious attacks. His method was worthy of a grade-B Hollywood horror movie. He was a killer tailor-made for his prime hunting ground, Los Angeles.”
Remember that song by Gloria Estefan, “Bad Boys”?“Bad, bad, bad, bad boys, they make me feel so good.”?
Bad boys don’t make me feel good. Thank God! When I log on to the message boards at CTV, it never ceases to amaze me how many murderer apologists and groupies there are all over the site. Those so obviously guilty such as the godforsaken Westerfield and the almighty obvious Michael Peterson (not to be confused with Scott Peterson). Good Lord! Where do these people come from?
“The Thrill of the Killer” is another look inside of a possible reasoning of what may be going on in the minds of these nutty women.
“Sometimes called the “Bonnie and Clyde Syndrome,” the correct name for this particular paraphilia is hybristophilia, the love of someone who has committed an outrage-usually a rape or murder (single or multiple). The fetish can range from mild to deadly, from a sneering rock star to a serial killer. Think Tommy Lee and Ted Bundy. Both fit under the bad boy category but in very different ways. Lee is hot, has tattoos, is in a rock band, probably not college educated, does drugs, so on and so on. Bundy is clean-cut, a college graduate, literate, and most likely wasn’t inhaling butane behind the 7-11. As far as we know Tommy Lee hasn’t killed. Ted Bundy has. But it doesn’t matter; certain women are not only attracted to any type of bad boy, they seek them out, prison bars or not.
Why does this happen? Perhaps, the media plays a big part in it. Criminals are celebrities. In fact, it may now be the easiest way to get your Warholian 15 minutes. Celebrities are sexy because everyone wants what everyone else wants. So, criminal plus celebrity might mean extra sexy. Does this explain why the killers that have committed the worst crimes get the most babes? Maybe, but some of these are atrocious sex crimes against other women. It seems as if some women don’t care. Or maybe they were violently abused themselves. Perhaps it’s the ultimate taboo, thus, the ultimate aphrodisiac. Or simply just the power these men exhibit-not only did Charles Manson have the power to kill, he believed he was Jesus Christ. And he didn’t only have a harem of orgiastic flower children on acid, he got them to kill for him.
So, is what separates me from a woman who could make love to a murderer conscience or fear? Is it fear that keeps us a “polite society?” Is loving a murderer just a varying degree of any other type of sexual role-playing that involves power struggles and pain? I don’t know. In a way, I’m envious that some women can give in so completely and knowingly have sex with human demons. But on the other hand, I’m so glad my sex life will never have complications like visiting hours and death penalties.”
I would like to comment that I feel women who seek dangerous, bad boy-type men have been either sexually or violently abused growing up as a child or perhaps both. They could be looking for that protection that they never got from the “strong front” the criminal type possesses. “He won’t hurt me. He will protect me because he is strong both physically and mentally.” Hey, it shows in his murders! And secondly, these poor women could be trying to subconsciously relive the torment they grew up with. Look at it this way. Don’t some women try to go after types of men who mirror their own fathers without realizing it?
And with that note, I’ll leave you all with the image of these two monsters: (Don’t let their looks fool you.)
Hello all, and welcome!
In my blog, I discuss Americanophobia, politics, political extremism (my rantings about the extreme right and the extreme left), anthropology, crime news, psychology, LOTS of humor, and try to debunk common rumors spread about the American people. The variety of topics I discuss are in 360 posts ... Continue reading »
“There is a big difference between being anti-American and being critical of the United States….critiques are appropriate and necessary, provided that they rest on facts and address real abuses, real errors and real excesses–without deliberately losing sight of America’s wise decisions, beneficient interventions and salutary policies. But critiques of this kind–balanced, fair and well-rounded–are hard to find, except in America herself…” — Jean-Francois Revel
"The fundamental role of anti-Americanism in Europe in general, and particularly among those on the Left, is to absolve themselves of their own moral failings and intellectual errors by heaping them onto the monster scapegoat, the United States of America. The U.S. is charged with all the evils, real or imagined, that afflict humanity, from the falling price of beef in France to AIDS in Africa and global warming everywhere. The result is a widespread refusal to accept responsibility for one's own actions." — Jean-Francois Revel
"Anti-Americanism is hypocrisy at its finest, You can spend your evening catching the latest episode of "24" and then complain about Guantanamo the next morning." --the Berlin bureau chief of Der Spiegel
"Of course some Americans are stupid, but... "It all boils down to the fact that knowledge and intelligence are two different issues. Rote memorization of world capitals does not equate intelligence.
I do find it interesting that Canadians and Europeans have such strong opinions on this, considering that there are many more pressing issues to be concerned about. Perhaps the steady Canadian and European refrain of "Americans are stupid" is a reflection of their own deep-rooted insecurity. You know -- an inferiority complex." --Mohammed
"As an American, please allow me to begin by asserting that our nation has had its strengths and its weaknesses, its successes and its failures, and its justices and injustices throughout history and continuing into the present. Although I sense much patriotism for my homeland, I recognize our need for humility to understand that our country is not above questioning or reproach but is rather under the same standards as all other nations of the world. I would simply like to ask those who view our country from afar to maintain a balanced perspective and realize too that there exists good and bad in America, both in terms of its domestic society and politics as well as in its relations with other nations.
Whilst there may be growing anti-Americanism in the United Kingdom I do not believe such sentiment to be reciprocated on our side of the Atlantic. I viewed a recent survey that indicated most Americans view England positively, and never have I seen the flag of your country (or any other foreign land, for that matter) burned in the streets of our cities. Clearly we as American citizens have not meant to be your enemies." --Seth
"As someone who takes human rights seriously, I'm appalled by the lack of sympathy the left feels toward the victims of any regime other than the Bush administration. Let's shout it to prisoners everywhere: If you're not harmed by an American, your suffering doesn't count." --Erik Svane
"Ambivalence, antipathy, and resentment toward and about the United States have comprised an important component of European culture since the American Revolution at the latest, thus way before America became the world's 'Mr. Big' -- the proverbial eight-hundred-pound gorilla -- and a credible rival to Europe's main powers, particularly Britain and France . . . . While the politics, style, and discourse of the Bush administration -- and of George W. Bush as a person -- have undoubtedly exacerbated anti-American sentiment among Europeans and fostered a heretofore unmatched degree of unity between elite and mass opinion in Europe, they are not anti-Americanism's cause. Indeed, a change to a center-left administration in Washington, led by a Democratic president, would not bring about its abatement, let alone disappearance." --Andrei S. Markovits (author of Uncouth Nation - Why Europe Dislikes America)
"Is Euro Disney Land a threat to the French Culture? If French culture can be squashed by Mickey Mouse, or more exactly by simply moving Mickey geographically, it would have to be disturbingly fragile." Moreover, Revel argued, culture always circulates and, in the case of Euro Disneyland, California was merely repackaging for Europeans such European stories as Cinderella and Pinocchio. According to Revel, French culture was not being colonized and if any culture was in crisis, he contended, it was that of America with its fad for political correctness and other forms of "neoprovincialism." --Jean-François Revel
"Anti-Americanism is the only face of xenophobia still broadly accepted in Europe." --Mary Fitzgerald (New Statesman)
"Americans find themselves damned either way. If they remain within their own borders, they are isolationist hicks who are shirking their responsibilities. If they intervene, they are rapacious imperialists." --To hate America is to hate mankind
"The British find it very difficult to come to terms with the loss of their global dominance. We felt a deep sense of hurt and loss. We used to run the world, and we don’t anymore. So, in order to palliate that insecurity, we tend to run ourselves down too much. And we’re also snooty about the people who DO run the world." -- Boris Johnson (Member of Parliament)
"It is tragic that Anti-American ideas are so easily passed through rumour, while reconciliatory ideas and notions must be backed up with catalogues of evidence before they are even considered, purely because of the fact that it is so much easier to hate than to keep an objective open mind." --David Hatton
"Other common anti-American objections are ignorance and stupidity. In dealing with these two, I have no reason to suspect that the average American is any less intelligent than the average person from anywhere else. One trait I have noticed is that other cultures are generally much more ashamed of any deficit in the intellect of the individual, especially ours (the British), and as such will make a much greater attempt to hide it. If all cultures bar one are scared of looking stupid and take action to prevent that happening, then that one remaining culture is inevitably going to be lumbered with that image." --David Hatton
"We became not a melting pot, but a beautiful mosaic. Different people, different beliefs, different yearnings, different hopes, different dreams." --Jimmy Carter
"Most of the anti-Americanism these days stems from plain old nationalistic jealousy by a lot of countries that are born of insecurity about their own place in the world and their painful self awareness of their own failings and shortcomings...like the kids in the next block who are jealous of the boy who has a better bicycle or a newer fancier skateboard....phuque 'em all." --Robbins Mitchell
"Europeans, like the rest of the world, hate America and Americans, but love our aid when in distress, and our soldiers to die for THEIR COUNTRIES. You need to work, live and pay taxes from this side of the Atlantic to understand our vision of Europe and the rest of the world." --Jerry
"Unjustified hatred of Americans:
There is much unjustified hatred in the world. There is unjustified hatred of the USA. Much of this arises from the victimisation complex that sweeps much of mankind. Whoever is in charge, whoever is powerful or successful will also be hated. This immature hatred often evaporates quickly with a little reason or thought. There are some some invalid, unjustified criticisms. The most widespread hate is the hate by people the world over who fall victim to their own shortcomings, and want a scapegoat." --Vexen Crabtree
"USA citizens are not given world news in the same way as most the other developed nations, and may well be genuinely unaware that much of the world is as poor as it is. European news is highly world-centric, whereas due to its size most USA news does not have enough time to cover news in all neighbouring states, let alone news from around the world. " --Vexen Crabtree
"Despite the USA's dominance of mass media, it is frequently only the pro-USA, self-congratulatory messages that seem to arrive in Europe, the USA citizens criticism and disbelief of their own government is not apparent, which gives the overall impression that Americans are either gullible, ignorant or honestly uncaring." --Vexen Crabtree
"If a person outside of American culture is a hateful person, they may actively hate and verbally attack America. If the person takes this to include a hatred of Americans themselves, they are inconsiderate and have become a fool. If a person like this is brought up by people with vested interests in attacking America (and there are many), a person can be driven to take his opinions to a violent level. Generic hatred is not solved or soothed by adding more layers of hatred.
There is a belief and hope that if enough nations oppose America, the American people will realize what their government has been doing and will overthrow them. This hope is misguided, as anti-American actions are causing the opposite"--Vexen Crabtree
"I think it is best, when faced with people from other nations, to treat them as individuals. Yes, you can "hate" the injustices that governments perpetuate on us all, and yes, you can despise ignorance in all its' forms. But any sort of blanket prejudice punishes yourself more than anyone else, because it thwarts the opportunity to learn from someone else. It stops you from making potential connections that could ultimately change your life. As an "american" living abroad, I pity my fellow countrymen who still have the wool over their eyes, but I don't hate them. The fact that when I meet them, they are indeed traveling at the time, says to me that they are in the process of opening their minds. Being in Europe, for many Americans, is the first step to realizing that other cultures do indeed exist and thrive, and that other forms of social structures are both possible and desireable.
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Many ask me why I left. Political reasons aside, when I mention that my family now enjoys free health-care and that my daughter will have the opportunity to go to university virtually for free (O.K. not free exactly, because we all pay taxes, but these services are included in what we as citizens receive for our tax dollars here in Europe,) they always respond with a sigh as they realize that this is the way all societies should be run. They know that something has gone terribly afoul in their beloved "homeland."
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Americans, in essence, need to be re-taught what is possible in the world, they do not need to be shunned. Shunning them will only help to produce more negativity in the world. If we all, from without, can help them to change what is wrong with their country from within, by sharing our knowledge of alternatives, then the whole world will benefit." --Lily
"Sometimes the caliber of a nation is found not in why it is liked, but rather in why it is not." --Victor Davis Hanson
"Everyone is in favor of free speech. Hardly a day passes without its being extolled, but some people's idea of it is that they are free to say what they like, but if anyone says anything back, that is an outrage." --Winston Churchill
"With a military that has become a laughing stock and her increasing irrelevance in the world around her, I believe that the Canada I know and loved is gone. The sad truth is, Canadians have only themselves to blame since they meekly chose to accept everything without question and without fighting back. Most of them even pat themselves on the back for being so “progressive” and “multicultural” and “diverse,” while failing to recognize that all of those things will bring about Canada’s demise. America may not be perfect, but at least there is a strong conservative movement and a population who will fight to keep their rights." --Jayne Gardener (Why I left Canada)
"Regarding Race Relations in the South:
I once read an observation that ONE (and there are many) of the differences between the Northern and Southern approach to race is that the North tends to reject the Individual while embracing the Race. The South conversely seems to have prejudice towards the other Race while embracing the Individuals. It's a generalization to be sure but one with more than a grain of truth.
Blacks and Whites have always lived closely in the South, most southerners have an aquantince of another race whom they like, while at the same time generalizing about the 'others'.
The North has always been more segregated and less mixed in ordinary commerce and interaction. They accept the race but interact with few individuals of another group. Leading to less real experience with the other group. Fewer Northerners subsequently have friends of a different race.
I think we a need to be cautious when making these generalizations but I believe they still offer food for comment.
I guess I'm just saying that one shouldn't assume the South has a less open society because of some who have lingering, isolated, racist attitudes towards 'Canadians'. It just seems that these notions, are more exposed, and carry more gravity due to their past. --JG (reply #70)
"My “two cents” to all you Americans out there: speaking as a Brit, it pains me to see some of the comments emanating from this page by alleged British sophisticates. Much of the real reason for anti-Americanism of this type — though it will be hotly denied — is nothing more than envy. Truth be told, many an Englishman yearns for the day when we were the number one dog in town, with the world sitting obediently at the feet of hordes of short-back-and sides public school boys lording it over primitive tribes of Africans and Asians, whilst men such as Joseph Chamberlain and Winston Churchill sincerely speculated on the chances of the USA being welcomed back into the imperial bosom.
Americans, don't lose heart; you are the great power of the age. It is your lot to be envied and feared. Do not fall for the soft hearted illusion that this translates into moral superiority of any variety." --James
"It is sick that to be Canadian one must hate other people. I've been to US hundreds of times and England as well and they never equate their nationality with hatred of others. It seems we are a nation of people that are in serious need of therapy. Thank god I enjoy visiting other countries and felt no need to hate or denigrate others. When ever I go to United States or England I always leave the Canadian stuff at home and I get along just fine. I would recommend this for others." --Nov. 12th, 2005 5:08PM
"The only thing more annoying that a 'typical American' (and they do exist!) is a Canadian with a superiority complex! Americans do get the piss ripped out of them behind their backs but with the flag on your pack you probably will as well." --travoholic
"I grew up on army bases my whole life and nothing makes me prouder than watching Canadian soldiers do what they can, when they can, to help out more impoverished nations. I do, however, become angered at people who begin talking about who has the better, or bigger army and who can beat whom. Soldiers sacrifice their lives for the betterment of mankind, not to win pissing contests." --Mon Dec 13, 2004 5:12 pm
"I attribute European anti-Americanism to a state of prolonged “adolescence” from being protected by American treasure and military might throughout the post-WW2 era. I think about how teenagers rail against their parents actions and restrictions, all the while knowing, deep down, that they cannot provide for themselves.
On a somewhat lighter note, there was a program on PBS (Public Broadcasting System) a while back about why Europeans don’t like America. One interviewee attributed it to the Europeans knowing that America won’t hurt them." --Denis Eugene Sullivan
"In spite of the constant accusations of “arrogance,” Americans are really very self-deprecating in many ways and often place the French, and other Western Europeans, on a pedestal of cultural superiority; this probably goes further back into world history than virulent anti-Americanism does." --Jennifer
"Yes, anti-Americanism is a sad reality all over the world. I feel its simply part of "hatred of the superpower". Britian for most of its empire's history was mocked harshly by English speaking colonies and much of mainland Europe. Nobody likes the "big kid on the block". I think the fact that American media plays a more dominant role in English speaking societies around the world further reminds us of our inferiority complexes.
In short, America's ok with me. I can only hope that reason and the shedding of jealous ignorance can let other people see that America isn't that bad." --Matt
"Conservatives love America the way a six year old loves his mother. Mommy is perfect, don’t be mean to mommy, etc… Liberals, according to me, have a grown-up love for America — the kind that recognizes faults and works to improve the nation out of love." --Al Franken
A laundry expert? Let me check the Yellow Pages….
I forgot. In Europe, people are born knowing how to cook an omelette. Europeans don’t need instruction from anyone. It’s all innate. Damn they’re smart! Is there an “expert way” versus the traditional way that I’m missing out on here? 
That’s why it bugs the hell out of me to hear so much redundant ignorance coming from the flapping traps of the over-confident and self-aggrandizing Hitler sympathizers hiding behind a veil of puritanism.
However, the Left are upset because they feel Obama has already abandoned them.
I think she’d feel very comfortable over here in the US as we harbor the most mentally ill people in the civilized world, so she’d feel right at home. Welcome, drunk Blondie! 
She should have gone one step further and just gave her address out publicly considering how “open to visitors” she is. One question, though: Do Canadians lock their door when they have sex? Hmm… OK, I know I’m getting hammy here, but if you had watched the film, you’d see what I mean. We UHHMERICANS are considered 
WE CAN SEE VERY CLEARLY THAT WHITE PEOPLE COMMIT CRIMES TOO! WHITE CRIMES, BLACK CRIMES, BROWN CRIMES, YELLOW CRIMES, PURPLE CRIMES, GREEN CRIMES, AND ORANGE CRIMES ARE ALL REPORTED E-Q-U-A-L-L-Y! But you clowns wouldn’t know that unless you lived over here! Or are living here with your eyes OPEN and not living in grandma’s basement.
Australia has officially become the Fattest 
It’s not always what appears to be obvious, that’s true. And this is why I’m only writing about women.
