Freedom Of Speech And GenZ

[Grace]

I see some bleed over in the real world on occasion , but I think it will increase as the internet makes it not just normal but expected. I try to fight it when I see it, but I can only reach one person at a time.

The internet has in some ways made me more of who I have always been, and has changed me at the same time.

Yesterday, after my Mother's radiation treatment, I went to our regular deli to get my Mother her favorite lunch meat, she was tired and wanted a sandwich. I noticed right away that the girl behind the counter was in a foul, foul mood. She was new, I guess, because I had not seen her before. 

Some people would have matched her mood, and some would have taken offense and called her out on it.

My first thought was, something happened, and I am not going to push the ball down the road. When she asked us what we wanted, she was was a bit curt and was not welcoming at all. 

So I hit her right between the eyes with the biggest brightest smile that I could muster, and told her that we had driven past two delis just to come to this one because this deli is my Mother's favorite. I told her it is not just the food, she loves everything about it especially the staff.

I saw an immediate drop of the scowl. I had her laughing and sharing in less than 60 seconds. That is my super power.

I love people and I love socializing and fellowshipping. Over half my week is spent volunteering, and serving. 

Our society may be becoming more hostile, less social, and less giving, but I plan to stick out like a sore thumb. 

Maybe it is my fear of what kind of legacy we are leaving behind, and I do zone in on the negative aspects of this world today, but maybe the negativity is what prompts me to act. To fight back, to find that common ground and to lessen the gap.

I have an advantage because people come to me seeking. Most of the time they come looking for food, snacks, coffee, or lemonade, but I always make sure I give them a heaping helping of smiles, laughter, attention, and love if they want it or need it.

We can't control what others do, but we can control what we do, at least for now.

We are Rogues, fight was instilled in us, we just need to do what we do best. We most be bold.

Excellent thoughts (and actions). 

I think I have a difficult time because my interactions with people have become so limited due to the worsening of my own physical condition. (Aging disabled is all bad, Ha! I had thought regular disability was bad, but now I'm coupling that with regular age related issues now too... hahaha.)

I feel like I need to be doing something, but then I'm always down to what that should be on a personal level. 

Having a life that takes you around people is so positive because you can do all kinds of things from church events and feeding the homeless and more. 

When I am around others I always put my best foot forward as is in my nature (I'm an outgoing people person) with very rare exception. 

But actually I was in so much pain that I could no longer tolerate it a couple weeks ago and I had a pharmacy pick up order to pick up. For the 4th month in a row the order was not ready at the scheduled time, and we showed up 3 hours past the pick up time with me feeling finished with zero patience left to my name, when the order still wasn't ready and the phone did nothing but ring off the hook when I called.


You just never know what's going on with someone when they are in poor spirits. If I hadn't been in that much pain I wouldn't have been angry. I would still change pharmacies, but I wouldn't have gotten upset. 

Sometimes just a smile can make all the difference in someone's world. You just never know... 

[Snarl]

I left that forum over it. I realized this pretense of all being friends was nothing but a lie I had bought into.

However, I tell myself that's just online where people rant and that's it. But I do wonder how much that bleeds into real life too.

Wisdom in your words above.

I invest a lot less in friends as I grow older. If I am honest with myself, I have two left ... not counting the wife (and she's really all that matters).

I invest heavily in neighbors. I have invested heavily in my Son-In-Law. Everyone else is blood kin.

Learned the value of on-line relationships in being booted from TOS.

---

Religion and politics should NEVER be mixed, no matter what your politics or religion are. We are seeing the results of that attempt right now, before our very eyes.

Somehow, the government got into people's homes and families. Got into the business of helping people break their marriage vows (a religious oath). We The People allowed it because 'exceptions'. What an absolute mistake that has turned out to be.

[Grace]

I left that forum over it. I realized this pretense of all being friends was nothing but a lie I had bought into.

However, I tell myself that's just online where people rant and that's it. But I do wonder how much that bleeds into real life too.

Wisdom in your words above.

I invest a lot less in friends as I grow older. If I am honest with myself, I have two left ... not counting the wife (and she's really all that matters).

I invest heavily in neighbors. I have invested heavily in my Son-In-Law. Everyone else is blood kin.

Learned the value of on-line relationships in being booted from TOS. 

Yeah, that was a lesson wasn't it? I never got booted but why bother going to a site where all the people you liked were gone? 

But yeah after all that it is better to put any real investment into those closest to you. That's who we affect the most, and who we can say we know.

That's a change coming from me of all people isn't it? But I think everything is changing.

[Schmoe]

I keep my opinions mostly to myself while at work, except for a select few I've known for years, and have come to know are like-minded.

I kind of understand where that guy is coming from, to an extent.  I'm not saying disregard any and all conversation with people who you haven't known for years, but with people I rarely interact with, I tend to keep it safe.  "How bout those Eagles!" Predictable, probably boring, but safe 

Everyone is different, but that's how I like it, for the most part.  We had a new girl who I was training.  People seem to want to tell you their life story right away anymore.  I'm standing there thinking, Christ, are you buttering me up to write your story or something?  

She was a good example, because the more she spoke, the less I liked her.  Bashed Trump at every turn, and said she wished AOC would run for president.  I said something along the lines of, they're both equally loathsome, and you'd think we could do better in a country of 325 million.  I kept all conversations work-related after that, and she quit after a short while anyway.

There are always going to be those people who overshare - lol.. I'm sure my husband would say I have a tendency to the same at times, though I do attempt to keep work on a more professional level. 

As I was reading your post I remembered when I was working. I hated sports but I used to read the sports pages daily during football season so I could sound like I knew what people were talking about... lol. But it worked in that for those coworkers you didn't really know it was a safe topic. 

I was thinking that perhaps it's the art of small talk which has been lost, and to a degree it likely has, but as Ninurta in the post above yours brings up everything is political now. Football is no longer anything more than a political topic now, what with so many boycotting sports.

We are likely loosing our common spaces, and our differences are ever widening gulfs.

We can talk about hobbies, but I think the gulfs are getting too wide to cross.

I was on a hobbyist forum for years. The forum was a place politics wasn't allowed unless it was directly related to the hobby and then it had to be to the point so the forum itself was a pretty safe place. Because it was a hobby forum, there was a group of us that had one another's addresses and real information because we'd mail one another things.

Most of those on the political left post 2015 would occasionally make political comments and generally if it was a one off comment it would be left alone, only if it started a fight would it be removed from the lounge area threads. One by one I watched everyone on the political right get banned due to taking the bait and getting drawn into a fight.

One of forums permanent members was an elderly Catholic woman, harmless in every way. One of those in our little group called her a racist among other things one day. I sent a PM to ask WTF and he went off on how people on the political right should be killed - literally killed - for our political views.

I actually got scared. You can't really help but kind of know where everyone stands politically anymore even if politics isn't the topic and he was literally, whether he realized it or not, PMing me telling me I deserved to die, and that if he could he'd be happy to do so with his bare hands.

This is someone who knew my name and had my address and if he'd been paying any attention at all knew where I stood politically.

I left that forum over it. I realized this pretense of all being friends was nothing but a lie I had bought into.

However, I tell myself that's just online where people rant and that's it. But I do wonder how much that bleeds into real life too.

I wonder how to find our common bond again, those topics that have the potential to bring us together - at least around the water cooler. A bond that prevents us from wanting to kill those who vote "wrong". Whether it's even possible.

---

There have always been, at least within my experience, those whose opinions could brook no dissent. What we are seeing now, I think, is the increase of those types of people. Once upon a time, when I was younger, there were two subjects one did not breach in polite company - religion and politics. The reason for that prohibition is that those two subjects tend to allow for no dissenting opinion, and tempers flare during their discussion rather quickly if dissent is expressed.




What we seem to be seeing now is that EVERYTHING is starting to fall under one or the other of those two headings, sometimes both, and therefore conversation has been correspondingly truncated to keep it within those two subject areas, which has considerably shrunk the common area where discussion used to take place.


That is the result of confusing social issues with political issues (from both sides of the political spectrum) and thinking that morality can be legislated. It cannot. One's moral compass comes from within, and cannot be imposed from without. That attempt just leads to clashes and frictions. Religion and politics should NEVER be mixed, no matter what your politics or religion are. We are seeing the results of that attempt right now, before our very eyes.



Politics are becoming more polarized as Left Wing authoritarian philosophies become more prevalent in what was once a freedom-loving nation The clash between those two opposing stances is one of the things we are seeing that is being taken as an inability to converse... and literally everything is becoming a political football, where dissent cannot be allowed - from either side.



Compounding that is the fact that many things that were always secular discussions are taking on the aura of religious thought, where deviation from the proposed  story line cannot be allowed. "Climate change" is one of those "New Religions", and is a political football as well. Bad combination. When a subject cannot be questioned, cannot bear any criticism.



.

As always you give a lot to consider...

Yikes, I'd have definitely felt uneasy too, after a message like that, and knowing they know where I live.  People are just crazy anymore.  You can talk to someone for years, a friend, a coworker, etc, but you don't really ever truly know them.  Probably the only people you truly know are your parents, siblings, spouse, and kids.  People you live with.

You see stories here and there, about that serial killer who was a pillar of the community.  It's just nuts.

[Ninurta]

---

Religion and politics should NEVER be mixed, no matter what your politics or religion are. We are seeing the results of that attempt right now, before our very eyes.

Somehow, the government got into people's homes and families. Got into the business of helping people break their marriage vows (a religious oath). We The People allowed it because 'exceptions'. What an absolute mistake that has turned out to be.

I think that got started back in the Dark Ages when religion WAS the government, and the two were interchangeable. There is a reason it was called "The Dark Ages", and personally I think that WAS the reason.



We have moved on since then, society has changed, and thinking folks realized the dangers in mixing the two - religion and politics - and set out to separate them. That was the reason for the religion clause of the First Amendment. Government and religion were de-coupled, and the Founders decided to codify that and guarantee the right of every person to follow their own religion, banning the State from making any one of them THE religion.



But, back when religion and State were the same thing, getting State permission to marry was the same as getting Church permission to marry, and it seems to have stuck. The State retained the power to say yeah or nay over marriages, and since they license them, they think that also gives them the right to dissolve them.



Since the State issues marriage licenses, marriage is no longer a religious thing. Oh, it may have a religious component, but that is separate from the state-controlled licensing.



Just wait until the State figures out that since they issue licenses for marriage, they can unilaterally revoke them without your permission same as driver's licenses or business licenses... fun times ahead!



=================================================================================



Now, we found the flaws in mixing politics and religion during the Dark Ages, and we grew out of it. But if anyone wants to see modern examples of the folly of that notion, they have to look no further than the Middle East, because Muslims have not yet figured out that folly, and regularly confuse the two. Matter of fact, Islam is not a "religion", it's an entire, intertwined, religio-political-social construct... and it's not working out that well for them, but they have yet to develop the intelligence level to see that. Christianity was the same, in Europe, during Medieval times. We grew out of it, but I don't know if Islam ever will. I reckon it's always a good thing to have negative examples of folly however, so that the rest of us can see with our own eyes what we need to avoid.



Not everyone can see that, however, To this very day, even with that negative example right in their faces. The "Christian Nationalists" are a good example of that. They are hell bent on mixing religion and politics, and for the life of them cannot see the volatile and explosive nature of that combination.



There is a certain class of "Christian" who cannot fathom the idea that God's Kingdom is spiritual, not of Earth, and they are hell-bent on making it an Earthly kingdom in spite of what God wants it to be.



I don't see them making out too well with that, not in this life, nor the next. Never a good idea to spite a God, nor is it ever a good idea to think YOUR plan is a better one than God's plan..



.

[F2d5thCav]

Schmoe--

I wondered that as well.  Did the guy mean he didn't want to converse, or, did he mean he didn't want to be lectured on politics, social mores, etc. ?

I'm definitely of the second example.  I enjoy good conversation, but don't want to engage with the ideologically warped.

Cheers

[Ninurta]

...

I was on a hobbyist forum for years. The forum was a place politics wasn't allowed unless it was directly related to the hobby and then it had to be to the point so the forum itself was a pretty safe place. Because it was a hobby forum, there was a group of us that had one another's addresses and real information because we'd mail one another things.

Most of those on the political left post 2015 would occasionally make political comments and generally if it was a one off comment it would be left alone, only if it started a fight would it be removed from the lounge area threads. One by one I watched everyone on the political right get banned due to taking the bait and getting drawn into a fight.

One of forums permanent members was an elderly Catholic woman, harmless in every way. One of those in our little group called her a racist among other things one day. I sent a PM to ask WTF and he went off on how people on the political right should be killed - literally killed - for our political views.

I actually got scared. You can't really help but kind of know where everyone stands politically anymore even if politics isn't the topic and he was literally, whether he realized it or not, PMing me telling me I deserved to die, and that if he could he'd be happy to do so with his bare hands.

This is someone who knew my name and had my address and if he'd been paying any attention at all knew where I stood politically.

I left that forum over it. I realized this pretense of all being friends was nothing but a lie I had bought into.

...

---

Yikes, I'd have definitely felt uneasy too, after a message like that, and knowing they know where I live.  People are just crazy anymore.  You can talk to someone for years, a friend, a coworker, etc, but you don't really ever truly know them.  Probably the only people you truly know are your parents, siblings, spouse, and kids.  People you live with.

You see stories here and there, about that serial killer who was a pillar of the community.  It's just nuts.

S'ok. She lives with me, and if that fella ever did show up, well, we've got enough ground for a few shallow graves, or enough abandoned mine shafts to handle it if I don't feel like scratching a grave out in the dirt.

OR - there's an ancient abandoned cemetery on the hill above the house that no one remembers any more. It's in deep woods, can't even be seen from the air. I don't think anyone would notice an extra grave in it, since they've probably not been counted since about 1870 or so, and no one even knows whose buried there any more. One guy says "Indians", another guy says "slaves", but no one really knows who they are. One more wouldn't even be noticed.

Better for him if he just blows it out his ass online.

.

[Schmoe]

...

I was on a hobbyist forum for years. The forum was a place politics wasn't allowed unless it was directly related to the hobby and then it had to be to the point so the forum itself was a pretty safe place. Because it was a hobby forum, there was a group of us that had one another's addresses and real information because we'd mail one another things.

Most of those on the political left post 2015 would occasionally make political comments and generally if it was a one off comment it would be left alone, only if it started a fight would it be removed from the lounge area threads. One by one I watched everyone on the political right get banned due to taking the bait and getting drawn into a fight.

One of forums permanent members was an elderly Catholic woman, harmless in every way. One of those in our little group called her a racist among other things one day. I sent a PM to ask WTF and he went off on how people on the political right should be killed - literally killed - for our political views.

I actually got scared. You can't really help but kind of know where everyone stands politically anymore even if politics isn't the topic and he was literally, whether he realized it or not, PMing me telling me I deserved to die, and that if he could he'd be happy to do so with his bare hands.

This is someone who knew my name and had my address and if he'd been paying any attention at all knew where I stood politically.

I left that forum over it. I realized this pretense of all being friends was nothing but a lie I had bought into.

...

---

Yikes, I'd have definitely felt uneasy too, after a message like that, and knowing they know where I live.  People are just crazy anymore.  You can talk to someone for years, a friend, a coworker, etc, but you don't really ever truly know them.  Probably the only people you truly know are your parents, siblings, spouse, and kids.  People you live with.

You see stories here and there, about that serial killer who was a pillar of the community.  It's just nuts.

S'ok. She lives with me, and if that fella ever did show up, well, we've got enough ground for a few shallow graves, or enough abandoned mine shafts to handle it if I don't feel like scratching a grave out in the dirt.

OR - there's an ancient abandoned cemetery on the hill above the house that no one remembers any more. It's in deep woods, can't even be seen from the air. I don't think anyone would notice an extra grave in it, since they've probably not been counted since about 1870 or so, and no one even knows whose buried there any more. One guy says "Indians", another guy says "slaves", but no one really knows who they are. One more wouldn't even be noticed.

Better for him if he just blows it out his ass online.

.

I'm sure 99.9% of them are ass blowers, but you never know when you'll come across that psychopath.  

You seem like you're surrounded by land, I guess that would make it a bit easier to get rid of a body.  Technology these days, though, somebody might report their beloved psychopath missing, an investigation is launched, messages seen, motives detected.

Then they find a random hair or something, cadaver dogs come in, what a mess.  I always thought the ocean would be a good dumping ground, with some prep work beforehand.  Borrow a buddy's boat, go out fishing.  As long as there's no trail leading to you, such as known animosity beforehand, messages exchanged, texts, witnessed arguments, anything that puts you on the radar.

Here I am talking about psychopaths, and look at what I just wrote 

[F2d5thCav]

Yeah, mine shaft would be better.  Deeper and no "fresh" dirt exposed by digging.

I've heard of places in the Appalachians where there are "holes" in the ground, essentially vertical cave shafts, and yes, purported to be useful for disposal of unwanted ... items. 

Cheers

[Ninurta]

Yeah, mine shaft would be better.  Deeper and no "fresh" dirt exposed by digging.

I've heard of places in the Appalachians where there are "holes" in the ground, essentially vertical cave shafts, and yes, purported to be useful for disposal of unwanted ... items. 

Cheers

I grew up about 15 or 20 miles southeast of where I live now. Where I live now is transitional, the liminal space between the Appalachian Plateau and the Ridge and Valley region. The Appalachian plateau is noted for it's coal deposits which are missing from the area where I grew up - that area is what is called "karst" terrain. It's mostly a limestone bedrock.

The Appalachian Plateau is around 315 to 320 million years old, Pennsylvanian age, where the coalfields are. I live on the eastern slope of it. The Ridge and Valley region is a lot older, between 500 and 600 million years, Cambrian, Devonian, and Silurian ages, where the limestone bedrock is exposed. That's where I grew up. The Clinch River is a rough line that separates the two.

There is a slab of exposed bedrock on the hill above the house where I was raised that has ancient fossils in it. I've recovered fossil stromatolites there, as well as something that even the biology professor at the university could not identify = it was doughnut shaped, about 2 1/2 inches across, and full of little diamond-shaped bumps, like grinding teeth. I've since found an identification for it, but can't recall what it was called. The rock is old, from about the time of the Cambrian Explosion, the beginnings of multicellular life.

Limestone dissolves in water over time. Over the ages, the karst area where I grew up has been honeycombed with caves, some of which run for miles underground. As those cave roofs collapse in places over time, it develops "sinkholes" which are usually funnel-shaped depressions with a hole in the bottom of them. That hole leads into... a whole 'nuther world. An area of Russell County, VA, called "Glade Hollow" is noted for the thousands of sinkhole at the upper end of the valley. It's a long "holler", about 6 or 8 miles long and contains Daugherty's Cave (archaeologically significant, with artifacts going back around 11,000 years), Gray's Cave, and another big cave at the lower end of the valley whose name I don't know. All 3 of those caves are interconnected in a vast underground network of caverns, with an underground river in it. I've accessed that river through Gray's Cave. There are at least 3 creeks in that holler all named "Sinking Creek" from the fact that they arise at a spring, run for a while, and then just disappear into a hole in the ground - they just "sink" into the ground, hence the name.

There are "things" in that cave system. Once, when I was at the bank of the underground river that I accessed through Gray's Cave, I saw a smooth, oval, gray "rock" out in the middle of the river. it was about 4 or 5 feet long, 2 1/2 feet wide, smooth surfaced, and wet. As I played my mining light along it, it just sank into the river, leaving barely a ripple.

Some times, the holes going into the underground are not accompanied by the funnel-shaped depression, they are just a hole in otherwise unremarkable ground. I suspect those were formed by earthquakes over time - there are several fault lines that run through here, too.

There are at least two such holes on the farm where I grew up. One was an offset crack in the rock, about a foot wide and 4 or 5 feet long. Not big enough for a man to get into, but big enough for pieces of farm animals that died natural but suspicious deaths to be dropped into. That was where we disposed of farm critters that we didn't feel safe eating. It went down about 20 feet or so, and then branched out to the east and west into a cave with no other discovered opening. No idea how far it ran The rock at the top of the fissure had a "low" side of the crack and a "high" side of it, with about 2 or 2 1/2 feet of elevation difference, which is part of why I believe earthquakes formed some of the holes. I could sit on the high side and comfortably rest my feet on the low side, like a chair.

There was another one, on another hillside near the top, that just looked like a normal groundhog hole. No idea how it formed, as there was no fissure, no offset in the rock, no sinkhole, and it was just round, not an oblong crack like the other one.  It wasn't but about a foot and a half across it, but it went down... WAY down. I could sit at the top of it and drop pebbles in, and listen to them "clack" against the sides of the walls for 30 seconds or so as they fell, before hearing a faint splash when they hit bottom. I would guess it went about 400 feet straight down, but never calculated how far it probably went.

So, yeah, there really are such holes, and they've been used to dispose of unwanted detritus for generations.

.

[BIAD]

...So, yeah, there really are such holes, and they've been used to dispose of unwanted detritus for generations.

The readers of Rambler's Monthly endorse this comment.

[OmegaLogos]

Explanation: Wood chipper the body stuff into a fast flowing river!

Personal Disclosure: Leave no trace ok. LOL 

P.S. Freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences of what you say ok. 

It just means you get to say what you want first ... before they try and cancel you!

@GenZ ... STFU and listen to your elders ... and you might learn some wisdom!

[Snarl]

if that fella ever did show up, well, we've got enough ground for a few shallow graves

People disappear pretty easy. If you've got a tractor it's no trouble t'all. I've seen my neighbors diggin' weird. Nobody ever talks about it. People don't even wink at one another.

---

Yeah, mine shaft would be better.  Deeper and no "fresh" dirt exposed by digging.

I don't worry about you Cav. I know you live 'over there'. And I suspect you're closer to the grave than I am. Meaning: anybody you had a grudge with, and deserving of an untimely end, probably ain't worth your time. But ... just in case ... don't throw bodies down into holes. Their yuck contaminates everything. They stink. They don't 'go away' down there.

If you wanna get rid of a body ya drag it out in the woods. Ya gotta drag it out far enough that no one is gonna be casually strolling by and find it. One a them blue plasticky weather tarps works extremely well for dragging heavy limp things around. You can even tie cordage into the eyelets to make pulling that much more easy. Strip it of all clothing. Split it open so the stink of it can get up where animals'll smell it freely. Let nature take its course. Put the clothes in a paper bag and drop 'em in a dumpster.

If you 'really' have to get rid of anything that's left over ... auger down a hole ... deep as you can go ... deeper than anyone else would ever consider digging. Dump it in, pack it down ... and plant a valuable tree on top of it. Scatter the rest of any dirt. Realistically, you shouldn't even be able to find your way back to it if you dragged it out far enough.

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Explanation: Wood chipper the body stuff into a fast flowing river!

Personal Disclosure: Leave no trace ok. LOL 

Now I know you live in the outback. -chuckle-

I don't (actually) think I'd use a wood chipper. Not unless I wanted to turn 'em into fertilizer that is.

[Infolurker]

Canada wants to wipe the record on their honoring the Ukrainian Nazi recently.

They also want wikipedia to delete the entry on this guy. Like it never happened.

[Grace]

This is one of the strangest turns I think I've ever seen a thread take... lol. 

Men who are busy beating their chests... stop it because it's time to go kill a wildebeest... I'm hungry..  hahaha

[Ninurta]

This is one of the strangest turns I think I've ever seen a thread take... lol. 

Men who are busy beating their chests... stop it because it's time to go kill a wildebeest... I'm hungry..  hahaha

Can I beat my chest WHILE I'm killing the wildebeest? I'm certain it will strike fear into the critter's heart, immobilize it with terror, and make it easier to kill...

.