Wow, how *impressively* wrong you can be!

Post #13,000 by CRConrad 10/11/01 5:09:48 PM Reply	Wow, how impressively wrong you can be! Jay the Freep: We're reaping the consequences of going down paths we wanted to go down and worked hard to do so. There is no 'fix' and we're doomed if we try. Uhm... The "fix" would obviously be that we all, collectively, (all of us city dwellers at least) shoulder the burden for all of those among us, collectively, who can't right at the moment make it on their own. Which is exactly what we (you Merkins to a somewhat lesser extent than we YourPeons; but still, all of us in the "Western" world) are doing -- "Christian" charity at its blindest and finest -- in the form of... exactly those "government handouts" you are whining about! Sheesh. You can't take ten thousand years of human social interactions and totally destroy them in a hundred years and then try to figure out how to 'fix' the results Cities have been around for at least four thousand years (and it's debatable whether the six thousand years of "human social interactions" immediately before that were all that much to write home about -- notice, nobody did). What do you think the pyramids were, if not a Keynesian wealth-dispersal-through-government-projects program? Looks like it's you who are proposing to tear down thousands of years of human social interaction... What time frame did you have in mind; something a lot LESS than a hundred years, I guess? Double sheesh. Christian R. Conrad The Man Who Knows Fucking Everything
Post #13,062 by a6l6e6x 10/11/01 10:29:07 PM Reply	Jerico. [link\|http://emuseum.mnsu.edu/archaeology/sites/middle_east/jericho.html\|Jerico may be 10000 years old.] While trenching downward through the site she uncovered the first walled city along with a number of houses and courtyards that had been constructed over 10,000 years ago, during the Neolithic. I had heard somewhere (perhaps the The Ascent of Man program) it is the oldest city. Alex Whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad. -- Euripides
Post #13,181 by Ashton 10/12/01 6:34:42 PM Reply	Cackle.. glorp Brevity Award \ufffd with beladonna-leaf cluster! Yup, I've noticed that charity as defined by lots of folk to mean er 'Faith'-based-Monopoly: derives from and panders often to a mindset with a certain complex baggage: A) You're guilty from birth! you scum [it's in the book] - haven't figured out how to milk capital-gains and proxy bidding yet? = you're dumb too, then. B) Even though you don't 'deserve' it - we're so fucking magnanimous, we'll offer you this ___ IF.. you demonstrate your abject willingness to learn how to Believe Right. Too.. (er we'll find a way to gently introduce you to our Truth.) C) Government umm 'charity' OTOH - is bound to be abused by such as You are, and was invented by atheist scum intent upon keeping the word of [Our God] from being heeded. A computer on every desk running Our Soft-ware! is our goal. We demand a [Our]God-fearing Nation Now.. D) Add-in the other facets as are found to varying degrees. (Note that there are some exceptions to be found, natch - even to the point of actually eliding all the proselytizing, at least 'officially'. This last more honored by the breach than the observance.) Methinks that any efforts towards (say) "honest, simply less-skewed? apportionment of enough basic wealth as is needed to survive" -- will be constantly hampered ('least in Murica) by variations on the above themes. These are rarely uttered, of course, but my lifetime experience is such that I have seen this sub-rosa message in countless forms. We'd rather fund legions of insurance middle-men suits, over any idea of a national health plan, just as we have turned over prisons - and soon perhaps all the formerly 'public' schools to: the bizness mind. (Scandinavia made a trade of ~ "limiting the possibilities of any? much? truly obscene levels of personal wealth" (like Billy's) in exchange for a genuine safety net for all, as well as a decent level of health care. This naturally pisses off the Fundamentalist Capitalists no end: ya gotta earn as Rugged Induhvidualist, or die sucker.. And these folk don't even believe! in er, evolutionary 'survival of the fittest' -- officially!) I call that, an attempt towards civilization. I know what them Holy folk would call me. :-\ufffd Anyway .. You Said It (but briefer). Ashton
Post #13,232 by CRConrad 10/14/01 11:58:03 AM Reply	Belladonna? Uhm... Thanks - I think! :-)
Post #13,251 by boxley 10/14/01 7:57:15 PM Reply	belladona dilates the pupils (eye-opener)
Post #13,278 by Ashton 10/15/01 2:50:16 AM Reply	3 ears and a tail.. Alas I cannot claim credit for such subtlety (this time ;-) just thought the leaves purty.. But as with Oscar Wilde, Oscar: I wish I'd said that! Guest: Don't worry, Oscar - you will.. you will.. :-\ufffd
Post #13,779 by marlowe 10/17/01 1:30:42 PM Reply	There's such a thing as being too open-eyed. Dilate the pupil too much and parts of the lens that aren't meant to be used come on line. They don't focus properly. Useable resolution drops drastically. Plus, on a sunny day, it's extremely unpleasant. It's fun at night though. Kind of like that hokey special effect they used to use for dream sequences. Everything's blurry and sparkly at the same time. [link\|http://www.angelfire.com/ca3/marlowe/index.html\|http://www.angelfir...e/index.html] Sometimes "tolerance" is just a word for not dealing with things.
Post #13,936 by CRConrad 10/18/01 7:36:21 AM Reply	Actually, I was thinking (and "thank?"ing Ashton for)... ...the other part of the definition, "poisonous". (Not to poop on y'all's eyeball party, just saying I wasn't in on it.) Christian R. Conrad The Man Who Knows Fucking Everything About Venom In Writing

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