They interviewed the guy who started the Facebook group on the radio. I suppose he could be Cowel's secret partner, but there's no evidence available to imply this. Anyway, people buy it for their own reasons, not to reduce the profits of anyone (or if anyone has, that individual has a too limited understanding of how the market works). The best thing is that Shelter, a great charity, gets a big boost this Christmas.
Somehow, I suspect that this little incident is going to get used against them the next time they try making claims about on-line music piracy being responsible for their falling sales and (supposed) fall in profits.
I'm probably being dense, but how does this undermine claims that online music piracy is responsible for falling sales? (Assuming sales are falling). As this song is both cheap (I think 29 pence is pretty fair to have a song I like to listen to whenever I want) and is available as a download, it puts the lie to common pro-pirate arguments that "prices are hiked too high" and "they wont give it to me in a form I want".
Not arguing, I just don't understand where you got the conclusion.
No, this is not the USA. Labour and the Conservatives are both pretty awful (though at least Labour still has some of the decent old guard in its ranks whereas the Conservatives were pretty much rotten since historical times). Anyway, the point is that you can vote for the Liberal Democrats. They're an order of magnitude better than both Labour and the Conservatives and unlike in the USA, voting for a third party isn't a waste. The Lib Dems have many seats across the UK and enough of a faction in the Houses of Parliament that they have influence. If we'd had a few more Lib Dems, the vote for war on Iraq would actually have been lost. That's what a small difference can make to the outcome of large events. You can even vote Green in the UK because at least they do respectably well at local elections and the European elections.
In short, we are different to the USA. Much of the privately-owned media is trying to push the UK toward the same two-party puppet show that the USA has, but there is a third, less sucky-choice, nonetheless.
And the BPI, who saw several hundred thousand people legally download a song for the first time (and paid for it!)
You might be right... but I think this requires some examination. The BPI are the UK equivalent of the RIAA. They similarly earn their crust by representing studios against things like copyright infringement. Now people buying music from these studios means that the BPI's paymasters have more money and some of that money might roll downhill. But like the RIAA, the BPI make capital out of scaring the studios with the spectre of piracy. Two things happen when people buy music as a pure download. Firstly, they're a counter to the pirates that take without paying, thus they show some honesty in the target audience meaning piracy seems less threatening than it otherwise would. Secondly, it supports and promotes a distribution model that doesn't require a lot of capital or risk to get involved in, thus opening up the market to smaller studios and even artists marketing themselves directly. This latter consequence of paying for downloads is almost certainly not one that helps the BPI or RIAA.
So this is indeed great news for Sony (and a nice bonus for whichever Sony exec started the Facebook group ), even better news for Shelter which are a great charity, but probably not in the long term, good for the BPI. Just like the worst thing for people making money out of "The War on Drugs" is people coming off drugs, the worst thing for those making a living from fighting piracy, are honest people who are willing to pay for something they like.
I want to do you a favour. You seem like a well-intentioned and friendly sort. Now clearly you see being overweight as a negative as you are arguing people are not wrong for insulting the overweight (my original point where you said the blame wasn't theirs). You also said that people are not slaves to a whisp of DNA. So I put the two together and ask you to lose weight and become slim this year. Either you will achieve this and reach a state you think is more desirable, or you will fail and concede the powerful effect of your circumstances and your genetics on your weight, both gaining self-insight and becoming less mistakenly judgemental. It's a win-win either way and all you have to do is post a reply to this saying "yes." I'll even be your training buddy as I could lose a few pounds myself. What do you say? Is my logic sound? I hope you will accept.
I'm quite certain that I am correct. I'm also certain that your parents raised you improperly, you retard
Yeah, straight to personal insults about my family and name calling in the first line. That really supports a reasoned argument. *roll eyes*
since you assume that someone is a racist with no basis for it other than that you wish it were true. You don't like what I have to say so you look for a character flaw that gives you the ability to overlook common sense.
Accusations of ad hominem from someone who opens both posts with insults? I didn't go looking for character flaws to invalidate your argument. Your argument itself was racist. Your argument was (and apparently still is), that it's okay to insult people because 'they choose to be fat' but its not okay to insult people for being black because 'they have no choice'. Any reasonable person would say its not okay to insult people for being black because there is nothing wrong with being black. But the sole basis of your argument is that insulting people about weight and insulting people about race (both attributes of a person's body) is that the former 'is a choice' therefore its okay. It is the inevitable flip-side of that argument that were it possible to choose a race, it would then be acceptable to insult people for being of a particular race. And that's a racist argument because it requires that one thinks there is a basis for insulting people based on race. Do you follow this reasoning? I'm sure most do, but this is the second time it has been explained to you. Start at the beginning of this paragraph and follow it through and see if you can find any part that does not follow on logically from the former. What I am saying is obviously not me "going looking for character flaws". I've written out a reasoned deduction based on exactly what you're saying. Your sole argument is that its okay to insult people about their weight because they may have some control over it unlike race, so were skin colour a choice, discrimination against colours that 'society' didn't like would similarly be okay. It can't be made any simpler than that. Either you understand where you have fallen prey to racism or you, for a second time, ignore the evidence and say its just a personal attack. It isn't - it's a direct analysis of your argument.
OP stated it was fat person's fault that people called fat person fat. Since being fat is a choice (as was acknowledged by fat person), there is nothing wrong with people who are not fat that point out that fat person has chosen to be fat.
Do you have any conception of the thread of this conversation, or are you just using it as a launching pad for making statements that don't quite connect. The original post of mine that has launched all your comments about my being "a retard" and "being raised improperly" was that I didn't like people finding it acceptable to come up and insult someone I cared about because she was overweight and I extended that to anyone else who was in a similar situation. Your rebuttal to that is "there is nothing wrong with pointing out someone has chosen to be fat." Now how the Hell do those two things connect? You're shifting ground like a landslide here. And you keep coming back to the issue of "choice". Even if it is allowed that being overweight is a choice, you think its okay to walk up to someone and shout abuse at them because of their lifestyle choices? Perhaps instead of race, I should have picked sexuality to make it clearer to you. Just as with body type, people are biologically disposed to prefer one gender over another. But whether they act upon that biological instinct is a choice, so by your logic it is okay to abuse and discriminate against people because of which gender they have sex with, because it is a choice that you have judged wrong. Are you not getting this? You want to judge someone for being overweight and you say this is acceptable because it is a ch
To illustrate this, your reasoning would also say that it is the fault of someone for being black if they receive insults about being black, the fault of someone for being Christian if they receive insults about being Christian, the fault of someone for choosing to be a computer programmer if they are laughed at by non-computer programmers.
You lost me on that last one.
The poster I was replying to said that it was her fault if someone mocked her or treated her badly because of an attribute of herself. I responded by showing other cases where someone could abuse you because of an attribute, intended to illustrate that (assuming you didn't approve of these other cases), the principle of abusing someone and saying its their fault is a bad one. Considering that these two posters are so vocal on the subject of choice and personal responsibility, its ironic how insistent they are that if someone insults another person about their weight, it's the fault of the person being insulted.
Careful calling people a retard. Do you want me to point out the obvious problem in your post?
The OP stated that it was her fault people insulted her for being overweight. I merely showed other examples of exactly the same principle: someone being insulted because of an attribute about them. His argument includes all of the things I listed - yes, including race. Yet you treat obesity differently. Why? Because you say it is a choice? Here is the the very obvious problem in your post: You are making the argument that it is acceptable to mock people about their weight because you think they have control over it, and you illustrate this with a comparison to how it is not okay to insult someone about being black... because they don't have a choice.
Wow! Now *that* is racist. The non-racist would immediately identify that the reason it is not okay to insult someone about being black is because there's nothing fucking wrong with being black. And the point of correlation is that just as its no relevance to anyone else what skin colour you have, is it is likewise nobody's business judging people about your weight.
Why did you bring choice into it? Because your mental process is that the reason to hold back from judging someone is if they can't help it for some reason. How about the reason for not judging someone being that it's not your place to judge them?
Don't like what I'm saying? Take a long look at your post before you reply and ask yourself if you honestly weren't just following the reasoning I've stated.
Your reasoning, flawed though it is, is based on obesity being just a choice as if the matter is simple. Given how much better you usually feel if you're fit and active than if you're overweight and sedentary, then if it's just "a choice" then why are people choosing to be fat and if it's just a choice uninfluenced by external factors, then why is obesity more prevalent in some countries than in others, why does it run in families, why are poorer people in the USA more prone to obesity than more affluent people? It is demonstrable that external factors are a major factor in obesity by these observable facts. So even if you did feel that it is your place to judge others for being fat (and again, what puts you in that position?), then how do you reconcile that with "the choice" clearly being easy for some and very hard for others?
Do you want to go back and take a look at my original post? I said that I didn't like the way my friend got a lot of abuse because she was overweight. I didn't like the way society discriminated against people for their weight. That was my post. I take it that you condone those things because, well, you're arguing with me. Or do you simply object on some principle to another person getting angry about discrimination? Which is it? Neither sounds like something I'd want to admit to but they're the only explanations for your post seeing as there were no factual corrections to be made.
Then, I'm sorry, but I'll just explain again, then.
Both ones race and ones religion are federally protected in all democratic societies an the planet (at least on paper).
This does not pertain to your argument. You're saying that legality has bearing on morality? Reality says otherwise. A lack of legislation about insulting people does not make insulting them acceptable to me.
People are not born fat (as black people are born black).
You have deliberately selected the one element I listed that is not a choice, in order to imply that the case of obesity is different to all my cases on the grounds that you consider it a choice. In fact, I listed a number of items which are choices (such as religion) where it remains publicly unacceptable to mock people for these attributes. There is also something insidious in your above statement which you appear unaware of. The direct inference of the above is that it is incorrect to insult people because of their skin colour because this is not a choice. Whereas personally I believe it is incorrect to insult people about their skin colour because it is not a reason to treat people badly in and of itself.
The same principle ought to apply to people's weight, yes? Yet you seem to think that it is acceptable to insult people about their weight for some reason, even though it is similarly not of concern to other people in most circumstances. Apparently this reason has to do with people's ability to influence their weight to some degree. Apparently your logic is that it is okay to insult people for something if you believe that it was their choice. Apparently you believe that the insult is deserved if one chooses to do something that some of society doesn't like irrespective of whether that choice has anything to do with them. Unless of course you're arguing that people are cruel to people with weight problems because of it does do harm to them, but I'm certain that is not what you were arguing.
And are no forms of worship that I know of that demand (or even encourage) obesity.
You are implying that the basis of my argument was that some religion did, or that obesity being part of a religion is a requirement for it to be tolerated? Eh?
There is no Constitutional protection for being fat.
Again, law != morality. There's no constitutional protection against someone coming up to your partner in the street and insulting them, but I'm confident you'll agree it's wrong. And I would hope that you would leap to your partners defense. So I don't know why when I express dislike at people being judgemental about someone I cared about that you start telling me there's no constitutional protection for them, with the implication that they should expect and accept that abuse.
It's easy to point at the fat guy and laugh, sure.
Trust me - not if they're a friend of mine and I'm with them. I might be 230lb, but most of it is muscle in my case. Not that its really important - I'll merely take them apart verbally.
But it's also easy to point at the stumbling drunk or the teenager with raging BO.
Most people who are drunk are going to be sober in the morning and their being drunk is a source of humour even to them. If someone's a real alcoholic, then no, that's not particularly funny either. If a teenager has raging body odor, then they probably would be happier knowing and doing something about it. In any case, pointing out something else unpleasant doesn't make the first thing pleasant. Unless you're going to make the argument that cruelty is common that it should just be accepted.
People are mean to other people sometimes. That is not a discrimination; that is life.
Or one could say her life was made miserable because of her weight.
You could but that would be logically incorrect. People's cruelty was the first order cause. To illustrate this, your reasoning would also say that it is the fault of someone for being black if they receive insults about being black, the fault of someone for being Christian if they receive insults about being Christian, the fault of someone for choosing to be a computer programmer if they are laughed at by non-computer programmers.
As to your being grotesquely obese but not being a victim of insults or abuse or being judged, I can only assume that you either live in a spectacularly more enlightened part of the world than most of the USA, or that you simply don't care about it. I suspect the latter. Again, your logic is flawed. That you don't care about the abuse does not mean that someone else does not. That is a deductive fallacy.
According to random numbers [wikipedia.org] found here, acceptable body fat percentages for men are between 18%-26% and between 25%-31% for women. These numbers aren't even vaguely "absurdly low". Now, if you are talking about the media's version of what is "healthy" I agree.
I was, hence the quotes around "fat" and "normal". What medical science and what popular media consider healthy and normal are widely divergent.
Yeah, thanks, Mr. A. Coward. I'm slightly overweight but not much. I did however have a very close friend whose life was made very miserable because of the abuse she got about her weight. I don't like this obsession with judging people for their weight, and I'm fine with not liking that.
Society doesn't need to punish you for having wayward thoughts. They just bring you up to feel guilt and you punish yourself.;)
Anyway, yeah - fat people. For some reason society has decided its okay to mock them. Even better, a normal healthy weight is "fat" and only absurdly low fat percentages are "normal", meaning that's even more people that you're allowed to tell them what they should be doing with their diets / bodies.
Now admittedly the USA has some fat, fucking people, but that doesn't mean the air-brushed media people aren't some irritating smug cunts.
I agree with your other stances, except abortion. That's between a woman and her doctor. But I'm also a pro-gun, anti-Iraq War, anti-Bush socialist.
If someone didn't take precautions and wants to pick up the morning after pill early on, then I wont condemn them. If someone has a medical reason not to have a child or it was forced on them, then I can sympathise even though its sad. But by the time you get to late-term abortions, that's a living, recognizable child. It may well bend your life in a different direction than you meant if you carry that child to term, but I don't see it as an option when the alternative is to kill that child. Give it up for adoption afterwards if you wish - there are plenty of couples waiting to raise it - but don't kill it for the sake of another six months of physical discomfort or guilt. That's where I'm coming from. But again, here is something that I find myself caught between two angry factions that both condemn my views. You have a militant "a woman's right" lobby who howl in fury if you dare to say someone is wrong for killing that child, or like to turn away from the facts and pretend that its just tissue, not really life yet. And on the other, you have a largely religious faction that judge my views a moral affront against God. It is so similar to the "Right / Left" polarising that its hard to consider it accidental. Where is the space for non-hardline non-religious people who don't wish to inherit the baggage of one loud faction or the other?
Don't get me wrong, btw. I don't have any issue with you for having a different stance on abortion than I do. We can resent people for their actions, but beliefs are things that we can discuss civilly. At any rate, the problem is the same as in politics - a dividing into rival factions that claim positions as ideologies and deny those positions to outsiders. Anti-abortion "belongs" to the Right. Free health care "belongs" to the Left (or would if what the Democrats were pushing actually was this). Sure you can on a personal level say you want a little from both, but in practice who do you vote for? That's how it works. Deny people a choice and they'll fight you. Give them a choice between two outcomes that you control both of, and people will nod and pick one.
It's like the magician's shell game. The trick isn't making you pick a cup that doesn't have a ball under it. The trick is making you think that its under any of them at all. Until the US gets over its factionalism (which is difficult because it requires accepting you're not always right), then its going to continue choosing one empty cup after another.
Anyway, its good to see someone else walking away from the table. I'm European so I don't get much say in US politics.;) But hopefully you're American and do. A common perception of Americans is that they're overly proud of their country and think its super-special. The thing is, at base, there are some good reasons for that. You have one of the best foundations for a democracy we've ever seen - it was put together by people who really thought about what they were doing. The free speech enshrined in your country is far ahead of most of the world, even most of Western Europe. I would, despite not being American, sincerely like to see that country live up to being a good world leader again.
As you've asked, I am against the death penalty. I don't see revenge as a supportable reason for punishing people. Supportable punishments for harming others are restitution, protection of society and (as a preferable consequence of these two) discouragement to others to do the same. The reason most commonly put forward for capital punishment is to discourage people from committing the capital crime due to fear of this "ultimate punishment". It demonstrably fails in this regard. Anyone who doesn't regard years or decades of their life imprisoned as being a reason not to do something has likely lost their capacity to weigh consequences against their actions. People who murder are either past caring or think they wont get caught. Capital punishment does nothing for either of these. The other reason put forward for the death penalty is "justice". I personally just file that under "revenge" (see earlier).
If someone has harmed another, I would see them try to make good that debt rather than not. Some debts cannot be repayed (murder for example), but some good can be done. That said, some of us would rather die than undergo some of the punishment that gets inflicted on people in the USA, coming out of prison years later beaten and abused and turned into a worse person than when you went in.
Wow. For real, bloodthirsty hate it takes a leftist.
Oh don't be ridiculous. Hatred isn't the preserve of either of the fictional factions popularly called Left and Right. Anyone with a brain doesn't consider themselves "right" or "left", because they know that you can't divide policy into two arbitrary blocs and say one is good and the other bad. The brainwashing that has gone on in the USA is staggering. I think some people would actually have anurisms when confronted with someone like myself (anti-abortion, pro-gun ownership, anti-Iraq war, anti-Bush, socialist who disliked Obama). How the the general US mindset got economic models so muddled up with so many other non-economic issues is jaw-dropping.
And I despise Berlusconi as do most educated Italians, but I don't condone hitting a 75-old man with a statuette no matter how corrupt that man may be.
Who is going to sit quietly with a headache for 90 minutes every time they want to watch a shitty action movie? Why is this 3D trend continuing despite the obvious uselessness?
Here's a note, old timer. If you don't like it out here, stay on your lawn. Don't you get this? We can have 3D movies in our living room! At what point did you switch from thinking new technology was cool to complaining about it?
A statement of "I'd like to kill X" on your own Facebook page isn't a threat according to me, however. Post it on the supposed victim's FaceBook page, so it's more of a message to them, and it gets a little more like a threat. Post "I'm going to kill you" and, sans context, it could be a threat (though people more frequently say that than mean it). Only yesterday, I heard someone say of a colleague that they were going to rip their head off and spit down the neck-hole. They (probably) wont.
And how similar is this girl saying "I want to kill someone" one time on her own Facebook page to a co-worker who sits next to you and mutters "I want to kill you" day after day?
Slashdot Mirror
They interviewed the guy who started the Facebook group on the radio. I suppose he could be Cowel's secret partner, but there's no evidence available to imply this. Anyway, people buy it for their own reasons, not to reduce the profits of anyone (or if anyone has, that individual has a too limited understanding of how the market works). The best thing is that Shelter, a great charity, gets a big boost this Christmas.
I'm probably being dense, but how does this undermine claims that online music piracy is responsible for falling sales? (Assuming sales are falling). As this song is both cheap (I think 29 pence is pretty fair to have a song I like to listen to whenever I want) and is available as a download, it puts the lie to common pro-pirate arguments that "prices are hiked too high" and "they wont give it to me in a form I want".
Not arguing, I just don't understand where you got the conclusion.
Regards,
H.
Good Lord, do they? Are they all Scottish or something?
No, this is not the USA. Labour and the Conservatives are both pretty awful (though at least Labour still has some of the decent old guard in its ranks whereas the Conservatives were pretty much rotten since historical times). Anyway, the point is that you can vote for the Liberal Democrats. They're an order of magnitude better than both Labour and the Conservatives and unlike in the USA, voting for a third party isn't a waste. The Lib Dems have many seats across the UK and enough of a faction in the Houses of Parliament that they have influence. If we'd had a few more Lib Dems, the vote for war on Iraq would actually have been lost. That's what a small difference can make to the outcome of large events. You can even vote Green in the UK because at least they do respectably well at local elections and the European elections.
In short, we are different to the USA. Much of the privately-owned media is trying to push the UK toward the same two-party puppet show that the USA has, but there is a third, less sucky-choice, nonetheless.
You might be right... but I think this requires some examination. The BPI are the UK equivalent of the RIAA. They similarly earn their crust by representing studios against things like copyright infringement. Now people buying music from these studios means that the BPI's paymasters have more money and some of that money might roll downhill. But like the RIAA, the BPI make capital out of scaring the studios with the spectre of piracy. Two things happen when people buy music as a pure download. Firstly, they're a counter to the pirates that take without paying, thus they show some honesty in the target audience meaning piracy seems less threatening than it otherwise would. Secondly, it supports and promotes a distribution model that doesn't require a lot of capital or risk to get involved in, thus opening up the market to smaller studios and even artists marketing themselves directly. This latter consequence of paying for downloads is almost certainly not one that helps the BPI or RIAA.
So this is indeed great news for Sony (and a nice bonus for whichever Sony exec started the Facebook group ), even better news for Shelter which are a great charity, but probably not in the long term, good for the BPI. Just like the worst thing for people making money out of "The War on Drugs" is people coming off drugs, the worst thing for those making a living from fighting piracy, are honest people who are willing to pay for something they like.
It's for charity.
I want to do you a favour. You seem like a well-intentioned and friendly sort. Now clearly you see being overweight as a negative as you are arguing people are not wrong for insulting the overweight (my original point where you said the blame wasn't theirs). You also said that people are not slaves to a whisp of DNA. So I put the two together and ask you to lose weight and become slim this year. Either you will achieve this and reach a state you think is more desirable, or you will fail and concede the powerful effect of your circumstances and your genetics on your weight, both gaining self-insight and becoming less mistakenly judgemental. It's a win-win either way and all you have to do is post a reply to this saying "yes." I'll even be your training buddy as I could lose a few pounds myself. What do you say? Is my logic sound? I hope you will accept.
:D
Yeah, straight to personal insults about my family and name calling in the first line. That really supports a reasoned argument. *roll eyes*
Accusations of ad hominem from someone who opens both posts with insults? I didn't go looking for character flaws to invalidate your argument. Your argument itself was racist. Your argument was (and apparently still is), that it's okay to insult people because 'they choose to be fat' but its not okay to insult people for being black because 'they have no choice'. Any reasonable person would say its not okay to insult people for being black because there is nothing wrong with being black. But the sole basis of your argument is that insulting people about weight and insulting people about race (both attributes of a person's body) is that the former 'is a choice' therefore its okay. It is the inevitable flip-side of that argument that were it possible to choose a race, it would then be acceptable to insult people for being of a particular race. And that's a racist argument because it requires that one thinks there is a basis for insulting people based on race. Do you follow this reasoning? I'm sure most do, but this is the second time it has been explained to you. Start at the beginning of this paragraph and follow it through and see if you can find any part that does not follow on logically from the former. What I am saying is obviously not me "going looking for character flaws". I've written out a reasoned deduction based on exactly what you're saying. Your sole argument is that its okay to insult people about their weight because they may have some control over it unlike race, so were skin colour a choice, discrimination against colours that 'society' didn't like would similarly be okay. It can't be made any simpler than that. Either you understand where you have fallen prey to racism or you, for a second time, ignore the evidence and say its just a personal attack. It isn't - it's a direct analysis of your argument.
Do you have any conception of the thread of this conversation, or are you just using it as a launching pad for making statements that don't quite connect. The original post of mine that has launched all your comments about my being "a retard" and "being raised improperly" was that I didn't like people finding it acceptable to come up and insult someone I cared about because she was overweight and I extended that to anyone else who was in a similar situation. Your rebuttal to that is "there is nothing wrong with pointing out someone has chosen to be fat." Now how the Hell do those two things connect? You're shifting ground like a landslide here. And you keep coming back to the issue of "choice". Even if it is allowed that being overweight is a choice, you think its okay to walk up to someone and shout abuse at them because of their lifestyle choices? Perhaps instead of race, I should have picked sexuality to make it clearer to you. Just as with body type, people are biologically disposed to prefer one gender over another. But whether they act upon that biological instinct is a choice, so by your logic it is okay to abuse and discriminate against people because of which gender they have sex with, because it is a choice that you have judged wrong. Are you not getting this? You want to judge someone for being overweight and you say this is acceptable because it is a ch
The poster I was replying to said that it was her fault if someone mocked her or treated her badly because of an attribute of herself. I responded by showing other cases where someone could abuse you because of an attribute, intended to illustrate that (assuming you didn't approve of these other cases), the principle of abusing someone and saying its their fault is a bad one. Considering that these two posters are so vocal on the subject of choice and personal responsibility, its ironic how insistent they are that if someone insults another person about their weight, it's the fault of the person being insulted.
Careful calling people a retard. Do you want me to point out the obvious problem in your post?
The OP stated that it was her fault people insulted her for being overweight. I merely showed other examples of exactly the same principle: someone being insulted because of an attribute about them. His argument includes all of the things I listed - yes, including race. Yet you treat obesity differently. Why? Because you say it is a choice? Here is the the very obvious problem in your post: You are making the argument that it is acceptable to mock people about their weight because you think they have control over it, and you illustrate this with a comparison to how it is not okay to insult someone about being black... because they don't have a choice.
Wow! Now *that* is racist. The non-racist would immediately identify that the reason it is not okay to insult someone about being black is because there's nothing fucking wrong with being black. And the point of correlation is that just as its no relevance to anyone else what skin colour you have, is it is likewise nobody's business judging people about your weight.
Why did you bring choice into it? Because your mental process is that the reason to hold back from judging someone is if they can't help it for some reason. How about the reason for not judging someone being that it's not your place to judge them?
Don't like what I'm saying? Take a long look at your post before you reply and ask yourself if you honestly weren't just following the reasoning I've stated.
Your reasoning, flawed though it is, is based on obesity being just a choice as if the matter is simple. Given how much better you usually feel if you're fit and active than if you're overweight and sedentary, then if it's just "a choice" then why are people choosing to be fat and if it's just a choice uninfluenced by external factors, then why is obesity more prevalent in some countries than in others, why does it run in families, why are poorer people in the USA more prone to obesity than more affluent people? It is demonstrable that external factors are a major factor in obesity by these observable facts. So even if you did feel that it is your place to judge others for being fat (and again, what puts you in that position?), then how do you reconcile that with "the choice" clearly being easy for some and very hard for others?
Do you want to go back and take a look at my original post? I said that I didn't like the way my friend got a lot of abuse because she was overweight. I didn't like the way society discriminated against people for their weight. That was my post. I take it that you condone those things because, well, you're arguing with me. Or do you simply object on some principle to another person getting angry about discrimination? Which is it? Neither sounds like something I'd want to admit to but they're the only explanations for your post seeing as there were no factual corrections to be made.
Then, I'm sorry, but I'll just explain again, then.
This does not pertain to your argument. You're saying that legality has bearing on morality? Reality says otherwise. A lack of legislation about insulting people does not make insulting them acceptable to me.
You have deliberately selected the one element I listed that is not a choice, in order to imply that the case of obesity is different to all my cases on the grounds that you consider it a choice. In fact, I listed a number of items which are choices (such as religion) where it remains publicly unacceptable to mock people for these attributes. There is also something insidious in your above statement which you appear unaware of. The direct inference of the above is that it is incorrect to insult people because of their skin colour because this is not a choice. Whereas personally I believe it is incorrect to insult people about their skin colour because it is not a reason to treat people badly in and of itself.
The same principle ought to apply to people's weight, yes? Yet you seem to think that it is acceptable to insult people about their weight for some reason, even though it is similarly not of concern to other people in most circumstances. Apparently this reason has to do with people's ability to influence their weight to some degree. Apparently your logic is that it is okay to insult people for something if you believe that it was their choice. Apparently you believe that the insult is deserved if one chooses to do something that some of society doesn't like irrespective of whether that choice has anything to do with them. Unless of course you're arguing that people are cruel to people with weight problems because of it does do harm to them, but I'm certain that is not what you were arguing.
You are implying that the basis of my argument was that some religion did, or that obesity being part of a religion is a requirement for it to be tolerated? Eh?
Again, law != morality. There's no constitutional protection against someone coming up to your partner in the street and insulting them, but I'm confident you'll agree it's wrong. And I would hope that you would leap to your partners defense. So I don't know why when I express dislike at people being judgemental about someone I cared about that you start telling me there's no constitutional protection for them, with the implication that they should expect and accept that abuse.
Trust me - not if they're a friend of mine and I'm with them. I might be 230lb, but most of it is muscle in my case. Not that its really important - I'll merely take them apart verbally.
Most people who are drunk are going to be sober in the morning and their being drunk is a source of humour even to them. If someone's a real alcoholic, then no, that's not particularly funny either. If a teenager has raging body odor, then they probably would be happier knowing and doing something about it. In any case, pointing out something else unpleasant doesn't make the first thing pleasant. Unless you're going to make the argument that cruelty is common that it should just be accepted.
Ah, I see yo
You could but that would be logically incorrect. People's cruelty was the first order cause. To illustrate this, your reasoning would also say that it is the fault of someone for being black if they receive insults about being black, the fault of someone for being Christian if they receive insults about being Christian, the fault of someone for choosing to be a computer programmer if they are laughed at by non-computer programmers.
As to your being grotesquely obese but not being a victim of insults or abuse or being judged, I can only assume that you either live in a spectacularly more enlightened part of the world than most of the USA, or that you simply don't care about it. I suspect the latter. Again, your logic is flawed. That you don't care about the abuse does not mean that someone else does not. That is a deductive fallacy.
I was, hence the quotes around "fat" and "normal". What medical science and what popular media consider healthy and normal are widely divergent.
Yeah, thanks, Mr. A. Coward. I'm slightly overweight but not much. I did however have a very close friend whose life was made very miserable because of the abuse she got about her weight. I don't like this obsession with judging people for their weight, and I'm fine with not liking that.
Society doesn't need to punish you for having wayward thoughts. They just bring you up to feel guilt and you punish yourself.
Anyway, yeah - fat people. For some reason society has decided its okay to mock them. Even better, a normal healthy weight is "fat" and only absurdly low fat percentages are "normal", meaning that's even more people that you're allowed to tell them what they should be doing with their diets / bodies.
Now admittedly the USA has some fat, fucking people, but that doesn't mean the air-brushed media people aren't some irritating smug cunts.
If someone didn't take precautions and wants to pick up the morning after pill early on, then I wont condemn them. If someone has a medical reason not to have a child or it was forced on them, then I can sympathise even though its sad. But by the time you get to late-term abortions, that's a living, recognizable child. It may well bend your life in a different direction than you meant if you carry that child to term, but I don't see it as an option when the alternative is to kill that child. Give it up for adoption afterwards if you wish - there are plenty of couples waiting to raise it - but don't kill it for the sake of another six months of physical discomfort or guilt. That's where I'm coming from. But again, here is something that I find myself caught between two angry factions that both condemn my views. You have a militant "a woman's right" lobby who howl in fury if you dare to say someone is wrong for killing that child, or like to turn away from the facts and pretend that its just tissue, not really life yet. And on the other, you have a largely religious faction that judge my views a moral affront against God. It is so similar to the "Right / Left" polarising that its hard to consider it accidental. Where is the space for non-hardline non-religious people who don't wish to inherit the baggage of one loud faction or the other?
;) But hopefully you're American and do. A common perception of Americans is that they're overly proud of their country and think its super-special. The thing is, at base, there are some good reasons for that. You have one of the best foundations for a democracy we've ever seen - it was put together by people who really thought about what they were doing. The free speech enshrined in your country is far ahead of most of the world, even most of Western Europe. I would, despite not being American, sincerely like to see that country live up to being a good world leader again.
Don't get me wrong, btw. I don't have any issue with you for having a different stance on abortion than I do. We can resent people for their actions, but beliefs are things that we can discuss civilly. At any rate, the problem is the same as in politics - a dividing into rival factions that claim positions as ideologies and deny those positions to outsiders. Anti-abortion "belongs" to the Right. Free health care "belongs" to the Left (or would if what the Democrats were pushing actually was this). Sure you can on a personal level say you want a little from both, but in practice who do you vote for? That's how it works. Deny people a choice and they'll fight you. Give them a choice between two outcomes that you control both of, and people will nod and pick one.
It's like the magician's shell game. The trick isn't making you pick a cup that doesn't have a ball under it. The trick is making you think that its under any of them at all. Until the US gets over its factionalism (which is difficult because it requires accepting you're not always right), then its going to continue choosing one empty cup after another.
Anyway, its good to see someone else walking away from the table. I'm European so I don't get much say in US politics.
As you've asked, I am against the death penalty. I don't see revenge as a supportable reason for punishing people. Supportable punishments for harming others are restitution, protection of society and (as a preferable consequence of these two) discouragement to others to do the same. The reason most commonly put forward for capital punishment is to discourage people from committing the capital crime due to fear of this "ultimate punishment". It demonstrably fails in this regard. Anyone who doesn't regard years or decades of their life imprisoned as being a reason not to do something has likely lost their capacity to weigh consequences against their actions. People who murder are either past caring or think they wont get caught. Capital punishment does nothing for either of these. The other reason put forward for the death penalty is "justice". I personally just file that under "revenge" (see earlier).
If someone has harmed another, I would see them try to make good that debt rather than not. Some debts cannot be repayed (murder for example), but some good can be done. That said, some of us would rather die than undergo some of the punishment that gets inflicted on people in the USA, coming out of prison years later beaten and abused and turned into a worse person than when you went in.
Oh don't be ridiculous. Hatred isn't the preserve of either of the fictional factions popularly called Left and Right. Anyone with a brain doesn't consider themselves "right" or "left", because they know that you can't divide policy into two arbitrary blocs and say one is good and the other bad. The brainwashing that has gone on in the USA is staggering. I think some people would actually have anurisms when confronted with someone like myself (anti-abortion, pro-gun ownership, anti-Iraq war, anti-Bush, socialist who disliked Obama). How the the general US mindset got economic models so muddled up with so many other non-economic issues is jaw-dropping.
And I despise Berlusconi as do most educated Italians, but I don't condone hitting a 75-old man with a statuette no matter how corrupt that man may be.
I think you mean sex.
Here's a note, old timer. If you don't like it out here, stay on your lawn. Don't you get this? We can have 3D movies in our living room! At what point did you switch from thinking new technology was cool to complaining about it?
A statement of "I'd like to kill X" on your own Facebook page isn't a threat according to me, however. Post it on the supposed victim's FaceBook page, so it's more of a message to them, and it gets a little more like a threat. Post "I'm going to kill you" and, sans context, it could be a threat (though people more frequently say that than mean it). Only yesterday, I heard someone say of a colleague that they were going to rip their head off and spit down the neck-hole. They (probably) wont.
And how similar is this girl saying "I want to kill someone" one time on her own Facebook page to a co-worker who sits next to you and mutters "I want to kill you" day after day?
It can even be a statement of fact. It's not a wrong thing of itself. Actions, not thoughts, may be judged.
That's my point - one of the few places I am willing to subscribe to is one of the few places I'm not actually bothered by the ads.