As Facebook will not allow me to share this because they refuse to pay for IP to news media, I am posting it here. The object is to assure my fellow Anti-Trump friends a Trump Dictatorship is unlikely. https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/trump-might-try-to-be-dictator-but-would-fail-again-by-eric-posner-2023-12?fbclid=IwAR22_021HiVkEaHc9tzeTSYmgyEITNLlj9rLL65GYO0DwPx8ndtDsEvKV9Q
There seems to be a backlash to the new environment of tolerance and inclusion. The established order or those that claim to be the guardians of North American Culture believe that every time we turn around someone is offended by the existing cultural norms and trying to change them. They believe so called minorities, are trying to force their world view on them. That is an ironic position given that the dominant and legitimate only by conquest culture has been doing that to minorities for centuries. Keep in mind that culture by conquest applies to races, religions, political systems and sexuality.
Conquest by culture can be seen in the following examples.
1. Race – Enslaving cultures conquered the black culture by perceiving them as less than human and exploiting them for labour.
2. Religion – Any religion that successfully forces by law or by societal pressure their beliefs on others can be said to have conquered them spiritually.
3. Political system – Although we tend to see democracy as evolved and thus superior to all other this is a position from our own world view. legitimate tribal political systems were eradicated on conquest.
4. Sexuality – This crosses over with religion which often dictates appropriate sexuality but sexual persecution or conquest can exist outside of religion.
So we have now determined that the enemy of cultures is conquest. The conquerors who attempted to eradicate the culture of other races, other religions, other political systems and other sexual orientations are now feeling like they are the ones being conquered, Ironic.
Is there a solution to this situation. Yes and it is what is happening now. Consider the following thought experiment.
1. You have a glass of water with ground lapis lazuli in it (blue water) . You drop 4 drops of red food colour into it. The red food colour is made from ground up iron oxide AKA rust. The water is now a nice purple colour but both the elements of lapis Lazuli and Iron Oxide are still present. No problem.
2. You have a glass of water with red Zooplankton in it. You drop in green zooplankton. The problem is the red zooplankton are fatter and hungrier than the green zooplankton. Rather than surviving on the nutrients in the water they eat the green Zooplankton. Problem at least for the red zooplankton.
So the first example requires no solution the water is arguably improved by each addition. In the second example neither Plankton is improved by the contact. Is there a solution? No not to the original problem but if both species had been introduced equally. Equal numbers Equal conditions (both well fed) and both with a sufficient food source in the water then the problem would not have occurred.
The solution is to be like the water with food colour in it. To live in the new society without consuming / conquering the other. Allow people their cultural differences and do not expect them to conform to yours unless they so choose to do. Then we will have a nice peaceful “purple” world.
As a parent I am becoming more aware of what I say that might influence Charlotte’s behavior. One thing we need to be very conscious of is Casusl ridicule. We all do it. When you’re in your car and someone moves over without signaling do you use the expression “I wonder where he got his license” or do you laugh at relatives who are eccentric saying “Every family has one” etc… There are worse incidents like trying to make a simple person say or do something that might embarrass them. Then there are minor comments on person’s behaviors. We often do this but don’t realize that the frequency is so often that the picture we are drawing of the person is highly insulting. Then there is the long list of names we call people and excuse these with excuses like “but it’s true”. Names we use like Fat and Lazy, sloppy, absentminded shoddy, plain, or redneck vulgar etc., are not to improve life but draw it down. How often have you found your perception of people is wrong after you got to know them? Even if the moniker fits who gave you the right to judge people like this? Someone might not be as hard working or well dressed as you but why is it your business to ridicule them for being happy as they are. Would you rather be made miserable by your judgement of them?
I want Charlotte to be able to go into a friend’s place and not judge them by the fact thier curtains are made old flags or that none of thier furniture matches or that they have three tons of comic books piled on each end table. I want her to respect someone who is a sanitation worker as much as a lawyer. When I was younger although I was religious I had a friend who was an exotic dancer. Not once did I say anything about what she did for a living let alone ridicule her for it.
Finally if you have to judge or ridicule someone to make yourself feel better about yourself the person worthy of judgement is you…..
When I went looking for a graphic for this I came across the attached picture and thought how appropriate. Then I read the author and realized that she was one of the persons I had judged many times. Rather than moving on to a quote from someone I respected more I decided that in this incidence Tammy Fay Bakker deserved my respect for pointing out the truth.
This image was posted to an American Anti-Gun site. Gun owners found it highly offensive and asked how dare people post such a thing. How dare you object You who as this image demonstrates are willing to sacrifice your children on the altar of the right to bear arms! It is a statistical fact that If every gun owned in he US had only one bullet and each bullet was used to kill one person there would still be ammunition left over once every American was shot. There is something wrong with your society when you value your deadly toys over your children. America is sick!
So every once in a while you see these idiotic riddles like it takes 5 men 10 hours to build a bridge. How long will it take 10 men to build the same bridge? All the dumb answers that try to find logical holes in the riddle and the ones that involve aliens and time travelers aside, there is a problem here. First if it takes 5 men 10 hrs to build a bridge then mathematically it might be possible to build the same bridge in half the time (5hrs) by doubling the number of men (10) or 5 hours but then double that again 20 men would take 2.5 hours and again 40 men 1.25 hrs and again 80 men 42.54 minutes and again 160 men 21.25 minutes etc. Until you reach 5120 men and mathematically it should take 30 seconds to build the bridge. Not possible because it takes 30 seconds for one man to carry an object 20 feet. Taking it to the extreme 17840 men could mathematically build the bridge in 1/3 of a second or basically in the same amount of time it takes to blink. There is a limit to how long it takes to build a bridge at one point you reach it and then no matter how many men you assign to build the bridge it will take the same amount of time which may just be 10 hrs. So in grading the person’s involved in this riddle the author gets an F for not supplying enough details to solve it.
Woke means having or marked by an active awareness of systemic injustices and prejudices, especially those involving the treatment of ethnic, racial, or sexual minorities.
It does not mean Liberals that want to disrespect the past. It does not mean we should feel guilty about our history just aware of it’s true nature. We need to see how our past led to the systematic institutionalized racism and sexism we have today. To be Woke.
The reality is colonialism was the major cause of racial and social injustice. It was a form of conquest not a mission of mercy to bring civilization to the world.
We tend to look for blame but the truth is human nature is to blame and the institutions we created to feed that flawed nature not any given nation person or social structure. No Kings or emporers are the sole cause. Asian nations were on the verge of thier own forms of. Colonialism but western Europeans got out there first. Human greed is global.
Greed is the primary cause. We hear the slogan “for King and Country” but most of the expeditions of “discovery” were mercantile in nature not monarchical or national. Europeans were looking for a way to get to the east past all the other great companies that controlled the trade routes. The sources of wealth at home were exploited to the point of exhaustion. The concept of never ending growth (economically) was how we ended up selling humans for profit and stealing other nations in the so called quest to civilize them.
As for sexual exploitation of women this is also merantile in nature not in so much the sex trade but in market growth. The more we breed a population the larger our market. There were campaigns to encourage family growth and vague bible verses were used to encourage nation population growth. Women were given a role that even contradicted that outlined in the bible. Proverbs 31 tells us a noble woman does not just stay at home making babies ;
16She appraises a field and buys it from her earnings she plants a vineyard. Etc….. She is part of the economic community.
Religion was not the root cause. While churches cruised along with the conquest they were both exploited and exploiters. The Christisn faith is all about selflessness a man preached that we should love each other and give everything to our fellow humans and then gave his life for them. Kind of antithesis to the mercantile quest for wealth so no not the cause of colonialism just another instituion exploited by greed.
Kings and Countries were used as tools of greed as pocket books and bank accounts and markets were the means of greed and the cause of most social inequalities and injustices.
Humans need to be aware or woke to the fact we are all flawed.
Buying anything can be tough, but large purchases can be traumatic. Houses, Cars, Investments etc., are bills you often live with for years. Everyone seems to have advice on how to buy without remorse and some are contradictory. I am going to list some general things to consider below. These are not purchase specific but just rational points to remember when buying anything. The first 4 are the most important.
1. Do you need it?
2. Do you really want it?
Questions 1 and 2 are dependant on each other. We often buy things we don’t need because we want them for either social or psychological reasons. The ultra rich often buy less clothing but spend more on each article while the average person buys more clothes but spends less. Note – this is not entirely true for all genders. No we don’t need a big wardrobe but yes we feel better or more complete if we have one.
3. Can you afford it?
4. Can you afford to finance it?
If you have liquid assets (cash) enough to buy it and that cash is not earmarked for essentials yes you can afford it that is the simple answer to question 3. Question 4 is more difficult it requires you to have a budget. A budget is NOT things you plan to buy or need to spend money on. That is just a list. A budget is an estimate of income and expenditure for a set period of time. The crucial element is TIME. The faster slower or longer you spend money can determine how rich you are in the future. If you are poor you cannot afford to finance something even if your income has just gone up unless what you plan to buy will make you money. If you budget based on the amount of money you spend over time you can prevent things like job losses from making what you thought was affordable a catastrophic financial constraint. Basically if you buy it and cannot afford to finance it you get poorer unless the item has some form of Return on Investment ROI. That said buying on credit is not a sin, but doing so without the ability to pay it back is. So if it does not have some form of ROI or you cannot pay for it in a reasonable time without breaking your budget DON’T BUY IT.
You are ready to buy you have determined you need or want it and can afford it or can afford the financing to buy it.
Buying It
Is it worth what it is priced at?
The basic rule here is, are you getting the best price and value for your money. Here are you questions to answer.
5. Is it worth what it is priced at?
6. Can you buy it somewhere else for a better price?
7. Is buying it here more convenient?
8. Would it cost more to go get it from the source?
To answer question 5 you should never buy without knowing what the item generally sells at. When you answer question 6 always remember when you see a price that is to good to be true it often is just that too good to be a TRUE price. Question 7 is a personal call if you are willing to spend a few more dollars to buy the item were you find it that is fine but if that price is twice what it is worth then are you really thinking before you buy? Finally Question 8 can you jump the middleman? Can you buy from the farm? Can you find it online for cheaper?
Are you being served or sold?
In any purchase you are going to encounter a sales person. That can be anything from a sales clerk to a broker. The more expensive the item the better or more aggressive the sales person will be. Then there are the static sales items, flyers catalogues online websites and emails. Are these honest accurate and inclusive? These you can easily determine if they are truthful by comparing them with others and the answer is from question 5 and 6 above.
Here are the questions you should ask when dealing with a salesperson or broker:
9. Are you being lied to?
10. Are you paying for the salesman?
11. Are you getting his best price?
12. Do you need to barter?
13. When do you need to walk away?
The first thing you need to determine is what is the true price. When you work with a sales person the price can be fixed (usual retail) discounted or bartered. When you go to a Quikie Mart you would be wasting your time trying to barter with the clerk. He may be called a sales clerk but all he does is scan and take your money. If you tell him that you don’t think it is worth the price he will shrug his shoulders and go back to playing Call of Duty on his Iphone. Even your mom and pop corner stores rarely barter. A carton of milk is often within a few cents of the price from one store to the next. We will talk about “sales” later but these are the only way you are going to get a deal at the average grocery or corner store. So the most honest sales person is that guy on his cell phone. It is not worth his while to lie to you about the price.
As for Sales when a store reduces its price to either the lowest value it can or below that just to get rid of the cost of storing it. The rule of thumb is if it is not reduce by more than 20 percent on most items it is NOT a sale.
As for sales persons every sales person is likely going to find some way to deceive you most often legally though. Questions 9, 10 and 11 are related first off for question 9 all sales persons lie either out-right or by omission, because he is being paid to some degree, more or less by what he sells (see Q 10) and the better the price he gets per item the more he gets either by commission or salary increases.
This brings us to questions 12 and 13 which are related in so much as when you need to barter which is often then you need to determine when to say no thanks I will go somewhere else.
In North America we barter less that other nations. It is true we are sheep. If a shirt is listed as $15 here, for the most part, that is what you pay, it never hurts to ask if there is a better price or if it will be on sale soon but a 15 dollar shirt is usually a 15 dollar shirt.
BUT in other nations that is not always the case. A simple barter lesson from a country that commonly barters is a good way to learn how it works. In Egypt I was in a souvenir shop I asked how much the souvenir papyrus on the wall cost. The clerk said (translated prices) $35 which at the time was more than I wanted to pay. So I said no thanks. The clerk said Okay I will throw in a T shirt same price. I thought about it and said no I think I can pass on the papyrus and I have enough T shirts. So he said Okay how about $20 and no shirt. I still had decided to look at other things but thought just how far would this guy go. So I said, how about $15 for the papyrus and that T shirt? I was convinced that he would be annoyed by the offer but to my surprise he smiled and said sure. He asked me how long I had been living in Egypt and was surprised that I was just a tourist because tourists don’t barter.
So this story basically answers question 13 when do you need to walk away? You should be prepared to walk away at any time during your purchase. If I had not had the mental attitude that I did not need to buy the item and could leave at any time I would not have saved myself $20 or over half the original price. This is how Bartering works in Egypt or here. Know what you want to pay in advance and have the mental attitude that you don’t need the item enough not to walk away. You are almost never is a situation where a purchase is so essential that you can’t walk away. In this time period no one is ever in the dessert with $100 in their pocket bartering for a glass of water.
In conclusion if you don’t answer all 13 questions go with questions 1, 3, 5 and 13. Do you need it, can you afford it, is it the right price and can you walk away without regrets. Follow these simple rules and you will get what you need or want with few regrets.
Though whatever we are doing so far we are doing it right. Our daughter is happy smart social and developing well. That said, anything we can read is helpful. Looking through the myriad of parenting books I have discovered one disturbing thing they are all geared to defined gender roles. There are books for mommies of daughters and books for daddies of sons. The books for mommies of sons are mostly health relate not relarionship related. The few books for daddies of daughters are mostly for single dads and they assume daddies know nothing about little girls. It is admirable that there are more parenting books for LBGTQ but these seem to break down into 2 moms 2 dads and the latter again treats the dads as less competent than the 2 moms. There are few books for transsexuals besides how to raise a transsexual child. The moral of this story is someone needs to tell parenting experts that dads are not idiots when it comes to daughters. The few books on being a father to a daughter I have read make me wonder do dads really need to be told the obvious about girls. One odd thing is the few Scandinavian authors I have read don’t treat dads like idiots maybe I should move to Sweden….
It seems that people will now argue over anything. It might be a social side effectt of the Covid pandemic or an out growth of the rise of social media. Whichever it does not matter we should work on the combative nature of our debates and look for a middle ground of either tolerance, acceptance or agree to disagree. One side of the political specture seems to embrace a more objective over subjective answer to debates and does not seem to like that idea, or maybe they don’t know how to find a middle way. All too often I am accused of being wishy washy , vague , flip flopping, spineless peace maker or a liberal pacificator. All of these terms I have been called more than once and a few more rude responses. Don’t worry I am no easley prevoked or insulted contrary to popular belief.
So here is an example of how to take a middle road. I chose a nonpolitical one to avoid being called names.
The futile and trivial debate over the so called correct way to take your tea, with or without milk and sugar. One side predominently older UK citizens insist on milk if not milk and sugar in thier tea as the only correct way to drink tea. The other side younger and more subject to new or at least International ways tends (or trends) to insist that tea is supposed to be consumed without either milk or sugar. I fall into a middle position on this debate. I think it depends on the type of tea and your tastes. To me there is no correct way to drink tea just different ways to do so.
A recentt meme stated:
Do not accept badly made cups of tea. Do not surround yourself with people who make them. They don’t care about you
The following is an outtake from the responses that shows an attempt at a middle ground.
XXXXX -” I do care but I am a coffee drinker. Also I drink my tea without milk or sugar and don’t understand those who have those things. …. And my coffee too. Waste of money going to coffee shops really. I do like a coconut latte if I don’t make it myself though. … I gave up milk in 2018 and have mostly had no eczema since.”
Bill Arends – “XXXX Good choice 2% milk although lower in fat and has several nutrients not found in coconut milk is a common allergen that exacerbates eczema. But for general nutrition Almond or Cashew milk are better. My problem is I am allergic to Almonds and Cashew milk I find the flavour too strong. But growing up as a son of a British immigrant family in Canada tea was the choice of beverage and was generally severed with milk and sugar.
What we commonly call Chinese black tea (more correctly red tea) from the Camellia sinensis plant is is one of the few real teas now servered many other so called teas not derived from Camellia sinensis are called tea by convention but are not tea and taste much better without milk or sugar. For my morning cafiene fix I go for coffee as it has 100 milligrams of cafiene and tea has half of that (source -Mayo Cliinic). Yah I tend to be long winded must be too much cafiene. LOL”
——-
So to explain my response to XXXXX. I agreed milk is although a healthier choice, but for some alternatives or no milk is better and answsred why some people prefer milk in thier tea and some not. Now I await a response.
Even money has it I will be accused of being passive agressive or a less subjective approach is better and tea is best consumed black.
All humans are capable of racism it is only rational thought over our animal nature that stops us from becoming racist. But no I do not believe we are born racist. To defend that we as humans react to differences in all things with suspician. My three year old daughter likes the red peeled slices of apple over the green peeled slices even if they come from the same apple simply because most of the apples we get are red. This is an irrational bias. We learn by seeing the whole apple and being told that there is no difference and are thus able to make a rational conclusion that difference is more than perception. Both sides of the apple are the same under the skin.
I used to believe that I was free of racism. I do not believe there is any difference between me and any other person on the planet. All races are human and all have the capacity to develop equal intelect and physical capability. But how am I a racist? Implicitt racism is the answer. When I was young there were few black or Asian families in our town. I remember them clearly. If I was truly free of racism would I remember them without this association of race?
Now I have said it, a less racist person would look at my last statment and say “”that makes sense” , a person with a degree of racial bias would say, “I dont think so” and, a person who is determind not to accept their racial bias will say I “am being ridiculous”.
On a more sinister note, I can remember all the sh-tty racist jokes I have heard. I honestly believe I have never laughed at them, but I can also say until most recently I have not as often as I should called people out on them. I have but I always applied a filter to my objections. If it was a friend I might have but done so with respect. If it was a relative I rolled my eyes. If it was a stranger I did so with righteous anger. The last response being the most righteous and most correct way to do so. You cannot apply a filter to responding to hatred even in its mildest form.
Just because you don’t see your racism does not mean it is not there.
I have always had an issue with the idea of hell. My interpretation is the horrific descriptions are metaphorical, as much of the bible is, a way of describing a total separation from existance and God. Glory or heavan is a continuation of the eternal soul of each person and hell is an eradication of that soul as unworthy of continuation. In simple terms game over or next level.
So what about the parable of the wheat and the tares?
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2013%3A24&version=NKJV
Even Christ’s explanation seems to imply that persons of evil will be punished? I was so happy to find an interpretation of both the parable and the explanation that did not involve cooking people.
Origen of Alexandria[a] (c. 185 – c. 253), also known as Origen Adamantius, was an early Christian scholar, ascetic, and theologian who was born and spent the first half of his career in Alexandria. He was a prolific writer who wrote roughly 2,000 treatises in multiple branches of theology, including textual criticism, biblical exegesis and hermeneutics, homiletics, and spirituality. He was one of the most influential and controversial figures in early Christian theology, apologetics, and asceticism.
Origen had the following to say on the parable.
Abridged version
Good things in the human soul and wholesome words about anything have been sown by God the Word and are children of the kingdom. But while men are asleep who do not act according to the command of Jesus, “Watch and pray that you enter not into temptation”, (Matthew 26:41) the devil sows evil opinions over natural conceptions. In the whole world the Son of man sowed the good seed, but the wicked one tares—evil words. At the end of things there will be a harvest, in order that the angels may gather up and give over to fire the bad opinions that have grown upon the soul. Then those who become conscious that they have received the seeds of the evil one in themselves shall wail and be angry against themselves; for this is the gnashing of teeth. (Acts 7:54) Then shall the righteous shine, no longer differently, but all “as one sun”. (Matthew 13:43)
My take on Origen’s explanation…
So no cooked people just bad opinions that have grown in the souls of people. As for the idea of this happening when people are “asleep” I take that as when people are not thinking on the ideas presented.. So why is this important. Well the obvisous is we want our souls to go on. Therefore we need to feed our minds with the truth. The truth is not in my mind something dictated but something percieved snd interpreted. The second is the words of Christ are better interpreted as offering a reward for leaving ignorance behind rather than threats of punishment. We don’t beat our dogs into submision or use threats of violence on them to train them why would God do that to us?
PS Oh and don’t get me wrong I take the idea of truth as one of knowledge in general not of just theology or church dogma.
So once again someone is insisting that we are doing it wrong (see link below)
There are the ridiculous memes that tell you the whole in the pop can pull tab was to hold the straw. The creators of the pull tab said nope just how it was made. Then there are the banana peelers who insist we peel it from the point not the stem because that is the way monkeys do it. Which is bogus because 1. Monkeys dont actually like bananas. 2. The type of bananas we eat (Cavandish bananas) are actually bad for them. 3. Monkeys peel them any way they can they really dont care how, most times they bend them in half and eat them.
So now we are using emojis wrong so says some journalists teenager. Okay let’s take in account two things. 1. Language is fluid it changes and like it or not emojis are part of that fluid media. 2. Teenagers are not experts on anything and as such interpret things wrong.
So here is an example of fluidity in emojis. The high five emoji which shows two hands pressed together is most commonly used in southern and rural USA as a prayer emoji.
As for teenagers here is an example that shows how wrong they can be. When I was a teen in rural Ontario it was common to believe that thunbs down hand sign meant F— Off which it doesn’t. Also as heavy metal was popular when I was a teen we all said the hand sign of the horns refered to the devil as Black Sabath used it all the time. The reality is Ronnie James Dio popularized the sign of the horns in heavy metal.He claimed his Italian grandmother used it to ward off the evil eye (which is known in Italy as malocchio). Dio began using the sign soon after joining the metal band Black Sabbath in 1979. To him it just looked cool.
So if you are feeling disconnected from your teen and want to take on thier culture largerly because you want to turn back your gradually aging clock remember the following: Teenagers are often wrong. they are still making the mistakes we made when we were them. You are an adult and on most occassions you are right. Finally not everything means the same thing to everyone.
https://www.cbc.ca/parents/learning/view/im-using-all-the-wrong-emojis-says-my-teen
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Here is a political lesson I learned from my 2 year old. When the other side of the debate is angry you need to love them enough to see thier point before you put thier wrong ideas to bed.
Little one will not go to bed. Mommy and I are exhausted. I have been working on course evaluations all day till my head hurts. Mommy is crushing through piles of proposals. It is 8:15 and little one won’t go to bed. Typical 2 year old. We know she is not doing this to make us angry, not that we could get angry at a 2 year old troubadour who sings twinkle twinkle little star at 8 pm after she has stripped naked. The truth is she is just learning and from her perspective being put to bed is just mean. We know this and we let her stay up just a bit later maybe read her anther story but she is still in bed before 9. That said maybe a new 7pm bed time might be better.
Okay so a group of rightwing Canadians decide that they don’t like being told to wear a mask get vaccinated and figuratively go to bed for a while until the pandemic ends.
Let’s be honest it sucked. I hated it to but I’m an adult I know that this is like puting on pyjamas brushing my teeth and getting a good nights sleep. It is what is good for me and everyone else in the house.
But like angry children some of our fellow Canadians thought that rather than sitting out the pandemic they would have a tailgate party and stay awake all night honking thier horns and peeing on things. Pretty much like my 2 year old.
What do we do? Do we take them out and flog them into submission? Do we lock them up and not let them out until the psndemic is totally over? None of the above. We listen to them. We admonish them for being bad. We tell them how masks vaccinres and lockdowns saved Canada from a greater pandemic and we send them back to Medicine Hat and Red Deer respectively.
You can’t not look at people like Tamara Lich and Pat King and not see them as political 2 year olds. They are right in some aspects, the pandemic has forced us to waste a good three years of our lives in lockdowns and with restructions but like a good night’s sleep we are better for it.
Sure Lich and King wont get it but next time we will be ready for them. We won’t let them turn our streets into a forum for thier tempor tantrums. We will see the night time coming sooner and change the bed time, bring on the preventative measures sooner with a better implementation plan. We will act as good parents and put forth a. Unified front Pronvince and Federal governments working together.
So did Lich and King teach us something sure, but did we need them to? Hell no! It would be better if. My daughter went to bed without so much work and if Lich had stayed home in Medicine Hat and King had stayed in Red Deer where he belongs. Thank God thier political temlor tantrum is almost over….
Just like angry 2 year olds It’s bed time for the Convoy thay’ve stayed up too late already.
The rise of the radical right and right wing anarchy is our fault. Why? Because we don’t understand tolerance.
Tolerance is:
The ability or willingness to tolerate something, in particular the existence of opinions or behavior that one does not necessarily agree with.
What we don’t understand is tolerance has logical limits. What are we “willing” to tolerate. When opinions step into the realm of harmful behavior then tolerance goes out the window. Tolerance does not mean there should not be consequences for harmful behaviors.
We should no more allow the radical right’s disregard of rational health measures, than we should allow revenge killings. That sounds like the logical falacy of faulty comparison which happens when the comparison is not complete or when the items that are being compared are in different categories, like apples and oranges but it is not. In both cases the person with no authority is deciding to ignore the law based on the belief that they are right. In both cases innocent people are endangered. In both cases it is a breach of the concept of personal freedom which is limited by how your freedom endangers others. In both cases it is brought on by the mistrust of true authority.
Once you take matters into your own hands, hands that have no authority to act, you step into the realm of anarchy. You are not defending democracy or protecting peoples freedoms you are abridging democratically created laws and saying your definition of freedom supersedes that of the people.
Attached is an example of both, were someone with no authority decided that democratically created laws should not apply to them and thus they placed their own so called freedom above the lives of others. (They are of course a gross exaggeration of the radical right bordering on insane but they fit) Gross ignorance at best or rationalized violence for the sake of violence at worst. If we stop tolerating violent attacks on the democratic process this sort of selfrighteous vigilantism might come to a screeching halt.
The radical right engendered by the so called Freedom Convoy or in the US the January 6 insurection is not righteous patriotism it is criminal anarchy. So when the Emergency Measures inquiry and the January 6 hearings are done and the criminals in both cases are exposed maybe we can get back to a situation were we understand there are limits to both tolerance and freedom and the spiral into rightwing anarchy ends.
We have all seen those memes that tell us we are doing things all wrong. Then there are the ones that tell you the original use of everyday things which in reality is just nonsense used as clickbait.
Here are some facts to combat the meme BS.
The neck of a wine bottle PREVENTS heat transfer not promotes it.
The rivets on jeans are not button rivets they are just rivets hence Levis Straus jeans are called original riveted clothing on the label.
The flaps on juice boxes are a byproduct of how they are made. They were not intended to make them easier to hold.
Chinese food takeout boxes can be used as plates but were not intended to be they are just folded that way so as to be leak proof.
The plastic disk under a soda bottle cap is the same as all bottles filled with liquid , carbonated or not it is just a seal.
The bumps on keyboards are to assist touch-typers to find the home row not for blind typists.
The 57 logo on a ketchup bottle is just advertising it is not to help you find the right angle to poor it.
The fold out section on a shopping cart was originally designed as a child seat not for eggs.
Margins on lined paper like all other paper prevents the eye from running off the page when reading. Nothing to do with rats eating the paper. LOL
The movable head supports on cars are not head rest they are a safety device to prevent whiplash and the fact you can use them to break the window is just convenience. Oh and on many cars to prevent people from removing them they are not removable.
The colored squares on toothpaste tubes are for printer alignment not cutters.
No the hole in the pot handle was for hanging it not to hold utensils.
Paper condiment cups were not designed to fold out to make little plates it is just a folding process.
A friend of mine came back to his car this summer to find the left rear door window of his car broken but nothing was missing. He cleaned up the mess and buckled his his daughter unto her car seat on the right side of the car. He noticed her dolly was on the floor picked up the doll and brushed it off and handed the doll to his daughter who said dolly smells like grandma.
Before I begin I want to apologize for the offensive movie poster attached and the references and comparisons to offensive political movements and ideas from the past. That said I think they are necessary to highlight the dangers of Populism.
Nietzsche views freedom as the ability to pursue will to power, or self achievement and this he found in the warrior hero. He views liberalism and the liberal state as a threat to freedom, that forces people into a mediocre herd. This is the basis of National Socialism thought (yes Nazis). I will first note here for those so simple as to not understand that National Socialism is not remotely related to what we call Socialism We are not talking about socialism as National Socialism is so far from socialism as to be the antithesis to it. So given that base philosophy, Hitler took Nietzsche’s warrior hero to megalomaniac heights and distorted the idea of freedom. He saw what was good for him as inevitably good for the nation because he knew himself to be right (A 1930’s Donal Trump) Although this seems to flow into the rightwing ideology that what is truly good for me is what is good for all people, it was likely the thought in Hitler’s twisted mind. It was inevitable because it fit neatly into his, I am God complex, which he developed as for a large percentage of his life people of sane mind laughed at his ideas and so called greatness. The great artist that failed the entrance exam to the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna as they found his drawings unsatisfactory. Like another megalomaniac we know who called himself a great businessman while having a large number of his businesses go bankrupt. Back to the concept of Freedom. We are free based on the idea we are free from the things that are detrimental to us but should not be free from the things that are advantageous or beneficial. Though I am not sure Nietzsche would agree. My take on this is based on my Christianity. To me Christianity teaches while a person should have the drive or will to be the best he can be, he or she should strive to do so as a member of the herd and this humility should be a limit he or she places on his or her own freedom. I say “places” because Christianity is a choice. (Pardon to abusive use of gender based pronouns I still have not gotten used to ways to write without them). Okay philosophy aside how does this fall into the reality of what is happening politically today. Populism is on the rise. The idea some have that they are disenfranchised because thier vote does not matter, either because the majority of the herd have been fooled by fake news or the vote was stolen, that being thier vote was never actually counted. These are the people who think thier freedom is at stake. They cannot behave as they like. They don’t accept that the vast majority of people wanted vaccines and accepted masking rules. This is Nietzschian only is so much as they don’t want to be part if the herd. Then along comes a Trump or in Canada a Poileivre or a Lich. These so called leaders say hey you’re right the elites are stealing our nations and taking away our freedoms. Here are Nietzsche’s warrior heros. Both are moving up the ladder via the will to power, or as Hitler did hoping to get to the Triumph of The Will as portrayed in Riefenstahl’s propaganda film of the same name. Our modern populous megalomaniacs are however not aware of the connection to Nietzsche and his infamous Nazi follower/s. If they are they are worse because they are choosing to be evil. Okay now we have a minority group who have leaders and a loud voice. No rational substance to thier beliefs except they are now no longer ignored, which they should be. Rather than what is good for society (AKA the herd) they are using force like the convoy occupation in Ottawa or the January 6 attack on the US Capital. Both marginally sanctioned by the Conservatives in Ottawa and Trump in the US. With some limitations as neither want to be seen as promoting violence. Whatever gets us to the top works for us mentality, be damned what the real vote said. So we have Hitler wannabees pushed on by thier great will to power, and a bunch of goose stepping or truck driving horn honking flag waving followers. The end result being the desire of a minority of individuals is displacing the true desire of the people as expressed in the vote. Sadly the majority are coming to think that loud is synonymous with numerous which it is not. The next election will see if the real steal has been accomplished by Populism and the marginalized lead by power driven leaders over democracy. That said, although I see populism as the danger I don’t see the followers as the cause. If you take uneducated people and expose them to limits to freedom which they find strangling then they will react in the only way they think will work to fight physically whether the limits are rational or not. The cause is the rational but onerous limits placed on society by the pandemic. So basically the worst side-effect of Covid was the fear which created a populism that has sickened democracy.
As a parent I am becoming more aware of what I say that might influence Charlotte’s behavior. One thing we need to be very conscious of is casual ridicule. We all do it. When you’re in your car and someone moves over without signaling do you use the expression “I wonder where he got his license” or do you laugh at relatives who are eccentric saying “Every family has one” etc… There are worse incidents like trying to make a simple person say or do something that might embarrass them. Then there is minor comments on person’s behaviors. We often do this but don’t realize that the frequency is so often that the picture we are drawing of the person is highly insulting. Then there is the long list of names we call people and excuse these with excuses like “but it’s true”. Names we use like ugly scary fat and Lazy, sloppy, absentminded shoddy, plain, bookish scrawny anorexic redneck vulgar etc., are not to improve life but draw it down. How often have you found your perception of people is wrong after you got to know them? Even if the moniker fits who gave you the right to judge people like this? Someone might not be as hard working or well dressed as you but why is it your business to ridicule them for being happy as they are. Would you rather be made miserable by your judgement of them?
I want Charlotte to be able to go into a friend’s place and not judge them by the fact thier curtains are made old flags or that none of thier furniture matches or that they have three tons of comic books piled on each end table. I want her to respect someone who is a sanitation worker as much as a lawyer. When I was younger although I was religious I had a friend who was an exotic dancer. Not once did I say anything about what she did for a living let alone ridicule her for it.
Finally if you have to judge or ridicule someone to make yourself feel better about yourself to person worthy of judgement is you…..
When I went looking for a graphic for this I came across the attached picture and thought how appropriate. Then I read the author and realized that she was one of the persons I had judged many times. Rather than moving on to a quote from someone I respected more I decided that Tammy Faye Bakker deserved my respect for pointing out the truth.
I posted this image on Facebook a few days ago and did not give it much thought, besides the facts that it is basically true and that is one adorable little child. But I have noticed that there are a lot of people that when asked about their childhood will say they grew up poor. I was once guilty of this. Yes I grew up in a single parent family with 2 sisters. My mother worked as a Nurse and relied on mothers’ allowance to make up the difference. So yes by economic standards we were poor. A nurse in the 70s made at the maximum 3500 a year and the average single income was 11800 that said I am sure mom made considerably less. An average house cost 18 to 20K. But mom still made sure we were clothed and ate well. Did we want more, sure but we did fine. We had a lot of mack and cheese and chicken nugget lunches, but that was fine. Recently the” Daily Meal” online magazine asked kids what their favorite lunches were and #1 was pasta and chicken nuggets go figure. No one starved.
But dial back 70 years from my child hood and things were very different. At the turn of the century in the late 1800s Canada in rural areas and native reserves still had significant deaths from starvation. By the 1970s except for cases with exigent circumstances no one died from starvation simply because they were poor.
So I can say without remorse we were by standards poor but by history we were not. Personally, I liked my childhood but would I go back heck no. My current income combined with my wife’s is over 60 times more than my mother had to work with. Inflation over that time is hard to calculate but remember that 18,000 house cost? It was 5 times my mother’s income at the least. Well houses in my home town now go for $705,000. That is over 18 times the annual single persons income. Now people often ask why my mom did not sell her place. Simple she worked hard to find a place where she would be happy and even though the eves troughs are bent the roof needs repairs and the lawn is 70% weeds it is hers and the so are the memories. For the most part in Canada poverty today is a state of mind. Relative poverty that is a different story.
What Was I Trying To Say ? 