Intolerance.

[Clete]

So how tolerant are DU'ers of others who are different from them? In the last week I have witnessed threads that really don't make some DU'ers look very progressive or tolerant of others. So let me ask some questions to test your tolerance for those who are different from you.

1. Are vegetarians hypocritical? Do they want to take your meat away from you?

2. Do women ask for it when they get raped?

3. Are atheists the devils spawn who belong in hell because they do not believe what you believe.

4. Does being gay mean they can't enjoy the same privileges in life that heterosexuals do because it's unnatural?

5. Is a woman who seeks an abortion a murderer and the person who offers the service a criminal?

6. Why are women and minorities demanding more rights than they already have? Don't they have enough rights already?

Think about it. If you answer yes to any one of these questions, you too can go back to the eleventh century. I am going off-line right now because I still have women's work I haven't been liberated from yet.

[bicentennial_baby]

1. Thank You!

I'm glad someone else noticed that!

And to answers your questions, no to all. :bounce:

[XanaDUer]

2. LOL!

...Think about it. If you answer yes to any one of these questions, you too can go back to the eleventh century. I am going off-line right now because I still have women's work I haven't been liberated from yet...


You're the third woman (including me) whom I spoke to today who had to get offline to do women's work! Guess we have not come that far.

As for the toleration, yes, some are not tolerant.

[Redleg]

3. There is some intolerance but by and large DUers seem pretty fair.

Good luck with the women's work. I have some house-work to do myself and those toilets and tubs don't clean themselves. I am a man, by the way.

[XanaDUer]

5. I say

TODAY SHOULD BE INTERNET WOMEN'S LIBERATION-FROM-WOMEN'S-WORK DAY!

I am not doing anymore of it today. Hell, stay online and screw the housework.

[Redleg]

7. Wish I could but my mother-in-law is coming to visit this week.

The guest room and guest bathroom need to be cleaned! My wife is in her ninth month of pregnancy so Mr. Redleg is trying to do his share. About fucking time, too.

[synthia]

22. hmmmmpfht

this woman was shoveling rocks/gravel into a wheelbarrel.

does that mean i'm liberated? :grin:

[JNelson6563]

4. I have seen atheists

referred to here as sub-human. Shameful attitude.

Julie

[MacCovern]

28. Tolerate Those Different From You

It's easy to tolerate those whose opinions and ideals you share, but
tolerance also means to put up with those who you don't agree with.

For two thousand years, the Christians have used the fish symbol as
an icon. Now, in these postings about tolerance we have one DUer
who uses the "Darwin" fish symbol to attack Christians as part of her
each and every posting.

Tolerance also means remaining level headed in our political arguments.
Sometimes in DU, just the slightest comment that isn't regarded as
progressive, or, liberal gets the poster labeled as a Nazi. Most of us on DU see right thru these attacks, and so does the general public when
people are labled Nazis and fascists in the media unfairly.

[NashVegas]

32. And I've Seen Religious People Treated Like Crap

and had their beliefs shit upon.

BTW - I'm not one of them.

Sadly, too many times on DU, the door swings both ways.

The price DU pays for gaining in popularity is the idiots are coming in now, too.

[Redleg]

6. I have seen intolerance among every group...

whether gay or straight, atheist or christian/muslim/jewish, conservative or liberal. Aren't we being intolerant when we don't try to understand another's argument or reasoning but instead dismiss them as being from the dark ages?

[Blue_Chill]

8. WTF!!!!!!!!!!!

3. Are atheists the devils spawn who belong in hell because they do not believe what you believe.

Show me where anyone has said this bullshit on DU? IT NEVER HAPPENS. However if you want a serious intolerance thread you better reverse that BS and show that anti-theist bigots on DU are the biggest example of what you are talking about. Not a day goes by without one of these bigots attacking some religion.

[XanaDUer]

9. I remember someone who got banned

who wrote that atheists are sub-human, weeks and weeks ago.

That may be what they are referring to.

[Blue_Chill]

19. Don't you love how that works one way

atheist are idiots = ban
Religious person are idiots = ok!

[XanaDUer]

29. I remember how you got slammed

for being against atheists, when you *actually* wrote anti-theists!

Big difference, and another reason why we need to read each others' posts before flaming someone, for any who like to flame.

Way too much of that here lately...

[mitchtv]

21. is anti -theist ,Anti god? or anti religion?

I'm really not sure.They're surely not the same. I have nothing against god beleivers, but a bone to pick with many religion believers

[Blue_Chill]

33. Anti-religion

and we that are religious also have a bone to pick with many religion believers.

[PunkinPi]

10. To all of the above questions NO.

But IMHO, freedom of speech, guarantees the right to say what you want even if it is outdated and ignorant. And you would think that on a progressive board, there wouldn't be this issue, but you have remember this is a cross section of society, being so, you have to expect there is going to be all kinds of opinions and ideas out there.

Plus, some people who make ignorant comments are just looking for attention, plain and simple.

I'm not trying to start a flame war, I just think this is something people need to keep in mind. :)

[jonnyblitz]

11. yeah, perhaps but I dont expect to think I have just logged onto

Freerepublic.com when I come on here either. There have been some truly ignorant and bigotted posts on DU the past few days.

[PunkinPi]

12. sure there have and the mods take care of them.

nt

[jonnyblitz]

17. umm..i believe they are long time DUers, the ones I have seen

Of course I am not naming names...

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

13. Scapegoating in order to attract votes...it isn't just the right

Scapegoating

Scapegoating as Ideological Weapon

A key ideological weapon of the US political right is scapegoating, especially in the form of conspiracist theories.1 Yet scapegoating is not a marginal activity limited to the political right.2

Scapegoating of immigrants and welfare recipients is used regularly by mainstream politicians to attract votes. This dynamic has a long history in the US, with the scapegoated targets being selected opportunistically-Reds, Anarchists, Jews, Catholics, Freemasons, all the way back to witches in Salem. Periodic waves of state repression are justified through conspiracist scapegoating that claims networks of subversives are poised to undermine the government. Right wing populist movements mobilize the middle class by claiming a conspiracy from above by secret elites and from below by a parasitic underclass. On the far right are the scapegoating themes of collectivist New World Order plots and Jewish banking conspiracies.

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the US has been exporting its media-intensive election model, which favors style over substance, argument over debate, slogans over issues. This election model facilitates the success of not only those politicians that can raise the most funds, but also demagogues willing to use scapegoating as an ideological weapon. While scapegoating in the US is primarily the territory of the political right including Republicans, some Democratic Party politicians pander to the tendency, and even a few on the left adopt scapegoating out of ignorance, desperation, or an appalling absence of morality.


http://www.publiceye.org/tooclose/scapegoating.htm

[Devils Advocate NZ]

14. That vegetarian thread...

On that vegetarian thread, which as you pointed out was discussing the possibility that vegetarianism and/or vegetarians are hypocritical, you admitted that you feed your pet cat food that is made from the left-overs of the human meat industry. In other words you admitted to doing exactly what you were criticising others of doing: supporting the cruel treatment of farm animals.

That IS hypocritical. So I should think that you would be better served by not mentioning that vegetarian thread in this particular post.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

15. Maybe she is better served by holding herself out for your snippiness

To have omitted the vegetarian thread in order to avoid your opportunism would speak worse of her than it does of you.

BTW...does the Devil really need and advocate?

[PunkinPi]

16. "BTW...does the Devil really need and advocate?"

I thought that's why you were here. :shrug: :evilgrin:

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

18. I prefer to believe the Devil needs a rebuttal

[Devils Advocate NZ]

23. Good try...

Clete made it clear that she was criticisng the people who disagreed with her on that vegetarian thread were somehow less progressive than her and are intolerant.

Yet on that thread she called me a sanctimonious arsehole (although she censored the arsehole word to just "A") for daring to disagree with her. She then went on to say I must be one of the people who go to church and talk to 'God' and look down on those who don't. What that has to do with vegetarianism she didn't quite explain, nor did she even care to find out if I actually was such a person. Yet here she is calling people like me who disagreed with her "intolerant".

So Clete was acting far more intolerant than me, and yet here she is again accusing others of the very things she does herself. That hypocrisy thread appears to have hit the nail on the head, at least in her case.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

26. You seem to invite that response

[Devils Advocate NZ]

35. How? By being right?

I never said anything rude to Clete. I never said anything insulting to Clete. The only reason Clete could possibly have had to say rude and insulting things to me is because the things I said struck a nerve.

It was obviously a defensive reaction from someone who realised that they had lost the argument and didn't like it.

Good of you to address my contention that Clete was being just as intolerant as the people she is accusing in her original post, and thanks for proving that she isn't the only one.

[Blue_Chill]

20. yeesh

As little support as possible is different then all out support. Ther is nothing hypocritical about that.

[Devils Advocate NZ]

24. Is that right?

I am a murderer because I eat meat, but she is not a murderer even though she feeds her cat meat from the same source? Seems pretty hypocritical to me.

[Blue_Chill]

34. she tries not to support an industry that tortures animals

you have no problem with their torture. Big difference. Don't try to justify your stance by nit picking at others.

[Devils Advocate NZ]

36. Look at the intolerance you just displayed.

I never said I have "no problem with their torture" but you accuse me of it because you have no other valid argument. In fact I abhor inhumane treatment of animals, but that doesn't mean I am going to torture myself by not eating meat.

The human body requires meat, no matter how much vegetarians may deny that fact, and I see no reason not to eat it. But as a consumer, I campaign to have the treatment of farm animals made more humane (where necessary). An analogy might be that I abhor the pollution of the atmosphere, and campaign to have such pollution halted, but I see no reason to stop breathing air.

To address your argument in more detail, what you are saying is it is perfectly alright for Clete to be intolerant of others (ie meat eaters) because she tries not to support the meat industry, even though, in the end, she supports them as well. You are condoning intolerance and hypocrisy merely because she tries to practise what she preaches.

Then, you accuse me of having no problem with the torture of animals merely because I point out the hypocrisy of her position, and the intolerant nature of her comments. How tolerant of you.

[Mairead]

37. Perhaps you should work on your science a little more?

The human body does NOT require meat. It requires so-and-so many grams per day of a complete protein, but that can be a mixture of plant proteins. Meat--animal, bird, and fish flesh--is simply a very 'convenient' source of complete protein, though with a significant downside in reduced health for many people.

[Devils Advocate NZ]

39. There is more to it than protein...

For example, Vitamin B-12 is a requirement that can not be met naturally by a vegetarian diet. Vitamin B-12 has to be biosynthesised and taken as either a supplement or in fortified cereals where it is added in the manufacturing process.

So in other words the human body DOES require meat or a supplement that provides what the body is missing by not eating meat. I prefer to take my Vitamin B-12 in the form of a nice juicy steak.

[Blue_Chill]

38. need a tissue?

Sorry champ but I'v been around the animals rights/welfare community for a long time and you don't strike me as one who gives a damn. Why do I say this?

The human body requires meat, no matter how much vegetarians may deny that fact

Anyone that has given a animal rights/welfare group a second glance would know this is false.

I campaign to have the treatment of farm animals made more humane (where necessary).

where necessary? uh huh......

[Devils Advocate NZ]

41. I bow down before the mighty vegetarian...

I'm not worthy, I'm not worthy!

By the way, Vitamin B-12 can only be found in meat, or in biosynthesised supplements taken directly or in fortified (ie unnatural) cereals. Vitamin B-12 is essential to the human body, and it's only natural source is meat, therefore the human body DOES require meat.

Also, "where necessary" means that not all farms treat their animals inhumanely, unless you believe that the act of killing, no matter how it is carried out, is inhumane. If that is the case, then I agree that I am not the same kind of animal rights activist as you. However, I am sure you don't go around demanding that predators be prevented from killing and eating their prey, so I would not be wrong to suggest that you are hypocritical if you say that I as a human who needs meat to survive, am NOT allowed to kill animals to gain that meat, but cats, eagles and all the other carnivorous animals are.

[EAMcClure]

27. There is nothing hypocritical about trying

Yeah, I feed my cat MEAT products... NUTRO canned food. My cat is... A CAT! Not a human being, not something that presumably has free will. My kitty, outside his predilection for wheat grass, is a carnivore. I won't inflict my diet and lifestyle choice upon any living creature without its permisstion.

I really don't understand where people get their definition of hypocrite. Someone can stretch the boundary of reality until it snaps in order to box reasonable people into hypocrisy. Vegetarians are hypocritical because they still kill things! Tis better to try and still be a hypocrite than to throw your hands in the air because something as ridiculous as abstract philosophy makes not trying somehow elegant.

There is such a thing as real life, with real problems that demand real solutions. And these solutions, in the face of cosmic suffering, are often compromises... compromising with the devil reality does not make one a hypocrite. Fighting the pre-defeatd battle is not hypocrisy. I think this word is being abused for sport.

Further, I have not seen much in the way of vitriol directed at atheists. I made fun of a particular atheist in another thread because I saw his atheism as a kind of religion, a religion built upon the falso idol of simple logic. I haven't really read any theist condeming or slandering or otherwise persecuting an atheist on this board. I have seen the opposite, a sort of snide Marxist/Maoist "religions and their believers are like drugs and their abusers." The enthymeme of intolerance is enough to make one gag.

Really, liberalism is supposed to be founded on tolerance. Bigotry is the tool of the reactionary. Don't be a reactionary.

Eric

[hippywife]

25. My one pet peeve about message boards...

is people who try to stir up trouble within the ranks and divide people into camps. :eyes:

I've been lurking here long before I started posting and, while I remain mostly in LBN and GD, I have seen very little rudeness on this board as compared to many others.

[PurityOfEssence]

30. How DARE you say things like that! WHAT KIND OF A PERSON ARE YOU?

We're in another of those highly emotionally charged cycles, what with the Nigeranium weasling and the heating up of the primaries and all.

There's also a bit of an uptick in the trolling action, so don't believe everything you read.

The problem is always people: we're a mixed bag, and their are plenty of repulsive progressives, just as there are some decent (although misguided) conservatives.

Remember: lefties tend to be a bit more concerned about what people think of their ethics, so playing upon the theme of "you're creepy if..." tends to gain footing sort of naturally.

Point by point:

1: Idiocy. Remember Paul Begala eating KFC on Crossfire while talking to a PETA spokesperson? Two things here: the "look, we're really not nutcase envirolefty tinkerbells" brand of apologetics that's rife in modern center-seeking Democrats is at play here, and the fear of being tarred as "unfeeling" brings out madness like this. Sure, some extremists do play the moral card, and there are some arguments of merit to counter this, but it's largely the feeling of being thinskinned or the ridiculous fear of being marginalized by association that drives this.

2: Sickness. Sure, some women have rape fantasies, and it's verboten to ever mention that, but that's a miniscule and ridiculous argument, both statistically and just plain from humanity. Some people are suicidal, but that doesn't justify murder. Rape is violent, horribly demeaning, psychologically brutal and unspeakable.

3: Fear. Religious discussions always get at least somewhat shrill. There are enough sensible types here who embrace the coexisting ones of the "other side" to generally keep things somewhat tolerable. These assumptions/guesses/whatevers are what many people rest their lives on, so they're threatened.

4: More Fear. Liberalism is the acceptance of nature, Conservatism is the dominance over it. (Okay, broad strokes, but think about it.) Conservatives hate joy, sex, intoxication and a host of other pleasures because they're life. They think that homosexuality is unspeakably wrong and "curable". They're silly. They think that if they can take away the concept of homosexuality, their fine young son won't like show tunes. They're also scared that their friends will see them as bad parents. As liberals are vulnerable to others' opinions of their decency, conservatives are vulnerable to others' opinions of their propriety and success.

5: Always a tricky subject. The right wing just doesn't want people to have sex, and if they do, they're to be "punished" either with diseases or children. If they gave a damn, they'd be for sex education, but they don't. They don't want people to have sex. If you've ever seen an ultrasound of your child--I have, it looked at the "camera" with sweet curiosity--you know it's not a simple yes or no situation. Nobody ever wants to talk about it without using it as some self-reflexive pulpit to prove themselves "better" or somesuch.

6: The Curse of the Damned. In times of economic downturn, it's always easy to roll back progress. The right knows how to mobilize the po' whites by scaring them into thinking that their dwindling chances will be given to the undeserving in a preferential way.

[no_labels_please]

31. Answers to your questions

1. How are they hypocritical? Why would they take my meat away from me? What a funny question! What other people eat or don't eat isn't really my business.

2. No, women do not ask for it when they get raped.

3. No, atheists are not the devil's spawn. They have just as much right to not believe as I do to believe.

4. No, being gay SHOULDN'T mean that they can't enjoy the same privileges in life.

5. No and no.

6. I don't know how to answer this one. Are they demanding more rights than they already have? Are women and men totally equal now? Are all races equal? Then, if not, I guess we have some work to do. If so, great!

I do think women bash men a bit too much nowdays and get away with it like it's nothing. Please don't freak out --I am a woman, and NO I am not a throwback to the 1950's. I just think father's rights are just as important as mother's rights, I think that fathers and husbands shouldn't be portrayed on TV as total idiots. What women get away with saying about men and doing to men, men couldn't get away with in mixed company, that's for sure.

I kind of went off-topic, sorry.

I believe in tolerance and diversity. I believe VERY LITTLE is under our direct control. That's were conservatives get all bent out of shape--they want to control things and people they can't ever control and it drives them to distraction.

[Desperadoe]

40. Nice Post...............But

Do you recall, or do you happen to know, just how many posts that the OP's of each of these threads has to their credit. It seems to me that DU is getting a lot of "Do you...." type posts from people with a 50-120 post history, which they prolly accumulated in the Lounge.

I have made a point of ignoring these type of threads as most are nothing more than disruptions. I'm not from the 11th Century nor was I born yesterday.