What is tolerable?

[Plane]

     This is a convivial group most of the time , many joyfull hours I have spent in friendly argument with people who could never agree with me , but who could use their skills of argument to spar with me in a friendly manner.


      But we have a tacit agreement don't we ?


      We assume the humanity and human feelings of each other , and we know that we aren't here to do harm.

      Every now and then we loose someone who can't tolerate us or who can't stand the rules , but the rules are not onerous here.



      What would the the proper limit though for a genuine difference of opinion in a posting member who was tolerant enough to follow the rules ?


    Suppose a serious disciple of Osama Bin Laden was here saying that he would regretfully have to kill us all until we saw the error of our ways and turned to Islam?

    What if a real member of the actual Nazi party were to expound on the need to controll the "mud People " and the duplicity of the ZOG?

     What about a Communist , a KKK officer , a Russian gangster , a Columbian or Jamaican gun man.

     Hey, there is no barrier to Hugo Chavez or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad from coming in here and very politely telling us how nasty we are.

      Could we put up with something like that?

       What does a mature sort of person do when confronted with a philosophy so incompatible whit his own ?

   
     

[Lanya]

I remember reading, years ago, about  someone talking about going down to help in the freedom marches, so blacks could vote, etc.

Someone said, "Don't look down on the people here until you've made peace with all your bigotted relatives."
That really struck a chord with me, because we had just visited some of my more bigotted relatives in Oklahoma, and it was hard to keep my mouth shut. 

[Plane]

I have had bigoted relitives , some of such an age that there would be geater harm in upsetting them than in allowing them to just continue to be wrong.


One once asked me if I thought that Black people should be allowed to have everything that they wanted.


I answered that I wanted to live at peace with them, this half satisfied him .

I suppose that I could have been less diplomatic , and told him that I did not consider black people to be inferior or deserveing of his scorn or even that I did not consider them to be adversarys at all.


I didn't .


I didn't want a fight with this guy , he was a central family figure and I would have been on the outs with the rest , even the ones that agreed with me , why rile the old man?

[Lanya]

These relatives were upset about the long-hairs and how they should just go to OU and cut their hair and not protest the war, act like civilized people.   

Yeah right, like Uncle so-and-so who bragged of bludgeoning dolphins all day long for sport (not for the meat) when he was in Florida.  What kind of person clubs dolphins all day long? My uncle.  RIP. 

[_JS]

I have a hard time with my father-in-law on oaccasion. Most times he is just fine and a great guy to be around. He's one of those perplexing people.

He worked at the same place for 30+ years and every once in a while we'll go out to eat with him and he'll run into people he knows. Occasionally it will be a black man or woman and they'll talk like long lost friends. You can tell he's really missed them since he retired. Then on the way home he might see a black and white couple or an Hispanic and white couple and it pisses him off to no end.

My grandma is similar. My grandfather had the unfortunate displeasure of being a mayor of a tiny Southern town during desegregation. My grandma was PTA president at the same time. They both fought very hard to keep the townspeople from violence, or pulling their kids out of school, etc. It went as smoothly as it could. They had people call them all hours of the night asking what they were going to do to stop it, etc.

Yet, today my grandma talks about "blackies" and well, has other issues

I guess the entire idea is foreign to me. I count myself lucky that I was an army brat. Today I work with people from China, Pakistan, and even u-hi-u (heh-Lanya). I've never gone to a school without diversity. One of my greatest mentors during college is an African-American and he really helped me get things on track. To make this long post as short as I can, I just don't understand the attitude, and maybe it is good that I never will.

[Brassmask]

I've noted before that my family is full of bigoted people.  If my dad says the n-word, I completely lose it on him and tell him if he ever says that in front of my kid, I'll keep my kid away from him.

Living in Memphis is difficult in some ways.  I sometimes feel that as the minority in the city, I'm catching the blowback from the racists of yore.  There is a general sense of apathy about most things here.  Going through a drive-through here is a real chore and when I find a place that's decent, I'll usually go there over and over because I know they're doing their jobs there.

Sometimes, I feel like a racist.  I'll go through a drivethrough sometimes and notice a white guy in a tie and think, "Ah..." and I feel guilty about that.  I went through a period where I felt like "they" were conducting some kind of massive word-of-mouth thing where the cool thing to do was to go real slowly in the left turn lane, waiting for the yellow light and then gun it so they could make it and I couldn't.  It happened to me constantly and I would mention it to people and they would sort of acknowledge that they thought that sometimes too but that it just didn't seem feasible after a while.  I figured I was just being paranoid.

Predominantly black neighborhoods here tend to have higher crime.  So, I don't know.

But the whole point of this thread was what could we point up with?

I think I could tolerate nearly anything if the person was polite.  And it would make me feel better about myself knowing that I wasn't so bad.

[Amianthus]

If my dad says the n-word, I completely lose it on him and tell him if he ever says that in front of my kid, I'll keep my kid away from him.

I realize that I cannot shield my daughter from idiots her entire life. After all, I'm trying to raise an adult, not a large child.

Therefore, I have taken another tack regarding this situation. I have explained and shown through example how to act and talk to and about other people.

Now, when she runs into racist idiots (of any color) she just shakes her head and walks away.

[Brassmask]

That's nice.

[The_Professor]

I, for one, could tolerate quite alot if the other members were articulate. What I have trouble with is name calling and similar filthy practices. I find it uncouth, unrpofessional,etc.. When that occurs very often, I find that I withdraw from here for a while as the crap factor is too much to put up with.

Perhaps it is becuase I am in academia, but I really feel folks should be able to intelligently discuss jsut about any issue, without name calling, and still walk away friends.

As only one example, Plane and I share a wife...hehe. not what you think. His ex-wife is my current wife. So what? I find his posts here to be professional, articulate and intelligent and I also find I agree with him most of the time, both politically and theologically. I have even met him, tiwce I believe, and we were coridal. Should we be uncouth to each other becuase of this unique family circumstance? No, civilized people simply do not conduct themselves in that fashion. We should always strive to rise above the muck and cogitate on truly relevant issues and ideals. Why shouldn't we extend that to debate forums such as DebateGate?

[The_Professor]

"... didn't want a fight with this guy , he was a central family figure and I would have been on the outs with the rest , even the ones that agreed with me , why rile the old man?"

Well, you have to get along with family. For example, I learned a long time ago that if you get your in-laws mad at you, it is really your spouse who suffers the most. Therefore, keeping the peace is paramount.

[Plane]

Thank you PT , I am not at all hurt with you .


On the contrary, I am pleased that my kids spend time with a level headed fellow.


I do not feel that we share L , if she is happy with you, she is entirely yours.


When she was happy with me is time gone as gone as it can go.