One of my concerns upon hearing the news was Trump would use it as a pretext for an even bigger crackdown, like he did by sending troops into DC in the wake of “Big Balls” getting his ass kicked by a couple of kids.
Exactly what I was thinking. You beat me to it. Combine that with the MAGA nation losing their minds over demonstrators getting close enough to the orange stain to spoil his dinner. What, the orange stain is sancrosanct? He is not allowed to hear noise against him? His eternal fragile ego can't stand to hear opposition? There were no weapons presented and no threats made. Good bye, First Amendment.
re the QotW winner - to those who complain about '... Lockhorns-like stereotypes of nagging and oversensitive women and indolent, obtuse men', i say: get a grip, lighten up.
i've been uncomfortable for many yr's with the various media's portrayal of 'indolent, obtuse men', because i know very few men/husbands who are more than occasionally indolent &/or obtuse. i'm pretty sure my wife, in private, wd own that i, on occasion, have been indolent &/or obtuse.
but c'mon, seriously? is this something worth complaining about? and in this forum? lighten up, pls.
I agree. I suppose the argument is that the joke promotes a stereotype about relationships that we don't want. Maybe this was valid back when Bewitched, and I Dream of Jeannie were on, but we long past that. Also, is anyone is this forum influenced by that joke? We are mostly a bunch of old people here, i think we are safe from this specific influence.
I’m going to venture a guess that the one person who complained about this quip was probably not bright enough to notice the brilliant grammatical inversion that is at its heart.
There's another point . I'll try to keep it simple just for the idiot mind of the orange stain. There is a huge difference between a little spat between husband and wife and domestic violence. It's also not the big reason for big crime stats.
Last night my children's dad left a voice message to tell me he was OK. Why did he call me? Because there was a high school shooting in Evergreen, CO, where he and his wife live, and the school shares a parking lot with the rec center where he volunteers. There was plenty in today's Tribune about Charlie Kirk. But there was no mention of this terrible tragedy at ALL in the paper. (I read this newsletter before checking out the NYTimes, etc;) And then, when I talked to my 41-year-old son about this, he said one of the saddest thing I’ve ever heard, “Mom, It was just a school shooting. Dad is OK.” Yep, it was just a school shooting—ho hum. This is the world we've been in since Sandy Hook, when little children were murdered and nothing was done---we're still awash in guns, and it's just another in a never-ending stream of shooting, infants to adults.
I heard about the shooting in Colorado and Russia shooting into Poland. I actually turned on the news last night to hear about Poland. The assassination was terrible, but (I hate using a but there) I wish they would have at least touched on the other tragedies as well. (I was watching NBC in case other networks did cover it).
As I said....ho hum. I've stopped watching the visual news, except occasionally. It's just too much. At least by reading, I can keep myself from falling into total despair---and I'm the eternal optimist, too! (I AM encouraged by the growing resistance in the U.S. to all of the madness.)
I understand and agree with taking time to cool off and avoiding jumping into the yelling matches over Charlie Kirk. But Trump and his supporters won't. This looks like another instance of going high when they go low. The result will be the regime controlling the narrative and cracking down on opposition.
I disagree that letting Trump (and Garry Spelled Correctly) politicize the killing will control the narrative. No one is surprised at either one of these cranks.
But now is the time to bring up Charlie Kirk's infamous quote:
"Some gun deaths are a necessity to maintain the Second Amendment"
I saw the video of him shot, I sure hope all the gun nuts, Re Thug Licons in Congress, the six loons on SCOTUS, the insane Second Amendment worshipers & of course the demented, deranged pile of shit polluting the Oval Office saw it.
I hope you saw the bullet rip through his left carotid artery as his last words, that gang violence, meaning black gangs BTW, as he was an unadulterated racist, saw the blood gushing out of his neck.
I hope you learned something yesterday, but based on that fawning idiocy out of the White House, praising him & bizarrely ordering flags to half staff for a two bit political whack job, you learned nothing!
But never, ever forget, Karma is one nasty violent bitch & she got Kirk yesterday. Do you all think you're safe from her?
I think that many people spread gasoline with their words and all it takes is a small spark to start a California sized wild fire. We would be better served by a president and others who spray water rather than gas.
i don't disagree with your paraphrasing of the kirk quote on the 2nd amendment - but i suggest you make clear it was a paraphrase, not the quote itself.
Kirk’s actual words from the event are:
“I think it’s worth it to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights. That is a prudent deal. It is rational.”
I'll help you. On this anniversary, I Donald Trump, remind everyone that the radical, traitorous Democrats have all along supported the kind of Muslim terrorism that causes incidents like this. To this day, they are responsible for what is happening in Gaza by supporting those that caused the violent action that started all of this. Without the support of radical Democrats, 9-1-1 wouldn't have happened.
The comment about Babel fish and translating devices reminds me of the classic Monty Python Hungarian Phrasebook sketch. Look it up (I saw it on YouTube but was unable to copy the link).
Happy Together is as insidiously obsessive as Every Breath You Take. So much of the Turtles' discography has a sneaky brilliance to it. I loved em beginning with It Ain't Me Babe, both the single and album.
I was just thinking about how they responded to the huge popularity of Happy Together by mocking it with the rather satirical Elenore the following year (a mock Turtle, if you will). Ironically, it became a hit in its own right.
Thank you, I’d never heard this song before, it’s great! I’ll have to listen to the rest of “12 Songs”, which I see, has been hailed as one of the greatest albums of all time.
And here's another quote on why most of us consider Kirk to be a disgusting pile of shit.
This one is about the violent nut who almost beat Paul Pelosi to death with a hammer!
"If some amazing patriot out there in San Francisco or the Bay Area wants to really be a midterm hero, someone should go and bail this guy out...Bail him out and then ask him some questions"
i was not a fan of kirk - disagreed with him on just about everything. but cldn't you wait a week, or maybe a cpl days, before issuing your vile screeds against him?
i'm not defending kirk - i'm defending decency. and your vicious attacks on kirk, the day after he was shot to death, are indecent and disgusting - as disgusting as the quotes you attribute to him.
Charlie Kirk's death is a tragedy for his wife and children and for them I have empathy (an emotion Kirk believed was not real). For the rest of the world, meh. Kirk himself said "I think it's worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights. That is a prudent deal. It is rational." Newsweek Apr 06, 2023.
There are some things we do that cause unintentional harm, but we continue to do them. It is not so radical to point that out.
If you think there should be strict licensing requirements to own a gun, then the observation that gun ownership has fatal unintended consequences (and intended, in the case of suicide), seems bad. But the issue is not accepting the unintended consequences, it is wanting easy access to guns.
As a test, consider the statement that we have to accept 40k people per year in the US die from car crashes, and that is what we have to accept to have the mobility we want. That is a similar logic on a different issue.
There are very important differences that make that analogy invalid.
First is that we are constantly working to improve driving safety. We have licensing, registration, and insurance requirements. We have required safety features for cars and we require manufacturers to improve those all the time. Access to guns on the other hand is only getting easier, any attempts restrict that access are met with protests that a constitutional right is being infringed.
Second is that mobility is essential to basic existence in this country. In the majority of locations it's just impossible to hold a job without being able to drive. Most things need to be shipped by driving at least at some stage. Guns on the other hand have very few practical applications that affect the average person. Many people go through their entire lives without ever having the need to see a gun.
What I'm saying is, we do accept deaths as an unfortunate cost for some aspects of our daily existence, but we need to always work to reduce that cost and compare it with the benefit we are getting for it. The lives that it costs to keep the right to own a firearm are unnecessary and a terrible waste, not just something to be accepted.
There are plenty of mass transit and active transportation people in social media who go on about how the collective system to build cities in a way that induces demand for driving is a decision that is costing lives. I could get into that detail, but I do not want to become one of them.
Okay, I will use just one example. They are planning to rebuild Dusable Lake Shore Drive. They could make it a street instead of a highway and invest in mass transit and bike lanes. Some say that is a decision where lives are at stake.
Mark, I have recommended this book on here before, but check out Killed By a Traffic Engineer by Colorado traffic engineer Wes Marshall. We do not design our roads for safety. We design for speed and capacity, two things antithical to safety. Meanwhile, despite having licensing, it's a mere formality. Anyone can get a license. Third, it's a lot easier to get into and drive a car without a license than it is to get a gun and use it without the proper licensing. Fourth, auto deaths are indiscriminate; they do not care about your age, wealth, ethnicity... nothing. Unlike gun deaths. Fifth, as a Skeptic alluded to, we have other ways to get people around. Walkable neighborhoods, protected bikelanes, good public transit (Chicago does not have this, regardless of the claims of "world class") work so much better in city environments than cars.
Go to pretty much any major city outside of the US and you'll see pretty quickly that cars are pretty dang annoying in cities. They are loud, dirty, ugly, and take up an insane amount of space. We sacrifice tax dollars, public space, and our own health for the supposed benefits of cars. Meanwhile we sacrifice 40,000 at their alter and claim it's the cost of doing business. I, along with others, think this is reprehensible. Cars, especially in cities, need to be seriously limited.
I think what all three of you are ignoring is the human driver. I don't know if road design often much matters. I watch people drive 50 miles an hour or more down side streets full of children. I watch people weaving in and out of traffic, squeezing into spots barely large enough for their vehicles. Actually stop before turning at a red light- heaven help us! I avoid freeways when possible, especially when raining because there is little common sense out there. I have no idea what the answer is. Speed cameras on every street? 10,000 cops dedicated just to traffic? I'm open to solutions.
I’ve made this point many times over the years, and it usually elicits something along the lines of, “Don’t be ridiculous. We need to be able to get around, we don’t need guns”. Because, of course, there are some essentials that Homo sapiens would be unable to live without: oxygen, food, water and cars (and of course, phones).
Good point. I've said on many occasions that the basic human needs are air, water, food, and shelter. But if I leave home without my phone, I feel lost.
Very different. The gun and person firing it did not do unintentional harm, the person surely intended the outcome. A car, used properly, transports people and things from point A to point B. That is its intended purpose. Sometimes accidents happen while using a vehicle as intended, usually when someone violates one of the many laws and regulations re driving. A gun, however, has the purpose of firing bullets at high velocity in order to maim or kill. We saw people die in drunk driving crashes, we made laws against driving while impaired. We see car crashes at particular intersections and we change the signage or re-route traffic. We see cars with defects that cause the brakes to not function properly and we recall them. We see children shot in school, over and over and over, and we do nothing to regulate the weapons used or who may purchase and own them. Over and over and over and over . . .
Our roads are design unsafely and that is why we have traffic deaths. They aren't "accidents," they are consequences of our built environment. There is no need, 0, to loose this many people each year.
I will concur. I was taught (and still remember) in my driver's education course (1986) that there is no such thing as an "accident" when it comes to collisions on the road. There are two causes. Human error and mechanical failure. I would hazard a guess that a majority of the mechanical failures are the result of poor maintenance.
I can see see why some would consider that quote by Kirk about gun deaths to be shockingly outrageous, but certainly you can find other points of comparison that put it in perspective. What about alcohol? Unlike cars, it really doesn’t serve any useful purpose other than to provide the purely recreational outlet of chemically induced euphoria. It has no nutritional value (actually dehydrates), and no medical benefits, although the beverage industry has successfully promoted the fiction that wine and beer can prevent heart attacks, as if the decision to drink could ever be healthier than the choice not to. It is is an addictive, depressant category drug that directly kills approximately 100,000 Americans each year, plus another 15,000 or so indirectly from various forms of collateral damage, the most common being drunk driving.
Yet despite all of this, the one time that we seriously confronted the matter of alcohol abuse as a public health crisis and enacted public policy about it is almost universally regarded as one of the great follies of human history. Officially, we like to say that this is because it didn’t completely eliminate alcohol abuse and that it fortified organized crime, but let’s face it: the real reason is that we just consider 120,000 annual deaths to be an acceptable cost for the privilege of not being told by the nanny state that we can’t get as obliterated as we want whenever we wish.
I’m not a gun owner, nor am I a drinker, so neither strict gun control laws, nor a return to Prohibition would inconvenience me in the least. But I do know that people REALLY like there vices, and don’t like to be told that they can’t indulge them, no matter the death toll.
Presidential Medal of Freedom for Kirk?? Ridiculous. Trump couldn't even focus on the tragedy being recognized on this Patriot's Day, he had to drag Kirk into his remarks as well. Ugh.
I am done. I have attempted to engage in this forum in a very thoughtful, reasoned and respectful manner, and although there have been occasions when some have responded with branding and name calling, I have had some very enjoyable exchanges with others on a variety of issues.
But I am sickened by some of the comments I am now seeing here on the tragic assassination of Charlie Kirk, a husband and father of 3-year-old and 16-month-old children. Eric led off this edition of the PS with very poignant remarks on the shooting (although he simply was unable to refrain from concluding with an unnecessary shot at Trump).
So I am leaving the PS. I am certain that some of you will be very happy with this and rejoice in your enhanced ability to engage unfettered in an echo chamber of partisanship while affirming your shared moral superiority over for those who do not share your views. Gratification I guess, but difficult to see how that benefits people as individuals and certainly not our society.
I strongly believe it is imperative that we all keep talking to each other, trying to understand our differences and work toward finding a common ground. But after reading some of the comments here, I just can no longer participate on the PS. Farewell and God bless you.
Please don’t go, David. Your comments here are always an eloquent ballast against the prevailing viewpoints that are usually on offer at PS, even if we frequently disagree. So what if there are a few boorish jackasses who can’t check themselves? They’re in the minority.
And also David, you DO occasionally sway me on something, like one of your recent points about Ashli Babbit. Although I think that her shooting was justified (clearly), the denial of military honors at her funeral WAS an outrage, for all the reasons you pointed out, and a far more petulant display by Biden than Trump’s reinstatement of them was. It’s the ultimate salt in a wound; imagine being one of her loved ones, and not only having to learn that she was shot dead, but then being told that she won’t receive military honors at her funeral, despite being a veteran who served honorably. Eh, let’s go Brandon!
I've enjoyed your contributions, David, and am genuinely sorry to see you go. Though I often don't agree with you, you have always been civil and moderate in your tone. I really don't want these comment threads to become a liberal echo chamber, yet it always seems that conservatives who engage here for a time simply can't take being disagreed with -- you're joining a long line of pack-up-and-go-home sulkers from "LIttle Boss" back in the old AOL days to JerryB and others in the "Change of Subject" days to Joe Piombino in the early days of the Picayune Sentinel. Each departure has disappointed me. I like to see my ideas and the ideas of others challenged. And I believe those who read and never comment have their eyes opened by new perspectives.
But I've got to say ... if a few ungracious remarks about the death of a man who was openly hostile to people on the left causes you to melt like a snowflake, perhaps you aren't equipped to engage in a genuine clash of ideas. "Talking to each other, trying to understand our differences and work toward finding a common ground" isn't always serene. I mean, here you are, whining about people injecting partisanship into a tragedy and then ... then .... then ... you chastise me for simply noting that Trump -- whose malign ignorance you blithely accept in nearly all instances -- took the low road and injected partisanship into his remarks on Kirk's murder. So my shot at that was "unnecessary" but his was ... in bounds? And you accuse ME of having partisan blinders?
To quote Joe Biden, "C'mon man."
I can't resist noting in farewell that virtually all political arguments contain implications if not assertions of "moral superiority." Political clashes are often moral clashes -- values in conflict. You're as guilty of implicitly claiming it as many of the rest of us on these comment threads, airily accusing me of partisanship when your own is quite strong.
is that how you attempt to re-engage someone who has long provided a thoughtful, respectful countervailing viewpoint to the liberal - no, progressive - echo chamber of the PS?
'... a few ungracious remarks about the death of a man ... ' pls re-read GSC today, then defend your use of the the term 'ungracious'. his screeds were far worse than 'ungracious'.
' ... a man who was openly hostile to people on the left causes you to melt like a snowflake' - well, there you go - let's stoop to the petty name calling that many repubs/conservatives/MAGAs have used against dems/liberals for many yrs. that line shd be added to an update to the book How To Win Friends & Influence People.
'... values in conflict. You're as guilty of implicitly claiming it as many of the rest of us on these comment thread ...' so, David's a hypocrite? or how else would you explain this statement?
'Again, I'm sorry to see you go.' bullshit - you wouldn't be so defensive and condescending if you really were sorry to see him go.
nor wd you send him a link explaining how to unsubscribe. sounds more like 'don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.'
Gosh, Bob E, all I heard Eric say is that in a pluralistic world that values “freedom of speech” both sides need some thick skin. Running away when you hear things you don’t like is what creates an echo chamber. Everyone, including David, sometimes uses language that irritates, and maybe even offends. But I would argue that that is inherent in tweet/email/comment discourse where language is imprecise, knowledge about the other person is limited, and non-verbal cues to assess and help interpret are absent. Even so, in those moments each of us have a choice about how we respond: angrily, passive aggressively, not at all, or with a nuance that seeks to both validate and challenge. I might be able to address and understand the angry or the passive aggressive, but I will never get that opportunity with the one who leaves. Grace for all, I think.
please re-read, e.g., Garry Spelled Correctly's posts, then explain to me your comment, 'Everyone, including David, sometimes uses language that irritates, and maybe even offends.'
yours is the most significant example of whataboutism i've seen in the PS in a long time.
EZ should have put a period after "I really don't want these comment threads to become a liberal echo chamber" and called it a day. Although, the link came in handy!
Thank you Bob. Upon seeing Eric's remarks earlier I have been weighing whether to respond to his charged verbal salvo, and you have very accurately called him out where he has crossed the line of a civil discourse. And I appreciate your remarks.
Just to help you see through your own blind spot Eric:
1. I'm "whining" about people;
2. I'm joining a long line of "sulkers"; and
3. I melt like a "snowflake".
I would submit that this name-calling and pejorative comments clearly fail the test of civil discourse.
You gloss over commentary in which people grotesquely celebrate the murder of a husband and father for his words and ideas as a few "ungracious comments". And while I was very heartened by your strong unequivocal condemnation of the killing of a man presumably over disagreement with his words and views, I did find it holy unnecessary and gratuitous to inject a shot at Trump as part of that. There were scores of inappropriate statements made by people on the left also,
BobE, who I believe is much more closely aligned with your political perspective than mine, also very accurately called you out for this.
I do indeed enjoy a vigorous exchange of views and debate of issues, but only when it remains respectful and free of personal insults.
Good riddance. David was mature, polite, and certainly game to step into these progressive-minded waters, but good chat manners cannot replace blatant hypocrisy and refusal to agree on bedrock truths that both left and right have always agreed upon, such as a government that sends masked military into the streets to kidnap human beings without legal proof of wrongdoing is a government that has lost the meaning of freedom. I tried several times to find common ground with him, but I could not continue when he simply couldn’t at least agree that up was up and down was down.
How many left-leaning members of this forum participate in discussion forums where most people are conservative? How many would not consider doing that because it would be repulsive? Is it reasonable to consider those who are repulsed "snowflakes"?
David - i hope you'll reconsider. we don't always agree - but you are invariably eloquent and respectful in your remarks.
yes, the PS is mostly a political echo chamber, leaning heavily left on the political see-saw. but there have been only a few readers/post-ers who have stooped to vile calumny of kirk the day after he was shot to death.
if you can't justify continuing with the PS at this time, consider taking a break. come back when you're ready. the post-ers and their posts you find detestable won't be gone - but maybe you will reconsider the value you provide to others.
you're like N'western in the B1G, Vanderbilt in the SEC - the PS needs you, and your comments, more than you need the PS.
David, I've rather enjoyed our bouts and your comments, even though they are often
unshakable certitudes and cherished dogma instead of an open-minded search for common ground.
I would hope you see why people are dunking on Kirk specifically and the Right in general. Certain people laughed when Pelosi's husband was almost killed. I know two wrongs don't make a right, but it's getting harder and harder to ignore the boorish MAGAs and their bad manners.
I encourage you to reconsider, David Leitschuh, and to stay. There was one time in the past that I canceled my PS subscription because it was so difficult for me at the time to handle emotionally the rhetoric of certain anti-transgender bigots commenting on this Substack, including you. Yes, I consider you to be an anti-transgender bigot. In the moment when I canceled my subscription (and yes, I sent an email to Eric Zorn telling him that I was canceling), I felt that I couldn’t take it any more. But as time passed, and my emotions cooled down, I re-subscribed. Maybe instead of canceling your subscription, take a break for a while, and come back when things have cooled down a little bit inside you. It is important to talk, even with people who hurt us. The alternative is violence which all of my heroes, Jesus of Nazareth, Mohandas Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr. etc., abjured.
Joanie, off-topic, but you might appreciate this anecdote. I'm cis male and at my annual physical, my new doctor (new insurance) awkwardly asked me if I'm male. I said yes. It turns out, in their mychart I was listed as female. That explains the emails asking me to schedule a mammogram.
I think even 10 years ago the doctor would have just assumed a clerical error, but him asking to confirm is....progress?
Hi Joanie - in the overall context of your words, I'm finding the grace to set aside you calling me a bigot, and hear your positive message. I am giving this thought now. Thank you.
I'd rather you stay, but I'm not sorry to see you go. Like most MAGA Republicans, you insist on playing the victim. You're often offended by the backlash against your party, yet you're blind to the insults, discrimination and hate espoused by so many on your side.
I wonder if the inability to ignore or defend such behavior is finally getting to you, or you're in complete denial that it exists, may be part of the reason you're leaving.
"I strongly believe it is imperative that we all keep talking to each other, trying to understand our differences and work toward finding a common ground." This is why I hope you'll stay. Your contributions are valuable and thought provoking. I think the vast majority of PS commenters, and society generally, agree that Kirk's murder was 100% wrong. That he espoused some pretty awful views is irrelevant to whether his murder was wrong. All murder is wrong. It's the hypocrisy of ultra-right-wing nutters' outrage at his death when they all but applauded the shootings of the MN lawmakers and stand idly by while schools get shot up on a fairly regular basis that is so galling. Please don't let a very few "out-there" opinions chase you out of a space where you are valued.
David, you and I have had some lengthy wide ranging discussions. Keep in mind that proper education occurs only when someone is open to diverse views. I am aware that you personally have received some personal shots in this forum and that is unfortunate. Charlie Kirk was a polarizing figure. You used a bad reason for leaving. I consider you smart enough to know what he represented to the left. You should have simply said that too many in this forum are hopelessly callous to the right. But I'm hoping you'll reconsider.
I understand. You have been a good part of the community, but you have to take care of yourself.
There are some members whose comments I always avoid reading, not because I disagree with them, but because their comments are so predictable, and they provide no insight. Basically they want to say "Go blue team. Read team bad."
While substack does provide a way to block people, it does not block you from seeing there comments. I know this because I have tried.
You get into arguments and the threads go deep sometimes. You have stated that you like to do that, but you must know that argument will not change minds. You can make your statement and maybe reply once to someone's response. That would be easier, and you can put your thought out there for people to consider. That is what I do, and have at time been considered a villain in the forum for not holding what some people think is the correct opinion on some subjects.
Do stick around. I don’t always agree with you but I do occasionally stop and think about something you said. It’s brave of you to keep wading in, in spite of a whole bunch of people who don’t like any of your views. Don’t let them chase you away.
Hi Joan - thank you for your very kind words. It is because of you and a number of others who have expressed these sentiments that I am reconsidering and may simply pause out for a while. Thank you!
De mortuis and all that. Thoughts and prayers, etc. MAGA now has its Horst Wessel.
One of my concerns upon hearing the news was Trump would use it as a pretext for an even bigger crackdown, like he did by sending troops into DC in the wake of “Big Balls” getting his ass kicked by a couple of kids.
Exactly what I was thinking. You beat me to it. Combine that with the MAGA nation losing their minds over demonstrators getting close enough to the orange stain to spoil his dinner. What, the orange stain is sancrosanct? He is not allowed to hear noise against him? His eternal fragile ego can't stand to hear opposition? There were no weapons presented and no threats made. Good bye, First Amendment.
By the way, what proof is there that Washington is safer because he went to a seafood dinner in a previously safe area, surrounded by Secret Service?
Had to Google the name as I never heard of Wessel. Yikes!
“Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. And therefore never send to know, for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee”.
-John Donne
I am convinced that, on my deathbed, I will receive my last ever e.mail ... it will ask me to rate the care I have been receiving.
It will happen later than that.
re the QotW winner - to those who complain about '... Lockhorns-like stereotypes of nagging and oversensitive women and indolent, obtuse men', i say: get a grip, lighten up.
i've been uncomfortable for many yr's with the various media's portrayal of 'indolent, obtuse men', because i know very few men/husbands who are more than occasionally indolent &/or obtuse. i'm pretty sure my wife, in private, wd own that i, on occasion, have been indolent &/or obtuse.
but c'mon, seriously? is this something worth complaining about? and in this forum? lighten up, pls.
I agree. I suppose the argument is that the joke promotes a stereotype about relationships that we don't want. Maybe this was valid back when Bewitched, and I Dream of Jeannie were on, but we long past that. Also, is anyone is this forum influenced by that joke? We are mostly a bunch of old people here, i think we are safe from this specific influence.
I’m going to venture a guess that the one person who complained about this quip was probably not bright enough to notice the brilliant grammatical inversion that is at its heart.
There's another point . I'll try to keep it simple just for the idiot mind of the orange stain. There is a huge difference between a little spat between husband and wife and domestic violence. It's also not the big reason for big crime stats.
Last night my children's dad left a voice message to tell me he was OK. Why did he call me? Because there was a high school shooting in Evergreen, CO, where he and his wife live, and the school shares a parking lot with the rec center where he volunteers. There was plenty in today's Tribune about Charlie Kirk. But there was no mention of this terrible tragedy at ALL in the paper. (I read this newsletter before checking out the NYTimes, etc;) And then, when I talked to my 41-year-old son about this, he said one of the saddest thing I’ve ever heard, “Mom, It was just a school shooting. Dad is OK.” Yep, it was just a school shooting—ho hum. This is the world we've been in since Sandy Hook, when little children were murdered and nothing was done---we're still awash in guns, and it's just another in a never-ending stream of shooting, infants to adults.
I heard about the shooting in Colorado and Russia shooting into Poland. I actually turned on the news last night to hear about Poland. The assassination was terrible, but (I hate using a but there) I wish they would have at least touched on the other tragedies as well. (I was watching NBC in case other networks did cover it).
As I said....ho hum. I've stopped watching the visual news, except occasionally. It's just too much. At least by reading, I can keep myself from falling into total despair---and I'm the eternal optimist, too! (I AM encouraged by the growing resistance in the U.S. to all of the madness.)
I understand and agree with taking time to cool off and avoiding jumping into the yelling matches over Charlie Kirk. But Trump and his supporters won't. This looks like another instance of going high when they go low. The result will be the regime controlling the narrative and cracking down on opposition.
I disagree that letting Trump (and Garry Spelled Correctly) politicize the killing will control the narrative. No one is surprised at either one of these cranks.
But now is the time to bring up Charlie Kirk's infamous quote:
"Some gun deaths are a necessity to maintain the Second Amendment"
I saw the video of him shot, I sure hope all the gun nuts, Re Thug Licons in Congress, the six loons on SCOTUS, the insane Second Amendment worshipers & of course the demented, deranged pile of shit polluting the Oval Office saw it.
I hope you saw the bullet rip through his left carotid artery as his last words, that gang violence, meaning black gangs BTW, as he was an unadulterated racist, saw the blood gushing out of his neck.
I hope you learned something yesterday, but based on that fawning idiocy out of the White House, praising him & bizarrely ordering flags to half staff for a two bit political whack job, you learned nothing!
But never, ever forget, Karma is one nasty violent bitch & she got Kirk yesterday. Do you all think you're safe from her?
I think that many people spread gasoline with their words and all it takes is a small spark to start a California sized wild fire. We would be better served by a president and others who spray water rather than gas.
i don't disagree with your paraphrasing of the kirk quote on the 2nd amendment - but i suggest you make clear it was a paraphrase, not the quote itself.
Kirk’s actual words from the event are:
“I think it’s worth it to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights. That is a prudent deal. It is rational.”
The full quote is far, far worse than what I wrote.
It's truly vile beyond all comprehension by any normal person!
I just realized that today is 9/11 and wondering what, if any, statements we should expect from Trump on this anniversary…
Maybe he’ll mention the folks he saw celebrating that day in New Jersey?
He went on TV to say that he now owned the tallest building in New York.
I know I should be using more of the bells and whistles my new car has, but I've been hesitant... Like, what does the "rear wiper" do? I mean, yuck!
I'll help you. On this anniversary, I Donald Trump, remind everyone that the radical, traitorous Democrats have all along supported the kind of Muslim terrorism that causes incidents like this. To this day, they are responsible for what is happening in Gaza by supporting those that caused the violent action that started all of this. Without the support of radical Democrats, 9-1-1 wouldn't have happened.
What does this have to do with the very funny "rear wiper" comment?
Nothing. I replied to John who asked what Trump would have to say about the anniversary of 9-11. This is where the forum placed my reply.
Meanwhile, another school shooting. Republican response...crickets.
The Charlie Kirk shooting technically qualifies as a school shooting, perhaps the first we've seen Republicans actually give a shit about...
It was also crickets when the Minnesota legislators were killed.
Don't mention that to Nancy Mace. It was brought up to her by a reporter today and she lost her shit.
The comment about Babel fish and translating devices reminds me of the classic Monty Python Hungarian Phrasebook sketch. Look it up (I saw it on YouTube but was unable to copy the link).
Thanks for mentioning it, it's great, here's the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6D1YI-41ao
My hovercraft is full of eels
I am a big Monty Python fan. Also Hitchiker's Guide.
Happy Together is as insidiously obsessive as Every Breath You Take. So much of the Turtles' discography has a sneaky brilliance to it. I loved em beginning with It Ain't Me Babe, both the single and album.
I was just thinking about how they responded to the huge popularity of Happy Together by mocking it with the rather satirical Elenore the following year (a mock Turtle, if you will). Ironically, it became a hit in its own right.
"You're my pride and joy, et cetera..."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NCd0Y776VQ
"Me About You" is pretty awesome as well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oxNRk_CFZA
for those who like the turtles music [as i do], i highly recommend A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs, episode 154, 'Happy Together' by the turtles https://500songs.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Episode-154-happy-together-1.mp3. note, it's about much more than just Happy Together.
When it comes to songs about creepy obsessive incel love, my favorite is Jenny/867-5309 by the one hit wonder Tommy Tutone.
“Jenny, Jenny, you're the girl for me.
You don't know me, but you make me so happy.
I tried to call you before, but I lost my nerve,
I tried my imagination, but I was disturbed.”
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=axLRUszuu9I&pp=ygUSdG9tbXkgdHV0b25lIGplbm55
If you wanna sink a little lower, there's this creepy classic--early Randy Newman
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jO3-MukCYVU&list=RDjO3-MukCYVU&start_radio=1
Thank you, I’d never heard this song before, it’s great! I’ll have to listen to the rest of “12 Songs”, which I see, has been hailed as one of the greatest albums of all time.
And here's another quote on why most of us consider Kirk to be a disgusting pile of shit.
This one is about the violent nut who almost beat Paul Pelosi to death with a hammer!
"If some amazing patriot out there in San Francisco or the Bay Area wants to really be a midterm hero, someone should go and bail this guy out...Bail him out and then ask him some questions"
i was not a fan of kirk - disagreed with him on just about everything. but cldn't you wait a week, or maybe a cpl days, before issuing your vile screeds against him?
i'm not defending kirk - i'm defending decency. and your vicious attacks on kirk, the day after he was shot to death, are indecent and disgusting - as disgusting as the quotes you attribute to him.
I so sick & tired of that "Do not speak evil about the dead" shit.
Exactly how does waiting days or weeks to attack him do anything?
Why is the demented, deranged one giving this hater the presidential medal of freedom?
He was evil & he went around spreading evil everywhere he went!
He celebrated people killed by guns, because that made the Second Amendment necessary to him.
He hated blacks, gays & who knows who else?
Good riddance to such a vile creature!
Charlie Kirk's death is a tragedy for his wife and children and for them I have empathy (an emotion Kirk believed was not real). For the rest of the world, meh. Kirk himself said "I think it's worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights. That is a prudent deal. It is rational." Newsweek Apr 06, 2023.
Should we assume it was a tragedy for his wife and children?
There are some things we do that cause unintentional harm, but we continue to do them. It is not so radical to point that out.
If you think there should be strict licensing requirements to own a gun, then the observation that gun ownership has fatal unintended consequences (and intended, in the case of suicide), seems bad. But the issue is not accepting the unintended consequences, it is wanting easy access to guns.
As a test, consider the statement that we have to accept 40k people per year in the US die from car crashes, and that is what we have to accept to have the mobility we want. That is a similar logic on a different issue.
There are very important differences that make that analogy invalid.
First is that we are constantly working to improve driving safety. We have licensing, registration, and insurance requirements. We have required safety features for cars and we require manufacturers to improve those all the time. Access to guns on the other hand is only getting easier, any attempts restrict that access are met with protests that a constitutional right is being infringed.
Second is that mobility is essential to basic existence in this country. In the majority of locations it's just impossible to hold a job without being able to drive. Most things need to be shipped by driving at least at some stage. Guns on the other hand have very few practical applications that affect the average person. Many people go through their entire lives without ever having the need to see a gun.
What I'm saying is, we do accept deaths as an unfortunate cost for some aspects of our daily existence, but we need to always work to reduce that cost and compare it with the benefit we are getting for it. The lives that it costs to keep the right to own a firearm are unnecessary and a terrible waste, not just something to be accepted.
There are plenty of mass transit and active transportation people in social media who go on about how the collective system to build cities in a way that induces demand for driving is a decision that is costing lives. I could get into that detail, but I do not want to become one of them.
Okay, I will use just one example. They are planning to rebuild Dusable Lake Shore Drive. They could make it a street instead of a highway and invest in mass transit and bike lanes. Some say that is a decision where lives are at stake.
Mark, I have recommended this book on here before, but check out Killed By a Traffic Engineer by Colorado traffic engineer Wes Marshall. We do not design our roads for safety. We design for speed and capacity, two things antithical to safety. Meanwhile, despite having licensing, it's a mere formality. Anyone can get a license. Third, it's a lot easier to get into and drive a car without a license than it is to get a gun and use it without the proper licensing. Fourth, auto deaths are indiscriminate; they do not care about your age, wealth, ethnicity... nothing. Unlike gun deaths. Fifth, as a Skeptic alluded to, we have other ways to get people around. Walkable neighborhoods, protected bikelanes, good public transit (Chicago does not have this, regardless of the claims of "world class") work so much better in city environments than cars.
Go to pretty much any major city outside of the US and you'll see pretty quickly that cars are pretty dang annoying in cities. They are loud, dirty, ugly, and take up an insane amount of space. We sacrifice tax dollars, public space, and our own health for the supposed benefits of cars. Meanwhile we sacrifice 40,000 at their alter and claim it's the cost of doing business. I, along with others, think this is reprehensible. Cars, especially in cities, need to be seriously limited.
I think what all three of you are ignoring is the human driver. I don't know if road design often much matters. I watch people drive 50 miles an hour or more down side streets full of children. I watch people weaving in and out of traffic, squeezing into spots barely large enough for their vehicles. Actually stop before turning at a red light- heaven help us! I avoid freeways when possible, especially when raining because there is little common sense out there. I have no idea what the answer is. Speed cameras on every street? 10,000 cops dedicated just to traffic? I'm open to solutions.
I’ve made this point many times over the years, and it usually elicits something along the lines of, “Don’t be ridiculous. We need to be able to get around, we don’t need guns”. Because, of course, there are some essentials that Homo sapiens would be unable to live without: oxygen, food, water and cars (and of course, phones).
Good point. I've said on many occasions that the basic human needs are air, water, food, and shelter. But if I leave home without my phone, I feel lost.
Very different. The gun and person firing it did not do unintentional harm, the person surely intended the outcome. A car, used properly, transports people and things from point A to point B. That is its intended purpose. Sometimes accidents happen while using a vehicle as intended, usually when someone violates one of the many laws and regulations re driving. A gun, however, has the purpose of firing bullets at high velocity in order to maim or kill. We saw people die in drunk driving crashes, we made laws against driving while impaired. We see car crashes at particular intersections and we change the signage or re-route traffic. We see cars with defects that cause the brakes to not function properly and we recall them. We see children shot in school, over and over and over, and we do nothing to regulate the weapons used or who may purchase and own them. Over and over and over and over . . .
Our roads are design unsafely and that is why we have traffic deaths. They aren't "accidents," they are consequences of our built environment. There is no need, 0, to loose this many people each year.
I will concur. I was taught (and still remember) in my driver's education course (1986) that there is no such thing as an "accident" when it comes to collisions on the road. There are two causes. Human error and mechanical failure. I would hazard a guess that a majority of the mechanical failures are the result of poor maintenance.
I can see see why some would consider that quote by Kirk about gun deaths to be shockingly outrageous, but certainly you can find other points of comparison that put it in perspective. What about alcohol? Unlike cars, it really doesn’t serve any useful purpose other than to provide the purely recreational outlet of chemically induced euphoria. It has no nutritional value (actually dehydrates), and no medical benefits, although the beverage industry has successfully promoted the fiction that wine and beer can prevent heart attacks, as if the decision to drink could ever be healthier than the choice not to. It is is an addictive, depressant category drug that directly kills approximately 100,000 Americans each year, plus another 15,000 or so indirectly from various forms of collateral damage, the most common being drunk driving.
Yet despite all of this, the one time that we seriously confronted the matter of alcohol abuse as a public health crisis and enacted public policy about it is almost universally regarded as one of the great follies of human history. Officially, we like to say that this is because it didn’t completely eliminate alcohol abuse and that it fortified organized crime, but let’s face it: the real reason is that we just consider 120,000 annual deaths to be an acceptable cost for the privilege of not being told by the nanny state that we can’t get as obliterated as we want whenever we wish.
I’m not a gun owner, nor am I a drinker, so neither strict gun control laws, nor a return to Prohibition would inconvenience me in the least. But I do know that people REALLY like there vices, and don’t like to be told that they can’t indulge them, no matter the death toll.
Presidential Medal of Freedom for Kirk?? Ridiculous. Trump couldn't even focus on the tragedy being recognized on this Patriot's Day, he had to drag Kirk into his remarks as well. Ugh.
Medal was devalued when trump gave it to the hateful Rush Limbaugh
"I could have edited this to change “My wife” to “My spouse” without losing any of the bite of the punch line. Should I have?"
I don't think so. sometimes political correctness goes a little too far and dilutes what it is meant for.
I am done. I have attempted to engage in this forum in a very thoughtful, reasoned and respectful manner, and although there have been occasions when some have responded with branding and name calling, I have had some very enjoyable exchanges with others on a variety of issues.
But I am sickened by some of the comments I am now seeing here on the tragic assassination of Charlie Kirk, a husband and father of 3-year-old and 16-month-old children. Eric led off this edition of the PS with very poignant remarks on the shooting (although he simply was unable to refrain from concluding with an unnecessary shot at Trump).
So I am leaving the PS. I am certain that some of you will be very happy with this and rejoice in your enhanced ability to engage unfettered in an echo chamber of partisanship while affirming your shared moral superiority over for those who do not share your views. Gratification I guess, but difficult to see how that benefits people as individuals and certainly not our society.
I strongly believe it is imperative that we all keep talking to each other, trying to understand our differences and work toward finding a common ground. But after reading some of the comments here, I just can no longer participate on the PS. Farewell and God bless you.
Please don’t go, David. Your comments here are always an eloquent ballast against the prevailing viewpoints that are usually on offer at PS, even if we frequently disagree. So what if there are a few boorish jackasses who can’t check themselves? They’re in the minority.
Thank you for your kind words Steven.
And also David, you DO occasionally sway me on something, like one of your recent points about Ashli Babbit. Although I think that her shooting was justified (clearly), the denial of military honors at her funeral WAS an outrage, for all the reasons you pointed out, and a far more petulant display by Biden than Trump’s reinstatement of them was. It’s the ultimate salt in a wound; imagine being one of her loved ones, and not only having to learn that she was shot dead, but then being told that she won’t receive military honors at her funeral, despite being a veteran who served honorably. Eh, let’s go Brandon!
I do hope you change your mind.
Thank you Cate, I appreciate that.
I've enjoyed your contributions, David, and am genuinely sorry to see you go. Though I often don't agree with you, you have always been civil and moderate in your tone. I really don't want these comment threads to become a liberal echo chamber, yet it always seems that conservatives who engage here for a time simply can't take being disagreed with -- you're joining a long line of pack-up-and-go-home sulkers from "LIttle Boss" back in the old AOL days to JerryB and others in the "Change of Subject" days to Joe Piombino in the early days of the Picayune Sentinel. Each departure has disappointed me. I like to see my ideas and the ideas of others challenged. And I believe those who read and never comment have their eyes opened by new perspectives.
But I've got to say ... if a few ungracious remarks about the death of a man who was openly hostile to people on the left causes you to melt like a snowflake, perhaps you aren't equipped to engage in a genuine clash of ideas. "Talking to each other, trying to understand our differences and work toward finding a common ground" isn't always serene. I mean, here you are, whining about people injecting partisanship into a tragedy and then ... then .... then ... you chastise me for simply noting that Trump -- whose malign ignorance you blithely accept in nearly all instances -- took the low road and injected partisanship into his remarks on Kirk's murder. So my shot at that was "unnecessary" but his was ... in bounds? And you accuse ME of having partisan blinders?
To quote Joe Biden, "C'mon man."
I can't resist noting in farewell that virtually all political arguments contain implications if not assertions of "moral superiority." Political clashes are often moral clashes -- values in conflict. You're as guilty of implicitly claiming it as many of the rest of us on these comment threads, airily accusing me of partisanship when your own is quite strong.
Again, I'm sorry to see you go. Here is where you'll find instructions on unsubscribing: https://ericzorn.com/picayune-sentinel-substack-help-frequently-asked-questions/
is that how you attempt to re-engage someone who has long provided a thoughtful, respectful countervailing viewpoint to the liberal - no, progressive - echo chamber of the PS?
'... a few ungracious remarks about the death of a man ... ' pls re-read GSC today, then defend your use of the the term 'ungracious'. his screeds were far worse than 'ungracious'.
' ... a man who was openly hostile to people on the left causes you to melt like a snowflake' - well, there you go - let's stoop to the petty name calling that many repubs/conservatives/MAGAs have used against dems/liberals for many yrs. that line shd be added to an update to the book How To Win Friends & Influence People.
'... values in conflict. You're as guilty of implicitly claiming it as many of the rest of us on these comment thread ...' so, David's a hypocrite? or how else would you explain this statement?
'Again, I'm sorry to see you go.' bullshit - you wouldn't be so defensive and condescending if you really were sorry to see him go.
nor wd you send him a link explaining how to unsubscribe. sounds more like 'don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.'
I agree with you BobE.
Gosh, Bob E, all I heard Eric say is that in a pluralistic world that values “freedom of speech” both sides need some thick skin. Running away when you hear things you don’t like is what creates an echo chamber. Everyone, including David, sometimes uses language that irritates, and maybe even offends. But I would argue that that is inherent in tweet/email/comment discourse where language is imprecise, knowledge about the other person is limited, and non-verbal cues to assess and help interpret are absent. Even so, in those moments each of us have a choice about how we respond: angrily, passive aggressively, not at all, or with a nuance that seeks to both validate and challenge. I might be able to address and understand the angry or the passive aggressive, but I will never get that opportunity with the one who leaves. Grace for all, I think.
huh?
please re-read, e.g., Garry Spelled Correctly's posts, then explain to me your comment, 'Everyone, including David, sometimes uses language that irritates, and maybe even offends.'
yours is the most significant example of whataboutism i've seen in the PS in a long time.
Spot on, BobE!
EZ should have put a period after "I really don't want these comment threads to become a liberal echo chamber" and called it a day. Although, the link came in handy!
I read this like a person crying for help, and found Eric’s reply (with unsubscribe link) to be (uncharacteristically) very callous.
Thank you Bob. Upon seeing Eric's remarks earlier I have been weighing whether to respond to his charged verbal salvo, and you have very accurately called him out where he has crossed the line of a civil discourse. And I appreciate your remarks.
"Uncivil discourse." What, pray, in my response to you was "uncivil’?
Just to help you see through your own blind spot Eric:
1. I'm "whining" about people;
2. I'm joining a long line of "sulkers"; and
3. I melt like a "snowflake".
I would submit that this name-calling and pejorative comments clearly fail the test of civil discourse.
You gloss over commentary in which people grotesquely celebrate the murder of a husband and father for his words and ideas as a few "ungracious comments". And while I was very heartened by your strong unequivocal condemnation of the killing of a man presumably over disagreement with his words and views, I did find it holy unnecessary and gratuitous to inject a shot at Trump as part of that. There were scores of inappropriate statements made by people on the left also,
BobE, who I believe is much more closely aligned with your political perspective than mine, also very accurately called you out for this.
I do indeed enjoy a vigorous exchange of views and debate of issues, but only when it remains respectful and free of personal insults.
Good riddance. David was mature, polite, and certainly game to step into these progressive-minded waters, but good chat manners cannot replace blatant hypocrisy and refusal to agree on bedrock truths that both left and right have always agreed upon, such as a government that sends masked military into the streets to kidnap human beings without legal proof of wrongdoing is a government that has lost the meaning of freedom. I tried several times to find common ground with him, but I could not continue when he simply couldn’t at least agree that up was up and down was down.
How many left-leaning members of this forum participate in discussion forums where most people are conservative? How many would not consider doing that because it would be repulsive? Is it reasonable to consider those who are repulsed "snowflakes"?
Please reconsider David -- I think you add so much!
Thank you Beth, I appreciate your kind words.
David - i hope you'll reconsider. we don't always agree - but you are invariably eloquent and respectful in your remarks.
yes, the PS is mostly a political echo chamber, leaning heavily left on the political see-saw. but there have been only a few readers/post-ers who have stooped to vile calumny of kirk the day after he was shot to death.
if you can't justify continuing with the PS at this time, consider taking a break. come back when you're ready. the post-ers and their posts you find detestable won't be gone - but maybe you will reconsider the value you provide to others.
you're like N'western in the B1G, Vanderbilt in the SEC - the PS needs you, and your comments, more than you need the PS.
Thank you again Bob. I am going to consider taking a break instead as you suggest.
David, re-read the first sentence of your last paragraph. You state exactly why you should not leave.
Thank you Ken.
David, I've rather enjoyed our bouts and your comments, even though they are often
unshakable certitudes and cherished dogma instead of an open-minded search for common ground.
I would hope you see why people are dunking on Kirk specifically and the Right in general. Certain people laughed when Pelosi's husband was almost killed. I know two wrongs don't make a right, but it's getting harder and harder to ignore the boorish MAGAs and their bad manners.
I encourage you to reconsider, David Leitschuh, and to stay. There was one time in the past that I canceled my PS subscription because it was so difficult for me at the time to handle emotionally the rhetoric of certain anti-transgender bigots commenting on this Substack, including you. Yes, I consider you to be an anti-transgender bigot. In the moment when I canceled my subscription (and yes, I sent an email to Eric Zorn telling him that I was canceling), I felt that I couldn’t take it any more. But as time passed, and my emotions cooled down, I re-subscribed. Maybe instead of canceling your subscription, take a break for a while, and come back when things have cooled down a little bit inside you. It is important to talk, even with people who hurt us. The alternative is violence which all of my heroes, Jesus of Nazareth, Mohandas Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr. etc., abjured.
Joanie, off-topic, but you might appreciate this anecdote. I'm cis male and at my annual physical, my new doctor (new insurance) awkwardly asked me if I'm male. I said yes. It turns out, in their mychart I was listed as female. That explains the emails asking me to schedule a mammogram.
I think even 10 years ago the doctor would have just assumed a clerical error, but him asking to confirm is....progress?
Absolutely!
progress! My grandchild had to have surgery,- and the Dr asked them for preferred pronouns-thank you-progress
Always the number one thing I look for in a surgeon…
Haha
Joanie, I like the sincerity of your comments and openness you have, like this comment, that offers a perspective that I could not possibly have.
And, unlike me, you use your actual name (I assume)
I do use my actual name!
Hi Joanie - in the overall context of your words, I'm finding the grace to set aside you calling me a bigot, and hear your positive message. I am giving this thought now. Thank you.
Thank you. I hope you come back after a short hiatus.
I'd rather you stay, but I'm not sorry to see you go. Like most MAGA Republicans, you insist on playing the victim. You're often offended by the backlash against your party, yet you're blind to the insults, discrimination and hate espoused by so many on your side.
I wonder if the inability to ignore or defend such behavior is finally getting to you, or you're in complete denial that it exists, may be part of the reason you're leaving.
There is still plenty of good interaction here. But like a group having conversations at a social gathering, I don't engage with everyone.
"I strongly believe it is imperative that we all keep talking to each other, trying to understand our differences and work toward finding a common ground." This is why I hope you'll stay. Your contributions are valuable and thought provoking. I think the vast majority of PS commenters, and society generally, agree that Kirk's murder was 100% wrong. That he espoused some pretty awful views is irrelevant to whether his murder was wrong. All murder is wrong. It's the hypocrisy of ultra-right-wing nutters' outrage at his death when they all but applauded the shootings of the MN lawmakers and stand idly by while schools get shot up on a fairly regular basis that is so galling. Please don't let a very few "out-there" opinions chase you out of a space where you are valued.
Hi Melinda - thank you for your kind words. Because of the supportive comments I have received from you and others, I am thinking this further.
David, you and I have had some lengthy wide ranging discussions. Keep in mind that proper education occurs only when someone is open to diverse views. I am aware that you personally have received some personal shots in this forum and that is unfortunate. Charlie Kirk was a polarizing figure. You used a bad reason for leaving. I consider you smart enough to know what he represented to the left. You should have simply said that too many in this forum are hopelessly callous to the right. But I'm hoping you'll reconsider.
I understand. You have been a good part of the community, but you have to take care of yourself.
There are some members whose comments I always avoid reading, not because I disagree with them, but because their comments are so predictable, and they provide no insight. Basically they want to say "Go blue team. Read team bad."
While substack does provide a way to block people, it does not block you from seeing there comments. I know this because I have tried.
I wish you the best, David.
Thank you my friend.
Another point...
You get into arguments and the threads go deep sometimes. You have stated that you like to do that, but you must know that argument will not change minds. You can make your statement and maybe reply once to someone's response. That would be easier, and you can put your thought out there for people to consider. That is what I do, and have at time been considered a villain in the forum for not holding what some people think is the correct opinion on some subjects.
I just skip over the comments I don’t want to engage with. I too look forward to seeing your name in the comments.
Thank you Phillip, much appreciated.
Do stick around. I don’t always agree with you but I do occasionally stop and think about something you said. It’s brave of you to keep wading in, in spite of a whole bunch of people who don’t like any of your views. Don’t let them chase you away.
Hi Joan - thank you for your very kind words. It is because of you and a number of others who have expressed these sentiments that I am reconsidering and may simply pause out for a while. Thank you!
Perhaps you would find it helpful to think of yourself as "The Loyal Opposition."