The University of Minnesota – Duluth began a campaign to “achieve “racial justice” by raising awareness of “white privilege.” (The link includes one of the videos the campaign uses.)
The project disseminates its message, that “society was setup for us [whites]” and as such is “unfair,” through an aggressive campaign of online videos, billboards, and lectures. The ads feature a number of Caucasians confessing their guilt for the supposed “privilege” that comes along with their fair features.
……
The self-titled Un-Fair Campaign, is sponsored and supported by the University of Minnesota – Duluth, along with several liberal organizations including the NAACP, YWCA, and The League of Woman Voters.
“You give me better jobs, better pay, better treatment, and a better chance – all because of the color of my skin,” reads one poster that features a close shot of a Caucasian male.
The Un-Fair campaign also held a series of lectures and events on campus last semester. One included a presentation by Tim Wise, author of Dear White America. In his book, Wise confesses a “longstanding fantasy” where he turns to a man with a “God Bless the USA” button and asks him, “why can’t you just get over it?”
Everything I know about “white privilege” I learned from personal experience and from observation. My father’s white privilege was being born to the daughter of German immigrants who met on the boat on the way over. His mother’s first language was German. His father was a machinist for Mosler Safe and died for the affects of diabetes soon after my father finished high schoolI have the 3′x18″z12″ trunk in my room that carried everything my great grandfather owned when he left Bavaria.
After serving in WWII, my father used the GI Bill to attend college eventually earning a Phd in psychology and enabling him to begin a career as a college professor. This enabled him to practice the white privilege of paying his children’s way through college. (The University of Tennessee, where my father spent his career, did not offer any discount for the children of faculty.) Five of his children earned degrees, although one was awarded post posthumously. One earned a law degree, another a Phd, and another a M.S. Then his children all set off, except for the deceased, on lives of varying degrees of success, but all enjoy success to some degree. The one child who did not earn a degree has made a good living as a furniture salesman.
I’ve had the white privilege of raising my children, and giving them every advantage I can. It’s been hard and costly. I’ve bought cars, paid college expenses, spent thousands on football camps and hours helping with homework, sports and other extra-curricular activities. I’ve been rewarded with kids that work hard and perform well. My son in college is working at a pizza joint during the summer. My 16 year old daughter got herself a summer job, after completing her sophomore year with a 4.0 GPA, at a Sonic Drive-In roller skating food to customers in their cars. My oldest son is working and finishing up college in an accelerated program.
They’re smart, personable and hard-workers. They’ve enjoyed success, but they’ve earned it. But, to some dumb ass hate monger at the University of Minnesota – Duluth, they’re the beneficiaries of “white privilege.” A dumb ass hate monger who willing fans the flames of racial hatred towards them because they’re white. They’re the targets of another left-wing hate monger.
What they’re the beneficiaries of is generations of smart, hard working people who did what it takes to make life better for themselves and their offspring. My children’s mother’s family story shows the same hard work. Her father was born to dirt poor farmers in Nicholas County, Ky. He died with 3,000 acres and a net worth of $10 million. He worked12-16 hour days into his 80s and never bought himself a new car or truck his entire life. He and his wife also raised 10 kids.
But, to some dumb ass hate monger in Minnesota they’re all the beneficiaries of “white privilege.”
Now, we hear that the wealth gap is worsening by race. “White Americans have 22 times more wealth than blacks — a gap that nearly doubled during the Great Recession.
The median household net worth for whites was $110,729 in 2010, versus $4,995 for blacks, according to recently released Census Bureau figures.” If you looked at educational levels by race, you see that over 90% of whites have a HS diploma and over 31% have a bachelor’s degree or better. The numbers are 81% and 17% for blacks. Considering the larger numbers or whites, more intact families (where one spouse may not have a degree) and larger proportions of higher educational levels, the wealth differences could be explained, maybe completely, by non-racial factors.
But, this doesn’t fit the liberal left wing narrative. Telling people they need to work hard and attend school longer won’t win votes. Fanning the fires of hate and blaming whitie will.
Is there a limit to the disgusting tactics and actions of the left? Are they hoping for a race war? How much destruction are they willing to cause? How much hatred will they spread?
You should consider moving out here to East Texas – things like this never, ever, ever happen, no one favors Arabs over Jews, and you can have all the guns you want.
But, this doesn’t fit the liberal left wing narrative. Telling people they need to work hard and attend school longer won’t win votes. Fanning the fires of hate and blaming whitie will.
http://thegrio.com/2010/09/14/obama-students-should-work-hard-focus-on-school/
Well that doesn’t sound like what DADvocate is claiming. Sounds like Obama was encouraging kids to stay in school and work hard.
Well surely that is the sort of message that conservatives would also get behind. No doubt they had kind words for Obama encouraging kids to behave that way, right?
No, no they did not….
Conservatives hate it when Obama encourages kids to stay in school because it doesn’t fit their narrative that liberals try to buy votes by pandering to racial hatred.
See what I did there? I took the actions of a small group of people (some people) and attributed to a large group of people (conservatives in general).
Which is what DADvocate did here:
Is there a limit to the disgusting tactics and actions of the left? Are they hoping for a race war? How much destruction are they willing to cause? How much hatred will they spread?
People shouldn’t that because it hinders actual understanding when false attributions about what entire classes of people think and do.
I also referenced something that happened a specific way at one point in time and left the impression that this was normative behavior by leaving out the next sentence in the paragraph I blockquoted above:
Dang, I should proofread better:
For:
“People shouldn’t that because it hinders actual understanding when false attributions about what entire classes of people think and do.”
Read:
“People shouldn’t that because it hinders actual understanding when false attributions are made about what entire classes of people think and do.”
But John, don’t you know that anything and everything that libruls do is always driven by evil motives, and that they are most fiendishly and diabolically clever when they agree with conservatives? :)
They are clever that way eh?
Also, don’t forget that an action that conservatives approve of automatically becomes bad when a liberal suggests it.
Cherry picking and ignoring the preponderance of evidence over the past 50 years won’t win you any points with me. Keep ignoring reality so you don’t have to question your false beliefs.
Well that was vague – addressing any of my points would have been nice.
Here’s another example – Bill Clinton, Democrat, as President instituted welfare reforms.
This also does not fit well with your thesis.
“….Bill Clinton, Democrat, as President instituted welfare reforms.” (JE)
.
.
Bill Clinton was a Conservative Democrat who went to war with the Foley Congress (his OWN Party) and then signed onto 7 of the 10 planks of Gingrich’s “Contract With America,” which included even more drastic welfare cuts.
Not to leave House Speaker Tom Foley out, that Democratic Congress passed NAFTA in January of 1994. . .a full year before the Gingrich Congress took office.
In other words, the Democrats ushered in the current “age of globalization” and all the outsourcing that came with it.
I’m a lifelong Democrat (a “Zell Miller Democrat”) and I’m proud of NAFTA (“on the whole more good than bad”) AND welfare reform, although we desperately need a new focus on scammers. . .people who’ve circumvented welfare restrictions by getting onto SSI and other “disability” plans to remain on the dole.
Dark-skinned racial privilege has been in full effect for nearly half a century and STILL the “achievement (test score) gap” between blacks and whites has only grown!
This idiotic focus on “white racism against blacks” is ridiculously absurd. A cursory glance at inter-racial crime rates bares that out.
There is REAL racism/bigotry in this country and it’s primarily black vs Asian!
SEE:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/05/01/BAT01D7H71.DTL
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KU75BdSKCs
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/05/marion-barry-asians_n_1405212.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/02/us/02sfcrime.html?_r=1&pagewanted=1
http://frontpagemag.com/2011/04/15/chinese-girl-in-the-ghetto/
There is REAL racism/bigotry in this country (black vs Asian is primary), there’s no need to entertain the false narrative that the “achievement gap” and other similar disparities is due to anything other than hard work and incredible effort.
Addressing you points is a waste of time. You intentionally avoid my primary point. You spend a lot of time arguing about the most literal interpretation of one sentence. You seem to have no problem with promoting hatred or myself calling people “dumb ass hate mongers.” You”ve made a choice to live in ignorance. I doubt if I could pull from the abyss.
For once, I’m at a loss of words.
As for cherry-picking, you have used as your example a small activist group that seems to be associated with a Wisconsin University.
My example was the President of the United States.
Which of these is likely to have more influence?
The current POTUS apparently fully supports such anachronisms. He’s directed his DoJ to attack “merit-based” standards (written and physical) based on “disparate impact.”
John Wayne Gacy encouraged kids to do well in school (he also gave sizable donations to Jimmy Carter’s election). . .the odious bigots of the NOI encouraged inner city children to do well in school and also provided free breakfast services for children. . .NONE of that made either Gacy or Farrakhan any less vile or dangerous.
Right now this administration’s DoJ is waging a virtual war against merit and standards on the grounds of a racialist agenda. The fact that they’re supported by self-hating whites like Tim Wise (founder of “Race Traitor”) doesn’t make that agenda any less vile, bigoted and dangerous.
Look, this is not about Liberals. This is about Minnesota. It is about the least diverse place in the country. There is a black population in the Twin Cities but outside of that it is white like the snow that falls for 9 months. (Duluth is 2% Black / African American.) And people are SENSITIVE about being perceived as racist; sensitive like only white people who don’t actually know any black people can be. When I first moved there from D.C. I made some reference about having come from Chocolate City and the whole group of people got totally silent, like I was some horrible racist. The first week in Lino Lakes I called my friend Myra and asked her to send a life-size cut-out of herself because there weren’t any black people. (She says black people are not stupid and are not going to live where it gets to minus 20 degrees).
Personally I think it’s an annoying video campaign, but it’s not representative of liberals in general. Just pasty overly sensitive Minnesotans.
Duluth racial demographics p.10:
http://www.duluthmn.gov/planning/comp_plan/compplanfinal/BackgroundProfiles/Demographics.pdf
sensitive like only white people who don’t actually know any black people can be
Oh that gave me a good chuckle!
It’s funny cuz it’s true.
If you live in a city and interact with lots of kinds of people then you’re less likely to be sensitive about race. I think.
OHMYGOSH! That’s so racist!
Help, I’m being oppressed!
; )
“This is about Minnesota. . .(Duluth is 2% Black / African American.) And people are SENSITIVE about being perceived as racist;…” (ST)
.
.
That doesn’t speak very well of Minnesotans, Sara.
I can assure you that the Japanese (among the least diverse cultures on earth) and the people of the Caribbean, as well as those in Iceland are NOT plagued by such hyper-sensitivities. Only well-intentioned, good-hearted white people would, in the face of a veritable fifty year guerrilla war waged against them (the inter-racial B/W violent crime rates bear that out) would inculcate such empathy for their tormentors.
How outrageous is the B/W violent crime rate differential?
Without looking (I DO NOT believe I’ll be corrected), I believe the that blacks are something like six times more likely than people of other races to commit murder and something like eight times more likely to commit robbery.
Moreover, of the nearly 800,000 violent interracial crimes committed every year involving blacks and whites, blacks commit I believe that something like 85 percent of them are committed by blacks.
I also understand that blacks commit more violent crime against whites than they do against blacks. Forty-five percent of their victims are white, 43 percent are black, and 10 percent are Hispanic.
When whites commit violent crime, less than 5% of their victims are black, and as a result, blacks are an estimated 39 times more likely to commit a violent crime against a white than vice versa.
It also says more about the likes of Tim Wise (one of the “leaders” of this moronic and misguided effort) then it does about generic “liberals.” After all, I understand that John E, Lance and Steve are all fairly liberal and all seem to oppose race-based preferences, etc. The vast majority of people of all backgrounds simply want all people held to the very same standards. While Tim Wise (of “race Traitor”) is decidedly “Left-of-Center,” he is no more indicative of mainstream “liberal” thinking than it the odious and repugnant NOI representative of mainstream or generic black thinking.
Still DaD’s points here do appear to be fairly unassailable. Like everyone else here, I can’t seem to find ANYTHING above that I can honestly disagree with.
That doesn’t speak very well of Minnesotans, Sara.
Yeah, well I hated living in Minnesota. I hated the insular culture, the fake “Minnesota Nice,” attitude, and the belief that paprika constitutes a hot spice. (There were some good things too but I’m on a roll.)
Guerrilla war and empathy for their tormenters? Dramatic much? I’m not going to spend my Friday night searching crime statistics, but I’ll hazard a guess that (if those numbers are true) most of that crime occurs in areas of poverty and that as the AA population has grown more successful/middle class the crime levels become more equal as well.
I suppose I should add that it’s not that there is no racism in MN. I lived in Bachmann’s district remember – queen of freaking out about Mexican immigrants who were not exactly running up north to freeze their cojones off. Oh correction – there are 373 Latinos in Lino Lakes. I’m sure they’re their trying to steal the jobs – who wouldn’t be with the average household income $93,000.
I think some people are overly sensitive because they desperately want to show the world they are not like Bachmann. But they don’t really know what to do since they don’t know very many non-Northerners let alone People of Color (that includes sun-tan).
Anoka County / Lino Lakes demographics:
http://www.city-data.com/city/Lino-Lakes-Minnesota.html
“Yeah, well I hated living in Minnesota. I hated the insular culture, the fake “Minnesota Nice,” attitude….” (ST)
.
.
No, I get that. A brother of mine lives up in WI…same kind of thing.
What I’m saying is that only “good-hearted” people indulge in such hypersensitivity, because it’s usually born of good intentions.
Growing up in NYC where every ethnic group has their own area, it’s pretty hard to ignore things like that – ethnicity, etc. Since I’ve never felt sorry for myself, I’ve never wasted much time on sympathy for others either. Life can be rough…everyone’s got to figure something out that works for themselves.
I don’t blame a black bigot like an Al Sharpton or a Louis Farrakhan for being what they are, any more than I blame a Tom Metzger or a David Dukes being what they are and I don’t see either one as either “better,” or “worse” than the other.
If you can make that work for you, that’s OK, I guess. Tim Wise is pretty much the same, only he’s a white guy taking an anti-white stance, but he’s still “just a squirrel trying to get a nut.” (Of course, I hate squirrels, or at least I used to. When I was younger I’d invent new and imaginative ways to kill small animals, worked my way right up through dogs…I wanted to kill a monkey BAD, but I just couldn’t get access to them as a kid. I DID grow out of that phase…)
I will look those crime stats up (to be exact) but they’re national stats. And violence is UNRELATED to poverty, except that some of the SAME traits that lead to poverty (recklessness, irresponsibility, low frustration tolerance, failure to delay gratification and dissociative disorder – the inability to connect with others) also lead to violence, BUT poverty doesn’t cause, or trigger violence, if anything, the reverse MIGHT (at least in some cases) be true.
Generally, violence is about exerting power and control over another person, it’s NOT about money or food, or any other such basic “needs.” Unfortunately that inner urge doesn’t change/abate when such people’s socio-economic status improves…they MIGHT (if they’re fortunate and have the capacity) change the parameters of their violence to allow them to more easily get away with more.
Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb were both well-bred and by all accounts very bright men who (mistakenly) thought they’d committed the perfect murder, when they killed 14 y/o Robert Franks in 1924. . .during the heart of the Roaring Twenties, an era of peace and plenty. While most violent offenders are NOT of the Leopold and Loeb variety (probably more of those types get away with things), the case clearly shows that violence is NOT about economics or “needs,” it’s about power and control.
No, poverty doesn’t cause, or even trigger violence, and better economic conditions and greater intellect and education don’t usually mitigate the compulsions either.
“I can assure you that the Japanese”
Still strike me as pretty xenophobic, but then I have known a pretty small number. Seem pretty universally disliked by most other Asians.
Steve
I believe that most Asian cultures are pretty insular, but that’s not the issue, the fact is that American whites tend to be the ONLY people who obsess so much about their own motives….Caribbean blacks don’t, Icelandic whites don’t, nor do the Japanese….among others.
I’ve marveled at this “white guilt” because of its suicidal nature. When you get one group (to wit blacks) steeped in victimization and resentment and another group (to wit whites) steeped in a false sense of guilt, coupled with obsessive naval gazing) the predictions for outcome cannot possibly be very optimistic.
I spent a LOT of my early years elsewhere (not really by choice) so maybe that’s why I don’t tend to “think like an American.” Although, generally the American “liberals” I’ve come across tend to be virtually universal “lazy thinkers.” They’re virtually catechismal in their view of “science,” which is actually MOSTLY the “pseudo-science” the media here feeds people and society.
That’s why, while most generic “liberals” may not be as extreme as Tim Wise, his idiotic and simplistic message of deep-seated self-loathing resonates with them…primarily I believe because they simply don’t think such issues through.
If they did they would see that DaD’s view above is “right” and Tim Wise’s view is delusional and “wrong.”
Look at John E’s responses to DaD above….not a single real disagreement, just a nebulous quote from Obama about “encouraging kids to work hard in school”….while at the same time exhorting a rogue DoJ to challenge merit-based standards at every turn…because such standards are “racist.”
In the end John E couldn’t even bring himself to say that DaD was wrong about how he viewed the issue of race in America.
Like I said, I don’t think ANY of us here can honestly do that.
(Of course, I hate squirrels, or at least I used to. When I was younger I’d invent new and imaginative ways to kill small animals, worked my way right up through dogs…I wanted to kill a monkey BAD, but I just couldn’t get access to them as a kid. I DID grow out of that phase…
You realize that behavior like that is generally considered to be a marker psychopathy?
“You realize that behavior like that is generally considered to be a marker psychopathy?” (T)
.
.
Yes….painfully aware of that.
I had a….tumultuous youth.
When I was about 7, I spent the summer at a fraternal uncle’s ranch out west. While I was there I saw two drifters brought into a bunkhouse. A cousin brought me in to witness the spectacle. This was a very large ranch they used helicopters to reach from one end to the other…they were pretty much “the law” on that particular bit of turf. Once they peremptorily decided that they were, in fact, drifters, that they’d killed one or more head of their herd and that they were “dangerous men,” they decided that they’d hang them both….which they promptly did.
Since none of the guys there knew how to tie a proper noose, they slip-knot hung them.
It was the most horrifying thing I’d ever seen. I never told anyone of this when I was young, because I knew no one would believe me. Also as I grew older I began to wonder whether my recollections of it taking a really long time for them to stop twitching (“rope dancing” as the hands hollered) were accurate, though now I understand that it can take as long as 45 minutes or more for slip knot hanging victims to expire.
Another reason I never told anyone is because I was (and remain) ashamed of the way I reacted…I pissed myself (my cousins thought that was a hoot too), but I’d never seen anyone actually die before, in fact, at that age, I’m not sure if I even had any real conception of death and dying.
I DO recall one, then the other of them making the sign of the cross before the ropes were hoisted up over the beams. It was then that I realized that everything I was taught in Catholic school was a lie.
“Jesus didn’t save.” He certainly didn’t save them, so why would he make an exception for me either.
When I turned eight y/o (5 or 6 months later), I remember feeling a deep and unshakable sadness that wouldn’t go away. . .not over any of that, but I think over the creeping realization that life had no meaning or purpose.
Once I got my head around that, the conclusion that “NOTHING’S on the level,” comes easy.
IF religion is null void then so is the morality that sprang from it. Dostoyevsky put it; “If God is dead than everything else is permitted.”
Nietzsche (who I came across around age 11) put it much better, when he clearly outlined why Western – “Judeo-Christian morality,” rooted as it is in CHARITY, which he called “the curse of Christ” was entirely bankrupt and anti-human, as it stunted the natural evolution of mankind.
I admired Nietzsche primarily because his views resonated with me fully, even though at the time I’d observe that he, at 37 or 39 came to knowledge that I’d deduced at 8 or 9. . .which STILL made him a pretty damned smart fellow, from what I could figure.
Needless to say, my evolving behavior DID get noticed by my parents and I was, at the age of 9, shuttled back and forth to an army of psychiatrists and “mental health professionals.”
I was a generally amiable, doe-eyed, skinny little kid and I noticed that most of those professionals seemed to want me to be as OK as I appeared, women especially seemed attuned to my vulnerabilities and I learned to fairly effectively tell people exactly what they wanted to hear….I’d even invent scenarios that demonstrated growth and improvement crediting their input and insights, in order to appeal to their vanities.
None of that was difficult at all, since I learned very early on that “EVERYONE lies.” I had the Croup as a very young child and my Mom had to give me ipecac to make me expel the mucous in my upper respiratory system. I always asked, “That’s not the stuff that made me sick, is it,” and of course, she’d lie and say no. I came to the early realization that “even Mom lies.”
My biggest lies were “lies of omission.” I’d had a very specific and persistent dream or nightmare for as long as I could remember and had it throughout most of my childhood, well into my teens. I’d wake up (in this dream) and the waking seemed so real, because I could seemingly hear, touch and smell things very distinctly. I’d hear plates rattling in the kitchen and smell breakfast being made. The voices were all muffled, but the sounds of the plates and the smells were very clear.
I got out of bed and walked out of the bedroom I shared with a brother (who was already up) and I walked to the kitchen wiping sleep from my eyes.
The closer I got the more I noticed that none of the voices were becoming any clearer and when I took my fingers from my eyes, as I reached the threshold of the kitchen and looked up, instead of my family, there were five large hairy beasts with long necks and what closely resembled alligator shaped heads.
We seemed to notice each other at the very same time and at that moment all their chatter stopped as they all turned to stare at me. They appeared as shocked and horrified as I felt. I slowly backed up at first and then turned and ran back to the bedroom.
Then I’d hear the footsteps approaching the door, getting louder and louder and I’d wake up in a panicked startle every time that doorknob began to turn.
I didn’t need anyone trying to figure that out for me. While I didn’t know much about the metrics they used on me, I DID know that that dream would be seen as me acknowledging how different…how monstrous I felt I was compared to everyone else. Even a 10 y/o knows to keep such things to himself.
At every new venue the one constant was that I seemed to do extraordinarily well on their aptitude tests. There was one I remember clearly, first they’d show me 30 or 40 different shapes, some quite different, some very close, for about 3 seconds each. Then they showed me 80 or 100 random shapes and I was supposed to tell them if each shape was from the group they showed me before or not.
Every time I finished that, they mutter to each other. I tried to figure out what they were saying. A number of times one of them would say something like, “I’ve never seen anyone do that before. Would you mind doing that again?”
I’d shrug and do it again.
It turned out that I was able to always pick out the shapes they’d showed me before.
I spent most of my time there resenting the hell out of all this and figured that they were trying to figure out how stupid I was.
One time I confronted them about those suspicions and this woman told me, “Oh no, we don’t think that, we don’t like to talk about testing results like this, because it’s really not about your intelligence, it’s about us trying to find ways to help you.”
A much younger cousin registered an incredibly high IQ and finished College at 17. He also had ADD though that was not a regular diagnosis when I was younger, though I also had dyslexia. My Mom was a nurse and didn’t allow me to be skipped in grades nor put on medications like Ritalin.
I was able to “figure things out,” I learned to reconfigure letters in my head, by learning that “what I saw was not the same as what most others saw.”
In class I’d drift off for long periods, so I read well ahead of where we were in the textbooks, because most of the time I spent in class (probably 75% or more) was pretty much a daydreaming waste. I was a veg in class but did great on exams. I believe I scored 100% on every Regents (State) Exam I ever took, which surprised the shit out of most of those Nuns, who didn’t have much use for me.
Later I’d find that along with my moderate dyslexia and strong ADD I also had a “visually photographic memory.” I was decent at History and English but loved and excelled at Math. I was generally a “loner,” most likely because with others I was generally an insufferable prick, as the guys at RAND, who worked on NYC’s “Model City” program found out. I think some of them put up with me and found me amusing because they were probably similar “misfits” when they were teens.
But few of them liked me telling them that the flaw to their programs lied in “Expanding Variability,” which traditional calculations DON’T account for. The more data/information we uncover, the more variables/challenges we become aware of….and those new variables MUST be inputted into the program or the results will be massively flawed.
At any rate, as you note, I “red flagged” a number of the markers for socio-paths, but I’ve found other (more creative) outlets for my energies.
The great Murray Rothbard once said, “The very WORST find their way into government.” After much experience I have no doubt that he is correct. I’ve found massive adrenaline rushes working in the South Bronx and have had an enjoyable, if relatively un-noteworthy career in the Fire Service (who really cares about or even notices areas like the South Bronx after all?).
As I said, I believe I innately and completely understand the violent impulse. I’m familiarly familiar with it. Violence is never rooted in “need,” that’s a fairy tale. Violence is ALWAYS about power and control over another person and having that kind of power is an incredibly sensuous experience.
Occasionally naive people will ask something like, “How can a person kill a woman (or like Ted Bundy) especially a young woman looking to assist him?” People who ask that connect with others and can’t understand those who don’t. Those who see people as “things” don’t differentiate between black, white, male or female….their just variations of THINGS.
From my view, it’s not a challenge to kill a hitch-hiker, or prostitute or other such vulnerable people, so I don’t know why anyone would do that, but to kill a person who would be a threat to you…like a pimp, or a gun runner or a drug dealer, now that could be a challenge. I think that the reasons you don’t see that very often is probably because most such socio-paths make critical mistakes early on OR simply lack the guts to move up into “Big Game” hunting.
I have an M.S. in mathematics a Safety Engineering degree and run 2 different businesses and engaged in (mainly) Commodities, with some currency speculation that I learned from a maternal great-uncle (an Italian Jew). At this point, I find that I seem to have been rewarded far beyond my productive measure, but have done generally (I believe) less harm than good.
Wow! And I thought I had it bad because my psychotic mother tried to kill me twice. I would say congratulations on overcoming all of that. I may disagree with some of your politics, but have to admire people who had an excuse to give up but did not.
Steve
“After serving in WWII, my father used the GI Bill to attend college eventually earning a Phd in psychology and enabling him to begin a career as a college professor. ”
After WWII the black GIs went back to Jim Crow. If eligible for the GI Bill money, banks would still not make the loans and owners would not sell to them. Many schools would not let blacks attend (see George Wallace).
Steve
“Wow! And I thought I had it bad because my psychotic mother tried to kill me twice. I would say congratulations on overcoming all of that. I may disagree with some of your politics, but have to admire people who had an excuse to give up but did not.” (Steve)
.
.
I was fortunate in that I had great parents. They were as proactive as they could’ve been given that I was able to mask a lot of the problems I had and was not a very open (communicative) child.
I felt betrayed and was convinced that they’d doubted me, when I was sent to see all those MH professionals, but by then some of my behaviors had to have been nearly impossible to ignore, I guess. When the Nuns would beat me with their wooden pointers I’d laugh at them. Once when one of them raised it above my legs an slammed it into my shoulders, I grabbed it and yelled, “YEAH! Now that’s the way to hit someone!” That dumb bitch ran out of the classroom, left the class unattended and went straight to the Monsignor of the Parish (which was right next door). . .that was akin to “going to get the Pope,” for us, as he was the grand pooh-bah of the entire school.
THAT got back home to my poor parents.
For most of my childhood, I felt I was at war with everyone…with the world. I doubt that I came out of unscathed, but I DID come through it, apparently “little the worse for wear.”
I think “politically” people don’t get me at all.
I have no morals, since I STILL don’t believe in any absolute “right” or “wrong,” so I have no real “hard & fast principles” either.
I’m just being honest about that. Now I BELIEVE and have looked at a very large sampling that’s apparently proven to my satisfaction that (1) collectivism DOES NOT/CANNOT work, nor do most “social engineering” schemes, (2) Government-run companies/entities are highly INEFFICIENT producers and (3) freedom (especially economic freedom) produces the MOST prosperity for the greatest possible number of people.
BUT in a Maoist repressive (Communist) regime, you’d find me turning in my neighbors for “not being good Communists,” and in a radical Islamist state, I’d be turning in my more “liberal” acquaintances for their “pro-women’s rights” views and their “affinity for gays” (even though I have nothing FOR or AGAINST gays and think women should have the same right to be miserable and as overburdened as men). . .I’m a survivor – a basic “Me FIRST” narcissist willing to throw principled people under the nearest bus, once those principles become toxic or “dangerous.”
I KNOW. . .that probably comes off as disgusting to many people, but I AM what I AM….and I know it.
I can revile Sharia Law right now, and wax poetic about how “incompatible with Western morality it is”….(and it really IS exactly that), but should we ever live in such a Sharia state, I’d be right out there turning in my “liberal” neighbors as “infidels” and stoning gays and immodest women with the very best/worst of them.
There is something almost humorously ironic (at least to me) that the primary target of a radical Islamist regime would NOT be the Conservatives in the West, not even the most devout Christians, BUT instead the “overly tolerant” pro-homosexual, pro-Jewish, pro-women’s rights “liberals.” I can honestly say that it would give me no great pleasure to throw such people under the proverbial bus in such a scenario, but, without question, in order to fit in and curry favor with the new order of things. . .I (without question) would certainly do so.
More than that, I know a few things many people do not. Even many of the most vile tyrants are squeamish. Why even the despicable Heinrich Himmler allegedly puked when he had to witness German soldiers executing Jews by shooting them in the back of the heads.
I have no such compunctions. After that first encounter with death at age 7, I became absolutely fascinated with the dying process. . .NOT “death” (entropy), but the dying process.
A number of people who know me have referred to me as “Colonel Lander”….some character from some Quentin Tarantino flick I haven’t seen. . .I trust it’s probably NOT a very flattering reference (as I’ve said, I’m pretty much an insufferable prick with most people), but I haven’t seen the flick and don’t even know the name of it to tell the truth. A few people have noted that my speech and mannerisms remind them of this character, but be that as it may, I can assure anyone that I am such an adept chameleon that I could “hide in plain sight” in virtually ANY kind of culture, be it the freest, or the most repressive.
In a communist or nazi state I could easily be a perfect Lavrentiy Beria, as I am decidedly NOT at all squeamish and willing to do virtually anything to make sure I’m seen as “the right kind of” (whatever is in fashion at the time). I would think that given a certain amount of envy on my part, over those purely principled souls willing to fight such a regime based on PRINCIPLE, that I could be a pretty soulless and remorseless foe. I mean it’s one thing to admit that you are unprincipled and amoral, but quite another to have to witness it every day in the countenance of others….NO, now THAT would be unbearable for me.
On the plus side, I don’t anticipate the U.S. becoming either a Sharia or a communist/collectivist state any time soon…..although, IF it DID. . . .I’m afraid that I would indeed be true to my words above.