Comments on: Controversial Questions meme

By: RG

RG — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 13:12:23 +0000

1) I was too busy firing up my bong to answer the question.
2) I don’t have a uterus so I’m not qualified to really answer this question.
3) Hello? Sarah Palin? Hello?
4) No. It’s barbaric and you can’t un-dead the innocent.
5) See question 1.
6) Nope. Atheist.
7) Absolutely. Why shouldn’t we be as equally as miserable as straight folks?
Nope. Mas Latino la pinga para mi!
9) The question begs: Who’s fucking a 12 year old? Seriously. Who?
10) 18 should be the drinking age. If you can fight go to war and shoot
people, you should be able to at least have a beer afterward.
11) Let’s just declare victory and get the fuck out already.
12) We may not able to determine when we come into the world, we should at
LEAST be able to decide when to leave.
13) Spanking no. Being put into a dog cage until they eat their
vegetables, yes.
14) What makes you think I haven’t already and for free!
15) She has to live with the consequences of her actions. Her nightmares
will be sufficient punishment.
16) If the only thing that’s keeping me alive is a machine – pull the
fucking plug.
17) Don’t care. People will judge you regardless. You’ve seen my blog, right?

By: John

John — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 05:05:00 +0000

I didn’t get to actually respond to the talking points:
1. No meth, no way, ever. I’ve seen what it does to people. Not pretty. I’ve also seen what pot and alcohol can do to people. Any drug to excess will cause problems. The stronger the drug, the faster it creates problems.
2. Abortion? Nobody out there thinks it’s a great idea. The problem is that the people against it are also against preventing unwanted pregnancy, i.e. against sex ed and free condom/birth control distribution.
3. 50% of the population are female. 50% of those likely to bring ruin on the country are female. Ergo, there is a 50% chance that it would happen. QED.
4. Do I believe in the death penalty? You mean, like, do I believe in Peter Pan, or Santa Claus? Sure. I believe in the death penalty for both of them.
5. I live in the pot capital of the country. The smell is everywhere. Everyone thinks it’s all natural (it’s the herb, dude! it’s all good!) and that it’s okay to smoke it three times a day. They think it makes them more spiritual. They think alcohol is evil. These people live in a pot cloud of stupidity. And it doesn’t make conversation more interesting. It’s also waaayyy stronger than it was 20 years ago. It’s really not the benign drug it used to be. So, no, I’m not itching to make it legal.
6. Do I believe in God? No. Do I believe in a universal mulligatawny soup that contains energy, spirit, and memory? Perhaps. Likely.
7. Same-sex marriage? Absolutely. If people give the word marriage that much weight, then to have anything else would be to create a “separate but equal” class of people, shown to only perpetuate prejudice. (And my husband and I were the first male couple in Humboldt to get married).
8. Hispanics moving to the U.S. of A.! Good god! Since when?! (Gee, um, since 1492).
9. This question is, like, 10 kinds of wrong. And kinda irrelevant.
10. Drinking age. No. In an uncivilized country, we need laws like this (unfortunately). But, of course, laws were made to be broken!
11. Iraq? Interesting take on it, Erik. But we’re not barbarians, are we?! We must take over using civilized means, like setting up Home Depots and WalMarts and giving everyone in Iraq the promise of minimum wage jobs under fluorescent lighting!
12. Assisted suicide? What would you do if were diagnosed with stage 4 liver cancer? or Alzheimer’s? Yep. Stock up on the Restorils!
13. Spanking. Yeah. Our children are fucked.
14. Burn the American flag? Did someone say ‘volunteer?’
15. There sure are some insane people in this country. But no one asks what to do with an insane president who sends thousands off to die killing hundreds of thousands of people in a country that had nothing to do with 911.
16. Well, I’m often kept alive with my husband’s tube down my throat. And that’s way more important.
17. Judge? Me? Who would do that? It’s not like I have opinions or anything.

By: matthew thompson

matthew thompson — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 23:58:48 +0000

1. Meth. no way in hell… have you seen how ugly it makes you? 2. In general against abortion but I think it is better to give options that make abortion unecessary that to criminalize women in a bad situation. 4. On the death penalty… I am against it… you can’t bring back the dead if you find out later they are innocent. 6. I am Buddhist and believe Gods (real or not) distract us from our own true potential. 7. I am same sex married, CA last October.

By: Dead Robot

Dead Robot — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 17:50:55 +0000

I would have to say yes, your country would go to hell in a hand bag if a woman ran it.

By: John

John — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 17:08:56 +0000

I must agree with Urspo. I believe there are a handful of things going against our ability to have meaningful dialogue. First, people text short one-liners at each other (sound bites), not well thought-out paragraphs (this is an instant gratification society; therefore, meaningful dialogue would take too long). Second, reading and thinking takes too much effort nowadays. Third, unfortunately, forums (even blog sites like this) are rather anonymous, and it’s easy to be unthinking and uncivilized with people whom you have no connection to. Fourth, anyone on a forum can have an opinion weighted equally with others, including children and run-of-the-mill assholes, so you never know who’s shouting you down.

My therapist told me that those who can hold cogent conversation and actually be open to changing their minds on an issue are in the sore minority. This was actually quite liberating to me who was sabotaging my emotional well-being trying to convince my religious right family that I’m a good person.