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Thoughts from the front porch of a curmudgeon

CO. Hoosier

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Aug 29, 2001
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In 1941, life expectancy at birth in the United States was 64.8 (today, 77.8), only 6.8 percent of the population was over 65 (today, 16 percent), penicillin was on the horizon but the Salk polio vaccine was a dozen years distant, and most hospitals spent more on clean linen than medical technologies. Sixty-three percent of households did not have telephones, less than half the U.S. population age 25 and older had a high school diploma (today, 90 percent) and homosexual sex was criminalized in all 48 states. The nation has undergone a moral advancement — consider the casual callousness toward minorities of all sorts eight decades ago — as stunning as its material improvement.​

Yet the United States’ social hypochondria has deepened, and Americans’ pain thresholds have lowered during the nation’s advancement. Perhaps it is progress, of sorts, that status anxieties have displaced material deprivations in fueling the national pastime — no, not baseball: whining. But to be 80 is to have, beginning in the second half of the 20th century, lived through the emergence of today’s therapeutic culture. It saturates a large class of painfully earnest Americans — expensively schooled but negligibly educated — who, when not extravagantly indignant about Lincoln and other supposed national blemishes, are preoccupied with their malleable identities and acute sensitivities.​

Not my words, but George Will‘s on observing his 80th birthday. However I did read this on my front porch.

This deserves a highlight:

.Perhaps it is progress, of sorts, that status anxieties have displaced material deprivations in fueling the national pastime — no, not baseball: whining.

This sentence explains so much about politics, society, entertainment, sports, and life. This is what fuels many threads here. Status anxieties indeed.
 
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In 1941, life expectancy at birth in the United States was 64.8 (today, 77.8), only 6.8 percent of the population was over 65 (today, 16 percent), penicillin was on the horizon but the Salk polio vaccine was a dozen years distant, and most hospitals spent more on clean linen than medical technologies. Sixty-three percent of households did not have telephones, less than half the U.S. population age 25 and older had a high school diploma (today, 90 percent) and homosexual sex was criminalized in all 48 states. The nation has undergone a moral advancement — consider the casual callousness toward minorities of all sorts eight decades ago — as stunning as its material improvement.​

Yet the United States’ social hypochondria has deepened, and Americans’ pain thresholds have lowered during the nation’s advancement. Perhaps it is progress, of sorts, that status anxieties have displaced material deprivations in fueling the national pastime — no, not baseball: whining. But to be 80 is to have, beginning in the second half of the 20th century, lived through the emergence of today’s therapeutic culture. It saturates a large class of painfully earnest Americans — expensively schooled but negligibly educated — who, when not extravagantly indignant about Lincoln and other supposed national blemishes, are preoccupied with their malleable identities and acute sensitivities.​

Not my words, but George Will‘s on observing his 80th birthday. However I did read this on my front porch.

This deserves a highlight:

.Perhaps it is progress, of sorts, that status anxieties have displaced material deprivations in fueling the national pastime — no, not baseball: whining.

This sentence explains so much about politics, society, entertainment, sports, and life. This is what fuels many threads here. Status anxieties indeed.

I don't know. Wade Miley threw a no-hitter and he can't throw a fastball through a wet piece of tissue paper. No anxiety there . . .
 
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Look at the people whining and complaining because you started this thread.:rolleyes:
tenor.gif
 
A poster whining and complaining about people whining and complaining about a post that is whining and complaining about whining and complaining.
It doesn't get any more "meta" than that.
Uhm; whining and complaining are not synonymous.
 
NPT isn’t whining; you are.
At least I didn't start a "holier than thou" self-aggrandizing thread whining and complaining about how others are so inferior to myself, how much it pains me, and how frustrating it is to try to explain it to the great unwashed.

Now, spare me your bloated, self-righteous response. While some on here are undoubtedly waiting with bated breath for your proclamation, it will not change my opinion one iota.

Good day, sir.
 
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Now, spare me your bloated, self-righteous response. While some on here are undoubtedly waiting with bated breath for your proclamation, it will not change my opinion one iota.
Lol. Do you really think I post here to change your (or anyone’s) opinion about anything? No. That's not the poiint.
 
My thoughts from my porch swing is that this Canadian was right:

"Fascism begins the moment a ruling class, fearing the people may use their political democracy to gain economic democracy, begins to destroy political democracy in order to retain its power and special privilege.”

T.C. Douglas
 
Lol. Do you really think I post here to change your (or anyone’s) opinion about anything? No. That's not the poiint.
No. Your motives are much more self-serving. And that's from MY curmudgeon front porch.

Now, before I get accused of being the one who is bereft of substance (even though the level of such is at least equal to yours in this thread)...
I said, good day.
 
No. Your motives are much more self-serving. And that's from MY curmudgeon front porch.

Now, before I get accused of being the one who is bereft of substance (even though the level of such is at least equal to yours in this thread)...
I said, good day.
Well yeah. The reasons I post here are almost entirely self serving because I enjoy discussions about ideas. You are smart enough to respond to the ideas in Will’s comments with which I agree, but you refuse to do that. Instead you turn the discussion into one about me. That’s whining. This is why I also included the board in this discussion.

One concrete example of Will’s point. A generation or so ago, we discussed child malnutrition or even starvation and how that is intolerable. We all agreed on that, and we responded with different kinds of legislation. Now the discussion has morphed into one about “food insecurity”. Why is that? I understand the public purpose in fixing starvation and malnutrition. What is food insecurity and what is the public purpose about fixing food security? Is food In security in the catagory of whining?
 
Hey, take it up with NPT. Or is that even allowed in the "Mutual Admiration Club"?
I think this is kind of an interesting post from COH, per usual. Like an extracurricular class if you will.

So spitballing to steal unclebulk’s term the Xanax for status anxiety is equality of outcomes not opportunities. Bc opportunity allows for failures and feeds the anxiety. So whether it’s the poor who have it too hard or the over educated underachievers who harbor resentment they both buck the meritocracy system. They want what progressives want. And maybe all of this is yet another byproduct of social media and the impossibility of keeping up with the Jones’ and absurd imagery on Instagram that no one can hope to keep up with but is thrown in our faces daily. We used to say don’t talk about money, don’t show off, etc, now that’s all social media is: brags and humble brags that some people get off on and others feel defeated over.

Hell FOMO and probably status anxiety at some level compelled me to buy dogecoin in advance of Elon on snl. That was dumb (and a live robinhood person should have been there to take my calls) and to some degree a product of media etc

Maybe status anxiety is the fuel that feeds progressives.
 
I think this is kind of an interesting post from COH, per usual. Like an extracurricular class if you will.

So spitballing to steal unclebulk’s term the Xanax for status anxiety is equality of outcomes not opportunities. Bc opportunity allows for failures and feeds the anxiety. So whether it’s the poor who have it too hard or the over educated underachievers who harbor resentment they both buck the meritocracy system. They want what progressives want. And maybe all of this is yet another byproduct of social media and the impossibility of keeping up with the Jones’ and absurd imagery on Instagram that no one can hope to keep up with but is thrown in our faces daily. We used to say don’t talk about money, don’t show off, etc, now that’s all social media is: brags and humble brags that some people get off on and others feel defeated over.

Hell FOMO and probably status anxiety at some level compelled me to buy dogecoin in advance of Elon on snl. That was dumb (and a live robinhood person should have been there to take my calls) and to some degree a product of media etc

Maybe status anxiety is the fuel that feeds progressives.
But, hasn't "keeping up with the Joneses" long been considered a Conservative foible?
 
But, hasn't "keeping up with the Joneses" long been considered a Conservative foible?
I don’t know. I also don’t know whether there is an actual greater gap between the classes now or only a perceived one. What I do know is that excess, success, wealth, consumption, is in our faces now like never before.

My stoker on Instagram follows all these interior designers in fabulous locations with luxury homes and entrepreneurial success accounts and shit. How wouldn’t that eventually give you some anxiety.
 
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Well yeah. The reasons I post here are almost entirely self serving because I enjoy discussions about ideas. You are smart enough to respond to the ideas in Will’s comments with which I agree, but you refuse to do that. Instead you turn the discussion into one about me. That’s whining. This is why I also included the board in this discussion.

One concrete example of Will’s point. A generation or so ago, we discussed child malnutrition or even starvation and how that is intolerable. We all agreed on that, and we responded with different kinds of legislation. Now the discussion has morphed into one about “food insecurity”. Why is that? I understand the public purpose in fixing starvation and malnutrition. What is food insecurity and what is the public purpose about fixing food security? Is food In security in the catagory of whining?
From what I understand, "food insecurity" is the uncertainty that poverty induces on families who realize their next meal, due to circumstances that often are beyond their control, is not always guaranteed. If there is an illness that means they can't go to work, they ain't getting paid, and something has to be sacrificed.
IIUC
Thus the reason that inner city schools continue their free/reduced meal programs in the summer, when school is out.
 
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. What I do know is that excess, success, wealth, consumption, is in our faces now like never before.
Or, are we just conceited enough to think that? Or, to make a point, do we try to convince ourselves of it.
I find that declarations like this usually come from those who have no idea about history.
That's not you.
 
Hey, I still have no social media footprint. I look at my wife's facebook when there are new pics of nephews/nieces/or granddogs.
Oh, and this place if it counts as social media.
Yeah and I think you’re out of it. My stoker is much younger. Even mother’s day becomes a photo op competition. I blame social media for status anxiety and this collective competition we’ve been conscripted to play in - and also Ryan Seacrest, of course.

I will tell you how F’d up our country is now. If you get enough YouTube and Instagram followers YOU can fight one of the greatest boxers in history
 
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He's not.
Yes he is.

Part of CRT is requiring racists like you to admit that the “real” Lincoln was a white supremacist who’s separatist views and desire to deport freed blacks overrode all else, including the Emancipation Proclamation, that was a sham that barely freed anyone, and the Civil War in whole, which was about economics - including preservation of the wealth created by slavery. (Apparently Frederick Douglass was just his Uncle Tim.)

At least that’s what the CRT teacher hatred, er, hired by HR told me in our training.

You are a racism denier.
 
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Yes he is.

Part of CRT is requiring racists like you to admit that the “real” Lincoln was a white supremacist who’s separatist views and desire to deport freed blacks overrode all else, including the Emancipation Proclamation, that was a sham that barely freed anyone, and the Civil War in whole, which was about economics - including preservation of the wealth created by slavery. (Apparently Frederick Douglass was just his Uncle Tim.)

At least that’s what the CRT teacher hatred, er, hired by HR told me in our training.

You are a racism denier.

At least the San Francisco school board reversed its earlier decision to rename 44 schools, including those named for Lincoln and Washington, after the heap of scorn that was leveled at them. But it wasn't due to seeing how stupid and misguided they were and are. It was that they didn't want the hassle of dealing with the inevitable "frivolous" lawsuits and such.

Give 'em time.
 
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At least the San Francisco school board reversed its earlier decision to rename 44 schools, including those named for Lincoln and Washington, after the heap of scorn that was leveled at them. But it wasn't due to seeing how stupid and misguided they were and are. It was that they didn't want the hassle of dealing with the inevitable "frivolous" lawsuits and such.

Give 'em time.

You must be an optimist.

I’m not sure time can cure the kind of brain damage these folks have. Manson couldn’t rationalize at the level of these mental turd layers.
 
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You must be an optimist.

I’m not sure time can cure the kind of brain damage these folks have. Manson couldn’t rationalize at the level of these mental turd layers.
Hey, we got past the notion of black people as property, as well as people who were not worthy of the same rights as the rest of us...for the most part.
There's still hope for us yet.
 
You must be an optimist.

I’m not sure time can cure the kind of brain damage these folks have. Manson couldn’t rationalize at the level of these mental turd layers.

What can you expect when idiot Pelosi and/or her idiot staff can't tell the difference between Willie Mays and Willie McCovey?

Give 'em time. They'll play the name game again.
 
Hey, we got past the notion of black people as property, as well as people who were not worthy of the same rights as the rest of us...for the most part.
There's still hope for us yet.
Yep. The Republicans led us out of that darkness.

And yet Dims will tell you with a straight face that slavery still has not been completely remedied (with which I agree) but that the Democrats opposition to Civil Rights in the 1960’s is all gone all over and all racists are Republican.

Deep thinkers. (dws - hint for the deep)

The Democrats greatest fear is a generation of young black married fathers with educations and good jobs. Their hypocrisy has no bottom. Before Trump, they hated George Will. When he opposed Trump, he was brilliant. Now, with Trump defeated, he is stupid again. Just another of the many daily examples of the moral, spiritual and intellectual decline of the modern left. Evil and corrupt are not sufficient descriptions. I need a book of synonyms. I smite them. They are a clear and present danger to Western civilization, free enterprise, personal liberty and equality.
 
Yep. The Republicans led us out of that darkness.

And yet Dims will tell you with a straight face that slavery still has not been completely remedied (with which I agree) but that the Democrats opposition to Civil Rights in the 1960’s is all gone all over and all racists are Republican.

Deep thinkers. (dws - hint for the deep)

The Democrats greatest fear is a generation of young black married fathers with educations and good jobs. Their hypocrisy has no bottom. Before Trump, they hated George Will. When he opposed Trump, he was brilliant. Now, with Trump defeated, he is stupid again. Just another of the many daily examples of the moral, spiritual and intellectual decline of the modern left. Evil and corrupt are not sufficient descriptions. I need a book of synonyms. I smite them. They are a clear and present danger to Western civilization, free enterprise, personal liberty and equality.
How do you really feel?
Oh, and do you have any of the righteous indignation left over for the Right? Or do they just need to adjust their halos, cinch up their robes, and get to work.

See, your post above is poison to real discussion, not my snarky little nose-tweakers.
 
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