A black man telling a white man to sit at the front of the bus?! Rosa Parks just rolled over in her grave.

@Drax, if someone re-aired Babylon 5 three years ago, it'd be accused of having a horrible left-wing message about Bush the evil warmongering President.

Re-air it today, and conservatives would take it as supporting their view that Obama is entirely held aloft by a fraudulent media arm.

And of course, even when it aired in the 90's, everyone was trying to argue over which middle-eastern country the Narn were supposed to represent, and which western power was supposed to be the Centauri.

@blankfist, as far as kid's stuff, most of what I remember was as much individualistic as anything else (e.g. lots of "don't be afraid of bullies", "be yourself", "speak up when you see someone doing something wrong", "if your friends all jumped off a bridge..."). Virtually all of history is taught with the "great man" theory, where single individuals change the worlds by simply standing up for what they believe in (e.g. Ghandi, Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, and presumably there's someone from the individualistic right who did something individualistic too).

I know it's terrible for you to think it blankfist, but a balance of collectivism and individualism is really necessary for modern life. Yes, you should be able to be who you are, and do what you want, but you shouldn't get everyone killed by waking up a dragon, or poisoning the planet. Expectations of social behavior, including things like respect for property rights, are collectivist ideas.

Personally, I think it's perfectly fair to teach kids that what they think isn't always right, and that sometimes it's wise to listen to other people. I agree, it'd be bad if the lesson was "thou shalt always subvert thine will to that of others", but you have to be able to strike a balance between individualistic conceit and deference to others.

In the example given above, "If all your friends want to go get pizza and you want a burger, you should bow to the will of the majority and go get pizza with them," it seems to me that this is less about indoctrinating people to always bow to the will of the majority, but that sometimes it's better to compromise with other people for the sake of establishing relationships. Put in selfishist language, that it's sometimes better to pass up some of your immediate desires to make an investment towards earning something much more worthwhile.

Think of it as teaching the value of savings, or the value of human relationships.

>> ^MilkmanDan:
>> ^Stormsinger:
Didn't anyone ever tell this moron that it's not smart to tease wild animals? What he's done here is essentially equivalent. Bait them until they do something he can get attention with...
I fail to see the value in his moronic attempts to (at best) waste people's time.

When Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat to a white passenger, she was baiting a response. She was wasting government resources. From the perspective of the bus driver trying to enforce the rules, and any law enforcement people that got involved later, I'm sure she was taking "moronic" actions that willfully disregarded the status quo. She was an instigator, a trouble maker, a rabble-rouser.
And I'd suggest that her actions were worthy of the utmost respect.
Comparing this dude to Rosa Parks is perhaps overstating his case, but I think that civil disobedience of this sort that brings attention to the utterly pointless waste of ...everything that is the TSA does actually serve a worthy purpose.

Said everything I think needed to be said. Good one, milkman. I cannot see how using a personal camera is equivalent to teasing and baiting wild animals and how standing up for your rights once challenged can be considered by some to be a waste of people's time. Some, I suppose, like to apologize for the atrocities of bad policy and bad departments.

>> ^Stormsinger:
Didn't anyone ever tell this moron that it's not smart to tease wild animals? What he's done here is essentially equivalent. Bait them until they do something he can get attention with...
I fail to see the value in his moronic attempts to (at best) waste people's time.


When Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat to a white passenger, she was baiting a response. She was wasting government resources. From the perspective of the bus driver trying to enforce the rules, and any law enforcement people that got involved later, I'm sure she was taking "moronic" actions that willfully disregarded the status quo. She was an instigator, a trouble maker, a rabble-rouser.

And I'd suggest that her actions were worthy of the utmost respect.

Comparing this dude to Rosa Parks is perhaps overstating his case, but I think that civil disobedience of this sort that brings attention to the utterly pointless waste of ...everything that is the TSA does actually serve a worthy purpose.

Winstonfield

Are you arguing with this boy's opinions, or as you assumed, the opinions of others that propose equal rights for all citizens, including those not belonging to a Religious belief or doctrine? Or arguing that the fact he has these opinions or any opinion for that matter, is somehow misguided because he is ten?

Being apprehensive about dinner table values is one thing, especially when they are backed up with generalities. However, Gay rights are modern day civil rights. To deny them isn't a responsible, respectful protection of those "morally opposed to homosexuality," but instead a willful denial to respect the rights of others protected by the Constitution. Religion does not have a stranglehold on the meaning of Marriage, and the government should recognize a meaning that applies to all citizens, not just those part of an exclusive ideology. Your attacks on the validity of using the PoA as a place to express discontent are albeit right because, as you already said, the arguments for liberty and justice can be used just as easily by any opposition. But fuck semantics, those critiques don't change the validity of the boys opposition.

The hardest part of reading your posts isn't that you say things that are wrong, but snide. To have a lot of adult friends, "let alone gay ones," isn't nearly as disconcerting a thought as your clear assumption that having "gay ones" is somehow dangerous. You have an opinion just like this kid, and it seeps through. Except this kid expresses himself genuinely and makes his arguments unashamed, while you use formulated 'unbiased' criticisms to muddle the issue and confuse it with an argument about whether the chosen platform is philosophically sound.

Criticizing this kid for his refusal to stand and say the PoA as a show of his support for gay rights is comparable to criticizing Rosa Parks for boycotting public transportation, or civil rights leaders organizing sit in's in public courtrooms and offices because of the unequal rights African American's were subjected to. Don't confuse your opinions with unbiased criticisms about the nature of how someone expresses themselves.

I'm not sure what to think, but I'm gonna give some benefit of the doubt. The man's an idiot although I don't think he was against Rosa Parks, I think he just didn't like this liberalness or whatever. Also I don't really fault the police, an altercation happened, they separated the two parties and escorted them out of the hall, seems like the way to go.

Edit: "...only Winfrey was arrested. He was held on suspicion of misdemeanor assault." Winfrey is the Old White Dude. So yeah the police handled this correctly, which is the first time I've ever said something like that.

Mate, i think you've completely misread my post.

I'm saying that political correctness (ie. the need to enforce "black history month", the need to force people to say "chalk board" instead of "black board") is, i would say in most cases, counter-active to racial equality. And that's what morgan freeman is saying.

Racial equality is when no one even thinks about the need for black history month. To draw one's own connotations of racism from any use of the word "black" and ban it as a result is counter productive.

What i suggest IS treating others with respect. I hope i'm clearer now, i'm sure we're talking about the same thing.

I'm sure we agree on this matter and this is a misunderstanding, otherwise i don't understand your viewpoint at all!

In reply to this comment by dystopianfuturetoday:
>> ^dannym3141:
I've always said this for years, as long as we have political correctness - ie. the need to enforce necessary AND UNNECESSARY changes to how we communicate - racism will never be gone. You draw attention to racism and i would say encourage racism by kicking up a fuss when someone demands that we use "chalkboard" for "blackboard".
This world has enough problems with racism without searching for it around every corner. Something that a lot of activists fail to realise.


I knew these words were going to be forced into some kind of conservative political ideological mold.

Morgan Freeman isn't suggesting we ignore racism. After all, MLK, Malcolm X and Rosa Parks' 'fuss kicking' brought equal rights under the law to everyone. Freeeman is merely saying that black history should be included as a year-round part of American history, and not relegated to the shortest month of the year.

Also, I don't get people who have such a huge problem with treating others with respect. Is the social pressure to say Asian instead of oriental really that oppressive to you?

>> ^dannym3141:
I've always said this for years, as long as we have political correctness - ie. the need to enforce necessary AND UNNECESSARY changes to how we communicate - racism will never be gone. You draw attention to racism and i would say encourage racism by kicking up a fuss when someone demands that we use "chalkboard" for "blackboard".
This world has enough problems with racism without searching for it around every corner. Something that a lot of activists fail to realise.


I knew these words were going to be forced into some kind of conservative political ideological mold.

Morgan Freeman isn't suggesting we ignore racism. After all, MLK, Malcolm X and Rosa Parks' 'fuss kicking' brought equal rights under the law to everyone. Freeeman is merely saying that black history should be included as a year-round part of American history, and not relegated to the shortest month of the year.

Also, I don't get people who have such a huge problem with treating others with respect. Is the social pressure to say Asian instead of oriental really that oppressive to you?

Currently reading "The Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Women Who Started It: The Memoir of Jo Ann Gibson Robinson," for a Women's History class. It's actually really interesting. This woman single-handedly started the bus boycott after hearing about the Rosa Parks incident. She and two of her students (she was a professor at the university there) printed up thousands of brochures announcing a one-day boycott and passed them out to every black person in Montgomery. Everybody thinks Dr. King was behind it all - he wasn't. He ended up being elected the leader of the movement, but he was very much against starting it. He also, during his "I Have A Dream" speech, barred women from the stage.

Learn new things every day. I have a paper due on it on Wednesday, actually. I might post it here for comments.

Though this is a more complex situation, what he was doing was something similar to Rosa Parks sitting in the front of the bus.

Their rules are wrong, and he decided to not play by them. They have power on their side, but they do not have justice on their side. I don't know if the people of that area are ready to stand together against this sort of flagrant abuse of the justice system, but this is the only way to start change. Stand against them when they are wrong.

For the record homosexuality was officially removed from the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostics and Statistics manual as being a disease that needed curing in 1973. Up to that point hundreds if not thousands of psychiatrists had sought to figure out exactly what it was that led to homosexuality. I would argue that not one came to a definitive answer simply because there isn't one. Homosexuality is an act of nature no different than the butterfly or the duckbilled platypus. That's not to say that it's grotesque as much as it's to say that it's just as weird and beautiful as anything else that nature has produced.
In regards to James Eslick and Jake Rowe how is this any different from a Rosa Parks or a freedom rider? That's not to say that their acts are comparable as much as it's to say that their sentiments are. When is it ever convenient to stand up against the status quo and power? Sure they could've been married days before the vote but then who would they have left behind?
As for the eia argument I think I have history on my side. Starting with the fertile crescent humans have existed and lived in communities on earth for roughly 8,000 years and since the dawn of civilization homosexuals have been right there with the rest of the population. Now if the homosexual really was the undoing of the human race and the cause of our extinction why has the earth's population only continued to grow since then? We have grown from a few thousand living in the desert to 6.5 billion inhabiting the entire planet. Those gays sure have impeded our progress haven't they?

Last night, Hope and Possibility Kissed. This morning, the Nation blushed....


Rosa Parks sat down so that Martin Luther King, Jr. could stand up and march.
Martin Luther King Jr. stood up and marched so that Barack Obama could run.
Barack Obama ran so that future generations could fly...

Ron Paul was also against recognizing MLK's birthday as a federal holiday, and same with Rosa Parks.

There's a lot of retarded shit that Dr.Paul believes in, and through his "states rights" vision, he'd allow states to re-segregate schools, teach creationism, deny contraceptives, and let coroporations run amok, killing our economy, provide unsafe and unfair labor practices, dissolve unions, and rape our wilderness.

This video is about as un-biased as Karl Rove's nutsac.

freedom of speech does not mean freedom to interrupt someone's speech.

however...

democracy means you are allowed to shout at leaders who break their oath of office. in fact, democracy COMPELS you to shout at leaders who break their oath of office.

The ONLY logical time to do this is when they are trying to spew more lies from a pulpit.

this isn't freedom of speech, this is CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE.

go look it up, retards. Google Rosa Parks or something, or maybe you think she should have sat quietly in the correct place on the bus and written a strongly worded letter to her representative in congress?

15 years ago the Lithuanians stood up to the Soviet Army with peaceful protest. I guess P&T never went to Lithuania. Maybe they were working on "Bullshit: Peaceful Protest"... 30 minutes of ignoring the existence of Gandhi and Rosa Parks, interviewing some guy from a Tai-Chi club instead, editing it to make him look like a fruitcake.