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Originally Posted by PornoDoggy
It takes some doing ... but I once told her she was three notches to the right of Attila the Hun, and she agreed with me.
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LOL - I was going to say that!
Gonzo did you know I once managed the bakery in a Fresh Fields store? (Whole Foods competitor that was bought out by Whole Foods a few years later.) Their free-range steaks are fucking incredible! I don't know if they're still selling Coleman Beef but back then they were, and the owner came up and spent some time with us when we opened the store (complete with big cowboy hat, boots, and a Texan drawl) and cooked some steaks for us. Best friggin steaks I've ever had.
I'll make a mental note that I need more steak so that I'm not undernourished.
XxX, now that we're in a calmer environment - I wasn't putting words into your mouth. I was bitching about the things going on in N.O., you were making excuses as to why they'd be doing these things (the situation they're in, the part of town they're from, etc). When you make excuses for someone's behavior, you are condoning what they are doing. It's like enabling. It's giving them a free pass, as if they had no control over their own actions.
Think of the man who beats on his kids, and he was beaten by his father while he was a kid. One camp of people will shake their heads sadly and say he couldn't help it, another camp will say he most certainly could, it was his choice to repeat the behavior. I'm in the second camp. No matter what your life status, your situation, your upbringing, whatever - you've always got a choice.
When you excuse away or explain away someone's behavior, you put them in a position of being a victim who helplessly had no control, rather than an empowering position of having control over their own actions and choices.
I had already agreed with you - quite readily - that I'd be one of the ones stealing food, and I'd kill if necessary to defend my family. You seemed to have missed that, or possibly felt that I didn't take it far enough. Don't start trying to bang it into my head again that I would go farther than that - let's just agree to disagree. There were things going on in N.O. that I would *never* do, no matter the situation, and I know this as far down deep in my bones as you can get. You think differently than I do, and you don't know me, so you really have no idea how I would react when put into a certain situation. If it were all so simple as "whenever someone is put into that situation, they'll lower themselves to doing these things", then we'd have seen everyone doing it, rather than just a small portion of them. People do have choices, and they make them. Some choose to fall on the side of preying on others and taking advantage of the situation, some don't. Please for god's sake just believe me when I say I'd be one of the ones falling on the side that doesn't take advantage of the situation. Maybe if you could know me better, spend some time with me, you'd believe it. You spent a lot of time in N.O. and New York immersed in people who'd take advantage - just have faith that not everyone is like that. Even in a situation like what happened in N.O., there are people who wouldn't cross that line (and many thousands who didn't, thank goodness).
Does that explain my thinking a bit better? If not, can you at least respond without all of the insults and name-calling?
