Homestar Runner Wiki Forum

In the interest of being fair since I ragged on Europe a few weeks ago, here's an article about eight major problems Americans should worry about.



I couldn't agree more. Parents who refuse to parent are a major concern for the future of our country.

The others are good, too.

EDIT: Uh, would the mod who changed my post title please explain why and identify himself or herself? Thanks.

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What was your original title? I can't tell who, but it may have been because the original title didn't clearly state the topic inside.

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So, so you think you can tell Heaven from Hell, blue skies from pain. Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail? A smile from a veil? Do you think you can tell?

I don't think they realized that the article was about more than just parenting, since that's the only thing you quoted.

but, I agree. Parents bug me. I was volunteering at some easter event thing, and I was helping the lady with the pony rides. I politely told some woman that her kid was too big to ride the pony, and she said that he wasn't, so I called over the lady who owned the ponies, and she said that her son couldn't ride because the weight would hurt the ponies backs. so the lady started witchin' at me cuz her kid was too fat to ride the freakin' pony. she was being extremely disrespectful and was setting a terrible example for her overweight child. man that kid was huge.

In conclusion, I'm a good child and deserve candy because I do my homework and sometimes my chores.

He had me at number one, but lost me quickly into number two, and I just thought he was spewing nonsense through most of the rest. I think I'm going to make a list of some of the good points and some of the complete BS later and comment on it.

Hmmm... After looking at that article, I take back what I said about the article title. Although a lot of this article does talk about parenting.

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So, so you think you can tell Heaven from Hell, blue skies from pain. Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail? A smile from a veil? Do you think you can tell?

Without the wrong crowd, there can't be good kids. Kids need some jerk pushing him around, it builds character and helps them know what to expect from idiots that bully. Besides, bullying primarily stops sophomore year.


As for parenting: Yes. Parents need to get off their hard working arses and play with their children. Parents don't get tired, they are super beings with the strength of twelve men, and they should use that expendable super-energy on their sugar filled children.

Also, kids are too fat today. Know why? Everyone builds a wall around their emotions at some point in their life; Fat kids' just happen to be made out of food.

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You're either apart of the wrong crowd, or being beaten by it. There is no middle-ground.

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Exactly. Get beaten and live a better life!

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INTRO:
I agree with him about global warming, actually. Yeah, yeah, I know, I know. Get over it.

CATASTROPHE NUMBER ONE:
I agree with most of this, although I think he may be a little too harsh here. And I don't see why swearing is supposed to be as "bad" as he's claiming to be. They're just words, people. If they offend you, that's fine, and I'll try not to say them around you, but what I choose to say is my right, and you can't take that right away without violating a little something called the First Amendment.

CATASTROPHE NUMBA 2:
What a load. This entire bit is completely full of hot air. Here's the worst excerpt:


Whoa, hold on! Not only is this a bit of an exaggeration, I think he got his cause and effect seriously reversed here. Getting pregnant out of wedlock is more the result of the out-of-control crime rate - or at least poor judgment. Gotta use those condoms, people...

As for the last bit about gay marriage, and indeed the entire thing:

Would you please show your work?

CATASTROPHE NUMERO TRES:
I see where he's coming from, but unfortunately I don't think it's from the right station. He seems to be saying this catastrophe is making a mockery of marriage, but he's making a mockery of marriage himself by claiming that it's basically all about sex. Where'd all that stuff about the deep, loving connection you're supposed to have go? It must not have supported his argument. Hmmm...

CATASTROPHE, PART IV - THE SEARCH FOR SPOCK:
Crime is a huge problem, but once again he feels the need to blame a lack of family values for no adequately explained reason. Admittedly, a family raised by a single parent has a potential to spin out of control, but no more than a family with two parents who both have poor judgment. If the parent is a good one, there's no reason why it should make a difference. If the parent's not so great, well, that's another story entirely...

CATASTRO-FIVE:
I agree with him that profanity is far too proliferent in today's society, and I still have no idea what the deal with the N-word is about, but the fact remains that swearing itself is not "bad," it's just the negative messages in general. If I were to make some horrible, nasty threat to someone else without using profanity, is it really "acceptable?"

CATASTROPHE SIX (I'VE RUN OUT OF CLEVER TITLES):
Most of this I agree with wholeheartedly. What happened to education? Come on, where is it? Will someone tell me where it is? Is it hiding under the bushes? Seriously. I remember catching some Mind of Mencia one time while channel-flipping, and I saw his thing about how students perform below-average, but the parents deciding that instead of something more rational, they'll (DURRRRRR) lower the standards some more! However, all that talk about the "Beacon of Freedom" and how kids are learning that "we're the cause of all the world's problems" just seems like a pathetic attempt to remind the viewers he's conservative. Jeez! We GET it already!

CATASTROPHE #7:
...I'm just not even gonna say anything. This is complete BS and I don't want to waste my time explaining why. Someone else can do it. I don't have the patience for this sort of thing.

CATASTROPHE ATE:
I see where he's coming from. Democrats do have a tendency to label all Christians as "bad," don't they? And the "being nice" thing... I remember someone on this forum (I forget who exactly) made an argument on how you should go up to a pacifist and then keep hitting them until they realize there's no other way around it except to fight back. In a perfect world, there would be no fighting, but last I checked, this wasn't a perfect world. However, I still think we should withdraw in Iraq, despite it being the opposite of what's obviously implied here. I think all we need to do is improve our defenses instead of waging an unwinnable war that's having negative effects on most other thing the government controls.

I think the writer makes some good points but is usually just making lame "points" from a ridiculously extremist POV.

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So, so you think you can tell Heaven from Hell, blue skies from pain. Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail? A smile from a veil? Do you think you can tell?

I read that w/o the apostrophe.
hilariouser!

Cos women are incapable of making independant moral decisions, of course, and must be programmed like robots.

GIT DEM BABY-MACHINES BACK IN THAR PLACE!

You do have a point there, WHF. Perhaps it's high time that MEN started learning that lesson also. After all, "It takes two to tango," as they say, and if it's wrong for one, it is equally wrong for the other. Why should women be held solely responsible for men's failures?

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Some fair points--yes, parents need to learn to actually PARENT--but a lot of it sounds like "ARGBGBL!!! Them liberal Hippie Commies are trying to take away my family with their QUEERS and their FREE THINKING!! Where's my wife? I need her to bring me a beer so I can think more clearly on how to bring back TRADITION!! Because TRADITION is all that matters! TRADITION is always good, no matter what!!"

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The meaning of life is 'bucket.'

FOR PONY!!!

Apple.
Plain and simple.

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Ya know, just FYI, the Bible never says that the Fruit from the Tree of Forbidden Knowledge is an apple...>> Coulda been a mango for all we know. However, and I hope you were joking there, but that's a terrible reason to attribute all of men's pitfalls and follies to women.

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The meaning of life is 'bucket.'

FOR PONY!!!

Actually, if you take what St. Paul says, while the woman may have been tricked, it was actually the man's fault he ate for himself; i.e., he deliberately disobeyed God, knowing full well he was in the wrong for doing so. His fault is even greater.

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Man, this whole article sure was great. I mean, it sure has opened my eyes to a lot of things in our world.

Catastrophe No. 1

Okay I actually kind of agree with this one a little

Catastrophe No. 2

Yeah, when did this whole "women going out and getting jobs and not staying at home" thing start? I mean, next thing you know they might start VOTING!

Catastrophe No. 3

This one's great. I mean, there's no way that men can stop thinking about sex long enough to fall in love or raise a family.


Ha ha, back to those crazy females! Nope, nobody ever told a woman that it was dangerous to have sex because their pure minds just can't take that sort of thing.

Catastrophe No. 4

Man, it's like ALL of these problems are caused by single moms! If they're raised by someone like that, OF COURSE they're going to start doing drugs! People without both parents around just can't see any other kind of logic.

Catastrophe No. 5



Yep, any regular swear word and racial slurs are on the same level COMPLETELY. Good New Yorker burn, too!

Catastrophe No 6.

I actually agree with this one, too.

Catastrophe No 7.



Yeah! What's up with liberal media expressing their OWN OPINION on what's going on in the world? It's like they think they have some kind of right as an American to say what they feel about things like that!

Catastrophe No 8.



Yeah, because it's not like children are exposed to that kind of thing everyday!



...



Because a group of extremists who misinterpret what their religion tells them are good posterboys for the entire religious group!

If you couldn't tell I was being sarcastic, you fail.

This is probably the longest post I've ever written.

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Ooh! Ooh! I do!

Just kidding. Even though I don't agree with a lot of what he says, I think it's the apocalyptic and paranoid tone he takes that repulses me more than his opinions.

Point 1: I agree. Parents just don't expect as much from their kids in the right ways. Parents should expect and help kids achieve independence and responsibility. Instead, kids are either let loose into mind-rotting activities or sheltered and micromanaged so that in either case they never learn to set their own goals. Apparently some pretty solid study recently showed that more than 2 hours per day of time in front of a screen does weird things with your brain wiring, and kids less than 2 or so should get ZERO screen time. (Some day maybe I'll actually get around to setting limits for myself >.>). I'm glad he sees that the insane amount of extracurricular stuff some kids are doing hurts the core academics instead of defending them for "building character". They don't; they build dependence on "external loci of control", that is, too much discipline and forced activity leads to problems with independent thought, so that you're always looking for others to tell you what to do.

Point 2: The best teachers are good parents, and the best caregivers are good parents. I'd say the problem isn't that now mom's are working, too, I'd say the problem started when the dad had to leave home for work.

Point 3 - I see where he's coming from. Sex is way too devalued these days. There was an article in one of the papers here that said at a good number of college parties here, oral sex has taken the place of "hey, what's up?". So.... we're almost like bonobo chimps now (sex is a part of their every social interaction). I think the liberal types are right that it needs to be demystified and that assuming abstinence is naive, but the act which creates more human life needs more dignity than it's given. And, even though the single-parent hysteria is way overplayed, two good parents are better than one good parent. But I don't see what government should be able to do about it. There's nothing the government can do, even if they tried, to stop sex or to stop people from being bad parents (which they most likely would be if forced to stick around against their will).

Point 4 - This one's way off. His proof that crime is up is that half the news stories are crime-related? That's called "getting ratings". Stats show crime is down from the eighties, tho maybe up from the late 90s.

Point 5 - I don't think profanity has anything to do with anything. It shouldn't be all profanity all the time, of course... This is really the least relevant thing on the list.

Point 6 - Absolutely frickin agree here. The schools totally blow. I could've learned so much more if I didn't have to go. The problem is those declining expectations again. People worry too much about maintaining self esteem. Worry about providing a loving environment that can pick people up when they fall, not prevent the falls from even happening.

Point 7 - Heh, he fell for the media's hyping up of crime in one of the points above, and now he's lashing out at them for hyping up other things. The thing is, the stuff going right doesn't get reported because it doesn't need to be. Things going right is what's supposed to happen. That's not news. The news could use more in-depth rundowns and big-picture overviews instead of blurbs, but the news isn't supposed to be the happy-fun-time-yay-American-Dream channel just like it shouldn't be the Terror-Iz-Good channel. News is when things don't go according to plan or when something unexpected happens. It doesn't matter how many parts of Iraq are safe if hundreds of people are dying in just one part. I also don't think the media's portrayal of Iraq is wrong, though, and anything else I'd say would be entirely based on that assumption, so next point.

Point 8 - I don't think a lot of Christians are able to see how bloodthirsty some of their coreligionists are. It doesn't have to do with religion, really. Christians don't really use their religion as cover anymore, instead they just conveniently ignore their religion while screaming for vengeance. Radical Islamic movements are more about asserting endangered traditions (that I'm personally glad not to be living with) under the cover of the religion those traditions happen to have become attached to (I've heard a lot of Arab traditions aren't really mandated by the Qur'an). As for the main point of this point, I think once again he's confusing bringing up problems to work on with treason. Some conservatives seem to me to have an attitude that some aspects of America are perfect and beyond all reproach. That mystifies me. Also, not all people using violence are out for Nazi-like world domination. There's no legitimate grievance that can be satisfied by world domination. If violence can be shown to be a result of a legitimate grievance, however, why would it be wrong to do something about that? The violent people should still be prosecuted, but why is it somehow treasonous to try to get to the underlying causes? EDIT: Oh yeah, and I was gonna agree that Christianity does get picked on too much, probably for the same reason that minorities can joke about whites but whites can't joke about minorities*. Hopefully we'll move past this overreaction-to-the-past stage and into balance someday.

*this sentence has absolutely nothing to do with recent Imus nonsense. I don't know anything about that thing.

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ATTN: LOWER BOARD USERS HAVE MOVED TO ANOTHER FORUM. COME JOIN THE FUN!

Eloquent as always, Mr Tiger.

Head is full of flu, so I'll be brief. That 8th point is an interesting one, both yours and even Johanson's (as repellent as it is, and yes, I'd be saying that if he was a left-winger too).

Because there really isn't an even platform in the discussion of Islam and Christianity, insomuch that Islam really does escape a lot of criticism (comparatively, anyway). Sure, fanatics - both Christian and Muslim - are the minority. But is either religion or their adherents beyond reproach? No.

But may hold back from any serious criticism of Islam, while there's open season on Christianity. Be it a fear of retaliation from extremists, or just political correctness, or whatever it may be. It's not hard to see how people like Johanson would get ticked off.

I trust from this point forward, the conversation will be conducted in a civilized manner.

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