The Whack-Job Threshold

[DanieMarie]

Re: The Whack-Job Threshold

I think one can be rational in politics and not all politicians are on some spree to rule the world. I know a LOT of people involved in politics on various levels and in various positions and I can tell you they're all good people. That's not to say that corruption doesn't exist (it does, everywhere) but the system is what it is and most people are out to keep things running as best they can and to make everyone as happy as possible given the various ideologies you get in a democracy.

Extremists, on the other hand, don't want to listen to others very often and don't understand that democracy is about meeting half way a lot of the time. That being said a lot of them don't follow democratic lines of thinking (though I'm sure the REALITY of their ideologies wouldn't be as great as they think it would be).

[Ophidia]

Re: The Whack-Job Threshold

I dunno about adding politics in this particular thread. Political stances I think are more of just things you agree with or don't agree with. This thread is intended to be mostly about people you think are nuts, whack-jobs, a few ants short of a picnic, a few links short of a chain, a few noodles short of a casserole, that kind of thing.

Honestly, the whole bigot/racist/neo-Nazi thing hits my whack-job tolerance limit because of some of the more outlandish reasons people have for being bigoted/racist/etc. Like the mother-in-law, for instance. She has a blonde-haired blue-eyed daughter (who is secretly married to a black man). One of the reasons she hates black people so much is because black men want to capture blonde-haired blue-eyed white women as a way to 'stick it to white people'. I'm not sure exactly how having a relationship w/a blondie accomplishes this, because usually by the time she starts talking about how her daughter needs a chaperone to keep black men from kidnapping her, I'm only hearing Charlie-Brown-grown-up-speak: whaw-whaw-wha-wha-whah. The mother-in-law honestly believes this and will unashamedly explain this to people in public, which is no different to me than a particular 'otherkin' friend of mine launching into how all her kids are dragons, or people who pronounce that they transchannel Kurt Cobain.

[DanieMarie]

Re: The Whack-Job Threshold

Yeah I only brought politics into it because these extremists here aren't really all -that- political, but rather they have a thin political ideology that they use as an excuse to break stuff, burn stuff and spray-paint stuff. So yeah, I think they're whack-jobs.

[ChainLightning]

Re: The Whack-Job Threshold

Do I dare. Yes I do!

My threshold, if you want to call it that, is pretty low, really. I mean, I'm forgiving of a lot of strange and seemingly unreal beliefs but I draw the line, as they say, way too quick. Generally, I just let people go on about whatever they go on about, and leave it off my plate. If it isn't thrust upon me, I don't have to smash it.


Huh. It occurs to me, there's a thing in psychology called projection, I might be projecting my own disdain for humans on the rationalization of why I possess so much disdain. Nevermind.

Anyway, I have some beliefs that certain others think is crazy, delusional, or whatever. The fae, for instance. But I don't intend to remark, to anyone, that they should believe in sidhe, at any time. If they do, cool; if they don't, cool. I don't claim that these guys are REAL, just that they exist in my perception of the real world. A very fine clarification, I think. And one that could stand it's own debate: Santa Claus: The Reality.

So, it's the assumption of what I am supposed to believe, of others claims, that I get very suspect. Supposed to? Why? Is there evidence? What proof is there?

To put it in a nutshell: Quackery doesn't get far with me. And I would know. I am a quack.

OH!!
Also, I want to high five the inception of "WJT".

[shadow1982]

Re: The Whack-Job Threshold

I don't think there is any belief that goes beyond my WJT, people can believe whatever they want to as far as I am concerned. You don't have to buy in to my world-view anymore than I have to buy in to yours.

I am more likely to pull people down when they are quoting things as fact and yet are completely incapable of backing it up with any evidence what-so-ever. Or people who like to play the 'your a big fat meanie' card whenever anyone questions them on their so called 'facts'. If you want to believe you are really a vampire etc you go right ahead, it's the willfully ignorant I can't seem to walk away from.

[ChainLightning]

Re: The Whack-Job Threshold

OOoohhh! Another thing that crosses my threshold: false assumptions, claims and half-truths. Coming from someone waving them around as common knowledge, basic understanding and quite obvious. Whereas, common knowledge, basic understanding and, indeed, the blatantly obvious all contradict the claim.

"Pagans worship the devil."
"Christians are obnoxious control freaks."
"Every Muslim is a terrorist."
"Satanists kill (as in sacrifice) small children and even kitties."
"Judeo-Christian religions [and Islam] all force scripture down everyone's throat, and that it's all part of just one Abrahamic tyranny."


^ All of that kind of shit really indicates a whack-job, to me. Either somebody not playing with a full deck, somebody very short on education or someone with their own bigoted, hate agenda. The first two possibilities, loony-toons and uneducated, can be worked with. The last possibility? They just simply need to be dispatched, dismembered and allowed to biodegrade into the bullshi... er... fertilizer, that they truly are.

Yup, that passes my threshold, pretty clearly.

[Taiga Pagan]

Re: The Whack-Job Threshold

Chain... I would scratch 2nd one and last one... if you would have lived in Quebec during the 40s,50s
(What we call the Duplessis era... name after the main prime minister of that time)

Now to prove my point, where's the big ruler my dad took as a souvenir from the teacher priest who was wacking kids with it?
Ah there it is....

Now for a few words I will roleplay a Catholic Priest Teacher of the late 40s early 50s in Quebec. And you Chain, you are now 15 years old, in a school just at the corner of a farm road.

I say: "Jesus is the Son of God, and our savior!"
You say: "Wut? He just a guy that got nail to a cross by Romans,"
I say: "Put your hand on the desk, or I use the ruler on your head."
You say: "Hey aren't there any laws against beating a kid?"
I say: "(Dude this is the late 40s/early 50s, you can forget about child protection) PUT YOUR HANDS ON THE DESK!"
You put your hands on the desk.
I WHACK your hands with my ruler and it hurts bad.
I say: "What did you say?"
Your reply "Ahrm! Jesus is the Son of God and our savior!"

Enough, let's go back to reality of today.

And that was the reality of my parents, so if you say you blow a "threshold" about people saying that Christians are control freaks and forces down the throat of people the scriptures, you would rethink that.

[Dez]

Re: The Whack-Job Threshold

Taiga, you missed the "all" in there.

Chain is talking sweeping generalizations. There are many members on this board who have experienced some of the worst of what Christianity has to offer, but that does not make it always the case. It's a classic "all cows are brown" type of argument, so watch out, or you risk making his point for him!

[ChainLightning]

Re: The Whack-Job Threshold

Too late. He already did, DR.

Taiga? I was one of those students that was taught that left-handed people are devilish. A ruler crack on the hand was an education tool. I've squared off with a great many fanatics, spouting scripture and using the Bible as a weapon against me. That's nothing new to me.

But to assume that any and every Christian is a control freak? You've now crossed the line into my zone of wrath and random abuse.

To assume that any and all Abrahamic religions can be lumped into one scripture-based, tyrannical entity is an exercise in complete stupidity.

People that wave either of those two banners of moronic, uneducated prejudice are no different than white supremacists, Nazi's, Christian zealots or Muslim terrorists, themselves.

To that end, one more anti-Christian tirade out of you, (ALL Christians are bible-thumping, conversion-happy hypocrites??) and I will defend the Christians [and ex-Christians] on this website with expedience. Bigotry is bigotry, no matter what side of the fence you are on!

[MaskedOne]

Re: The Whack-Job Threshold

Removed to avoid continuation of a topic Chain is executing. Move along.

[Taiga Pagan]

Re: The Whack-Job Threshold

Nature has it's thresholds too, and it's by being forgiving about the errors of past people (now dead) that we will see history repeat until we kill all the bees or algae. (probably in the name of Progress or God)

Then we will ask ourselves, was it worth it to be lenient?

[MaskedOne]

Re: The Whack-Job Threshold

:headdesk:

That is all.

[ChainLightning]

Re: The Whack-Job Threshold

Nature has it's thresholds too, and it's by being forgiving about the errors of past people (now dead) that we will see history repeat until we kill all the bees or algae. (probably in the name of Progress or God)

Then we will ask ourselves, was it worth it to be lenient?

What, in the name of all that's good, is that supposed to mean?

By that obscure ambiguity, are you inferring that whatever some now-dead Christian had done, way back when, is still punishable to other Christians? That is some really sick, demented logic, you know, if that's what you're trying to say. It would be identical to holding modern Heathens responsible for some murdering, raping and pillaging done by a horde of vikings, of ancient history.

Leniency? Seriously? Is that how you see NOT attacking DeseretRose for what happened at Mountain Meadows in 1857? That we're all being lenient with her?

[Taiga Pagan]

Re: The Whack-Job Threshold

We are all of what our ancestors did... they did it, in our name. And it's a shame in some situations, gratification in other situations that we bear all the time. It's more honorable to say we have are all beasts to everyone (even children) than saying we are perfect and clean.

There is no way we can try to hide from this.

[ChainLightning]

Re: The Whack-Job Threshold

We are all of what our ancestors did... they did it, in our name. And it's a shame in some situations, gratification in other situations that we bear all the time. It's more honorable to say we have are all beasts to everyone (even children) than saying we are perfect and clean.

There is no way we can try to hide from this.

You're still hedging. Now, instead of defending your quasi-relationship to what early viking explorers might have done, could you please answer the question?

You've been trying to pound an idea home, to me, for some time now, in this thread. Come right out and say it. Tell me what I'm supposed to think. How am I supposed to feel towards Christians?