Apology offered

[Laurajean]

Quote:
Hey Stalker, get lost! (......there, how's that??)

I am so sorry Laurajean, I forgot all about I was supposed to be stalking you and Redhen.

Awww Redhen.. that hurt! You it me with a chair! is that anyway to hit your personal stalker? (Who has sorta forgot to stalk you this week?) I'll do better, I promise... right after I eat my supper. And take a nap. and take my meds.

Forgetting to stalk? Naps? Meds? You're the lamest stalker ever.....

 

[redhen]

Quote:
Hey Stalker, get lost! (......there, how's that??)

I am so sorry Laurajean, I forgot all about I was supposed to be stalking you and Redhen.

Awww Redhen.. that hurt! You it me with a chair! is that anyway to hit your personal stalker? (Who has sorta forgot to stalk you this week?) I'll do better, I promise... right after I eat my supper. And take a nap. and take my meds.

Yeah..i was going to mention the lack of stalking this week...

Dont make me come and find you!

 

[vebyrd36]

So as I work on homework, watch babies zip, chase the darn sock monster around in the sheets in my bed to find missing sock. So now I'm all turned around and upside down looking for missing socks. So I'm posting a reward for that darn monster!!!

 

[sourland]

MFB, are you into the 'shine? You're getting irrational. DROP YOUR DRAWERS BOY.

 

[welsummerchicks]

You are wrong. Free speech is guaranteed by the constitution.

Being polite, being decent to people, being responsive and adult about things that bother them; that isn't free speech.

That's called manners, being an adult, being mature, getting along with different kinds of people.

And that isn't guaranteed by the constitution - it's something that people as a community define the boundaries for.

Everyone has a slightly different opinion about what's 'too much' and what's 'funny' and what is 'going too far'.

Just because you think something is 'ok', that doesn't make it so.

The fact is, your definition of 'free speech ends when someone is offended', needs just a little bit of ammendment:

'Adults who have decent manners, can tell beforehand, in any given group they participate in, what is going to be offensive, and they avoid saying those things'.

The government gives people the right to free speech. It's ones upbringing and values that give a person manners.

We don't cuss like sailors in church. We go to the wharf. That's basically it. It's pretty simple. There is a place for certain kinds of speech and there is a time. We cursed like stevedores in college - when I pick up my nephew at daycare, I don't curse like a stevedore. Like I said, pretty simple.

I had a friend who for some reason in his quiet, way, just loved baiting people about their religious beliefs. He'd start a discussion about their religion, no matter what their religion was, and proceed to ridicule, in a very intellectual, distant and clever way, their beliefs. In college, it was considered deucedly clever and very, very entertaining.

Once we got out of college and went to work, the first place he worked, it was a bunch of college kids, basically, and it went on just like it had in college. We wore flip flops and t-shirts and jeans to work, and we curse like stevedores.

As the company grew and became more successful, such talk got less and less acceptable. We weren't just selling cheap software to college kids. We dealth with companies with devoutly religious leadership and they did not appreciate cussing. They did not appreciate off-color jokes, or racial remarks, or 'daring things' that were meant to be riske.

Things changed. We were around a very, very different group of people. They had very different expectations.

In other words, the only people that swore were the salesmen, and after a few years, even they had to stop.

One day, we were standing around and a secretary announced that she was going to have a baby. This was her third child. She was very excited about it.

This fellow, he snickered and said, 'All small children should be killed'.

She never spoke to him again. It wasn't long after that that he got fired.

He was indignant about that. He lamented about how free speech was gone and everyone was sooooo politically correct and he was just indulging in free speech.

I said, 'no, you weren't. You were doing what you do so often, which is be an unmitigated *******'. I explained that the world had changed around him, and he was still acting like he was in college. It wasn't just the off color remarks and baiting the religious people. He showed up when he wanted to, he dressed like a college kid, and he didn't get things done on the deadline.

If he wanted to get the advantages of being in that situation - the ninety thousand dollars a year salary, the perks, the intellectual stimulation and prestige of an engineering job, he had to fit in with the expectations of the group, not some other group from the past.

Basically, he was pretending he was someplace that he wasn't, any more. He wasn't around those people any more.

There is a difference between free speech (constitutional right) and being decent with people and respecting their feelings and preferences.

.

 

[Laurajean]

Quote:
How dare you characterize and insult sailors that way.

(just teasing)

 

[welsummerchicks]

That was an example my father used about 40 years ago. I think even the wharf has changed by now.

It isn't better, or worse, it's just different. Time to adjust.

Let me see...cuss like a....a.....no....um....like a....no.....um....

Some years ago I took a Covey (habits of highly effective people) class and they were discussing what kind of language was acceptable in corporate america. One person chimed in and said, 'Black English'.

The leader of the course started laughing. 'You are woefully behind, and you need to catch up. There are corporations where it is very, very acceptable, where it is, in fact, indispensable - grow up'.

LOL.

In one country, it was 'very, very polite' to push the foreigner up to the front of the line, even if afterwards he felt like he'd been through a vertical mosh pit. In another country, it's 'very very polite' to belch loudly at table after a meal.

It is the group you are around that defines what is 'proper' to talk about and what is 'right speech' and 'right behavior'. That will always be true.

The thing is that today, there are a lot of groups!

 

[redhen]

Quote:
How dare you characterize and insult sailors that way.

(just teasing)

 

[scbatz33]

Quote:
You offend me all the time.....not sure why, but you were feeling left out so I'm going to volunteer to be offended!

 

[wolftracks]

Quote:
Thanks wolftracks! Now I'm included!

Whatcha wanna fight about.

How about blue... not near enough people fighting about colors.

(Or green, or yellow, or orange, I ain't picky)

GREEN IS SO MUCH BETTER!

Green IS so much better!

Used to hate it and then it became my favorite..

Didn't use it for my wedding though. My colors with purple and black.

Husband's favorite was blue. He wore green way to many years.