Saturday, November 29, 2014

Living In The World We Live In Instead Of The One We Would Like To Live In

I had a friend, now dead, who I met my first year in college who landed at a rural land-grant university in what she believed to be the wilderness from one of the toughest, grimiest, crime ridden inner city neighborhoods in a major Northeastern city in the mid 1960s.  A black-belt, not in the more elegant karate, but in the street-fighting sport of jujitsu.  She was one tough gal.

She told me that her first day in college, she arrived with her stuff in an old dufflebag from the army surplus store (this was a year or two before that was fashionable) which she dumped on a bed in her assigned dorm room, before her room mate arrived and she decided to explore the campus.

On returning she found the bare walls of half of the room transformed into what would have been a girly, girl's room of the period, all except her side of the room which was untouched.  On first meeting her new roommate, her new, prom queen roommate said,  "My father's a policeman, he's a Federal Marshall".  To which my friend said,  "Well, you know the guy your father's looking for?  That's my father".  Which she told me was true, he was a gangster who a few years later was shot in a gang war.  When I gave her my condolences she said,  "Don't bother, he was an asshole."

The reason I'm telling you this story is what happened in the early years of students protesting, not only in matters of civil rights and the anti-war movement but for increased liberties on campus for students.  She was entirely for the civil rights and anti-war goals but when, in a meeting, demands for abolishing a number of rules were brought up she scoffed.  When someone said that "If students are given the opportunity to take responsibility for themselves they'll start thinking and acting like adults" she said,  "Bullshit, if they can get away with stuff they'll just get away with being total assholes to people they can do that to."  She'd seen what happens when no one is enforcing rules, she'd grown up with it.

She was right, which we found out when the "reforms" went through and dorm life went down hill.  I tell that story as an appendix to my last post.

11 comments:

  1. As I have had reason to observe lately, "justice" is for punishment; not for me or thee.

    Well, maybe thee; but certainly not me. I don't need justice, because I don't need punishing. What have I ever done wrong?

    But that other guy......

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  2. Thus from Spsrky, who declined to believe that a woman I loved in the 70s had committed suicide in part from being sexually abused by Bill Cosby.

    Go fuck yourself, you hypocritical asshole piece of offal.

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  3. Well, to start with, Sims, I didn't use someone from my past to make an unsupported, purported hear-say accusation that a named, living person caused someone's death. If you want to make that accusation it's your responsibility to name his accuser and provide some evidence that she even told you that story in the way you are publishing it on the internet.

    Though, since that is only the responsible way of making an accusation, it's too much to expect that it's the way you would make it. I mean, expecting a geezer of your years to change a life-time habit and achieve an adult level of behavior is probably like asking someone to get by without oxygen.

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  4. To start with, you're a pig. Period.

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    1. Your typical incisive and conclusive argumentation, Simps. What makes you an emblematic member of the Escaton Brain Trust.

      Disambiguated, it means "I got nothin'".

      Delete
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    1. I suppose that I've got no alternative, Simmie, not while you and the Eschatots are producing it.

      Delete
  6. Here's a clue, numbnuts--if you were an actual human being, rather than a sack of shit, you would have responded to my story by saying something like "Steve, I still hate your guts, but even so, I'm sorry for your loss."

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    1. That's irrelevant to your accusation which is the only thing that makes it necessary for anyone to know more than what you said. That makes all the difference in even an issue existing.

      Oh top of that is the fact that I know you're less than honest and a rather pathetic attention seeker.

      Delete
    2. As long as you're producing the crap, I'll keep dealing with it.

      I don't believe your story because you're not honest.

      Delete