My Thanksgiving pet peeve....

What does Ann Coulter have to do with it? I bet she had a nice Thanksgiving and never once wished anyone on SL a Happy Turkey day.

Oh, and while we're at it, I also don't observe "Martin Luthor King Day/Memorial Day/Independence Day/Labor Day/Columbus Day/Veterans Day or any other specific American holiday"... thanks...so please don't ask me what I did on my "days off"on those days...once again, not everyone in Second Life is American, so please don't assume they are...

Well, tell us now...........what did you do on your days off?

I really don't give a sh*t what you do on your days off.

Dude, WTF is your problem?

See, there is the great minister/leader/social reformer/orator named for the Protestant Reformer Martin Luther.

And then, there is Lex Luthor.

I think you are confused.

My pet peeve...

People who get upset when you wish them well.

omg!! you get all those days off on all those holidays?
i don't even get all those off!!!

ok this sound like a job for

Do you pout whenever the conversation doesn't include you? I'll bet you're a real pleasure to have at parties.

He's the absolute hit of any party he's even close to.......doncha know?

It's impossible to discuss this topic without somebody being offended. It's difficult to discuss it with nuance and sophistication without writing a 20-page historical essay on how we got to where we are. Since I don't have 20 pages I'll be a bit more coarse.

Some time ago I made some posts about not pushing cultural diversity too far, and instead celebrating what we have in common. That's what I'm still about.

We don't have religion in common any more in this country. It's not about numerical majorities. It's about significant pluralities. Yes, Christian believers are still in the majority in the USA. But the tipping point of tolerance comes well before anybody's majority is lost. There are enough people in the USA who identify with religions other than Christianity, or who have no religion and are no longer willing to be restricted by the beliefs of those who do, to form a powerful coalition that can defend its space. Therefore, pushing one's religion now, in public, is divisive. It didn't used to be, but now it is.

This didn't happen because somebody had it in for Christians. It happened because there are, and always have been, other people besides Christians here, and as history has unfolded, they have gradually acquired more power. And it happened because majorities of long standing tend to forget that no majority is permanent. They get comfortable, start to think they own the place, and then when things change at first they don't understand what's happening. "What do you mean, there's other people out there who don't think like us? Gee..it was always so quiet before..."

This is a familiar pattern: "What do you mean, the blacks are unhappy with the way we treat them? We *love* them! We care for them, we protect them. Gee, they used to be so quiet before..."

"What do you mean, our women don't like being told they have to stay home and take care of the kids, they can't be doctors and lawyers, they have to wear burkhas. Gee..they used to be so quiet before..."

"What do you mean, gay people aren't perverts? We *love* them! We care for and protect them! We jail them and drug them and analyze them to *cure* them. Gee, they used to be so quiet before..."

Majorities tend to be oppressive. It's not intentional. They're like the high-school jocks, smokin' and jokin' and having a good time, content in knowing that all their familiar friends that they hang with are just like them, completely oblivious to the fact that anybody else exists. New people can join--but only if they look and act like jocks. They figure, "Hey, we got to be this way, it can't be that hard for anybody else to become just like this. And really, they'll be better off if they do." Just, really, you know, clueless about how little they really know and how badly they are injuring those whom they don't understand.

But the trend to diversity in religious and non-religious beliefs, as in many other areas, is a permanent demographic shift. We're not going back to the way it used to be.

It's been going on for a while, so some of the jocks have put together their own think-tanks and have developed the theory that this is all just about some whiny unathletic malcontents practicing "victim politics". They say, "We never really used to beat up the stoners and knock the books out of the hands of the goths and trip the AV nerds on the stairs, and even if we did, some of us stopped doing it, most of the time, at least, not when anybody's watching, so the problem is all fixed now and everybody's equal."

But they're wrong, of course. The jocks are getting schooled that the stoners and goths and farmers and AV nerds and all the other outcasts in the high school are getting stronger and they aren't going to take it anymore. Some of those jocks will never accept it. They figure, they didn't personally intend to hurt anybody with their self-centered parochialism, so therefore nobody could really have gotten hurt, and therefore nobody really has a reason to complain. "We didn't know the gun was loaded." And that being the case, they ought to be allowed to continue to carry on as though nothing has changed. And after pleading that case and losing, some of them will turn mean.

In this context, after all that has happened in the last 20 years in the USA, any city government that puts up religious symbols on government land cannot possibly simply be trying to "decorate for the holidays". No. Putting up religious symbols on government land today is always a deliberately provocative, political act. It is highly disingenuous to claim otherwise.

People who truly want to practice brotherly love in this day and age do it by not picking fights with their neighbors. And if we want to keep the school from being torn apart, we'll have to acknowledge that no one group can run the student council anymore.

Feel better now?

Oh, and since it's unofficially the season..........Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Happy Hannukah. Felice Navidad y prospero Anno.

Well thank you That's so sweet.

I'm betting OP is someone that never gets wished a happy, merry, or joyous anything in real life.... people can easily tell he's a ass, and react accordingly.

I'm bored, I'll bite.

Well of course you don't have anyone worthy of a national holiday, you keep blowing each other up with car bombs, you are killing each other just fine without the Yanks invading.

So please don't push your neo-religious commo cultie views on us non-americans to celebrate your day of turnips or OgaBooga the Volcano god

IBTL

Perhaps you should re-read my Heinlein quotes. Basic manners. Learn what they are and please use them.

Sorry, I'll try to be nice to the trolls from now on, offer them a cup of tea perhaps. I'm fine for manners for those that desire them, the OP obviously doesn't, so no point using them.

I read some of his space novels long time ago, not bad stuff for it's day I guess, didn't realise he was doing a Hubbard of it.

IBTL

Yeah, the OP is an ass and has to grow up, damn him for giving his opinion...

It must be awful to be harassed like that. If 40% (?) of 2L residents are American, it must be unbearable for you. You have my condolences.

Today is the 1st December: Happy -

* World AIDS Day
* Costa Rica – Military Abolition Day
* Romania – National Day of Romania (Union Day)
* Ancient Latvia – Barbes Diena observed
* Feast day of St Castritian
* Feast day of St Eligius
* Feast day of Nicholas Ferrar (Episcopal Church (United States))
* Adrian and Natalia of Nicomedia
* Portugal – Restoration of Independence (1640)

(Warning: although some of the above are celebrated, some are commemorated, and some are mourned)

Rock

Birthday to me

I guess he doesn't like people to care about him.

Just FYI:

I used to think some of Heinlein's quotes were pretty cool, but I've run into a few people who take things like the "specialization" quote WAY too seriously, and now my automatic reaction to Heinlein quotes is to run the other way.

@Tegg: Hubbard started his whole religion schtick as a result of a bar bet with Robert Heinlein.

Just because it's not your holiday doesn't mean we don't wish you well. If you can't deal with people making well-meaning mistakes, I'm sorry for you. I take the complement when gay men make a pass at me (I'm a straight man); try to take our occasional errors about your nationality the same way.