Check on your liberal family/friends/neighbors

[Garraty_47]

Can you give me one example of anyone in human history that has existed off path...just one?

Because I, as a very intelligent man G, cannot think of any!

We as individuals necessarily walk our own private paths from our first day to our last.

We as a society follow a trajectory created by gravity and inertia; where many paths converge their combined mass bends society's trajectory to more closely resemble the combined paths'. The more paths converging the deeper the rut and the more inertia those on the paths are subjected to.

But when that trajectory becomes a trap it is not only possible but necessary to escape it.

By "escape" I don't mean to abandon society entirely though that's certainly one way to do it. People diverging from society's gravitational rut happens all the time in big ways and small, mostly small, but even a slight deviation can be crucial.

We might call them members of a counter-culture, or eccentric, or anti-social, or simply abnormal.

They need not be artists, mystics, or some other obvious subset of humanity. They could be anyone who examines the prevailing attitudes and/or systems that surround them and says: "No. That isn't right". If I were a betting man I'd put money on the fact that you diverge from the status quo yourself in some way, perhaps in many ways.

That's all it takes. The courage to stand out, to be different, to demand a better explanation than 'because we said so'. To refuse to condone something that's unacceptable.

The trajectory of a society could be described as a sort of feedback loop in which more convergent paths equates to higher gravity which draws in more paths etc. etc.

But no trajectory is inevitable or inescapable.
All it takes is knowing it can be escaped and then wanting to.

 

[Admin.]

Reagan gives rich people socialism blows up economy taxes Soc. Sec.

Bush Sr. and Jr gives rich folks more socialism, creates massive recession, blames the 99% and tells em they gotta give up Soc. Sec.

Drumpf gives rich even more socialism, creates massive recession, says cut SS

Rand Paul says poor people don’t need no stinking social security or Medicare!


SAVE THE BILLIONAIRES!

 

[Seamajor]

Gary amigo, send more $. It’s the only way. Defending Fatso is expensive.

 

[Admin.]

Gary amigo, send more $. It’s the only way. Defending Fatso is expensive.

Lawyers don't work for free, and a half billion in fines (so far). Trump needs his flocks tithes now more than ever. Because Duopoly!

 

[Blandscape]

We as individuals necessarily walk our own private paths from our first day to our last.

But we do not sir, do we?... unless I am missing large chunks from my knowledge base. We are mammalian. In fact we are the second longest mammal in terms of gestation and the first when it comes to brain development and nurturing. This takes up to 25 years, all the while being influenced by our own individual environment. We do not walk our own path, it is the said nurturing process that determines how easily we traverse our travails. This is always highly politicised, no matter what side of the fence you end up walking on, or what box you tick on your ultimate ballot.

It is impossible to abandon societal influence or norms, even if you live off grid. We are by our nature creatures of emotion, and not of logic. If there was logic involved in the democracy of living, we would never have had Trump. Ever.

We are all destined to fail by the very metric that makes us so successful as a species.

 

[Garraty_47]

We choose our own paths.
We're the only person who can.

We are not a hive mind.
Inside our craniums we are the only resident.

We have the ultimate freedom and the singular responsibility for who we are.

In this "societal influences" are essentially circumstantial.
They are external. Happening around and to us, but not OF us.

We decide what we will celebrate, tolerate, condone, or refuse.

The aggregate of all those choices is the trajectory of a society. It isn't required or even necessary for those choices to be unanimous; all that's required is a critical mass.

But we each have to decide for ourselves if we can accept and in so doing reinforce a trajectory, or shift that energy -that gravity- to a better trajectory which, if it reaches critical mass as well, can become the new prevailing trajectory.

Trajectories, those accumulations of individual paths, are reflections of who we currently are as a species.

Who we are right now is unacceptable to me.
I will not celebrate it. I will not tolerate it. I will not condone it.

I refuse.

 

[Blandscape]

I as often as not condone respectfully your absolute zero politic and politicking V. All the while as you claim some kinda sentient oblivion to your activity within it. But as men should we not confront the sentiment behind an argument that can never go anywhere?

You are off path? Well, we have simply proved herein that that is your delusion me ol'friend, not mine.

You are very much on my path, and if I have to hack-away at your opinion of everyone else's opinion that has a differing opinion...then so be it.

You refuse nothing, while clinging haphazardly like a lemming on a cliff-face, onto the belief that you somehow do.

Your unacceptability notwithstanding.

 

[Garraty_47]

Me?
I'm just one (mostly) hairless bipedal ape among billions of the kind.
That is my circumstance; I didn't choose it but here we are.
I will therefore be the best (mostly) hairless bipedal ape I know how to be.

What else?

In my opinion that doesn't include the following:

. Surrendering to a herd mentality
. Obtaining my critical information from known liars
. Deluding myself into conformity
. Abandoning principles and morality when they're inconvenient

Not a complete list, granted, but a good start.

 

[Blandscape]

Oh bonnie laddie, you have been surrendering to herd mentality all your life, you have been obtaining your critical thinking via your own individual life, you are already deluded if you think you have no delusion, and you have embellished and burnished the only fact that you held true...that the first three bullet pointed conclusion's never applied to you.

It is not a good start V, it's what a man at the end of his life says to himself, to comfort the pain of his own passing.

I see it all too often. There is no list...only regret!

 

[Blandscape]

Or a rage against it.

 

[Blandscape]

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

 

[Garraty_47]

There is no list...only regret!

I presume you're speaking for yourself because that is so very not my own experience.

Sorry you feel that way, I truly am.

 

[Blandscape]

No need to be sorry, just acknowledge that all you ever thought you were is a pale imitation of what you are.

 

[Garraty_47]

No need to be sorry, just acknowledge that all you ever thought you were is a pale imitation of what you are.

You have it backward, sir.

All that others assume about me is a pale imitation of what I am, at best. Even when I tell them who and what I am they don't hear it and prefer to cling to their own self-soothing narratives which say more about themselves than they could ever manage to say accurately about me.

It is known.

 

[Blandscape]

Well you have told me via this site and many others, just how clouded and confused you can be, while proffering political opinions that if you never once cared about, would never be aired. That is not their self soothing narrative, that is yours.

I say (as I always have), that you a highly intelligent and articulate man. Prove me wrong.

 

[Kirk]

Gary is an esteemed Knight of Fire...what more can you ask for?

 

[Admin.]

Nobody knows more about it than me!

 

[Garraty_47]

Well you have told me via this site and many others, just how clouded and confused you can be

I have?
Not challenging you, just trying to remember an instance of that very specific declaration.

Of course I am occasionally confused, mostly about the mental gymnastics of my fellow (mostly) hairless bipedal apes; their willingness to absorb propaganda even when they claim they know it's propaganda, and their irrational cruelty to one another.

I doubt I will ever fully grok such things and admit that freely.

while proffering political opinions that if you never once cared about, would never be aired. That is not their self soothing narrative, that is yours.

I say what I mean and mean what I say.
My support for or disdain toward any particular politician or issue is not situational or strategic.

It can change, as my opinion of Bernie Sanders has changed, when reason dictates it should. But there's no vacillation or subterfuge, there's only incorporating new information to form a more realistic and accurate opinion.

That's miles away from someone telling me what I think when I patently don't, or telling me I've got a stance that I demonstrably do not, etc.

That is those people *needing* me to hold those views and positions for their own reasons that don't actually have anything to do with me. Obviously.

I say (as I always have), that you a highly intelligent and articulate man. Prove me wrong.

[insert link to my poasting history]

 

[Seamajor]

Lawyers don't work for free, and a half billion in fines (so far). Trump needs his flocks tithes now more than ever. Because Duopoly!

Those that live in W. Virginia are very confused. Probably broke as well.

 

[Seamajor]

Gary is an esteemed Knight of Fire...what more can you ask for?

WTF? A klan member?

 

[Admin.]

Donald Trump told to pay six-figure costs of firm he sued

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

#Winning

 

[Blandscape]

Of course I am occasionally confused, mostly about the mental gymnastics of my fellow (mostly) hairless bipedal apes; their willingness to absorb propaganda even when they claim they know it's propaganda, and their irrational cruelty to one another.

The truth is not propaganda in this feeding frenzy of post-truth, it is the beautiful dimple of simple fact on the Greek god of democracy's' manly jaw. The visor you view it through V, is the return to your own nurturing and conditioning, and your ability to laughably claim that you see beyond all that. You don't, you never have.

You are as much part of this debate as you never were.

 

[Garraty_47]

The truth is not propaganda in this feeding frenzy of post-truth, it is the beautiful dimple of simple fact on the Greek god of democracy's' manly jaw. The visor you view it through V, is the return to your own nurturing and conditioning, and your ability to laughably claim that you see beyond all that. You don't, you never have.

You are as much part of this debate as you never were.

What don't I see?
What exactly do you think I have wrong?
Only telling me I'm wrong without saying how is not helpful.

 

[Blandscape]

I have no idea how to elucidate it more for you V.

Other than to say I can probably tell you your parents and grandparents voting patterns and where they fit in demographically into their cultural identity.

 

[Kirk]

'If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit.'

 

[Blandscape]

'If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit.'

And you would know...what exactly?

 

[Lily]

I have no idea how to elucidate it more for you V.

Other than to say I can probably tell you your parents and grandparents voting patterns and where they fit in demographically into their cultural identity.

Culture is much like the water fish swim in. They are immersed but just don't see it. It takes serious contemplation to see ourselves as part of the whole even when we rail against it, fully buy into it, or escape in apathy.

I know this from experience and going through all those reactions. Rarely, but sometimes, on any given day.

 

[Garraty_47]

I have no idea how to elucidate it more for you V.

Cool. Cool.

No reason for me to change then, innit.

Whew.
There for a minute I feared you might try to prod me into rethinking something.

Cheers!

 

[Blandscape]

Why wid I try to season the smelting pot of hypocrisy that determines your issue's within a society you are divorced from, while somehow demanding value therein? And then claiming I can hand you a tissue to stop you bleeding over any political forum like a President bleeding over the soft Italian leather in an open top Cadillac, in a triangulated crossfire?

Stop having an opinion about what you patently do not have an opinion about. My need to explain you to you is wearing thin, especially among the abused and abusive morons that constitute our apathetic readership.

You have no opinion on politics, that is your politics.

I was never asking you to change, merely to STFU about what you yourself constitute as your own constitutional and democratic irrelevance.

See it as a bilateral exchange between your right wing belief structure, and an inability to accept that you cannot intellectually or morally square (like a freemason sacrificing a virgin in a satanic circle), just how moronic it sounds when you attempt to storm the higher ground.

Innit.

 

[Kirk]

Cue the Theme song to Benny Hill.