Town Quixote's

[Lon]

Thinking of my old friend today and one of his favorite bits...so this is for Patrick. :cheers:

....

And goodnight sweet prince. May flights of angels sing thee, and never route you through Atlanta. :rip:

Whew, took me a bit of reading, but now I'm in too! I'm sure he enjoyed it.

 

[Lon]

From a friend of mine elsewhere on the topic of PC speech and whether, as another friend suggested, it was a call for censorship:

"It's not the words that are politically incorrect [that is the problem] it's the implied meaning they are given when used in a certain context. For example, if someone says, "Black lives matter," and another person responds with, "All lives matter," they are using that phrase to diminish the first statement [and not to uplift the larger group]. It's not calling for censorship, it's calling for decency." John Michael Daw

You weren't endorsing censorship, you couldn't be more clear.

I was remarking on how "all lives matter" wasn't a thing until "Black lives matter" came into being. I guess it sounded scary to certain Whites who had to look around real quick for some kind of protection from the scary idea.

I didn't see a call for censorship, perhaps self-censoring with 'decency.'

Responded here

 

[Town Heretic]

And is it wrong that if I'm still alive when Jennifer Grey dies I know that the first thought through my noggin will be, "Nobody puts Baby with a coroner."

It's wrong, isn't it... lain:

 

[Town Heretic]

Working with the wife on fine tuning classic video, board, and card games for long term couples who need a playful way to work out the trials of relationships...first up, Mortal Kombat, the Marriage Edition, where the fatalities can be particularly embarrassing.

Other ideas in the hopper under the Marital Games Edition brand include: Thin Iced, where the cubes you hammer-tap have descriptions like, "In-laws drop in for a week!" and "Baby's got a fork!"; Marital Jenga, the "Oh, so you can build that five feet high but you can't fix a shower curtain," game of relationship construction; Risked--You've conquered the world, now what about that checkbook?; and everyone's favorite, Clueless, "Guess what you did and where you did it this time."

Coming soon for card enthusiasts, Crazy Ates.

Marital Games*, where our motto remains, "This is so much cheaper than a lawyer!" :thumb:


*Rules not included.

 

[Town Heretic]

And it's time for another, if down beat, "One sentence Movie Reviews."

Aladdin: You'll wish they'd made a better movie.

Men in Black International: Answers the question, "Why don't more summer movies win Oscars?"

 

[Town Heretic]

A pal gave me an idea (so stand back a little) that I've been thinking about for a second...which as we all know is a long time for me.

Potential replacement national anthems then, the short list so far:
1. Alexander's Ragtime Band
2. Afternoon Delight
3. That Garth Brooks' song (no, the other one).
4. Money
5. Freebird (the LP version)

The last one might hold up Olympic ceremonies a bit.

Edit: Add the Macarena to the list. Because we could mandate the dance to accompany it and, honestly, the exercise wouldn't kill us...and it might strike fear into the hearts of our enemies.

Disclaimer: the above is intended as a humorous jab at the idea of changing the anthem, though it's a hard one to sing and I'm not exactly wild about the continued use of an old English drinking song to frame our nation...not when we've written original scores with a less martial and more American foundation to them. Anyway...this post is your post, this post is my post.

 

[Town Heretic]

A friend of mine was talking about her life in Las Vegas...she said that she was lucky because of all the acts that go through there. Then she added, "I recently saw Journey and Def Leppard for the first time!"

So I said, "Dang it, Rita, which is it--are you lucky or did you recently see Def Leppard and Journey?

Because, honestly, that's like saying, "Thank God my fall was broken by that baby!"

lain:

 

[Town Heretic]

I think it's time for a new section here...possibly: All About Town. Just to keep up with the instagram folks and whatnot.

"Late night supper at the House of Waffles! [insert pic] Usual colorful characters in attendance--people refused service at Walmart, ex-cons, and carny folk.

The waffles and hash browns were, of course, to die for--as was the company if you didn't keep an eye out."

That sort of thing.

Needs a logo though.

 

[Jerry Shugart]

Potential replacement national anthems then, the short list so far:

I like "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," and think it would be more unifying to the nation because of lyrics like this:

"In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me:
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free;
While God is marching on."​

"During the Civil War, the "Battle Hymn" became a rallying cry of the northern cause, reprinted a million times, and sung on a thousand marches. It would endure as America's wartime anthem long after the guns fell silent in 1865...The last line that King ever spoke in public came from a song, "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," written by Julia Ward Howe in 1861. It was a fitting finale to the life of a great American because the story of the "Battle Hymn" is the story of the United States. The song, now approaching its 150th anniversary, is a hallowed treasure and a second national anthem. We have turned to it repeatedly in national crises. The "Battle Hymn" has inspired suffragists and labor organizers, civil rights leaders and novelists—like John Steinbeck in The Grapes of Wrath."

Read more about the song here:

https://www.theatlantic.com/enterta...f-the-republic-americas-song-of-itself/66070/

 

[Town Heretic]

On our age, so to speak...

A friend of mine brought up a phrase in jest that got me thinking about the age we live in, rhetorically speaking. The phrase is "virtue signaling" and it is, essentially, a way to call into question the motive, or (ironically enough) virtue of someone taking a public stand, suggesting the point is that the speaker cares more about being seen in that virtuous light than they do about what they say. It's a shot from the cheap seats that avoids argument on the point for the old fashioned attempted rhetorical murder of the messenger.
In short, it's everything I dislike about the modern public square, where catch phrases are as plentiful as fleas (or memes) and arguments as scarce as reason. And no one is immune from it.

Take a stand on standing for the honor and traditions of a national symbol, our flag? Virtue signaling. Support those kneeling as an expression of the American right to speak truth to power? Virtue signaling. Pray in public? Virtue signaling. Support civil discourse? Stand on principles you think need to be clearly and repeatedly brought to our square? Virtue signaling. In some group or some way, almost anything you say can and will be easily dismissed with the phrase.

And therein lies the problem, the easy judgment, the inference in lieu of argument on the thing that matters, or should.

I don't know which side of the aisle coined it, but it's a lazy bit of insult in lieu of rebuttal and it marks something about our age that I find deeply disappointing. If we differ, we should stand up and differ, in a way that invites examination and meaningful discourse. And in our difference extend the same credit for sincerity that we hopefully find in ourselves. Failing that, we will spend our time in judges robes, but naked underneath them.

 

[Idolater]

Oh, well if you don't feel not being able to speak your mind wherever you please is an infringement

By my government, Town. By my government.

, then I'd apply the same idea to other rights and we're getting where I mean for you to be, only using different language to describe it.

No, you're talking about my government infringing my right, and you a private citizen expelling me from your living room for saying the wrong thing or carrying the wrong gun, then that's Your right---but it's not my government's Power to do the same. Note the difference between rights and power also, as they are counterbalancing and not equivalent.

My living room. Your business. Our town square. You seeing the connection?

The first two sure. The third? Public property, owned by my government, and my government does not have valid power to infringe my or your rights on public property, while you have every right to do whatever lawful things you'd like with yours.

They can penalize you in the street. Supra.

They can penalize me in the street for what? Supra what?

All property and every space is owned, either by individuals or by government.

Correct, and public property is owned by my government, and my government doesn't have valid power to infringe my rights on public property. My rights and my government's powers are in a tension, and my rights are sometimes specifically forbidden by my government from being infringed, and that one would think would especially apply on public---i.e. my government's---property.

And all rights are subject then to other rights in exercise, which has been a point I noted earlier.

You're begging the question, not actually advancing your argument or defending the claim.

Rather, laws frequently reflect community standards, but there are fairly universal understandings on some words, just as there are for certain actions. Now there will always be some group that has a different standard, just as there are some people who would react violently to fairly innocuous behavior.

I don't think you actually addressed what I said here. As in, what I said still stands, and nothing you said changed any of it, or even added to it, not even a nuance. Southern Baptists and Satanists perceive 'profanity' and 'vulgarity' and 'indecency' completely differently, with I might say exceptions of violence, on which they might largely agree with each other, but we have one Constitution, and these two communities can have different laws regarding lawful speech, even though our Constitution commands both of them to leave people alone wrt all but criminal speech that does or directly brings about violence, a thing that Southern Baptists and Satanists probably largely agree do not constitute 'protected' free speech.

Laws proscribing conduct on religious grounds would run afoul of Constitutional protections, but community standards that aren't recodified dogma can and do survive that scrutiny, however we ascribe the root of the standards subjectively. The reasonable man is the average man and so the exceptional, be they Satanist or Amish, will not prevail by claiming exception.

That's not at all what I was getting at, and nor do I consider either of these clusters of people 'exceptional.' They're all reasonable. Our law is one though, and must be the law of both of them, and all the rest of ours too.

Rather, there is what is and then how we value and relate to it. So the former is not always the same animal as the latter, depending on what part of it you grab (see: blind men circling an elephant).

"How we value and relate to" "what is" is the reality, that is what 'perception is reality' means.

Also, every man should then understand that values are inherently subjective, as with ice cream flavors.

And every man does not understand that; and that is the reality.

That's not really a rebuttal that proves my observation wrong. Rather, a racist's perception of the reasonableness of a black man smiling at a white woman might ring true for him, as his action in response would seem warranted. The reasonable man, unburdened by his subjective ire, would not.

It would take a reasonable man to determine who the reasonable man is, is the point I was getting at. Right now judges are just assumed to be that reasonable man, reasonable enough to determine who the reasonable man is. Do you get my concern? Of course the concern is addressed when we through our legislature stays on top of our laws, constantly not only instructing our neighbors and fellow citizens, but also our police, and also our judges, as to how they are to treat us innocent Americans.

Rather, ir results in the necessary application of principle and reason, as it should.

Then why do we need rights at all? Are they just superfluity? Are principle and reason relatively new inventions, or have they been around for millennia?

Not rationally though, not defensibly as an operation of ethic and logic. The proffer I gave was both, or could be easily expanded into perfect Amish harmony.

Agree to disagree.

To defend and to negotiate the reasonable exercise. Because rights without that are just another form of tyranny to the person injured by their exercise.

Nobody has the right (nor the valid power) to commit a crime---that's not what a right (or what valid power) is. As I've repeatedly repeated.

Without limitation of any sort?

Yeah. A right's a right. Leave em alone.

'Reasoning goes, that abortion is a private matter ('Roe'), and so where we might want to make a law limiting it to just objectively justified and sustained credible threat to life or limb to the mother (or to a twin sibling 'in utero'), to discourage wanton and indiscriminate termination /killing, it wouldn't be justified to ever interrogate or even interview the mother to confirm that the procedure is strictly lawful. It being a right, and private, rules out the mother ever being answerable to government or police for her choice.

I do think abortion is killing, and I don't want any abortions, like how I don't want anybody killing in self-defense either, but killing a born person in self-defense isn't a private matter anymore, unlike how abortion is private.

And I don't think it's just to use public funds to subsidize abortion, without specifying easily verifiable conditions that are supported by a supermajority of Americans, who through Congress make the right law to regulate the public subsidy of just and only abortions meeting those easily verifiable conditions.

That's no real argument for abortion absent the mother's life being in jeopardy though, is it.

That's none of your or my business though (supra, re: 'Roe' and privacy), while lethal force used against a born person is public business.

Not entirely, but mostly true among adults.

'Should be true, or, at least, 'should be the ideal. It certainly would speak to marginalizing minorities and favoritism or corruption right quick.

I'm not entirely sure of what you're after with that part.

The less rational the law is wrt us preparing for real justified use of force in defense of self and of our families, neighbors, and other innocent (of capital crimes) people against aggressors, the greater the probability that authentically innocent and peaceful people will mistakenly and inadvertently not just break the law but also commit an unjustified act of violence.

Most laws have standards built into them, so the application of a reasonable man standard is fairly limited.

What are these standards? Are they explicit somewhere? Or can you define them?

Where it exists it's no more or less problematic that reasonable doubt.

Reasonable doubt is determined by juries though, civilians, and the 'reasonable man' is determined by judges, government officials.

That is, past any point where the stakes are high enough human judgment, a weighing of sorts, will come into play, subject to review by men and women learned in the law and having exceptional skill in applying critical though processes to the whole.

We hope that's the case anyway. The executive branch's police is there to balance that power, and that branch is authorized to balance that power through the minding of our laws through the legislative branch, which again underscores how important it is that we stay on top of our laws all the time, because otherwise the balance of power as we've seen tends to favor the judicial branch in some very important matters, and out of the hands of We the People, which is where it's supposed to be.

 

[Town Heretic]

No, you're talking about my government infringing my right,

No, I'm talking about our government balancing the exercise of right.

and you a private citizen expelling me from your living room for saying the wrong thing or carrying the wrong gun, then that's Your right---but it's not my government's Power to do the same. Note the difference between rights and power also, as they are counterbalancing and not equivalent.

Power in this execution is only process, the instrument by which right is preserved against usurpation and by which the exercise and balance among competing rights and interests is likewise preserved.

It seems to me that you believe that the government is intruding on your sovereignty, after a fashion. Right seems to really be an expression of that sovereignty to you. And my intruding on your exercise is justified, because you intruded into mine first, subordinating your claim to an exercise in conflict with my own.

I'm stepping over all but a few points here because you chose a very late day to respond, around a month after my last and I've had so many conversations since then I've lost the thread of it as I read you and would have to go back and read through our particulars again to feel comfortable picking a lot of it up.

I approach much of this as an extemporaneous exercise and find interest and value in conversation after that form. A month is simply too much conversational distance for me to continue to hold the threads and nuance of the thing and without that it's just a dry, academic exercise in the making, with a backlog of reading, which I do enough of away from here. Something to keep in mind then, if we continue or have other conversations. I'm having a great many, on top of moderating at another forum and my larger life, so it will have to stay fresh or face serious truncation where I'm concerned.

Southern Baptists and Satanists perceive 'profanity' and 'vulgarity' and 'indecency' completely differently,

You should look into how the Court has addressed community standards for weighing that. It doesn't pick a sliver, it looks to the norm within a community.

In the larger community bound not by borders but airwaves, the S. Ct. has ruled that for a thing making those airwaves to be classified as obscene it has to meet a 3 prong test. It must appeal to an average person's prurient interest; it must depict or describe sexual conduct in a "patently offensive" way; and, taken as a whole, it must lack serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value."

Now there's a great deal of subjectivity in a good bit of that, and the Court understands it, which is why Justice Stewart wrote, "I know it when I see it."

It would take a reasonable man to determine who the reasonable man is

For the most part the history of precedent is one of establishing that particular. In cases of decency it will go to a standard I discussed above. In other ways it comes down to how we should conduct ourselves in relation to the law, not how we choose to, in part or on average...For instance, the obligation of a doctor to someone they find in medical distress, or your obligation or want therein relating to a policeman who shouts, "Stop that man!" at you. That obligation, established in particular and by case law and/or legislation, becomes the standard a reasonable man will be expected to perform. That is, he should know how to behave...a bit like the driver of an automobile should obey the law in operating his vehicle. It is unreasonable not to, even if most people choose to break some element of the law.

And that standard can and does change over time. The doctrine of fighting words, justifying violent responses to conduct or speech that shocks the listener's conscience as to "by their very utterance, inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace" once excused an otherwise unlawful and immediate response. That's largely diminished as a legal excuse over decades and has few if any teeth now, depending on the jurisdiction.

Likewise, when it comes to guns, what was once reasonable (a fairly wide open allowance of exercise) when guns weren't capable of killing extraordinary numbers of people in a few breaths, is not reasonable with that seachange. It's time to redraw the line of what constitutes a reasonable exercise, not whether or not people have a right to bear arms.

Right now judges are just assumed to be that reasonable man, reasonable enough to determine who the reasonable man is.

Judges are schooled in the law, in precedent, and given, as lawyers, a serious honing of critical thinking as methodology. Juries, less schooled and and trained, are broader in number and given particular instructions in the application of the law and standard by which a reasonable man is expected to pass judgement. The law also supposes that a given number of your peers will tend to reflect a reasonable man's grasp and act accordingly. Voir dire is, in part, the means to weed out those who may have a bias that precludes their ability to act reasonably in relation to the subject and/or the defendant.

Nobody has the right (nor the valid power) to commit a crime

One man's crime is not infrequently another man's exercise of right out of balance. My right to possess property is not a right to possess yours without leave. My right to speak my mind is not the right to follow you about doing it. And so on.

That's none of your or my business though (supra, re: 'Roe' and privacy), while lethal force used against a born person is public business.

Any law or decision impacting the law is your business. Laws often change because of that underlying principle. Once upon a time you couldn't buy alcohol in my state on Sunday. Or sell peanuts, for some reason. Now you can do either because people eventually said, "That's a silly law and it infringes on my rights without sufficient reason for the state to justify it."

What are these standards? Are they explicit somewhere? Or can you define them?

They're found in the laws and statutes and are a matter of public record. In our county courthouse anyone can come in and peruse them, or find them online in every particular.

Reasonable doubt is determined by juries though, civilians, and the 'reasonable man' is determined by judges, government officials.

Not exactly. Reasonable doubt is a predetermined thing, though its weighing is subjective. That is, a jury will be instructed on what reasonable doubt is and their task is to apply that to the presentation of evidence to see if the prosecutor has met the burden. And the trier of fact may also be a sitting judge and not a jury, at the discretion of the defendant. The reasonable man is established largely as I set out above.

We hope that's the case anyway. The executive branch's police is there to balance that power, and that branch is authorized to balance that power through the minding of our laws through the legislative branch, which again underscores how important it is that we stay on top of our laws all the time, because otherwise the balance of power as we've seen tends to favor the judicial branch in some very important matters, and out of the hands of We the People, which is where it's supposed to be.

That seems reasonable. And the Court is in play to make sure everyone's efforts remain within the parameters of the Constitution.

 

[Town Heretic]

Licorice is what happens when pharmacists try to make candy.

 

[Town Heretic]

This guy starts a movie trivia thread where he asks people to post a line from a movie and see who can guess the name of the film. So I post, "Let's get out of here!"

And that's how I got banned from the one group. lain:

 

[Town Heretic]

There will always be something that moves you to doubt yourself, to reconsider, to falter, to compare and see only the shortcoming, the fear, or the failure. Something or someone standing between you and where you're moved to be, what you need to become.

Don't be discouraged by this, by them, or by those. Aspire, struggle, and overcome. This is the arc of every great success story. This is your story.

Tell it.

 

[Town Heretic]

Okay, file this under another of my musician's ear bits and how irritating or fun (depending on your perspective) that can be.

Did you notice that there's a point in Sloop John B where you can easily segue into another familiar hit song...better to show you then tell you.


So hoist up the John B's sail (hoist up the John B's sails)
See how the main sail sets (see how the main sail sets)
I know every crack in these dirty sidewalks of Broadway
Where hustles the name of the game
And good guys get washed away like the snow and the rain


That's right, Rhinestone Cowboy...and it's also pretty easy to segue into Cecelia, if you wanted to, but it's not as organic.

 

[Town Heretic]

Nothing is more American than being contrary, and loud about it.

One of the truly great things about us as a people has always been found in our willingness to hear what offends us in the public square, to invite dissent as an integral part of our national character.

When we say, "Go back," to those who differ and criticize then we forget who we are as a people, and undermine what we came here to establish among men.

 

[annabenedetti]

Nothing is more American than being contrary, and loud about it.

One of the truly great things about us as a people has always been found in our willingness to hear what offends us in the public square, to invite dissent as an integral part of our national character.

When we say, "Go back," to those who differ and criticize then we forget who we are as a people, and undermine what we came here to establish among men.

I agree with the spirit of your sentiment, but I differ with you on your usage of "men." :e4e:

 

[Town Heretic]

I agree with the spirit of your sentiment, but I differ with you on your usage of "men." :e4e:

I'm still using the gender neutral, but if you like feel free to substitute "people." It's not as elegant, but I can live with it.

 

[Town Heretic]

Tonight my wife mentioned the new dog park in nearby town.

Jack asked, "Why isn't there a cat park?"

I said, "There is. It's called everywhere else."