He drives a BMW. He's going to freak when he finds out what they did for the Nazis.
I just watched the episode of Entourage last night where Bob was offered a ride in Ari's car. He looks over at the BMW... "in that thing? No ####ing way am I getting in that Nazi mobile!"
Well, I guess I'm not aware of what her faults are. I don't know much about the Queen to be perfectly honest. What are her faults? The fact that she was a Queen? She was born into it.
I think the faults are inherited as part of the institution. It's similar to the Catholic Church. The current or future pope might be more grounded and charitable person than the last, and may not be personally responsible for past deeds, but the wealth, privilege, and prestige seem inappropriate by modern sensibilities considering how it was gained. It seems hypocritical to bestow the positives gained from a past that they were not part of while still forgiving the past sins. Why can you inherit privilege and prestige from past family accomplishments you had nothing to do with, but not the faults and responsibilities?
I look at the British Royal Family almost the same way I do as other celebrity families whose descendants live off of an inherited class system, except with a history of bloodshed and oppression at the roots. It's fair to say the Elizabeth wasn't a criminal herself, but her status as a queen was due to many historical injustices.
There were also some things the queen did that signified that she still embodied classism and elitism. For example, she had concerns about Diana's commoner status when she married her son and allegedly never got along well with her partly because of that. She initially even refused to lower the flag when Diana died, which caused a lot of anger among people in Britain at the time. Diana was definitely born into an aristocratic family, but the nobility was so far removed that she was considered a commoner. When William married Kate Middleton, there was concern that she was not noble enough as well, they went out of their way to show she had some noble ancestors. The same thing when Harry married Meghan Markle, the queen seemed perturbed by it. Allegedly someone close to the royal family said the queen had concerns about how dark their children would be, which led to Harry leaving for America and abandoning his royal duties. I have my doubts that Harry is actually the blood child of Charles, but that is a different story.
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Last edited by FlamesAddiction; 09-09-2022 at 11:01 AM.
Are you just playing dumb, or do you really not realize there is a difference between a country's regime, and their people and culture?
I realize the difference.
I also realize the difference between overseeing camps that were compared to those in Nazi Germany and Communist Russia, complete with killings, rapings, beatings, etc., and having a hammer and sickle cartoon in a twitter profile pic.
Do you? Or are you just secretly playing dumb? Very convincing if so.
I also realize the difference between overseeing camps that were compared to those in Nazi Germany and Communist Russia, complete with killings, rapings, beatings, etc., and having a hammer and sickle cartoon in a twitter profile pic.
To me there is no absolutely no difference between having a swastika and a hammer/sickle, as part of your profile. They both represent the most evil and vile regimes in history that lead to the death of millions of innocents. To vilify one, yet laugh the other off, is a sign of either ignorance or human callousness.
And yeah, in a world were people lose their minds over the tinniest of language indiscretions, I'm pretty ok with myself for being fickle about symbols of genocide.
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It's interesting that people still haven't figured out that just about all countries and people have histories of doing terrible things.
It's almost like it's... human... nature?
And most people grow up and live within narratives that obscure or revise those histories and even current events, which no doubt plays a part in them not figuring it out and enables the continuation of such terrible things.
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To me there is no absolutely no difference between having a swastika and a hammer/sickle, as part of your profile. They both represent the most evil and vile regimes in history that lead to the death of millions of innocents. To vilify one, yet laugh the other off, is a sign of either ignorance or human callousness.
And yeah, in a world were people lose their minds over the tinniest of language indiscretions, I'm pretty ok with myself for being fickle about symbols of genocide.
So, someone criticizes the Queen: "Uhhhh, you previously quoted a twitter user with a hammer and sickle in their profile photo, which is a symbol of historic human rights abuses, so by quoting a tweet with that profile pic (even though I admit some people just use it as fashion) you must not care about human rights abuses which are actually very important to me. I'm quite fickle about symbols of genocide."
But when commenting on the Queen who ruled while there were British-run concentration camps in Africa: "Jolly good effort! Best as you'd expect."
But when commenting on the Queen who ruled while there were British-run concentration camps in Africa: "Jolly good effort! Best as you'd expect."
Yeah, nice try kiddo. Show me one example where I downplayed the atrocities of the British. I am well aware of their shameful history.
You and psychnet are exactly the same. You're both so used to communicating in snarky drive-bys, that you have no actual ability to have a straight conversation about a topic.
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Yeah, nice try kiddo. Show me one example where I downplayed the atrocities of the British. I am well aware of their shameful history.
You and psychnet are exactly the same. You're both so used to communicating in snarky drive-bys, that you have no actual ability to have a straight conversation about a topic.
I didn't say you downplayed the atrocities of the British.
I pointed out you said the Queen (someone who ruled during some fairly gross and noteworthy atrocities) had done as well as one could expect.
I also pointed out you responded to a video explaining one of those atrocities with a whataboutism about quoting a tweet from someone with a hammer and sickle and how bad that is.
If even the act of quoting a post with a hammer and sickle in the profile photo is bad, how morally repugnant do you think referring to someone who actually oversaw African concentration camps as "about as solid and stable of a monarch as one can hope for" is?
You can whine about snark or whatever if you want but that's not interesting to me. We're having a straight conversation. If you want to pull the shoot by going off on some personal rant, that's your prerogative but it's kind of lame.
I follow the philosophy of Edmund Burke in terms of valuing the conservative approach of preserving systems and institutions.
People often talk about Calvin, Hobbes, and Voltaire but Burke is often forgotten. His famous work, "Reflections on the Revolution in France" is an argument for preserving institutions, even if people don't necessarily see the immediate value for them but institutions are the foundation for the traditions and stability in our legal and political systems. Throwing out your institutions and trying to reinvent traditions that worked for hundreds of years results in chaos, inequity, and bloodshed like what was seen in the Reign of Terror in France or post-Soviet Russia (consequences of which we are seeing even today).
I fully support the continuation of the Monarchy as part of the institution of the 1000 year history of the political systems and legal systems Canada and other Commonwealth realms have inherited that follow much more historical convention than statute than people realize. People talk about the financial burden of maintaining the Monarchy but the entire system generates a return on investment in tourism and other factors for the UK that outweighs what is put in to support that one family. Preservation of some traditions are important, even if it flies in the face of some modern sensibilities.
Last edited by Hack&Lube; 09-09-2022 at 01:32 PM.
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Strange, it seems that in his twilight years, Charles has finally aged into some gravitas where he could be a suitable figurehead, rather than the awkward, foppish, weak man-child he seemed to be most of his adult life.
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"If things were different, they would be different!"
Yeah except they aren't all that different. The result of both is human rights atrocities, mass murder, forced labor and other horrors. The hammer and sickle crowd is just too dense to understand that the end state of communism is the same, even if the intention at the start is not as evil on the surface.
