^ Perfectly in line with the thinking underpinning the republic. "The free" = white men, and sometime in the last hundred years it expanded to "white men and white women". These people, unfortunately, are being true to the American ethos. What hasn't happened is a proper reevaluation of it, at an institutional level.

The public monuments to that ethos have gotten some attention in the last year or so - and it's amazing how many of them are still standing - and these were mostly built in the aftermath of the war & Reconstruction. But school curricula still echo it. White churches too. Also, government.

A tiny example is the bust of Roger Taney, which still hovers over one of the rooms of Congress, i.e. the place that makes the laws of this country, i.e. the land of the free. Taney wrote the Dred Scott decision that declared "Negroes" could never claim citizenship, because they were doomed by nature to be slaves. It wasn't a tautology, and in fact the decision is pretty much correct in outlining how the founders thought. So in a sense his decision is a sound legal judgment in line with the laws and customs of the republic. But every constitutional scholar will tell you it's the worst Supreme Court decision ever. Eh. Maybe. They might just be projecting their sensibilities, imo.

In the fallout of a standard negro being lynched in front of cameras, and mass media for some reason remaining interested (for a whole year!) - oh, and, hundreds of thousands of angry black people threatening property with fire - lawmakers 'bravely' re-introduced a bill to take down Taney's bust from the Capitol. The bill's been kicking around since March 2020. The bust is still there.

Bozos with Dixie paraphernalia have their finger on the pulse, have had for generations.

Just to state the obvious - but I’m going into more detail whenever I post that anthem topic - “land of the free” was popularized by F. Scott Key’s poem that became the anthem. It’s repeated 4 times. In the official national anthem of the USA. When Key wrote those words, 16-20% of the country was enslaved, and in fact his poem was propaganda for the war effort against the Brits, who were at that very moment engaged in freeing thousands of enslaved Americans, including his own if they’d won the war or even just committed to the conquest of the capital (one of the war’s main fronts being Key’s own backyard in the Chesapeake, though his city only saw a few government buildings destroyed before the Brits retreated).

Dead horse here, but it’s obviously unclear to most: those bozos know their country better than their critics do.

I apologize to US citizens here for generalizing (something I tend to successfully avoid) but it would seem that for those Americans who yammer about 'freedom', the concept means 'you can't tell me what to do'.

It's an unsophisticated and self-absorbed idea of freedom, which is why the same people are happy to support autocracy so long as it doesn't tell them not to do the stuff they want to do.

Moron's T-shirt wrote:

Land of the Fee
Home of the slave

Fixed that for him.

Spearthrower wrote:I apologize to US citizens here for generalizing (something I tend to successfully avoid) but it would seem that for those Americans who yammer about 'freedom', the concept means 'you can't tell me what to do'.

It's an unsophisticated and self-absorbed idea of freedom, which is why the same people are happy to support autocracy so long as it doesn't tell them not to do the stuff they want to do.

As a child, and unaware of the history of slavery, and American history in general, I used to question why, if South Africa and the USA were settled by Europeans at about the same time, we hadn't reached the same level of sophistication and progress that the USA had. Then I grew up, got satellite television (or even television in general since we only got it in 1976), and learnt that it wasn't what I'd thought it was. By this time I'd been to the UK, and seen how an integrated country without separation by skin colour worked. Also while I was there I watched some American television, not much because we were busy doing touristy stuff and too tired for TV at night. What I saw amazed and confused me. There was the development that I was aware of being far superior to ours, on the one hand, and the racial issues on the other. At that time, in the wake the of moon landings and NASA looking at more probing of space, the culture and education standards were far superior to ours. I bought books there that I took home to my then toddler children, and my education began.

Before that I'd been a girl from small town South Africa, living in the big city, raising highly intelligent, and I now know, autistic children, who were thirsty for knowledge. I had another two, also autistic, after that trip, the last one, the one now living with me on disability due to his birth oxygen deprivation causing more co-morbidities than the autism did, one of the most intelligent people I've met in my life.(He never ceases to amaze me with his brilliance). We've now been through the age of CNN and Clinton, Bush jnr, Obama, and that other person, and I realise it was smoke and mirrors. I don't mean to disrespect those Americans who aren't dumb but boy, when I see the people who voted for that other person on television, I ask myself why I ever thought America was better! We were living through what the dumb people want to institute in the USA, and what Israel is doing to Palestine, and I'm seeing how people simply don't learn from history.

Education, reading, learning to teach yourself what you know you don't know: that there's a whole world outside that can advise you, tell you what works, and what doesn't work, and what's happening now is not going to work. Money isn't the answer to everything. In fact money is what ruins everything. What does work is to give every single person on the earth the chance to be the best they can be, and instead of accumulating, hoarding, money, hoard books, and read them, learn about the rest of the world. Teach children, make them learn how to live in a world without war, famine, and poverty. Use the warmongering money to create opportunities for those people who, through no fault of their own, were born in South Sudan, where's there's nothing but famine, war, raping and pillaging, while that man who shouldn't have been appointed to clean toilet, let alone be president, shits in a gold toilet.

I know what I'm talking about because in 1976 as I was approaching 30, I finally began my own education, and now as my life is ending, I see my kids on webinars with some of the great minds of our country, discussing the big issues. Not how to solve poverty, but the things we dream about: extending life beyond the limits we now accept, space settlement, mining asteroids, how to live in gravitational regions different from our own. This while the people I grew up with discuss whether a certain narcissistic stalker should've worn tights when she went out with the Queen. For fuck's sake, why are people so stupid when there's so much to learn that's a whole lot more interesting and important than whether or not some privileged arsehole should have his titles removed, or appointing people into high positions of power when they don't even understand the simple basics of viral transmission.

It's a world gone mad. My country lived through nationalism, apartheid, 90% of the population educated only enough to be servants, and it didn't work. Yet try to tell that to someone who thinks a MAGA hat is is the height of fashion, and that making money off shoes made by slave labour, while your father is president, is the way a brilliant businessperson becomes even richer without a single thought for the people locked in their factories to work until they drop. Thank old age that I'll be leaving this behind sooner than later, and that I now stay away from the news before it causes my head to explode.

Agrippina wrote:

[Reveal] Spoiler:

Spearthrower wrote:I apologize to US citizens here for generalizing (something I tend to successfully avoid) but it would seem that for those Americans who yammer about 'freedom', the concept means 'you can't tell me what to do'.

It's an unsophisticated and self-absorbed idea of freedom, which is why the same people are happy to support autocracy so long as it doesn't tell them not to do the stuff they want to do.

As a child, and unaware of the history of slavery, and American history in general, I used to question why, if South Africa and the USA were settled by Europeans at about the same time, we hadn't reached the same level of sophistication and progress that the USA had. Then I grew up, got satellite television (or even television in general since we only got it in 1976), and learnt that it wasn't what I'd thought it was. By this time I'd been to the UK, and seen how an integrated country without separation by skin colour worked. Also while I was there I watched some American television, not much because we were busy doing touristy stuff and too tired for TV at night. What I saw amazed and confused me. There was the development that I was aware of being far superior to ours, on the one hand, and the racial issues on the other. At that time, in the wake the of moon landings and NASA looking at more probing of space, the culture and education standards were far superior to ours. I bought books there that I took home to my then toddler children, and my education began.

Before that I'd been a girl from small town South Africa, living in the big city, raising highly intelligent, and I now know, autistic children, who were thirsty for knowledge. I had another two, also autistic, after that trip, the last one, the one now living with me on disability due to his birth oxygen deprivation causing more co-morbidities than the autism did, one of the most intelligent people I've met in my life.(He never ceases to amaze me with his brilliance). We've now been through the age of CNN and Clinton, Bush jnr, Obama, and that other person, and I realise it was smoke and mirrors. I don't mean to disrespect those Americans who aren't dumb but boy, when I see the people who voted for that other person on television, I ask myself why I ever thought America was better! We were living through what the dumb people want to institute in the USA, and what Israel is doing to Palestine, and I'm seeing how people simply don't learn from history.

Education, reading, learning to teach yourself what you know you don't know: that there's a whole world outside that can advise you, tell you what works, and what doesn't work, and what's happening now is not going to work. Money isn't the answer to everything. In fact money is what ruins everything. What does work is to give every single person on the earth the chance to be the best they can be, and instead of accumulating, hoarding, money, hoard books, and read them, learn about the rest of the world. Teach children, make them learn how to live in a world without war, famine, and poverty. Use the warmongering money to create opportunities for those people who, through no fault of their own, were born in South Sudan, where's there's nothing but famine, war, raping and pillaging, while that man who shouldn't have been appointed to clean toilet, let alone be president, shits in a gold toilet.

I know what I'm talking about because in 1976 as I was approaching 30, I finally began my own education, and now as my life is ending, I see my kids on webinars with some of the great minds of our country, discussing the big issues. Not how to solve poverty, but the things we dream about: extending life beyond the limits we now accept, space settlement, mining asteroids, how to live in gravitational regions different from our own. This while the people I grew up with discuss whether a certain narcissistic stalker should've worn tights when she went out with the Queen. For fuck's sake, why are people so stupid when there's so much to learn that's a whole lot more interesting and important than whether or not some privileged arsehole should have his titles removed, or appointing people into high positions of power when they don't even understand the simple basics of viral transmission.

It's a world gone mad. My country lived through nationalism, apartheid, 90% of the population educated only enough to be servants, and it didn't work. Yet try to tell that to someone who thinks a MAGA hat is is the height of fashion, and that making money off shoes made by slave labour, while your father is president, is the way a brilliant businessperson becomes even richer without a single thought for the people locked in their factories to work until they drop. Thank old age that I'll be leaving this behind sooner than later, and that I now stay away from the news before it causes my head to explode.

Worthy of an Orson. Fantastic insight.

Which reminds me, I meant ages ago to ask you if you'd like to write a guest post for the blog. I like this topic and the insights you have. Fancy it?

hackenslash wrote:

Agrippina wrote:

[Reveal] Spoiler:

Spearthrower wrote:I apologize to US citizens here for generalizing (something I tend to successfully avoid) but it would seem that for those Americans who yammer about 'freedom', the concept means 'you can't tell me what to do'.

It's an unsophisticated and self-absorbed idea of freedom, which is why the same people are happy to support autocracy so long as it doesn't tell them not to do the stuff they want to do.

As a child, and unaware of the history of slavery, and American history in general, I used to question why, if South Africa and the USA were settled by Europeans at about the same time, we hadn't reached the same level of sophistication and progress that the USA had. Then I grew up, got satellite television (or even television in general since we only got it in 1976), and learnt that it wasn't what I'd thought it was. By this time I'd been to the UK, and seen how an integrated country without separation by skin colour worked. Also while I was there I watched some American television, not much because we were busy doing touristy stuff and too tired for TV at night. What I saw amazed and confused me. There was the development that I was aware of being far superior to ours, on the one hand, and the racial issues on the other. At that time, in the wake the of moon landings and NASA looking at more probing of space, the culture and education standards were far superior to ours. I bought books there that I took home to my then toddler children, and my education began.

Before that I'd been a girl from small town South Africa, living in the big city, raising highly intelligent, and I now know, autistic children, who were thirsty for knowledge. I had another two, also autistic, after that trip, the last one, the one now living with me on disability due to his birth oxygen deprivation causing more co-morbidities than the autism did, one of the most intelligent people I've met in my life.(He never ceases to amaze me with his brilliance). We've now been through the age of CNN and Clinton, Bush jnr, Obama, and that other person, and I realise it was smoke and mirrors. I don't mean to disrespect those Americans who aren't dumb but boy, when I see the people who voted for that other person on television, I ask myself why I ever thought America was better! We were living through what the dumb people want to institute in the USA, and what Israel is doing to Palestine, and I'm seeing how people simply don't learn from history.

Education, reading, learning to teach yourself what you know you don't know: that there's a whole world outside that can advise you, tell you what works, and what doesn't work, and what's happening now is not going to work. Money isn't the answer to everything. In fact money is what ruins everything. What does work is to give every single person on the earth the chance to be the best they can be, and instead of accumulating, hoarding, money, hoard books, and read them, learn about the rest of the world. Teach children, make them learn how to live in a world without war, famine, and poverty. Use the warmongering money to create opportunities for those people who, through no fault of their own, were born in South Sudan, where's there's nothing but famine, war, raping and pillaging, while that man who shouldn't have been appointed to clean toilet, let alone be president, shits in a gold toilet.

I know what I'm talking about because in 1976 as I was approaching 30, I finally began my own education, and now as my life is ending, I see my kids on webinars with some of the great minds of our country, discussing the big issues. Not how to solve poverty, but the things we dream about: extending life beyond the limits we now accept, space settlement, mining asteroids, how to live in gravitational regions different from our own. This while the people I grew up with discuss whether a certain narcissistic stalker should've worn tights when she went out with the Queen. For fuck's sake, why are people so stupid when there's so much to learn that's a whole lot more interesting and important than whether or not some privileged arsehole should have his titles removed, or appointing people into high positions of power when they don't even understand the simple basics of viral transmission.

It's a world gone mad. My country lived through nationalism, apartheid, 90% of the population educated only enough to be servants, and it didn't work. Yet try to tell that to someone who thinks a MAGA hat is is the height of fashion, and that making money off shoes made by slave labour, while your father is president, is the way a brilliant businessperson becomes even richer without a single thought for the people locked in their factories to work until they drop. Thank old age that I'll be leaving this behind sooner than later, and that I now stay away from the news before it causes my head to explode.

Worthy of an Orson. Fantastic insight.

Which reminds me, I meant ages ago to ask you if you'd like to write a guest post for the blog. I like this topic and the insights you have. Fancy it?

I'm gobsmacked. Absolutely honoured to write something for you. I actually have something I started writing, and then thought, why bother? People tell me I lecture and what I wrote is a lecture for the lazy ass people today who cannot see that manners maketh the man, and self-respect the people who identify as women. It's all fast food, fast sex, a quick this and an even quicker that, and bugger the values that demand that you dress to honour the people you're entertaining, or visiting. If you'd like to read it, I'll give you what I've done, it's quite long but then when did I ever write a few words when an essay would suffice.

My benchmark is 3 - 5K words or thereabouts. I was never one for brevity myself, let's face it.

Tutor: The assignment was supposed to be 2,500 to 3,000 words long. Why did your paper go on for 5,000?
Student: I didn't have enough time.

hackenslash wrote:My benchmark is 3 - 5K words or thereabouts. I was never one for brevity myself, let's face it.

I've just read through what I wrote. It's something I started about my child-raising method. Not this topic. It's around 2000 words

Hermit wrote:Tutor: The assignment was supposed to be 2,500 to 3,000 words long. Why did your paper go on for 5,000?
Student: I didn't have enough time.

A perfectly valid response. Most of my blog posts run to >6K words prior to editing, and that's as somebody who generally tends to keep it on track throughout.

The post I'm currently working on is now at 3.5K words, and I've just about finished the preamble.

Hermit wrote:Tutor: The assignment was supposed to be 2,500 to 3,000 words long. Why did your paper go on for 5,000?
Student: I didn't have enough time.

Yep, that's me. OMG you should hear me go on when I have an interested audience! Doesn't happen often because Covid, my kids have heard it all before, and people my age are all racists, think the country is going to hell, and that all the white farmers in the country are dead. I dunno where our food is coming from but now even Americans are telling me the death rate of white farmers in South Africa is genocide! Bloody boomers!

hackenslash wrote:

Hermit wrote:Tutor: The assignment was supposed to be 2,500 to 3,000 words long. Why did your paper go on for 5,000?
Student: I didn't have enough time.

A perfectly valid response. Most of my blog posts run to >6K words prior to editing, and that's as somebody who generally tends to keep it on track throughout.

The post I'm currently working on is now at 3.5K words, and I've just about finished the preamble.

Funny thing is that when I chat with men, and voice my opinions, they listen, my kids interrupt, but they're allowed because they're way more intelligent than I am, but women, holy cow, I had to leave the damn depot for the cemetery because I was constantly being forced into the company of privileged white women who all hated you-know-who, but they hate our president more, even though he's one of the good guys who's trying to do a damned difficult job with people who want the spotlight and a shadow president who stole millions and refuses to go to court to explain, let alone actually admit that what he calls a "fire pool" is a place for swimming, and these privileged "Karens, Beckdys and Tracys" all know more than he does even though they went to private schools where their favourite subject was cooking vegetables in aspic and bunking school.

hackenslash wrote:

Hermit wrote:Tutor: The assignment was supposed to be 2,500 to 3,000 words long. Why did your paper go on for 5,000?
Student: I didn't have enough time.

A perfectly valid response. Most of my blog posts run to >6K words prior to editing, and that's as somebody who generally tends to keep it on track throughout.

The post I'm currently working on is now at 3.5K words, and I've just about finished the preamble.

I've just looked at your blog. I realise how much I've missed you and this forum while I've been away getting my brain to function at a reasonable level, without my ability to reason becoming an inability to think straight, and salty liquid spilling from my orbital regions. It's taken years, years I can't afford to waste, but did, because I had to come to the realisation that I'm just too fucking intelligent for the average moron who crosses my path on a regular basis. Sounds self-aggrandising, so fucking what? As I tell the accusers now if people are intimidated by my ability to write 2000 words without batting one of those leaky orbit coverings, then fuck 'em. This of course has reduced my popularity in the world of real people, but as I slowly return to the world of the internet, my confidence is returning, the toxins that caused the breakdown have been removed, and if I needed proof that there is still a freaking awesomely functioning brain inside my cracked skull, I only need to tell of the kick I got yesterday when I took my brand new HP computer and changed all the settings to make it look like the Macs I'm used to using. This is awesome because I have never used a PC before. I'm a Mac bigot, there I said it and I don't care. Every time I've tried to use one of these Bill Gates promoted things, they've annoyed the bejesus out of me, leaving me to turn back to my comfort zone, and avoid the annoyance. Here's a thought - maybe the vaccination I had on Tuesday did actually put in a 5G tracker, and now I'm a fan boy (yeah yeah girl) of this HP laptop my son bought for me because he was tired of my whingeing about how Macs suck at playing games.

Thanks guys for welcoming me back. It's taken a while to get in here and swim, but here I am if you'll have me.

I know this is off-topic, but I'm on a high here with Hack's awesome suggestion, and just to get back on topic, some MAGA hat wearing smelly armpit of a person on Quora, told me he wouldn't be a white farmer in South Africa right now - hence the references to farmers and genocide etc. He might have been a little pissed that an old woman with mixed race in her had the cheek to tell him off and that surprise, surprise we actually have black farmers in SA, and they get killed too. But I suppose supporters of the shadow president who should go to prison for inciting that damn riot on 6 January, can't see beyond his giant appendage, or would it be a small one that makes people stupid, I wouldn't know, appendages aren't of much interest to me anymore.

Agrippina wrote:I had to come to the realisation that I'm just too fucking intelligent for the average moron who crosses my path on a regular basis. Sounds self-aggrandising, so fucking what?

You've just identified the much less discussed but equally important third prong of the Dunning-Kruger effect.

In popular tropes, the Dunning-Kruger effect is a description of how incompetent people overestimate their own confidence. That's the first prong. What's not much talked about is the corollary effect that competent people tend to underestimate their competence. This is the second prong.

The third prong is almost never discussed. One of the features of the core experiment was peer-scoring, which is to say that the marking of the competence tests was undertaken by the students themselves, each marking the test scores of the others. This was followed by another battery of tests. It became clear that those more competent, on having seen how the incompetent people scored, elevated their estimates of their own competence commensurately.

And for anybody who thinks I have one prong too many, mine's a trident, and you can fork off.

Oh, and I should include this, because I can:

Interesting. I get confused with philosophy, part of the damage from smashing my head into bricks while tripping over my feet. I need to read that slowly.

Hack wrote:

In popular tropes, the Dunning-Kruger effect is a description of how incompetent people overestimate their own confidence. That's the first prong. What's not much talked about is the corollary effect that competent people tend to underestimate their competence. This is the second prong.

OK so stupid people think they know more than they actually do. Yes, that's the prong I know. (LOL some prongs more than others)

The second prong, is the one I do when I'm going through one of my "moment's" - had a few of those in the last year, which led to me stop pretending to be able to cook. I can't, I'm a terrible cook. I can handle that inability.

The third prong is almost never discussed. One of the features of the core experiment was peer-scoring, which is to say that the marking of the competence tests was undertaken by the students themselves, each marking the test scores of the others. This was followed by another battery of tests. It became clear that those more competent, on having seen how the incompetent people scored, elevated their estimates of their own competence commensurately.

This is one I didn't know about. Because we're raised with "don't boast about being clever, it's not nice". My whole life has been an underestimation of my intelligence. When I was looking at the filler subjects I had to do for my degree, I wanted to do history, first year level. For a basic BA, we have to do ten courses in first year. Two are your majors, and seven are "fillers". I did law, sociology, history, psychology, ancient history, (the two majors) and a bunch of other stuff, including an English course on Jane Austen, that might have been second year, I can't remember. The thing was history, and ancient history, both called for assignments in essay form, not multiple guess, or short answers to questions, like the other subjects, but actual essays, like what I write on Ratskep. I told the kids I couldn't do that because "I can't write essays". This set the whole lot of them off rolling about laughing "hello mom, have you ever listened to yourself, you speak in essays!" I gave it a shot, got A's and then the penny dropped. I'm fucking awesomely clever, if I can get an A for an essay at the age of 50-something.

So yes, that's me. All my life I've been under-estimating my intelligence, and doing the "I'm not that clever, I just read a lot" kind of thing. Not anymore. When people tell me I think I know everything, I say "yes, I do, and if I don't know something, I'll admit it, but the next time you talk to me, I will know, because I'm prepared to a) admit I don't know, and b) take the trouble to learn, rather than spend my time gossiping about stupid stalking actresses (actually that was pretty clever of her, but don't say I said so).

And for anybody who thinks I have one prong too many, mine's a trident, and you can fork off

Quite!

I tell my granddaughter (the older one, the new younger one still pees in her pants so she'll get the lecture later), "don't hide your brilliance. You're clever and if people tell you not to say that, tell them your granny said it was ok to be clever, because clever women rule the world". I look at her school reports, they make my scholastic achievements look like chicken-feed. But then she's not being raised by bullies and narcissists (that word is a bit over-used at the moment because of said clever actress, but my mother was a narcissist of note). Her mum is studying to become a sommelier, and her dad is the technology director of the company he works for, so they're not dumb, and besides she looks and behaves like me, so look out world, I'm sending in the clones.