To see reasonable people debating whether the Hillsborough t-shirt bloke

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Originally Posted by Burney

Unfortunately, once you start to regard the mockery of things others hold dear as a virtue, you by extension are mocking, deriding and denigrating not merely institutions, but the people who believe in them. Now whether that institution is the Church, the Monarchy, the military, the Government, someone else's football team, school, class or whatever, you are making a virtue of offence and, once you start down the road of saying that offence in any form is good, all bets are effectively off.

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Excuse me for copying and pasting some words, but mocking, deriding and denigrating not merely institutions and ideas, but the people who believe in them, is basically what you do every day.

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Originally Posted by Burney

Sure, but too many things changed too quickly and all sorts of babies went out with the bathwater. To take your example, there's a big difference between deciding that, on balance, it's probably wrong to lock up or chemically castrate people for participation in sexual acts between consenting adults and thinking that it's OK for some bloke to march up and down a high street in a t-shirt saying "I LOVE SUCKING COCK!", but unfortunately, the two things have become conflated as though they were one issue. This means that someone who objects to the latter is going to be accused of effectively objecting to the former. That is wrong, but it is a case of the baby going out with the bathwater.

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I've always felt that it all started to go wrong the day that deeply, deeply unpleasant piece of work Cooke took the piss out of Harold MacMillan.

What a truly nasty individual Cooke was.

Just bought a new t-shirt saying:

"What a ****ing loser he/it who types more than 3+ lines in every post about an insignificant issue"

On the back it says:

"What a ****ing loser"

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Originally Posted by Ash

Excuse me for copying and pasting some words, but mocking, deriding and denigrating not merely institutions and ideas, but the people who believe in them, is basically what you do every day.

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I didn't pretend it wasn't. :shrug: It's what we all do - even those of us who know how pernicious and corrosive it is - because we've been brought up in a society where it is the norm. We regard getting a laugh as capable of justifying virtually anything.

Only with a historical perspective can one see just how damaging such a mindset is.

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Originally Posted by Sir C

I've always felt that it all started to go wrong the day that deeply, deeply unpleasant piece of work Cooke took the piss out of Harold MacMillan.

What a truly nasty individual Cooke was.

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:nod: Tottenham fan, of course. And a wifebeater.

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Originally Posted by Burney

I didn't pretend it wasn't. :shrug: It's what we all do - even those of us who know how pernicious and corrosive it is - because we've been brought up in a society where it is the norm. We regard getting a laugh as capable of justifying virtually anything.

Only with a historical perspective can one see just how damaging such a mindset is.

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LOL

"Loser" says my t-shirt

You're right, my friend.

To me this is a consequence of the information society. And a regrettable one, I might add.

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Originally Posted by eastgermanautos

To me this is a consequence of the information society. And a regrettable one, I might add.

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Care to expand?

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Originally Posted by eastgermanautos

You're right, my friend.

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Amen, Bro. It knows.