In article .com,
"rigger" wrote:

Don Bruder offers:

Methinks you're ignoring the point in order to pick at nits. What Larry
appears to be saying (Definitely jump in and correct me if I'm wrong,
Larry) is the same way I feel: True, the world is full of morons,
losers, idiots, and incompetents.

I see you highly value your fellow citizens. Nothing like a crippled
moron joke, right Don?

A joke is a joke, and I could basically care less whether the "victim"
is a crippled moron, , a pot-bellied pig, or a bearded white male. Grow
a hide and lose the PC bull****. It offends me.

Anyone not, at least, your equal deserves your scorn, right? If they
can't keep up, let them suffer, right?

Absolutely.

I guess your quote (Stupidity *SHOULD* be painful,) is your motto
right?

Actually, if I'm going to claim a "motto", I think it would probably be
"think of it as evolution in action" (tosses a nickel each to Larry
Niven and Jerry Pournelle)

Would this thought be somehow included in your religous
convictions? If so perhaps you'll share that information with us.

The closest thing I have to a religious conviction is that religion is
for people who are too weak to stand up and face the fact that they were
born, they're gonna die, and that's the end of it, so they need an
imaginary playmate named "god" to blame their problems on, and a fantasy
of some sort of afterlife to keep them from feeling like the
insignificant specks that they are. In other words, you want religion?
Have at it. Just keep it out of my face unless you want me to tell you
point-blank what kind of stupid I think you are for following it. What I
don't see/hear about, I don't tend to comment on, so religious types and
me generally get along quite well until/unless they decide I need to be
"saved" and persist beyond the point of the first "I'm not interested, I
don't do religion." At which point they get an earful of exactly what I
think of their beliefs.

snip

"protecting" me .....Protecting me.....It's *MINE*. .....than me.....I
tried.....

We're not talking about YOU.

Actually, we ARE talking about me. Me and my right to decide for myself
what is or isnt' safe, without the interference of some busybody in
Sacramento or Washington who thinks that since (s)he can't do activity
X safely, it needs to be illegal for ANYBODY to attempt it.

Don't you ever think of others?

Give me a reason to. AKA "Show me the money".

Have parents?

Don't we all? I understand some have warmer feeling toward their set
than I can muster for mine, but yeah, I've got 'em.

Kids?

God forbid... I've dodged that bullet so far, and with any luck, I'll
manage to continue dodging for as long as I draw breath.

Give a damn if they are preyed on?

In a word? No. Nobody that I'm aware of thinks anything of my
well-being, and I don't much worry about the well-being of others,
figuring, quite reasonably, that it's THEIR problem to make sure it's at
whatever level they think is right.

snip irrelevance

It's a little concept called "personal responsibility for your actions"

Exactly. We're discussing CORPORATE responsibility. Same thing, NO?

Correct, except for the punctuation. For me to evaluate it as "true", it
would need to read "Same thing? NO."

Personal responsibility is about looking out for your own well being,
not blaming your own stupidity on someone else. What? You dumped that
180 degree cup of coffee in your lap and cooked yourself sterile? Guess
what? *YOU* were the dumbass that dumped it in your lap, *NOT* the crew
of the Mickey-D's that you asked to hand it to you in exchange for
money. Their responsibility ended when they handed it out the window to
you. According to my view of the world, after that point, any problems
that come of having that cup of coffee - drowning in it, burning your
genitals completely off, shorting out your car's A/C blower, making your
cat go blind and your house burn down, or *ANYTHING* else that doesn't
involve that cup of coffee being poisoned by one of the folks inside the
restaurant, are *YOUR* responsibility. (Clue that most 4 year olds have
already picked up on: Coffee is hot. Don't pour it in your lap or you'll
get burned!)

You make the choice to insert activity here, YOU take the
consequences of that activity, whatever they might be. What? You lost
an
arm? Too bad, so sad. Betcha you aren't going to do that again anytime
soon are you? You died while doing said activity? Oh well. Out of the
gene-pool, stupid. Your problem, not mine, or Ford's, or the
government's. YOURS.

No such thing then as CORPORATE responsibility?

Let's get something out in the open: I'm anti-corporation right from the
git-go - I believe that corporations should have *NO* legal standing
whatsoever beyond paying taxes. Corporations are, by my lights, indeed
one of the main evils of today's society, but despite that, I say that
the ludicrous lawsuits (and even more ludicrous jury awards) that are
bleeding them dry are out of place, and nothing more than shirking one's
responsibility to look out for one's self. It's religion all over again,
only the god being worshipped is "someone else to take care of me"

Nobody at "Acme Inc." held a gun to your head and said "strap on these
new Coyote-Go Mark VI jet-propelled skisTM or I'll blow your head
off". *YOU* chose to strap them on and punch the "go" button. Maybe they
*ARE* a bit hot, and yeah, that tree sure did do a real fine job of
rearranging your face, but you should have taken that into consideration
before you trundled your "bunny" self out to the 4-diamond slope. Part
of self-preservation and personal responsibility is knowing what your
skills and limitations are. Your inability to estimate your abilities
isn't the concern of the outfit that made the skis that *YOU* chose to
strap on. Neither is the responsibility for the 37 plastic surgeries
you're going to need to rearrange your face into something that bears
enough resemblance to human that you can eat something stiffer than
pudding. Unless the skis broke or otherwise failed to perform as
claimed, then it's *ALL* *ON* *YOU*. You piling into the tree at Mach 4
an estimated 1.6 seconds after punching the "go" button is operator
error, not Acme's screwup. They're rocket-propelled skis, after all, you
dummy! OF COURSE they go like a bat out of hell! Which part of that
wasn't clear when you read the directions? What? You didn't read the
directions? Well, that explains things... Definitely operator error.
Judgement for the defendant. Bailiff, call the next case. This one's
over.

You fire a handgun and it goes KABOOM in your face because of a double
charge of powder in your commercial ammo; you just grin and bear it?

You appear to lack the realization that "gross negligence" (attempting
to properly operate something in the generally approved manner, that
*SHOULD*, based on all previous experience, work in "this" particular
fashion, only to have it fail catastrophically due to a massive ****up
on the part of the maker) and "an idiot that ****ed up" (Someone dumping
coffee in their lap) just don't get anywhere near equating to each other.

That being the case, I won't bother to debate this point any further.

No examples; I'm not suprised (or am I?).

Rather than disappoint you, I'll not bother to give any. Not that doing
so would be relevant to anything in this discussion to begin with.

In other words, *BUTT OUT*, and suck up a dose of responsibility for
yourself. It's my life, my hide, my responsibility, and my decision -
Not yours, or any elected representative's, or Ralph Nader's, or
anybody
else's.

You, you, you. Can't YOU turn it off for a minute?

Yes, me, me, me. No. I won't "turn it off". I see absolutely no reason
to do so. If I don't look out for me, nobody else is going to, so I'd be
a raving idiot to *NOT* put me at the top of the heap. Anyone who would
willingly put the responsibility for their own well-being into someone
else's hands is a damned fool in my eyes, and deserves whatever comes of
their stupidity in doing so.

Who protects the children

Their parents. They aren't mine (see comment above) and they aren't my
problem. Quite frankly, I'd have to work at it to care any less about
them than I do.

So why don't YOU *BUTT OUT* until you learn a little social
responsibility and start thinking of others instead of yourself all the
time.

As I said, there's nobody else looking out for me, so I'm damn well
gonna remain at the top of my list of "who I look out for". If you've
got a problem with that... shrug Suck it up, bubba. It's YOUR problem
to deal with, not mine.

--
Don Bruder - - If your "From:" address isn't on my whitelist,
or the subject of the message doesn't contain the exact text "PopperAndShadow"
somewhere, any message sent to this address will go in the garbage without my
ever knowing it arrived. Sorry... http://www.sonic.net/~dakidd for more info