12-26-2020, 01:15 AM
(12-25-2020, 12:40 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: ** 25-Dec-2020 World View: Mocking the handicapped
(12-24-2020, 10:57 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: > By the way -- I gave up completely on Donald Trump when he mocked
> the handicapped. I remember hearing jokes about the handicapped
> (except for moron jokes) from people my age when I was about ten
> years old. Most people outgrow such garbage (and it really is
> cruel) when they are about ten years old. Around that age, one
> either finds those repugnant or someone is able to explain why you
> don't do them (Dad tells you that the fellow in a wheelchair is a
> disabled veteran who served his country heroically, and there but
> for the Grace of God go you ten years from now if we get into a
> war with the Soviet Union. I may judge harshly people who hurt
> themselves through their own follies such as drugs, alcoholism,
> extreme obesity, and criminal behaviors.. but I fault nobody who
> did nothing to fault himself.
> I have a neurological disorder that makes me little more than my
> intellect. It has messed me up as can a drug or alcohol habit
> except to not put my life at risk. No, I'm not crazy; I simply
> can't enjoy what many other people enjoy. I could never attend a
> rock concert. Yes, it is genetic. I got a double dose, as my late
> parents both showed signs of being on the autistic spectrum, and
> it is probably a good thing that I never had children; they would
> be at a high risk of institutionalization.
Thank you for posting this. This explains why you hate Trump so much,
and perhaps also explains why you hate 74 million Tea Partiers and
Trump supporters, although that's a bit more tenuous.
I disliked him for other issues of character, including his serial fornication (and Bill Clinton gets no break from me on that), his involvement with mobsters, and his "grab 'em by their (kitty-cats)" quip. If I had a daughter whom some thuggish young man grabbed that way I would press charges if she were under age and would strongly encourage her to press charges if she did not consent. I see Donald Trump as grossly immoral even if it has nothing to do with politics.
As for Tea Party types... they no longer identify themselves as such. I live in rural Michigan, where lots of people are Trump supporters. People have been holding rallies in support of the President that they adore as if it were "Beatle-mania" about sixty years ago for at least a month after the election that he lost. At the least the Beatles were the most polished popular music stars since the Big Band Era, if not Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (whose music was similarly popular). The Beatles' music is still enjoyable for reasons that make classical music enjoyable (sophisticated structure and even counterpoint that J S Bach would have appreciated in Eleanor Rigby).
The people who still believe the Tea Party agenda almost all went to Donald Trump and they will be sticking with their beliefs. Someone else will offer much the same in 2024 and 2028. But that agenda is getting old and stale, and its constituency is mostly old people similar in age to me.
Quote:Trump claims that he wasn't mocking the handicapped at all. His side
of the story is given in this Fox News story:
-- Did Trump really mock reporter's disability? Videos could back him up
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/did-tru...ack-him-up
(Fox News, 14-Sep-2016)
Trump was in the real estate business, and marketing in real estate is dodgy at best. I'm not saying that salesmanship is a black art; indeed I have been a salesman and a substitute schoolteacher, and once one knows the content and a few tricks of keeping order in the K-12 classroom, teaching is more salesmanship and showmanship than anything else. What one can't get away with in K-12 teaching and other professions that one must do in the marketing of anything from garments to insurance policies to real estate is dodgy talk.
Quote:For what it's worth, my opinion is that if Trump really did mock the
handicapped, then his doing so is wrong, and he should be condemned
for it.
That is how I interpret what he did. To be sure, drunks have always been fair game for mockery, whether alcoholics themselves like Phil Harris or non-alcoholics (a slip-up on TV showed that the drink that Dean Martin was consuming was apple juice)... but I have genetic cause for what is wrong with me. I must do stage-quality acting to be presentable as a person. If I were normal and I put as much effort into acting on stage or screen, then I might make a good living at it. Ten thousand hours, as Malcom Gladwell puts it in Outliers is the difference between mediocrity and supreme achievement that one makes look easy, whether being a concert pianist or a sports star...
By age ten most of us know not enough to not mock the handicapped except perhaps morons in a position to mess up one's life. Don't get me wrong on the mentally retarded: the need protection from people who would exploit them, abuse them, and trick them into doing criminal acts. With Asperger's comes harsh judgment of criminals, sexual perverts, alcoholics, and addicts.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
