From Wikipedia, so take it as you will -

Etymology:

The German word Schmuck means "jewelry, adornments";[7] In German the pejorative "schmuck" would be Schmock, closer to the original Yiddish word. The transition of the word from meaning "jewel" to meaning "penis" is related to the description of a man's genitals as "the family jewels

For the most part, I do. Spent a lot of summers on my grandparent's dairy farm. Had 2 uncles who were only 18 and 36 months older, so more like brothers. Had a lot of good times along with hard work. Helped instill good values. Wish it weren't a bygone era for us, but that's the price of progress.

Hope they were pleasant memories. :-)

There you go again.. ADs! You said "ads" NOT ME.

No, there's no anti-smoking ads... lots of movies and tv shows where the antagonists are puffing on cigars or cigarettes. Seldom if ever will you see the protagonist take a drag on a butt. Even in Atlas Shrugged, only Hugh Akston actually takes a puff.

Hogan's Heroes was based very loosely on "Stalag 17" (an excellent William Holden, pro-objectivist movie, IMO), and "The Great Escape". A group of POWs in a German camp operate an underground resistance cell, making complete fools of their captors, who are foolish, cowardly, craven, easily blackmailed, and even the SS troops have feet of clay.

Yes, Victor/Victoria is a well-made movie with an exceptional cast of actors.

IT DOESN'T LEAVE ME FREE TO DECIDE FOR MYSELF.

That's the fallacy of your argument.

Merriam-Webster online :
" a forcible indoctrination to induce someone to give up basic political, social, or religious beliefs and attitudes and to accept contrasting regimented ideas
2
: persuasion by propaganda or salesmanship "

Nowhere in the definition does it say "by use of reason". If I have to embrace homosexuality because otherwise my society persecutes me, or if I embrace homosexuality because every piece of literature, television, movies, etc set up scenarios in which those who embrace homosexuality are nice, successful, wise, "cool" people, and in the same scenarios those who reject it are cruel, failures, stupid, and "square"... well at 52 (today) I'm not going to be brainwashed. But at the impressionable ages from say 12-26, the emotional effects of these propaganda... FALSE propaganda... pieces does brainwash them into a favorable position regarding homosexuality.

And this is just one example.

I remember when I was a little kid. Maybe 10? A cartoon came on TV called "The Last of the Curlews". At the end of the story, as the last Curlew was shot by an evil mindless horrible icky pooey human, I burst into tears and bawled my eyes out.

It took my wise father to sit down with me once my sobbing let up and explain to me what a propaganda piece that was. To explain how the real world worked, and the mechanics of extinction. What if I didn't have that wise father? What if my society, through other brainwashing techniques, made fathers' role in the family seem superfluous, to the point that single mother homes almost became the norm? Oh, gee... kinda like society today. I wouldn't have had anyone resistant to the propaganda to explain it to me in a rational *reasoned* manner.

Another example maybe people here will appreciate. The year must have been before 1970. I was sitting on the living room floor watching our black-and-white tv, eating a Hershey bar, enjoying whatever comedy show I was watching.

Then came one of the relentless "Feed the Children" type commercials, showing the suffering and starvation of 3rd world children. Ridden with a guilt I couldn't even identify at the time, I set my candy bar aside.

My father had just come home, hot, sweaty and tired from working his ass off in the summer sun. He came unglued; absolutely furious. At first my guilt compounded; then he gently explained to me that his fury was directed at those propagandists (he didn't use that word), because he was out there working in the hot sun so that his little boy could enjoy a Hershey bar if he wanted to, and they had no business making me feel guilty because those other children couldn't. That my enjoying my Hershey bar had nothing whatever to do with their hunger and want. (he had a few more choice words about the work ethics of 3rd worlders which are mostly irrelevant to my point).

Okay, Gulchers... how many of you recognize this "guilty of success" meme?

Again, had I not had the good fortune of my nonconformist father, I would probably be one of the mindless proles out there feeling guilty for what little I've got, simply because someone else has less through no fault of mine.

You are not free if your thoughts are not yours arrived at voluntarily through your own reasoning abilities.

So, illegalizing certain language is honest, if bad. Brainwashing people into thinking certain language is bad is dishonest, and evil.

I'd rather be shot for not conforming to a doctrine with which I disagree than made to conform with the collective's consensus. Either way, I, me, am dead. The latter merely preserves a zombie with my face and the collective's mind.

Have none of you read 1984? Brave New World? Fallen Angels??


How about at least have seen Star Drek?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kPkgBq8...

Hell, I can't even use rational arguments against some of the nonsense you moderns believe, without fear of being "outed", shunned and persecuted.

You missed Commerce - only place I know that has two different intersections where Commerce & Commerce intersect (yes, not one, but 2!). I used to live there for two years. But I don't remember that sort of language - granted it was '03-'05, so might have changed some.

You have cows that can jump fences? That's a trick. Never seen a cow that could jump a fence - plenty stupid enough to walk right through an electric fence.

And yes, any steer dumb enough to try to visit the neighbor would be self selecting to be the guest of honor at my next BBQ.

And by "honestly" I mean "honesty." That was a typo. :X

24/7 relentless campaign? What are you talking about? I hardly ever see any anti-smoking ads. Sure, I see a few anti-smoking posters and billboards sometimes, and occasionally anti-smoking commercials will come across on television, but there's certainly no 24/7 broadcast that anyone is being forced to watch. The quantity of anti-smoking advertisements is exactly the same as the quantity of advertisements for literally anything else.

And no, I've never watched Hogan's Heroes. Anything prior to 1980 was before my time, and I usually don't go out of my way to watch old TV shows from 50 years ago. If you want to use Hogan's Heroes as an example to demonstrate a particular point, you're going to have to explain the plot to me, otherwise I'm not going to know what it is you're trying to say. I cannot answer the questions you've raised about the characters in Hogan's Heroes, because I've never watched the show.

I've never watched the movie "Victor Victoria" either, but after doing a quick google search I found this trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APuLUq1k...

It looks like a pretty good movie, and I thank you for bringing it to my attention.

But anyway, to address your point, punishment for thinking differently is not the hallmark of a free society. It is the antithesis of freedom.

You'd prefer to be screwed with in a lethal manner that strips you of both your liberty and right to life, rather than in a manner which leaves you free to decide for yourself? Is honestly seriously more valuable than freedom?

Yeah, I try to stay away from Putz's. That is the more specific term of the ones described.

Had a Jewish roommate for a semester. He taught me the meaning for all those words his mommy wouldn't let him say around their house.

Nope. Just responding to your statement that seemed to indicate that it was always restricted. It is more unrestricted than not (or at least was. With the current Dept of Justice and SCOTUS it's hard to know anymore).

What you state are exceptions due to some other extenuating circumstances - the FCC licenses the airwaves (whether that is right or not I'm not going to debate) and as such sets "standards" for those who want to use those airwaves - however, those that send their transmissions via cable are not so encumbered.

Libel and slander are also less restrictive depending on to whom the comments are addressed - if you are a "public" figure the standard of harm is significantly higher to prove slander/liable.

I don't think that we are in disagreement, other than rights are just that - rights. They may have limitations, but those should be limited and as permissive as practicable.

Glad to hear your kids had such a happy childhood ;-)

ADVERTISING??? 24/7 relentless campaign telling the masses of proles how "good" people act and think and how "bad" people act and think is not "advertising". It's brainwashing.

One of the problems I have in writing my stories is that my protagonists are evil, horrible, immoral bas... people... by the values of today's degenerate culture.

I don't hate commercial advertising; commercial advertising is NOT the brainwashing I'm talking about, and I'd be willing to bet you know it and are once again trying to deflect.

Ever watch "Hogan's Heroes"? Ever wonder why Sgt Kinchloe was the only black man in this pow camp, when the U.S. military was segregated during the war? He was the only black man from his all-black unit captured? And the notoriously racist Germans didn't segregate him with other black captives?

Hell, that show is just one of thousands of brainwashing examples; we didn't defeat the Germans because our cause was just or our soldiers stronger, our tactics superior. We won because Germans are fools. One of the oldest propaganda tools, one of the oldest brainwashing methods is to hold your opposition up to unjustified ridicule, to grant them characteristics they might well not even possess. Homosexuals wouldn't know about this, would they?

"Victor/Victoria", speaking of that aspect of the war on the mind, is another great example. All of the protagonists are pro-homosexual... not tolerance... acceptance. The only holdout is James Garner's character, who is shown having ambiguity about his sexuality, and then embracing the homosexual community, having wizened up through the course of the movie. All the antagonists are, of course, not only homophobic, but immoral in other ways, as well (damnation by association), such as murderous, thieving, adulterous, and/or promiscuous.

I could go on and on, movie after movie, tv show after tv show, revisionist documentaries, textbooks, fiction books, to the point now where you almost can't get a non-PC message out there (thank God for the internet...). All dishonestly pushing the same ideas via appeals to emotion, not reason. And demonizing anyone who successfully strays outside the message of the agenda.

If a community, jointly, decides that cussing in public is not acceptable, then they should pass a law punishing people who cuss in public. But, the idea of "persuading" people that cussing in public is unacceptable presumes that there are superior beings, "older and wiser heads" as it were, to convince people to conform. Not by reasoned argument, but by emotional appeal.

You forget... I was punished... and THEN came the attempts at persuasion... mostly from khalling, iirc. The powers that be here didn't try to convince me not to say such things; I was encouraged to defend my statement ('sandbagged' in the vernacular).