I'm in the same boat and I'm sick of it.

I no longer go to the mall. However I like your suggestion and would if I could.

I am in the process of fixing that problem...I attempt to elevate that conversation the way is should have been when men became more comfortable with an internal self driven conscience.

Mankind didn't always have that until about 3000 years ago, it didn't happen over night and is still evolving; BUT!.. today, the shame of it is...many still do not. [the ruleless class and preliterate societies comes to mind here.]

Old dino should have thought about that.

just buy a "basket of deplorables" T-shirt and wear
it proudly with me beside you in mine!! -- j

p.s. Rush has these for sale at his site.
.

No, not a military brat. My father owned a little restaurant and made me come in and work on a Saturday. "Come in Saturday and you'll work twelve hours like everybody else and I'll give you pay." I read The Fountainhead when I was 14 and It started me on the road to understanding that I wasn't crazy, it was that the world was.

P.S. This is a fun video to watch to get more of a background on "Alternative Ways of Thinking/Being": https://facebook.com/piphd/videos/101...

Herb, DON'T TAKE SIDES like THEY want you to! Or rather, don't ACCEPT the categories that THEY want you to be in! THEY are ONLY trying to separate you from the rest of US by putting you in SELF-constricted boxes! You may be all of those things in your own mind, but, actual reality is something ELSE! It's not too late to wake up Herb. Take deeper and slower breaths and better options will come to you. It also does not hurt to try taking Ayahuasca at least once: https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayahuasca

Are you a "military brat" as well? As an army brat I'd been to more schools than grade levels, across multiple countries and as a result developed a different approach which sounds much like yours.

"I've lived around and worked with folk of all sexual preferences, and find most to be just regular people."

I think this ties into our growing identity problem. I wish I had the link but years ago I read a "rant" by a man who enjoyed sex with other men, and described himself as "not a gay man" because it is a really powerful piece. He talked length about how "the gay movement" is something he doesn't like because it treats being gay as an identity and one that is in-your-face and demanding at that. But, just as the vast majority of conservatives don't actually care who you sleep with, the vast majority of homosexual men are not "gay" and many dislike the identity.

The entity problem is that rather than stand for our own, individually defined, identity we increasingly accept and in some cases run toward, allow our identity to be defined as an external group-oriented one. In so doing you object yourself to an identity not under your control. I suspect this is the underlying problem with people against gay marriage who profess no problems with gayness (or more accurately homosexuality). in that context it manifests as feeling like gay marriage is an attack on marriage. But I suspect the underlying "attack" is on their identity of "a married couple" not on the institution/convention itself. But with the talking-(pin)heads decrying any form of individual identity they lack the language to express it accurately.

I think this manifests itself in other ways such as the "don't judge" phrase in used in high school so much. It isn't the judging that is a problem directly, it is that the person has identified themselves as/with a group identity which having submitted themselves to, they are unconsciously trying to defend. often the judgement is accurate, but acknowledging that produces cognitive dissonance. You can't challenge the group beliefs even if the individual member doesn't share them because that challenges their identity as defined by the group.

This is perhaps, to me, on the the crucial "offerings" of objectivism - the emphasis on being an individual with an individually defined identity. Group identity is fundamentally a way to not think about the members of the group. Yet there is still the underlying "I am my own person" which gets assaulted when someone who has allowed a group identity to be theirs takes umbrage at that identity being challenged or different than their own.

It also explains an apparent paradox among the millennial generation - supposedly more "tolerant/accepting" yet bristle at group based differences. I think the data showing them being more accepting is accurate, but the part about them being more bigoted is actually showing not bigotry but a reflex and unconscious defense of a group identity they don't fully accept as their own.

If they ever, as a group, fully grasp that accepting group identity means you don't control your own identity, a lot would change dramatically, and for the better.

Hey!
I had a deviated septum and became a mouth breather. I had it fixed and am no longer a deviate.
Also, my east coast relatives aren't easy to get rid of.They are nice people who are delusional. They'll probably be at the head of the line when the soldiers up the street they are coming down.

Dr. Z:
Thank you. I think your description fits many of us in the Gulch. I'm still worried about all-inclusive bathrooms, however.

I'd probably screw up the system. They usually leave the old guys alone. Even the Borg.

It is the road to oblivion.

I've lived through 4 generations so far with very few trees appearing. Some now and then. The few flowers that bloom are wilted.

Thank you.
You are already in one. It is disguised as a republic.

gerstj:
Oh, thank you so much.
Do they have a good supply of Soylent Green?

That's because you exercise rationality.

Got a basket I can fit into?
When I was 21, I wouldn't chuckle at the above, I'd say, "Is this guy nuts?"

All this is simply resentment of white men's achievement by useless mouth-breathers. It's time to find friends who don't buy that crap.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zAFA...