This is one of the main reasons I stayed in the closet as a bisexual woman for so many years growing up in rural America. I was a woman who was generally "fem" looking and it was easy to blend in. I was shocked to hear attitudes about gay people that could range from ignorance to outright violence. Most of the time, I saw such hypocritical attitudes among the homophobes; I saw them hating homosexuality on the one hand and being intrigued by it on the other to the degree of wanting to experiment with willing partners. I cannot tell you how many times I've had "straight" women make sexual overtures at me after much questioning about my liberal attitudes towards homosexuality. I will neve...

This is one of the main reasons I stayed in the closet as a bisexual woman for so many years growing up in rural America. I was a woman who was generally "fem" looking and it was easy to blend in. I was shocked to hear attitudes about gay people that could range from ignorance to outright violence. Most of the time, I saw such hypocritical attitudes among the homophobes; I saw them hating homosexuality on the one hand and being intrigued by it on the other to the degree of wanting to experiment with willing partners. I cannot tell you how many times I've had "straight" women make sexual overtures at me after much questioning about my liberal attitudes towards homosexuality. I will never forget being in a church group and showing the other women my new Sirius satellite radio a few years back. Several were looking through the channels and they seems so intrigued by the Q channel, to the point of asking me if I had ever listened to it and asking to tune into it. They seemed to be so curious and that was perplexing to me. Why be so curious about something most of them believed to be a "sin"? Of course, they were only being human beings, and our American society has certain rules about "acceptable" sexual behavior , except in private.

I see homophobia as being the same evil as racism. It all comes from the same hatred and fear for anything that is different

Is this saying that all form of diversity come in for the same mistreatment no matter what wither sex, religion, race, gender, weight, age, and on and on in America? The USA was built on diversity. Why then is there this hatred of diversity?

I come from Ireland where out gene pool contracted century after century. Incomers now account for over 17% and growing still. And are welcomed - black, Asian, Pole, EU, Yank, Brazilian, and all. Little hate. No guns. Unarmed police. Pussy-cats compared with the US fascists.

Is capitalism the defining ing...

I see homophobia as being the same evil as racism. It all comes from the same hatred and fear for anything that is different

Is this saying that all form of diversity come in for the same mistreatment no matter what wither sex, religion, race, gender, weight, age, and on and on in America? The USA was built on diversity. Why then is there this hatred of diversity?

I come from Ireland where out gene pool contracted century after century. Incomers now account for over 17% and growing still. And are welcomed - black, Asian, Pole, EU, Yank, Brazilian, and all. Little hate. No guns. Unarmed police. Pussy-cats compared with the US fascists.

Is capitalism the defining ingredient that causes Americans to hate so much? Its essence is GREED. That combined with an un-Christian religion is my guess.

"The USA was built on diversity. Why then is there this hatred of diversity?"

Note: this is just in response to the question above, and has no relation to gay issues....

Most people don't oppose _diversity" so much as the down-everyone's-throat _multiculturalism_. The difference is that in the past, foreigners (such as your, and my, Irish ancestors) came to America and _became Americans_. Today, foreigners want to come live here and remain foreigners. The influx of immigrants is still here, but the idea of the "melting pot" is today disdained.

A good illustration is language. In the 1800s, you might not speak English when you got here, but you sure as heck did your best to _learn_ it ...

"The USA was built on diversity. Why then is there this hatred of diversity?"

Note: this is just in response to the question above, and has no relation to gay issues....

Most people don't oppose _diversity" so much as the down-everyone's-throat _multiculturalism_. The difference is that in the past, foreigners (such as your, and my, Irish ancestors) came to America and _became Americans_. Today, foreigners want to come live here and remain foreigners. The influx of immigrants is still here, but the idea of the "melting pot" is today disdained.

A good illustration is language. In the 1800s, you might not speak English when you got here, but you sure as heck did your best to _learn_ it once you were here. Today? How dare anybody suggest they should learn English!

Also...

"Is capitalism the defining ingredient that causes Americans to hate so much? Its essence is GREED."

Think about it for a moment. Those two statement oppose each other. If I'm a greedy capitalist out to make a buck, i don't _care_ who pays it to me: gay, straight, black, white, green....

Same argument with the so called "wage gap' between the sexes. If businesses could truly get away with paying women less for the _exact same job performance_, most companies would hire only women, and save huge $$$ on payroll. Which of course would drive up demand for women, which would drive up the price, which would render the whole thing moot.

Again, just responding to the comment above, not the clip overall.

Today, foreigners want to come live here and remain foreigners. The influx of immigrants is still here, but the idea of the "melting pot" is today disdained.

On a human level this makes no sense. As I'm not on the ground there, I cannot be adamant. Why on earth would someone who had to jump through so many hoops to become a citizen then not wish to integrate.

I'd point to the blacks. They were American long before many of you reading this. Were they accepted as Americans? The obvious evidence is that WHITE Americans rejected BLACKS and LATINOS. Catholic Irish got it also. So the idea of the American melting pot is an ideal but obviously a falsehood. Remember too in WW2 the ...

Today, foreigners want to come live here and remain foreigners. The influx of immigrants is still here, but the idea of the "melting pot" is today disdained.

On a human level this makes no sense. As I'm not on the ground there, I cannot be adamant. Why on earth would someone who had to jump through so many hoops to become a citizen then not wish to integrate.

I'd point to the blacks. They were American long before many of you reading this. Were they accepted as Americans? The obvious evidence is that WHITE Americans rejected BLACKS and LATINOS. Catholic Irish got it also. So the idea of the American melting pot is an ideal but obviously a falsehood. Remember too in WW2 the different treatment of Japanese-Americans as against German-Americans.

Your economic theory on females wages is a novelty and amusing but nothing at all to do with capitalism defeating diversity. My contention ...

"capitalism the defining ingredient that causes Americans to hate so much? Its essence is GREED."

stands as an explanation. I'll explain in easy steps.

First the American Dream notion. How many benefit? One in 1,000? One in 10,000? One in million. For the one to achieve the Dream must be at the cost to the other 999, or 9,999 or 999,999 unless you just print extra money. You will be familiar with the Beggar on Horseback syndrome. It's the real name of the American Dream. It breeds corruption and cronyism as is so obvious with the Bu...

Your economic theory on females wages is a novelty and amusing but nothing at all to do with capitalism defeating diversity. My contention ...

"capitalism the defining ingredient that causes Americans to hate so much? Its essence is GREED."

stands as an explanation. I'll explain in easy steps.

First the American Dream notion. How many benefit? One in 1,000? One in 10,000? One in million. For the one to achieve the Dream must be at the cost to the other 999, or 9,999 or 999,999 unless you just print extra money. You will be familiar with the Beggar on Horseback syndrome. It's the real name of the American Dream. It breeds corruption and cronyism as is so obvious with the Bush-huggers. Or tax breaks for the elite. Should I continue?

ratilfar -- What do the Amish have to do with it? They are a distinct group of people who have explicitly chosen to keep themselves separate from American culture. If i understand it correctly, (and I may be off a bit here), they both do not pay taxes, and do not have voting rights. It's kind of similar to Indian reservations having separate legal jurisdictions, except in the case of the Amish the separation was entirely voluntary.

righthand --

"First the American Dream notion. How many benefit? ...For [one person] to achieve the Dream must be at the cost to the other 999, or 9,999 or 999,999 unless you just print extra money."

There is a flaw in your economic theory, in that you assum...

ratilfar -- What do the Amish have to do with it? They are a distinct group of people who have explicitly chosen to keep themselves separate from American culture. If i understand it correctly, (and I may be off a bit here), they both do not pay taxes, and do not have voting rights. It's kind of similar to Indian reservations having separate legal jurisdictions, except in the case of the Amish the separation was entirely voluntary.

righthand --

"First the American Dream notion. How many benefit? ...For [one person] to achieve the Dream must be at the cost to the other 999, or 9,999 or 999,999 unless you just print extra money."

There is a flaw in your economic theory, in that you assume that the "pie" is of a fixed size. You model is zero-sum, but in reality economics are not zero-sum. There is such a thing as "creating wealth", which is not the same as "taking something from somebody else". No, it is inevitably not distributed exactly equally, but (to use a different metaphor), a rising tide raises all boats.

And, respectfully, that's as far as I will go on this thread, as we are pre-empting an unrelated clip with off-topic discussion. I'm sure I'll see you two in another clip somewhere.

There is a flaw in your economic theory, in that you assume that the "pie" is of a fixed size

In the main the pie is of fixed size unless you do the American trick that's destroying the world financial markets by printing more money or borrowing into the future. Economics wasn't my strongest suit but I did train as a Chartered Accountant and expect I'd know more about a subject that you are so 'creative' about.

we are pre-empting an unrelated clip with off-topic discussion. I'm sure I'll see you two in another clip somewhere.

Sounds more like a full scale retreat to me after you got you little dig in. Has this worked before? Anyone warn you off here? Of cour...

There is a flaw in your economic theory, in that you assume that the "pie" is of a fixed size

In the main the pie is of fixed size unless you do the American trick that's destroying the world financial markets by printing more money or borrowing into the future. Economics wasn't my strongest suit but I did train as a Chartered Accountant and expect I'd know more about a subject that you are so 'creative' about.

we are pre-empting an unrelated clip with off-topic discussion. I'm sure I'll see you two in another clip somewhere.

Sounds more like a full scale retreat to me after you got you little dig in. Has this worked before? Anyone warn you off here? Of course not! If you have anything worthwhile to add to the topic even if it diverted, then you'll always be welcome on ClipMarks!!!

If you have anything worthwhile to add to the topic even if it diverted, then you'll always be welcome....

So be it.

In the main the pie is of fixed size unless you do the American trick that's destroying the world financial markets by printing more money or borrowing into the future

You've never heard of an economy growing? You say you took an economics class???

Absolutely, and without hesitation: An economy can grow.

A society that _produces_ something can create more wealth than there was before. Simply printing more money actually leads to inflation, which tends to _shrink_ an economy. I agree with you, BTW, on the foolishness of borrowing against the...

If you have anything worthwhile to add to the topic even if it diverted, then you'll always be welcome....

So be it.

In the main the pie is of fixed size unless you do the American trick that's destroying the world financial markets by printing more money or borrowing into the future

You've never heard of an economy growing? You say you took an economics class???

Absolutely, and without hesitation: An economy can grow.

A society that _produces_ something can create more wealth than there was before. Simply printing more money actually leads to inflation, which tends to _shrink_ an economy. I agree with you, BTW, on the foolishness of borrowing against the future, which we are doing. That's another reason why I tend to argue for smaller government

Borrowing from Wikipedia:

Many economic situations are not zero-sum, since valuable goods and services can be created, destroyed, or badly allocated, and any of these will create a net gain or loss. Assuming the counterparties are acting rationally, any commercial exchange is a non-zero-sum activity, because each party must consider the goods s/he is receiving as being at least fractionally more valuable to him/her than the goods he/she is delivering.

Ratilfar:
"Yet [the Amish] exist within the context of America, and allowances are made for them."

They are physically within the bounds of America, but they basically live _outside_ America. They are only _barely_ a part of American society. They are an exception to the rule.

To be clear: A country of significant size could not exist if it entirely consisted of a bunch of isolated little subcultures such as the Amish. Any such group declaring themselves a (small) country could only exist under the protection of a larger, more powerful one.

For example: whether the Amish like the idea or not, they are protected by the Armed Forces, and the police, of the United States.