Vintage Things That Have Disappeared In Your Lifetime?

[LizzieMaine]

This is true in politics and in other areas of our lives. It isn't new by any means but in the last 20 years or so it has gotten worse.

There has been a notable angry, paranoid streak in the American psyche since the beginning of the nation -- you can lay that to the monomaniacal, sociopathic Puritans who started the whole thing -- and it's gone thru ups and downs over the centuries since. It hit a peak around the middle of the nineteenth century, another peak after World War I, another peak in the late 1930s, another peak after World War II, another peak in the early 1970s, and then it went right off the charts starting in the late 1980s, and has only gotten worse since.

Most of the earlier peaks don't take a lot of effort to understand. But the current situation might be hard to grasp until you notice that it follows along with the repeal of broadcasting's Fairness Doctrine, which required equal time for all points of view on radio and TV, and the rise of cable news, which was never bound by that Doctrine, and finally, the deregulation of broacast station ownership, which made it possible for a handful of corporate organizations with similar, specific agendas to own nearly all the radio and TV stations in the US. Think about that the next time someone tries to tell you "who controls the media."

 

[Fading Fast]

I look at it this way -- the people, the individuals, are less my enemy than the ideas are. There comes a time when it becomes necessary to take action against harmful ideas -- and that inevitably means taking action against people -- but even then I can't accept the idea that you have to fundamentally hate those people as individuals in order to take that action

That doesn't mean being artificially lovey-dovey in a hypocrtical way. There are a great many people in the world that I dislike, some of them rather intensely -- a few for personal reasons, some because they're so contrary to human decency in what they do that human decency demands that any decent human being oppose them -- and I'm not going pretend that I don't intensely disilke them for what they believe and do. But I don't *hate* them to the point of denying their own right to human dignity -- because I just don't think I have a right to do that.

What I think has gotten worse over the last forty or so years I've been following politics is the combination of a decline in the general civility of our political debates and the willingness and desire - even the broad acceptance of it - to attack the "other" person as being of ill intent / evil / mean / sub-human, etc.

When I say civility, I don't mean nice manners - those are whatever - I mean respecting your opponent as a person, treating them as a person of good will who disagrees with you and - and this is the big one - attacking their ideas with arguments not attacking the person with snark and venom.

To be sure, there are many, many, many example of incivility and personal attacks throughout our history - and, as Lizzie notes, there are times in our history that have been worse - but again, as a matter of degree, frequency and general acceptance, what I think has changed in the last four decades is the brutal attacks (both sides do it, I'm not arguing otherwise) that happen regularly and - and this too has changed for the worse - from main-stream politicians and commentators on an opponent's character and motivation, not simply their ideas.

I've had it happen to me here at FL. On the good side, Lizzie and I have almost no overlap in our political views, but she has never been anything but courtesy and polite to me while not giving an inch (a millimeter ) on the ideas. That's fair and that's one of the reasons I have great respect for her and, I hope, she has a little for me. Despite our all but obverse political views, I'm proud to call her a friend.

Conversely, I have had others here (just a few) attack me with snark, snide asides and ad hominem arguments that reflect anger, but usually, not a rational argument against my ideas. Individually, in my life and at FL, I just ignore those people, but collectively, that is the behavior that is causing our society to become more angry and divisive. That - the personal attacks and the general acceptance of that - is the difference I've seen over the past forty years.

 

[LizzieMaine]

One of my best friends was raised a Bircher. If we can get along -- and we do, quite well -- anybody can.

 

[tonyb]

Only a person with his fragile identity invested in his doctrinaire political philosophy would mistake a challenge to that philosophy for an ad hominem attack.

 

[tonyb]

“Good Missiles, Good Manners, Good Night,” a short op-ed penned by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. in 1969, touches on this issue.

Remaining civil in opposition to the most uncivil of notions is only so effective. Nope, sometimes you gotta call the monster a monster. If the monster’s feelings get hurt, well, sorry, but when being polite about it has done nothing to get the monster to change his ways, the opposition is left with either accepting an unacceptable status quo or becoming more forceful.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I think it's easy to confuse being "polite" with being a patsy. There are times when civility is important and worthwhile, but there are also times where you do have to step away from it and "shake the dust of that town off your feet" as the saying goes. It's not a black and white either/or proposition -- "you're either "civil" to everybody regardless or you're hitting random people in the mouth" -- and the current attempts in the media to frame the issue that way are, at best, severely disingenuous and at worst, maliciously stupid.

I try to understand why other people believe and act as they do, because you need to understand such things. Yelling NO YOU'RE WRONG doesn't deal with the underlying root of whatever wrong there is. But on the other hand, when the Nazis show up in my town -- hell, they already *are* in my town -- I'll do whatever I have to do to fight them, and I won't worry too much about hurting their feelings in the process.

 

[tonyb]

The phrase “virtue signalling” has gained a certain currency in recent years, along with a debate in academic circles as to its use and alleged misuse.

But I believe most of us share similar notions of what it means: saying and doing things for the primary purpose of letting others know how good and righteous we are. It’s as if saying the right things is as good as actually doing the right things.

This is a far too common habit among many with whom I often agree. Plastering the back of one’s Prius with a dozen or more stickers proclaiming allegiance to every good “progressive” cause leaves me cold, and thankful the Prius owner doesn’t live next door to me. I feel the same toward those who festoon their oversized pickup trucks with stickers carrying messages quite contrary to those on our hypothetical Prius. In both cases I’m left to wonder just to whom the messages are aimed. And I conclude that it’s almost entirely for the benefit of the person who put those stickers there.

Fine, fella. I know where you’re coming from politically. Your car shouts it. Now, if only you would be so virtuous as to use your turn signals.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The tanks rolling into Berlin didn't need bumper stickers.

We have a phenomenon here in town, in which pencil-necked, chicken-chested teenage boys rig their jacked-up pickup trucks to belch clouds of reeking black smoke whenever they pass a Prius. This is called "rolling coal," and it's a sure sign that the driver of said pickup truck is not someone whose beliefs would stand up to a reasonable analysis.

 

[tonyb]

The tanks rolling into Berlin didn't need bumper stickers.
...

Nor bumpers, for that matter.

 

[tonyb]

...

We have a phenomenon here in town, in which pencil-necked, chicken-chested teenage boys rig their jacked-up pickup trucks to belch clouds of reeking black smoke whenever they pass a Prius. This is called "rolling coal," and it's a sure sign that the driver of said pickup truck is not someone whose beliefs would stand up to a reasonable analysis.

I wonder if what you describe qualifies as assault.

Any criminal lawyers (yeah, I know, redundancy) among us care to weigh in?

 

[LizzieMaine]

It wouldn't be hard for the cops to find them if they were of a mind to. Just look for the trucks with ragged, tattered ruins of an American flag hanging from the back and a pair of rubber testicles hanging from the trailer hitch.

 

[tonyb]

It wouldn't be hard for the cops to find them if they were of a mind to. Just look for the trucks with ragged, tattered ruins of an American flag hanging from the back and a pair of rubber testicles hanging from the trailer hitch.

I’m far from prudish, but the rubber testicles hanging from a trailer hitch is just so damned tacky I wanna slap the tasteless idiot who put them there.

There’s a “gentlemen’s club” (a misnomer if ever there was one) I drive past frequently that has one of those big electronic signs that flashes and has animation and all that. I believe I’ve mentioned before how this sign tells, on the week leading up to Mothers’ Day, how on that Sunday they will host a “Mothers’ Day MILF Strip Off.”

I can only imagine the young mother fielding questions from a minivan full of youngsters as she motors past that sign.

 

[LizzieMaine]

This is the kind of s**t that I want to throw in the faces of the "oh, you women are just too sensitive" types. It takes a lot to offend me, but that's just repulsive. And I'll bet the dinks who go into a place like that are the same kind of All-American jackasses that pitch a fit if they see a woman sitting in public breastfeeding.

 

[tonyb]

I certainly wouldn’t advocate for the outright banning of such establishments. And, to take things a step further, I’d de-criminalize if not outright legalize the buying and selling of sexual contact.

But damn, all you horndogs, and all you who profit off them, show some discretion, will ya? Some things really do look best in plain brown wrappers. That packaging tells you all you really need to know about what’s inside.

 

[ChiTownScion]

I wonder if what you describe qualifies as assault.

Any criminal lawyers (yeah, I know, redundancy) among us care to weigh in?

Common law? It essentially defines an assault as a single act or series of intentional acts that is with either general or specific intent, cause the reasonable apprehension of an immediate battery. Defining a battery as intentionally and voluntarily bringing about an unconsented harmful or offensive contact with a person, I can't see "rolling coal" in itself as an assault. (Where is the intent of contact?)

The statutory definitions of assault vary state to state, but the generally follow the common law standard.

Practiced criminal law for more than thirty years: most who do are usually not involved in criminal activity simply because criminal defense work isn't an area that involves huge amounts of cash. Securities law might be an area where that may be more of a reality, but I'd only be guessing and those guys certainly aren't talking.

 

[tonyb]

Common law? It essentially defines an assault as a single act or series of intentional acts that is with either general or specific intent, cause the reasonable apprehension of an immediate battery. Defining a battery as intentionally and voluntarily bringing about an unconsented harmful or offensive contact with a person, I can't see "rolling coal" in itself as an assault. (Where is the intent of contact?)

The statutory definitions of assault vary state to state, but the generally follow the common law standard.

Practiced criminal law for more than thirty years: most who do are usually not involved in criminal activity simply because criminal defense work isn't an area that involves huge amounts of cash. Securities law might be an area where that may be more of a reality, but I'd only be guessing and those guys certainly aren't talking.

Might it be argued that deliberately enveloping a person in a cloud of black smoke is “voluntarily bringing about an unconsented harmful or offensive contact with [that] person”?

Offensive, for sure, and likely harmful. I think I read somewhere that inhaling smoke is bad for people.

Maybe it’s time for the law to catch up.

 

[ChiTownScion]

Might it be argued that deliberately enveloping a person in a cloud of black smoke is “voluntarily bringing about an unconsented harmful or offensive contact with [that] person”?

Offensive, for sure, and likely harmful. I think I read somewhere that inhaling smoke is bad for people.

Maybe it’s time for the law to catch up.

Issue is whether a criminal action for assault is the most prudent remedy. A lot of states already have vehicular endangerment statutes that could either be directly applied or amended as the remedy here.

The issue was assault: it's usually the lowest class of misdemeanor unless done with a deadly weapon or possesses another enhancement factor. There might actually be a remedy with "more teeth."

Personally, my initial gut reaction would be to seal both the tailpipe and the head of the doofus within a large plastic garbage bag and "roll coal" into his respiratory system for a few minutes... but a dedication to procedural due process, restraint, and a commitment to the Eighth Amendment is my reality check to that primal reflex.

 

[ChiTownScion]

Might it be argued that deliberately enveloping a person in a cloud of black smoke is “voluntarily bringing about an unconsented harmful or offensive contact with [that] person”?

Offensive, for sure, and likely harmful. I think I read somewhere that inhaling smoke is bad for people.

Maybe it’s time for the law to catch up.

Noting further, it would appear that the state of New Jersey enacted this gem into law in 2015:

"An Act concerning certain retrofits to diesel-powered vehicles and supplementing P.L.2005, c.219 (C.26:2C-8.26 et al.).

Be It Enacted by the Senate and General Assembly of the State of New Jersey:

1. No person shall retrofit any diesel-powered vehicle with any device, smoke stack, or other equipment which enhances the vehicle’s capacity to emit soot, smoke, or other particulate emissions, or shall purposely release significant quantities of soot, smoke, or other particulate emissions into the air and onto roadways and other vehicles while operating the vehicle, colloquially referred to as “coal rolling.” Any person who violates this section shall be subject to the penalties established pursuant to section 27 of P.L.2005, c.219 (C.26:2C-8.52) and any other applicable law.

2. This act shall take effect immediately.

"STATEMENT
This bill prohibits, and establishes penalties for:
1) retrofitting any diesel-powered vehicle with any device, smoke stack, or other equipment which enhances the vehicle’s capacity to emit soot, smoke, or other particulate emissions; and
2) purposely releasing significant quantities of soot, smoke, or other particulate emissions into the air and onto roadways and other vehicles while operating the vehicle. "


Penalty? Up to a $5,000 fine. Essentially a civil remedy, but no reason it couldn't be drafted as a criminal offense. As I said: more bite than a simple assault prosecution. And in these days of cell phones, getting a jury to convict wouldn't be that hard.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I was thinking maybe a couple of Baby Ruth bars plunked down Coal Roller's fuel tank might also be a nice deterrent. At least the smoke would smell better.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Speaking from a purely mechanical standpoint, rolling coal makes the engine create less efficient, creates more wear, & causes less fuel economy.