[FRIAM] Liberal dilemmas

[Eric Charles]

I'm interested in what's behind that "obsolete" and "left behind" talk.
Usually I see that kind of language in a Progressive context, where it is
used to indicate that things are moving in The Right Direction, and that
they are Better Now than they were before, and that the people hurting
and/or complaining just don't appreciate - gosh darn it - how much better
off they are.

Workers complaining that OSHA codes make it harder to electrocute
themselves to death; fire codes making it harder for Mrs. O'Leary's cow to
torch a whole city; etc.

Is that what is happening in these situations? Or is it more like a bunch
of automatons on a restless random walk, while some other automatons want
to stay where they are?

Where does: Making it harder for disabled people to access hot springs on
public land fall on that spectrum?


<echarles at american.edu>


On Thu, Sep 2, 2021 at 10:50 AM uǝlƃ ☤>$ <gepropella at gmail.com> wrote:

> Well, I do feel pity for Dave and the obsolete people/modes being left
> behind. Nostalgia is difficult. On his deathbed, with so much time to sit
> and think about dying, my dad finally admitted that his "type A
> personality" was an artifact of the circumstances within which he was
> reared ('30s). And it wasn't at all successful under the
> circumstances/times in which me and my sister were reared. My sister took
> something more like Marcus' stance, an unvarnished "get with the program".
> I took a more apathetic stance, "you're gonna to die soon, anyway, at which
> your pain will end."
>
> I feel the same way when I see lions at the zoo, once glorious masters on
> the Serengeti, now pathetic creatures burdened with claws and teeth and
> nobody to fight with. It's truly sad. But it's also terrifying to me. Am
> *I* capable of recognizing the signal when it comes my way? Or am I
> destined to be a scared little snowflake, hiding in my nostalgia? ...
> aggrieved, petulant, and burdened with my teeth and claws?
>
> I took a morning walk to downtown Olympia right after the pandemic. I
> walk/run around 6am. As I was returning, walking, a man in a black gaiter,
> sunglasses, and black hoodie, covered so well I couldn't see any of his
> flesh ... hell, I don't even know if it was a man. Was walking toward me. I
> didn't think much of it at the time. There was a new building across the
> street with some weird structure (e.g. a kitchen on the 1st floor with no
> other rooms attached ... WTF?). So I crossed to peer through the various
> floor to ceiling plate glass windows to see if I could figure out what it
> was for?
>
> When I was done peering into the windows, I noticed the man on the other
> side of the street, stopped, staring at me. That scared me. Did he intend
> harm? Was he offended that I crossed the street? Should I go back across
> and say something? ... well, a couple of women walked past me audibly
> wondering what this building was for and that distracted me. I talked to
> them for a minute. And when I looked back the guy was gone.
>
> Have I become just like the scared little old lady that lives next door?
> Afraid of progress? Afraid of diversity? Scared of my own shadow? I
> honestly don't know.
>
>
> On 9/2/21 7:22 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> > The signal to the welfare rancher is “Find a new line of work and quit
> your whining.”
> >
> >> On Sep 2, 2021, at 7:05 AM, Eric Charles <
> eric.phillip.charles at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> 
> >> "The fact that you agree with the policies and actions does not
> mitigate the harm caused."
> >>
> >> This seems to be a recurring theme in conversations I am having
> recently, in several venues. I make a factual claim about damages caused by
> a policy/action/decision. Someone objects to the factual claim because they
> agree with policy/action/decision. I'm never quite sure where to go in the
> conversation after that.
> >>
> >> Like, I saw someone post, non-sarcastically, a meme claiming that
> Biden's withdrawal from Afghanistan was more peaceful that Trump's final
> days in office. When I pointed out how obviously wrong that was, the
> otherwise-sensible-seeming person couldn't do anything but insist that
> withdrawing was the right thing to do. Like... come on man... I get that...
> but what does that have to do with pretending things went well, or were
> "peaceful"?!?
> >>
> >> So, like... yeah... you might agree with restrictions on the uses of
> public lands... but that doesn't mean you need to pretend it has no
> negative consequences for individuals. Just own that those harms will
> happen, as part of your supporting the policy.
> >> <mailto:echarles at american.edu>
> >>
> >>
> >> On Wed, Sep 1, 2021 at 8:09 PM Prof David West <profwest at fastmail.fm
> <mailto:profwest at fastmail.fm>> wrote:
> >>
> >>     __
> >>     Marcus, you seem to miss my point; perhaps just baiting me.
> >>
> >>     Honors at Highlands: this was part of a policy, stated publicly at
> a Board of Regents meeting, "Highlands exists to provide degrees to
> Hispanic students that could never obtain one at any other university.
> Honors degrees, curricula, and courses are racist reasons that students
> from northern New Mexico cannot succeed at other universities and, as such,
> cannot be tolerated at Highlands."
> >>
> >>     Posters: woman in question was a 30+ year old grad student (we
> shared the same advisor). The posters were in my office for my enjoyment,
> purchased at the university bookstore. Meeting was held in my office at her
> request. They were prints of Dali work considered "great art." The human
> figures are totally androgynous as well as being distorted in typical Dali
> style. Her motive for filing the complaint was, she stated in an email a
> year later, to discredit me with our advisor who she thought showed a
> preference for my work over hers. The HR office, because of their
> "enlightened liberal policies" accepted her complaint on its face, no
> investigation; as the same policy stated one was not needed because, as a
> male and academic staff, I had no defensible position to consider.
> >>
> >>     Ranchers: this particular family took 'stewardship' seriously and
> made hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of improvements to public land.
> but my point is simply that bureaucrats, kowtowing to liberal environmental
> lobbyists set policy without regard to any 'facts on the ground' or any
> science, simply on liberal philosophy of how things "should be."
> >>
> >>     Access: I too am a taxpayer. There are some very nice hot springs
> on BLM land near by. They are maintained and upgraded by a volunteer public
> group (pretty informal, word of mouth kind of stuff). Being old and feeble,
> my access is increasing dependent on the use of an ATV. BLM policy dictates
> constant reduction of motorized transport on that land, so it will not be
> long before my access is de facto denied. This is a personal example of a
> "woke" policy on increasing wilderness designations thereby denying access
> to elderly, handicapped, and otherwise marginally abled.
> >>
> >>     You asked for examples of liberal actions/policies that caused
> harm, to me specifically, but by implication in general. These are tangible
> examples. The fact that you agree with the policies and actions does not
> mitigate the harm caused.
> >>
> >>     davew
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>     On Wed, Sep 1, 2021, at 4:33 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> >>>
> >>>     Welfare ranchers, indeed.   The rest of us have to constantly
> modernize our skills..  But freeloading off the public land and environment
> that’s “multigenerational” and must be preserved?  Why?
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>     Marcus
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>     *From:* Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com <mailto:
> friam-bounces at redfish.com>> *On Behalf Of *Frank Wimberly
> >>>     *Sent:* Wednesday, September 1, 2021 3:17 PM
> >>>     *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <
> friam at redfish.com <mailto:friam at redfish.com>>
> >>>     *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Liberal dilemmas
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>     I owned 40 acres in Torrance County, NM which was adjacent to a
> national forest.  Ranchers were charged $1.21 per acre per year to use the
> NF land for grazing.  I could have made $48 per year by charging a little
> less than the feds.  My property taxes were $40 per year.
> >>>
> >>>     ---
> >>>     Frank C. Wimberly
> >>>     140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
> >>>     Santa Fe, NM 87505
> >>>
> >>>     505 670-9918
> >>>     Santa Fe, NM
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>     On Wed, Sep 1, 2021, 1:50 PM Marcus Daniels <marcus at snoutfarm.com
> <mailto:marcus at snoutfarm.com>> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>         Dave wrote:
> >>>
> >>>         < More significant: I have had my curricular materials
> censured and have had my job threatened on a number of occasions because it
> was deemed inconsistent with liberal values. Ironically, many of these
> events occurred when I was teaching at a Catholic university where I could,
> with impunity, challenge religious orthodoxy, but not liberal woke
> snowflake orthodoxy. I was once censured by the University of Wisconsin HR
> department because a female student filed a sexual harassment complaint
> because I had a meeting with her in my office where I had three Salvador
> Dali prints on my wall and "she was forced to look at breasts the entire
> meeting." Her complaint was upheld because neither the content of the Dali
> prints nor my intent or rational for having them in my office mattered —
> only her subjective feelings. At Highlands I was forbidden to offer Honors
> courses or any opportunities to earn extra credit in a class by tackling
> extra hard problems (these were software
> >>>         courses) because doing so was racist and unfair — simply
> because more non-Hispanic students obtained the extra credit or the honors
> designation. >
> >>>
> >>>         So the university had the expectation that before advanced
> classes could be offered, there needed to an unbiasing of the candidate
> pool for those classes by adequately training everyone (every demographic)
> that was potentially feeding in to them?  Ok.  If the university wants to
> do this, or incentivized to do this, it is really just a matter of
> private/public strategy.   If you don't want to work for a university that
> has this "fair" strategy, then don't.    As for subjecting young students
> to strange imagery, I can see why one would not want to do that.  Just as
> it would strange for a female professor to dress like a hooker.
>  Organizations can have dress codes.   Don't be a fool, universities are
> just another kind of business.  You mess with the business, you will have a
> problem.  It would be better if your department heads were "upstanders" and
> just said, "Hey Dave, how is this art helping your students?"
> >>>
> >>>         < Not personal, but a relative: multi-generational ranch with
> Federal grazing right. Hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years were
> spent enhancing the Federal land, containment ponds for water that reduced
> erosion and flash flooding without diminishing runoff contribution to
> watershed; planting of native grasses, elimination of  deadwood, etc. etc.
> End result was the ability to safely and sustainably graze X number of
> cattle. About five years ago, BLM issued a new policy dictating the maximum
> carrying capacity of Federal lands. The math was based on lowest common
> denominator. The policy was, at the behest of preservation groups, written
> with the specific intent to minimize and eventually eliminate the use of
> public lands for grazing. (Also mining and motorized recreational vehicle
> use.) Bottom line, allotment was taken away because it violated the numbers
> — not because there was any evidence of actual harm. >
> >>>
> >>>         I'm a taxpayer.  Why should I want off road vehicles or cows
> on federal land?  I don't care about either of those things.   This is a
> weird entitlement that these folks have in mind.  As far as I was concerned
> the Bundy principals in Oregon deserved to be met by A-10s.
>
> --
> ☤>$ uǝlƃ
>
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