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Publicly unacceptable opinions

Undividual

I posted on the recent referendum and probably deserved a lot of the flak I got for my posts. I was trying to work things out in my head so I don't mind any of that tbh. It did make me think however about unacceptable opinions to voice in public. I've seen other posters get labeled (perhaps correctly) as racist/bigoted etc for discussing some issues online, but to me the problem is that they cant be discussed in real life, as in bad ideas/logic should be challenged openly.

Below are some of my unpalatable opinions:

1) I'm afraid of the effects of Islam on the West (less about terrorism than segregated societies/Sharia law/child grooming gangs etc) and our governments willingness to accept more refugees from Muslim countries. To clarify, I dont believe this will be a problem for Ireland in the next ten years. I have Muslim family members who have assimilated (obviously) to Irish culture, but I feel the discussion in Ireland about the specific difficulties in assimilating Islam are not really broached. I realize it is probably not logical to worry at this point, as we haven't had a terrorist attack in Ireland or any scandal with Muslims here.

2) It really annoys me that the problems between the settled community and the traveller community are never adequately addressed. There are a lot of liberal minded people who would rather defend supposedly oppressed minorities than treat them as fallible humans. I remember a Slavoj Zizek interview where he asked a liberal "Should they live beside you?" The answer obviously wasn't yes. I don't mind segregation up to a point, but what does it say about the settled community's values that the illiteracy rate among travelers is so high? Is it not the duty of the state to try to give every child the same chance at life, regardless?

3) As I get older, I find that I respect women less than men. In general I find men to be more stoic about their situations. I find more women than men to have unrealistic expectations, particularly about relationships. What I would call the feminization of society (therapy culture, obsession with the abolition of traditional gender roles etc) has created a generation of men who are undoubtedly good fathers, though I worry what kind of men these men will raise. A woman in her late 50s recently said to me that she was alone and that no one called in to her. I asked her why she didn't just leave the house. She said "And go where?" If a man said that to me, I would probably laugh in his face.

4) I prefer gay men to lesbians (settle down). I have a lesbian family member who has been overly aggressive towards me in the past, in a way that I don't think she would have been with my female relatives. I do understand that as a lesbian, men must seem like a mixture of nuisances, competitors and outright pests, so it doesn't bother me that much, but it's a pain to be treated differently for what you are rather than who you are (upon re-reading, I realize this may sound ironic). I find most gay men I've met to be funny and easy to talk to, even if less than I thought (hoped) were attracted to me.

And yes, I am Hitler.

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Undividual

Tec hnocentral wrote: »

It's not a left/right issue, a lot on the left are critical of Transgender agenda too.

I don't have any problems with Transgender people but I will not be using the pronoun 'They'. I prefer Zee or Zur to 'they'. My main problems with it (they) are:
1. It makes it impossible to refer to a group of Trans people who identify as 'they'
2. It makes it very difficult to follow a conversation. In the newest season of Billions, one of the main characters identifies as 'they'. One line goes something like this "If they think they've won, they've got another thing coming." Just feels incredibly silly to use a word that already has a meaning and try to combine it with another with overlapping meaning.
3. It feels slightly insensitive to people with multiple personalities

Mackmatic

Cee-Jay-Cee wrote: »

I think most people agree with you on all your points but cant or don't want to be seen to be racist/bigoted/xenophobic/whatever and so toe the party line and disagree purely to be seen to be doing what everyone else claims to be the right thing but secretly believe the opposite.

I realize I'm trying to Ice skate uphill here... But here goes.

Let me ask you something.

I don't post here a whole lot, in fact the past few weeks have been my most active. I do read here quite a bit. These Racist/bigoted/xenophobic/whatever opinions you all seem to keep talking about is pretty common around here.

The idea that everyone feels the same and hates the gays and the blacks in private is just beyond stupid honestly. What the hell would I have to gain by telling you to shut up and just let people live. My social media isnt linked here, no one knows who I am, so what does anyone here telling you you're being a sap really gain?

Sometimes, only sometimes. When everyone in the room is telling you you're being an a55hiole? Chances are you're being an a55hole.

Even reading this very thread, there are more people complaining about either:

"I'm not allowed to have controversial opinions"
"My controversial opinions get shouted down around here, Its not fair"
Etc etc.

However, there's a very real quantifiable problem with this line of thinking. I see very little condemnation of these opinions. There is far more people saying these "bad opinions" then there is people shouting it down like you all keep claiming.

To turn this into some stupid political right vs left debate is disingenuous too. It's not. It's the simple fact that the world has changed. Society and culture advance and evolve over time. The fact is, the world is heading towards equality, inclusion and diversity whether you like it or not.

Hold up though.

Before you go smashing your keyboard and biting an immigrant because I said those 3 terrible words above, stop and think about this rationally for a second.

By holding on to these outdated beliefs about race/sex/gender whatever, you are being left behind. There will come a time where you will be seen as an absolute handbag for opposing something which seems so fair and logical.

As a straight white fella, these issues don't affect me at all really. But I'm not gonna stand in the way of other people getting some basic respect. Let people live man. If these issues don't affect you personally, maybe, just maybe you are not going to be able to understand them. Why stand in the way of progress?

Why be the one guy eating raw meat and not using fire to cook your food?
Why be the one guy still using horses to get around when you could get a little Fiesta or something?
Why be the guy buying video tapes on the internet?
Why be the guy still trying to use Irish Punts in the shops every day?

The world changes man. It seems damn near insane to me to think that things should stay the same forever. All these immigrants, gays, whatever really want to do is live a safe quiet happy life just like you. Are you really opposed to that? Politics aside, you're really gonna stop people from being happy and safe?

I'm not expecting you to do a 180 and tell me I'm right. In fact, I'm sure I'll get some snarky replies telling me I'm a lib or didn;t read or I'm whats wrong with Ireland today or a whatever. I'm not trying to change minds with this silly little rant. But if you even stop for one second and really think about why you feel the way you seem to think you do, you might realise that yes. You are in fact just being an a55hole.

Grayson

Undividual wrote: »

I don't know if I agree with that, but in any case, why specifically is that sad?

I don't understand why people who hold differing political opinions don't debate the issues. It seems to me that people on the right are conveniently labelled as a way of avoiding dialogue.

I put my thoughts in the OP and someone commented saying that it was a way of me looking for validation on my sh*tty opinions. By definition I don't understand why my opinions are sh*tty as they are based upon my life experience. If I thought they were sh*tty they would instantly change.

It's not a debate. It's them making claims, then they're disproved and they make another claim. There's never an admittance that they're wrong or learned something. And that's not including the serial reregs. (and before anyone says I'm labeling everyone I'm not. There are some I've have decent debates with but I'm sure we can all recognise that who these people are)

As for basing your opinions on your life experience, that's fine to an extent. You said you didn't like lesbians as much as gay men because of one lesbian. You're letting your entire view of everyone be determined by your experience of one person.

Undividual

Grayson wrote: »

It's not a debate. It's them making claims, then they're disproved and they make another claim. There's never an admittance that they're wrong or learned something. And that's not including the serial reregs. (and before anyone says I'm labeling everyone I'm not. There are some I've have decent debates with but I'm sure we can all recognise that who these people are)

As for basing your opinions on your life experience, that's fine to an extent. You said you didn't like lesbians as much as gay men because of one lesbian. You're letting your entire view of everyone be determined by your experience of one person.

I understand what you're saying and that there are a lot of people out there who don't want to challenge their own mindsets, though I'd like to think I'm not one of them. I consider myself semi-intelligent and so I want to test my beliefs and thoughts against other peoples' to see if I am wrong. I've been guilty in the past of gleaming facts from the internet and using them to try to one-up or hurt other people, something I'm not proud of. Again, this goes back to wisdom following ignorance.

To clarify, I'm not basing my views on one experience nor on one person, those were merely the most prominent examples in my mind at the time. Also I appreciate the genuine response.

CowGoesMoo100

Donald Trump is doing a fine job

notobtuse

CowGoesMoo100 wrote: »

Donald Trump is doing a fine job

They'd find some way to get you gone here in Politics for that.... Oh, and I better add 'In My Opinion.'

B-D-P--

The first reply to most posts on boards are 1 liners from people who try to hard

WinnyThePoo

notobtuse wrote: »

They'd find some way to get you gone here in Politics for that.... Oh, and I better add 'In My Opinion.'

You got banned for pretending you didn't know what reddit is on the politics forum.

Undividual

Mackmatic wrote: »

Let me ask you something.

I don't post here a whole lot, in fact the past few weeks have been my most active. I do read here quite a bit. These Racist/bigoted/xenophobic/whatever opinions you all seem to keep talking about is pretty common around here.

Sometimes, only sometimes. When everyone in the room is telling you you're being an a55hiole? Chances are you're being an a55hole.

To turn this into some stupid political right vs left debate is disingenuous too. It's not. It's the simple fact that the world has changed. Society and culture advance and evolve over time. The fact is, the world is heading towards equality, inclusion and diversity whether you like it or not.

Hold up though.

Before you go smashing your keyboard and biting an immigrant because I said those 3 terrible words above, stop and think about this rationally for a second.

By holding on to these outdated beliefs about race/sex/gender whatever, you are being left behind. There will come a time where you will be seen as an absolute handbag for opposing something which seems so fair and logical.

As a straight white fella, these issues don't affect me at all really. But I'm not gonna stand in the way of other people getting some basic respect. Let people live man. If these issues don't affect you personally, maybe, just maybe you are not going to be able to understand them. Why stand in the way of progress?

I'm not expecting you to do a 180 and tell me I'm right. In fact, I'm sure I'll get some snarky replies telling me I'm a lib or didn;t read or I'm whats wrong with Ireland today or a whatever. I'm not trying to change minds with this silly little rant. But if you even stop for one second and really think about why you feel the way you seem to think you do, you might realise that yes. You are in fact just being an a55hole.

I probably butchered your quote, but just want to try address each of the highlighted points:
Racist/bigoted/xenophobic- I believe I am the opposite of all of these, to clarify. I just want people to be held to a consistent standard. I think it is negatively discriminatory to allow relatively high illiteracy among the travelling community than to ensure education of Irish citizens. Although I said that I have these opinions, I doubt anyone would think this from how I act in real life. I don't treat lesbians any differently from gay men. I live my life with general civility and try not to mistreat anyone.

The fact is, the world is heading towards equality, inclusion and diversity whether you like it or not. - I seriously doubt it. I would love equality and diversity. I'm not quite sure what inclusion means, but the thought of everyone being nice to everyone else all the time makes my skin crawl. There is value in saying what no one wants to hear if its the truth. Generally speaking, we are equal enough as a society, though I would like to see equal maternity/paternity leave and more women in physically demanding professions.
Let people live man - Who isn't letting people live? It seems to me that the unwritten rule of modern society is 'be nice/don't offend'. While we are being nice, the world has the same problems it always has and we get softer as a society. I saw a news report which said that testosterone in men has declined something like 30% in the last 40 years. Why stand in the way of progress? If that is progress, we are in trouble.
You are in fact just being an a55hole. - I understand why you might think this but in my view, people with such lofty world views hit the wall of reality eventually.

notobtuse

WinnyThePoo wrote: »

notobtuse wrote: »

They'd find some way to get you gone here in Politics for that.... Oh, and I better add 'In My Opinion.'

You got banned for pretending you didn't know what reddit is on the politics forum.

I've heard of reddit, but didn't know what it was.

uptherebels

Mike Hoch wrote: »

By refusing to take a stand of violating the laws of the land?

It would seem the average student didn't know or didn't care who she was associated with. Didn't she survive the first impeachment vote due to a lac of interest?

The union is not a pro choice organisation. It's a student union. You might as well call the Irish Times a pro choice organisation instead of a newspaper.

Mind you, you're probably the type who thinks Domino's Pizza is a right wing Catholic advocacy group.

I'm sorry did the students vote twice?
Apologies let me rephrase - pro choice leaning organisation.
Law of the land? When were previous presidents prosecuted?
Conveniently as far as I'm aware she never made public the legal advice she received.... I wonder why!!
She could have stepped down, but then wouldn't have been able to play the victim card,
As you seem so well informed on the issue I'm sure you are aware of the attempts at interfering with the pro choice stance of the union
I don't eat dominos and don't have any idea of their religious affiliations

[Deleted User]

To me a lot of this is like being a cynic with insight they cant enjoy being a cynic because they know their thinking is faulty not based on objective reality.

It is the same with so-called unacceptable opinions in order to truly believed them, they would need to disregard objective reality and stick with their reactive emotionally based opinions.

Undividual

mariaalice wrote: »

It is the same with so called unaccecptable opnions in order to truley belived them, they would need to disregard objective reality and stick with their reactive emotionialy based opnions.

What if the unacceptable opinion is informed by objective reality? I have discussed the problems I would see with the travelling community (dropping out of school, dumping, using other peoples' skips) with friends privately and they mostly agreed. I cant imagine reading a newspaper article about any of these.

fussyonion

Women are sh*te drivers.
(I am a woman but I don't class myself as sh*te)

Feminists are just gobby and contraversial for the sake of it.

Four finger KitKats taste better than two fingered ones.

wakka12

Well I must say opinion 1 and 2 are probably the majority opinion on boards, its really said over and over again and ironically everyone syaing it says that opinion is not regarded as acceptable

And outside of boards Id agree generally the opinion on muslims is not that socially acceptable (though anti muslim sentiment is prevalent throughout much of wider society)
But as for travellers, they really are not treated well by any section of society, prejudice is extremely common, whether its warranted or not is another discussion ofc the travelling community are no angels but to say wider society accepts actions of the community and treats them well is not true at all

[Deleted User]

Undividual wrote: »

What if the unacceptable opinion is informed by objective reality? I have discussed the problems I would see with the travelling community (dropping out of school, dumping, using other peoples' skips) with friends privately and they mostly agreed. I cant imagine reading a newspaper article about any of these.

objective reality and facts are just that they are not opinions.

A good example if someone has xenophobic opinions about Syrian refugees that is more an emotional reaction to immigration than based on any reality having not met any actual Syrians.

So low a behold they meed a Syrian refugee and he is just like themselves an educated, English speaking Netflix watching, football fan wearing shorts a t-shirt and flip-flops, who tells them it was join the army and shoot your neighbor's or be shot themselves.

Or bizarre attitudes to woman one...It occurs to them that were born from a woman their mother, sisters, daughters, girlfriends are women, however, it's not those women they have a problem with its those other vaguely defined women they have an issue with a sort of nameless dread of something out there. Its not objective reality its existential angst.

Shenshen

Undividual wrote: »

What if the unacceptable opinion is informed by objective reality? I have discussed the problems I would see with the travelling community (dropping out of school, dumping, using other peoples' skips) with friends privately and they mostly agreed. I cant imagine reading a newspaper article about any of these.

I think (mostly) people can still agree on reality. I wouldn't expect anyone opening a thread on AH for example to meet any challenges when stating that currently, aspects of traveller culture have a significant negative influence on a number of members of the community.

The discussion to be had here is more around how to address the situation. That's where opinions come in. And you generally will get some very fast-typing posters declaring that they should all be a) imprisoned, b) deported or c) killed, while there will be many others trying to put forward some more social, workable, but long-term and costly approaches.

And any mod stepping in to this will inevitably end up being accused of being too left-leaning and liberal for banning the guys calling for travellers to be killed, but not the guys suggesting ways to give them better access to education.

Mutant z

In reality what most people think is not acceptable to the PC brigade for instance very few would agree with them on immigration the majority of the public want tighter controls on immigration but you don't get that impression from listening to the media. Likewise with gender or feminist issues only those on the extreme fringes care about that sort of stuff everyone else doesn't give a stuff. The virtue signallers may be a majority in the media but they are a minority among the general public who are simply pissed off by their antics.

Undividual

mariaalice wrote: »

Undividual wrote: »

What if the unacceptable opinion is informed by objective reality? I have discussed the problems I would see with the travelling community (dropping out of school, dumping, using other peoples' skips) with friends privately and they mostly agreed. I cant imagine reading a newspaper article about any of these.

objective reality and facts are just that they are not opinions.

A good example if someone has xenophobic opinions about Syrian refugees that is more an emotional reaction to immigration than based on any reality having not met any actual Syrians.

So low a behold they meed a Syrian refugee and he is just like themselves an educated, English speaking Netflix watching, football fan wearing shorts a t-shirt and flip-flops, who tells them it was join the army and shoot your neighbor's or be shot themselves.

Or bizarre attitudes to woman one...It occurs to them that were born from a woman their mother, sisters, daughters, girlfriends are women, however, it's not those women they have a problem with its those other vaguely defined women they have an issue with a sort of nameless dread of something out there. Its not objective reality its existential angst.

I'm not sure whether you're ascribing those views to me. Would you agree that an opinion can never be fully informed by facts? It is impossible to know all aspects of a scenario and facts are open to interpretation and misunderstanding. The earth was flat for most of human history.

To clarify, I would include my mother and sister under the category of unrealistic expectations and over dependence on others.

Hotblack Desiato

Undividual wrote: »

I consider myself semi-intelligent

We should have a poll to see how many posters agree with you on this :pac: (I know what you meant, I'm just joking!)

Hotblack Desiato

mariaalice wrote: »

To me a lot of this is like being a cycnic with insight they cant enjoy beign a cycnic being a cycnic, becaude they know their thinking is falthy not based on objective reality.

A cynic's thinking is entirely based on objective reality.

But this is one of those words that gets misused a lot to the extent that many people think it means something it doesn't.

Yer Da sells Avon

Mutant z wrote: »

In reality what most people think is not acceptable to the PC brigade for instance very few would agree with them on immigration the majority of the public want tighter controls on immigration but you don't get that impression from listening to the media.

I'd say most people don't give it anywhere near as much thought as you do...

Try_harder

I have no issue with the immigration policy as it currently stands in Ireland/EU

Hotblack Desiato

Try_harder wrote: »

I have no issue with the immigration policy as it currently stands in Ireland/EU

If the policies we have were actually enforced...

Try_harder

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

If the policies we have were actually enforced...

They are enforced- everyone is entitled to due process

Strabanimal

Southerners are very English ethnically and culturally. Moreso than Unionists here. You can tell by their constant whinging and appeasement during the troubles.

Donald Trump

Strabanimal wrote: »

Southerners are very English ethnically and culturally. Moreso than Unionists here. You can tell by their constant whinging and appeasement during the troubles.

You mean people from Alabama and Georgia etc?

Texans too?

Strabanimal

Donald Trump wrote: »

You mean people from Alabama and Georgia etc?

Texans too?

No I mean Mexicans dawg

JupiterKid

Burning churches to the ground.

Donald Trump

Strabanimal wrote: »

No I mean Mexicans dawg

Build the wall