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Hank Williams Jr. Controversy

Discussion in 'Alley of Lingering Sighs' started by Blackthorne TA, Oct 4, 2011.

  1. Blackthorne TA

    Blackthorne TA Master in his Own Mind Staff Member ★ SPS Account Holder Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

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    Sure I get the sentiment; it's just bizarre to me that an analogy should be inflammatory when it is directed towards a fraternization (which is what I believe, but admit I could be wrong). Why would saying Boehner and Obama golfing is like Thurmond and MLK golfing be inflammatory if the intent is only to illustrate two people who don't get along getting along for golf? It would only be inflammatory if the intent of the analogy is to say Boehner is a racist (or should be a racist because he's white) and he shouldn't be golfing with Obama because he's black. If the intent is to say "look these two wouldn't be caught dead together; WTF are they playing golf?", then what's the problem?

    And IMO, Hitler is the go-to guy for a lot of analogies simply because he's infamous. That way, nobody goes "Huh? WTF are you talking about?"
     
  2. Death Rabbit

    Death Rabbit Straight, no chaser Adored Veteran Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

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    If my intent is to compliment your wife's skills in the kitchen, and I tell her "wow, Mrs. Blackthorne - this is delicious! You work a stove like a stripper works a pole" – I think you'd find it pretty hard to get past the fact that I just compared your wife to a stripper, and the tastelessness of my analogy would override any point I was trying to make, regardless of my intent to merely pay a compliment to a quality of hers totally unrelated to stripping. I would think she'd be none too pleased, either, and that would be the last time I was invited to Casa de Blackthorne. Furthermore, any backpedaling I did in the form of "No, no - I wasn't comparing her to a stripper, I was comparing her skillful cooking to the athleticism of pole dancing!" – would rightly be met by a punch in the face from you, or at least I would hope so.

    This assumes of course that your wife isn't actually an exotic dancer, unless she is, in which case...

    *high-five* :D

    EDIT:
    I agree, and in most cases, it's no big deal, as long as the comparison you're making is not to a politician (as Hitler was), especially when he is the leader of a country (as Hitler was) capable of enacting sweeping social policy (as Hitler was) in command of a world-class military machine (as Hitler was), etc. It's especially offensive when that leader is your own President.
     
    Last edited: Oct 5, 2011
    dmc likes this.
  3. Blackthorne TA

    Blackthorne TA Master in his Own Mind Staff Member ★ SPS Account Holder Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

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    I guess that's where we differ, because I'd take your stripper pole analogy as the compliment it was intended to be. And I'd probably laugh and give you a high-five for the cleverness of it.

    Now, I don't know how the wife would take it (if I had one), but I'd like to think my current GF would laugh too.

    And the reason? Because you aren't comparing my GF (or wife as the case may be) to a stripper, you are comparing her skills in the kitchen to a stripper's skills on the pole, and we all know that a stripper who's not good on the pole won't be a stripper long! :)

    So, maybe I'm the odd man out, but I take analogies as they were intended (as best I can). I know you woudn't come to my house for dinner and then proceed insult my wife, so unless you were exceedingly blunt about your insults I doubt I'd think you were trying to be insulting. :)
     
  4. dmc

    dmc Speak softly and carry a big briefcase Staff Member Distinguished Member ★ SPS Account Holder Resourceful Adored Veteran New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!)

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    BTA - you're definitely an odd man out, as I think most people would not appreciate being analogized to a stripper (or having their significant other so analogized) for anything not relating to, oh, stripping. If the analogy has to do with stripping, then, well, *high-five*.

    :)

    DR - repped for that, it gave me a good laugh.
     
  5. Blackthorne TA

    Blackthorne TA Master in his Own Mind Staff Member ★ SPS Account Holder Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

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    Hehe; that's the thing though: The analogy is between skills not between a wife and a stripper.

    But anyway, I know I'm not easy to offend, so I suppose I am the odd man out. I just don't see the point in being offended if the intent of the "offender" was to compliment. :)
     
  6. Aldeth the Foppish Idiot

    Aldeth the Foppish Idiot Armed with My Mallet O' Thinking Veteran

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    +1 Unfortunately, I must have repped you most recently, as I can't do it again, but yeah, I was laughing.
     
  7. dmc

    dmc Speak softly and carry a big briefcase Staff Member Distinguished Member ★ SPS Account Holder Resourceful Adored Veteran New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!)

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    On a more serious note, there's a message in the skills you choose to analogize to. Instead of saying your fictitious wife works a stove like a stripper works a pole, we could say that she works a stove like, say, Yo Yo Ma plays a cello. Even if both are meant as a compliment, I would say that the stripper version is a much more backhanded compliment. (Plus, I'd seriously doubt it was meant to be a compliment and, if it was, I'd question the intelligence level of the person saying it.)
     
  8. Blackthorne TA

    Blackthorne TA Master in his Own Mind Staff Member ★ SPS Account Holder Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

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    Hm. I don't think I agree. Obviously DR frequents the strip club more that the symphony. Should I hold it against him that his preferred entertainment is strippers on poles rather than bows on cellos? I don't think so.

    People make analogies based on their own experiences, knowledge, likes and dislikes.

    Why is acknowledging that a stripper has mad skills on the pole to be taken negatively? Basically by making the analogy, DR's saying my putative wife has mad skills with the stove. Why thank you DR! :)
     
  9. Death Rabbit

    Death Rabbit Straight, no chaser Adored Veteran Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

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    Have I just not noticed what a giant weirdo you are all these years? Hmm. You hide it well. :shake:
     
  10. Chandos the Red

    Chandos the Red This Wheel's on Fire

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    Unless I'm wrong he compared OBAMA to Hitler, not Bohner, in the analogy, at least in the order of the names in the remark. That's more telling, IMO, than trying to say, "Oh well, it's just an analogy." Had he reversed the order, which I only suspect he would not have meant to, the reaction would have been from the other side. "Is he daring to compare Bohner to Hitler????" Somehow that didn't seem to be the case.

    I have to admit I didn't bother with the actual interview. I really don't care enough, to be honest.
     
  11. Blackthorne TA

    Blackthorne TA Master in his Own Mind Staff Member ★ SPS Account Holder Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

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    I thought you were more perceptive; the extent of my weirdness has been on display for quite a number of years here :D

    See, I don't think that comparison was being made at all; it was the two playing golf together that was the point of comparison. But again, maybe I'm taking too shallow of a view.
     
  12. Chandos the Red

    Chandos the Red This Wheel's on Fire

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    His exit was "...given the shape that the country is in." It seems to me that if he was really looking at the larger picture, rather than a partisan one, he knew how his remark would be taken. He's not dumb, but he just gaged the business side of the reaction poorly. It's just like the Dixie Chicks' remarks. It may help them to vent, but it was a poor business decision.
     
  13. Blackthorne TA

    Blackthorne TA Master in his Own Mind Staff Member ★ SPS Account Holder Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

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    Right. Given the shape the country is in because of Obama, Boehner shouldn't be seen dead with him. That was how I took it.
     
  14. Chandos the Red

    Chandos the Red This Wheel's on Fire

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    Of course!!! Why should the two sides bother to get together? To solve some of the country's problems? Pistols at dawn, instead of golf, would be a way better solution. :p
     
  15. Blackthorne TA

    Blackthorne TA Master in his Own Mind Staff Member ★ SPS Account Holder Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

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    Oh, I agree with you. I don't agree with Hank's point; I just think I understood the analogy he was using to make his point, and didn't understand why everywhere in the media I looked they were saying the analogy was to liken Obama with Hitler.
     
  16. The Great Snook Gems: 31/31
    Latest gem: Rogue Stone


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    Exactly, and that is because everyone knows that it was Bush who was Hitler.
     
  17. Death Rabbit

    Death Rabbit Straight, no chaser Adored Veteran Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

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    Give it a rest, huh Snook? You don't have to be quite this big of a wanker all the time, you know.
     
  18. Aldeth the Foppish Idiot

    Aldeth the Foppish Idiot Armed with My Mallet O' Thinking Veteran

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    ESPN made it official today, parting way with Hank Williams Jr. permanently, instead of just suspending it for one week. We will no longer have Hank to ask us if we are ready for some football. Despite ESPN announcing the board of executives came to this decision, Hank claims the decision was his alone. :skeptic: Hank said: "By pulling my opening Oct 3rd, ESPN stepped on the Toes of The First Amendment Freedom of Speech, so therefore Me, My Song, and All My Rowdy Friends are OUT OF HERE."

    No one said you weren't free to voice that opinion, and the Constitution certainly states that you can't be held criminally liable for what you said, but that doesn't mean anyone has to agree with you, or ESPN has to continue using your song.

    Story
     
  19. Death Rabbit

    Death Rabbit Straight, no chaser Adored Veteran Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

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    The old "you can't fire me, I QUIT!" routine. Pathetic. Followed by the typical wholesale misinterpretation of the first amendment. Also pathetic.

    Kinda felt bad for the guy yesterday, since everyone misspeaks now and then. But now he's just an ass.

    I imagine this will only serve to make him an even bigger Tea Party hero. $20 says he'll run for office in the next 4 years.
     
  20. T2Bruno

    T2Bruno The only source of knowledge is experience Distinguished Member ★ SPS Account Holder Adored Veteran New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

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    Not very familiar with Hank are you....
     
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