opebo Week: A Celebration of His Life & Times

[Starbucks Union Thug HokeyPuck]

I'm afraid that Obama's election in 2008 was entirely about voters in the middle (virtually all of whom are white of course) choosing to vote for him despite their preference for a white, because of an overwhelming reason - the Republicans had just destroyed the economy.

Now, in 2012, there is no overwhelming reason to vote for a black (of course, the Republicans will destroy the economy again, eventually, but this is impossible for most swing voters to understand). Without the overwhelming reason of a crisis or a white opponent who is clearly antipathetic to them, there is no way that these white working class voters will preference a black.

As Politico has said, all Romney needed to do was appear 'not a monster', and he is right, though he doesn't give the right reason.  The reason is racism.  White working class swing voters flirted with voting Obama when Romney was seen as the epitome of the class which is destroying them, but now that they saw him, a white man in a suit, lying well and in a soothing tone, next to a black - well, its all over with them.

The key is - seeing a black next to a white.  It is that simple I'm afraid:

[Starbucks Union Thug HokeyPuck]

Wow, Tender, that's a lot of stuff.  All I can remember ever playing was dodgeball.  Day after day, just dodgeball:



Horrific game.  I always stuck my arm or leg out to get hit by the ball so I could immediately 'go out'. Then, I went to hide in the locker room or behind the bleachers.

lmao

[Starbucks Union Thug HokeyPuck]

Yes, I am smitten - entirely inappropriately (no, not a student) and quite baselessly, and I've done and will do nothing about it.  But it is an interesting feeling - hadn't felt it at all in years and years. 

That, and I had a bad dream last night - it was the 1990s (or anyway had aspects of that time) and I was surrounded by 'hipster friends' (or perhaps I should say hipster 'friends'), and I got a very disturbing phone call (on my current mobile phone, so it couldn't have been the 1990s) from someone whose mere voice frightened me terribly - I had a sense he was 'me' (which is a funny self-aware way of thinking in a dream), and he made no sense at all and sounded very very ill.  So, he showed up with an unmemorable face and fell down flat on his back on the floor, apparently at his last breath.

Despite my fear I looked closely at his face and noticed his mouth was stuffed with chess pieces.  I pulled it open wide and got the impression he was entirely stuffed with them.  My 90s hipster friends gave me some more to stuff in his mouth, but that didn't help - if anything, it made things worse.

At this point I got the feeling he was very dangerous, if he reawakened, so I started running, with the real feeling that he was getting up behind me.. I ran down an endless flight of stairs, made of stone and free-standing, so that I could swing myself around each corner - I worked up such a speed that I only touched foot to stair once per flight, and the rest of the time my legs were spinning free. 

Finally I reached the ground floor and it was a sort of ultra-cheap shopping mall, in the Thai style but not with Thai people.  I had to practically swim in and climb over the crowds of people there, most of who were carrying huge parcels of goods, which I clambered over.  I felt him very near behind me, though I didn't see him.  Finally I got outside and got into an ancient 1970s Pontiac rather like one I had a couple of decades ago, and began to drive off, but just as he appeared in the back seat to do.. lord knows what.. I was awakened by my alarm.

I suppose the dreaded being was my own past or my own denouement or both.  Or guilt.. or the sad reality of a loveless life.

Yup... Truly a monster...

[Starbucks Union Thug HokeyPuck]

So you're in the camp with Nathan that religious people are simply too simpleminded to be logically consistent? I was merely giving them the benefit of the doubt that they are not, but they merely view child abuse as a Religious Privilege. I suppose you two could just as easily be correct. Perhaps even a bit of each for certain folks.

When on earth did Nathan say that "religious people are simply too simpleminded to be logically consistent", I ask? It would be insulting himself so I'm legitimately curious.

Never mind the fact the Pope- the Pope himself- has essentially called for the Church to clean up its act and for the Curia to be overhauled, and here you are still insisting that practicing (or not practicing, as most of the people you are accusing do) Catholicism is somehow intrinsically the same thing as calling a pedophile "one of our brothers" and a "victim".

You, once again, have managed to derail a thread so that you can spew invective at the "religious dumbs" and prove to all your inherent superiority over them.  Congratulations.

To play Devil's Advocate here... Do religiouses NOT claim inherent superiority over not only atheists but the other "wrong" religions?  Maybe not all of them, but I have gotten even some of my closest friends to say that I am going to hell and their religosity puts them a few steps above me. 

By that standard, wouldn't it be hypocritical for a religious to berate an atheist for claiming their belief makes THEM superior?  If I didn't think my beliefs were "superior" in some form... Why would I hold them?

[Starbucks Union Thug HokeyPuck]

The sex-negative feminist prudes on here are just as bad, if not worse.

Thank you.

You were exactly who I had in mind!

And was Madeleine the spirit of the anti-opebo crowd? Or are you just generalizing a heterogeneous group with stereotypes as to defend the undefensible?

I wouldn't say so.  She had an opoeb quote in her sig for a long time, so it seems she at least could appreciate his humor.

[Starbucks Union Thug HokeyPuck]

To be fair, Madeleine is far from the only sex-negative feminist prude on the Atlas. He is merely the intellectual ringleader.

Using my preferred name but not my preferred pronoun is an interesting choice. I take it this is the go-to option for the classy and discerning bigot these days?

Must everything be about you? If you would like a Celebrate Madeline week thread, start one. As it happens, name changes are a real thing, and I respect that. If you want me to go back to calling you Nathan, I will.

I have no idea how to respond to this. Missing the point of what I said so spectacularly has got to be deliberate. In any case, Cory made this about me first so take your trolling up with him.

You didn't say anything other than making your typical ad hominem attack against me. OMGZ U R a meen Bigut!1111 But again, this thread isn't about you and your attention whoring. We've been down that road far too many time. This is my last reply to you and your ilk in this thread.

Entirely aside from your creepy insistence on the integrity of an internet stranger's gametes, there's such a thing as common courtesy, and you had to go too far out of your way to compose that passage the way you did for me to give you the benefit of the doubt. (Also, I have an 'ilk' now? Cool! Do we get matching jackets?)

Oh of course we can get the Prude Brood uniforms! 

[Starbucks Union Thug HokeyPuck]

It's hilarious how convinced you all are that third world prostitutes are totally consensual happy whores doing what they want. No way could they have been coerced into this and no way are they being abused by their customers.

The lengths some of you will go to is pretty bizarre.

Thailand experienced rapid economic growth between 1985 and 1996, becoming a newly industrialised country and a major exporter. Manufacturing, agriculture, and tourism are leading sectors of the economy.[17][18] Among the ten ASEAN countries, Thailand ranks second in quality of life[19] and the country's HDI had been rated as "high". Its large population and growing economic influence have made it a middle power in the region and around the world.[20]

Thailand is not the backwater you think it is, Staf.  Especially around Bangkok where opie slinks about.

[Starbucks Union Thug HokeyPuck]

It's hilarious how convinced you all are that third world prostitutes are totally consensual happy whores doing what they want. No way could they have been coerced into this and no way are they being abused by their customers.

The lengths some of you will go to is pretty bizarre.

Thailand experienced rapid economic growth between 1985 and 1996, becoming a newly industrialised country and a major exporter. Manufacturing, agriculture, and tourism are leading sectors of the economy.[17][18] Among the ten ASEAN countries, Thailand ranks second in quality of life[19] and the country's HDI had been rated as "high". Its large population and growing economic influence have made it a middle power in the region and around the world.[20]

Thailand is not the backwater you think it is, Staf.  Especially around Bangkok where opie slinks about.

lol

So I can assume you've never been?

[Starbucks Union Thug HokeyPuck]

It's hilarious how convinced you all are that third world prostitutes are totally consensual happy whores doing what they want. No way could they have been coerced into this and no way are they being abused by their customers.

The lengths some of you will go to is pretty bizarre.

Thailand experienced rapid economic growth between 1985 and 1996, becoming a newly industrialised country and a major exporter. Manufacturing, agriculture, and tourism are leading sectors of the economy.[17][18] Among the ten ASEAN countries, Thailand ranks second in quality of life[19] and the country's HDI had been rated as "high". Its large population and growing economic influence have made it a middle power in the region and around the world.[20]

Thailand is not the backwater you think it is, Staf.  Especially around Bangkok where opie slinks about.

lol

So I can assume you've never been?

I've been to Thailand, actually, and it isn't a Third World country, allright. But you have to admit that your post is sort of besides the point. I just thought I'd register my physical reaction.

I was actually directly addressing Gustaf's classification of Thailand as part of the 3rd World.  And it is quite relevant, since opie often described his girls as college students or middle class girls looking for extra cash (reasonable in a developed country) whereas his detractors would have you believe they are all desperate sex slaves. 

[Starbucks Union Thug HokeyPuck]

In any case though, I don't understand why the viewpoints "opebo was a funny and entertaining poster" and "the Thai sexpat community is creepy and depraved" are so mutually exclusive

They are not.  I personally understand why people like to engage in depraved and seedy ****, and therefore all at once like opie, like his posts, and understand that he is in some ways a sexual degenerate.  Not only this, but of what I've read that he has personally posted, there has not been anything yet that would persuade me into disliking the guy.  The NAMBLA defense is a bit disturbing, but I always believed he was being an ironic troll throwing out a weird perspective, and that was waaaaaay back in the day when I didn't even so much as visit the Forum Community board where he was often his most funny.