--- On Sun, 6/14/09, OrionWorks <[email protected]> wrote: > I wish to express a public apology to Kyle MCallister. My > previous > comment was impulsive, and it shows so. Let me rephrase my > prior > thoughts into something less impulsive, and hopefully more > thoughtful.
I appreciate it. > Kyle, I disagree with your assessment of Mr. Rothwell's > agenda of > "...telling people how they should live their lives". While > I can > sympathize with those whom might feel that that might be > Jed's agenda, > I don't think that applies in this specific situation, the > situation > that earned Jed his temporary time-out. To clarify what I said: I don't think anything that he said in the post that got him tossed had much to do with what I take issue with him about. I was simply stating that maybe he will use the time to think about those other, past, but very frequent caustic things he likes to post. I don't know him personally, I wouldn't mind it as perhaps it would explain some of the reasoning behind what he says. But (and again, electronic mail is a terrible conveyor of intent), it seems as though he absolutely loves the idea, in some odd way, of making people do without, making them suffer. Why else would someone love to see fuel prices soar, knowing that the little old lady down the street may freeze in the cold? It doesn't affect him, he has enough money to afford a Prius off the lot. How about those who build and maintain the blasted things? "Yes build me a nonpolluting car, thou peasant, and watch as I mock your financial inability to pay for your /own/ such vehicle. And I shall then laugh as I take yours from you, while cheerfully noting that I did /good/ for mankind and the planet." I don't know if (I hope it is not) this is his real feeling and intent. But he comes across that way to more than just I. Unfortunately I seem to be one of the last to speak against this. John Schnurer is dead, John Steck has gone away, and others email privately but do not post rebuttals to these things. > IOW, > Jed has > the luxury of being able to assume the role of a > reactionary. It is > often the job of reactionaries to ruffle a few feathers > every now and > then. My point made, he has that luxury that those he seeks to harm do not have. Perhaps he does not even realize what he wishes to do. There are other alternatives, but they require something more than money and luxury. They require work. Ruffling feathers is fine. Killing the bird that sustains you is not. Read how much hatred he spewed towards farmers. You'll have to dig up old posts to find it. I believe I fought him on this. He did not understand, it seems, that someone has to grow the food he eats, that someone has to repair the car he drives. > Unfortunately, it is easy to perceive "reactionaries" as > having become > a tad too removed from the realities and practicalities of > life. It > can occasionally become problematical to take what > "reactionaries" > have to say seriously. It's easy to perceive reactionaries > as having > climbed on top of a high horse as well. Reactionaries can > also be > perceived as eccentric, arrogant, possessing a > holier-than-thou > attitude, and perhaps even a little naïve since many will > assume such > individuals no longer have to suffer the slings and arrows > of being > forced to work forty to sixty hours a week to pay the rent > and put > food on the table. Unfortunately, this perception is all to often reality. I deal with these people often. I specialize in working on Mercedez-Benz, BMW, Porsche, and the other imported, overpriced garbage. I deal day to day with those who have far more than subsistence amounts. I know how they think. It changes people. They have disdain for people who perform labor, actual work. They think we aren't doing enough. I work 40hrs/wk at this job, while I am medically considered disabled. I do this because I do not need handouts. I try to justify my existence, and do what I can to help. I give what I can, try to live a simple life, beyond what I indulge in with my experiments (which I want to use to help people). It is physically demanding to get out of bed in the morning. A usual day's regimen involves two to six extra-strength aspirin to keep the pain away, two or three meclizine HCl to keep the vertigo to a minimum that I can control, massive amounts of B-12 and B complex to keep myself moving, sometimes caffeine pills to keep from collapsing at work. But I am still going because I have to. I am supposed to go back for many blood tests, MRI, etc. But I had to wait, because I cannot afford it. It must be nice to have the luxury of being able to not work a physically demanding job, to be able to pay for whatever medical treatment you need, to not have to go home and lie on your back in a stone driveway, pounding off brake rotors to keep a junker car running, just so I can do the same thing again the next day. All the while checking my pulse and wondering, "am I going to die?" So know this: when someone who is better off comes up and tries to tell me, we're going to take more from you, we're going to tell you what you can and can't do, when they are most decidedly not in the same shoes as me...I will strike back. Not just for myself. For everyone who fights to keep going. > Therefore, before I am personally banned as well, I ask > you: Kyle: > Where in these statements that apparently earned Jed a > temporary > time-out did you come to the conclusion that Mr. Rothwell > is telling > other people how to live their lives? Where in these > statements that > Jed made did you come to the conclusion that Mr. Rothwell > needs to Read my above, read his old posts. I never said it had anything to do with what he posted in the post that got him banned. You suggested this. I don't know if he should have been banned or not, but I guess that is Bill's decision. I simply suggested he might use the vacation to think about the real world. Again, to stress the point, I was referring to past things, seeing this as an opportunity for him to think about it. I suggest if we continue this, we take it to VortexB-L. We can discuss the science here. If, that is, anyone will respond to it. I think that I could post the design for a combination antigravity-FTL-free energy-automatic mustache trimmer, and no one would ask "hey, how do we do it?". They'd just find something to disagree with unrelated to the device itself. P.S., No, I don't have a device that can do that. Nor do I have a mustache. --Kyle
