Grizzlie Antagonist wrote:
> On 15 Feb 2005 09:21:20 -0800, mark_sobolewski{at}yahoo.com wrote:
> >> my sister has nothing left to replace that dog with.
> >
> >She can replace it with another dog.
>
> She can and perhaps she will.  And she's likely to outlive that dog
as
> well, if she does.  And perhaps the dog after that.

Nothing wrong with that provided she understands, as you pointed out,
that she MUST be prepared to deal with death on a regular
basis and not treat is as seriously as one would a spouse.

Ok, happy?  I didn't acknowledge your point because I agree
with it.  I wasn't "arguing for the sake of arguing" with you
but just having a discussion.  I should have been clearer,
I'll agree.

> >There are several right
> >now waiting to be adopted lest they are put to sleep.
> >She really should keep that in mind and let this one go
> >and give another one an opportunity.
>
> She should certainly let this one go for humane reasons

If you don't mind me engaging in more idle "chit chat",
what do you think of euthanasia?  (ok, spelling be damned :-)

> For one thing, if dogs or other pets really are "family", then they
> are not so replaceable and interchangeable.  You couldn't properly
> talk about going to the pound and picking up a replacement any more
> than you could talk about buying a replacement spouse or offspring.

I wasn't falling for Parg's trap, specifically, but just
talking about the situation as I see it.

I know of women who have remarried after being widowed.
They certainly shouldn't go to the "pound" the next day
to replace their loved one but after a period of grieving
it is reasonable for them to move on.  Don't you think?

> More importantly, by saying on the one hand, that pets are like
family
> and on the other hand, that she can just buy another one, you seem to
> be making some sort of Pukish concession that human beings are
> fungible and replaceable, just like animals are.

Do you think that divorces should never be granted then?

> Why don't you take another look at the title of this thread and
remind
> yourself of who started this thread under that title?

Ok, I'll repeat myself again (just to make sure I'm clear)
People don't really "need" companionship to survive.  Plenty
of people are single without pets.  However, whether
they are fully happy and content is another matter altogether.

Dogs can't pay the rent (ok, without discussing breeders
making money off of purebreds :-)  They can't hold open
doors or listen to what their day was like.  Pets can
provide emotional comfort sometimes even better
than a normal human being, but it's limited.

> You're primarily addressing a woman who has been for months OBSESSED
> with the fact that you got married and, in particular, OBSESSED with
> her own notion that you just went out and bought yourself a foreign
> bride (though like everything else, the supposed purchase of a
foreign
> spouse seems to be a "choice" that she would deny to men and grant to
> women in the name of "equality") - and still so obsessed with the
> notion that she had to start this thread under that title.

To be fair to her, I don't think she would bother granting
women the choice of "buying" a foreign spouse.  She is
aware that most liberated women wind up alone because of
their personal selfishness.

> By saying that pets are fungible with human beings and that new pets
> can be repurchased to replace old ones or to replace humans, you're
> almost conferring respectability on that notion.
>
> Next time that Puke says that cats are better than men or words to
> that effect, you seem to be well-poised to stroke your chin and agree
> that this might be true in a manner of speaking, instead of being
> armed with the proper amount of disdain.

I'm not really taking Parg all that seriously here.  As I said,
cats can't pay taxes or mommy support.

> >Pets offer a different kind of companionship than family even
superior
> >in some ways.  Mark Twain said the principle difference between
> >a dog and a man was that if you feed a dog and give it love,
> >it won't bite you.
>
> True enough.  I'm somewhat cynical about the human race myself, even
> the non-female portion of the human race, and I think that dogs are
> more reliable companions than humans, but the difference is that I'm
> not a family man and wouldn't make the mistake of thinking of a dog
as
> "family".

Agreed.  Done.

> And at that, I still don't want to make the mistake of depending too
> much upon a creature that I expect to outlive.

I don't think anyone should.  Cats and dogs are useful, collectively,
as a safe emotional buffer.  Even spouses often won't
provide unconditional love but will insist upon making
judgements or questioning about why a day at work was
hard while a dog or cat will grant affection without
question.

But they aren't useful (for most people outside
of hardcore democratic supporters) for replacing people's
"intimate" sexual and emotional needs.

> But you know, Mark, sometimes I think that you argue for the sake of
> arguing.

I don't take all of this too seriously in that it's not
our dayjobs.  It's not our careers.  So I can explore
ideas even coming from Parg sometimes.

> You used to tell me that I was too reliably Republican and
> allowed them to screw me over and that I should have held my vote up
> for grabs between the Republicans and some acceptable third party
> alternative.
>
> So last year, I tell you that for the first time in my life, I voted
> for a third-party presidential candidate - in effect, telling you
that
> you might have been right.  And your response was "What did you do
> that for?  You threw your vote away."

Gosh!  I hope I didn't say that.  I think I said I voted
for Bush and was happy with the results of the last election.
I think everyone (that matters :-) was a winner.

You got to vote for a third party candidate and remind
the moderate republicans that there are conservative voters out
there they should think about courting.  Parg gets
to bite her bile.

> Well, which is it?  Are third parties good or bad?  Why are you
> arguing from a point of view contrary to your older point of view?

If you could educate me about how I said third parties were
bad, I would appreciate it.  I said they did provide
an alternative to feeling like a slave to one of the two
major parties or dropping out.

> I feel badly for my sister's anguish, but I don't know why you would
> seek to defend her behavior.

I am not defending it.  I'm being compassionate to the
feelings she has a pet owner (not to replacing family
members with pets.)  Understand?

> The fact is that my sister fits to a T - to a T - the exact sort of
> woman that you say has been hurt most by swallowing the feminist
party
> line.
>
> Over 40, career oriented, wanted children, probably wanted one man,
> but didn't want to sacrifice her "independence" to achieve these
> things and never allowed herself to find the man who fit all of her
> specifications or to allow herself to compromise on some of those
> specifications.

That's interesting terminology.  "Allow herself".  Isn't feminism
supposed to be about empowering women and getting out their
inner bitch?  I'm not directing this at you but just musing
over how limiting feminism has been for most women.

Rather than doing what they truly enjoy, they feel a need
to always be on the defensive.  It's a pretty big
bull for them to ride both being an entitled victim
and empowered heroine.

> Hell, my sister is not just an individual; she's an entire
demographic
> - a female demographic that you've been gently castigating for its
> naivete.

Such women remind me of the dark side of Homer Simpson's
foolishness and selfishness.  Homer, at a certain level,
does accept responsibility for his situation.  He knows
that he's accountable.  These women don't have that
limitation.

> And just to show you that she fits the demographic PERFECTLY, she
also
> loathes George W. Bush and blames him for all her problems.

Now THAT'S naivety!  Pretty funny too.

I think the hate Bush crowd were inspired by the success
of the demonizing Nixon campaign.  They managed to hang
just about every bad thing on that guy's shoulders
including the vietnam war and make him the republican
albatross.

The fact is that such people who are throwing a temper
tantrum can't win.  GW, unlike Nixon, will survive a second
term.  They aren't going to hang him out to dry.

> She is a
> member of the Hollywood entertainment community after all.  She and
> her colleagues are certain that he is a Torquemada bringing down a
> wave of right-wing Christian repression called "Jesus Land" down upon
> the heads of upstanding leftist members of the entertainment
community
> - it's something they no doubt talk about with horror at a number of
> soirees.

Have you seen the First Wives' Club?  It's a good unintentional
self-parody of these elitists.  They hate the big bad
eurocentric culture but at the same time wallow in
retreat from the urban world they've created.  None of
them party down in downtown LA (what a wasteland!)
but hide in the suburbs.  Pretty funny.

In that film, not a single one of the enlightened women
had a minority friend or someone from a foreign culture.
They were all wasps or Jews (catholics were too threatening
to them.)  Yet, they were trying to portray the men
as monsters.

> The idea that Roe v. Wade could be overturned some day is HORRIFYING
> to her and her colleagues even though she has made a conscious choice
> to die with her genes in and it would have no effect on her personal
> life.

Think of it as Stalingrad.  It wasn't necessarily an important
military position but the symbolism was powerful.  It became
a milestone or metric both sides used to judge their success.
Until that was secured, they didn't feel comfortable moving on
to the next objective.

Which, if you think about it, is a critical military mistake:
If you can't totally secure something, don't worry about it!
Move on and cover your flank.

The real issue, as you and I know, for them has been to
try to secure a reliable government substitute husband for single
mothers.  I think maybe they got confused because abortion
rights did for a short term work as emotional blackmail
against Catholic religious leaders who caved in on welfare
to try to prevent some abortions.

> Well, now she's over forty, childless, spouseless, and miserable
> because she sank her ENTIRE emotional investment into a creature that
> was bound to die too soon.

Do you think all of this rested upon the life of the dog?

Come now!  Part of the success of leftism has been to capitalize
on the misery it causes in it's followers.  As she became
more lonely and more angry at men for daring to not live
up to her one sided demands, that only pushed her zeal
for leftism farther.  Parg is the extreme, of course.

That's a pretty big hole for a dog to fill.

> Don't you understand?  You were RIGHT!  This is a very large female
> demographic and it's precisely the sort of woman that feminism caused
> the most harm to.
>
> You were RIGHT all along.  You shouldn't be arguing with me; you
> should be nodding your head in "I told you so" agreement.

I guess you should realize that I agreed with you SO much
I honestly didn't bother to say it out loud.  I was looking
at some side points.  Don't be so insecure! :-)

> Hell, if it weren't a blood relative, I'd have no sympathy at all.
In
> fact, I'm very gratified to realize that the OTHER women in this
> demographic - who AREN'T blood relatives - are likely just as
> miserable.
>
> So why would you defend or rationalize her actions?

I'm not.  I'm just being sympathetic to a pet owner.

> >You might want to tell her that Huntington beach has an
> >excellent pet cemetary.
>
> Funny thing, but you misspelled "cemetery".  And your
"ary" mistake
> mirrors Stephen King's INTENTIONAL misspelling of the word in his
> classic horror tract "Pet Semetary".  I don't think she will want to
> bury her Bijon in Stephen King's Pet Semetary.

I was just thinking of that when I typed the word but I caught
myself typing "semetary".  :-)

Anyway, it is a very nice cemetery.

> And my sister's theme was that Gidget was a feminist heroine (if a
> soft-core one) because she preferred catching a wave to catching a
> guy.  My sister was dead serious too.

The fish not needing a bicycle thing.

I enjoy watching Sex and the City with my wife because
it does verge on self-criticism a lot of the time.
Charlotte admitted that it was incredibly hilarious
how they spent so much time talking about men but
at the same time didn't do any work in understanding
what men wanted.

> And now, my sister has had many men while devoting her life to one
dog
> - the only important thing in her life.  Happy now?

No.  I'm sorry for her as I'm sure you are.

A lot of these women are victims.  After all, they really
are just women who can't be expected to critically
figure out how they are still being manipulated.

> But as a general rule, I don't bring these things up.  And no, I
never
> talk about this newsgroup or my role in it.

I've painfully seen for myself how this ideology has destroyed
families and undermined personal relationships.
I don't want to criticize you (really) but suggest maybe
at these vulnerable times she and others such as her
might be more receptive to listening to your message.
Parg's BIGGEST terror that's coming true is that many
women are coming over to our side even if for selfish
reasons of their own.

regards,
Mark Sobolewski



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