OT: CBJ Lounge XXI (All Non-Sports, Non-Political Talk Here)

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Iron Balls McGinty

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Aug 5, 2005
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Jokes aside, I think this is a fascinating subject. We have a lot of complex historical figures in our history. How do we commemorate them for the good things they did while simultaneously condemning the bad things they did? Should we somehow contextualize statues?
It is overkill if the person is overwhelmingly known for doing good. However I was curious to know how Germany can pretty much eradicate the celebration of the horrors of their past while the USA has a portion of society that still holds onto the symbols of the bad things they did. I came across this article from 3 years ago.

Why you see swastikas in America but not Germany
 

Monk

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Feb 5, 2008
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It is overkill if the person is overwhelmingly known for doing good. However I was curious to know how Germany can pretty much eradicate the celebration of the horrors of their past while the USA has a portion of society that still holds onto the symbols of the bad things they did. I came across this article from 3 years ago.

Why you see swastikas in America but not Germany

Thanks for sharing, interesting article. Specifically found this part provoking:

"...in one of our country’s most notable free speech cases, neo-Nazis were famously allowed to march in Skokie, Illinois, in 1978. This was despite the fact that the choice was made to clearly hurt the large population of Holocaust survivors, and Jews, who lived there.

“What Germany does is what Germany does,” says University of Chicago law professor Geoffrey Stone. “They learned different lessons” from history. “The lesson we learned is not to trust the government to decide what speech is okay and what speech is not okay.”

“The First Amendment does not permit the government to forbid speech because ideas are thought to be offensive or odious. That's a message we have learned over our history: that we don't trust the government to make that decision.”

If we had, he says, it likely would have been used against civil rights, women’s rights, and LGBTQ rights."


I've been under the impression that law enforcement officials, politicians, and other facets of the government did take action against free speech when it came to civil rights, women's rights and LGBTQ rights. So if the First Amendment isn't universally protecting the right of ALL Americans, it begs the question for me if Germany's approach isn't the better one. Not saying it is, just something I'll ponder on.
 

Iron Balls McGinty

Registered User
Aug 5, 2005
9,162
7,241
Thanks for sharing, interesting article. Specifically found this part provoking:

"...in one of our country’s most notable free speech cases, neo-Nazis were famously allowed to march in Skokie, Illinois, in 1978. This was despite the fact that the choice was made to clearly hurt the large population of Holocaust survivors, and Jews, who lived there.

“What Germany does is what Germany does,” says University of Chicago law professor Geoffrey Stone. “They learned different lessons” from history. “The lesson we learned is not to trust the government to decide what speech is okay and what speech is not okay.”

“The First Amendment does not permit the government to forbid speech because ideas are thought to be offensive or odious. That's a message we have learned over our history: that we don't trust the government to make that decision.”

If we had, he says, it likely would have been used against civil rights, women’s rights, and LGBTQ rights."


I've been under the impression that law enforcement officials, politicians, and other facets of the government did take action against free speech when it came to civil rights, women's rights and LGBTQ rights. So if the First Amendment isn't universally protecting the right of ALL Americans, it begs the question for me if Germany's approach isn't the better one. Not saying it is, just something I'll ponder on.

Well, the government has taken action in the past in other ways. It all starts with the Declaration of Independence where "All men are created equal" was stated by men who owned slaves in writing the document. We have a bad track record of not practicing what we preach in our history and this probably goes a long way to not trusting government to make decisions. Over 200 years later we still lag in treating people who aren't white men fairly.

We have lots of people speaking up asking for fair treatment but I don't think our government has ever treated people fairly in its entire history. it is an interesting conundrum because if we allowed the US government to restrict certain items like Germany has, I'm not convinced we'd be in a better position today than we are based on their historical track record. However, having the freedom to say and do what we believe puts the responsibility on individuals to make better and smarter choices regarding equality. It is just hard to convince people equality is right because of our historical track record of not treating people equally.
 
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db2011

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Oct 10, 2011
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Brooklyn
My post was meant to be satirical; you and I think alike on this topic but some in our society don't agree with us, as demonstrated by them tearing down statues memorializing Union leaders and Abolitionists who wanted to end slavery.

I understand that The Emancipation Memorial is next on the agenda of "woke" people to destroy tonight.

I have a feeling the people tearing down statues of abolitionists aren't the same people tearing down confederates. Although I do think it's proper to question whether we should memorialize slave owners.

On a different topic, this is the building I work in. It's still owned by the State department, don't know why the title of the article is phrased that way. Epstein moved from here to Wexner's place a few blocks away.
 

db2011

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Oct 10, 2011
3,565
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Brooklyn
It is overkill if the person is overwhelmingly known for doing good. However I was curious to know how Germany can pretty much eradicate the celebration of the horrors of their past while the USA has a portion of society that still holds onto the symbols of the bad things they did. I came across this article from 3 years ago.

Why you see swastikas in America but not Germany

I'll offer my personal anecdote. My partner is from Nurenberg, the former capital of the Third Reich. There's a huge parade ground there built by the Nazis, and other structures on this Nazi campus (like structure from the famous news reel showing the eagle being detonated by the Allies). As she explains it, the country didn't demolish the place (readable as an attempt to conceal the truth of the atrocities) but they also don't keep it up (readable as as attempt to maintain/honor the memory of the Reich). So it's just a neglected, overgrown, graffiti-covered area.

There's a museum built into one of the main buildings. I'm not sure if it's true but one of the things my partner told me is that it's designed so that visitors don't actually set foot into the original Nazi building. It's definitely true though that the museum was built in a way to disrupt the existing architecture.

Grappling with Nazi relics isn't totally applicable to our trying to deal with the structures honoring the confederacy. The Nazi stuff is contemporary to the Nazis, but the majority of the statues honoring the confederacy have been built well after it lost. What to do about that?
 
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Double-Shift Lasse

Just post better
Dec 22, 2004
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Exurban Cbus
Hey if people are cooking out you might want to check this out:
upload_2020-8-1_10-47-30.png
 

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3074326

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Apr 9, 2009
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USA
I live in Pickerington, but work out of the city. Came home to trees down everywhere, including the one currently leaning on my house. I assume the weather got pretty crazy earlier?
 

Double-Shift Lasse

Just post better
Dec 22, 2004
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Besides being "cold and German," per the ad from a couple years back, what even is Jagermeister? I'm 54 years old and I don't really even know. I'm aware of its reputation and association with metal and with partying, but I always figured it for a whiskey, you know, like Jack Daniels is associated with hardcore partying. But I don't think that's right.

I'm a beer or scotch drinker pretty exclusively (with water and coffee, that's pretty much all I drink these days), so maybe I'm just out of the loop or I'm sheltered. But what is it?
 

Double-Shift Lasse

Just post better
Dec 22, 2004
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It is kind of like cough medicine. That you do as shots. Never really knew of anyone that kept a bottle of sippin’ Jäger.

What does it taste like? Is it good? I mean, yeah I guess I should try a shot sometime for fun or whatever - not that I'm actually spending a lot of time inside bars right now.

Is it distilled?

I guess I could find out stuff on the web, but user reviews are so valuable.
 

koteka

Registered User
Jan 1, 2017
4,439
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Central Ohio
It tastes bad, but must have had really good marketing, and somehow became a drink that people drink to get f***ed up. Even though it is only 70 proof. I think there are really only two situations when you drink it.

1) You are out drinking with friends and after a few rounds everyone decides to get really f***ed up, and you do a round of Jäger.

2) You go out with friends with the expressed purpose of getting really f***ed up and you start by doing Jäger shots.

In both scenarios, you are probably young.
 

Monk

Registered User
Feb 5, 2008
7,566
5,479
What does it taste like? Is it good? I mean, yeah I guess I should try a shot sometime for fun or whatever - not that I'm actually spending a lot of time inside bars right now.

Is it distilled?

I guess I could find out stuff on the web, but user reviews are so valuable.

It's a digestif and licorce is the main flavor I get from it (but it's blended with tons and tons of herbs/spices). I don't really think it's "bad" per se, it's just not meant to be consumed in the way the aforementioned young people do. It's like doing a shot of Amaro, Vermouth, etc - you could argue it's actually pretty good as a shot compared to many of those other options.
 
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