Gothic Discrimination in School

[Demonista_Ravenesque]

Originally Posted by ExistentialDisorder

Shit like this makes me almost wish I was still in high school, just to challenge stupid adults. I used to wear a freakin cape to school for christ sake. A red-linered black ankle length cape I bought in a costume shop and secured across my chest with a dog's choke chain. Along with a pair of old combat boots that were chained and padlocked around the ankles, then whatever pants and long sleeved shirt I chose. I had a mohawk dyed black and braided with nylon extensions that went down to my ass. I looked like freakin predator had a love child with dracula.

Holy Crap, if I went to high school with you, I would've praised you....

[Sakred_Winter]

All I have to say is wow...
You sound like a really cool guy, I would've loved to be in High School with you. We could've fucked with the teachers together instead of it just me in my "Crazy old lady with alot of cats" personage I always try to achieve.
I totally agree with you on the uniforms, as you said "Conformity at its worst" is totally true. But Conflict would be eliminated, and those cheesy Fad Wearers would be dressed like everyone else. No one would feel degraded because they're poor and can't afford the new "ITS" every other hour (like me).
I think I'm going to try some of the things you mentioned here. And another thing one of my friends hastily pointed out to me in the Student Handbook...in a couple of months there are going to be "Spirit Weeks", oh Joy. But what's interesting about it is that all the days are positive, like: Spirit day, cowboy day, ect. and all that cheesy crap that the populace seems to eat up. But one day stuck out to him and really pissed him off: "Prejudice Day"? WTF?

[Loy]

Peter-you speak of "human rights". OK. Now, define "human rights", and define "human".

When people speak of "human rights", they usually speak of International accords of all kinds (Geneva Convention, Red Cross/Crescent statutes, etc), but on a legal level (not philosophical, which is where your argument is coming from), there is no such thing as an all-encompasing set of "human rights". Why not? Simple-the conept of "humane" treatment is something that fluctuates quite extensively, from time to time, place to place, etc, etc.

The other big problem is the fact that human beings find ways to exclude others as being "humans". For example-allowing the tortures in the numerous secret prisons because they're "terrorists" (throwing this word out automatically causes most people to view the prisoner as something sub-human, thus fully deserving of whatever they suffer. Of course the other problem is that there's a 90/10 chance that they're totally innocent, but since most people have accepted that they're "sub-human", the concept of guilt/innocence is neatly tucked away).

Now, as for the legal stuff.....yes, my point about "the right not to be fucked with" (I should have added "unneccesarilly". my bad) goes with your "human rights" thing, and again, the problem is that unless such rights are written down somewhere, and accepted via legal precedent/court ruling, then the "human rights" argument doesn't hold water.

Now, we here in the US have this little thing called a "constitution", which not only provides the structure of our government, but also maps out specific rights that we have and don't have. Along with this "constitution", we also have this thing called "the supreme court". Now, this "cupreme court" makes rulings as to the constitutionality of certain laws (except for certain laws added to the "constitution", which are called "amendments"). And what deciodes the constitutionaly of these laws? Whether they contradict the rights set out within the "constitution".

And back to the point I made earlier, the Supreme Court has ruled over and over again, that, sorry, but if you're under 18, you're not really a person.

Now, I'm far enough away from 18 to not really care one way or another (sorry, but it's the truth. The longer ago high school becomes, the less you really think about that point in your life other than to say "god, I really was a retard back then!"), but it's still good for you to know where you guys stand. As far as "kids rights"? Sorry, but you're gonna have to do what every other group that's been fucked with has had to do-you've gotta fight for 'em.

[Peter]

Originally Posted by Loy

Peter-you speak of "human rights". OK. Now, define "human rights", and define "human".

Oh I can't be bothered, you just attack your straw man until you're less patronising.

[Peter]

Originally Posted by ExistentialDisorder

Ok, I read something very similar just the other day, about a 16 year old boy in CA who was suspended from his school because of the way he was dressed, which the school claimed was distracting. He and his mother countered the school and the school board with religious discrimination, claiming that his style of dress was reflective of his and his mothers wiccan religion. Personally, I've never read anything in any wiccan rede where it states you must wear a 12" pink mohawk and paint your eyelids purple and pink, but, whatever. The fact that he was using his religion as grounds for his discrimination I personally think is bullshit, but it won him the case in the end and the school was forced to allow him back in.

<Mega Uber Snippage>

See, now this is interesting to me, because if you can take "pagan" as a religion and then not define when religious holidays are and stuff couldn't you just .. well, do what the Wiccans used to do and make shit up as they go along and call it "being eclectic"

[ExistentialDisorder]

Uhm, pagan holidays are defined. Shall I present you with a list? Christmas is a pagan holiday. A stolen one, but pagan none the less. Its actually called Yule and lasts about a week. Every time you put up a 'christmas' tree? You're celebrating part of a pagan tradition. Easter, another stolen pagan holiday. Ever painted an egg? Ever wonder what the hell eggs have to do with jesus rising from the dead?... Halloween, also called Samhein, is another pagan holiday. There are 13 all together. The summer and winter solstices are both pagan celebrations. As are the spring and autumn equinox. And true Wiccans follow and celebrate these traditions.

And Loy, I'm sorry, no offense, but you're full of it. Children's rights are limited, but they still in fact have rights that are (or are suppose to be) upheld by all courts, to include the supreme court. Its often a case by case basis, but it exists. And in a lot of cases parents have to be brought in to make decisions for the child(ren). And don't think that courts aren't above making unconstitutional rulings. They just claim it as being their interpretation of the law. So based on your theory, since according to the supreme court children aren't really people, then there should be no such thing as child labor laws, or pedophilia, or children killing children. None of this can be illegal, since children don't exist as real people.

~E.D.

[Peter]

Originally Posted by ExistentialDisorder

Uhm, pagan holidays are defined. Shall I present you with a list? Christmas is a pagan holiday. A stolen one, but pagan none the less. Its actually called Yule and lasts about a week. Every time you put up a 'christmas' tree? You're celebrating part of a pagan tradition. Easter, another stolen pagan holiday. Ever painted an egg? Ever wonder what the hell eggs have to do with jesus rising from the dead?... Halloween, also called Samhein, is another pagan holiday. There are 13 all together. The summer and winter solstices are both pagan celebrations. As are the spring and autumn equinox. And true Wiccans follow and celebrate these traditions.

Well, I did say if.

And that is so untrue about stolen holidays, everyone knows that you get chocolate eggs because of the colour match-up to the wood of the cross Our Lord was crucified on for our sins. Amen.

However, the point is that the word pagan is rather ambiguous and can be used to refer to (Ye) Old(e) World(e) traditions, and well, let's just say there's rather a lot of them. So many that you could constuct your own DIY religion using any number of pagan tranditions, anything old and generally not Christian depending on how you use the word to, in fact, give yourself the entire year off. You could take advantage of there being no real definitive paganism. Yes, you could technically make up your own version of Christianity or another more mainstream religion, but by making "Pagan" a religion and leaving the details to the practising individual, with no church cannonisation and groups that define what a religion officially is, doesn't it make it a bit easier to do?

And more importantly, should I be told off for discussing this here instead of in the religion section... er, Amen.

[Sakred_Winter]

Ok Peter, I took a bit of offense to your last reply. It just seemed a little blasphemous to my religion ( i felt dirty reading it) Though I respect other religious holidays, and try my best not to make fun of them, please don't make fun of mine and others. There are defenitive pagan religions, first. Wicca, Gaelic, Celtic blah blah blah Paganism, as christianity, is used to describe a group of religions.

[ExistentialDisorder]

Ok, you're joking about the whole chocolate egg and the cross thing right? I hope so.

Pagan is a term originally created by the catholics way way back to describe anyone that didn't follow the word of christ. It basically meant the same as 'heathen'. It didn't matter what your religious beliefs are, if you weren't a christian you were pagan, because in their miniscule little minds, the only true religion was christianity. Through the catholics various attempts at brainwashing the plethora of non-believers that surrounded them, they decided to start celebrating christ's birthday, for example, durring one of the most commonly celebrated pagan festivals, that being Yule. The idea was to get pagans to start praising jesus. His true birthday actually took place sometime durring the late spring or early summer. Most 'experts' believe it was in the month of May, but no one really knows for sure. And this is just a very basic rundown of how it all went. Over time a lot of traditional pagan celebrations were taken over by the christians in hopes of converting the non-believers to their way of living and thinking. That, and a whole lot of witch hunts and burning slews of people at the stake because they weren't christian. such lovely, god-fearing people, weren't they?

These days the term pagan is usually used to describe those that practice witch craft and/or believe in multiple gods and goddesses. Its not as generalized now as it use to be, since there are other names that relate to specific religions which have nothing to do with jesus. All true Wiccans are Pagan, because of the basis for their belief system, but not all Pagans are Wiccan.

~E.D.

[Peter]

Originally Posted by Sakred_Winter

Ok Peter, I took a bit of offense to your last reply. It just seemed a little blasphemous to my religion ( i felt dirty reading it) Though I respect other religious holidays, and try my best not to make fun of them, please don't make fun of mine and others. There are defenitive pagan religions, first. Wicca, Gaelic, Celtic blah blah blah Paganism, as christianity, is used to describe a group of religions.

Sorry love, I'm not single.

Originally Posted by ExistentialDisorder

Pagan is a term originally created by the catholics way way back to describe anyone that didn't follow the word of christ. It basically meant the same as 'heathen'. It didn't matter what your religious beliefs are, if you weren't a christian you were pagan, because in their miniscule little minds, the only true religion was christianity. Through the catholics various attempts at brainwashing the plethora of non-believers that surrounded them, they decided to start celebrating christ's birthday, for example, durring one of the most commonly celebrated pagan festivals, that being Yule. The idea was to get pagans to start praising jesus. His true birthday actually took place sometime durring the late spring or early summer. Most 'experts' believe it was in the month of May, but no one really knows for sure. And this is just a very basic rundown of how it all went. Over time a lot of traditional pagan celebrations were taken over by the christians in hopes of converting the non-believers to their way of living and thinking. That, and a whole lot of witch hunts and burning slews of people at the stake because they weren't christian. such lovely, god-fearing people, weren't they?

Nu-uh! Etymologically speaking, pagan didn't even mean not-Christian originally.

And since we're sharing interesting facts (not being sarcastic, I'm quite enjoying it), did you realise that not one person was burned because of witch hysteria in America, or the UK? It was much more of an Eastern European thing, a great deal of it contained in Basque country.

[ExistentialDisorder]

Of course.
Oh, and the holocaust didn't happen either. That was just a bunch of jews whining and wanting some attention.

~E.D.

[Peter]

Originally Posted by ExistentialDisorder

Of course.
Oh, and the holocaust didn't happen either. That was just a bunch of jews whining and wanting some attention.

~E.D.

Well, actually if you want to draw a comparison, the people who believe there was a vast series of witch burnin's across the USA are historical revisionists ... just like ...

Hey, have you heard of Godwin's Law?

[ExistentialDisorder]

I don't believe I ever stated that witches were burned in the US. However if you doubt the historical fact that people were persecuted, tortured and hung, among other things, for being witches in the united states then I suggest you take a trip to Salem Massachusetts where you will find their graves and a wall of names of all those known to have suffered for their beliefs and practices, at the hands of good christians. And that's just in one little town. Who knows what took place in other parts of early America that has never officially been documented, or was ever known about. As for the UK, I know little about their dealings with suspected witches, tho I suspect their methods of punishment for not believing in jesus were not unlike those in the rest of the world.

~E.D.

[Peter]

Originally Posted by ExistentialDisorder

I don't believe I ever stated that witches were burned in the US. However if you doubt the historical fact that people were persecuted, tortured and hung, among other things, for being witches in the united states then I suggest you take a trip to Salem Massachusetts where you will find their graves and a wall of names of all those known to have suffered for their beliefs and practices, at the hands of good christians. And that's just in one little town. Who knows what took place in other parts of early America that has never officially been documented, or was ever known about. As for the UK, I know little about their dealings with suspected witches, tho I suspect their methods of punishment for not believing in jesus were not unlike those in the rest of the world.

~E.D.

So essentially when I said "no witches burned" you assumed I meant "No witches persecuted, tortured and hung, among other things"??!

[ExistentialDisorder]

You implied that the witch hunts did not take place in the united states or the uk and were instead centralized to Eastern Europe, especially by referring to historical revisionists. You are correct, however, that there are no known witch burnings documented in the US. I can't comment on the UK. However, just as those 'historical revisionists' are guilty of spreading false rumors that people in the US were burned for witchcraft, statements such as "...people who believe there was a vast series of witch burnin's across the USA are historical revisionists..." tend to imply that no witch hunts ever took place in this country.

~E.D.

[Peter]

Originally Posted by ExistentialDisorder

You implied that the witch hunts did not take place in the united states or the uk and were instead centralized to Eastern Europe, especially by referring to historical revisionists. You are correct, however, that there are no known witch burnings documented in the US. I can't comment on the UK. However, just as those 'historical revisionists' are guilty of spreading false rumors that people in the US were burned for witchcraft, statements such as "...people who believe there was a vast series of witch burnin's across the USA are historical revisionists..." tend to imply that no witch hunts ever took place in this country.

~E.D.

I think what I actually said is pretty clear, you're probably just biased. Apology accepted anyway.

[ExistentialDisorder]

what-the-hell-ever

~E.D.

[Sakred_Winter]

Yes, people in the US were tortured in Salem for suspected witchery.
Yes, Pagan is Non-Christian.
That's all common knowledge.
And I love your debate Ex, it's very latence. Basically what we need sometimes...

[ExistentialDisorder]

Apparently its not so common knowledge, Sakred Winter. I have met many who have either never heard of it, or don't believe it ever happened cause 'christians would never do such a thing'. A lot of people don't believe that christmas and easter are based on pagan holidays either, even when you show them documented proof. And what's more, I've even had arguments with several christians in the past that don't even believe that there was more than just jesus hanging up on that cross on the hill, much less that crucifixion was a common practice of execution in that time. Its horribly sad that so many people claim to be of a religion of which they know so little about, regardless of what religion that may be.... I wonder if some day followers of people like David Coresh or Charles Manson will ever wear little golden electric chairs hanging from chains around their necks... Not that Charles Manson has been or ever will be executed, but just saying...

~E.D.

[ExistentialDisorder]

Uhm, thank you, I think, but what does 'latence' mean? other than delayed... lol

~E.D.

[ExistentialDisorder]

If you're going to quote shit, don't fucking pick and choose and try rearanging the order that the conversation took place, in a weak assed attempt to somehow discredit or misconstrue what I said. Not that its any business of yours anyway, since you aren't even involved in this conversation. I was not making comparisons, I was being sarcastic, something that you should know quite well the definition of. But since you bring it up, there are groups of people in the us and elsewhere that have tried for years to get people to believe that the holocaust never happened. For a while they were even trying to change history text books in schools. Likewise, there are tons of people who don't believe that witch hunts ever took place in the US. Peter's statement is true, there were never witch burnings - that we know of for fact - that took place in the United States. However the same statement also implies that pursecution of any kind, of witches, never took place in the US. I was simply making it clear, in a later post, that tho burnings never happened, many people lost their lives due to accusations of witch craft.

Now just exactly what were you trying to imply with your last little smart-ass quote there? fuckin punk-ass

~E.D.

[ExistentialDisorder]

I'm not saying shit else in direction or relation to Tstone, since all it does is stroke his pathetic little ego and give him more ammo for his personal war. Eventually one has to be the bigger man and let the other have the last word. So I'll be ignoring any and all future comments from said individual. Otherwise this will never end. I did not come here to make enemies.

~E.D.

[Peter]

Originally Posted by ExistentialDisorder

Peter's statement is true, there were never witch burnings - that we know of for fact - that took place in the United States. However the same statement also implies that pursecution of any kind, of witches, never took place in the US.

You know, not only would it be easier to apologise for misreading a post that it would be to get people to believe this, but you'd also save more face than trying to justify conparing someone's statement to something a holocaust denier would say by saying I implied something every not fluff bunny reading this thread would realise I did not. At all. By any stretch.

Even if it were, it still would not be comparable, since even if people were mistaken enough to presume I meant any sort of persecution it would be the equivilent of saying that the genocide of the jewish and others was mostly in a specific region.

[ExistentialDisorder]

can you reword that please peter? mainly the last part.

~E.D.

[Peter]

Originally Posted by ExistentialDisorder

can you reword that please peter? mainly the last part.

~E.D.

If my statement about the lack of actual burnings in the US and UK was intended or would be assumed to mean that there was no persecution of witches in the US or UK

Then

The statement would not be comparable to holocaust denial, since it would be like saying that the genocide at the hands of the Nazis wasn't in a specific region, rather than saying there was no holocaust at all like the deniers say.

There's also way more reasons why it's nothing like holocaust denial even if misinterpreted, but I don't want to bore other posters with the details.