Subj : twitter/x To : DOCTOR CLU From : Dumas Walker Date : Mon Sep 01 2025 10:51:16 > I like that, and something I thought all along. Do high schools still teach > debate? To have a dialogue staying on topic, not vering into personally > attacking the other person with an opinion different than your own? When I was in high school - late 1980s - they didn't teach it specifically unless you were on the debate team. OTOH, I did have a History/Civics teacher in junior high that included some of these things as part of her ciriculum. I think she did it because she wanted to, not because it was a part of the Grade 7 general ciriculum. > Seems now days we have to adjust the to lower common demoninator, avoiding all > "land mines" of what things mean to everyone, trying to find the most safe, > non-offensive route. That route however I am finding is becoming more narrow > each year. I believe we are getting to the point where there is no "safe" route. Too many people filter what they see and hear through "what about this can offend me" filters (or "what about this will get me the most hits on social media by offending others when I post about it") that any safe route is gone. > For example, I am play in a LARP (Live Action Role Play) group, which is > basically D&D with all outfits and fighting with foam weapons. Sometimes for > fun, as it is more sport than role play, some people will wear a fantasy > version of a sports jersey with a number. One person had the number "88" > At one point the reeves and others in charge of field combat told this person > to remove the number as it meant to some "Hail Hitler" ... HH... 88... People make BS up about numbers any more. I am a fan of AJ Foyt Racing. Foyt Racing has *always* used the number 14. His team had a second car whose new sponsor wanted to use the number 88. The same happened there, except apparently there is an additional "special meaning" to be offended about when you use both numbers together. So they changed the 88 to some other number. People of my generation, and probably the previous one, managed to raise too many soft-headed, self described "empaths" who are too emotionally-driven to make it in the world without everything being wrapped in bubble wrap. > Friend had this number since around 1988, year he joined the fighter group he > was in. It was 2017 when he was called on this. So he had used this number > for 29 years. He assured them that the number meant something totally > different than what others THOUGHT it meant. However, since this was offensiv > to those people, he removed the number from his jersey. > I believe things like that are wrong. Agreed. > Does "88" need to eternally be linked to Hitler, or could it take on a new > meaning? Or a different meaning? Sure it can. Did Hitler and his cronies even use that number, or is it just some stupid letter-number association that an idiot came up with since? I can remember one of my 5th grade classmates claiming Ronald Reagan was Satan because all three of his names have 6 letters -- 666. One of their idiot parents told them that. >And I believe this of the swastika now associated with the Nazi party, was the >"whirling logs" by the Navajo and other indigenous people throughout time. It has some special meaning in Hindu (or maybe general Indian subcontenent) culture. * SLMR 2.1a * Windows isn't crippleware: it's "Functionally Challenged" --- þ Synchronet þ CAPCITY2 * capcity2.synchro.net * Telnet/SSH:2022/Rlogin/HTTP .