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13th August 2018, 11:44 AM | #241 |
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13th August 2018, 02:25 PM | #242 |
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People say the apples are edible, even tasty.
But I looked at the apple tree and looked at all the apples. They did not look tasty or edible to me (though to be fair a few that I tried were edible and tasty). How can I believe those people who say the apples are edible and tasty when there is no evidence that they are edible and tasty? (Other than my parenthetical admission that some of them actually were edible and tasty.) |
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13th August 2018, 02:27 PM | #243 |
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13th August 2018, 02:29 PM | #244 |
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Suffering is not a punishment not a fruit of sin, it is a gift of God. He allows us to share in His suffering and to make up for the sins of the world. -Mother Teresa If I had a pet panda I would name it Snowflake. |
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13th August 2018, 05:45 PM | #245 |
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Norseman,
There is no sense in discussing this with you. There is no one-off tit-for-tat exchange. She is commenting in response to ongoing issues in the community. If you are not familiar with the Gamergate misogynist uprising you will not have seen the prime examples. If you are familiar with it then you're not willing to accept that someone could react to that sort of **** wanting to mock them and belittle them? Everything hinges on your perception that mentioning "white" makes the message "Eeeew, you can't say that it's racist!" And if you don't care that your opinions are the same as the bottom feeders I linked you to, then perhaps you should. You're asking us to prove a negative after a number of us, including several grizzled veterans of the equal rights battles, have shown that there is a very good explanation and a very plausible one. Now you're insisting that we show you the actual posts she's responding to. In the case of the Andrew Sullivan exchange, it's been shown. The others may not be so direct, as it's a general reaction to a bunch of people who go by "Anonymous" but who wear their whiteness and their maleness like hair shirts. She attacked them in their sensitive spots. |
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Ha! Foolmewunz has just been added to the list of people who aren't complete idiots. Hokulele It's not that liberals have become less tolerant. It's that conservatives have become more intolerable. |
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13th August 2018, 06:47 PM | #246 |
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Except it's not really a good explanation, nor very plausible.
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13th August 2018, 07:20 PM | #247 |
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Ha! Foolmewunz has just been added to the list of people who aren't complete idiots. Hokulele It's not that liberals have become less tolerant. It's that conservatives have become more intolerable. |
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13th August 2018, 07:49 PM | #248 |
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13th August 2018, 08:31 PM | #249 |
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Ha! Foolmewunz has just been added to the list of people who aren't complete idiots. Hokulele It's not that liberals have become less tolerant. It's that conservatives have become more intolerable. |
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13th August 2018, 08:45 PM | #250 |
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I'm gonna come back at this once more:
I had said, in part
Quote:
This is what will absolutely kill any attempt at reconciliation nor ultimately solve the problem. I was not given the benefit of the doubt but treated with mistrust and acting as if I were grand dictator of the universe or something really strange and I must say, I don't really appreciate that. I really don't understand why this woman is getting the free pass she is and that's okay too. But since it seems that no one is willing to at least have a conversation with me about this, I'll bow out. |
13th August 2018, 09:31 PM | #251 |
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13th August 2018, 11:46 PM | #252 |
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I don't pretend to speak for Mumbles but my take on this was Mumbles living up to my (and his and various others') expectations. We mock people who promote unfounded hypotheses. The two most vocal critics you're dealing with are myself and Mumbles. Neither of us really lists, "So that other claimants will be taken seriously" in our main concerns.(Again, apologies to Mumbles for putting words in his mouth.)
But a hypothesis is an educated guess (look out for the science geeks to come unload on me). Perhaps it'd be politer to explain why? But you've tacitly ignored anything we've tried to say. Even with others weighing in that they feel the same you keep returning to "show me the proof". The proof, in the form you wish for it, is not there. You think what she said was racist. We do not. You've explained why. We've explained why. Since you no more accept our educated guesses and we're not accepting yours, what's the point in discussing it? We're all just re-stating our positions. You think we're stubborn for not seeing what your concern is. We think you're stubborn for not taking our word for something we (to a degree) are rather experienced expert in. It doesn't matter how much we explain why we think she was pulling chains, you don't accept it because you see the word "white" (or "white male") used disparagingly. There are/were a number of more liberal (noted by histories and by reputation) members here who also originally voiced the opinion that here comments were racist. I'd be curious to know why they've dropped out. Obviously, they're not as interested as the small handful of remaining participants but is that disinterest because they've rethought their positions or because they fear the liberal bullies (ask TBD - we're everywhere)? But it really boils down to "we disagree". And I can accept that. There are a number of critics, though (both on these forums and in the media) who are totally disingenuous about it. These are the same people who, any time a black or brown person utters the word white, launch into the "You can't say that, it's racist!" diatribes. It would be funny if there weren't so many people who believe them. Meh? I know who Ann Coulter is. The thought of that neo-fascist tagging anyone other than herself as a racist is a joke. The argument has nothing to do with whether what she said was racist but scoring points on your political or ideological enemies. (Well, other than 4Chan and 8Chan who are just overall ***********.) |
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Ha! Foolmewunz has just been added to the list of people who aren't complete idiots. Hokulele It's not that liberals have become less tolerant. It's that conservatives have become more intolerable. |
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14th August 2018, 01:23 AM | #253 |
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Here's the problem to me in a nutshell: Jeong's tweets are perfectly tailored for white nationalists to take advantage of in their recruitment media. Hey, look the New York Times hired somebody who wants to wipe out the white race. And the skeptic kid heroically tries, oh, that's a load of BS and then the WN shows him Jeong's tweets. Yeah, talk about context all you want, and quote all the liberal writers who have defended her. That's really going to register with the target audience, which is mostly poorly-educated young white men.
This is a bad thing. I see it as having a potential multiplier effect on recruiting. I am nowhere near being really concerned about the Nazi threat in America; I have consistently argued that the Antifa crowd are more of a problem. But I underestimated the SJW crowd, who are pushing forward attitudes like Jeong's into the mainstream. |
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14th August 2018, 01:56 AM | #254 |
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Oh, I agree wholeheartedly. People who want to fight nazis and bigots are worse than nazis and bigots.
Unh huh. And here I was looking up to the Lincoln Brigade all these years. So, just to get this straight.... aren't you one of the people who snicker at the notion that having Trump in the White House has emboldened the bigots, racists and misogynists? You don't feel that having a White Supremacist or seven in the current administration is perhaps helping with the recruiting? I mean just because Stormfront and the Klan think he's on their side, he probably isn't. He's undercover for the SPLC to root out the evil-doers. Amiright? But left wing protesters (who have been with us since the 1760s) are helping with the recruitment of the ultra-right? |
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Ha! Foolmewunz has just been added to the list of people who aren't complete idiots. Hokulele It's not that liberals have become less tolerant. It's that conservatives have become more intolerable. |
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14th August 2018, 05:31 AM | #255 |
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My take on his point is that someone who writes for a living, like Jeong, would be more judicious in how they chose to communicate. Being angry about these racist trolls is perfectly reasonable. One would hope that someone that is a talented writer would channel that anger into useful writing, not petty and poorly-executed race-baiting "satire".
Best case scenario is that Jeong meant well and is widely being misunderstood. Someone who writers for a living should be able to avoid such widespread misunderstanding. She has failed in that respect. |
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14th August 2018, 08:17 AM | #256 |
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To me, it's not a question of whether what she said is racist. Who can tell? Who can ever tell? It's like trying to figure out who's a sinner in a Puritan colony. One Sunday the preacher is thundering about how a talking snake and an apple mean we're all unavoidably sinners, and the next, he's shaming Goody Morrow as a demon-possessed perdition-bound degenerate for weeding her garden without her bonnet on. Maybe Jeong's Tweets all really were "pulling chains" and "satire" and payback for insults received. The point is, if you reverse the key characteristics of the participants in that contentious discourse, none of those would be accepted as any valid excuse. The point is the double standard of acceptable personal conduct. Not the race double standard. The class one. Jeong is allowed an excuse that a white journalist in the same position might or might not also be allowed (a race double standard does exist too, but arguably for good reasons), but a New York Times sales rep or IT grunt of any color would definitely not be, as it's contrary to the ideals spelled out in the employee manual and thus reflects badly on the organization. But mostly because doing the right thing and firing his or her ass reminds all the other wage earners in the building to remember their place. The working class may be morally appalling to the aristocracy (lower classes always are), but they're not stupid. They notice, for instance, that management can reduce staffing for the same workload, cut hours, cut benefits, time breaks with a stopwatch or set performance quotas that penalize employees for actually taking them, and at any moment decide to relocate the whole facility to East Childlaboria, and Corporate and Wall Street and the New York Times Business Section will only applaud; but only the part time (limited to 29 hours per week, to avoid eligibility for benefits) employee who likens the conduct of said management to stereotypes about a certain Abrahamic religion in an unguarded moment "creates a hostile work environment." At that level, it doesn't matter much if he's white, black, gay, or even a member of that same ethnic group he's oppressed with his hate. He's out of a job (and times being what they are for the working class, his family's likely on the street) regardless. Okay, maybe they are a little stupid sometimes, and most of them haven't noticed quite yet. It always seems to take a generation or two for the congregation to learn to stop fighting with each other to be declared the least deplorable sinner in the basket, and tell the preacher to go **** himself instead. An effective social movement against the increasing depredations of the American aristocracy could very well start with people of all types choosing to disregard, or better yet owning, the snarling moral labels used against them. Instead of the ignorant "yankee doodle dandies" the better classes sneered at a few centuries ago, or the congregation of vile sinners I mentioned earlier, in this case you'd have misogynist, racist, homophobic, parents-basement-dwelling underemployed deplorables. What they'd have to do is defiantly identify themselves as such, and speak out about it and joke about it in uncouth ways that shock their betters, and even ironically non-ironically support political candidates who reflect their "preacher go **** yourself" attitude. And, of course, whenever a venerable aristocratic institution like the Times occasionally let its class hypocrisy show, it would be grist for their mill. Kind of like exactly what's been happening on the chans. Funny how such meaningless random coincidences happen from time to time. |
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14th August 2018, 09:03 AM | #257 |
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The sarcastic part of me wants to say that it's because she's a black woman. Then again it's clear that Twitter learned nothing after the last time this happened (or if you want something more newsy).
As a heads up for people in the future who want to look at that thread but can't because it's been deleted due to how 4chan works, you can find an archive of that thread here. |
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14th August 2018, 09:39 AM | #258 |
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antifa does not just mean "people fighting nazis/bigots". Continually pretending that that's what they are is dishonest.
antifa has consistently shown that they have a very low bar for what makes someone a nazi/bigot, and support violence against said individuals. Seriously look at the people that they call nazis and what they say about them. Jordan Peterson is a good example of someone who is painted as a nazi (with flyers put out in his city and university saying so, and his talks interrupted) (virtue qualifier: I disagree with half of what he says) Protesting is fine. Violence is not. |
14th August 2018, 01:04 PM | #259 |
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Try reading what I wrote a little harder. I was saying that in the past I have always felt that the Nazi threat was minimal in the US. But with useful idiots like Jeong helping them recruit I might get a little more concerned
Quote:
Quote:
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14th August 2018, 01:43 PM | #260 |
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14th August 2018, 02:24 PM | #261 |
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This comes down to people not understanding what racism actually is - or rather the view that "racist" is an insult, rather than a description. "Jeong said that the declining white birthrate was her plan, she hates white people!" No, that's a very clear joke aimed at the "white genocide" lunatics - just to give another example.
If you've been on Black Twitter at all over the years, you've seen the same people using fake avatars and bad imitations of AAVE, you've seen them hound people from Joy Reid to April to sassycrass to Anthea Butler. You've seen the out-of-context tweets, the aggrieved white guys raging at women and minorities on tv, in movies, in video games, in STEM - and this would include writers like Jeong. You've seen the same hate campaign whenever a black guy gets killed by a cop that just ran up and attacked them, and you remember when Trayvon Martin was supposedly about to make "lean" with exactly no ingredients for the drug. It's been the same group for years, some new people join, and some leave, but the game plan has not changed at all. ANd you've been called "the real racist" for pointing out exactly how something fits in with the US' long history of white supremacism. I simply don't buy the idea that it's Jeong that's fueling white supremacists anywhere - We spent 8 years under the first black president of the US, and went to a laughably incompetent white supremacist. Both are far more important than some tweets from a writer. Not only did I predict this, but it's as easy to predict as the sunrise - that's why so many people were worried for years that Obama would be killed by some old racist. At this point, what I'd really like to see is actual evidence that Jeong wasn't making a joke - that she's in some Asian/Korean/etc. supremacist group. I consider the sources here to be that untrustworthy, sorry. |
14th August 2018, 04:11 PM | #262 |
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I think you're trying way too hard to magnify an effect of near total insignificance. Her tweets, as a potential recruiting tool for white supremacists, amount to less than spitting into a flood. If they were completely absent the flood would be the same, and do the same damage. |
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14th August 2018, 04:33 PM | #263 |
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Antifa are nothing but masked, violent, intolerant bigots.
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14th August 2018, 04:38 PM | #264 |
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"As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose -- that it may violate property instead of protecting it -- then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be fighting at the door of the Legislative Palace, and the struggle within will be no less furious." - Bastiat, The Law |
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14th August 2018, 04:42 PM | #265 |
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The hypocrisy by the left regarding this woman not being a racist, given the low bar they have set for calling all of us Republicans racist, is hilarious. They are losing what little credibility they may have had on this one.
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14th August 2018, 05:43 PM | #266 |
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Oh, well, that part's a joke. But no that other part that I don't understand what she's alluding to, that can't be a joke, 'cuz I know everything about everything.
Is that how it goes? It's overall mockery. This is the old truther debating ploy. Prove every single statement wasn't racist. If you're able to find one or two or three that are clearly mocking and imitating the sort of 4Chan / 8Chan / Reddit coterie of trash-talking misogynists and bigots, then might it just be possible that that is the overall intent of the style and tone? In short, could you have missed something in your partisan-blinded rush to judgement, Zig? |
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Ha! Foolmewunz has just been added to the list of people who aren't complete idiots. Hokulele It's not that liberals have become less tolerant. It's that conservatives have become more intolerable. |
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14th August 2018, 06:10 PM | #267 |
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Jeong might have been goaded. Who cares? She still owns her words. I think over-generalizations based on skin color are racist. The counter-argument seems to be that white people cannot be targets of racism because the power structure is dominated by white people. Maybe if I weren't white I'd "get" this.
She didn't say "4chan idiots" or "gamer snowflakes," she said white people. Reflexively defending her seems kind of ... patronizing. On the other hand, she has said, "While it was intended as satire, I deeply regret that I mimicked the language of my harassers. These comments were not aimed at a general audience, because general audiences do not engage in harassment campaigns." Good enough for me. I know plenty of young people who used to make jokes about old people. They don't anymore; they've gotten old. It's not so funny anymore. They've learned, they've moved on. They're not stuck forever with stupid crap they said when they were 25. ETA: Aging is democratic that way - most of us will experience it. Can't say I'll ever experience being an Asian woman. |
14th August 2018, 08:35 PM | #268 |
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Yes, I understand.
Quote:
You're right. I wasn't taking your word for it. Yet you do have much more experience with this sort of thing than I do. So... I will take your word for it. You've been civil and genial with me and I appreciate it. As I've said, I think she could have used a better approach but she did acknowledge that and I sincerely hope that she can continue to write in the way that her station, her status, deserves. |
14th August 2018, 10:57 PM | #269 |
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I ran across the book entitled "Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race." Thinking of getting it. Any recommendations? Is it any good?
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15th August 2018, 12:32 AM | #270 |
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It's directly related to the conversation. Not specifically, but generally. I haven't read it but saw a long excerpt of it somewhere a few years ago. I've checked the book and book-ish sites but can't locate it. It'll give you an idea if you want to read the whole thing. (I'll look further.)
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Ha! Foolmewunz has just been added to the list of people who aren't complete idiots. Hokulele It's not that liberals have become less tolerant. It's that conservatives have become more intolerable. |
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15th August 2018, 03:39 AM | #271 |
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I found it, but I'd have sworn it was on Politico or an American site. Then again, I would've sworn it was written by an American and I'm wrong about that, too.
Here it is - on The Guardian's site. He makes good arguments but can't say I really find anything new (to me) in them. For someone looking to expand their base of information - and attitudes about that information it's a good starting point but the article might suffice. It evidently originated as a blog and then he expanded it to a book and then cut it down again. Sheesh, brother! Make up your mind. https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...ple-about-race |
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Ha! Foolmewunz has just been added to the list of people who aren't complete idiots. Hokulele It's not that liberals have become less tolerant. It's that conservatives have become more intolerable. |
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15th August 2018, 08:58 AM | #272 |
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15th August 2018, 09:21 AM | #273 |
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15th August 2018, 06:21 PM | #274 |
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On further digging, my opinion (which should hold no weight to anyone really) is I don't think this woman is a racist. I do think she does have some racist biases on some levels, but not far outside the median. More restrained criticism is probably valid, but the 'the left are the real racist hypocrites see!' squad are still clutching pearls.
I also think her behavior is both a liability and counterproductive for what the Times has hired her for. |
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16th August 2018, 03:10 AM | #275 |
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16th August 2018, 12:17 PM | #276 |
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Suffering is not a punishment not a fruit of sin, it is a gift of God. He allows us to share in His suffering and to make up for the sins of the world. -Mother Teresa If I had a pet panda I would name it Snowflake. |
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16th August 2018, 12:32 PM | #277 |
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"As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose -- that it may violate property instead of protecting it -- then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be fighting at the door of the Legislative Palace, and the struggle within will be no less furious." - Bastiat, The Law |
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16th August 2018, 12:38 PM | #278 |
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Suffering is not a punishment not a fruit of sin, it is a gift of God. He allows us to share in His suffering and to make up for the sins of the world. -Mother Teresa If I had a pet panda I would name it Snowflake. |
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16th August 2018, 12:43 PM | #279 |
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No it just means that you can't automatically accept "But I was joking!" as a valid excuse only when you feel like it.
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16th August 2018, 12:45 PM | #280 |
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