Dr. Mojo PhD: Type_Hard: firefly212: I don't care what your political orientation is... if you watch this speech and feel nothing, there's something wrong with you.

Sadly, the commenters on Breitbart would disagree...

Joe made it all about himself!

/SMH

That's because they're subhuman retards.

I remember experiencing a lot of family members dying. I remember my mother dying, my father dying, my uncle dying, my aunt dying.

And I remember when people who'd never experienced death would come up to me and say, "I know what you're going through," and unless they did know what I was going through, unless they'd lost somebody themselves, I thought "fark you, no you don't. You haven't a clue the loss in my world right now."

I remember when my uncle died, his own mother, well into her nineties, was staring at the casket at the wake, in the front row as she was, weeping, consoled by my aunt. I remember her asking again and again, "why couldn't it have been me?"

I remember her bargaining for death, bartering with her life, to a God who wasn't there or wouldn't listen, railing against the fates. I don't know what she was going through.

I have no clue.

The same man dead, the same person in a casket, was an experience for her unlike anything else. I know death, but I don't know the death of a child. I could only contemplate the obscenity of the world, the pure blasphemy of a child dying before a parent, as this woman in her 90s pleading to trade places with a son in his 60s, a son who had lived, in those years as brief and fleeting as life is in our eyes, a contented life, a life with children of his own, a life of love and of family, of fulfillment and satisfaction, of contributions received and given.

I knew him, I knew my uncle, and I knew my grief. But I did not know her grief. I couldn't.

Grief is a selfish thing, an ugly, childish part of us that lashes out against an unfair and uncaring world that would deprive us of our comfortable familiarity without a thought. Grief isn't even about the deceased. About the hole they leave behind in us, yes, but it is about us as individuals.

There is no 'we' in grief. No 'us'. There is only 'I' and 'me'. "My husband/wife/father/mother/son/daughter is dead. I am alone in the world. This is so unfair to me."

You can't say anything to that. There is no speaking to that. It is so isolated and insular that you cannot make grief about we the living. There is only one thing to say in that case. I I I I I I I I know what you're going through, I know how it feels, I know the emptiness.

It's the only thing that can be said, because selfishness is the only thing that can penetrate selfishness. It is the only way to say: "In the darkness between thoughts, where you find yourself a frightened animal scared of the shadows that fall on you because a light has flickered out forever, I too have stood in that cold and unforgiving silence, pleading with lost loves who will never answer my plaintive calls." It is the only way to say: "You are not really alone. You just can't see past the dark right now. But we are there."

Who in the fark cannot understand that?

My aunt died fairly suddenly when I was five or six, cancer caught way, way too late. My cousins are 1 and 2 years older. It's been a long time and I remember my cousin trying to climb in her grandmother's lap to give her a hug. She lost her mom but was trying to comfort the person who lost her daughter.

I was really touched too about how honest Biden was about the eventual process of moving on and the conflicting feelings... uncomfortable but important and I'd say necessary. My uncle never really moved on, just buried himself in work and kids.

Point of my rambling is that you deserved a repost. Well said.

tinderfitles: Type_Hard: firefly212: I don't care what your political orientation is... if you watch this speech and feel nothing, there's something wrong with you.

Sadly, the commenters on Breitbart would disagree...

Joe made it all about himself!

/SMH

=======================================
s_elliot_rodax

Hey Joe... it's never too late to set things right.

Go on... pull the trigger.
=======================================

This.......just makes me sick.

Yeah. Really makes you want to think about voting Republican, doesn't it?

Some people are just evil, disgusting trash.

What was the context of this? He was speaking to families of deceased service members, but, well, what was the occaision?

starsrift: What was the context of this? He was speaking to families of deceased service members, but, well, what was the occaision?


Biden addressed a group associated with the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors, a national nonprofit that supports friends and family of service members killed in action.

[caption]
Vice President Joe Biden tells his personal story of loss at the 18th annual TAPS National Military Survivor Seminar and Good Grief Camp on May 25, 2012, in Arlington, Va.

/TAPS website

starsrift: What was the context of this? He was speaking to families of deceased service members, but, well, what was the occaision?

Memorial Day.

jesus f'ing christ, open your blinds sometime.

StreetlightInTheGhetto: I was really touched too about how honest Biden was about the eventual process of moving on and the conflicting feelings... uncomfortable but important and I'd say necessary.

Oh yes, the guilt. My God, the guilt. The things that can come out of your mouth when your blood boils hot in the way that only people you love can make you angry. And you wonder. You wonder how much of your hyperbole was interpreted as wishful thinking. You wonder how much you should feel guilty over moving on when those who've died never can.

It taught me that love wasn't a competition. It showed me you could love something with all your heart, and still have enough room left in there to love somebody else with all your heart too. Funny thing, love.

Every post is showing, no red. I guess there comes a time when even trolls are willing to go, "well, I'm not going there."

RobertBruce: Joe you selfish asshole. Don't care if anyone ELSE loses a child do you. You know, to a drug overdose. The RAVE act was yours and it simply got a name change and was passed.

Really.

This is the path you choose to go down. Amazing.

This act authorizes funds to educate parents and kids on the dangers of Ecstasy and other drugs. It also directs the United States Sentencing Commission to consider increasing federal sentencing penalties for offenses involving GHB, a drug used to facilitate sexual assaults; and it makes clear that anyone who knowingly opens, leases, rents, or maintains, whether permanently or temporarily, any place for the purpose of using, distributing or manufacturing any controlled substance, can be held accountable. The new law also makes it unlawful for a manager, employee or owner, to profit from, or make available for use, any place for the purpose of storing, distributing, manufacturing, or using a controlled substance.[1]

Yeah, let me know how that directly lead to deaths. Do I think it overreached, oh, probably. I imagine this was the act that was the final death knell for groups like Party Safe. But that said, you're REALLY reaching to equate that bill to child deaths. Or did you just have stock in glowsticks and pacifiers?

/full text of the damn bill

StreetlightInTheGhetto: starsrift: What was the context of this? He was speaking to families of deceased service members, but, well, what was the occaision?


Biden addressed a group associated with the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors, a national nonprofit that supports friends and family of service members killed in action.

[caption]
Vice President Joe Biden tells his personal story of loss at the 18th annual TAPS National Military Survivor Seminar and Good Grief Camp on May 25, 2012, in Arlington, Va.

/TAPS website

Thanks.

martissimo: starsrift: What was the context of this? He was speaking to families of deceased service members, but, well, what was the occaision?

Why is it a 3 day weekend, hmmmm, yeah who knows

Eh? Queen Victoria Day was last week.

WorldCitizen: And that's the reason I've always liked the guy. His gaffes are usually a politician being honest. We just don't handle that well. I think he's still a real human being even after all his years in Washington.

Right? Love this guy. Perfect running mate for President Obama.

/not being at all sarcastic
//sad that I feel the need to clarify that...

themindiswatching: The people making this political are assholes of the lowest kind, though that seems to have been said already.

It's impossible to understand where anyone would find a political play in that talk and not be a completely shiat-filled motherfarker. Biden showed his heart and either it was real or he deserves a farkin' Oscar. Either way, I felt it and you could tell that the room did too.

RobertBruce:

Congratulations! You have graduated from dipshiat orange(3) to retard red(3)! That is quite a feat. You should be proud.

StreetlightInTheGhetto: RobertBruce: Joe you selfish asshole. Don't care if anyone ELSE loses a child do you. You know, to a drug overdose. The RAVE act was yours and it simply got a name change and was passed.

Really.

This is the path you choose to go down. Amazing.

This act authorizes funds to educate parents and kids on the dangers of Ecstasy and other drugs. It also directs the United States Sentencing Commission to consider increasing federal sentencing penalties for offenses involving GHB, a drug used to facilitate sexual assaults; and it makes clear that anyone who knowingly opens, leases, rents, or maintains, whether permanently or temporarily, any place for the purpose of using, distributing or manufacturing any controlled substance, can be held accountable. The new law also makes it unlawful for a manager, employee or owner, to profit from, or make available for use, any place for the purpose of storing, distributing, manufacturing, or using a controlled substance.[1]

Yeah, let me know how that directly lead to deaths. Do I think it overreached, oh, probably. I imagine this was the act that was the final death knell for groups like Party Safe. But that said, you're REALLY reaching to equate that bill to child deaths. Or did you just have stock in glowsticks and pacifiers?

/full text of the damn bill

ignore it... this is what it's going to be... random haters trying their best to find something to hate about this... there's absolutely nothing objectionable about what he said, to the contrary it is something with which every sane person can empathize and appreciate. They hate the guy (with or without good reason), so they're going to try their best to go after him with irrelevant crap. I mean in this thread it's a wiretap bill he authored (that still required warrants from the courts) being somehow equitable to the raft of crap in the patriot act, the RAVE act, somehow mischaracterized as dangerous. I mean, for these people, the fight is all that matters, and they're gonna keep on fighting even if nobody is in the ring with them. They aren't to be hated or detested... maybe ignored, maybe pitied. They aren't evil people, they're just people so filled with vitriol that they believe much of the world around them is evil... it's a terrible way to live already, the last thing we need to do is actually put someone in the ring with them.

When I saw this, before I submitted it here on Fark, I really thought that I had seen something that maybe could only be witnessed once a generation (if that)... an honest politician saying something that I genuinely think had zero partisan content, and something that I thought would really actually seem good to just about every sane person across the political spectrum. I still believe that... these few random kooks trying to find some traction to hate this are few and far between, and they aren't really representative of anyone except for the depressed and hateful populace that will hate on pretty much anyone or anything else because introspection would probably crush them.

Excellent speech, very moving.

A bit sad, but before I heard it, I was listening to Rachel Maddow talk about the rising anti-abortion terrorism in Georgia, including arson, and was getting furious, so sad is an improvement.

RobertBruce: It made having water available a felony. You know, to people who were using ecstasy and can easily become overheated and hugely dehydrated.

Strange, because I remember being offered water at the Detroit Techno Festival (or whatever it was called that year, Movement probably) in 2007.

Dr. Mojo PhD: StreetlightInTheGhetto: I was really touched too about how honest Biden was about the eventual process of moving on and the conflicting feelings... uncomfortable but important and I'd say necessary.

Oh yes, the guilt. My God, the guilt. The things that can come out of your mouth when your blood boils hot in the way that only people you love can make you angry. And you wonder. You wonder how much of your hyperbole was interpreted as wishful thinking. You wonder how much you should feel guilty over moving on when those who've died never can.

It taught me that love wasn't a competition. It showed me you could love something with all your heart, and still have enough room left in there to love somebody else with all your heart too. Funny thing, love.

RobertBruce: It made having water available a felony. You know, to people who were using ecstasy and can easily become overheated and hugely dehydrated.

No it didn't. You're interpreted the "findings" section (a section that has no force of law and exists only for explanation and interpretation) that found that people who hosted raves were sometimes exorbitantly gouging people on e for a bottle of water that they desperately needed to survive.

It is the total opposite of how you represent it; it was condemning profiteers who were taking advantage of drug users' vulnerable states to overcharge them for something they needed, not something that made it a felony to provide them with that need. It also had no legal standing as a way of condemning people who provided water (profiteering or at-cost) to a jail sentence.

Don't worry about apologizing for your gross mischaracterization and outright lying. I don't expect you to have the integrity of Joe Biden and apologize for accusing Joe Biden of having no integrity.

For the curious, here is the two pertinent sections of the law with the relevant passage bolded and partially underlined. Note how RobertBruce knowingly and willingly attempted to characterize portions in the "findings" section (again, for emphasis, which were condemning exorbitant prices on life-saving necessaries for drug users) by attempting to put them in the "offenses" section:

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

Congress finds the following: (1) Each year tens of thousands of young people are initiated into the drug culture at 'rave' parties or events (all-night, alcohol-free dance parties typically featuring loud, pounding dance music). (2) Some raves are held in dance clubs with only a handful of people in attendance. Other raves are held at temporary venues such as warehouses, open fields, or empty buildings, with tens of thousands of people present. (3) The trafficking and use of 'club drugs', including 3, 4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (Ecstasy or MDMA), Ketamine hydrochloride (Ketamine), Flunitrazepam (Rohypnol), and Gamma hydroxybutyrate (GHB), is deeply embedded in the rave culture. (4) Many rave promoters go to great lengths to try to portray their events as alcohol-free parties that are safe places for young adults to go to dance with friends, and some even go so far as to hire off-duty, uniformed police officers to patrol outside of the venue to give parents the impression that the event is safe. (5) Despite such efforts to convince parents that raves are safe, promotional flyers with slang terms for Ecstasy or pictures of Ecstasy pills send the opposite message to teenagers, and in effect promote Ecstasy along with the rave. According to the National Drug Intelligence Center, raves have become little more than a way to exploit American youth. (6) Because rave promoters know that Ecstasy causes the body temperature in a user to rise and as a result causes the user to become very thirsty, many rave promoters facilitate and profit from flagrant drug use at rave parties or events by selling over-priced bottles of water and charging entrance fees to 'chill-rooms' where users can cool down. (7) To enhance the effects of the drugs that patrons have ingested, rave promoters sell-- (A) neon glow sticks; (B) massage oils; (C) menthol nasal inhalers; and (D) pacifiers that are used to combat the involuntary teeth clenching associated with Ecstasy. (8) Ecstasy is the most popular of the club drugs associated with raves. Thousands of teenagers are treated for overdoses and Ecstasy-related health problems in emergency rooms each year. The Drug Abuse Warning Network reports that Ecstasy mentions in emergency visits grew 1,040 percent between 1994 and 1999. (9) Ecstasy damages neurons in the brain which contain serotonin, the chemical responsible for mood, sleeping and eating habits, thinking processes, aggressive behavior, sexual function, and sensitivity to pain. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, this can lead to long-term brain damage that is still evident 6 to 7 years after Ecstasy use. (10) An Ecstasy overdose is characterized by an increased heart rate, hypertension, renal failure, visual hallucinations, and overheating of the body (some Ecstasy deaths have occurred after the core body temperature of the user goes as high as 110 degrees, causing all major organ systems to shutdown and muscles to breakdown), and may cause heart attacks, strokes, and seizures.

SEC. 3. OFFENSES.

(a) IN GENERAL- Section 416(a) of the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 856(a)) is amended-- (1) in paragraph (1), by striking 'open or maintain any place' and inserting 'open, lease, rent, use, or maintain any place, whether permanently or temporarily,'; and (2) by striking paragraph (2) and inserting the following: '(2) manage or control any place, whether permanently or temporarily, either as an owner, lessee, agent, employee, occupant, or mortgagee, and knowingly and intentionally rent, lease, profit from, or make available for use, with or without compensation, the place for the purpose of unlawfully manufacturing, storing, distributing, or using a controlled substance.'. (b) TECHNICAL AMENDMENT- The heading to section 416 of the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 856) is amended to read as follows: 'SEC. 416. MAINTAINING DRUG-INVOLVED PREMISES.'. (c) CONFORMING AMENDMENT- The table of contents to title II of the Comprehensive Drug Abuse and Prevention Act of 1970 is amended by striking the item relating to section 416 and inserting the following: 'Sec. 416. Maintaining drug-involved premises.'.

Mentat: I like Joe Biden.

I like Joe Jamal Biden too.

I too agree it was a very moving and heartfelt conversation, not a speech, as he directly addressed the attendees more than once. My only issues are these: was anybody esle annoyed by the nervous or inappropriate laughter from the audience? Secondly, no one in this entire thread is going to acknowledge that 9beers explicitly endorsed Biden for the 2016 presidency based on this truthful and emotional opening? Or has everyone ignored 9beers as the "Conservative Christmas Troll"?

9beers: Biden 2016

I don't see how so short a message can be sarcastic or trolling given the context. When you shut out someone because of opposing viewpoints on one, or even a few arguments, you may lose the common ground of the human condition.

*else

StreetlightInTheGhetto: RobertBruce: It made having water available a felony. You know, to people who were using ecstasy and can easily become overheated and hugely dehydrated.

Strange, because I remember being offered water at the Detroit Techno Festival (or whatever it was called that year, Movement probably) in 2007.

Was called it the EMF(Electronic Music Festival last I heard) and I may have been one of those people handing out water. But mostly I was in charge of hauling kegs around to the stands. I miss that scene, kinda, it was getting kind of lame as of late.

Mr. Biden is making it difficult to dislike him; unless you're this guy, I guess.

I rarely post in any fark threads, the occasional hockey thread, or the stupid stupid threads to troll.

I can't bring myself to troll something like this.

Politics can actually eat a bag of shiate this time.

I don't care who is the president. I don't care who is in congress. I don't care about any of you.

This was a message. A simple message. A powerful message.

And it is unfortunate that anyone could miss it.

I don't vote. I never have, I'm not registered and I never will.

There are speeches that make a difference. JFK made one. MLK made one too. This one isn't quite on that level, but dammit, politicians would get a lot more respect and be taken a lot more seriously if they talked from the heart like he did there.

I'm ashamed Mr. Vice President. I am ashamed of this country. I'm ashamed that anyone could take what you said and tried to turn it into politics. I wish more politicians spoke as candidly and without vitriol as you have done.

I wish I had more hope in the system. Your speech gave me a small glimmer that we're not descending into Idiocracy as quickly as the the current system appears to to be headfirst dumpster diving towards. We need more people, more humans, and more reason like you just spent 15 minutes giving. Hopefully if your 'team' gets re-elected, you can apply what you just showed the nation and get Mr. Hope And Change guy in office to speak with the same level of intimacy, truth and meaning in your four years and back it all up.

This is what our country has been missing.

A whole shiatload of heart. I may not respect our country or our politics. I do now respect you. Your words here have shattered a big wall I have had against politics and punditry I thought couldn't be destroyed.

Respect. Be Kind. Be Human.

middleoftheday: Loaded Six String: My only issues are these: was anybody esle annoyed by the nervous or inappropriate laughter from the audience?

Yeah, someone else in this thread mentioned that, too, and I almost responded to that post but look. 2 freakin' a.m. That did hit me as all sorts of WTF, and I mean.. it started really early in the speech, too. Kinda incomprehensible.

I thought the laughter was due to understanding. Because those audience members had been there and done that as well. None of it seemed inappropriate to me.

middleoftheday: Loaded Six String: My only issues are these: was anybody esle annoyed by the nervous or inappropriate laughter from the audience?

Yeah, someone else in this thread mentioned that, too, and I almost responded to that post but look. 2 freakin' a.m. That did hit me as all sorts of WTF, and I mean.. it started really early in the speech, too. Kinda incomprehensible.

2 a.m.? Bah, west coast problems! Seriously though, I felt it detracted from the soul of what the man was saying. "I was angry... I was angry. You all probably handled it better than I did." (laughter) Tolerable.

"My mother... said something at the time that the accident happened that I thought was the cruelest thing as I came out identifying... anyway... came out. She said Joey... she adored my wife and my daughter. She said Joey, out of everything terrible something good will happen if you look for it hard enough. And I thought what a cruel thing to say"

(laughter) Completely inappropriate given what is being said. Just shut your mouth and listen to the words being said. I realize there's a possibility that it was nervous laughter, but it just irked me so much.

middleoftheday: Loaded Six String: My only issues are these: was anybody esle annoyed by the nervous or inappropriate laughter from the audience?

Yeah, someone else in this thread mentioned that, too, and I almost responded to that post but look. 2 freakin' a.m. That did hit me as all sorts of WTF, and I mean.. it started really early in the speech, too. Kinda incomprehensible.

This was a speech to the families of fallen troops. Everyone in that audience has lost a loved one, just as Biden has. Unless you (or I) can say the same, it may be better not to pass judgment on whether their laughter was "inappropriate."

/spent 15+ years in the medical field
//sometimes you have to laugh to survive

Loaded Six String: Secondly, no one in this entire thread is going to acknowledge that 9beers explicitly endorsed Biden for the 2016 presidency based on this truthful and emotional opening?

I've been a fan of Biden for years and think he would have made a good president.

By the way, I'm not a conservative or a republican.

common sense is an oxymoron: middleoftheday: Loaded Six String: My only issues are these: was anybody esle annoyed by the nervous or inappropriate laughter from the audience?

Yeah, someone else in this thread mentioned that, too, and I almost responded to that post but look. 2 freakin' a.m. That did hit me as all sorts of WTF, and I mean.. it started really early in the speech, too. Kinda incomprehensible.

This was a speech to the families of fallen troops. Everyone in that audience has lost a loved one, just as Biden has. Unless you (or I) can say the same, it may be better not to pass judgment on whether their laughter was "inappropriate."

/spent 15+ years in the medical field
//sometimes you have to laugh to survive

Yes, laughter is a powerful tool to help us cope... thus we have Fark.

Loaded Six String: I too agree it was a very moving and heartfelt conversation, not a speech, as he directly addressed the attendees more than once. My only issues are these: was anybody esle annoyed by the nervous or inappropriate laughter from the audience? Secondly, no one in this entire thread is going to acknowledge that 9beers explicitly endorsed Biden for the 2016 presidency based on this truthful and emotional opening? Or has everyone ignored 9beers as the "Conservative Christmas Troll"?

9beers: Biden 2016

I don't see how so short a message can be sarcastic or trolling given the context. When you shut out someone because of opposing viewpoints on one, or even a few arguments, you may lose the common ground of the human condition.

If you were more familiar with the oaf in questions, you would probably say,"If he started to act like a human, he might be treated as one."

9beers: Loaded Six String: Secondly, no one in this entire thread is going to acknowledge that 9beers explicitly endorsed Biden for the 2016 presidency based on this truthful and emotional opening?

I've been a fan of Biden for years and think he would have made a good president.

By the way, I'm not a conservative or a republican.

meh, nice try, but you still suck.

Dr. Mojo PhD: StreetlightInTheGhetto: I was really touched too about how honest Biden was about the eventual process of moving on and the conflicting feelings... uncomfortable but important and I'd say necessary.

Oh yes, the guilt. My God, the guilt. The things that can come out of your mouth when your blood boils hot in the way that only people you love can make you angry. And you wonder. You wonder how much of your hyperbole was interpreted as wishful thinking. You wonder how much you should feel guilty over moving on when those who've died never can.

It taught me that love wasn't a competition. It showed me you could love something with all your heart, and still have enough room left in there to love somebody else with all your heart too. Funny thing, love.

My mother said that when she got the call that her mother had died, her husband why lying next to her, her kids were down the hall, and all she could think was, "Mommy is gone and I'm all alone." I didn't understand the gaping hole in the foundation of life that event left until I lost my father, but I still have no concept of the pain and trauma of having a part of that foundation, a piece of their lives, suddenly and unjustly ripped from you like this group of people and Biden have.

Well done Joe.

Grief is selfish, I saw that in the falling out over my father's funeral. Nothing deliberately nasty, the kids were just handling it in incompatible ways. But I don't think it is "ugly." It's painful, but it just is. Like a hurricane, its just a part of life.

middleoftheday: Alphax: I thought the laughter was due to understanding. Because those audience members had been there and done that as well.

I acknowledge that as a possibility.

It's really the only thing there was too it. I started chuckling too, because I knew what he was talking about regarding loss of a loved one, and people telling you they know how you feel when they have no clue. They laughed because it's the grievers' club in-joke. They laugh because in their heads they're all responding to the conversation the same way they have countless times before: "the fark you do."

Whoops, hit reply to wrong post, but well said Dr. Mojo.

I've been a fan of Biden for years and think he would have made a good president.

By the way, I'm not a conservative or a republican.

You've become an outcast to the general Fark liberal leaning posters in recent months due to a certain piece of news which has come up multiple times (which has no relevance and will not be brought up here beyond my reference) and as such are treated as a leper. It just seems disingenuous to me that progressive thinkers will not hear a voice because of opposing viewpoints, despite the possibility of a point of agreement in the discourse.

It's as silly as refusing a life saving treatment from a doctor because he's not an (insert religious denomination here)

There's just no merit in drowning out a voice because it disagrees with you sometimes.

Dr. Mojo PhD: middleoftheday: Alphax: I thought the laughter was due to understanding. Because those audience members had been there and done that as well.

I acknowledge that as a possibility.

It's really the only thing there was too it. I started chuckling too, because I knew what he was talking about regarding loss of a loved one, and people telling you they know how you feel when they have no clue. They laughed because it's the grievers' club in-joke. They laugh because in their heads they're all responding to the conversation the same way they have countless times before: "the fark you do."

Given an insight to this particular type of grieving which I have not experienced, I concede that I may have misjudged my characterization of the audience. Perhaps I just wanted to hear the words and not a reaction to those words which was not mine.

Loaded Six String: I've been a fan of Biden for years and think he would have made a good president.

By the way, I'm not a conservative or a republican.

You've become an outcast to the general Fark liberal leaning posters in recent months due to a certain piece of news which has come up multiple times (which has no relevance and will not be brought up here beyond my reference) and as such are treated as a leper. It just seems disingenuous to me that progressive thinkers will not hear a voice because of opposing viewpoints, despite the possibility of a point of agreement in the discourse.

It's as silly as refusing a life saving treatment from a doctor because he's not an (insert religious denomination here)

There's just no merit in drowning out a voice because it disagrees with you sometimes.

You post is such a non-sequituer that I would think you were responding to the wrong thread, but you opened with the comment about Biden, so you're just partsian trolling in a grief thread.

That's low dude.

KiplingKat872: I didn't understand the gaping hole in the foundation of life that event left until I lost my father

That's it, the hole. I remember when my uncle died, and my cousin wanted to be alone. My father had died three years earlier, and everybody was asking him if he was ok and stuff. I just remember thinking, "no, he's not ok." I remember him being up in his room and a parade of people going up to see him, and asking about him at the reception at my aunt's house after the wake and the funeral, one of those big Catholic things where everybody clusters around like family and the grieving just wish they'd get the fark out of their faces, but what can you do, tradition, right?

I thought, you know, he might be feeling guilty, or obligated or something, and he doesn't need that right now. I went to him, up in his room, and I told him I wouldn't keep him long, or waste his time asking if he was ok or anything stupid like that. I just told him, "look, I lost my father three years ago, and the only thing I can tell you is, when people tell you you'll learn to accept it, they're full of shiat. There's a hole in your life, and there always will be. You don't learn to accept it, you learn to live around it. You'll still step it in now and then, when you don't expect to. Forget the people that tell you you'll get over it, and just come when you're ready. You aren't doing anything wrong by wanting to be alone." I told him I'd be the last person he'd see until he wanted to see people, just, you know, don't feel that obligation. You're dealing with your thing how you got to deal with it.

I went down, and I told everybody that he was 16 years old, grieving, and wanted to be left the fark alone. He wasn't going to jump out a window, but just leave the kid alone to deal with it in his own time.

The aunts and uncles understood, my grandfather had died when they were quite young, but I think the cousins were lost. I was the only one other than him in that club, really, in our generation -- teenage loss of father. I just remember having to go tell him to let him be.

Colbert will be 53...

Wow, Joe. I've been there, well, not there, but, you know what I mean. I laughed in some of the same places the audience did. Oh no! *Gasp* I never yelled at god because I was angry! *wink, nudge*. That was raw and honest. I appreciate emotional honesty. This sort of speech is why the public gets so angry when politicians lie. This the honesty that makes the lies all the more ugly. You don't HAVE to lie. Just tell the truth and be done with it. You're human, I'm human, we're in this together. You can be real and work in the government. You don't have to be perfect, but you should be honest when all is said and done.

KiplingKat872: Loaded Six String: I've been a fan of Biden for years and think he would have made a good president.

By the way, I'm not a conservative or a republican.

You've become an outcast to the general Fark liberal leaning posters in recent months due to a certain piece of news which has come up multiple times (which has no relevance and will not be brought up here beyond my reference) and as such are treated as a leper. It just seems disingenuous to me that progressive thinkers will not hear a voice because of opposing viewpoints, despite the possibility of a point of agreement in the discourse.

It's as silly as refusing a life saving treatment from a doctor because he's not an (insert religious denomination here)

There's just no merit in drowning out a voice because it disagrees with you sometimes.

You post is such a non-sequituer that I would think you were responding to the wrong thread, but you opened with the comment about Biden, so you're just partsian trolling in a grief thread.

That's low dude.

Perhaps this was due to the html quote fail on my part (Loaded Six String). 9beers is attributed with being a fan of Biden and the endorsement, I have no real opinion of the man aside from tremendous respect for the speech given in the article due to its sincerity. I was pointing out the fact that 9beers has been effectively ignored and ostracized from this discussion due to what I can only infer as opposing viewpoints in other threads.

I apologise if this is the case. If not, I can't wait to be accused of being a 9beers alt, as this would be another Fark first for me.