[Noisebridge-discuss] Twenty-three theses (was: Re: To the @#$er that broke into my member shelf...)

Mitchel McAllister xonimmortal at yahoo.com
Sun Mar 24 03:43:56 UTC 2013



--- On Sat, 3/23/13, Naomi Most <pnaomi at gmail.com> wrote:

> By the way, I've been meaning to put this out there:
> 
> Please, everyone, stop putting the phrase "homeless people"
> out there
> as a blanket term for The Others.  One's housing status
> has nothing to
> do with one's reasonability as a human being.

Oh, I don't know. Considering that I know of three actual members who have become unemployed and/or homeless since August, I think it would be interesting to watch some of the people throwing this phrase around suddenly finding themselves having to exclude one of their good friends (and "real hackers") on this basis.

I define "hell" as having one's bigotry and double standards applied back at him/herself. One of the really rewarding parts of my "gay separatist" comedy routine is watching people slowly realize that I am using their own specious "logic" against them.

Frankly, I am getting tired of people suggesting that Noisebridge exclude individuals based on their character, rather than actual behavior. I want to know what magic tin foil helmet they've found that allows them to divine another person's character. Is that powered by room-temperature fusion, or pixie dust?

When I was discussing with a few people that part of the current antagonism toward homeless people in the space can be laid at the feet of the self-described Occupiers who invaded the space and made a nuisance of themselves, I had one person complain that I was focusing on labels. When I tried to explain that the people I was referring to had identified themselves that way, he accused me of being too establishment to have a conversation with.

So of course, any point I had to make could not be made, because the argument had been neatly redirected to a discussion of how I was really the problem.

There is a time and place to debate labels and semantics. When you use it to derail the conversation and shut others out of the conversation, then it becomes abuse.

- Reverend Mik McAllister
Purveyor of Subversive Fiction
http://www.prismandink.com
http://www.lunatextpublications.com





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