Laugh about Carrie Prejean all you like. The fact is that she's representative of our population.

[MercutioATC]

This is what our society has become.


Whether it's an implanted homophobe speaking against gay rights for "religious" reasons, or a Congressperson trying to explain how the average American would be hurt by providing access to basic health care for everybody, or somebody trying to say that a bank took advantage of them because they lied about how much money they made and couldn't afford the mortgage...

...we've become all about trying to irresponsibly pursue our goals and blame others for our failures. We've abandoned personal responsibility so we can feel good about not doing what we know is responsible.


Prejean posed topless, masturbated on video for her boyfriend, and yet made a contractual agreement that she had done none of these things...and then sued the corporation that fired her for lying about it. Because Prejean is a Fundie, DU realizes her faults and rightfully points out the logic of her circumstance. We'll attack her for the exact same things that we'd forgive in a "progressive".

Yet (most of) DU ignores that the average American holds these same values and acts the same way.

Prejean isn't loathsome because she's a homophobe, she's loathsome because she's like everybody else. She refuses to accept responsibility for her actions...which isn't something I haven't seen supported here a number of times. Taking responsibility for one's actions isn't repugnant only when one holds different beliefs, it's a serious character flaw that we should condemn regardless of political affilation.

[UTUSN]

1. How sucky!1 n/t

[Downtown Hound]

2. This is true...

But I laugh at our population as well so, damn isn't she funny? And I mean that in a bad way.

[Cleita]

3. Not hardly. I will assume every class that graduates from high school has

one potential, future beauty queen in it. My class's future beauty queen didn't make it past the regional for the Miss America pageant, although I think her title was Miss Orange or something like that, and yes she had all the traits. She wasn't popular and no one liked her except her little clique of toadies that doted on her and the football team at the boy's high school and I might guess why she was popular with them. No the rest of our class was not like her.

[MercutioATC]

6. How does that disagree with my OP?

[Cleita]

23. You are saying everybody is like that.

I'm saying less than 10% of the population is like that. Unfortunately, they do get to the top of the heap, and so we are all judged by their actions.

[MercutioATC]

28. Most of society blames others for their decisions.

Hell, we've even made it into various medical/sociological conditions.

We may not all specifically masturbate on camera and lie about it, but almost everybody makes bad decisions and seeks to blame somebody else...and that's becoming the societal norm.

[mrcheerful]

31. My class future beauty queen made the mistake of getting in a car

with a drunk "bf" and ended up going through the windshield thus requiring years of reconstructive surgeries on her face, it also ended her sex life for those years. But the rest of us either did make shift low wage jobs or went to work for GM and was on welfare during Reagans trickle down experiment with the economy. Though I admit that the few old money classmates did very well under republicon rule.

[Hello_Kitty]

4. Much of the inflating of income on loan documents was being done by the banks, not the borrowers.

And I'm sorry but it's the bank's responsibility to properly assess the risk of the borrower. It's why we give them licenses and put them in positions of trust and authority.

[marmar]

12. Agreed.

[MercutioATC]

14. For THIER financial health, it is ABSOULUTELY the bank's responsibility....

...however, the lender owes nothing to the borrower. The "bank" is a corporation with a board of directors who have absolutely ONE duty...to provide the maximum gains for their shareholders. If that perceived gain comes in the form of approving a lot of marginal loans that the board knows might well default, they're still doing their job.

If their bets miss, they're responsible to their shareholders....but they bear absolutely NO responsibility to the lendee.

[Hello_Kitty]

27. And that attitude has done more to destroy this country

Than all the Carrie Prejeans and "irresponsible borrowers" and everyone else you castigate for not taking responsibility for themselves put together. You are technically correct about the responsibility of corporations to their shareholders. That's why the onus is on WE THE PEOPLE to hold them accountable. But oh my heavens, we simply can't impede their ability to make buckets of money defrauding people! OTOH, that worthless POS who got suckered into a bad loan deserves everything he or she gets!

[arcadian]

5. Amazing how a naked woman can be so distracting.

It boggles the mind.

[H2O Man]

7. Gosh, I hope not.

I want to be able to respect myself in the morning.

[anonymous171]

8. Unrec'd because fuck the bankers.

:grr:

[MercutioATC]

18. Yeah, I expected that.

Never mind the fact that no banker held a gun to anybody's head.

The bankers are responsible for their decisions.....and the borrowers are responsible for theirs.


Period.

[AllentownJake]

24. No the bankers are not responsible for their decisions

If the bankers were responsible for their decisions than there would have been no TARP. The federal government would have taken over bankrupt financial institutions and than sold the pieces as they broke them up. That didn't happen.

So you are being a little dishonest with your crusade for "personal responsibility"

Blaming some homeowners is par for the course with the personal responsibility crowd but it totally ignores the majority of people who didn't lie but fell foolishly for deceptive marketing campaigns. Of course the personal responsibility crowd will also ignore the fact that the mortgage industry had psychologist and an army of lawyers on their side, when the average home buyer was simply a middle class shlub who just wanted to own a home.

[Hello_Kitty]

29. Half of subprime loans actually qualified for traditional loans. eom

[MercutioATC]

32. The correlary to the post I made above:

Just as banks bear the responsibility for the situation their decisions got them into, so do borrowers bear their own responsibility.


If you're a lousy credit risk and a bank loans you money, the bank is responsible for ITS losses......but you are responsible for YOUR losses. It's ridiculous to blame a bank for YOUR loss if they made a loan you couldn't repay.

[AllentownJake]

34. That is true if we were living in an honest society

Where the onus was on the bank and it's marketing agents to provide easily understandable documents and there were restrictions on the type of materials and marketing they could provide to consumers when making a loan.

Let us be clear here, people were lied to by the marketing agents of the banks and the banks new what they were fucking doing. Do you think it is a good marketing strategy that during the late 90s till 2006 that banks were placing kiosks on every college campus selling credit cards to college students with zero earnings?

30 years ago we had strong regulation over credit, and our society was more stable for it, over the past 30 years, the banks have fought to strip every regulation they could.

[Hello_Kitty]

41. And yet, the banks get bailed out by taxpayers for their stupid decisions

While homeowners are left to twist in the wind. It's ridiculous to punish ordinary people with ruined credit and homelessness while rewarding banks with bailouts and bonuses. It's worse than ridiculous, it's sadistic.

[Hello_Kitty]

30. But the bankers got bailed out and the borrowers didn't.

Nobody held a gun to their head and forced them to write subprime ARMs and bundle them into securities.

[MercutioATC]

33. You're absolutely correct. The banks should have been held as responsible as the borrowers,

Neither should have received tax dollars.

[regnaD kciN]

9. You can be irresponsible and hypocritical and still not be a bigot...

It doesn't mean that the irresponsible hypocritical bigot can't do a lot more damage than someone who's merely irresponsible and hypocritical.

[rug]

10. I laugh at her because her 8 tapes of masturbating are all over the internet.

Most of us are more discreet.

[MercutioATC]

21. Most of us may be less prolific, yet most of us still seek to blame others for our mistakes.

That's the point.

1 or 100, she's saying "I take full responsibility" while not taking ANY responsibility...which is what most of our population does.

[tranche]

11. I was thinking the same thing as I was masturbating on tape earlier today.

[jesus_of_suburbia]

13. "Prejean isn't loathsome because she's a homophobe" WRONG

"She refuses to accept responsibility for her actions"


What is so wrong about her actions? Besides the fact that she's a fucking hypocrite Christian.






If a progressive made a sex tape for his/her significant other, I'd doubt you'd hear as much bashing here. It's the fact that she doesn't want to give ME rights because her religion tells her it's wrong. Well her religion also thinks what she did was wrong.


I don't think it's wrong... but I doubt you'll find many Christians who vote against gay marriage who don't think it's wrong (even though many of them do such things in private for someone they AREN'T married to).








And actually I do think all homophobes are loathsome. Along with all racists, sexists, classists, etc... There is ABSOLUTELY NO EXCUSE FOR BIGOTRY. These are not things one chooses (sexuality, race, gender, class).

[PSzymeczek]

19. She's loathesome because

she pretends to be something she's not. She pretends to be Little Miss Virginal, when she's as drrrty as the people she condemns. She lied about being Little Miss Virginal to get into the Miss California USA pageant. When she got caught in her lies, she claimed that she was being abused for her religion. That's why she's loathesome.

[Oregone]

15. bullshit: "she's loathsome because she's like everybody else"

I rarely ever masturbate on camera.


This girl is a fuckn trainwreck, and anything but ordinary. She was probably a product of overzealous psychotic tierra parents, but she is what she is and we can't even try to look away.

[MercutioATC]

25. Of COURSE you "masturbate on camera".

Everybody does.

We all do things that aren't socially acceptable, things we are maybe a little ashamed of...and there's nothing wrong with that.


The problem comes when we get caught and blame others for our decisions...and THAT'S not even even a huge societal issue unless everybody does it. The problem is that everybody DOES do it.

[AllentownJake]

26. So you are pissed off about 5000 years of recorded human nature?

You think this is something new in society? This has been going on since man first took up agriculture and a pig got loose because they forgot to lock the pen.

Pick up a fucking Bible. The first story in there is a man blaming a woman for his bad decision and a woman blaming a talking snake and a God who put a forbidden fruit in the middle of a Garden in reach and telling mankind don't touch that.

:rofl:

[MercutioATC]

35. Where did you get the impression that I was "pissed off" about human nature?

I appreciate that it's nature to avoid blame, but it has always been societally discouraged.

My observation was that avoiding responsibility for one's actions has become societally accepted...and even encouraged, at times.

[AllentownJake]

36. I'll take your analogy a step forward on where the blame goes using the Adam analogy

For Carrie, who is responsible for this media created mess of a person.

Is it Carrie, who grew up in a repressive fundamentalist Christian community, is young and obviously has some serious psychological issues, and has been catered to by our society her entire life because she is pretty. Is it the media, who will exploit this sad woman's disfunctioniality for financial gain, or is it the society overall who rewards the media by watching this shit and talking about it. In this situation more onus is put onto Carrie because she is making a financial gain by acting out, however the media bears a good brunt of the responsibility by marketing to the mob. Society as a whole has always liked scandal. The human nature thing.

For the homeowner, who is responsible.

Is it the homeowner who took a loan they fully didn't understand sold to them by someone who has been trained in sales, which in reality is psychology. Is it the sales agent who is making a living selling a dishonest product. Is it the financial institution who is creating the dishonest product and hiring and training the sales agent, or is it the government which failed in its job to regulate the types of financial products sold.

In this case, the government takes the highest blame because the government created a moral hazard where it allowed the conditions for bad behavior to exist and than turned around and failed to allow the bad behavior to punish the institution that financially benefited the most off the transaction.

[DJ13]

16. Were all plastic bodied diddlers?

[AllentownJake]

17. We have a society that discourages honesty

The reason people lied on their mortgage applications is because they were encouraged to, some of the times by the institutions that were issuing them the loans.

The reason that are politicians are dishonest is because they are discouraged from being honest. Being honest will cost you your office.

That being said, I disagree with your premise and don't see the moral equivalency. Carrie Prejean is an opportunist. She didn't plan out her moment at the Miss America pageant and when people came to her with offers of cash to go out and promote the angry desert sky God hates sex agenda she took it. At some level I'm sure being raised in a Fundie Church she believes her statement, just as Sarah Palin does, but it is secondary to her making money off the Fundie followers that is her primary goal.

Carrie was about promoting Carrie long before she met the Right Wing fundies, otherwise she wouldn't be Miss California to begin with.

[opihimoimoi]

20. The whole Nation does not video themselves masterbaiting their Hooks and sending

it out.....,

She is a confused person not yet matured

Not ALL are like her....only 77 %

[Toasterlad]

22. Like Greg Giraldo Said, We've Lost the Concept of Shame.

[blueamy66]

37. Not me.

Catholic educated, normal Arizona girl here....wouldn't think of doing anythihe she has done.

There is hope! :-)

[benld74]

38. SHE is NOT representative of ME or MY FAMILY

[dusmcj]

39. she's a lot better looking /nt

[liberal_at_heart]

40. It's not people's mistakes that bother me

It's when they hold others to a higher standard than they hold themselves to and the republican party does that a whole lot more than the democrats do. I didn't judge Rush Limbaugh when he became addicted to pain pills. Lots of Americans become addicted to pain pills. My husband became physically dependent on pain pills and had to take methadone to get off the pain pills. It's not the people that become ill and then seek help that bother me. It's the people that judge others who make the same mistake they made that bother me. Rush Limbaugh has always been tough on drug addicts saying they should go to jail but he didn't go to jail for his addiction. I think that democrats are more forgiving in general of democrats and even of republicans. I think it just bothers democrats when a republican messes up and then continues to judge others who make the same mistake they did. It's not that Carrie Prejean made a sex tape that upsets democrats. It's that she judges other people who have done the same thing more harshly than she judges herself. For me one of the things that bothers me the most about her is that she says that young girls should dress more modestly. She gets a boob job and parades half naked on a beauty contest and then judges our young women for not being modest. She is very hypocritical.

[Bluenorthwest]

42. Sorry pal, but I do not forgive any one of any political lable

For being a bigoted, hypocritical liar.For attacking my personal rights under color of a faith that is merely an affectation by the standards of that faith itself.
She's loathsome because she's a liar, in addition to being one who bears false witness. Because she is a bigot, and a hypocrite. And no, she's not like everybody else, not at all. If everybody was like her, we could not do business. She was doing business, you know. And she lied through the whole thing. I've never encountered anyone with that level of amorality coupled with stupidity. She came after Trump, while being in the wrong. Few are that stupid or self involved.
What sort of experience in life do you have with people in their early 20's entering into show business contracts? I have mountains, and I say Carrie is pretty unique. I've seen 19 year olds raised by heroin dealers conduct themselves with far greater integrity than did Christian Grandstander Carrie.
What's your premise based on? Anything concrete, financial, involving image and personal conduct and rights to various aspects of the project?
Just wondering.