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Politics : Actual left/right wing discussion -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jim S who wrote (4670)	11/13/2006 12:40:07 PM
From: TimF	Respond to of 10087

Certainly not tolerant of conservatives. I agree. It can be hard to measure tolerance because there are so many things that you might be tolerant of, and how do you even measure them all, let alone come to some consensus about how to weigh the results you measure. "Comparative tolerance measurements" might be totally useless in many cases. You might be able to clearly tell massively tolerant from massively intolerant, but in between it can be hard. I do agree with you that many liberals think of themselves as more tolerant than they really are. To them tolerance gets defined as "tolerance of difference sexual orientations and practices", or "tolerance of liberal ideas" or "tolerance of third world countries", or perhaps "tolerance of drugs." Those ideas are connected to wider idea of tolerance but they aren't the whole package. To my knowledge, they are the only major city in the nation that has completely outlawed the 2nd Amendment I mentally put that in one of the other categories. "Love of Freedom", and replied - "San Francisco probably does have a lot of love of freedom, if that freedom is exercised in certain ways, but it doesn't have any kind of across the board love of freedom." But I suppose it could be labeled as "tolerance for guns" or "tolerance for gun owners" as well, if so its one more thing that San Francisco isn't particularly tolerant of.

To: Jim S who wrote (4670)	11/13/2006 12:45:54 PM
From: one_less	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 10087

"Tolerant of what? ... Fat ====================================================== SAN FRANCISCO Fat acceptance group celebrates living large 5-day convention opens at SFO hotel Peter Fimrite, Chronicle Staff Writer Thursday, August 11, 2005 There is at least one place in the Bay Area this week where it is perfectly acceptable, even desirable, to be fat. The 400 or so people attending the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance convention in San Mateo are determined to increase that number. The annual convention is an attempt to empower those who have endured fat jokes, bullying, job discrimination and so many "your face is so pretty, if only..." comments that they are ready to scream. "People need to accept who we are," said Carole Cullum, co-chair of NAAFA and an organizer of the five-day convention, which ends Sunday at the Marriott San Mateo/San Francisco Airport Hotel. "It is important to give us rights, to give us acceptance, because we are part of what this country is made of. We are little bits of the whole, and we have to be included." Those attending the convention came from all over the United States -- including Alaska -- and Great Britain. Conventioneers, mostly women, are attending seminars and workshops on everything from raising fat children to fat sex. The general consensus seemed to be that dieting is bad and that it is possible to be fat and fit. One of the seminars, called "body liberator's camp," provided sashes and a merit badge to 13 very large women and one skinny man. At one point the whole group wiggled body parts to a version of the hokey pokey culminating in a group shout of "body liberation!" Another session about setting boundaries turned into somewhat of a gripe session. Doctors, according to the group, almost always attribute health problems to a fat person's weight, and nobody ever seems to understand the connection between girth and genetics. "There are a number of people who are fat who don't overeat," said Ruth Ann Thomas, 48, of Sunnyvale. "You would be amazed about how much I don't eat." Fat rights are especially important now because of a national furor over childhood obesity, according to organizers. There has been a 300 percent increase in the rate of U.S. children who are either overweight or obese in the past three decades, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. The U.S. Surgeon General has identified obesity as "the fastest growing cause of disease and death in America." But Cullum and others at the conference insist the health risks associated with obesity may have more to do with yo-yo dieting than weight. They argue that the $30 billion a year diet industry has an economic interest in making fat people second-class citizens. The lack of men at the conference was, according to the few men present, a clear indication of how society unfairly discriminates with regard to size. "Men do not face the same kind of prejudice," explained Charles Crandall, 43, who is married to Thomas. "Women are often judged by what they look like, and men are judged by what they do, the size of their wallets. For that reason women feel more of a need to bond with others in the same situation." "This is important to my wife, and because it is important to her, it is important to me," Crandall said. "I am here because I want people to see that I am proud of Ruth Ann. I am not ashamed to be with her, and I love her."