Crafty, that hurts my feelings! Be more sensitive!

I just watched the whole thing; it's very funny; but the subject isn't very funny at all. The vast majority of people suffering through this sort of pernicious swill don't have the luxury of standing up for themselves. If even people who are wealthy and/or powerful can be destroyed in an instant for publicly expressing an opinion that conflicts with Al Sharpton's, why should the clerk at Avis with 3 kids risk calling bullshit?

I saw their recent show on environmentalism, which I thought was both entertaining and fairly good.

I enjoyed Orin's turn on Penn &Teller where they referred to him as an "asshole" more.

Most attitudes beyond subservience are a luxury.

Attitudes beyond subservience are a necessity.

When you're working at Burger Dork, you shut up and do your job and collect your check.

If you work at Burger Dork, assuming you are a low-level line worker, you are on your way to getting fired anyway, because either you are too good for the place, or you're such a minimal worker that the job is a challenge for you. Self-esteem is an automatic fail in most entry-level positions, but that doesn't mean self-esteem is the problem. The only way you prove you're worth more is to show that you think you are.

You don't get to have opinions and principles and standards.

You have to have opinions and principles and standards. And boy, doesn't your comment say a mouthful about how you live.

It's only when you move up into a position where you can't be easily replaced that you can start tentatively saying what you actually think.

On the contrary. It's only by showing yourself to be a more valuable person, a person of character and honor who can be trusted to adhere to principles, a person who can be trusted, a person with ethics, that you can move up into a position of trust and responsibility.

Five years ago I was the secretary for four rotten-to-the-core commercial real estate brokers in Houston. I put up with them for a soul-crushing two years before I finally woke up and realized I couldn't take their constant lies to clients, backstabbing of each other, and contempt for my position anymore. I sent a laundry list of their horrible, unethical practices to the home office, called a meeting, told them politely but sternly that I was resigning and why, and left with no regrets.

Six months later I was in a position that would lead, in three years, to a position making more than twice as much, in the IT department, as a trainer, flying all over the world.

I'm going to Dubai in September, the month of Ramadan. My company does not offer "sensitivity training," and I would not ask for it. Instead, I signed up for an online Muslim forum, told them matter-of-factly I was an American atheist, and asked how to best conduct myself professionally in the Emirates during the religious holidays. The ladies there are sweet and kind, and they respect me for sticking to my principles and standards, and I respect them for sticking to theirs. I guess it's just obvious to the more decent sorts of people.

Eighteen years ago, I was homeless. If being a secretary to "rotten" people is your example of hardship, you don't know what hardship is.

Twenty years ago, I too was homeless. I escaped a violent relationship where I was beaten and raped and not allowed to leave the house. The social workers at the battered womens' shelter took my son away because I was suicidally depressed. Then when I no longer had my baby, I was no longer eligible to stay there, so they kicked me back out on the street. But I don't play that card. I consider it shameful and evil. You apparently think I should revel in it, as you do in yours. I wonder why you think I never truly suffered... maybe it's because I'm now fairly productive and happy? What kind of maniac are you?

Besides, what sort of badge of honor is that? Did I really have to admit to that horrible period in my life? Suffering is suffering. Everyone's pain hurts, my friend, not just your own, and not just that of whatever flavor-of-the-month cause that happens to have got your attention lately.

It's only when you have a reasonable assurance that your access to these things will not be interrupted that you can afford the time to even formulate an attitude of greater independence.

No, sir. It was only when I took on the job of taking care of myself that I was able to get back on my feet. Nobody came to "rescue" me, and that's something I simply do not expect out of anyone, ever. Why should anyone be more interested in me than I am in myself? Except for posturing, contemptuous blowhards like you who think I should have stayed in my God-ordained picturesquely humble and deprived place of despair until the world miraculously gave me permission to do better, that is.

I live in a world where certain people don't have the luxuries I do, and that doesn't make them lesser people.

Nor do I consider them lesser people. You, however, I'll make an exception for.

@Speedwell: "You apparently think I should revel in it, as you do in yours."

I certainly think you should understand that when one is actually starving, the moral question of whether it is okay to steal food becomes rather irrelevant. The person who doesn't understand hardship argues that you always have some other option, you just have to be patient and creative; it doesn't even cross his mind that actual physical starvation impacts brain function. He's thinking in terms of saying "I'm starving" when you feel like your stomach might actually growl if you don't eat in the next hour or two.

"Did I really have to admit to that horrible period in my life?"

No. It's a luxury. You get to pull it out when you want to, and leave it put away when you don't. Nobody made you tell that story; you chose to tell it. You clearly believe you will get some benefit from it.

Note that my account simply says I was homeless, while yours is filled with emotional button-pushing about the injustice of it all. You have invested much more effort in presenting your account in the desired context than I have; I provide a simple fact, and you provide a carefully constructed romance. Whether the events are true or not, your account fictionalises them. You don't want to provide information; you want me to think what you believe is proper to think about your account.

And this is a luxury. There are things that you require - food, water, shelter - and things that you desire. Within the field of "desire", people place little tags that say they "should" have certain things. Running water. Electric light. Refrigeration. A car. The right to stand up for what one believes. But simply saying one "should" have these things doesn't change the simple reality that they are luxuries, and belong only to those who care enough about them to pay the necessary price.

"Except for posturing, contemptuous blowhards like you who think I should have stayed"

I don't think that at all, and I never said anything of the sort. Some people don't have the luxury of standing up for themselves. Until they have a reasonable sense that they can afford that luxury, they won't do it. Your situation is a perfect example of how basic economic principles apply to non-monetary transactions: the actual cost of the status quo increased beyond the anticipated opportunity cost of the luxury.

And your argument is a perfect example of how a word like "subservience" can have all kinds of baggage attached to it without any intention on my part of carrying that baggage. That's YOUR baggage, and I'll thank you to take it back and go on your merry way; you may freely exercise the luxury of considering me a lesser person as you do it.