Hank;

I have had some of my tattoos for over 20 years and I don’t regret any of them.  Yes, I had two tattoos covered up, they were homoerotic and there were some issues regarding that that I hadn’t considered.  All of my tattoos are covered when I wear a long sleeve shirt. 

I agree with you that history has shown that tattooing names has proven to not be a particularly good idea.  There are certain other types of tattoos that may also also prove to be problematic down the road; such as gang related tattoos, tattoos that are visible when wearing business attire, or my favorite; pornographic tattoos in areas that are not covered by swimming trunks.

By the way, nobody knows what chemicals are formed when tattoo ink pigments are vaporized by a laser.  Some tattoo inks contained metals such as cadmium, chromium, cobalt, copper, iron, lead, mercury, and nickel.  These metals are absorbed when they are broken down by the laser, how many of them are toxic?

Hank Fox: The difference between you and me is that I’m already there: Tattooing is silly. It’s low. There’s a large element of childish “Look at me, mommy!” rebellion in it. Most of the time – considering that the patterns are being chosen by kids just as dopey and unformed as I was at that age – it’s ugly.

All of this is merely your opinion—it is not some pearl of infinite wisdom being imparted. And for the record, I was 24 when I had my tattoos done—hardly just a kid.

But I can’t just say “Go for it, dude!” Because I’ll never think it’s pretty, or cool, or wise.

And someday, probably, neither will you.

Don’t be so sure.

patness- i know what you are saying about the jehovah witnesses, one came to my door and left me this pamphlet, it was talking about false religion. i thought that was interesting, it is an interesting religion that made more sense to me. im not converting or anything, just would like to read about it. i never ask god for anything. get it yourself, that is the only way it will happen.
i have 6 tattoos, one angel ironically, but i don’t regret any of them.

Don,

You have stated multiple times on this thread that you are arguing from knowledge and framing yourself in intellect or something to that effect.
    Do us a favor. Actually proof read some of your sentences. They are horribly structured.
    If you’re trying to project an aura of superior intelligence you should at least do so using english properly.
    Here’s just one example.
“So, go mess yourself up, I assume you are an adult?“
    The “So go mess yourself up.“ portion of that “sentence” is stand alone. The “I assume you are an adult?“ is a stand alone question. You’ve combined a statement and a question into a single sentence which doesn’t score you a great deal of Intellect Points here on “Let’s pretend we’re Smart Fellers.“
    Now I’m quite certain you can pick through my own writing here and find some flaws and areas that require improvement. I’m however not constantly ranting about my superior intellect and how I’m “coming from logic”. I’m not even sure that statement means anything.
    Your examples of tribal disfigurement as a way of creating beauty aren’t a very good analogy to use against tattooos either. Most of those youngsters have no say in getting their front teeth bashed out or their genitals slit when reaching sexual maturity. They are traditional rituals which were probably started for less than beauty seeking reasons to begin with. Maybe the tribal leader lost his two front teeth in an accident and decided everybody would lose them so he wouldn’t be the only one looking all busted grillish.
    Most people who get tattoos do so willingly. I myself took 10 years to decide to get mine and only after I designed and drew them myself.
    At any rate fella….......you could seriously do with some cool lemonade and perhaps a mood altering drug or two to calm your nerves. You’re not making any sense and you’re nowhere near impressing upon us the idea that your intelligence or insight is above any of ours.
    I’m not sure why I bothered writing this. I think I’ll go take a shower and soap up my wonderful body art.
    Take care everybody. You silly bunch of mental half-pints. Bow down to Don and pay homage. Sacrifice a ring-tailed lemur and get jiggy wit’ it. bang the drums of war and eat some hot chicken wings. Peace out!
                        Mayo

Don,

Man oh man. I’m a glutton for punishment I guess.
    I couldn’t let this little paragraph slip by without comment.
“Yes, I read carefully the rest of the post to keep myself current with the religious BS, and it’s hardly worth my time to debunk, as it is nothing more than lies that are more god freaks and stupidity. If there was even one valid point to make, it certainly was not in the first sentence.“

    “it is nothing more than lies that are more god freaks”

    There’s another intellectual oddity of your Don. Lies that are god freaks. Lies are usually words, written or spoken. God freaks are people I’m going to assume in your mind. Are you saying that words are people with this sentence. Lies are actually little god freak people?
    I could understand if you had said “it is nothing more than lies and stupidity produced by god freaks”. That would have made some sense.
    For a guy that has claimed superior intellect so many times, one starts to wonder what your standards are as far as language and communication go.
    I’m all showered now by the way. The tricycles of good and evil (my tattoos) are clean and smelling like Axe body wash. I can now go buy myself some steaks for my birthday dinner tonight. I’m 35 people.
    I just turned 35 and all I got was a lousy argument about god freaks and coming from intellect right atcha!
                Mayo…..out

Les,

You’re still on my Thorsblot list.If you send me your new mailing address (you moved, right?) I’ll send you another wonderfully gaudy hawaiian shirt. You can pull my regular e-mail off of here someplace right? I’m sure you can. You’re a smart feller when it comes to these computer thingies.

Blimey, when I first came across this site I thought “hurrah! Intelligent debate; the perspective of our cousins across the pond; broadly secular views - whither my bookmark button?“. And then came Don.
Well, I’ve followed the posts and only two possibilities seem likely:
a)  It’s a parody
b)  He’s held in a secure facility wearing a coat that forces him to type with his nose.
Although he needs to work on his wit if it’s the former.
And why the tattoo phobia? A matter of choice for the individual, surely.  Although his endless posts suggests that he suffers from athazagoraphobia, poor chap.

Hank Fox writes…

I think Don has some points. I also think he expresses those points rather badly.

That is an understatement. Whether he has a valid point or not is, in my mind, overridden by his hypocrisy. Where as you were able to articulate your opposition to tattoos in a reasonable manner the same can not be said of Don and that’s my beef with him.

We look back on our lives and tend to think we’ve changed only in small ways, that we’re mostly the same people we always were. But I have the evidence on tape: sometimes we change DRASTICALLY over our lifetimes. So much so that we’d barely recognize – and might not even like – who we once were.

I can’t speak for anyone else, but I’m very well aware of how much I’ve changed over the years, particularly between the ages of 20 and 30, and I didn’t need a tape recorder to realize it. I often refer to my early 20’s as “my asshole years.“

My main view of tattoos is that young people, people who might well change radically from one ten-year-period to the next, are making “forever” decisions about a frivolous matter of skin decoration.

Some are, some aren’t. Not everyone who gets a tattoo is young. If I recall correctly my mother was in her 50’s when she got a small tattoo of a rose on her shoulder. It’s barely anything anyone would notice and is covered most of the time by her shirts and yet Don would have me believe my mother is an idiot?

Even among young people the decision to get a tattoo isn’t always an impulse decision. I know of many people who got tattoos in their youth who put a lot of time and consideration not only into what the tattoo would be, but where it would be and how they might feel about it in the future.

As I said before, my main reason for not having a tattoo is that I can’t decide on what I want to have permanently inked onto my body. Obviously I have given it a lot of thought, perhaps too much.

Those of you so defensive about tattooing, I know there’s a very high probability that some few years down the road, you’ll be on the other side of the argument. Regretting. Suffering the effects. Asking yourself, “What the hell was I thinking?”

Some people may come to that point, but not everyone will. Again I know plenty of older people who have tattoos and show no signs of regret. Hell, many are proud of them.

The difference between you and me is that I’m already there: Tattooing is silly. It’s low. There’s a large element of childish “Look at me, mommy!” rebellion in it. Most of the time – considering that the patterns are being chosen by kids just as dopey and unformed as I was at that age – it’s ugly.

For some people that may be true, but you’re over generalizing again. Some of the people that I know that have tattoos have never shown them to me. They got them for themselves and not as a means of drawing attention from others. Different people have different reasons for getting their tattoos. Some are certainly silly and foolish, but not all of them.

Incidentally the whole issue of them being a “permanent” decision may no longer be true. Scientists at Harvard University have developed an erasable tattoo ink:

The new ink is a safe, biodegradable pigment enclosed in tiny plastic polymer capsules that can only be broken down by a special laser. But it’s a much faster, easier process than traditional techniques, which often require a half-dozen laser treatments and thousands of dollars. “This will open the tattoo market up to a whole new group of people who might have hesitated before,“ said Martin Schmieg, president and chief executive officer of Freedom-2, the company that plans to introduce the new ink next year. He worked with R. Rox Anderson, a dermatology professor at Harvard Medical School, to develop it. “It’s permanent, yet erasable.“

It’s already received FDA approval although, ironically, some tattoo artists are balking at it because they feel it goes against the whole point of getting a tattoo: That it’s a life-long commitment.

Mayo, yes I did have to move. I’ll see what I can do about digging up your email to drop you a note. Thanks!

Hank wrote a well reasoned reply, mostly accepted by those with Tattoo’s even if they disagreed. He never actually said people should be stopped- jsut he didn’t think it was a wise idea.  The problem people had was Don screaming and shouting “I’ve seen things”.  Don- I’ve seen RTA’s- may I suggest you don’t drive out of respect for those people.  Oh, and learn to use the quote box- it will make your posts much easier.

To bring it back to thread (while cleverly linking with recent comments so it all looks seemless) Darwin said that all tattoo’ed gods were doomed to die, which is why he hated them so much.

Hello, Silvermute.  Yep- mostly they’re not bad for colonials. (Runs and hides)

To Mayo:

What can I tell you, enjoy your ugly tattoo, in my thoughts.  I never saw a tattoo that I liked, tattoos all remind me of ugly lamps shades that I would not buy one at Kmart even with a blue light special. 

Did anyone tell you, human skin is NOT paper, to scar it in the name of stupidity and ignorance, and then seek to justify the act; what can I tell you, the human beast really amazes me.

How about getting (making) a necklace with a medallion of some kind that you can take off. A ring to remind you of a message,  can work. How about a hair cut of a special kind, to show you belong to a particular sect, you could do that. How about cloths to say you identify with a particular ideology, could that work with you?

OH no, true dedication is to scar your body with tattoos as if you can make an improvement to yourself with an ink blotch. Whatever, mutilate yourself as you desire, personally, I am not impressed.

I should open a tattoo removal service. According to the way people change their minds, I could make a fortune.

By the way, Mayo thanks for the editing. Perhaps, the tattoo ink did not affect your brain.

Don

To LuckyJohon, you said:

“Most of us do the best with what we have…”

I don’t fault that statement.

Don

Frumpa said:

“Hi Don!

If you’re so concerned about us mutilating and disrespecting ourselves,why cant you have respect for others and thier choices?
I’ll tell you why shall I ? - You’re an arrogant angry little man and i’m sorry to dispute you but you have little to no reasoning ability.
But who the hell am I to judge you eh?“ 

Don:

Hello to you also. If people want to dump themselves in ink, slice and dice their face cheeks, mutilate male/female genitals in the name of medicine, then you want to say “all is a matter of perspective”—I have news for you.

Go as far as you want, and there is a remedy for stupidity in the USA courts of law by civil tort, statute, and constitutional authority.

Let a child show up in public, or private, with ink markings across their face, or body, because of parental influence, and I will see that parent, or guardian, rot in fucking HELL!

Jail IS NOT too good for the Stupid Evil Bastards that hurt a child with human made barbarisms, by influence,  or other wise.

There is no doubt, I have much work to do.

Don

To wrap up many post written to me, Don.

A person wants to do better, better to themselves, better to the ones they love, better to their community, better to the nation they live in, and NO doubt a long line will be formed of idiots, to stone to death any such person that makes a proclamation to do better.

I keep forgetting, people here cannot carry more than one thought, and never write at SEB a complex sentence.  Least someone here should show intellect, so you can run out in mobs and stone to death the same.

I’m NOT impressed by your stupidity.

Don

Don sneezed out the following bit of nonsense…

I keep forgetting, people here cannot carry more than one thought, and never write at SEB a complex sentence.

I don’t think you’re capable of forming a complex sentence, Don. You’ve certainly haven’t managed one as of yet.

I’m NOT impressed by your stupidity.

Funny. I was just thinking the same thing about you.

Go as far as you want, and there is a remedy for stupidity in the USA courts of law by civil tort, statute, and constitutional authority.

In reference to “Torts”

“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.“

Yeah Les, and your squid face (on the main board) as of lately, was very impressive.

As I said, I thought at one time getting rid of god beliefs, accordingly, the human mind would return to sanity. I’m wrong.  No doubt,I have much to learn, as I respond to one idiot post after another. Any a sane person would give up.

I should open a thread, “where is responsive authority in fact, and how do you know?”  I am thinking about it in context of this audience. I will let you know.

Don

KBG:

Go look up the word “tort”. If you can post here at SEB, you can use a on-line dictionary, encyclopedia, and many other resources.

Let me know what you find. I would enjoy talking about it.

Don

Don: If people want to dump themselves in ink, slice and dice their face cheeks, mutilate male/female genitals in the name of medicine, then you want to say “all is a matter of perspective”—I have news for you.

Then, as you do so often, you mentioned the law and then this:

Let a child show up in public, or private, with ink markings across their face, or body, because of parental influence, and I will see that parent, or guardian, rot in fucking HELL!

Don, mate, we were talking about age of consent people choosing to get a tattoo on their body - no mentioned of dipping the body in ink, cutting the genitals or even dicing their cheeks.
Then you go off about children and inked faces.
Most of us here would defend children against abusers with, if not our lives, our very loud voices.
I think you may have hinted that people getting tattoos are being influenced by their parent to do so.
With absolutely nothing to back me up I’d suggest that you’re wrong, wrong, wrong. Most people getting a tattoo these days don’t have a parent with a tattoo - you may be correct for the next generation.
Settle back, smoke a joint - 99% of us here are not evil unless, like GOPs, you equate liberalism with devil-worshippers.

Go look up the word “tort”. If you can post here at SEB, you can use a on-line dictionary, encyclopedia, and many other resources.

Let me know what you find. I would enjoy talking about it.

Don, I know what a tort is, I just don’t believe that you do.

Of course I don’t believe you know much of anything. You certainly haven’t shown off any knowledge here. Mostly you just ramble on in poorly formed sentences that no one but Reverend Jim could possibly understand and then throw out a bunch of random insults.

You keep telling people to go read a book. I’d be willing to bet that most folks here read a hell of a lot more than you do. How many books have you read this week, Don? I’m working on my fourth.

To KBG from Don:

Torts are civil wrongs, not statutes, nor state codes, but wrongs against persons, property, product liability, and negligence of one to another.

Torts are contract law,  of all kinds of contracts that are enforceable in fact by a court. I

ncluded in Torts is brutality to animals as punishable by court fines, penalties, and sanctions, and wild animal acts against persons IF you have responsibility of the animal. 

Torts are enforceable “rights” as one human against an other in a court of law that go back around the 15th’ century England, also called “common law”, as derived from the “common person” being the model to go by for justice, as such the Trail by Jury.

In Torts, there is NO jail time nor prison time,  but only fines,  sanctions, monetary restitutions, and restoring to the former state, as moving property lines, backed up with the authority of the courts,  that can NO less, call out the Sheriff, police,  federal marshals, and all other police powers, when needed, for enforcement after a court ruling.

In the USA, and in all of the western civilized world, Torts are civil codes, actions taken by one person against an other to a court of law to resolve an issue backed up with TEETH.  Tort litigation is the method and means for peaceful litigation as to what is right,  and what is wrong, where there is final authority, and enforceable authority.

Torts are NOT state criminal codes, as in criminal or statutory codes (laws) as only the DA (district attorney) can bring action. Torts are person-to-person remedies, NOT involving the state directly.

In the western civilized world, criminal statutes have been derived (have their basis) in “torts” or common law. When torts are codified by the state, they stop being torts as the offence is perused by the state and NOT person to person in civil litagtion.

YES, in the USA, the state can go after you,  and so can the person. Two separate trials, two separate,  and even conflicting rulings. Torts HAVE priority even if the codified laws should fail.
Well, that is a good start KBG.

Don

I have to say this KBG:

In torts, the standard of evidence is “by the perponderance of the eveidance”.

In criminal law, the standard is, “beyond a reasonable doubt”,  for conviction.

The State, in western law (USA) seeing it has the power to incarcerate, deprive freedoms, and even DEATH, has the greater burden of proof. If in error, in torts, weatlth can be regained, but FREEDOM and LIFE, can Not be regained. So the state has the greater burden of evidence.

Torts can only exist, the foundation of western society, where the populace is educated. If everyone is as dumb as a brick, then we have codes and statutes. Your choice.

Don

Did anyone else get the sense that, about nine posts back, Don was actually implying that body modification is against the law? We all know already that he knows jack shit about law (in spite of his apparent fixation with it), but fuck...

To LuckyJohn from Don:

You said, “Don, mate, we were talking about age of consent people choosing to get a tattoo on their body.”

Don:

In addition, adults have children, and adults are influential to children. If a person cares not for himself or herself, then think about the kids.

We do NOT live in a vacuum LuckyJohon. Though I respect a person’s right to mutilate himself or herself, as an adult, there are limits. As to the mutilations of male genitals at birth and even more so,  I see no difference than slicing and dicing the human body, dump in ink, as to what is subjective abominations of the dark ages.

I can see this thought so plain, “You honey, look like crap, but you have a nice tattoo and other body disfiguring by choice.”

And you call me mean? What else does a person say when admiring a tattoo and other body amputations and hole pokings?

Have you NO standards,  man?

Don

Don’s comments have been getting consistently funnier lately. I wonder if he can keep the amusement level up?