Did you say anything in high school or college that embarrasses you now?

[milestogo]

I'm not talking about the usual teenage behavior. I'm talking about something that would look bad if you ran for office. I can think of a paper I wrote for a creative writing class that I wouldn't want public, not nothing else that is outrageous.

Obama haters have criticized Michelle for her views in a paper she wrote at Princeton.

Students are immature in high school and college but there are some signs of a person who is way out there.

[LisaM]

1. I read Michelle Obama's paper and the content

was just fine. The writing style needed some polish but it was well organized, factual, and written from the heart.

[brooklynite]

2. I disputed the idea that Jesus existed in a HS Religious Studies class...

Doesn't embarrass me in the slightest but would likely affect my electability, even in NYC.

[Aristus]

3. I wrote poetry so dark, people would have suspected me of planning a school massacre.

I would have been an emo kid, but even the other emo kids didn't like me. I would have been goth if we had had a name for it back then.

I was just a slightly ridiculous, malcontented misfit. How I ever had friends to talk to at the reunions is something of a miracle...

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

4. I was pretty stupid in high school and college,

like most kids, but I don't think there's anything in writing that would get me in trouble. I was generally forgettable.

[mercuryblues]

5. Yes

The thing is if a person continues the beliefs and behaviors into adulthood, they are personality traits. Not an embarrassing moment or a 1 off.

[Jonny Appleseed]

6. Yeah I started a trend of greeting people among our circle of friends where we greeted each

other with Nazi salutes. I was into that juvenile anti-pc shock value comedy (if you can even call it that) back in 9th grade. That was before the "let's play" fad started using that rhetoric in a legitimately dangerous way, in the early years of online gaming culture. I was probably among the communities that would later form the alt-right tbh.

It's not like there are any photos of me doing it, and it only lasted a month, but it earned me the "affectionate" descriptor of being a Nazi among certain groups of people (it didn't help that I was big into military surplus too). But I didn't make much of an impact generally throughout highschool. I was that kind of kid that pretends he's a druggie or alcoholic to seem cool.

But whatever. Got woke. No harm no foul. Gives me a unique perspective I suppose.

[Xipe Totec]

7. On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline... nt

[hunter]

8. Not any more than some of my posts here on DU have embarrassed me.

That plagiarist Gorsuch is a floating turd who needs to be flushed.

I knew plagiarism was unethical in kindergarten. It's something everyone should have learned in grade school.

In middle school the kids who copied out of the encyclopedia without attribution got an "F." Kid's who padded their papers with attributed excerpts learned that those words didn't apply to the total word count; an assigned thousand word paper had to be a thousand words they wrote.

If anyone wants to judge my output of embarrassing material, I quit high school in the mid-seventies and my writing output has been pretty consistent ever since. I've got plenty of stuff that's embarrassing. But it's all mine, I own it.

Nobody has ever accused me, even in jest, of being a fascist. At times I may be a gun grabbing left wing ranting lunatic, but I'm okay with that.

[Iggo]

9. A polished turd is still a turd.

[lpbk2713]

10. I am sure of it.

I don't dwell on it but there are those I occasionally hear
from who are more than glad to refresh my memory.

[no_hypocrisy]

11. I became a born-again Christian for one afternoon

in 1972. The most stupid decision made, bar none.

[milestogo]

13. Being born once is plenty.

[NCTraveler]

12. I think it really stinks that I don't feel I can run for office....

because of lessons I have learned from mistakes I have made.

[milestogo]

14. Trump's mistakes didn't stop him from running

and they didn't stop people from voting for him. Maybe we're in a totally new era where more dirt makes you more qualified.

[Coventina]

15. I said / wrote all kinds of stupid stuff in high school and my early college years.

If it ever went public, I'd be embarrassed, but shrug it off as stupid kid stuff.

[gratuitous]

16. But of course

I would also welcome the opportunity to discuss what I said or did at that time, how I feel about it now, and the personal journey I took from yesterday's embarrassment to today's sterling example of shining humanity. People who pretend they never made a mistake are immediately suspect to my mind, and those who stubbornly insist that they've never done or said anything wrong (cf. George W. Bush, Donald J. Trump) are to be shunned by all decent people.

[Solly Mack]

17. No, but my writings would be used out of context and by people with no

real understanding of where I was coming from, since they didn't see the world as I did.

I wrote a paper about the law and it's application to those who had no say in creating the law. That paper would offend right-wingers, some men, and some white people.

My saying this will probably still offend some people.

I said nothing mean or hateful. I spoke a truth some people don't want to hear and can't relate to because they did have a say.

Besides, I am a tad bit too blunt to ever hold office. You have to have a tactfulness that holds up to constant bullshit that I do not possess. After a while, I always blow.