[Bill Engvall] When did shrapnel become a fashion statement? [/Bill Engvall]
Then clearly state what you mean, since it’s not clear, to me at least. If there are alternatives to slamming back with body type insults (such as the example given of ‘fat fuck’) if the politician in question starts it, are you good with doing that or do you feel justified in firing back on the same level since that’s what they did? Yes? No? Depends? Feel free to clear this up so I don’t have to imply or seems to anymore.
But *where *would we find a place to discard such a thing?
I have to say, having brought all of this up, that I’ve taken a look through trying to find examples of the sort of thing that could fall under this, and I can’t find any, even in an anti-Trump thread in Elections.
So, erm, as you were.
Here we go with my original statement that you are having trouble with:
(bolding mine)
How the hell are you turning that into any variation of “It is o.k. to insult someone if they do it first”?
edited to add: And you don’t have to imply or “seems to”. If you have trouble understanding something, you always have the option not to say anything at all.
Yes? No? Depends? You are, again, asking me why I interpret things the way I do instead of, you know, just answering the question. Let’s just say I’m an idiot and can’t read and am asking you, now, for clarification. So…clarify. Yes? No? Depends?
I read your post as XT did. It’d be helpful if you could give an example of how you think someone could address the sort of hypocrisy you’re talking about, in order to clarify.
Interesting. The whole shebang started because of some conservative complaining about how mean libruls are to Trump, citing instances of calling Trump “Cheeto”, “overweight”, “eats junk food”, and so on. But if these things aren’t actually happening, it’s a non-issue, except that people shouldn’t lie in ATMB about what’s happening elsewhere on the board.
If it is happening, maybe we should look at specific cases.
The one example I could find (which I won’t link, because it’s hardly fair) was a reference to “The Orangutan In Chief”. By far the huge majority of references to Trump that i found called him Trump. Or Donald.
I didn’t look through all the threads, and I didn’t look in the Pit.
Your “Yes? No? Depends?” queries do not pertain to the clear statement I made, and I do not wish to crudely reword my statement until it somehow fits whatever point you are trying to make.
If a politician says something that is hypocritical, then it should be permissible to point out how it was hypocritical. This can certainly be done without resorting to crude insults, don’t you think?
It does seem childish to insult people’s appearance. As much as it might be fun to mock Hitler for his mustache, there are much more substantive critiques you can make of the man. Same with Trump. His hair and his weight are the least of my concerns with him.
What forum was it in?
What if he lies about his health and weight? Is that of concern, or should that be off-limits as well?
Elections, in the Trump’s legacy thread.
If he lies about his health and weight, the fact that he has lied should be called out, and I have no problem with that.
And if he constantly remarks on the unattractiveness of people that he doesn’t like? Is his hypocrisy on the table for discussion?
I think you could certainly call him out for his remarks saying that people he doesn’t like are unattractive.
Calling it hypocrisy is a value judgement on your part at that point, though, because you’re coming from a point of view that he’s an ugly man, and that would be the sort of comment I don’t see as necessary.
So:
- I can’t believe Trump has been saying those things about Hillary! He’s got no fucking right to bring her looks into this, whatever he thinks about them!
Would be fine but
- I can’t believe Trump has been saying those things about Hillary! His own face is so ugly that when he was born, the midwife slapped his mother!
Would not.
Yup, and I don’t see a satisfactory one anywhere in this thread. Barring discussion of any aspect of physical appearance (choice or not) is far too restrictive - we can easily do a reductio ad absurdum - if someone has a swastika tattooed on their forehead we can’t discuss it? And trying to figure out exactly where to draw the line would just create endless bickering.
I think a more robust approach, which the board is already following and enhancing with more stringent modding of misogyny, is something along the lines of the Suspect Classification concept.
(I link for the concept, not implying that we should align ourselves precisely with what U.S. jurisprudence considers a suspect class)
In other words, we should not be trying to set standards that create perfect symmetry and consistency based solely on abstract ideas. A key factor in how strictly something is modded should be if someone is being attacked or marginalized due to membership in a class that has been subject to historical discrimination.
In that light, we should not seek to ban discussion of haircuts altogether, whereas in certain misogynistic contexts it might be inappropriate. But I wonder if the mods should make a decision on the more specific question of whether fat shaming should be banned or at least strongly discouraged? It’s a controversial one because more often than not it is a choice; but that doesn’t diminish the impact upon those for whom it is not.
I don’t see why it should be, since it’s no more acceptable for a beautiful person to mock ugly people than it is for an ugly person to do so.
Lots of reasons, most of which occurred to me within .02 seconds of reading the OP.
What about an ugly person mocking the looks of a person generally considered “beautiful”?
“Who’s looks like a pig now, you mud-covered bitch?!” wouldn’t be acceptable? Fuck that world; it would suck to live in.
Also, who would get to decide if something was an insult or not? Would jokes be out of bounds if they referenced a person’s body or looks in any way?
And why in fuck should actual choices be out of bounds? That dead Tribble on Trump’s head doesn’t have to be there: he likes it. That’s an example of what many consider poor judgement, and I see no reason not to mock poor choices that other people make. What other choices that people make would we not be allowed to mock? No more ripping on people who eat Haggis, amirite? Better just cornfield any discussion of lutefisk, eh.
What about that? People can’t control how intelligent they are; could we no longer argue that Sarah Palin is as dumb as a fucking rock?
The OP is a solution in search of a problem. It’s stupid as fuck; a moment’s thought should make that obvious IMO. Hell, the person who started the ddamned thread even came back and said “Golly I was wrong; this isn’t actually even happening let alone a problem”.
The OP proposes a rise in the moderated civility bar. I would support that as part of a more general policy of raising civility here. In other words, I oppose the proposal. To the extent that there are issues on this board, this is a smaller one.
I also don’t want to be stripped of a particular rhetorical tool, but that’s pretty secondary. I can adapt.
Generally speaking, I think there are a wide span of behaviors that don’t deserve moderator attention, but do deserve greater policing and social sanction by members of this message board. Though to be honest, I’m not convinced that the OP has a compelling example of this.
All the same, this is a reasonable ATMB discussion topic. Tip of the hat towards the OP. Hijack: I wonder whether it could be shaped into a GD thread. I have in mind something like, “In practice, how bad is body shaming relative to other obnoxious behaviors when directed at males?” I tacked on the gender qualification because I think there are separate (though interesting!) issues for the female gender.
There’s a lot of that in ATMB, in case you haven’t noticed. Trust me on this: the moderators have. The silver lining is that these threads prompt interesting conversations within the study of Rhetoric, a discipline that is under-researched IMHO.
You’ve got a huge-ass list of questions, Snowboarder. Fortunately, they’re all trivially easy to answer. This isn’t rocket science.
…well, yes. That would suck. That wasn’t the question, though; of course I’d think that was an obnoxious thing to do.
Mods.
If the point of the joke was to make fun of someone’s body or looks, yup.
Given that that’s not a question about looks, it’s not part of this thread.
That’s just a bunch of useless anger.