It’s going to be teabagging day for the right wing and they’re going nuts for it. Thousands of them whipped out the festivities early this past weekend, and while the parties are officially toothless, the teabaggers are full-throated about their goals. They want to give Obama a strong tongue-lashing and lick government spending………..snip….if you’re planning simultaneous teabagging all around the country, you’re going to need a Dick Armey.
The truth is, the teabaggers were nothing more than a pack of grifters, out to rob their base blind while convincing them that poor people who’d recently lost their homes were the ones that were really to blame for their misery.
The IRS was right to investigate them, it was probably the most righteous thing they’ve ever done. And the Republican Party was stupid to make that political and shut it down, it was the first stupidest thing they did.
But they paved the way and became the party of grift. A couple of right-wingers saw it coming but they were universally ignored.
Now, even though the party has a massive fund-raising apparatus and rakes in tons of money from the rubes, they hire money-launderers as campaign managers….Manafort…Parscale….and end up broke at the times when it really counts.
Their incompetence is delicious, I love watching them self-destruct. But I only think this because I spend all my time in a liberal bubble, they’ll say to the woman that just cited The National Review and Right Wing News,
At this very moment, right now, WNYC (my local public radio station) is broadcasting New York Attorney General Letitia James’ announcement of the results of her investigation, which found that Governor Cuomo did indeed harass multiple women.
I’m not sure Cuomo is going to be “going strong” much longer.
No I am saying it’s not a “global categorisation”. I’m saying that the concept of “offensive” only means a word is offensive to some. The idea that it is a claim that everyone always finds a term offensive is a straw man.
You might want to actually look in a dictionary before making such claims.
Words can and are marked as vulgar, and indeed offensive.
And, very obviously, the standard for categorizing as such is not that everyone always finds it offensive, which would be absurd.
So note that even if you had been correct about this, it still in itself would have done nothing to support your position. Let’s say that a dictionary says that “fucked” in the usage “fucked up” is vulgar. Do you think they are making the claim that all people always agree that this is vulgar?
For that group, yes. Their meaning and usage may be wholly inoffensive for them and that isn’t changed by the fact that someone else may take offence.
More precisely I’d say that some groups will take offence even when what is being said is clearly being done from a different context, culture and understanding. The fact that one group is taking offence does not magically confer an “offensive” label on what has been said.
I stated previously that it is not necessarily possible for either side to pin an objective offensive/non-offensive label. They can only state what it means to them. Neither is right, neither is wrong.
“generally offensive” to me suggests a pretty unanimous understanding that the only usage and purpose would be to cause offense. I don’t know how many of those words exist.
One would be using the term as a slur, and it is considered socially unacceptable.
I would expand on this to say that calling someone “gay” (or their actions, clothes, hair, etc) is generally meant to indicate that someone is not masculine enough. By extension, that they are weak or “not normal”. Again, it’s a very loaded slur. I agree that it should not be a slur if one views homosexuality as fine. What happens is that people who have no issue with homosexuality don’t use it as a slur, and those who do, do. It reveals more about the user than the recipient.
As opposed to calling someone a pustule*, for example.
OK, I’m fine with that. That also means the concept of inoffensive would be that the word is inoffensive to some. Are you fine with that?
I did, in your cites the definition of “ass” is incomplete (i.e. the obvious non-offensive version is not there) and the one for “crap” has other entries included that are not marked as offensive.
No. and placing “offensive” against a word usage in a dictionary does not mean that all other usages of that word are offensive.
I’m not the one who brought up dictionary definitions remember. They are not a great source for deciding all the ways in which words can be used. They are a naturally lagging record of language and don’t necessarily cross cultural boundaries very well.
I don’t think this is quite right. It’s about 99.9% right.
I do not believe that there is anything fundamentally wrong with being homosexual. I don’t believe there is anything even a little bit wrong with being homosexual.
But if I call someone “gay,” or say that there is something “gay” about something that person is saying or doing, and I intend to insult that person, I’m doing a couple of things.
First, I’m assuming that the person will be insulted by being called “gay,” which probably means that they think there is something wrong with being homosexual. And I’m playing on that, and therefore kind of reinforcing that.
And then I’m insulting all the people who are homosexual, because I’m legitimizing the belief that being homosexual, or “gay,” or “queer,” is in fact an inferior and deviant state of being.
So “gay” can be, and sometimes is, insulting even though there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with being homosexual, and even if the utterer of the word doesn’t believe there’s anything wrong with being homosexual.
I agree in theory - but of course then you [general, hypothetical you] are the sort of person who is willing to perpetuate this view of homosexuality for the sake of insulting someone, which is pretty shitty. But shitty for a different reason. Like if you aren’t racist, but you use racism to get votes.
Right. One could quibble over whether these people are racists/homophobes or just garden-variety jerks who are willing to exploit racism/homophobia but I think this is a distinction without a difference.
I think it’s simpler than that: nobody self-identifies as “stupid.” If you call something stupid, nobody’s going to overhear you and say, “Hey, I’m stupid, and what you just said was offensive to me!”
I don’t know about that. I know for a fact that there are plenty of people who are more intelligent than I am. There might even be one or two here at SDMB. I’m certain that many, probably even most, people here have attained higher levels of education than I have.
So, most days, I kind of do think of myself as “stupid.” Especially at the end of the day, when I’m looking back at what I’ve done, and the conversations I’ve had with people, and the things it took me all day to understand.
Doesn’t mean I like it any better when someone calls me “stupid.” Even if I think they’re right. Because I know they’re trying to insult me. Which means they are insulting me.
This is a lovely example of how one uses a slur. And that’s why “gay” and “retarded” used as insults are slurs.
(“Retarded” is still pretty close to being a euphemism for people who have intellectual disabilities. “Idiot” used to be such a word, but hasn’t meant that in my lifetime. “Stupid” was never used to describe an actual class of people.)
Some slurs are allowed in the pit, but even here, they reflect badly on the person who uses them.
Yes, but do you care particularly if someone else is called stupid? If I say, “I hate stupid people,” do you assume I’m talking about you? Compared to, say, “I hate Catholic people?”
I’m not Saintly_Loser; but while I wouldn’t assume you were talking about me, I would assume that you were expressing an opinion I think is obnoxious; at least, if you were that general about it.
If you said “I hate stupid people who don’t use their turn signals”, for instance, I’d assume you were calling the behavior stupid, rather than declaring your disdain for everyone you thought to be less intelligent than you are.
If you call me stupid, I’m going to be insulted. Even if I think I’m stupid, and that you’re right that I’m not the smartest guy in the room, I know you meant to insult me. And that, in and of itself, regardless of the words used, is insulting.
If I have a degree from a community college (which I do), and someone insinuates (or says outright) that a community college degree is something that less intelligent people can perhaps aspire to, that maybe, if they try hard, they can have this fucking participation trophy for stupid people, goddamn right I’m going to be insulted. Again, even if the person uttering the insult is right.
And if you call someone else stupid, I might or might not care. I’ll care a lot if you’re punching down (as they say). If you call someone who didn’t get a chance to graduate from high school “stupid,” I’ll turn into a white knight. Perhaps not a rational response, but that’s what will happen. If you call someone with a graduate degree from Harvard “stupid,” I’ll probably figure that he can take care of himself.
And saying “I hate Catholic people” is just plain bigotry. I mean, does anyone disagree? Why is that even part of the conversation here?
Yeah, I think we can take it as a given that directly insulting people is insulting to them. That’s pretty obviously not what I’m talking about.
Also super not relevant to my point.
Because I’m trying to illustrate the difference between personal and group insults, and how group insults are insulting to everyone who identifies as part of the group, and not just the person directly being referred to. “Gay” is a group that a lot of people self-identify with, like “disabled” or “Catholic.” “Stupid” is not.
I’m certain that many, probably even most, people here have attained higher levels of education than I have.