Okey-dokey. As requested in this thread (and by private messages, too), I hereby present the liberal equivalent to my other poll. The mirror image of that poll’s rules apply here:
I want to hear from liberals. Conservatives, please don’t respond. And PLEASE don’t make this a political debate. This is for stating your intent, not a place to expound on your reasons for it.
Thank you!
No; they came up with it. The main reason it’s considered derogatory isn’t because of “teabagging”, it’s because they are such a bunch of greedy ignorant idiots. If they’d been smart, competent and statesmanlike there would have been a bit of snickering and then everyone would have forgotten the reference. People aren’t thinking “teabagging”, they are thinking “get your government hands off my Medicare” and them taking the economy hostage. In other words, it’s only an insult the way “Republican” is an insult to someone who despises Republicans.
It’s hard to answer, because frankly if I call someone a Tea Party member I’m not complimenting them much either. I don’t object to the use of “teabagger” but tend to avoid it to keep from stupid hijacks on the subject of “It’s insulting!” “But they used it first!” etc etc.
But I’m pretty sure anyone still using the term is intending it to be derogatory.
Can’t it be insulting and their own word?
I said yes, but I disagree about the part ‘when I use it…’ because I don’t think I use it.
The juvenile inside me giggles when he hears it, though.
I can’t say I’ve ever used the term, but I wouldn’t consider it an insult, especially if it was used to describe someone proudly waving a teabag around. I mean, what else are you supposed to call them?
I’ve used the term once on these boards, and in was in the context of a post where i was definitely insulting the Tea Party.
While they did create the term themselves, i don’t think that negates the possibility that it can also be used as an insult.
I checked the first option in the poll.
I don’t use it, but yes, it’s an insult 99% of the time; 99.9% when online.
I didn’t know it meant anything bad; I thought that’s what they called themselves, like if you’re in the Tea Party you’re a tea bagger. How the hell should I know different?
I’m not really up on the dirty word lingo these days.
Yes. If a serious media personality like Anderson Cooper (who I respect) used terms like ‘teabagger’ I would find it biased. A term like ‘tea partier’ or ‘tea party member’ is unbiased in my view.
I use it as an insult, though I try to be more civil than that on this board. (Call me out on it when I’m less civil, m’kay?) I think there are threads on this board where you can see, in near real-time, the switch from the self-imposed “Tea Bagger” label by the anti-deficit protestors to the more network-TV friendly “Tea Party”. As I recall the anti-deficit crowd stuck with Tea Bagger for a long while after the - ahem - prior use of the term was widely publicized.
I think it’s a non-vulgar insult. It’s not “They routinely perform a certain lewd act.”. Rather, it’s “They’re so out of touch that they didn’t know that teabagging refers to a lewd act, and kept calling themselves teabaggers over and over while their detractors laughed at them.”.
I chose option 4, but on review, I probably could have chosen option 1 - although an option for “I don’t use the term, and I do think it’s insulting” would be nice, as the poll seems a bit biased without it. I don’t use the term now, but I do admit that I used it as an insult for a while shortly after the Tea Partiers started using it, with all snark fully intended, i.e. “hehe, those unsophisticated Philistines have no idea that they’re co-opting a sexual term.”
But the general tone and coarse nature of political discourse from both sides over the past couple years has convinced me that liberals have an uphill battle in winning over the American public - we saw average people roundly reject personal criticisms of Bush in the first few years of his presidency, but with Obama, folks seem all too ready to accept death panels, comparisons to Stalin and Hitler, and worse.
We could either throw the insults back in the opposition’s face, or we can start educating folks with facts instead of low invective. When we employ base insults and make broad generalizations about our opponents, regardless of how much we feel the other side does the same, we are losing our potential audience (I’ve been saying this a lot lately, but it feels I’m tilting at windmills sometimes). “They started it” doesn’t work on a fourth grade playground, and it won’t work in real life either.
The OP (the post right above yours) said, “PLEASE don’t make this a political debate. This is a place for stating your intent, not a place to expound on your reasons for it.”
You just can’t resist, can you?
Sorry. But most everyone else is also explaining their reasons why.
Gary, I should apologize - I perhaps got a bit too much into the personal motivations behind my decision, counter to your request. While I don’t think I was getting political, per se, in the spirit of the OP I fully retract everything after my first paragraph.
Just as a certain right wing radio commentator pronounces the legitimately descriptive term “liberal” with dripping derision as an insult, I proudly use “teabagger” to belittle and marginalize.
I absolutely use it with the intent to mock and deride. I’m not sorry, have no intention of apologizing or stopping and will continue to do so enthusiastically.
They still used it first, though.
ETA, I should add that I don’t really think of the sexual meaning when I say it, only the political meaning, but to me, the political meaning is more insulting than the sexual meaning. The fact that the word drives them nuts also serves to motivate me to use it.
I consider it to be both their own word but a definite insult when used by liberals. But any label can be used as an insult. It’s all in how you say it.
The time line linked to in the other thread,
a sign, apparently, provided by Free Republic,
Even being generous with the time (I.E. it’s hard not to believe that the protest “teabagging” was being discussed months before AfP announced the protest), there’s no way to read that that doesn’t include understanding the original meaning of “teabagging” . . . unless there was some fear that “Liberal Dems” where about to begin the mass mailing of teabags.
So, this,
but with a slight modification,
“They’re so out of touch that they didn’t know that teabagging refers to a lewd act, and kept calling themselves teabaggers over and over while their detractors and supporters laughed at them.”
CMC fnord!