Most of the really stupid “leftist” stuff that I hear always seems to come from college students and college employees (staff, professors). You know, children who have just wandered out into the world, discovered bad things and are trying to make it not exist through the same “Mommy, make the bad man stop saying bad words” thinking of a coddled child. The older ones (professors, etc) are really just the same people, who never left the cocoon.
Of course, that’s just a wild-assed generalization on my part, but seriously, I never seem to hear that kind of bullshit (Seriously, “micro-aggressions”??? Grow the fuck up!) among any of the liberal types I know or am generally aware of. I certainly don’t walk that path myself, and I’m pretty damned liberal.
The hateful hate of the right, on the other hand, seems to come equally from a large number of them.
No, it’s that the right wing has inflated what they mean to something beyond what they are. Micro-aggressions are just smaller bits of bigotry that add up. It’s the equivalent of the kid who’s “not touching you” over and over. Political correctness, as has been pointed out on this board several times, is just basic politeness, and not unnecessarily offending people.
Other examples often used: trigger warnings are just content warnings, and we’ve had them for decades. Safe spaces are just places where people go to get away from the shittiness of the world for a while–and I’m sure you have a bunch of those yourself. No one freaks when a website says “no bigotry.” But if they say “this is a safe space,” people go apeshit. But they mean the same thing.
Yes, college students sometimes take these good concepts too far. And the right wing then uses that as proof that this is what all left-leaning people think.
But don’t go the other way and throw out the baby with the bathwater. Do the liberal thing and listen to other points of view instead of just discarding them.
If you’re any age at all, and you repost that astoundingly facile and stupid aphorism, you need to spend the rest of the day eating several bags of dicks. It’s fucking stupid, and all the cleverness it might once have had was wrung out over a century ago. Stop.
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BTW, that is an epigram of uncertain origin but certainly did not originate in any form with Winston Churchill or Georges Clemenceau. One possibility is Francois Guizot (1787-1874): “Not to be a republican at 20 is proof of want of heart; to be one at 30 is proof of want of head.” He mean “republican” as opposed to monarchist. A Frenchman of his time could I suppose be forgiven for souring on republicanism, considering what the French Revolution turned into.
Pardon me. I meant to say “aphorism,” as it is one of those lovely pieces of bullshit that seems awfully truthy but does not, in fact, express a truth.
You know who cries and whines about micro-aggressions all day long? The right wing. Only they don’t call them micro-aggressions. But seriously, what would you call getting upset because somebody didn’t say “Merry Christmas” to you? What would you call believing that Christians are a persecuted minority in America? What would you call getting upset because a flaming queen minced along in front of you?
If just seeing a flaming queen prancing about makes you feel like the mincing sissy is being aggressive towards you, that makes you a whining crybaby.
There certainly is an over-the-top fanciful segment of the gay community who wishes to push the boundaries at pride parades.
That could turn a lot of folks off, and is probably to some degree counter-productive by reinforcing old stereotypes.
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But this is America, and I’ll be damned if individuals legally expressing themselves is anything other their right.**
(The gay community needs to understand that the above is as good as you will get from a lot of people. They aren’t your enemy just because they don’t want to see you dress up in ass-less chaps and prance about.)
Except in Santa Fe of course…