May 18
DRF commented on SL Letter of the Day: Gonna Boil My Laptop After Answering This One.
Okay, can we stop ripping on Mr. Savage for condoning animal cruelty now? I'm confident that the dog would rather be kicked.
May 17
DRF commented on Remember This Guy?.
If that is what happened, then it should be considered a mitigating circumstance at his trial. However, this story cries out for all the salt in all the tears ever wept over society's actual or imagined declining moral standards.
May 17
DRF commented on Meanwhile in Toronto.
See kids? Don't do drugs. You'll look as stupid as the mayor of Toronto.
May 16
DRF commented on SL Letter of the Day: Living Discomfortably.
I would have led with "MOVE THE HECK OUT," actually. Unless this older guy is so besotted that he's blinded by what I'll generously call hope, then he likes that he's making this guy uncomfortable and the LW is right that he is likely to escalate his creepy behavior.
May 15
DRF commented on SL Letter of the Day: Insane Demands.
So that's what a DTMFA looks like from the other side. How would we put this? He Should Dump the MFing You Already? Get Dumped Already, You MF? Of course, this guy is either smart or lucky enough to not be in a relationship with this person already.
If this man doesn't see this woman's demands as a red flag big enough to use as a cover when the Kremlin needs fumigating, then it's not that he's in a sexless marriage so much as too stupid to unfasten his own trousers.
If this man doesn't see this woman's demands as a red flag big enough to use as a cover when the Kremlin needs fumigating, then it's not that he's in a sexless marriage so much as too stupid to unfasten his own trousers.
May 13
DRF commented on I'm Fine, You Guys, I'm Fine.
If the dog really did charge him, then the young many really was right to kick it.
May 11
DRF commented on The Tree of Liberty Must Be Refreshed From Time to Time With the Blood of Tyrants.
@9 The belief that a blastocyst should count as a person is valid; it's just that personhood isn't something that can be defined using observed knowledge (and revealed knowledge, as you've pointed out, can be interpreted either way).
The anti-choicers can't prove that an embryo has a soul, but the pro-choicers can't prove that it doesn't either. We probably agree that the laws of man should permit women to decide for themselves whether they should have abortions or not, but for you to say "pregnancy is nothing but potential" is just as arbitrary and unprovable as saying "abortion is murder." You're arguing from conviction, not logic or evidence.
The anti-choicers can't prove that an embryo has a soul, but the pro-choicers can't prove that it doesn't either. We probably agree that the laws of man should permit women to decide for themselves whether they should have abortions or not, but for you to say "pregnancy is nothing but potential" is just as arbitrary and unprovable as saying "abortion is murder." You're arguing from conviction, not logic or evidence.
May 11
DRF commented on The Tree of Liberty Must Be Refreshed From Time to Time With the Blood of Tyrants.
Reminds me of the birth of the MPAA. Hollywood saw the government jumping in and regulating this industry and that and figured that maybe if they policed themselves, the government would stay out of their business.
It worked. The MPAA started giving movies ratings like G and PG and R, and the Feds found other things to do. The organization exists to this day.
So GUN OWNERS. Maybe you should form an organization based on guns, a nationwide organization of rifle enthusiasts, perhaps, and POLICE YOURSELVES. If you don't want the government in your beeswax, stop doing STUPID CRUD like leaving LOADED WEAPONS where CHILDREN can get them.
It worked. The MPAA started giving movies ratings like G and PG and R, and the Feds found other things to do. The organization exists to this day.
So GUN OWNERS. Maybe you should form an organization based on guns, a nationwide organization of rifle enthusiasts, perhaps, and POLICE YOURSELVES. If you don't want the government in your beeswax, stop doing STUPID CRUD like leaving LOADED WEAPONS where CHILDREN can get them.
May 11
DRF commented on SL Letter of the Day: I'm Out.
@129 Lynx-- It's because "dick" means "sexual organ" but "cunt" means "worthless sexual organ." Calling someone "cunt" means "your only use is to service other people sexually." (Using the n-rhymes-with-trigger or f-rhymes-with-maggot is a little different. It means "you're bad because you're black/gay.")
Think about it. When you call someone a "dick," you mean that he or she is selfish, with a slight ha-ha-of-course-dicks-want-sex-all-the-time. It's had a boys-will-be-boys feel to it for decades. "Cunt" is loaded with a lot more negativity. To call a person a cunt is to say "there is nothing to you except your vagina" with an undertone of "come over here and use it!"
Now, this is more what this word meant in 1960 and 1980 than what it means today, but these undertones have not faded entirely. Language changes over time (and place, as many Brit-visitors have pointed out) and "cunt" is slowly becoming a less intense swear word, but right now it still has a lot of sexist and coercive connotation to it. Can it be reclaimed? Sure. I heard its etymology even involves a Roman goddess of babies and childbirth. But right now, it's still degrading.
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Think about it. When you call someone a "dick," you mean that he or she is selfish, with a slight ha-ha-of-course-dicks-want-sex-all-the-time. It's had a boys-will-be-boys feel to it for decades. "Cunt" is loaded with a lot more negativity. To call a person a cunt is to say "there is nothing to you except your vagina" with an undertone of "come over here and use it!"
Now, this is more what this word meant in 1960 and 1980 than what it means today, but these undertones have not faded entirely. Language changes over time (and place, as many Brit-visitors have pointed out) and "cunt" is slowly becoming a less intense swear word, but right now it still has a lot of sexist and coercive connotation to it. Can it be reclaimed? Sure. I heard its etymology even involves a Roman goddess of babies and childbirth. But right now, it's still degrading.
May 11
DRF commented on SL Letter of the Day: I'm Out.
While the mechanics of the joke that the letter-writer constructed are quite good, it is not for a male person to say when "cunt" becomes funny, just as it is not for a white person to say when the n-word becomes funny. The sexism and coercive domination in that word was never directed at him or anyone like him (YES, even when men call each other "cunt" they are making fun of women and not men).
The issue here is whether the discrimination and negativity associated with the c-word have as yet diluted to the point where calling someone a cunt no longer means calling her a worthless vagina fit for servicing male users and nothing else. Only then could the joke be funny.
So I'd say it's not nearly as bad as the n-word, but we're not there yet, and this man's companions were right to be offended and he was right to apologize (assuming he did apologize rather than just "feel apologetic"). A few more seasons of Game of Thrones should dilute it a bit more, though.
The issue here is whether the discrimination and negativity associated with the c-word have as yet diluted to the point where calling someone a cunt no longer means calling her a worthless vagina fit for servicing male users and nothing else. Only then could the joke be funny.
So I'd say it's not nearly as bad as the n-word, but we're not there yet, and this man's companions were right to be offended and he was right to apologize (assuming he did apologize rather than just "feel apologetic"). A few more seasons of Game of Thrones should dilute it a bit more, though.
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