Thanks for making the statement.

Wow on the mudslide at Fairview Hospital.. whew.. our flooding crested below where they thought it might crest.. and the area where my Mom lives was spared..

and feminists here took advantage of the moment. And I think it gave us all some things to think about. They were able to re-position the "c" word so that we could see how context AND the real impetus behind the usage mattered. Interestingly, it also provided us all with a refresher course in what the First Amendment says and who in it is prohibited from making laws to restrict speech.

I believe the feminists won the day in this controversy. By persisting with their central message they were able to break through the wall of complaints and bitterness and get to the heart of the matter. Not giving up in the face of opposition has been a hallmark of the Feminist movement since forever.

We saw it work right here at DU.

some of us would not use the C word never mind that it is a word, period, one with a long etymology and one when you bother to learn the etymology, you will realize the word can and has to be disarmed. In some ways a few comics are in the process of doing exactly that, just like the N word with Richard Pryor.

But it was a teachable moment. Some of us will not stand back and let a comic code of sorts develop.

Some of us will continue to fight that battle and I think it was a draw, best case, as it usually the case in these battles.

As to the feminist here. There is a valid reason why I have the whole groups, and a large swath of them individually blocked. I chose to use the tools to make this place barely functional. I will save to myself what I think of them, and I used to call myself a feminist until I met them. God knows I walked the walk and continue to do so. But becuase of them, I will no longer use the term, it lost meaning to me, thanks to them.

But no, we will have to have these fights, because this site is deeply divided.

As to the OP, I recommend the liberal use of the tools available to you. They make the site more tolerable when you do use them, and if somebody repeatedly uses certain trigger words, alert them, put them on ignore thrash threads. I do the two latter ones, becuase the alert system is so broken it is useless.

to diminish a person and keep them "in their place".. It has a history.. I do not alert on people.. If I have something to say, I will say it to them.. or as in this case..make an op on it.

Though I will hide threads if children are in my home.. my computer is in the family room..and if an op has some salty language in the title coming up on the home page where little ones can read it if I check in.. I hide that thread.. That is always good advice to those of us who have children in their homes all the time or in to visit..

and I know it's current meaning. Why I love a certain group of comics that are making it part of their routine. The women who are doing that I love them for it. They are doing to it what Richard Pryor did to the N word. I am looking forwards to the day that saying it is a point and laugh at the speaker out loud moment. Yes, language evolves. Something else will replace it though, guaranteed.

But this effort to try to control consenting adult behavior has to stop... we are doing a lot of damage to our whole society. Whether that is by trying to control speech here (ignore them, this is not a place kids should come), or by using filters in schools, or by the NSA using filters to collect metadata is not just wrong, but dangerous.

By the way, to my neighborhood NSA agent, since I know this post will trigger a looksie, "fuck hoover." And I hope you agree, they deserve that F bomb.

as in an action.. and calling someone the c word.. as in that is all you are as a person..

Take this one to the bank.. all comics aside.. when someone outside a group uses a word commonly used as a pejorative to demean members of that group.. there is no defusing the impact.

So I find the c word disparaging, condescending. I don't care who uses it.. What comic, what female, what male, what poster.. it is disparaging.. and has nothing in the world with controlling consenting adult behavior. or national security? or collecting metadata?

And you are right.. it is not the specific word itself.. those words do change with the times.. But the times we are dealing with is the here and now of 2014 and the c word, is used as a demeaning attack on women.

Just between you and me and the few people who will read these posts.. four letter words never win a debate. We all get frustrated and let off steam..but when we come to a place like DU to debate.. swear words have never made an argument or point stronger..

Why I love those women. You either get it, or you don't. I won't post links to their routines, or Richard Pryor's, who disarmed a what you are word too. I fear it will be missed.

Suffice it to say, trying to tell adults what to say or do, and reaching for the virtual soap is a problem. As I told others, if it bothers you so much, ignore the damn person or the damn thread. In my case I have the Men Rights, the HOF and the gungeon on collective ignore. I have debated putting the Obama group there as well. The groups not exist to me, and they all have done a lot more damage to their respective causes than they realize.

Suffice it to say, because of HOF you will never again hear me call myself feminist. And it is due to idiocy like this. Controlling others actions is met with open, unabashed resistance. Adults do not want other adults to tell them how they can speak. Never mind I broke actual doors open, and took my lumps in the process. As I said, I will not say here what I think of these groups. It is all but positive, and shit like this helps to cement my opinion, which is very negative, of them.

and gungeon?

As I told someone else, I think I have missed a heck of a debate.. I am responding to a few ops with some rather salty titles a few days ago, I find no humor in them..

A person can say anything they want to.. its a free country, and this is a private site.. Skinner decides what he wants on his site and what he does not..

But as a reader of various ops in the site.. I have the right to post that I find the use of words like the c word offensive.

Words not only matter to the speaker and the ability to say what they want..but to the listener or reader, and the ability to say that that is offensive.

Gungeon, is the dungeon

And I will tell you where all this came from, a rude pundit column was blocked because dare I say it, he told dick and daughter to go suck a dick. It was a play on words...and the title has rude pundit. You know what you are getting when you open any OP with rude pundit.

So shall we say this got a whole discussion on how a few prudes want to control this site. And when people claim telling Liz to go pound sand is a gay slur when Mary is the daughter who happens to be gay, it becomes hilarious all on it's own.

Regardless, this place is nowhere close to the level of discussion it once had, and part of the reason is the attempts at control and the virtual civil war. As to Skinner, it's his site, and at this point he gave the rains to juries, that suck.

I basically feel the same way - have always been a feminist, like my mother before me, but no longer relate at all to modern internet feminism, especially the way it is practiced at DU in particular. I'm very tired of being told how to talk and what to think. The MRA types on the other end of the spectrum also really anger and disturb me (also seen those individuals here at DU lately). I, and others like me, have been left in the middle while everyone else runs off to the extremist corners to fling poo and try to censor the *insert naughty word here* out of everyone who doesn't agree with them. And that's all I'm going to say on this subject, because I don't have the emotional energy to deal with the outrage swarm today. Just wanted to let you know that you aren't the only one...

isn't it?

And yes, it is the outrage swarm.

telling someone they are nothing but a piece of genitalia..

And I know, posters are up in arms because they feel that their ability to call someone piece of genitalia has been stopped.

Somehow (as you so eloquently pointed out), it got confused with First Amendment Rights..

these things, they are bad and thus we are bad, too.

The other side's argument fell apart rather quickly, IMO. Just name calling and whining.

I thought the feminist argument was brilliantly laid out and argued. Hey, feminists refused to be bullied...wow, how stinging is that...

from the looks of it.. I was just responding to the titles of a couple of ops I saw.. Sounds like I am late to the party on this one.. I saw some ops with some pretty salty titles, a day or two ago and just now getting around to saying something about it..

and it was promptly dismissed by a poster who suggested that the linguist "had an agenda" without offering any evidence of such.

I explained that her agenda was the linguistics of expletives.


eta: to any feminists who think there is no place for them here, there are three groups for feminists (History of Feminism, Feminists, and Feminism and Diversity.) There's also the Women's Rights and Issues group. Try them out. You may find a place where you are comfortable.

I'm not discounting the HoF pushback but honestly, many many many more posters were dismayed at the Rude Pundit hide than were defending it.



I'm Irish and cunt is common slang in my world. I realize its offensive in America but this "outrage swarm" reminds me of the abortion debates in the US. There's no common sense, no context and no attempt to dialogue on either side. Once the trigger has been pulled on the "outrage du jour" the OP's topic has been derailed and the discussion disintegrates.

Why don't people just hide a thread instead of tearing it apart over vocabulary nit-picks? So many larger issues get buried when the swarm descends and derails a thread over a vocabulary word, even getting the thread hidden with bogus alerts.

I know I'm a feminist. Without going into my CV, I have the street cred to back that up. But even I have trouble wading the waters on DU sometimes because of the hair trigger alerts. Its made the site much more un-friendly.

Pity that.

Nobody cares that you have a culturally different perspective. This is a domestic quarrel over language.

Since you didn't bother to outline exactly what you meant about your disgust with our abortion debate, I can't discuss it with you. Except to say that we have freedom of religion here and our fight is over interpretation of that. As an Irish national, ymmv.

I don't know why you think a political website should be particularly "friendly" to you, or to me for that matter. I would hope, being a democratic website, that it would support the ideals of the Democratic Party, and support of Roe v. Wade in our U.S. case law, would be present here. Yes? So what do you expect when you wade into an argument on abortion on a U.S. Democratic Party member website?

I am mystified as to why you have a problem with discussions here. Is anybody "oppressing" you (to reference the famous Monty Python film)? And I'm sorry that not everybody agrees with you. Here's a hint: Democrats in this country have voluble, energetic debates on issues. It is just the way it is. If you don't like it, I suggest you go elsewhere....but I strongly believe you will, in the long run, learn more than you think...

Give that some thought...

My point in bringing up ethnicity was simply to highlight the stark reality that some (many, most?) people don't have a problem with offensive language. Those that do should either ignore it or gloss over.

And I'm not wading into an abortion discussion. I'm firmly pro-choice however this language debate is reminiscent of how people talk past each other instead of dialogue about an issue. In this case its about offensive language. That's was the singular point of my analogy.

Lastly, the issue arose over meegbear's Rude Pundit column hide. To continue this discussion with Peacetrain without context is unfair. S/he doesn't know that the issue has devolved into how these alerts/hides have become ways to stifle/censor political thought of some of our "salty" progressives.

I'm not going anywhere. After this many years, I'm not easily shoved off but thanks for the not-so-subtle hint.

Really, I am not a mind reader...

but in this current debate, it IS debate. And yes, our website has certain rules, which we all (usually) abide by. That is reality. You either accept it or not. It sounds like you don't. If so, it is within your power to try to change it.

Is such a joke, that I do not alert, or play jury.

But community standards are ok with cyberstalking and with trying to silence things like RP. Such prudishness, the queen will be proud.

I dare not call myself one, at least not one on the web. And I got the street cred. I have opened actual doors.

And what they have done is that those of us who have the street cred do not want to have anything to do with them, period. The whole group is blocked. A slew if them are as well, and will remain such. Building alliances they are not.

And this will not help them

and refused to give up...and refused to give up...and Susan B. Anthony, who did not live to see women get the vote said "Failure is impossible."

She was right.

SNORT!!!!

Thanks for the laugh, that is quite funny actually.

we had a virtual spitting upon right here on DU...as well as whining, rending of garments, sniffling and mostly the crying of 2 year olds...oh, yes, and the chest beating (sorry about forgetting that!).

It was mostly a fun circus to see the beat down of feminists...burn the witch!!!

Really.

you are kinda making my point here...but please proceed...

you made a ridiculous point, which is part of the problem with that group. This victim game is one that Susan B Anthony, for example, did not engage in.

You can proceed to be a leader, or be a victim. These folks have chosen the latter. Which also tells me the other side won. And there I thought it was a draw.

Have an excellent day by the way. This is funny as can be, and revealing, but I will be nice and stop this now... for the sake of the poor ones.

The Rude Pundit hide started all of this because someone wanted to stifle his column. It was an unprecedented hide for meegbear and an ominous sign that some of our most progressive voices like Jon Stewart, George Carlin, Stephen Colbert etc were now fair game for DUers who felt outraged by these comedians.

One of our most progressive voices, shut down over his "rude" language.

I really don't see any evidence that Jon STewart, George Carlin, Stephen Colbert, are at risk for being CENSORED ON DU!

Please. Get a grip, man.

...because someone complained about alleged vulgar language in a Rude Pundit column. It has spiraled outward from there to take on a whole different life, but don't forget its origins. The Rude Pundit uses vulgar and profane language deliberately and artfully, much as Robert Maplethorpe used images of sexuality artfully and intentionally. Some folks cannot separate Maplethorpe's images from pornography, just as some DUers have difficulty accepting the Rude Pundit's use of vulgarity in literary expression. Nonetheless, I think it's clear that community standards on DU have long embraced the Rude Pundit's use of profane rhetoric, and it's only when individual expressions are isolated away from their literary context that they become broadly objectionable.

When we ask, "is it OK to call someone a c*nt on DU" in response to the Rude Pundit using the word to scrape some political vileness off of his shoe with clear and celebratory gusto we have largely missed the point, IMO.

While there is a time and a place for all forms of literary elements, including profane words. Their overuse, just because we have a right to use them, is akin to the mentality of those Open Carry Texas people who walk into stores to try and intimidate people.

Sooner or later, a line will get crossed and then the profanity abusing types will force valid and poetic use of profane language to become restricted.

===

So, while these profanity abusing types relish in their current battle's win, the war is not over.

If they don't tamper their behavior, that early victory might see the tide of change sweep it away.

===

While Red Skeleton used to pride himself on not using profanity to be humorous, I have the entire collective works of Milton Berle and many of his jokes were off-color and some were fit for the pages of Penthouse or Hustler. There's a time and place for everything.


The take away: Everything in moderation, lest you be moderated!

It was about the use of homophobic and misogynistic slurs to criticize the people we don't like. Some of us don't think such insults are ever appropriate.