I hate the term Repuke

For some reason I just do. It makes posts sound so juvenile on some level. Especially in posts that analyze races and polls it just sounds so immature and unscholarly.

and since this is somewhat of a vanity board, not for publication, could you please excuse us some "poetic license"?

And I also decided some time ago that i couldn't say repuke in public, so I settled for repug lickin'. If you say it fast enough, even the hard core won't notice the difference.

for us folks. I agree witrh Carlos- it is unneccessary juvenile behavior.

It's just childish.

And many of those who use the term nevertheless become seized with rage if someone dares use the word "Democrat" as an adjective.

I prefer neo-con vermin.

"s*%t spewing m@!$*r f*#$%@s"

However, this can hurt us if spoken in the wrong place. We are on the cusp of destroying the Bush cabal and we need Republicans to defect from his side.

I only call them pukes when they do something especially heinous.

"I only call them pukes when they do something especially heinous?"

Pointing out logical inconsistencies in policy and ethical or moral issues in behavior is much more effective than slinging childish insults at people.

Name-calling is about as effective in politics as farting is in humor, Terrance and Phillip notwithstanding.

Name-calling is ineffective?

Are you saying Dukakis lost because of name-calling?

My personal recollection is that the Bush I Campaign used the "revolving door" ads about the criminal justice system and endless repetitions of "Willie Horton!" to cast Dukakis as being soft on crime. They did make fun of the photo of MD sitting in a tank (which you must admit did look rather silly), but name calling???

Please straighten me out if I've missed something obvious.

True. It's not like Pat Buchannan's childish "Boo-Boo Galli", but it certainly does everything but. It's an intersting psychological dynamic at work, where you don't call someone a specific name, but you allow associations to be fostered, such as "weak on crime" translating into a host of other associated labels such as "wimp".

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Sheeple is another pointlessly stupid word that gets bandied about. You can't win anyone over to your side if you are going to put them down.

let the others chase 'em away with their "We wanna take your Guns" threads....

Can't "win" anyone to your side if you threaten what they perceive as a god-given Right, either, FWIW....

n/t

I (actually ) was recently the subject of a major "freeper" attack. The merchants I listed were e-bombed, and I received about 20 or 30 emails - most of them questioning my intelligence, patriotism, and sexual orientation.

I wrote back to all of them, treating them as if they were actually intelligent human beings who had a different idea than I did about how to make the world a better place.

Two of them wrote back very intelligent, thoughtful e-mails.

We don't agree politially, but we do agree we are all human beings. And somehow "repuke" makes them less than humnan. Which seems like a bad thing to do to anybody.

Being Jewish and all, I'm sensitive about that kind of thing.

However, unlike you, I face the possibility of an amendment push that would officially make me a second-class citizen in this country. Repuke is most certainly an appropriate term.

They're demonizing me far more than I ever could by simply calling them 'repukes'.

Oh, and when my mom found out, she told me I made her want to puke. So who's being the more cruel, the more juvenile?

I'll say it again: repuke, rethuglican, and the rest of the terms are totally appropriate. What- you expect me to sit down and take it? Playing by the 'rules' will only put us in a position where we obey the 'rules' and they break them. That's a losing proposition.

many republicans don't support an anti-gay agenda, and many democrats either openly support it, or privately support it by staying silent and refusing to take a stand...

you have. And at the hands of your own MOTHER?!?!?!?!?! You, the child of her loins, and she says that to you?

Bless your heart. Seems you've suffered enough.

for DECADES now?!?

You know the term, DemocRATS...or just Rats for short?

Read this:

http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/ewig.htm

Ann Couletr stands before the mainstream conservative group CPAC, with such Busheviks in the audience as Bill Bennett and Lynne Cheney, who cheered and applauded when she made her comment "We should execute liberals like John Walker Lindh to intimidate them, so that they know that they can be killed, too. Otherwise they will turn out to be traitors."

http://www.mark-t-harris.com/Right%20Wing%20Celebrity.htm

You (and I as well, who is also Jewish) SHOULD be sensitive to these things.

What we should be sensitive to is when 1933 comes around again and are we going to do the same thing 99% of our people did back then?

Because these thing that I have listed are indicators. Maybe they will not turn out to be indicative of what I think they are, but they look disturbingly familiar to me...

You should be more concerned about this than about people's belated angry responses to it...

and it is all happening right before our very eyes!

No fun in seeing the word (and mental image) of "puke" all day, every day. Try "Repubs." We all know who you're talking about without excess reference to unpleasant bodily functions.

I read the most disgusting stuff on the Freeper site. We can do better than that. Wh osaid we have to return vulgarity in kind?

Frankly, some of the college kids here are probably two or three bongs ahead of clear, strategic thinking. So it's wise to grant them all the slack one must provide budding activists. But sooner or later it dawns on those with fervent beliefs that vulgar language flies back in the face of the user. It's self-defeating because it devalues the message.

I'm a college student and i've never done drugs...
I call them repukes/repubs/rethuglicans..etc..becausethey do it to us all the time and moral high ground doesn't work in a soundbite oriented nation...
payback's a b*tch :evilgrin:...

now, if only the DLC/DNC would figure it out...

Childishness and obnoxiousnes win elections.

frustration and anger that causes the term to be used. That said it is juvenille and takes us down to the same level of the fanatical freeper crowd. I don't like to demonize or denigrate and entire group of people because of the actions of some. My Mom and Dad are republicans and lovely people - they're pretty ticked off at Bush though (hence, reasonable republicans who feel neo-conservatives have captured the party). One of my best friends is a repbulican - also a nice guy, and we debate a lot.

There are particularly vile republicans in the party and they are frustrating. But there are pretty vile people that claim the name "democrat" as well.

I remember when I first started reading here, the one thing I didn't like the lost were terms like "repugs, repukes," and the like.

But, if that's the price I pay for a left-leaning democratic neo-conservative resisting, working class defending formum - then its a very small price to pay indeed! :D

Personally I find all this namecalling and silly little insider too-cool acronym slang, e.g. LIHOP MIHOP BFEE etc. pretty juvenile. But it doesn't really bother me too terribly much. :shrug:

edited to add: whoops, replied to the wrong post.

rePIGlicans

just reminds me of

Piggies by George Harrison, The Beatles

Have you seen the little piggies
Crawling in the dirt
And for all the little piggies
Life is getting worse
Always having dirt to play around in.

Have you seen the bigger piggies
In their starched white shirts
You will find the bigger piggies
You will find the bigger piggies
Stirring up the dirt
Always have clean shirts to play around in.

In their styes with all their backing
They don't care what goes on around
In their eyes there's something lacking
What they need's a damn good whacking.

Everywhere there's lots of piggies
Living piggy lives
You can see them out for dinner
With their piggy wives
Clutching forks and knives to eat their bacon.

:evilgrin:

my favorite is "bunnypants".

It sounds like the kind of term Rush might invent, were the tables turned--playground semantics.

Would you prefer rebuttlickins, repubbies, rephucklicans, rebootlickers, retardlicans, ......etc.

If you don't like either one of those then tough patooty!

some on the left that believe using the hateful language of the right will help them to prevail rather than turn them into that which they oppose.

:D

But I still refuse to use terms of derision.

An old sex manual I read as a child had this to say about genitalia and sexual behavior:

"We should not be ashamed to call by its proper name that which God was not ashamed to create." - Theodore Bovet (?)

I'm not a Christian, but it seems reasonable to regard Republicans as humans and deserving of SOME basic respect no matter how much you may disagree with them on issues.

it's like them calling us RATS. it cheapens the debate, IMO.

eom

I think our arguments have much more strength without name-calling. Destroying the opposition is more effective if it's done with graciousness and tact.

The banter here has scant effect on the people we wish to influence, so I am not too worried about things said here reflecting badly on the Democratic Party as a whole.

Per your second point, name-calling is a tactic of the right-wing and the fascists. I don't think that it is very effective with our base or with those we wish to influence who are not in our base.

they stand for, "repuke" is practically a term of endearment and much kinder than what I'm really thinking.

Don't hold back. Let it all out. The posting rules place no restrictions on what you can say about conservatives, Republicans, etc.

And that's a rarity.

I'm very far to the left, I'm partisan, can't stand the GOP. But there's just something about the term "repuke" that's reviling. I never would've mentioned it had there not been a thread on it. People can phrase a thing however they want; personal choice. But my personal choice is to never use that word.

Now say something about the Greens electing Bush so we can start to disagree again. :)

I think the tendency to demonise one's opponent is one of the worst, foulest, and most disgusting elements of human nature. I prefer to expose their IDEAS for the poorly constructed, illogical, brain-damaged melange of bad thinking and thoughtless sloganeering that they are. And I may occasionally call them "pigfuckers" or "swine" or "brain-dead scum", but that's just rhetorical, and more a venting of spleen than anything else. I call Republicans Republicans, and I call Bush by his name...with addition of various modiying adjectives, of course.

but the right wingers sure use it a lot.

After all, the right-wing would never stoop to calling Nikita Dean, Weasley Clark or Looks French Kerry names. They'd never call us DemonRats or Democraps. Rush Limbaugh would never call Chelsea Clinton the White House dog. Hitlery Klintoon surely knows that.

We need to adopt the gentile demeanor of the Republican in order to beat them. It was the nastiness we employed in election 2000 (all that stuff we made up about Bush, like inventing the internet, etc) that cost us that election. Then in 2002, we had the spectacle of Paul Wellstone's memorial service, which anyone with a brain could see was blatently political.

Yes, Americans appreciate it when Democrats behave like gentlemen and debate with facts and figures rather than emotional appeals and name-calling. That's why the party of the baby-killing tax and spending traitors will win in 2004.

generalizations instead?

It's a long way fro name calling and derision at every turn doesn't help us change minds and sway public opinion to "let's not speak out against injusticies and stand up for what we believe in."

It's just one of those things.

who was on Washington Journal this morning, Sean Hannity and Neal Bortz were on TV laughing about Hillary and saying that she had no knees. Repukes is really a kind name for those people.

Besides, for me, it is too late to stop. The word "Repukes" has become a part of my vocabulary.

I have less disdain for other modifications, to the point where I may use "Repug." to describe particular offenders (Jesse Helms types), but overall, I feel it's just silly.

"Regressive", as a descriptor for leftists, is so much more profound...

nt

that leftists who dare vote third party are "regressive", but Zell Miller is just a good ol' boy doing his best to get along...and even more, a fading memory for you already?

I know a few Republicans who are actually normal everyday misguided fellow human beings. I would never call them names.

It's the boot-licking souless money grubbing neoconservative chickenhawks I can't stand -- the human botfly maggots like Dick Cheney, the bloodsucking batboys like Paul Wolfowitz, the hypocritical blowhard pill-popping pigs like Rush Limbaugh, the fetal alcohol syndrome brain-damaged sociopaths like George W. Bush...

I can go on and on. But just because somebody is a "Registered Republican" does not make them evil.

to worry about you. You defend Zell Miller, denigrate the progressive/left-wing of our Party on a regular basis, and now you want us to upgrade the language we use when discussing Repukes. Granted, the term isn't the classiest, but I have to wonder why YOU are choosing this as a subject. I mean, what's next? Are you going to start defending Bush, and then pull a Zell Carlos?

He's been completely quiet about Zell's endorsement of Bush after he defended Zell Miller here for years. Curious, huh?

he refused. I'll bet 50% of all of Carlos' threads have been in support of DINOs, and/or, denigrating the progressive/left wing of the party, and those who support it. It does make me wonder.

"Rethugs" or "Repigs" is much better. I just don't like the word puke.

Sheeple is downright offensive. It smacks of an elitism that I, as a Democrat, reject.

any better?

I don't see what it accomplishes. I don't really see why people say it. It does sound stupid.

though I have been guilty of it on occassion when my dander gets up.

You probably hate the terms Shrub, Chimpy, Pubes, Rethuglicans, etc., etc., etc.

Don't forget to hit the alert button.

And I agree with you that Repuke is juvenile as well.

Maybe you could lend me your password to the grown-up sites. You know the ones.

And everyone knows who Hitlery is?

The intent is to rub their noses in the stool they pooped into the Oval Office. Lots of "Republicans" have lost their identity in the cult of Bush's teency-weency little personality. Some of them are starting to wake up and feel the embarrassment.

Many of these people joined the Republican party because they are independant minded and self-reliant. Well maybe they don't want to be Bushist stooges any more now that they know what a twit he really is. Maybe, a lot of these folks will go independent or (dare I say it) Democrat.

although I may have used it once or twice. I prefer to stay on the high side and try to win arguments by reason, not by name calling. Besides, there are a few good ones out there.

:)

I hate Repukes.

:evilgrin:

Seriously, if you have a better term (please, not "esteemed members of the opposition party with which we humbly disagree" :-) ), then go for it! After all, DU is a First Amendment Zone!

...some use the term "far left".

Carlos doesn't like it...it MUST be effective!

Revomit?

perfectly applies to them. :toast:

1. to regurgitate, vomit; as in what they make me do

2. to regurgitate outdated, misstated beliefs on just about everything

I'm really glad this topic was brought up, and hope that I haven't gotten in on it too late, as I'd like some replies to this one. Just my luck, you've all probably gone on to other things by now. ^_^

From waaaay back in my dirtyhippiepinkocommiebum days, I've espoused the concept of nonviolence. Dehumanizing people with name-calling and such is just as violent as physically attacking them. I know, because I've been on the receiving end of both. However, hang with me here a moment, pleeeez....

On the other hand, I also don't care to do violence to myself. Continually swallowing verbal attacks is one form of that violence. I'm part of the population that is considered the lowest of the low in this society... I'm on disability and therefore considered a bum for real at this point in my life. I've put up with unbelievable abuse from doctors, etc. It wasn't too long ago that I was actually called a "parasite" by, of course, some rightwingers. Now, it's easy to tell people like me to "let it run off your back", etc., but stuff like that, over time, chips away at our personhood, and eventually leads to a sense of worthlessness and uselessness.

Step that up to the next level, please, and understand that I'm also under a real threat from these people of taking away what little recourse I have now to minimal survival, and their words are even more threatening to me. I suspect there is little chance that I, and others in my position, will survive another 4 years of Bush. Actually, there are indications that cutbacks scheduled for next year may finally finish me off.

So, these people are not ones I can engage in civil discourse... I know that they care not whether I survive, and in fact, hope that I don't. I'd like to see myself as someone who can rise above that, who can "turn the other cheek" in a mature manner, and return good for evil. I'd like to believe that I can see them as human beings even though they are out for nothing less than my demise. In short, I truly do not want to stoop to their level.

However, I'm not proud of saying this, but I find I'm not capable of that level of functioning. Basically, I have no respect for people of this type, and have learned the hard way that the only way they are ever going to develope any compassion is if they find themselves in the same situation I'm in. I'm not holding my breath.

So, given all that, I find that "blowing off steam" by letting loose with some name-calling (not to their faces, although I've considered that), and some demonization of my own helps to defuse some of the anger and fear that I feel about these people (and I think I use that term lightly).

However, it really does bring me down to their level. I resent that. I resent like hell being in this whole mess. So, if anyone has any good suggestions for how to blow off steam and yet maintain my nonviolence values, I'm open to listening. Usually I don't like advice, but this is one time when I'd be interested in the input of others who also don't like the use of the putdowns and name-calling.

Thanks for listening, and I'm glad to know there are others here who are wanting to resist the violence of words that sting.

Kanary!

People with disabilities, as well as the very young and old, are most vulnerable to the BFEE. But remember, there are millions of us who care. We will work our fingers to the bone in the next presidential campaign to keep this country and its citizenry from destructing.

:grouphug:

Most repukes just make me want to vomit after I hear em speak :puke:

I hate the term "Repuke", too. I also despise the term "sheeple".

But last night in another thread you said that I was an "apologist" and an "extremist".

Doesn't it amount to the same thing? Name calling is just that. The English language is rich with better terms.

or to be accurate Retrashlickers

nt

perfectly. Their leadership (and much of its party, except for a few in the NE) do act like exactly that -- thugs.

After all can Tom DeLay be considered anything less than a thug?

I myself only ocassionally use the term "repug" and "rethug". I don't use repuke or whistleass, because It think those two names are stupid. (what the hell is whistleass supposed to mean anyways?).

C'mon you've gotta understand that many of the people on this board live in places where their political views are considered un-patriotic and anti-American. This board is a great place to vent.

Say it right, people!

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and I don't like it either. As much as I think it's juvenile, sometimes it just slips out :evilgrin:

Seriously, you do have a valid point.