Annoying modern trends...

[LizzieMaine]

May I assume that you have never been on the receiving end of one of these attacks? Let me assure you that it is extremely disconcerting to come home to a vandalized house. One loses a great deal of the peace of mind which should be associated with the concept of "Home". In addition, 1850's soft burned brick cannot be sand or shell blasted, and it absorbs paint rather deeply. It is very expensive and nearly impossible to entirely eradicate graffiti. Repairs to hundred-fifty-year-old windows are likewise time consuming and expensive. I would hardly call that bit of self-identified "Political correctness" a minor matter.

I think it's worth noting that all these sorts of incidents, whether vandalizing a house, shoving a Confederate flag in someone's figurative face, throwing Klan flyers into someone's driveway, or making a bomb threat all have a common purpose and a common mentality behind them. The purpose is to intimidate, to terrorize, and to threaten. There is no difference whatsoever in the motivation or the intended result, the only difference is the method. It really is no different in spirit from burning a cross on somebody's lawn.

 

[tonyb]

Seems like some of our posters here really don't understand the difference between having a Confederate battle flag on your truck vs threatening to bomb a Jewish nursing home or child-care facility.

Now you're attributing to people things they haven't said.

You're just being slimy, man.

No one here needs to be told there's a distinction between boorish displays and acts of violence, or threats thereof. The law reflects that distinction.

 

[vitanola]

Now you're attributing to people things they haven't said.

You're just being slimy, man.

I would never say that...

 

[Angus Forbes]

The responses to my post refuse to acknowledge the situation wherein the accused is guilty of nothing more than violating a speech code. This happens all the time. Not talking about vandalism, threats, or intimidation. Remember, the premise was that someone who merely uses the N-word needs to be driven out, socially.

I believe violation of speech code is nothing more than ordinary rudeness. If I were to use the N-word, for example, in a conversation out of hearing of anyone Black, for example in most of Maine or in Cortland County, would I be guilty even of rudeness? If I were to refer to someone as a "snowflake," how would this be anything more than ordinary rudeness?

And yet . . . and yet: Not only has nobody been willing to discuss this case, which is of course OK, but I have been called slimy "to my face." Is that not a bit much? How rude, narrow-minded, self-righteous, and intolerant of dissenting thought we have become! I wonder how calling me "slimy" differs from calling a Black the n-word to his face. Perhaps it's OK simply because I hold contrary views. Perhaps it's OK to riot on campus, as recently happened in California, when a speaker appears who might offer thought that diverges from the lock-step mentality seen on many of today's campuses and among many of the chattering class.

Vitranola -- please note that there was no mention in your post that the Confederate flag incident involved intimidation of any specific person.

 

[tonyb]

Okay. You're also a gasbag, Forbes, who shows every sign of being in love with his own victimhood.

Oh, and you're boring, too. Downright tedious.

 

[tonyb]

And did I mention that our friend Forbes not only attributes to people things they didn't say, he also runs to the false equivalency? His posts are just loaded with 'em.

He's also big on cliches.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I wonder how calling me "slimy" differs from calling a Black the n-word to his face.

Let's just let that sentence lie there, festering and open to the public gaze for a second. I've quoted it in this post so it won't disappear from any future editing.

When the word "slimy" is inextricably attached to four hundred years of political, social, cultural, and physical oppression of your racial and social group, then you might have a case. Otherwise, you really shouldn't get so offended. "It's just a word."

 

[vitanola]

The responses to my post refuse to acknowledge the situation wherein the accused is guilty of nothing more than violating a speech code. This happens all the time. Not talking about vandalism, threats, or intimidation. Remember, the premise was that someone who merely uses the N-word needs to be driven out, socially.

I believe violation of speech code is nothing more than ordinary rudeness. If I were to use the N-word, for example, in a conversation out of hearing of anyone Black, for example in most of Maine or in Cortland County, would I be guilty even of rudeness? If I were to refer to someone as a "snowflake," how would this be anything more than ordinary rudeness?

And yet . . . and yet: Not only has nobody been willing to discuss this case, which is of course OK, but I have been called slimy "to my face." Is that not a bit much? How rude, narrow-minded, self-righteous, and intolerant of dissenting thought we have become! I wonder how calling me "slimy" differs from calling a Black the n-word to his face. Perhaps it's OK simply because I hold contrary views. Perhaps it's OK to riot on campus, as recently happened in California, when a speaker appears who might offer thought that diverges from the lock-step mentality seen on many of today's campuses and among many of the chattering class.

Vitranola -- please note that there was no mention in your post that the Confederate flag incident involved intimidation of any specific person.

"please note that there was no mention in your post that the Confederate flag incident involved intimidation of any specific person"

That is rather like suggesting that a burning cross was not intended to intimidate any specific person if it were burned in a public place rather than, say, in front of some poor family's home, don't you think?

"I believe violation of speech code is nothing more than ordinary rudeness. If I were to use the N-word, for example, in a conversation out of hearing of anyone Black, for example in most of Maine or in Cortland County, would I be guilty even of rudeness? If I were to refer to someone as a "snowflake," how would this be anything more than ordinary rudeness?"

Well, we will disagree on this matter. I would say that the is more a matter of extraordinary rudeness. Do you remember the line which used to be printed at the bottom of each page of advertising page in the National Geographic back in the days of Gil Grosvenor? "Mention the Geographic. It identifies you."

"I wonder how calling me "slimy" differs from calling a Black the n-word to his face. Perhaps it's OK simply because I hold contrary views."

The racial epithets which have for most of the last century been absent from polite speech in the civilised parts of this country would generally be regarded as being of an entirely different order of of repulsiveness. "Slimy" is pretty weak tea as an epithet, don't you think? I'd have preferred "muculent" at any rate. It may be that I was not the only one to note the similarity of your arguments to those posed in the article The Idiocy of "Liberals Are the Real Racists", and so draw the appropriate conclusions.

As for the students in California, well It is unfortunate that they took the speaker so seriously, but then youngsters are apt to be rather full of themselves. Yianoppolis or (whatever his name is) is an infantile, self-proclaimed provocateur. He does not appear to take himself seriously. It is a pity that the students at Berkley chose so to do.

 

[vitanola]

And did I mention that our friend Forbes not only attributes to people things they didn't say, he also runs to the false equivalency? His posts are just loaded with 'em.

He's also big on cliches.

Perhaps. I will nonetheless concede that he is a better writer than I.

 

[sheeplady]

I can reassure you, if you said the n-word in Cortland county to a person of color or about a person of color, particularlt in public, you'd be considered racist.