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Politics : The Bigot Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: redfish who wrote (16)	4/17/2004 11:46:27 AM
From: epicure	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 740

Then you came from a place neither I nor any of my friends would recognize. We have discussed this, and all of us remember disabled kids who were victimized. I wonder if you really remember things as clearly as you think you do. Children, who are, let's face it, usually quite self centered (and that's absolutely normal) might not even notice the victimization of someone else. If name calling was as endemic where you grew up as you say (and I am talking about angry name calling, not the friendly "kidding" kind, among a group of friends) I think you may not understand what other children may have gone through. If you were perceived by other children as a bully yourself, then it would only be psychologically appropriate that you would not understand, since bullies don't see the problem with the pain they inflict on others- it's simply a totally different consciousness. I'm not criticizing you- but only offering an explanation for your interesting perception that no harm was done, and all "weak" children were protected- that simply is not the way children operate. Sorry.

To: redfish who wrote (16)	4/17/2004 3:52:24 PM
From: epicure	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 740

I wondered if your defense of name-calling had something to do with your style of posting, so I checked some of your posts- you and I agree politically, I think, but this kind of post is problematic, imo: " I'm glad that Kerry is taking on Cheney and Rove in public. He should also point out that they are a couple of fairies. " Cheney and Rove are awful- and the reasons can be enumerated, and substantiated- to irrationally call them fairies (and thereby insult homosexuals at the same time, since the implication is obviously that calling them fairies is a bad bad thing) is not only distasteful, it is counterproductive- unless you are republican operative trying to make democrats look bad. I know the other "side" ( whoever you may perceive them to be) probably calls you names, and calls all the candidates that you like names, and we do care that people call our candidate bigoted, or nasty names- but the way to combat that is not to call their candidate bigoted names, I urge you to ignore it, and not imitate it. The ad hominem doesn't change anyone's mind- it alienates moderates, and it makes you look nasty. I totally understand the defensive mechanism that would make you want to defend your behavior- we all want to defend what we do. When I started on SI and I met people who called people names, I started doing it back (dose of their own medicine, they are so much worse than I am, etc etc etc). But you know where that gets you? All covered with nasty vile smelling medicine that really doesn't work on anyone. Obviously you will have to come to realize this by yourself, I can't convince you- and what's right for me may not be right for you. But please understand that almost all centrists, the area that will (imo) win this election for the democrats, have grown weary of the polarization and nastiness of the "debate". One really can't call it a debate anymore- let's call it political mudslinging. Real debate would be about facts, and how to interpret them, and which interpretations were most sound- there is no place in real debate for calling people names based on race, sexual preference, religious preference, etc. I'm sure you are an intelligent educated guy- and perhaps you think reasonable debate is just pointless with the person you posted the above message to, and that may be true. But where reasonable debate is impossible, perhaps the best option is silence, not screaming epithets- I think that merely reinforces the notion for the other guy that this is a style of communication that is acceptable- and do you really want this to be acceptable? Do you want to see people treating each other this way? Is it pleasant? Does it accomplish anything? I think in the end of it all I fail to see any utility to it- and I wasted some serious time doing it, so it annoys me that I can't think of any utility, but I really can't. As I see it, this type of communication 1.lowers the level of discussion to a badly monitored playground level 2. promotes bullying, and the growth of groups that reinforce each other in their mutual hatred of some "other" 3.gives some people serious blood pressure problems (I really do wonder about the health related effects of such discussions) I used to think that maybe, at least, people could work out some of their frustrations on line- but I worry that some people may get frustrated here, and take it out off line. Some recent studies on this have shown that internet aggression is not a healthy safety valve (especially for men), so I can't even really consider that a positive anymore. :-(