5582

OK, I’ll think about it for a while and see what comes up.

My initial impression though was, “yeah, i know words have meaning. Lying to elect the next Hitler justifies an especially harsh word.” Like, really deep, seething hatred.

And folks know, I’m generally not into that kind of personal hatred when it comes to disagreements. I generally prefer discourse. But the trump people just bring out something in me. Their absolute rejection of not only everything that is good about America, but even simple reality itself, makes me really hate them. And i do not recall ever having this kind of reaction before.

But again, I’ll take your advice and think about it for a bit.

5583

It’s misogynistic term, especially so if you’re labelling a woman who is not actually a prostitute. Even the literal use is not recommended for polite company. I’m not going to string you up because God knows I’ve used that term before although generally to my good friends back in university when I told them not to be a camping whore in Counterstrike. I can’t remember when (and hope I never have) I last used it to describe a woman. There are lots of other perfectly useful insults that you could use that have nothing to do with her gender. This isn’t a hill you want to die on.

5584

I’m looking at that data… Q 28 "In general do you think that whites are a
superior race, or not? "… and yet people will actually stand there and state there isn’t racism in this country, it’s just a race card or too much PC, or at least not enough for people to do anything about.

That’s crazy.

5585

It’s misogynistic term, especially so if you’re labelling a woman who is not actually a prostitute.

I think this is the key point that i need to understand. Why is it inherently a misogynistic term?

I’m looking at that data… Q 28 "In general do you think that whites are a
superior race, or not? "… and yet people will actually stand there and state there isn’t racism in this country, it’s just a race card or too much PC, or at least not enough for people to do anything about.

That’s crazy.

This is why i go so crazy about this crap. These people are either the absolute worst people in the country, or they are people who don’t mind being at rallies where at least one in five is the worst kind of person in the country.

It’s messed up.

5586

Do you seriously need to ask that question? What exactly do you think your word choice of whore connotes to the vast majority of American ears? You may not mean to suggest she’s a prostitute, and no one will take that literal interpretation in fairness, but you’re still choosing to place her on that social level instead of more specifically criticizing her words and the lack of intelligence behind them. And the act of doing so makes you look misogynistic, even if you’re really not at heart (and I’m not saying you are).

5587

The term is used often to not just insult women but degrade them, dehumanize them and is frequently lodged at professional women who are clearly not selling their bodies for money. I would not accept the term from other women either but it seems to come more often from men at women.

This is why i go so crazy about this crap. These people are either the absolute worst people in the country, or they are people who don’t mind being at rallies where at least one in five is the worst kind of person in the country.

It’s messed up.

It’s not just the 10% either… it’s the 11% who are not sure… which would be what exactly, those who believe it’s true but aren’t confident enough to put it down in writing.

5588

The term is used often to not just insult women but degrade them, dehumanize them and is frequently lodged at professional women who are clearly not selling their bodies for money. I would not accept the term from other women either but it seems to come more often from men at women.

But aren’t all insults essentially designed to degrade their targets? Isn’t that what an insult is?

Certainly you can make more meaningful intellectual complaints without resorting to insults. Generally i try to do that. But once you cross the line into personal insults, what is the difference between one form of degradation and another?

Again, if this is better served in a separate thread, or not at all, that’s fine. It has nothing to do with the election. But I’m genuinely interested in better understanding the root issue.

5589

How you want to appear to your peers?

5590

Seriously? Yes, they are. And yet there is a large difference between “dingus” and “whore.”

But yeah, insults are insults, man, why you all gotta get so butt-hurt about it???

5591

My understanding, which may be poor, is that it is bad for two reasons:

  • It enforces double standards of sexuality on women. If a woman sleeps with a random guy she’s called a “slut” or “whore” and shamed, whereas if a guy does it it’s taken either neutrally or positively. Obviously this goes back through the entire gamut of human history.
  • Prostitutes don’t deserve to have their livelihood used as a harsh insult, at least in my view.

Since you weren’t calling this lady a whore because of any sexual behaviour on her part I don’t think it’s AS bad (although what would I know), but still in poor taste. It’s not too dissimilar to you saying “Trump is so gay”.

5592

But that would suggest that the difference is one of degree, rather than kind though.

But that’s exactly why i choose whore. Because Dingus did not effectively capture the degree of insult i wanted to convey.

5593

So you didn’t actually think about the difference between someone calling your sister a whore and calling her an idiot, then?

Because it’s FUCKING INCREDIBLY OBVIOUS unless you’re so stuck inside your own head you can’t even imagine what this “sexism” thing all those dames are so hot about is.

Jesus Christ.

5594

Do you have any concept about what sexism is?

5595

She asks, foolishly.

5596

First, yes, using any crude insult is in poor taste. Like i said, my one regret was that it would offend others. So that part i get.

The two reasons you have are interesting though. The first one i suspected, but i must admit i still don’t fully understand it. It’s like there is some association with sexuality that automatically makes stuff worse. I wonder if there is some relationship to puritanical roots in America where we anyways get uptight about sexuality (although you aren’t in America). Is there also maybe some indirect suggestion of violence against women, based on historical abuse of prostitutes?

The second point is fair, in that there is truly nothing wrong with being a prostitute. I can understand how using their profession as an insult would be offensive to them. Although, to be fair, I wouldn’t actually call a prostitute a whore, since whore is more specifically meant as an insult in my mind.

5597

Ok, never mind man. Adam is just going to get progressively more pissed off just from taking about it.

5598

So why is it an insult if there is nothing wrong with prostitution?

It’s basically not a good insult because it doesn’t really work on any level, targets her gender for no good reason, and “insults” a profession that you agree should not be a negative. It’s not that hard to understand, and there are a whole slew of non-gendered insults that you can go through before you ever have to resort to gendered ones (I recommend “fucking idiot”).

5599

We even had a thread full of them.

5600

I prefer ‘mentally deficient buffoon, ignorantly peddling the falsehoods of a xenophobic charlatan, whose only use to society than the remnants of yesterdays dinner that she deposited into the sewers.’

5601

A couple of things. First, exciting people under 35 isn’t overwhelmingly important; voters 30 and under are only 20% of the total voting public (this based on 2008, when youth turnout was abnormally high and the population marginally younger.) Obama won the youth vote, but he didn’t win because of the youth vote. Even without it he would won, and this because he made a concerted effort to appeal to everyone, including the boring but key 45-65 demographic that actually makes up the largest hunk (37%) of voters. Because Obama won that demographic, winning the youth demographic was pure gravy.

Second, trying to sweep Congress in a Presidential year by using a base strategy of firing up the far end of your party’s spectrum doesn’t really work, for two simple reasons:

  1. No matter how fired up you are - a million times more excited than the last election! - each person still only gets one vote.
  2. The people on the far end of a party’s spectrum are, pretty much by definition, the ones who will grit their teeth, hold their nose, and vote for a more moderate member of their own party rather than for the other side. People in the center, on the other hand, are more willing to simply cross party lines if they don’t feel their party’s candidate is close enough to them (e.g. the Reagan Democrats of 1980.) So the obvious move for anyone trying to win the general is to appeal to the center; you pick up more votes than you lose that way.

Not that firing up your base is bad; it helped Obama in both his elections and W in both of his. But for both those candidates, “firing up the base” was a supplement on top of a core strategy of appealing to the middle. (It might well have won W his elections, mind, but those were historically close.)

Firing up the base works vastly better during off-years, because basically no one shows up and small differences in turnout can lead to big differences in outcomes. But in Presidential elections, it’s all about who can grab the center.