I think the harder the "r" is pronounced the more racist the word becomes. For instance, someone who might pronounce the word "nig-ai" avoids racism all together while someone slurs that "r" like a pirate might be up to no good.
At this point the word has reached the level of confusing social taboo, like something out of Seinfeld. People who normally scoff at the concept of "bad words" get very incredibly superstitious when it comes to slurs, racial ones in particular. The joy people have in using the "n-word" ironically is the fact that it plays around with a superstition/taboo and almost always gets a conditioned reaction from people.
This reminds of the time I watched a comedian tell a joke about Bush eating children for breakfast and after receiving little laughter or horror from the crowd he suggested that Bush eats black children for breakfast and the whole audience gasped in horror.
-- Cunga (visionsofjohann...) (webmail), October 22nd, 2006.
― am0n (am0n), Friday, 27 October 2006 02:07 (nineteen years ago)
From the two or three known pedophiles I've met in my life I noticed they all had a latent sophistication and cunningness that always surprised me. I would think they would make ideal politicians and I wouldn't underestimate them. One of them actually had thought out arguments for it and everything and although there were some logical fallacies here and there he really knew his rhetoric. (I should point out that he hadn't actually acted on his sexual desires but was very outspoken about what they were.)
The way he would (and I would imagine the way the pedophiles groups) go about normalizing it would go like this...
A) Separate a lust for children aged 13-18 from a lust for younger ones.
You immediately separate yourself from the "real sickos" out there who would prey on small children and distance yourself from them to the best of your abilities. He agreed that "pedophilia" as he defined it (sexual interests in prepubescent children) was sick and a real crime, etc but that he wasn't about that at all, he had a fetish for teenage girls and you can't get too upset about that, can you? This argument stresses the arbitrariness of age of consent laws and points out that every guy has made the occasional mistake of thinking a 14-year-old girls was older. Did that make you a "sicko" or a "pedo" when you did that? No, so why should he be considered one if he does it all the time and knowingly? How much different do fourteen and eighteen-year-old girls look sometimes? Sometimes you can't tell at all!
This was all a misdirection though because as much as he liked teenage girls (as well as young men and grown women. The man's sexual orientation wasn't easily defined) he also had a thing for little girls who were obviously prepubescent. This was all a way of misdirecting the argument away from what he really was attracted to and tried to focus it on the grayer areas that people can sympathize with to a degree (Age of consent laws are arbitrary).
You could argue (and I did a little bit) that this tactic has certain aspects of slippery slope, precision fallacy, red herring and features a couple of other logical fallacies but that's besides the point. I'm just trying to show you how it worked.
B) Find a new name for Pedophilia and its subcategories.
The biggest problem they have is that the word is so stigmatized. I'm amazed their already isn't a popular cute word to separate the pedophiles who like little children from the guys who have a fetish for teenage girls. Life needs euphemisms to cover the grim realities in it. Pedophilia is long overdue for some Newspeak that helps to redefine what you're talking about.
I'm too tired to remember all the other arguments he would make and I don't want to write a 2000 word post dissecting pedophile propaganda and rhetoric but I hope I showed some interesting tactics that can and no doubt will be used in the future.
-- Cunga (visionsofjohann...) (webmail), May 30th, 2006 11:10 PM. (Cunga)
― am0n (am0n), Friday, 27 October 2006 02:39 (nineteen years ago)
one year passes...
It's not his fault for writing them, it's our fault for reading them!
It really isn't fair to criticise some douche just for a catalogue of douchey comments in a douchey newspaper column.
STOP CRITICIZING THOMAS SOWELL FOR HIS PHONED-IN WATERED-DOWN COLUMNS, HES OUR GREATEST CONTEMPORARY PHILOSOPHER
You're free to snicker and condescendingly dismiss all you want! It's in short supply in our political discourse. Keep up the good work! You never know when the Daily Show staff is watching!
Thomas Sowell can not reasonably be called our greatest living philosopher if his think pieces are mostly
slabs of red meat for dittoheads. That said, there are likely quite a few liberal philosophers who have written equally thought-free anti-Bush articles.
He one of the most prolific pundits around, so there's always a greater chance of something mindless or half-argued appearing. The reason Sowell has been called a great philosopher is for a book like Knowledge and Decisions, which is fantastic, not necessarily for columns in which it is to take out an excerpt and try to stir left-wing hysteria because he's right-wing. Though taken in full his columns can still be great occasionally, if a bit inconsistent. Again, if you've read the more celebrated books I can't imagine a level-headed person dismissing Sowell as being anything less than brilliant. But enough about that; is it not true he supported Bush for President???
-- Cunga, Sunday, March 16, 2008 1:37 PM (25 minutes ago) Bookmark Link
― max, Sunday, 16 March 2008 21:03 (seventeen years ago)
three months pass...