Are you having a stroke? If you talked like you write, I would call an ambulance. Read it, carefully.

1). Nice misdirection there. Way to completely ignore the accusation, and pretend you didn’t just call yourself and all republicans heavily armed crybaby pussies afraid of a few hipsters holding poster board signs.
Funny, because what you described is EXACTLY what women’s healthcare providers suffer from people just like you on a daily basis…the minimum they must tolerate, Bob. Not what happens TO the right, it’s what the right DOES. That’s called projection, you insane idiot. Those healthcare workers have the testicular fortitude to stand up to it daily, with not just constant protesters but death threats and murders and attempted murders constantly, bombings, firebombs, etc….so much they don’t make the news anymore.

2) I thought you cared about the law (*snickers*), the law doesn’t call abortions murder, neither does medical science…are you talking about Texans who immorally execute the mentally disabled? Or morally bankrupt Republicans who try to prosecute women who miscarry for child murder, with no child involved?

3) Are you really so intellectually bankrupt that you don’t think Republican women get abortions? I know you are morally and ethically bankrupt enough to say it even if you don’t believe it, but I’m not sure even you are dumb enough to think it’s true…but you’ve surprised me before.

4) 16 million? How far up your ass did you reach for that number? There were near 600000 terminated pregnancies last year. Would you like to be taxed enough to support them in state orphanages? Only around $1k per year (and rising 2-3% per year) for your share.

Such a little crybaby. You need a nap?

When I was about 13ish living in NJ, my friend and I decided to head down to the railroad near the Delaware river.

To get there we decided to go down the steel steps that ran down the hillside in our town. There are two flat platforms along the way and when we reached the first one we spotted a boy who, we knew from the area, coming up the steps in our direction.

His name was Ken. Ken had a mental disability but he was harmless. A friendly and defenseless kid that was about the same age as us and about a head taller. As he was coming up the steps I wondered what he would do if I punched him in the gut. A total sucker punch that he wouldn't see coming.

I knew he wouldn't retaliate so I decided I would do it.

As he got within range, without warning, I punched him right in the gut hard.

How he reacted and the painful look on his face instantly brought regret that, to this day, I still live with. Many years later I made an effort to find Ken and tell him how sorry I was for my violent, unprovoked actions that day. How much of an asshole I was and hope he might forgive me. I found out he had died just a couple of years back.

I think about how that punch may have changed him forever. How it may have destroyed his trust in people and planted a fear within him that I was responsible for.

Sometime later, when I was alone, I cried that day with that vision I saw on his face and I can still see it now and feel it in my gut as I write this.

That day had changed my life forever at his expense.

@Diogenes

Thank you for your detailed answer. I do agree with you that context matters and that words are neither inherently good or bad by themselves. However, I think you’re looking at the situation from a more microscopic point of view as a simple joke between two people. I prefer to take a more macroscopic view of the situation. Allow me to explain.

Going back to my hypothetical example, it’s true that I didn't mean any harm when I used the term "retard" towards my brother. I think all people like to think of themselves as "good" people. For example, I would never in my life point at person with Down Syndrome and scream "Retard!" at the top of my lungs or attempt to belittle someone with an actual mental disability. The problem, however, is that by using the word in the way I did in the example I am tacitly--and quite publicly (remember this is happening in a parking lot)--endorsing the equating of people with mental disabilities to stupidity. I may be making a joke towards my brother but it isn’t just my brother that winds up being the butt of the joke.

Now maybe from your perspective, it’s just one person saying a joke. Look at the context, you might say. It’s a distasteful joke but no big deal, right? And I could agree with that if it was just some off-color joke limited to a single individual. Unfortunately, and I think we can both agree on this, the use of “retard” to mean “stupid” is a relatively common occurrence in American vernacular. You couple that with the stigma against mental illness and mental disability and I think it becomes fairly plain to see that on the macroscopic level (i.e. society) we have a problem: a group that is socially disadvantaged and historically discriminated against is even further marginalized by the language people use in their everyday lives. Now, if you don’t agree this is a problem, I’m afraid the conversation has to end here since the logical conclusion of such a stance is that people should be free to say whatever they want and be immune to criticism, damn the consequences.

But if you do agree it is a problem, how are we going to solve it? My take on the situation is that doing absolutely nothing when witnessing a situation like the one I've described is unlikely to improve society in any way. The status quo will be maintained if people are not confronted about their language use.

That being said, people often say things without fully comprehending the implications of what they are saying. They often talk the way they were raised and never once questioned whether what they were saying was actually harmful or not. I don’t think people should be pilloried for that, but in the event that they are unaware of how they are contributing to the discrimination and oppression of others they certainly need to be educated.

This necessarily entails confrontation, although that confrontation might be very low key. Continuing the example above, I think a good way for the woman in the example to “enlighten” me about my misguided use of the word “retard” would be something along the lines of this:

“Excuse me. I really wish you wouldn’t equate having a mental handicap with stupidity. My nephew has Down Syndrome and even though, yes, he can’t do everything that a person without an intellectual handicap can do he is most certainly not stupid.”

Now, all of that said, I see nothing wrong with publicly shaming those who clearly understand the implications of what they are saying and out of either stubbornness, a need for attention, or actual spite willfully continue to use language that is degrading or oppressive. A white person frequently using the N-word in public to describe black people, for instance, is a situation where I’d be completely fine with them getting verbally eviscerated. We don't always have to be polite, even when being politically correct.

As a final note, I want to make it clear that I believe in free speech in the sense that everyone should be free to say whatever they wish. However, as a caveat to that I also believe that free speech comes with the responsibility that people must own everything they say. If someone wishes to use offensive, degrading, or oppressive language that is their choice. Free speech in no way gives them a free pass from criticism of that choice, however.

@Diogenes

I'm not sure I'm following what you're saying. Why should a reasonable person be pissed off at a third party calling out offensive language use? To use a hypothetical:

I jokingly call my brother a "retard" because he locks his keys in the car. We grew up in the 80s, so this this pejorative is something we are comfortable with and feel no inhibitions about using. My brother laughs it off.

Now let's assume this happens in a parking lot as we're standing outside my brother's car and a woman passing by overhears my comment and chastises me for equating stupid actions with people who have mental disabilities.

Should reasonable bystanders watching all this be pissed off, since my comment wasn't directed at the woman? On the one hand, my brother and I weren't offended by the use of the word "retard" to mean stupid. On the other hand, our very usage of the word "retard" in that particular way promotes and sustains a culture that already heavily looks down on mental illness and mental disabilities.

I'm genuinely curious about your answer to this. If I'm reading your comment correctly, the primary negative of PC language that you see is that some people feel smug when they call out other people on their language usage. But does the fact that some people are smug about it make them wrong in pointing out the offender?

Your video, police shooting of mentally disabled man, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

This is essentially a repeat of the same, shortsighted, ignorant mistake humankind made in the middle ages by locking up anyone with a mental disability or significant lifestyle difference.

The rep is there because most moderately, poor mentally disabled folk cannot hold onto a roof over their heads. And if they don't have family to support them, then yes they become homeless.

The bigger part, however, is that those who fall on hard times usually do so temporarily (Despite what conservatives say about the poor, they do work back up or try to. Most are successful.) The mentally ill, however, are perpetually down if they fall, for the most.

If you were homeless before, how were you able to stop being homeless? According to Ron, he is unable to get a job because he is unable to look presentable as well as unable to have a phone number to be called at. I had generally assumed that the majority of homeless people were in their position because they are people who are unable to manage themselves (due to mental disability or whatever else). In my position with the information that I have, if I were homeless right now, I would attempt to gather enough money to buy a prepaid phone from the gas station as well as some decent clothes from goodwill. The combination of these things would make me much more eligible to obtain a minimum wage job.

Would you predict that Ron will pull himself out of the gutter someday?

not really because you can't stop second hand smoke with smoking, whereas you can stop home invasions and bad guys with guns, with guns.

The intentions of most legal gun owners are not malicious in nature. Some are just hobbyists, some just have them for protection from those brandishing (most likely) illegal guns looking to do them harm...there's no way of avoiding those situations. If a bad person, such as the coward that took out the children, has horrible intentions, the only thing you can argue is the ease with which he managed to obtain the weapon. It was obviously too easy for a man with mental disabilities to get them. But with the intentions of killing innocent children, there are a hundred ways to do it without a gun. Would he have gone through more trouble had he not had access to guns? Maybe. Maybe not. But he had those horrible intentions and the capacity to carry them out, and that's the horrendous part of this. It's the part that scares every sane person is: how could somebody want to do that?

The reason why the issue has been shifted from "how could somebody do that?" to the means in which he did it, is because humans like to think they have total control of their environment and a wildcard such as mental insanity scares people just as much as our own mortality. Whereas blaming something tangible is easy because we could "technically" stop it. So we end up blaming things like video games and guns.

Sorry I'm trying to avoid other examples (Timothy McVeigh, etc.) because they are hackneyed, but some of them might give an insight as to the cause and the ends being more significant than the means.

I don't think he's trolling. He's just having fun. I get the feeling he might be mentally disabled and the flash mob are good sports about it.

>> ^entr0py:

>> ^artician:
Girl had some serious stress. I feel bad for her, even though she seemed to be 150% in the wrong. Still have to feel bad for people with that many issues.

I'm impressed you can have empathy for someone that loud. This is not how the internet is supposed to work.


Ah, thanks! Some things worth noting - I only watched about 15 seconds of the video before I had to turn it off. The other fact of the matter is that I probably would have kicked her square in the teeth had I been present (mostly joking).
I just figure anyone who is that manic and loud probably has either a serious mental disability, or horrific stress in their life, and it just manifests itself in this embarrassing and horribly uncomfortable (for everyone) way. I have to feel some pity for anyone who's life, or problems in life, make them that fucked up.
My reaction would be much less civil if I were present (I really would have just walked out). But the way the internet works for me is by letting me be separate from these events, and thus granting me some objectivity for even the worst examples of humanity. In a sense, I'm cheating.

The first video features a white woman in a crowd of white people. She singles out a lone black woman and then proceeds to bully and berate her. She makes it clear that these attacks are done in the name of her country and the white race, which is a cruel way to insinuate that she has the approval of the rest of her countrymen and fellow white people on that tram.

>>> That's a pretty bold assumption on your part. You believe she thought the orwellian serfs would back her up somehow? She is surrounded by Black people on that train--including one that could choke her or cut her throat from behind--and for good measure, there's a woman wearing a burqa in the background. It is more likely she had some mental disability, putting her kid in danger.

Thankfully someone stepped in and called this woman's bluff, which served to change the tenor of this exchange from a tense game of intimidation to a lone racist babbling nut.

The guy in the second video BEGINS his exchange as a lone racists babbling nut. He is a single black man in a crowd of white people.

He shouts out terrible things that he obviously has no intention or ability to carry out. No one takes him seriously. There is no bullying and no tension. People are laughing at him.

>>> Watch it again. There are other Black people on the train. And the nut's targets are not laughing. At all.

>>> Once again, you're making assumptions of questionable merit. First, you can't tell the level of someone's combat experience merely by sight, and if he's truly crazy he'll be immensely strong. Second, he's holding a glass bottle. He could've just as easily struck the woman to his left, with or without breaking the bottle first.

>>> Trying to summon up stormfront as a scary demon is laughable. Compare their ranks, which I assume aren't close to a few thousand, to the budgets and memberships of the NAACP, ACLU and Southern Poverty Law Center.

You may believe you're "calling me out" and that's fine, you have every right to speak up. Individuals and group behaviors we can debate all day. However, the elephant in the room, with his buttocks spread across both videos, is the fact the French nutball was not condemned--by anyone--for his antics and there were no police looking for him after the fact.

You can be against intolerance or indifferent to it, but not selectively intolerant.












>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

Let me break this down.
The first video features a white woman in a crowd of white people. She singles out a lone black woman and then proceeds to bully and berate her. She makes it clear that these attacks are done in the name of her country and the white race, which is a cruel way to insinuate that she has the approval of the rest of her countrymen and fellow white people on that tram. Thankfully someone stepped in and called this woman's bluff, which served to change the tenor of this exchange from a tense game of intimidation to a lone racist babbling nut.
The guy in the second video BEGINS his exchange as a lone racists babbling nut. He is a single black man in a crowd of white people. He shouts out terrible things that he obviously has no intention or ability to carry out. No one takes him seriously. There is no bullying and no tension. People are laughing at him.
Context matters. If I say 'I'm going to kill you' in a dark alley with a gun pointed to your head, it means something very different than if I say it after you accidentally spill coffee on my new shirt.
The above video has been bouncing around the hate cesspools of the internet - like Stormfront - in an attempt to show parity between these two very different events; parity between an empowered bully and a powerless fool.
Now you could have framed this as 'hey look at this crazy drunk racist guy, what an idiot' and you would have had no problems, but that's not how you chose to frame it, and as a result, this post didn't go that well for you. I'd rather not have to call you out like this. It's obviously upsetting to you. But when racial issues that resonate with the Stormfront crowd also resonate with you, you might have problems. Sort yourself out.

I'm still one of those people that says "retarded" and doesn't even realize it until it's too late. But it's never been something that I direct at "people with mental disabilities." It's always been to describe myself when I do something retarded. Ooops.

I'd like to just redefine the term. It's such a good word that rolls off the tongue so well...

yes, they would be. lots of other people would too. people with weaker immune systems, people with psoriasis, people with bad teeth and lazy eyes and bone spurs. i'm short and i run slow. but we are a civilized society and do not need to write anyone off as human refuse. and how self righteous of someone to think that their specific path from creation to enlightenment is the only thing keeping "less desirables" from becoming total human refuse. that some large male diety in the sky is the only thing blessing the freaks with the ability to behave "nobly" and that without HIM these "burdens on society" would just need to be left in a landfill somewhere.

oh and also, every successful adaption started off as a MUTATION. not that i think fragile X or angelman's syndromes are the future of the human race or anything. i just resent absolutism and self righteousness. and every statement he makes at me stinks of both.

i totally understand that he doesnt mean to come off like a complete dick and doubt that he is actually a complete dick, but every interaction i have with him.... he comes off as a complete dick.
In reply to this comment by JiggaJonson:
Although I largely disagree with shinyblurry, I will concede that if we were not a civilized society, people with either physical or mental disabilities would be at a much greater risk of death. MOST new genetic mutations are deleterious, that is to say, they cause harm to their respective owners. And while I fully understand that Darwin didn't coin the phrase, it doesn't change the idea that some people are vexed by their genes in one way or another.

However, I DO agree that writing said people off as "genetic baggage," as he put it, is callus and unkind. We could just as easily say that "love" is simply a chemical reaction in the brain, and can be written off as such. But it's the value we place on those feelings, the choices we make to assign it meaning, much like the choices we make to care for one another, that give our own lives meaning and purpose.

In reply to this comment by peggedbea:
you don't know what i do for a living, so i'll skip the part where i yell at you passionately kids with downs/people with disabilities/kids with syndromes.
furthermore, survival of the fittest was not a phrase coined by darwin. and did not originally apply to the evolution of organisms. applying it to people with genetic disorders further offends me.

Although I largely disagree with shinyblurry, I will concede that if we were not a civilized society, people with either physical or mental disabilities would be at a much greater risk of death. MOST new genetic mutations are deleterious, that is to say, they cause harm to their respective owners. And while I fully understand that Darwin didn't coin the phrase, it doesn't change the idea that some people are vexed by their genes in one way or another.

However, I DO agree that writing said people off as "genetic baggage," as he put it, is callus and unkind. We could just as easily say that "love" is simply a chemical reaction in the brain, and can be written off as such. But it's the value we place on those feelings, the choices we make to assign it meaning, much like the choices we make to care for one another, that give our own lives meaning and purpose.

In reply to this comment by peggedbea:
you don't know what i do for a living, so i'll skip the part where i yell at you passionately kids with downs/people with disabilities/kids with syndromes.
furthermore, survival of the fittest was not a phrase coined by darwin. and did not originally apply to the evolution of organisms. applying it to people with genetic disorders further offends me.