I think the person means “fag end” as in the end of a fag. I should know, I’ve bummed a lot of fags in my day.
And I wasn’t even pushing the “uber gay agenda” at the time. Must try harder.
Anyway, why can’t global citizens call American politicians traitors? US politicians feel perfectly at ease mansplaining to every other country in the entire world what exactly constitutes “liberty”, “democracy”, “freedom”, “free trade”, “security”, “terrorism”, “elected”, “government”, etc. etc. etc. Perhaps we are seeing the sense of entitlement that “American exceptionalism” imparts on many Americans: criticism goes only one way. The natural way.
These representatives are traitors under any normal definition of the term: they betrayed their constituents and their people.
There’s a certain beauty in how sententious rants about the need for our blog posts to be hyperbole-free responsible journalism tend to decay into sputtering analogy-by-bigotry.
I was fairly confused by the blog post, had to read the comments to figure out wtf it was about. Maybe a bit more context in the blog would be helpful.
The US is a country that, more than most others, views itself as being founded on the ideals of its Constitution (capital C). So it’s not that far fetched to call someone a “traitor” when you actually mean “traitor to the ideals of freedom and liberty that we all claim to share”. Is it an ad hominem attack? Hell yes. Worse, It’s politics.
But then, I don’t like the word traitor. It’s been abused too much throughout history.
If I don’t like that the US government is violating my rights while I am at home in Austria, where should I move to?
Should I be spending my money on Iranian products instead, as the Iranian government seems to be concentrating its rights-violating efforts on its own citizens and has never wronged me?
Or should I move to the US, become a US citizen and vote to change things?
Or should I instead move to China, become a member of the Communist Party, and change the things I don’t like about how they are doing things?
I stand corrected on that point. Don’t know if that changes anything in regards to the British libel law issue or not. AFAIK it applies equally to residents and citizens.
Has anyone else noticed that when people use words they often use them for emotional impact rather than their dictionary definition? Or they use them to mean what the word means to them, instead of adhering to a one sentence description of what the word might generally mean that loses all nuance and context?
If you think that someone is honestly mistaken about what a word means then feel free to correct them. Like, imagine if I said that anyone relying on dictionary definitions to make a point has a tenacious grasp of discourse, you might say, “Oh, I think you meant ‘tenuous’.” But going to a dictionary to prove your point… you better be arguing about how that dictionary defined that word, not about the real world.
I think this is an important point… words are meant to communicate not just textbook meanings, but nuance and emotion as well.
Related, I have been reading some Paul Ricoeur, and it’s a book of lectures on the issue of ideology and utopia. But on interesting thing in the editors intro is that he talks about how Ricoeur argues elsewhere that when we debate and argue we are less arguing about facts and we are really debating the interpretation of facts… which I think is pretty much a good summation of how modern politics operate - a damn debate over how we interpret facts.
“This” not other stuff. As in “this, the subject of this post”. You can disagree with him but you can’t reasonably deny that Cory spends more time than most reading (and writing) about the surveillance state. I didn’t say he was correct either despite my willingness to call any congressperson a traitor.
Not really, both are observations. You think the sky is always blue? #sunsets on you.
Then maybe speak out when we violate your rights abroad. Bill S. 2685 had NOTHING in it that would protect you – it was supposed to be a bill that gave more rights to citizens at home. Should it have involved folks overseas? Maybe. I personally don’t think my gov’t should be spying on regular citizens elsewhere, regardless of citizenship. However, this wasn’t what the bill was about.
One is a statement of fact, within specific parameters. Objectively, we can test this. The other is a statement of judgement. Non-objective. I work in science and psychology…I’ve had to teach folks objective vs. subjective observations. You might want to figure this out if it is that difficult.
They remain observations & good enough for my original analogy. You want to go back in time & establish parameters for what level of clarity the analogies presented to you must have then be my guest.
I’m sure it won’t be hard for you, working in science and all ;D
