rexxz's point was that "gay" meaning "homosexual" was not always the case and simply came to be as slang. He's pointing out that words can acquire new meanings that do not reflect the original definition and that using "gay" to deride something does not mean that it has "homosexual" qualities, but is rather a new usage of the word.

Nailed it.

Please explain how this is true.

Already answered that.

While it is inarguable that words can develop new meanings, I don't understand how you can put equal weight into a word that is slang and a word that is not slang.

Maybe I am underestimating the accuracy of slang.


Let me ask you a question rexxz; I will accept your answer as honest, as I have no reason to think you would do so otherwise:

Do you really think that gay becoming slang meaning bad is not rooted in people's negativity towards homosexuality?

While I'm personally not sporting a swastika, ghost sheets, or consider myself much of a misogynist I'm getting sort of tired of all the whining about racial slurs and sexism also. I think that might be part of the reason why every time I turn on South Park I find myself laughing my ass off every time they do some joke pertaining to either race or gender. I can understand people really getting worried when the KKK is having a parade, but I think trying to publicly crucifying someone like Ralph Nader because he makes a historic analogy to Uncle Tom in regards to Barack Obama's corporate friendly economic policy is making a mockery out of the whole concept of racial justice, let alone all of the other overreactions that occur when someone says something taboo out of either momentary frustration or while making a wider point about something else.

I dont see any problem with calling a weak metal album gay. It is implying it lacks balls and or is too happy / cheerful to be an effective metal release.

I can understand your point, but I don't think it's right at all. At this point it's merely an unconscious, applying "gay" to anything we don't like, but I believe in this sense it originated from general dislike of homosexuals, and thus has nothing to do with a release being "too happy".

I fail to see why I should stop using it because it offends a bunch of pillow biters. Not trying to be funny I am honestly asking why I should not be allowed to say "This is gay" without being marked by some as a bigoted.

Homosexuals and Lesbians who are offended over the use of gay as slang for something bad really need to suck it up and grow a pair.

I never said you should stop saying it, but this is a whole new argument for another time.

It was not addressed to you in particular.

Maybe because I am a white straight male of middle classish standing I do not find slurs offensive or even really used against me that much? I just do not see the harm in simple words no matter how they are used against you.

Granted, it's much harder to be offended by such things as a white, straight male, but I can't deny I feel at least a twinge of annoyance on the rare occasion a black refers to something they don't like as "so white".

Why? Nations are the result of geographic coercive monopolies called states. Anything that makes one feel bonded to something as oppressive and wrongheaded can hardly be correct or rational. What little good arises from nationalism, if any truly does, can easily be replaced with a realistic form of societal bonding not based on erroneous concepts of reality.



For clarification, I was addressing the conflicts that arise from the myriad of differences between people. By no means do I seek a homogenous populous; only one which doesn't use ideological and physical differences as fodder for belligerence amongst itself.

Socialists? Please do elaborate. I'm curious.

In most cases, ignorant blacks who refer to something as "so white" are usually trying to express their disdain for anything that's not "black".

Very well. While I'm certain that most Scandinavians don't regard their systems of government as Socialistic in the pure sense because of the mixture of free enterprise, essentially just about every in Europe, North and South America, and elsewhere have a socialist lean in their government. Personally I don't see this as a good thing, but opinions vary. This wasn't so much an intentional snub at people living in your region, although it could potentially be interpreted that way, but more of just a bad joke reflecting my general boredom with the whole political correctness concept. Normally when I make jokes about governments I stick to either America's or England's.

Does not every state capitalist society gravitate toward socialism?

My PC threshhold is about average. It depends on the company. Generally my restraint only really involves not making un-PC jokes in front of my grandparents and so on.

I will however, use 'gay' and 'black' not out of a conscious decision to be un-PC but because they are normal lay terms that most people are comfortable using, and I'm not going to pussy-foot my way around talking to people or use these long robotic terms like 'developmentally delayed'. It's only because of a minority of green-haired lesbian Guardian reading students that this PC bullshit became such a massive issue. Trying to minimise offence caused as a policy of any kind is fucking pathetic, and a forcing of the cards in favour of leftist discourse (though I've met plenty of lefties who eschew political correctness). Life is unpleasant, no use engaging in "word masturbation" as I once read it being described.

Obviously. What's your point?

Just elaborating somewhat more on what you said. It's not so much that think of those certain things as "white", it's just that it's always something beyond their black "culture" and conventions. It irks me too.

This kind of stuff gets on my nerves so much it's unbelievable.

I wear glasses - does that mean I get all offended when people use the term 'four-eyes'? No, I even use it myself to describe other people who wear glasses. Like the other guy said, let it go.

Most of the time, these terms aren't used in a hateful way in the first place. If someone says 'Paki', then straight away they will be bombarded with 'OMG, HE SAID PAKI, HE'S RACIST!!!' But 9 times out of 10, they just said it because it's quicker than saying 'Pakistani'. Nothing to cry over. Killing people because of their race is disgusting, but some people kick up a storm over the smallest things these days.

My view on this is always changing; sometimes I'll be kinda pro-PC and then the next day I'll be back to throwing around various "offensive" words and what not.

Honestly I don't really see anything terribly wrong with making various words such as "nigger" and what not taboo. The whole "I say what I want to say" sort of brigade is often fairly hypocritical in that regard; there's no problem calling a black dude a nigger but heaven forbid that someone criticize/insult white people- although this is all fairly anecdotal, I have to admit.

Of course, having said that a lot of people just need to grow thicker skin in general. You're going to get offended in life, deal with it; if you want to change people's ways then suing them/changing the baa baa black sheep song isn't going to do much in that regard.

I guess it's all about moderation and common sense, just like most things; unfortunately common sense and moderation are things that most people lack. I guess if I had to pick a side I'd take anti-PC over the pro-side.

Pretty much, that's why I started identifying with libertarianism, though unfortunately the Libertarian Party here in America is fairly useless so I may end up voting Constitution Party so I can get some form of a system with minimal corruption, which both State Capitalism and Socialism gravitate towards.

We have been subliminally conditioned to react this way due to Myspace's exclusion of the term.

So far as I am aware, mercantilism is almost inevitable with government. Whether industry is immediately incorporated, in the case of highly controlled socialism, or industry is slowly absorbed, as in the case of capitalism, either way industry and the corporate sector at some point merge with the state.

Mercantilism is best dealt with by stripping away the state's ability to grant corporate charters and to enforce anti-trust laws (the latter is the preferred method of incorporated industry snuffing out smaller competitors). Both the Libertarian and Constitution Party support doing this, and I think some elements in the Green Party here might be open to doing this as well. The Libertarian Party looked like the best hope to get a 3rd Party's foot in the door, but then you got shills like Noam Chomsky and Neal Boortz going in and dividing the movement into two mirror images of the false left/right paradigm and it's all but dead in the water.

Another interesting story I heard on the radio:

A Native American mother is trying to band a decade old tradition in her town of having children in kindergarten from different schools getting together for thanksgiving while dressing as pilgrims or indians. Her reason: It is like dressing up as Nazis and Jews and getting together to eat or Slaves and Slave Owners. The schools, are bowing down to her request to remove the costumes from the whole thing.

I guess we have to remove all noting of indians and pilgrims from our text books too. Ridiculous.

Considering the way that history actually played out regarding the pilgrims, this Indian woman is a borderline retard, and this is coming from someone with Lakota Sioux ancestry who supports paying reparations to the tribes and the Lakota independence movement. The pilgrims respected the rights of native hunters to property and freedom of movement within the areas they populated. It wasn't until the time of Andrew Jackson that things became really bad, although Thomas Jefferson reneged on a lot of promises made by the original settlers, agreements which Patrick Henry and the anti-Federalists would likely have upheld if they had not have been forced out of the government. Neither Andrew Jackson, Thomas Jefferson, or any proponents of the Manifest Destiny were in any way connected with the original pilgrim settlers who landed at Plymouth Rock.

A university recently canceled a fundraiser for cystic fibrosis patients because, since it affects primarily caucasian (which they took to mean white) males (which is not true, but they believed it was), their contribution to the charity would not serve a diverse enough group.

http://jimbenderoxford.blogspot.com/200 ... dents.html

This is the type of thing that angers me. People are trying to show their support for non-caucasians at the expense of caucasians. Really, we're talking about a fund raiser to support illness, in this case. I wouldn't care if it were green people suffering...it's still a worthwhile cause.

Totally absurd.

The charity should release a video where a worker announces to a group of CF sufferers that they have no more money for them and can't help them no more

I fucking hate the liberal stranglehold on universities over the world right now. Students enraged by this should get together to counteract this shit.

I'm not so sure. It seems to me that, despite the fact that this country was for maybe a century free, it has fallen under the grips of bankers and corporate bigwigs into the depths of mercantilism despite the best efforts of the founding fathers, and despite this notion of 'limited government' (a very paradoxical idea indeed). Expecting a monopoly to eternally limit and feud amongst itself is akin to expecting a mobster to one day abandon his field of employment and pay torts to all of his victims of pure, whimsical goodwill. I've begun to distance myself from libertarians of fear of being backstabbed later on. The libertarian party is hardly a holy cow, and if and when it does sieze power, it has as much to fear from anarchists as traditional statists.

If the anarchists can show me how they can function as more than simply a useful tool of traditional and false revolutionary statists, I'll be more open to their desire to end the reign of the state. I can't stand what the state does, but I don't think its something that can be gotten rid of given the metaphysical nature of this world. I'll spare you the theology and just suggest that human beings tend to desire tyranny, assuming that we aren't dealing with a sort of conspiracy of power.

The entire concept of being "politically correct" evolved out of pussy shit people who are offended too easily.

The general populous has lacked nuts because of the comforts of our modern age. There was no such thing as being "PC" before this past century. (half-century?)

You think cave men got offended if the smarter in the "tribe" started using a spoken language and they didn't? FUCK NO, they had more IMPORTANT shit to worry about.

Agreed. Think of how much change we could do if we worked on this?
America is fucked.

It's more of a problem in UK universities as far as I can tell. I guess the US is just 'making up' for the whole "Better Dead than Red" stuff from the 50s. Why not just have it that no strong political leaning is allowed to have an ideological monopoly? Especially not when it comes to staff. Students are being failed/marked down based on having the 'wrong' views in their essays.

I mean, it's fine if the university wants to make sure that no discrimination is being made against any student for their ethnicity, but that's not the same as strangling discussion.

If you are requesting precedents as it seems, I have a rather solid list. Celtic Ireland, pre-Norman England, dark ages Iceland, many of the American Indian nations, much of pre-Christian northern Europe, and some of Africa (and Somalia today is stateless, since 1995) were lacking a formal state, and thus were, for all intents and purposes, anarchic. Even the not-so-wild American west was for quite a stretch anarchic on the frontiers, for a more relevant example. Voluntary states - non-geographic business entities which hold the functions of the state, without of course being a geographic, coercive monopoly - can easily placate those who wish to live under such organizations. Yes, I do believe that anarchism is unsustainable at the moment, for states would most likely rise again, but if a true laissez-faire state could be developed, and gradually phased away, enough of the population could be coaxed into accepting a stateless society (the power and influence of religion would also need to be abated, for the state is an inherently religious institution). There will be the occasional would-be tyrant, but because they would initiate force, measures of defense would be valid and necessary to quell their ilk.

Probably a teensy bit of a tangent, but it was part of the original article:



This is easily the most logical explanation I've found for my weird fixation for particularly large boobs. Because I'm terrible at judging gestures and physical cues (part of the AS), it could be argued that I'd have more difficulty judging things like age and fertility. Therefore, I would find extreme sexual dimorphism such as large breasts more attractive, since it makes it far easier for me to judge their suitability as a mating partner.

Wow, that's a load off my mind. Now I can finally say "I love epic boobs, because I can use her sizeable magumbos as accessible points of reference to estimate her suitability to carry my genes via their mass and resistance to gravity!" AAAAAAAaaaaaaaah, science.

In regards to the PC thing: African-American irritates me because it confuses the lines between nationality and ethnicity. A black person of African ancestry born in America, a white person born in America who moves to Africa, and a person of Chinese/Navajo ancestry born in Africa who moves to America can all be called African-American, which shows how useless it is as a phrase.

Political Correctness in general is from a good place in the desire to not offend needlessly, but as with all good ideas, it goes horribly wrong once idiots get their hands on it. For every reasonable campaign to fight prejudice, you get some insanity like considering "Black Hole" a racist term or using the spelling "Womyn".

Please walk into a room full of black people, say "nigger" to their faces, and watch what happens. Don't ask me to pay your hospital bill. That's basically what you're doing, especially if you use "fag" instead of "gay". Should black people "grow a pair" because they don't like being called niggers, Jews "grow a pair" because they don't like being called kikes, and women "grow a pair" because they don't like being called bitches, hoes, or cunts?



Implying that gay people lack masculinity ("balls") is insulting in itself, and often completely untrue as well (speaking of hospital bills, would you dare walk into a leather bar and tell those guys they lack balls?).

Most people who complain about being called one of those names have used similar derogatory comments in reference to others, so if a black man thinks making Chinese jokes are funny and kicks the shit out of someone for saying the word "nigger", he is definitely neck deep in hypocrisy.

If I can sit through an hour of Chris Rock throwing out every stereotype ever attributed to Caucasians and not succumb to the urge to track him down or launch a lawsuit at him, the groups that you mentioned can do the equivalent.