December 2011
60 posts
When words hurt and when they shouldn't...
A word’s meaning can vary from person to person. Remember this every time you open your mouth.
This is what our society has come to: the responsibility to police the words that exit your mouth. You can’t say those words, but these are ok. I’m getting so tired of the overly political correctness that has become our society. But why are we so concerned with hurting the feelings of others? What about my feelings? What if I wanted to say whatever word in the context it was put in because it was a way to vent, express a frustration audibly rather than breaking something or hurting myself in the process of venting said frustration physically? I know some people have anger issues and having different ways of venting. Some punch walls. Some scream and yell. Some throw things. Ideally some go to the gym. Or meditate even. But I, like I’m sure many other, in times of frustration spout off at the mouth. I’m usually a nice person, so please try to put in perspective the extreme of me getting pissed off.
But when I get mad I can say some mean shit. It’s one of those moments when the brain mouth filter completely vanishes. But even in moments of frustration can come humor. So enters sarcasm. Please know what the meaning of sarcasm means and understand that it’s a method of venting. It is NOT to be taken personally. If you don’t like it, it’s ok. Know that somewhere out there someone does and it’s meant for them, not you. I respect the opinions of others, even though I may not agree. I may state my differences, but that is part of debate and debate is educational. There should be nothing wrong with expressing oneself. It’s a right, isn’t it? Seriously, though, there is always going to be someone that gets offended. You can’t please everyone all the time. It’s just impossible. There’ll always be critics.
However, I want the ability to use certain words without people getting all twisted. One of these words is “retard”. I would like the ability to call ignorant, inept, morons “retards”. In this context, the word cannot be perceived as being derogatory in any way. I believe that people with developmental disabilities are not actually “retarded” anyway. So I already disagree with the perceived definition. When I call someone “retarded”, it’s because they’ve presented themselves in a most ridiculous way, absent of sane mind. Example: friend wants to put fireworks in bonfire = retarded. I don’t think I’m asking too much here.
Another issue I have is how they want to edit Mark Twain’s work to omit certain words. You know what? That’s bullshit! That’s the way he wrote it, that’s the way it stays. It’s is part of history, our heritage, our language. That book needs to be read the way it was printed. Or is someone going to put clothes on all the nude Greek statues in all the museums or paint clothes on all the nude artwork? It would be utter destruction of the artistic masterpiece! Why are people so sensitive after all this time? Can our and future generations move past these old words and look towards becoming less uptight and overly sensitive? I thought we had evolved past such bigotry where we would have to censor our language so…
What I want to really point out is how we have become a country that is obsessed with equality in such a way, that we have become even more prejudiced. We have prejudiced words in such a way that we can’t even use them to be funny? We are censoring our language and ourselves in a way that’s not healthy.
Why can’t I call someone who is acting in such an overtly rude and obnoxious way a “fag”? I’m not saying it to offend any homosexual. I’m saying it, again, as a way to vent a frustration over the behavior of someone. Shouldn’t part of making people feel equal be to take power away from the words that were used against them? Not take the words away all together?
Please don’t twist my intentions here into thinking that I condone the use of these or other words in any kind of derogatory manner. I mean the opposite. My intention here is just to illustrate how anal we have become about how we think and then how we communicate how we think. I think some of this is detrimental to society. We are too sensitive and have put too much restriction on how we can communicate. Besides think of how happy the comedians will be to not have their words twisted on them all the time?
“The banks have said, leave us deregulated, we know how to run things, don’t put government in to meddle. Then with that freedom of maneuver they took huge gambles, and even made illegal actions, and then broke the world system. As soon as that happened then they rushed out to say ‘bail us out, bail us out, if you don’t bail us out, we’re too big to fail, you have to save us’. As soon as that happened, they said ‘oh, don’t regulate us, we know what to do’. And they almost went back to their old story, and the public is standing there, amazed, because we just bailed you out how can you be paying yourself billions of dollars of bonuses again? And the bankers say, ‘well we deserve it, what’s your problem’? And the problem that the Occupy Wall Street and other protesters have is: you don’t deserve it, you nearly broke the system, you gamed the economy, you’re paying mega fines, yet you’re still in the White House you’re going to the state dinners, you’re paying yourself huge bonuses, what kind of system is this?
When I talk about this in the United States, I’m often attacked, ‘oh, you don’t believe in the free market economy’, I say, how much free market can there be? You say deregulate, the moment the banks get in trouble, you say bail them out, the moment you bail them out, you say go back to deregulation. That’s not a free market, that’s a game, and we have to get out of the game. We have to get back to grown-up behaviour.” —Jeffrey Sachs, the controversial economist talks about the collapse of the global financial system and how to end the crisis with Al Jazeera (via mohandasgandhi)
When I talk about this in the United States, I’m often attacked, ‘oh, you don’t believe in the free market economy’, I say, how much free market can there be? You say deregulate, the moment the banks get in trouble, you say bail them out, the moment you bail them out, you say go back to deregulation. That’s not a free market, that’s a game, and we have to get out of the game. We have to get back to grown-up behaviour.” —Jeffrey Sachs, the controversial economist talks about the collapse of the global financial system and how to end the crisis with Al Jazeera (via mohandasgandhi)
“I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.”
—Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)
“People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid.”
—Soren Aabye Kierkegaard (1813-1855)
“We have to live today by what truth we can get today and be ready tomorrow to call it falsehood.”
—William James
“The educated differ from the uneducated as much as the living from the dead.”
—Aristotle
“We seldom realize, for example that our most private thoughts and emotions are not actually our own. For we think in terms of languages and images which we did not invent, but which were given to us by our society.”
—Alan Watts (via cwnl)
“We live in a world of unused and misapplied knowledge and skill.”
—H. G. Wells (1866-1946)
“A person is not fully educated until he realizes that there are some questions to which nobody has the answers.”
—W. A. Nance
“English is a funny language. A fat chance and a slim chance are the same thing.”
—Jack Herbert
“There are two ways of exerting ones strength; one is pushing down, the other is pulling up.”
—Booker T. Washington
“We make a living by what we get; we make a life by what we give”
—Sir Winston Churchill
7 Life Lessons You Can Learn From 'Star Trek' →
huffingtonpost.com
- The best way to travel is to boldly go where no one has gone before. This is true for vacations, for self-exploration, for life itself. If you want your days filled with adventure, laughter, love, learning and the occasional mind-meld, follow this route.
- The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few—or the one. Sometimes you must make great sacrifices for the greater good. And, like the Genesis device, it will all come back around.
- Expressing your emotions is a healthy thing. Sure, McCoy seemed angry all the time when exclaiming, “Dammit, Jim! I’m a doctor not a mechanic/bricklayer/soothsayer,” but he knew that by expressing his anger and frustration it wouldn’t get the best of him and he could then perform at his peak capacity.
- When estimating how long a job will take, overestimate—and when you do better your captain will always be impressed. Replace the word “captain” with “teacher” or “mom/dad” and you’ll see what I mean. Sure, Mr. Scott might have been telling the truth—maybe it would take six hours to get the warp engines back online in the heat of the battle. Or maybe he was padding things so he looked good. Either way, when the engines did come back on line, everyone was happy.
- Wearing red makes you a target. This is true of cars, dresses and, most especially, shirts. Red gets you noticed—which is good if you want to be noticed, bad if you don’t want to end up vaporized.
- When you don’t know what to say, pause. It will give you the time to figure it out. Or at the very least, you’ll sound like you’re being thoughtful. “But….Spock…..why?”
- The most powerful force in the universe is friendship. It’s more powerful than phasers, photon torpedos, even more powerful than the force itself. With friends, you can accomplish any task, escape any perilous situation, defeat any enemy—and you get to laugh together when it’s all over.
“As Jewish as I am I still get so nervous spelling Hannukah.”
—ME (via bffproductions)
