Blackmoor Vituperative

Language is the road map of a culture. It tells you where its people come from and where they are going.

— Rita Mae Brown

On the one hand, it’s my opinion that the specific word someone uses means very little compared to what they mean by that word.

On the other hand, yes, vocabulary changes over time. “Decimate” used to mean “kill one person in ten”; nowadays it means “destroy most of”, almost the opposite of its archaic meaning.

But context matters. Intent matters. Chasing the term-of-the-moment is a distraction from what actually helps or hurts people. This semiotic scavenger hunt is one of the ways in which well-meaning people are kept occupied by trivia, while the Republican death cult burns the United States to the ground.

That being said, if someone from Mexico tells me that they consider “Mexican” to be pejorative because someone, somewhere has used that word as an insult, I will make an effort not to use that word around them. (Note: this is a hypothetical example, but it very easily could be a real-life example tomorrow.)

Is good news even a thing anymore? Not “making the best of it” news. Not “people staving off doom for one more day” news. Not “here’s some trivia about some stranger’s personal life” news. Not “be thankful things aren’t even worse” news. Actual good news.

That would be nice.

The United States was founded on good intentions, which are continually foiled by 1) racism so entrenched that some people think it’s synonymous with being American, 2) ordinary people’s worship of the ultra-wealthy as our “royalty”, who are rich by divine right, 3) a cultural obsession with warfare, and 4) neo-Puritan hypocrisy of such an intensity that it would be difficult to exaggerate it — no matter how bad you think it is, it’s actually worse. One-third of the USA literally belongs to an apocalyptic death cult which extols lies, hatred, and death as the core of their “morality”.

It is bad for people to be obeyed too readily. It is corrosive to good manners and a healthy relationship with those around them. When you resist someone with authority, you are looking out for the well being and sanity of that person.

Personally, I think we have too many punctuation symbols. Do we need commas, colons, and semicolons? Do we need three different kinds of dash? If you used a comma instead of a colon or a semicolon, or vice versa (as millions of people routinely do), would anyone be more or less confused about the meaning of the sentence?

My answer is: no, they would not; most people couldn’t tell you the proper usage of a colon vs. a semicolon — or an n-dash vs. an m-dash — if you paid them.

[red pild]
adjective

To internalize a set of misogynistic far-right beliefs popular with certain corners of the internet; the product of a noxious blend of junk science, conspiracy theory, and a pathological fear of social progress.

Origin and etymology of redpilled

based on the “red pill” philosophy, using a metaphor borrowed from the film The Matrix (1999)

First known use by far-right misogynists: 2012

That’s a photo of a lava flow slowly obliterating everything it touches. That white house on the far left: that’s us.

Do not seek marriage

Seek humour
Seek dignity
Seek adventure
Seek reliability

Do not seek marriage

Seek vulnerability
Seek strength
Seek kindness
Seek lust

Do not seek marriage

Seek independence
Seek intelligence
Seek passion
Seek friendship

Do not seek marriage

Wait for it to find you
With the realization
That all it will give you
Is a label
For what you already have

People who are fine with white nationalism will be voting.

People who are OK with kids in cages will be voting.

People who are good with Kurds being murdered will be voting.

People who are terrified of LGBTQ people will be voting.

People who believe FoxNews is objective truth will be voting.

People who think Trump was sent by God will be voting.

Politicians are NOT all “just as bad”. If you don’t vote, you are standing aside while the worst of them take your silence as consent to screw over you and your children and every living thing on the planet.

If you refuse to vote, you are making a statement. That statement is, “Do what you want with me, and my friends, and my family, and every helpless person at your mercy. I will not lift a finger to stop you.”

Conservative Christians believe their rights are in peril partly because that’s what they’re hearing, quite explicitly, from conservative media, religious elites, partisan commentators and some politicians, including the president. The survey evidence suggests another reason, too. Their fear comes from an inverted golden rule: Expect from others what you would do unto them. White evangelical Protestants express low levels of tolerance for atheists, which leads them to expect intolerance from atheists in return. That perception surely bolsters their support for Trump. They believe their freedom depends on keeping Trump and his party in power.

— White evangelicals fear atheists and Democrats would strip away their rights. Why?, By Paul A. Djupe

To summarize, among atheists who said they loathed Christian fundamentalists more than any other religious group, 65% still said they would be perfectly fine with those Christians having the same rights as everyone else. But among white evangelicals who hated atheists the most — even more than “white supremacists” — only 32% would say the same.

This is a core difference between the two groups and it illustrates why the “both sides are the same” argument is ridiculous. We’re not equally dogmatic but on opposite sides of the spectrum. In fact, these results just emphasize a point I’ve made repeatedly on this site: Atheists fight for religious neutrality, while white evangelicals fight for Christian supremacy.

— Study Shows White Evangelicals Want Christian Supremacy, Not “Religious Freedom”, By Hemant Mehta

“You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you:
‘These people honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
They worship me in vain;
their teachings are merely human rules.’ “

— Matthew 15:7-9