[asterisk-biz] Manners (was: Re: "Whats New at Digium the Asterisk Company")

Wed Nov 14 14:34:10 CST 2007

We all understood that Mr. Pilosov used the word gay to criticize a 
product, thus we all clearly see the implication about his views of a 
group of people. He can elaborate on that point at his option. The rest 
of this blather is obfuscation.

He speaks for himself.

Nick Seraphin wrote:
> On Wed, 14 Nov 2007, Matthew Rubenstein wrote:
>
>   
>> 	People call something that isn't a sexual human "gay" to insult it,
>> because lots of people have treated gay people as really bad things. We
>> don't say a bargainer tried to "jew us down" any more, either, even
>> though "Jew" isn't a bad word when referring to Jewish people (except
>> when people mean it that way).
>>
>> 	When you use the term for a group of people as an insult to something,
>> you are insulting those people. If people called some things "christian"
>> as an insult, for example, the way people have called things "gay" as an
>> insult for a long time, then "that thing is christian beyond words"
>> would insult not just the thing, but christians, too.
>>     
>
> You're going way off the deep end here, buddy.  First, *I* never used the
> word.  I'm simply saying that calling Alex a bigot for using it in the way
> he did is totally going overboard.  I'm simply defending Alex on this
> because I don't think it was the end of civilization like you seem to be
> indicating now.
>
> You sound absolutely ridiculous.  Go back and read what you just wrote.
> You're implying that calling an inanimate object "gay" is as bad as making
> Black people sit on the back of the bus in the 1950's.  You're being
> totally irrational.
>
> Because I defended Alex's benign comment, you now called me a bigot and a
> racist (where did racism come into this?  Is being gay now it's own race?)
> and "people like [me]" are the reason there's oppression in the world and
> why life is so horrible in this country.  You're obviously liberal
> politically from your statements below... aren't liberals supposed to
> DEFEND free speech and the first amendment?  Or maybe you only defend YOUR
> right to free speech?  Anyone who disagrees with you is a bigot or a
> racist.  Classic lines from the MoveOn.org playbook for arguments.
>
> I suppose anytime you don't agree with someone, you just "gang up
> on them" and beat them into submission until they succumb to your point
> of view?  Doesn't that make YOU the oppressive one here?  
>
> If calling something "gay" is such a bigoted slur, then why don't I see
> any outrage from the community at all the thousands of times I've seen it
> used on TV or in movies in the past 10 years alone?
>
> REAL slurs, like the N-word, don't get used on broadcast television
> anymore and haven't for years.  Yet I've often heard actors on broadcast
> television saying something is "gay" or "so gay".
>
> If it's such a horrible thing to say, where's the outrage over it's common
> use in everyday life?  Don't tell me this mailing list is the first time
> you've ever seen someone use that word that way in recent history.
>
> Or what about all the times in TV or movies where there's a situation in
> which someone questions whether another man is gay or not, and they
> flinch, give a horrified facial expresion, and say "God No!"... that's not
> more insulting to gay people than Alex calling an inanimate object "gay"
> on a mailing list with a tiny fraction of the viewers of any TV network?
> You think what Alex did was worse?  Yet the other thing is clearly
> acceptable in today's society.
>
> I guess Hollywood (which is full of gay people too) didn't get your memo.
>
> Any other common words or phrases we have to stop using on here so as to
> not offend you or oppress you?
>
>
>   
>> 	This is a basic point of elementary manners. Ask yourself if you would
>> feel safe in a gay bar full of gay bikers, asked if you like the new
>> version of Windows, and you replied that you didn't, LOUDLY, saying
>> "THAT IS SO GAY". Would you feel safe? Would your rationalizations
>> protect you?
>>
>> 	You're one of those people who thinks you've carved out a whole zone of
>> bad behavior because you call rules against it "politically" correct, as
>> if the behavior is actually correct, but there's some arbitrary rule
>> against it. "Politically correct" refers to all kinds of correct
>> behavior that had to be forced on bigots by oppressed groups, because
>> bigots, usually in the majority, could be stopped only by a "political"
>> process, like long appeals like this one to people's sense of decency
>> buried under their convenient traditional bigotry.
>>
>> 	People like you have long insisted from your conveniently protected
>> roles in society that all kinds of ethnic slurs are OK. But their common
>> use is a reminder to people they insult that the insults are accepted,
>> will not be opposed, that the insulter has power to offend that the
>> insulted does not have power to stop. The reality is referred to by the
>> insult. To remind everyone that the target is an acceptable victim,
>> which perpetuates the abuse. Including physical and political abuse. Gay
>> people, even in America, are often second class citizens, with all kinds
>> of rights and privileges denied them. And your calling something "gay"
>> as an arbitrary insult to it is helping keep it that way. If you don't
>> understand that, it's because you understand nothing about politics or
>> how large groups of people operate. And now you're defending your
>> ignorance, just because it's convenient to you.
>>     
>
> Geez, Just call me Hitler so I can invoke Godwin's Law already.  You're
> almost there with the above statements anyway. :-)
>
>  
>   
>> 	I didn't say that making that slur was the sole action keeping everyone
>> down. But it is part of it. And people failing to confront those little,
>> everyday abuses is the essential part of it. Every time a White person
>> in Alabama let a bus driver direct a Black person to the back of the
>> bus, or any other of the little acceptable codes of racism was indulged
>> rather than confronted, the racism was kept propped up by the person
>> going along as much as by the person enforcing it.
>>
>> 	I also didn't say anything about "Christmas". But your bringing it up
>> refers to you acting like there's some kind of "war on Christmas", the
>> idiotic culture war that lets privileged people like you act like
>> victims, when you're not. A sad perversion of what Christmas is supposed
>> to stand for: the birth of someone who brought compassion for everyone,
>> no matter their station, regardless of how socially acceptable it was to
>> treat some people like animals or objects.
>>     
>
> Well based on that statement, I now know you're a far-left liberal nut and
> there's no way I can win this argument with you, so I'm not even going to
> try.  Go ahead and claim victory... tell me "you're giving up because you
> know you're wrong" or whatever canned phrase liberals are using this week.
>
> You've proven you're irrational, and I don't have time to waste arguing
> with an irrational person.
>
> If someone else, who isn't irrational, wants to discuss this with me
> privately, I'll be happy to continue off-list.  
>
>  
>   
>> 	Bigotry is *real*. It ruins lives. Just because you're privileged
>>     
>
> Yes...  calling an inanimate object "gay" is ruining lives.  The body
> count must be in the thousands.  Got to be George Bush's fault!  Just like
> Katrina!
>
>   
>> 	BTW, ending your excuses with an insult and a smiley doesn't make it
>> OK. And your saying that your bigotry is no big deal, just because *you*
>> are so casual about it, doesn't mean it really is like that.
>>     
>
> It wasn't an insult.  Again, you see something where it doesn't exist.
>
> My God, I still cannot believe that you went this ape over Alex's comment.
> I'm literally shaking my head in disbelief as I type this.
>
> -- Nick
>
>
>
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