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All of your analogies use descriptive terms (with the exception of
ugly) that are metaphorically applicable to the quality of software in
a meaningful way. But software does not have a sexual preference. The
offending term was used because it was understood as a pejorative per
se.<br>
<br>
In the case of ugly, it is you who are subjectively associating the
term with burn victims and others. You might be surprised to learn
that not all agree with your characterization.<br>
<br>
<br>
Nick Seraphin wrote:
<blockquote
cite="mid:Pine.BSF.4.10.10711141613441.68616-100000@homer.eaglequest.com"
type="cite">
<pre wrap="">
So if he had said the software was "dumb" he would be insulting people who
cannot talk. If he had said the software was "fat and bloated" he would
be insulting overweight people. If he had said the software was "slow" he
would have been insulting retarded people. If he had said the software
was "ugly" he would have been insulting deformed people or people born
with birth defects or burn victims.
So really, you can't criticize software anymore unless you're a bigot I
guess.
According to you, he clearly hates gay people so much that he can barely
control his rage, so after making that comment about the software, he
probably went out and found a half dozen gay people and beat them
senseless, right?
I'm a fat person... (although I must be a bigot because I didn't use the
politically correct term "overweight"), so I guess I should be offended
and fear for my safety every time someone says a piece of software is "fat
and bloated". It's clearly a personal insult against me and I need to
call them out on their bigotry.
Time to search the archives and look for any time anyone on this list
called software "fat and bloated" and then make sure to come back and
label them a bigot.
-- Nick
On Wed, 14 Nov 2007, Bill Michaelson wrote:
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">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:
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">On Wed, 14 Nov 2007, Matthew Rubenstein wrote:
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap=""> 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.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap="">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?
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap=""> 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.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap="">Geez, Just call me Hitler so I can invoke Godwin's Law already. You're
almost there with the above statements anyway. :-)
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap=""> 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.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap="">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.
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap=""> Bigotry is *real*. It ruins lives. Just because you're privileged
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap="">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!
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap=""> 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.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap="">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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