I live just across the Hudson from Fishkill, NY. It’s been a few years but I think it was PETA or some group equally intellectually challenged (ok, moronic) that wanted Fishkill to rename itself. Of course non-moronic folks at least around here know “Fishkill” derives from the Dutch: fish and “kill” for stream. At the time, I think it was the “kill” they objected to. I guess now they would demand Fishkill rename itself to Kittenstream.

The endless ludicracies of the left…

I can’t say for sure or not if it would affect me if I knew that my family was persecuted – my granparents fled Germany from Hitler and I have heard them called kraut before – they didn’t seem to affected or seem to care. Tough to put generalizations on this type of thing I think.

Dan, may I suggest one of the reasons you don’t feel that offended because nobody in your family (even of older generations) had been persecuted, in memorable and life-threatening form, by people who did it while calling your folks “krauts”. Somehow I think Germans in Germany wouldn’t take the word in equal good humor…I know my German classmate Laurhen (whose family was deported to Kazakhstan during the War) wouldn’t.

But I was also called a “kraut”, “cracker” and a few other things last year. Yea, I am of German heritage and I am as white as the next cornfed Midwesterner. But I just smile, or laugh. I am not sure, but I think it may be a Midwest thing. I am not easily offended and most of my associates are not easily offended either.

This explains why leftists generally favor ending free speech. The left believes you can change thoughts and behavior by making words illegal. The right believes you can change behavior by calling it a “sin.” Both segments of each side are highly religious. The left, who worships the religion of Political Correctness believes we’re born as racists, who can only be cleansed of our “original sin of racism” by accepting Obama into our hearts as our lord and savor. Christians believe we’re born with “original sin” and can only be saved by accepting Jesus Christ.

The religion of Political Correctness is an outgrowth of Christianity. There are Saints (MLK), Saviours (Obama), and Demons (people of European decent who don’t accept Political Correctness). Its main places of worship are liberal arts departments, and the high Priests are college professors. Some don’t become priests and becomes deacons instead. These folks run the “Office of Multiculturalism” on Campus. Sometimes they’re the resident hall director and create programs to encourage college aged kids to “accept diversity.”

Diversity and/or Multiculturalism is the highest sacrament in this faith. Nothing is more Holy than this sacrament. If Muslim men rape Dutch women in the Netherlands, then these women were at fault. They should of have been more sensitive to Muslim culture. If Mexican “workers” lower the wages of American workers, America workers are at fault for being “xenophobic.” No other sacrament can be higher than diversity.

A final lord and savor (or Messiah) will come when the conditions on earth are right. In this way, PC is like Judaism. This conditions include the formation of a “new post-racial man” (NPRM). This NPRM will be realized when humans have become one great brown monstrosity, with one culture, and one way of thought. Outcomes will be totally equal, and the social construct known as “gender” will be done away with. All people will be part women, part man, part red,black,brown,yellow,white and 100% committed to “tolerance.”

Obviously, I agree with you. That doesn’t mean that, as Tatyana demonstrates, that these can’t prove awkward.

When one of my husband’s dearest (if most eccentric) friends was visiting and I said we’d been gypped when we bought a record (yes, the old days) with only 4 songs on it (“Don’t Mess With my Toot Toot), his friend was not completely laughing when he stood up and said maybe it was time for him and his family to leave. (He is active in Gypsy power organizations, sat on the Holocaust Commission representing his people, etc.) He did sit back down and stayed the weekend. In a collegial discussion on political correctness, I pointed out to a British woman (who often implies we are racist in ways her native land is not) that the variety of phrases having to do with “welshing” imply that that ethnic group is neither honest nor industrious; she looked at me blankly and then said, ah, yes, of course that is the derivation. It was probably small of me to make that remark.

I think (as Bradford said in Plymouth) it’s best not to take offense nor give it. Oversensitivity either way makes conversation a test and an attempt to exert power. These are not conducive to dialogue and can get in the way of arguments the same way puns do. (I really hate puns when I am earnestly stating my opinion & some jerk starts wanting to discuss things on an entirely different – and clearly more superficial – level. Such punning pretty much ruined one of my old relationships and I am forever thankful I didn’t have to put up with that shit the rest of my life. But then, that, too, may be my insensitivity – it probably happens when someone doesn’t want to deal with the conversation I want to have. Of course, that doesn’t mean I should have to have a stupid conversation in its place.)

But then, Hitler didn’t kill my people, even if they were only 1/16th whatever in the hell I am – they did Ian’s.

(Shannon: This is pretty much all off on a tangent – things aren’t particularly good here tonight and it’s fun to throw together pointless discussion. Isn’t that what friends are for – to listen to bullshit when we are under stress? And aren’t Chicagoboyz in some kind of weird way friends?)

Any one who does marketing, including political marketing, does this to some extent. However, most people realize when they do so that they are just trying to alter associations. Leftist seem to believe that they actually alter human behavior on a fundamental level such as making people want to hug a fish.

I can’t think of an example, but I’m sure some on teh right also play this game, but the left, abetted by the lapdog media and having fewer scruples about means vs. ends issues, does it much more effectively.

I’m having sea kitten for both lunch and dinner. I don’t care what Peta calls anything. I’m still calling it tasty. While language has power, it’s pretty difficult to dictate language. For example, does anybody NOT still call the INS the “INS” just because they changed the name to Department of Homeland Security. Does anybody NOT call Newark Airport by its original name just because the name was originally changed to “Liberty Airport”? Whatev.

Either that or “Lee” is actually Iowahawk having some fun.

Sorry, it was a typo. ;-)

And please. PLEASE. call me correctly. “Tatanya” is such an ugly invention.

Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, the truth behind the origins of phrase have little to do with its contemporary or future use. Words and phrases mutate and evolve over time just as biological forms do. Saying someone “gyped” you doesn’t mean your biases against Romani and singing “Yankee Doodle Dandy” doesn’t mean you think Americans are unsophisticated hicks.

Potyomkin language, then, makes no sense whatsoever. There is no reason to believe Count’s Russian (or even his French and German) were worse than the rest of the court or were in any sense false, flawed or deliberately adjusted for miscommunication. And even if you want to mix idioms into one unclear aggregate, there is no need to darken poor Grigory Aleksandrovich’ reputation further; he’d (undeservedly) suffered enough already!

/tangent off

I’d sure like to see Lee as a satirist. It isn’t like there aren’t problems out there that it would be nice to solve by joining with divergent political perspectives. Some, however, seem to have diverged enough to be close to falling off the map.