Wednesday, July 12, 2006

What Is Profanity?



A rhetorical question, but one that might be worth asking of those mainstream journalists who have recently written so much about the profanities of the left-wing blogs. Somehow these snappy articles never mention the right-wing blogs at all, or certainly not with any disapproval. Yet the kind of writing that passes for polite on some of the wingnut blogs is much worse than any number of "fucks" on the lefty blogs, as this example Glenn Greenwald found demonstrates:

The blogger Misha of the blog Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler is one of the most linked-to and popular bloggers in the right-wing blogosphere. He's the 42nd most linked-to blogger on the Internet, and he is in the blogroll of scores of right-wing bloggers, such as Michelle Malkin and Captian's Quarters Blog. He wrote a post today discussing the Supreme Court's decision in Hamdan and here is what he said:


Of course, this is the same Supreme Court that earlier decided in Kelo that private property rights only matter as long as a private company doesn't offer a better deal, above or below the table, to local authorities, so one shouldn't really be surprised. The unelected, black-robed tyrants have a long history of not giving a fig about the Constitution if they don't like what it says, not to mention a long tradition of usurping the powers of the legislative and executive branch by ruling by judicial fiat. . . .

Try doing anything to those mutilating darlings of the Supremes in order to extract life-saving intel from them, and then wait for the Supreme Whores to decide that you were "humiliating" them in doing so.

Five ropes, five robes, five trees.

Some assembly required.


He's advocating that the five Supreme Court Justices in the Hamdan majority be hanged from the neck until they're dead.

But he didn't swear while advocating lynching of the Justices, and that seems to make his statement something to be served with tea and cucumber sandwiches.

Here is another rhetorical question for you: Why is saying "fuck you" worse than advocating violence against various public figures? And does this have something to do with the fact that the violence comes largely from the conservatives who are in power, whereas the foul language belongs to the currently powerless?

This reversal is an ethical travesty, you know.