The Parsing Of Coulter's Words Continue

I just finished reading the latest update on the case of Ann Coulter's disappearing advertisers and at the end of that post was a link to some reaction by the fringe version of our counterparts, Free Republic.

Contained within those many, many pages of many, many comments are some hilarious twistings of the case of Ann Coulter and the naughty, yet harmless schoolyard taunt that all children use when talking to the friends in front of their parents, the word "faggot."

She called him a cigarette?

No. A fag is a cigarette. She called him a faggot = bundle of sticks.

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She called him a cigarette?

Naaah. She didn't even call him a butt.

I really couldn't tell from the video that Ann had actually called him, and intended to call Edwards, a bundle of sticks. Had that been the case, even I would agree that there wasn't a controversy.

Clearly, that wasn't the case and surprisingly, there are a few brain cells left amongst the masses of Free Republic.

For the life of me, I can't see what is so "noble" and "brave" about what she said, and why it needs to be defended so rabidly.

If it's so noble and honorable, then the first thing the President and Vice President should do tomorrow morning is call a press conference and call someone a faggot.

And as sure as the sun rises in the east, you would have Freepers defending it.

Of course, the Freepers are mad that leftys got organized and started contacting advertisers to inform them where their ads were being placed and whose words they ultimately were paying for and promoting.

So what do they do when they start reading about which companies are pulling their ads?

Maybe Anns supporters should cancel their Verizon accounts. 2 can play this game.

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Thanks for your comments. I have been looking for reasons to dump Verizon and you just gave it to me. Thanks.

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I'll be looking for a new phone service/internet provider tomorrow. A boycott cuts both ways.

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Verizon is major but I've never heard of the other two.
Verizon loses my cellphone account tomorrow morning. I have used their service for more than 5 years now.

It continues for pages, but you get the gist. As far s I'm concerned, friend, please...institute and continue your own boycott for whatever reasons on Verizon. I don't like the company to begin with but more importantly, I believe they were involved with that little domestic spying racket that's going on so if you want to give them less business overall, by all means, be my guest. You won't hear any argument from me.

By the way, god forbid a corporation be "socially responsible."

As we continue, it becomes apparent that some there clearly don't understand the difference between consumer activism and free speech...

A diarist at the liberal blog DailyKos.com posted contact information
for dozens of companies with ads on Coulter's site

A diarist at the liberal blog DailyKos.com posted contact information
for dozens of companies with ads on Coulter's site

Har,Har, HARDY-HAR HAR.

Don't the Liberals just love free preach?

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I am not aware that the First Amendment of the Constitution protects Americans from having their speech muted by Verizon.

Nobody has prevented Coultergeist from speaking. If you want to try to say somebody has, please...I'm all ears and good luck in making that case. Otherwise, she's free to continue on her sickening diatribes against everything not as American as apple pie or as Christian as she is but then again, that's between her and her supporters. Otherwise, this has nothing to do with freedom of speech and everything to do with socially responsible corporations not supporting those who make nasty and divisive comments like Ann has/does/will continue to do.

Next up, we have the PC/anti-PC crowd that wants to argue the semantics of the use of the word "faggot" to begin with. These are the types who argue "it doesn't mean anything anyways. What's the big deal?"

That is, of course, until it's their children being teased and called "faggot" at which point they tell their children to resort to violence and go beat the pulp out of these people.

When I was in high school, any prissy boy, any wimp was fair game to be called "faggot"--without necessarily implying sexual orientation.. That was nearly 40 years ago.
The 'F' word, was then (and I presume in most contexts now) taken as a euphamism for some form of sexual contact, and would have then (and now) earned me a slap across the chops had I said it in the presence of my mother (despite the fact she is a great-great grandmother now). She is every bit a Lady, and will not tolerate such language.

Are we to begin applying subscripts to all the verboten verbs and nouns, just to keep track of which 'f' or 'n' or whatever word it was supposed to be, or can we speak our minds plainly and clearly?

It is obvious that no matter how civil the attempt to frame the discourse, at some point the walls of political correctness will close in and be used to villify the bearer of any message the Left does not like.

After all, that is the purpose of P-C, to provide Liberals a way out of discussing the issues by villifying the verbiage used to deliver a point.

If Edwards is a "faggot", well, let him be offended. If not, he should simply say that it does not apply.

Instead, the prissy ambulance chaser has managed to use this (sarc)horrible insult (/sarc) to suck in funds which will languish in his low ranked campaign, and will not go to the Dems current two front-runners.

So much the better.

Meanwhile, he milks it for all the airtime and column inches he can.

I am decidedly amused by that.

First off, let's go with the argument presented by Ann Coulter that "faggot" is merely a schoolyard taunt while we consider the last commenter I cited who said, "If Edwards is a "faggot", well, let him be offended. If not, he should simply say that it does not apply."

If we go with Ann Coulter's indication that the word "faggot" is merely a schoolyard taunt (and by making that claim it becomes an attempt to rob the word of the clearly potent violent intent behind it), what does that say about a grown woman who has built a successful career built upon the back of villanizing the left and criticizing others with malicious terminology she refers to at the end of the day as "schoolyard taunts?" Furthermore, what does that say about Ann Coulter's entire line of work, not to mention all her supporters who cheer and defend her words?

Are they all children since they prefer to use and defend language that according them, is schoolyard language?

As for the commenter who thinks Edwards should just let it go and say it doesn't apply, perhaps that advice would work coming from a school teacher, a principal, or a parent who doesn't want a particular student to get him or herself into trouble by defending him or herself physically in retaliation for being called such a name, by someone else, on the schoolyard. Of course, anyone who ever lived and went to school knows that while advice like that is often well intentioned, it's hardly applicable without constant repercussions and resurgence of the same situation, over and over again, down the road.

The language itself has no place in American culture, whether it's on the playground or off. And it's not just the word "faggot" but also "nigger," "nigga," "kike," "hymie," "cracker, "spick," and any variety of words that reasonable people of sound mind and judgement find offensive to various groups of people for obvious reasons.

But hey...maybe we're all wrong and you guys really are right about Ann Coulter and that we shouldn't get so worked up when someone uses a word like "faggot" in a derogatory manner.

After all, perhaps Michael Richards was simply using a harmless schoolyard taunt when he called the guys in his audience "niggers."

Perhaps Mel Gibson was using a schoolyard taunt when he called "sweet-tits" the cop that all the wars in the world were because of "the Jews" which coincidentally, is a phrase that has been used to describe just about every possible negative action that has befallen man since the beginning of time, it seems. Bad weather? It's the Jews. War? It's the Jews. Fresh Grocer ran out of peanut butter? Clearly, the Jews.

And perhaps, just perhaps, these school children were just using schoolyard taunts when they wrote this to a Native American activist:

From: "squanto geronimo"
To: www.iwchildren.org
Subject: indians taste like chicken
Date: Tue, 09 Feb 1999 11:42:57 PST

matthew richter,

so we just got done killing some buffalo so we thought that we would drop you a line. we saw your home page on the internet today it really sucked dick, indian dick that is. i hope you die you liberal cult bastard. we sure do hate indians i wonder if you have any injun blood in you. we are going to scalp your ugly dog. i hope he wants a haircut. by the way we are going to rape your wife, but that shouldn't bother you since you're an indian and you guys do that sort of thing all the time.

we will probably do this on the way up to kansas city to do some heavy gambling and smoke some payoti. well i got to go make some clay pots now so i will see you on the reservation.

p.s. i love you and have a bag ready to put over your wife's head when i fuck the shit out of her. please write back.

To be fair, Ann Coulter didn't come near to saying anything like this but I would assume that had any of you gotten a call from the school implicating your child in this, you wouldn't be patting your kid on the back since you'd be too busy trying to deal with the embarrasment of being the parent of the child who says and does things like this while trying to find out where you went wrong amidst the legal charges that are most likely headed your way.

Society has recently decided that parents truly are resposible for their children and so when their children do things like this and say things like this, not only does the child get into trouble, but so do the parents.

If adults continue to give this type of language a pass, for whatever reason, in the public square, especially one of national prominence and importance, what kind of lesson is that teaching our children who are growing up in the thick of pre-teen and teenage angst when emotions are all over the place and their core beliefs are being instituted into their very blood?

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Seeing a lot of people coming to Coulter's aid and defense in this manner really strikes with me as discomforting and so as an afterthought, I considered changing the title to "I learned it by watching you!" or some variation of that since I feel it has a good measure of legitimacy in this situation.

Remember this?



This ad ended with this phrase:

Parents who use drugs...have children who use drugs.

Now while that isn't a statement carved in stone and in the recent past, more properly aimed programs at reducing drug use among children and teenagers has helped to curb the use of drugs from an early age, it remains true that overall, adults are the primary role models from which our children learn the buildings blocks of life from "please and thank you" to standing up for what they believe and coming to the aid of those in need of defense.

If we as adults and parents are saying that the use of divisive language is OK and is simply "schoolyard" language, we're not doing any good by our own children. Fortunately, kids these days are increasingly more educated and far more intelligent than we are today.

Perhaps there's hope yet...