Re: Is Palin's blood libel sacred? was oh please

On Thu, 13 Jan 2011, Karl wrote:

> > And I'm saying that she's a Christian first and foremost, or at least 
> > she ought to be, and that that should influence her word choices.
>
> **so this is as much about you judging her than anything.  Shouldn’t you 
> be a Christian first and foremost?  Oh wait, that might be construed as 
> me judging you.

If you think I'm being heretical about anything, I'd say it's your duty to 
point that out to me.

> > You know, maybe I'm not concerned with what the "majority" were 
> > thinking consciously.  Maybe I'm concerned with how the word works 
> > subliminally for pretty much *everyone*.
>
> **wow.  That is fairly audacious.  How are you qualified to judge the 
> vast majorities subliminal feelings?

Who said I was "judging" it?  I'm just saying that words never have only 
*one* meaning.  They have *lots* of meanings, and the fact that someone 
chooses this word instead of that word means that someone has chosen one 
set of nuances and overlapping meanings instead of another.

> > Which is precisely why I haven't said anything about that.  Well, that 
> > plus the fact that the word "tragedy" gets abused *all* *the* time*.
>
> **but that is a perfect example.  The majority of people use it in its 
> 6th prong definition of " a lamentable, dreadful, or fatal event or 
> affair; calamity; disaster" whereas you are the minority who wants to 
> pigeonhole it to the literature definition.

Well, sometimes minorities are right and majorities are wrong (and if you 
don't believe that, then what kind of political commentator could you 
possibly be?).  The fact is, "tragedy" does not have the range of meanings 
that "sacred" does, for the reasons I mentioned, so "tragedy" is *not* a 
perfect example of the sort of thing that's going on with "sacred".

> > This is a difference that makes no difference.  The *motives* of the 
> > people who know what the term means is neither here nor there; what 
> > counts is that Palin threw loaded rhetoric into a debate over loaded 
> > rhetoric.
>
> **and...so?

Would you throw a grenade at someone who had asked for a ceasefire?  Maybe 
you would, if the person asking for the ceasefire had started the war in 
the first place.  Just don't pretend the grenade isn't a grenade.

> > This, incidentally, is a fact, not an opinion -- and the existence of 
> > the debate over her use of this term is the proof of this fact.
>
> **there is a debate over Obama's birth certificate, that does not mean 
> it is a legitimate issue.

Apples and oranges.  It is impossible to have a debate about communication 
without actually, y'know, *communicating*.  So the line between actions 
and words is very, very thin in that kind of debate.  Instead of simply 
debating whether it is appropriate to be rude, you can actually *be* rude, 
and that will get the point across.  If everyone else then says you are a 
rude debater, and you reply that you are not, it's a legitimate issue.

> > Surely you're not going to argue that there would have been a debate 
> > over *any* old word that Palin had used.  Surely you're not going to 
> > argue that all words are equally loaded or equally safe in debates 
> > like these.
>
> **Actually, I will take that one.  I think anything she said would have 
> been seized as fodder to hate her more.

Perhaps.  That doesn't change the fact that she could have given them 
thinner fodder instead of fatter fodder.

> > I just wish the statement had been less problematic.
>
> ***and as we have said, anything she had said would have been
> problematic.

And as I have said, I wish she had said something *less* problematic.  I 
don't deny that anything and everything a politician says is problematic. 
I just think there are degrees, here, rather than a sharp either-or.

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