Shakespeare’s Sister: Terror Warnings
Digby and Seeing the Forest have excellent posts on how calling Liberals traitors just isn�t good enough anymore. Now we�re terrorists…. I also question the wisdom of turning “terrorist” into a catch-all phrase invoked to denigrate anyone with whom one disagrees. Surely there is less to be gained by attempts to equate activists with the likes of Osama bin Laden than there is to be lost by desensitizing people to the term, thereby likely creating apathy toward the concept in its original definition, for which we should rightfully reserve some outrage.
SS misses the point. Of course liberals are terrorists to many conservatives, by definition– liberals scare the crap out of them.
I am reminded of two girls I dated in high school– or more on point, the fathers of these girls. To these men, I was a scary fellow. I was a threat– not to their daughters, but to them. I represented an entirely new way of thinking, of something beyond their horizon– and control. I was a Bad Influence (yes, academic standout me who read books and worked after school and– ah, the heck with it.)
I’m also reminded of the year I dressed up as Rorschach for Halloween. That same year, the town hired me to take photos of the local hayride/shindig at the country club for the under 10 crowd. And at one point later on in the evening, a half dozen boys in army uniforms tried to take me down, pull off my mask, etc. They made a creditable effort– I looked like Gulliver with Lilliputians hanging on me.
But what I truly remember is the lady who came over and, rather than help me deal with these hooligans climbing on me, scolded me and said, “They wouldn’t be doing this if you didn’t scare them so much!” I glared at her– at least as much as I could through that mask– then, stunned beyond belief, I shook off the kids and went home.
To these kinds of people, different means scary means bad. No thought, no consideration that different might mean better, just don’t do it. Never change anything. Never learn anything. Never move beyond anything.
And that’s what you get from men and women dancing.
Glenn, by chance did you grow up in Michigan? What you describe seems to be the prevailing attitude here.
Damn, I miss California.
Leaving aside the predictable partisanship from Glenn(yeah, them liberals are SOME SCARY BUNCH. Brrrr, I tells ya, brrrr!) Shakespeare’s sister makes an excellent point: when you throw around terms like terrorist with abandon it just weakens the word. Sort of like how some liberals have tossed “racist” or “Nazi” at anyone to the right of Ted Kennedy to the point that it ceases to have the punch it once did. (It’s almost become a laugh getter now to call someone a racist if they do something that has absolutely no racial aspect whatsoever).
Both sides are guilty of this and both should knock it the hell off.
On another subject–Glenn, any pictures of the costume–I’ve wanted to make a good Rorschach Halloween costume, might wait until the movie comes out. Come on down to Chapel Hill NC, where you will be unmolested and appreciated. It’s also the one day of the year when liberals truly ARE scary! 🙂
Thank you for the reference. I take your point that conservatives are inclined to demonize anyone who is different from them, but a terrorist is someone who intends to terrorize through acts of violence or threats of violence. Simply because someone feels threatened by another’s ideas, doesn’t make the latter a terrorist. You don’t become a terrorist by someone else’s perception of you; you become a terrorist when you engage in the waging of terror.
By acquiescing that we are “terrorists,” simply because our ideas are threatening to conservatives is to concede that there is something inherently dangerous about our ideas (not just dangerous to them) and something morally reprehensible about our actions, that they are right to be afraid of us, and right to attempt to demonize us to marginalize our ideas. And they aren’t.
Mitch: Nope. Long Island, New York. And come to think of it, it was three girls and their fathers, not two. They all turned out pretty dang liberal. Maybe it’s me…. nah.
Bill: I’m tempted, if only to make a detour to Allen and Sons. Damn, but that was good pulled pork, and the hush puppies… I’ll stop now.
The Rorschach costume (sorry, no pictures) wasn’t that hard to make. A suit, hat, scarf and trenchcoat, along with the smiley face button that was on sale at the time. The mask was made by cutting up a t-shirt in a very long strip, then applying ink symmetrically– you’ll actually find it rather easy to see out of the black areas. It allowed me, as the evening went on, to change the pattern, which really freaked out some of the people there.
Obligatory reply to those who haven’t read the comic and ask what you’re supposed to be: “What do you think I’m supposed to be?”
Three girls??? And I thought I was the only one! I’m curious, who are the other two?
Dad has calmed down in his old age. I think a lot of it was I was his first born. By the time it was my sister’s turn (child #5), he had either mellowed out, worn out, or completely given up all hope of having any control.
Talk to you soon!