Dreams Of Noise

I've tried not to watch this woman, because of my continuing PTSD caused by her near-Vice-Presidency. HOWEVER, I work in mental health. I have clients who have Narcissistic Personality D/O.

She fits the bill.

Anyone THAT ignorant who TRULY believes she would do a SUPER JOB as Vice-President mainly needs a smacking.

And she just keeps on talking, acting as the crucial and long-ignored voice of the Ignorant/Ugly American.

Great.

From:

lizziecrowe.livejournal.com

Well said. And her followers do nothing but promote that mindset, feeding the flames of stupidity. She has, as Tom so aptly put it, delusions of competence. She needs to stay home and stay out of US Politics.

From:

annearchy.livejournal.com

I don't work in the mental health field, but someone close to me has a personality disorder (not narcissistic) and a good friend has to deal frequently with her husband's narcissistic ex-wife, and the ex isn't a public figure, her behavior sounds a lot like Scarah's.

I will always hate John McCain for foisting Half-Governor Palin upon us.

From:

Anyone THAT ignorant who TRULY believes she would do a SUPER JOB as Vice-President mainly needs a smacking.

Please don't use the same violent rhetoric we're trying to get rid of. I'm assuming that by "smacking" you mean "shunning, verbally shut down, or some other nonviolent alternative" (which I'm all for) instead of an actual physical blow, but it's still not helpful.

From:

No, by "smacking," I meant that fantastic moment in so many movies when the protagonist has clearly gone gaga and someone dramatically slaps his/her face to bring them back to reality.

If I'd said, "needs to be shot" or "needs to be beaten by a fanatic party of socialists" then I could understand your attempt to encourage me to self-censor. I also believe that we need to stop characterizing those who disagree with us as "the enemy."

However, light and flippant remarks like the one I made aren't the problem. People have been saying others need "sense knocked into them" for years - and sometimes, it's true.

From:

batyatoon

I can't recall any (non-fictional) circumstance where an adult human being has actually acquired more sense by being hit.

[Edited to add: Not that I think light and flippant remarks like yours are the problem, and I have made similar ones myself any number of times. But "sometimes it's true" makes me say "er, hold on there."]

Edited Date: 2011-01-19 12:35 am (UTC)

From:

I can give you one instance where it was functional. A guy tried to touch a friend of mine inappropriately. She smacked him. He learned to leave her alone.

Not that I think actual sense is acquired - mostly, he was just startled into noticing that she was UNinterested.

Kids, on the other hand, benefit not at all from being hit.

The world's a nutty place.

From:

Mythbusters did it. They showed that if you were tired or drunk a smack to the face helped knock some sense into a person. Not that what they do is 100% pure science but that's what they tests they did show which has been confirmed by others.

From:

The guy in my above example was indeed tipsy. Thanks for the bolstering!

From:

I think light and flippant remarks are the most dangerous. They're the ones that give other people license to use violent language with impunity (because hey, those guys are doing it too), and it's way too convenient an excuse to hide behind when someone takes you seriously: "But I was just joking! I didn't actually mean that someone should rape Hilary Clinton/kill Obama/beat [insert politician here]!" In the interest of removing that excuse from the toolbox of people with actual violent intent, I think we have a responsibility to remove it from our own.

From:

Are you SERIOUSLY equating "a smacking" with rape and murder? SERIOUSLY?

This is the kind of thing that leads to the "n-word" being edited out of Huckleberry Finn and "Catcher in the Rye" being kept out of libraries.

No, I'm sorry. I disagree with you.

From:

Er, I'm talking about taking responsibility for our words and their meanings (http://filkertom.livejournal.com/1298914.html), just like we're asking other people to do. What on earth are you talking about?

From:

I know precisely what you are talking about.

I'm done with levity.

I understand your position. You want everyone to stop using all words that refer to any type of violence - regardless of context or usage - when talking about politics because you have bought into the idea that this will somehow change our culture's divisive and alienating political behavior.

In essence, I agree with you. At the most basic philosophical level, I agree with you. I do NOT, however, agree with your method. The problem is NOT silliness and flippancy. The problem is not casual conversation about individuals.

The essential problem is NOT word choice.

I believe that part of The Problem is 1) our tendency to see groups of people as "the problem," as in "The problem is people like you who continue to talk about smacking politicians, even in a light and joking manner." and 2) the belief that censoring language alone will change anything.

To wit: in social services, specifically developmental and mental health services, it was noticed that people with these problems were stigmatized and ostracized in society. At that time, they were called "insane" "possessed" "crazy" "moron" "idiot" "imbecile." So, to be kind, providers began calling them patients. And then "clients". And now "consumers."
But that damned old stigma didn't go away. In fact, it just attached itself to each new term as we used it.

However, we now have people who don't actually buy into the notion that these people are capable and wonderful parts of society at all, but who want to be PC and will jump like frogs all over anyone who uses the old terms, even lovingly. I love working with my crazies. I love them and I believe in their ability to be full members of society. My language may be rough, but my belief in and Actual Treatment of people speaks my personal truth.

The problem WASN'T just the language, so changing the language didn't help these folks gain one inch of acceptance in society. The problem was (and is) cultural attitude and perception. You can ask me not to say "needs a smacking" all day. I can even stop saying it. We ALL could. But as long as the broader culture believes that "people who are different/disagree with us need to become more like us because we are the only ones who are right" nothing will really change. We will continue to alienate the "other" in new and creative ways and see ourselves as righteous.

What I think is "most dangerous" is when people fixate on some symptom of the problem instead of the problem itself. You can take cold medicine all you want - until you "sound" well - but while the virus is still attacking your system, you're still sick and contagious, no matter what you sound like.

This is what I'm talking about.

From:

Ever watch NCIS? Would you call Gibbs smacking anyone who did something stupid violent? The guy did it to just about everyone (except for Ducky). Would you describe that as part of the violet rhetoric?

From:

I haven't watched enough to know what you're talking about, unfortunately (I'm only about 2 discs into the first season; so far I can't imagine Ducky letting anyone get away with hitting him). Does he physically hit people, or threaten to hit them? Because I would find that a little disturbing, and yeah, violent. I would not want my supervisor to hit me/threaten to hit me when I do stupid things; that would make me find another job with a quickness, because I do stupid things far more often than I'm comfortable with. (Plus from what I've seen, "stupid things" on NCIS generally means "making a leap of logic more slowly than Gibbs does".)

The only way I wouldn't find that disturbing is if it was part of something slapsticky, like Three Stooges. (And then only mildly less, but that's probably a personal preference thing, because I'm not big on physical comedy.)

From:

I admit, I would not want Gibbs as a boss. He's a harsh taskmaster with little tolerance for idle hands and demands they take the initiate on investigations. But he takes his teammates and pushes them to be the best. They're in a dangerous line of work and depend on each other not for their own lives but for the lives of innocent people. The stakes are high and if that means instant punishment for acting or speaking without thinking I'm willing to give him a break. But I would never take a job like that in the first place.

He never does it out of malice or being vicious and I don't think it was ever for "making a leap of logic more slowly". It's more for things like DiNozzo going on too long about movies or crossing the line with Kate. "A slap to the face would be humiliating. Back of the head is a wake-up call." he said. If it helps, he even did it to himself.

He hasn't done it much lately. Usually "the look" is enough.

From:

scyllacat.livejournal.com

I've spent too long on Facebook. I'm trying to find the Like button.

From:

mimiheart.livejournal.com

Livejournal needs one.

Back to Sarah... "This isn't about me -- it's about me."

From:

filkerdave.livejournal.com

Icon love. is it stealable?

From:

ericcoleman

I second that ... please?

From:

mimiheart.livejournal.com

Sure.

From:

mimiheart.livejournal.com

Go for it.

From:

filkerdave.livejournal.com

Thanks!

From:

capplor.livejournal.com

Over the past couple of days I've been having an ongoing, non-public "chat" with an old friend from HS who has turned into a rabid Palin fan. (this was one of those people who was against Vietnam as long as it looked like he was going to go, then was for it after he got a good lottery number.)

He's defending he actions, calling the crosshair symbols "surveyor scopes" not hearing the gun analogies & otherwise of the opinion that she can do no wrong. Every news organization, blog or individual who "disses" her is obviously a left-wing loony (& no not a Canadian Dollar) & decided that when I showed him that the international press was weighing in that the rest of the world is a Commie stronghold & it's America's duty to enlighten them.

My last comment to him was along the lines of "obviously, you have your opinion & nobody, not even Sarah Palin, is going to change it. So I'm not even going to try."

God forgive me, but I'm contemplating defriending him with cause.

From:

I wonder how he would react to putting a picture of Palin in the "surveyor scopes" and even labeling them as such on a t-shirt or graphic and sending it to him. What he doesn't get is that the criticism against Palin isn't just about the violence she covertly promotes, but how she pretends to be the victim as if no one is allowed to say anything bad about her.

I would defriend him, except it would play into the persecution claims of the right.

From:

starcat-jewel.livejournal.com

She put up the symbol, and her followers prayed over it, and it happened. Symbol, ritual, result. Be careful what you wish for.

From:

kilbia.livejournal.com

I love how *she* knows the meaning of "Blood Libel" better than the people against whom it was used.

From:

Well, her taste for the blood of innocent children has been steadily growing.

From:

sdelmonte

I will add that I think she thinks we want to silence her because she (or at least many of her fellow Tea Party people) wants to silence us.

From:

No one fears theft like a thief, huh?

From:

zorya-thinks.livejournal.com

Oh no, Tom, we don't want her to stop talking. I want her to talk her little head off and position herself as the spokesperson for the Tea Party and the far right.

The more people she can annoy away from that mindset the better.

From:

filkertom.livejournal.com

I understand that mindset, up to a point. A lot of people are praying she ends up on the 2012 Republican presidential ticket. (I happen to think she won't go for it -- it's too much work to be a candidate, let alone an actual prez or veep.) But the longer she's out there, the dumber the talk gets. She is one of those people who makes me know for sure I have at least grown as a person: On a sheer physical level, she's definitely within the range for My Type... but she starts talking, and it's all over. I don't think I could stand being in the same room with her.

From:

gardnerhill.livejournal.com

Ah, the Sean Connery Syndrome. So hot, so sexy -- and then s/he opens his/her mouth and you recoil in revulsion at the monsters that drip from those lips.

From:

batyatoon

About half the time I agree with this.

Then I realize how many people are seriously listening to her and I want to hide under the bed.

From:

If so many people didn't take her seriously and act like she's the savior or something, I would agree. Right now she's a rabble-rowser for a lynch mob.

From:

bayushisan.livejournal.com

While I don't like Sarah Palin personally, I don't think that she's stupid either. I think that she knows how to speak to a certain demographic and she does that very well.

What gets me though is that if she did indeed know the history of the term "blood libel", then why did she use it? If she did know the the history then she had to know that there would be at least some blow back over it; and if she didn't she could always have claimed ignorance. In the latter case it would have been her speech writer who took the heat and not her.

From:

full-metal-ox.livejournal.com

I think that she knows how to speak to a certain demographic and she does that very well.

...The Stephenie Meyer of American politics?

From:

jrtom.livejournal.com

I don't think the "it's my speechwriter's fault!" excuse flies at all: it's basically an admission that someone else put words in your mouth that you didn't understand and didn't check on prior to using them. I don't think that there are very many people whose sympathy would be earned thereby*.

My guess is that it was the suggestion of someone on her staff who didn't really know the historical context (maybe her, maybe someone else) and figured it sounded good. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, and all that. (To be fair, I had no idea what that phrase referred to until this came up, either...and I'm pretty well-read.)

*Unless, of course, she invoked the well-known Democratic Operatives Are Writing My Speeches conspiracy theory. :)

From:

stevemb.livejournal.com

I suspect it was either 1)a dogwhistle to the "the Joooos control the media" crowd or 2)a Wounded Gazelle Gambit (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WoundedGazelleGambit) designed to elicit and exploit the blowback.

Edited Date: 2011-01-19 12:04 am (UTC)

From: