06 March 2008
It Starts With The Little Things
You might think this is an attempt to stifle free speech, or an unworkable plan, or even idealistic wishful thinking by Pollyannas. What it may in fact be is a great first step in regaining civil society.
The little things matter, and no cussing/cursing sets a respectful tone to a conversation. I try not to curse in my everyday life and mostly avoid it online, although I make the occasional exception. Having little tolerance for dishonesty, arguments of moral equivalence where none exists (saying Bush = Hitler causes me to automatically dismiss anything else being said), or racist remarks makes it even harder to avoid cursing. I'll be the first to admit that I don't always succeed. I do know that any one of my four kids might come across something I write online and I want to be able to say, "Yes, I wrote that." without shame or embarrassment.
Don't get me wrong, hearing someone else cuss doesn't bother me... whether it's just part of how they speak, used to emphasize a point, or just insult me. Water off a duck's back and all that. Being in the military for 24 years will bring you in contact with a lot of different types of cussing, some almost artistic in its creativeness. Emperor Misha over at The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler and Kim du Toit at The Other Side of Kim are both masterful at skewing liberal idiots. Creative cussing can be very effective and fun to read, but neither of these gentlemen would ever consider using poor language in front of a lady (I assume this excludes Code Pink and other moonbats, but I did say lady).
Suffice to say, I don't faint at bad language. I do like this teenagers initiative though, especially when he says that,
Good for him and I agree. You can do whatever you like, but if you want to associate with me you have to meet my standards. If you don't like it, that's ok. You go your way and I'll go mine.. I know I'll do fine and I wish you well. If you don't like how I act about something, tell me. I'll either change or no longer expect that I can hang out with you. No harm, no foul. That's how peer pressure works and he now has 10,000 members in his no-cussing club.
Hopefully it will continue to catch on and people can disagree while showing mutual respect. That's what we're supposed to do all the time, but fail to do all too often. Save the invective for when it's appropriate and it becomes much more effective.
Just sayin'
Comments are disabled.
Post is locked.
The little things matter, and no cussing/cursing sets a respectful tone to a conversation. I try not to curse in my everyday life and mostly avoid it online, although I make the occasional exception. Having little tolerance for dishonesty, arguments of moral equivalence where none exists (saying Bush = Hitler causes me to automatically dismiss anything else being said), or racist remarks makes it even harder to avoid cursing. I'll be the first to admit that I don't always succeed. I do know that any one of my four kids might come across something I write online and I want to be able to say, "Yes, I wrote that." without shame or embarrassment.
Don't get me wrong, hearing someone else cuss doesn't bother me... whether it's just part of how they speak, used to emphasize a point, or just insult me. Water off a duck's back and all that. Being in the military for 24 years will bring you in contact with a lot of different types of cussing, some almost artistic in its creativeness. Emperor Misha over at The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler and Kim du Toit at The Other Side of Kim are both masterful at skewing liberal idiots. Creative cussing can be very effective and fun to read, but neither of these gentlemen would ever consider using poor language in front of a lady (I assume this excludes Code Pink and other moonbats, but I did say lady).
Suffice to say, I don't faint at bad language. I do like this teenagers initiative though, especially when he says that,
"I finally told my friends, `I
don't cuss.' And I said, `If you want to hang out with me, you don't cuss.'"
Good for him and I agree. You can do whatever you like, but if you want to associate with me you have to meet my standards. If you don't like it, that's ok. You go your way and I'll go mine.. I know I'll do fine and I wish you well. If you don't like how I act about something, tell me. I'll either change or no longer expect that I can hang out with you. No harm, no foul. That's how peer pressure works and he now has 10,000 members in his no-cussing club.
Hopefully it will continue to catch on and people can disagree while showing mutual respect. That's what we're supposed to do all the time, but fail to do all too often. Save the invective for when it's appropriate and it becomes much more effective.
Just sayin'
Posted by: Stashiu3 at
22:24:00
| Comments (2)
| Add Comment
Post contains 466 words, total size 3 kb.
1
And then of course there's the art of making obscene insults without using a single obscenity. For instance.
"All your mother's husbands were impotent."
"All your mother's husbands were impotent."
Posted by: kishnevi at 07 March 2008@16:23:37 (DqtzB)
2
Absolutely. "If dumb was dirt you'd have 10 acres."
Posted by: Stashiu3 at 07 March 2008@18:41:04 (Q5ggV)
Number of Unique Visits Since 08 March 2008
21kb generated in CPU 0.0123, elapsed 0.0951 seconds.
60 queries taking 0.087 seconds, 102 records returned.
Powered by Minx 1.1.6c-pink.
60 queries taking 0.087 seconds, 102 records returned.
Powered by Minx 1.1.6c-pink.
