Monk

Is "Eat a Bowl of Fuck, Tom DeLay" Hate Speech?

I gotta give it to the Republicans (and believe me, I'd like to)- they sure know how to manipulate language. Now they're accusing Democrats who criticize the president or the war of Hate Speech.
What th'hell?

Of course, the phrase "hate speech" has no clear definition, which makes it handy to use. However, if we go by it's use thus far, "hate speech" doesn't include speech that criticizes someone's actions. "Hate Speech" has thus far been used to denote speech that insults or threatens someone based on their race, creed, gender, sexual preference- well, you get the idea.
Not that anyone reading this doesn't already know all of this, or that it matters to people like Tom DeLay. See, this kind of stuff isn't even meant to be processed intellectually- it's designed to provoke an emotional response, and once that's done, the emotion remains even if the point has been proven false.
This is Newt Gingrich's wonderful legacy- the implementation of vague but loaded language to pull the dacron over everyone's eyes. Incidentally, he didn't invent this; Nazis (yeah I said it- "Nazis"!), salesmen, self-help and new age gurus have been using these techniques for ever. Ever watch that Edwards guy who says he can talk to your dead Grandma? Guess what? She wants you to know that she loves you! Awww...
Sorry- What was I talking about? Oh yeah- Hate Speech. Well, when Dick Gephardt says that the president's handling of the war is "a miserable failure", that's not Hate Speech. If he'd said Bush was "a miserable Honky failure", well, maybe.
But he'd still be right!

Posted by monk at 25.09.03 09:16