Thers has a nice little post over at Fire Dog Lake on the never-ending complaint about the use of foul language on liberal blogs. One would have thought this particular bit was worn so thin it could be discarded, yet, as Thers points out, it continues to be a point of contention. It seems that some on the right are willing to hold themselves up as moral exemplars in our public discourse because they refrain from using bad words.
I, too, have on occasion been known to use salty language. I have been admonished not to do so. I even discussed the issue with my wife, a United Methodist minister. As I pointed out to her, I use it relatively rarely, but it does add a certain "umph" to a discussion. It is far more pointed to say of someone, "You're a fucking moron", rather than just say, "You're a moron". She responded with laughter.
Since I started blogging, this complaint has been floating around, and is quite tired. With all the horrors in this world, with all the lies in our public discourse, with all the force-feeding of bullshit from official sources, the notion that we should sit around and talk about these things without resorting, in anger, to more colorful modifiers is just silly. One argument I have had tossed against me is the really old, "What if some child read this? What if your child reads this?" to which I have responded, in all honesty that this blog isn't for children. In the end, these rules are artificial, and I tend not to like rules set by others limiting what I say, or how I say it. As Thers puts it (in a very salty excerpt; please have your chaise and hanky ready):
I don't know where anyone ever got the idea that the Internet should be a place for the reasonable exchange of ideas between people of differing political beliefs, but such an idea is in my experience misguided at best and at worst actively dangerous. "Civility" is not a virtue in itself, but a mechanism, a way of facilitating discourse: when someone is determined to say any fucking shit they want as a way of getting whatever they want and to loudly insist that they are in the right just because the other side is mean and vulgar when they point out, accurately, that they are little more than a vicious gang of crazy-assed lying motherfuckers... well, fuck civility. Truth is a higher virtue by several orders of magnitude.
I think we should lay to rest once and for all the idea that we are engaged in some enlightening discussion far removed from the ugly reality that people's lives are at stake because of the choices of our political leaders. We should forget the idea that we're all Americans, only differing in our choices of method rather than disagreeing fundamentally over the kind of country in which we live. Some people (fewer now, and for a couple years running) believe that George Bush is correct in the way he has chosen to run this country. To some degree or other, most Americans tend to disagree. Some disagree violently. Whether it's the horrid doctrine of the unitary executive, or just a vague disgust over the never-ending morass that is Iraq, spewing out bodies the way Detroit used to spew out cars, we are in the midst of trying to hammer out a way to be America. It seems to me to be unquestionable that many people would feel strongly about this, and this strength would be expressed in strong language.
I guess, as I have said on numerous occasion, it is time some people grew up. Be an adult. If you don't like four-letter words, you are under no compunction to read this, or any other, blog. Please, however, do not set some arbitrary standard, a test the rules of which you refuse to let me in on, then fail me, and tell me I'm uncivil. As I have also said, more than once, "Homey don't play that way."
