this is an article i never imagined id find myself writing in 2004.

during the nearly 2 months ive been here, ive seen a number of variations on the following theme: .

'conservatives are are more responsible, less vile, more pragmatic and realistic and willing to deal with the repercussions of their beliefs'.

it could as easily been a liberal claim. thats not the issue

over the past 2 days, ive seen several posts about namecalling in which admittedly offensive, hurtful insulting perjoratives were compared to a racial slur. .

in my opinion--although i dont believe im alone in this--while name-calling of any type is childish, irresponsible and may even be unnecessarily cruel, use of racial slurs inexcusably inhumane because a slur is much more than an insult. slurs accomplish only one purpose: they represent an assertion members of the target group are less than human. .

there is no justification whatsoever for their use in any context by anyone who is not a member of the target group and i personally dont agree with the proposition that members of the group use it among themselves as a means of blunting, defusing or 'taking ownership' of it. .

comparing a slur to even the most abombinable non-slur is never valid nor logical because at bottom line, none of us chooses the racial or ethnic group into which were born. attempting to establish a correlation between a non-slur and the denial of anothers humanity evidences both abyssmal ignorance and racism at best.and flagrant intentional racism otherwise. .

in this case both posters happen to have been self-proclaimed conservatives but it makes no real difference. a conservative racist is not one whit worse or better than a liberal racist. or a centrist racist.

suggesting that an objection to using racial slurs is a tactic to hijack a specific thread is incomprehensibly obtuse..

its absolutely intolerable that racial slurs are used in the physical world. carrying it over into the virtual world is the social equivablent of shitting on hallowed ground. .

either way--and even if you totally disagree with my take on this--there are also practical repercussions that invalidate the claim to any sort of the type of philosophic or political pragmatism to which i referred in the third paragraph.

since ju is so well spidered by google, its almost inevitable that within a few days any idiot who uses that word as a search term will be directed here. that my friends is truly an unnecessary fucking shame