Letters to the Editor
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Perhaps you should stop participating as a member of the speech and thought police
Speech is dangerous. It has the potential to harm. I think we need to set up a group of people to lay down the rules that all of us will abide by. What we can say. (What we can think.)
White folks cannot use the n word or say ho. African Americans can.
People can not make fun of obese people.
Rape jokes are not funny.
You must not call people morons or say they are crazy, because that makes fun of the mentally ill.
You can't make fun of Jews, Catholics, 7th Day Adventists, Muslims, Mormons, the Amish, or Jehovah Witnesses.
No making fun of hookers, whores, prostitutes, sex workers, or their johns.
No making fun of jocks or nerds.
No making fun of short people.
No making fun of asians or asian drivers. Or old people or old drivers.
No making fun of emos, goths, or preppies.
No making fun of gays, trannies, transvestites, shemales.
No making fun of people with 15 kids. No making fun of couples that are childless.
No making fun of small penises or huge vaginas.
No making fun of military intelligence, no making fun of bureaucrats, no making fun of lawyers, no making fun of blondes, no making fun of psychiatrists, no making fun of rabbis, preachers, nuns, or buddhists.
No making fun of doctors.
This stuff is not funny and it hurts people.
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Books are dangerous,
Books are dangerous, literature is dangerous, serious conversation is dangerous, Salon is dangerous, teh Intart00bs are dangerous, thought is dangerous.
Joan, it's all pretty fucking dangerous out there. And you really need to condemn it all, or else you are showing how you condone this sort of hateful harmful dangerous speech.
I look forward to a world of Harrison Bergeron and Fahrenheit 451 in society works together to ban harmful books and everyone is forced to where a radio blasting commercials and weird noises to make sure that everyone is equal and no one is different.
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You know what they say about monkeys and typewriters . . .
Once in a while they come up with something coherent, as with Ms. Malkin and her cohorts. I am inclined to agree with her, considering that Salon itself has played host to some apalling hate speech about none other than Ann Coulter. And by hate speech I mean to say "cooz" and "dumb cunt," etc.
I think it is worth our time and effort to hold men's feet to the fire regarding the violent, frightening things they say under the cover of internet anonymity. I don't want the web to become yet another tool in the patriarch's canon; you know, something that only MEN do that is their secret thing, like baseball and muscle cars.
But, yes, if that's what we want we have to stick up for Michelle Malkin and Coulter and their RIGHT to spread dumb neo-conservative garbage. Even if we don't with what they say, we can support their rights as women. You know the saying. A rising tide lifts all boats.
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Where is it someone's right not to have mean stupid remarks said about them?
Do people really have a right not to have mean dumb ignorant things said about them?
If it's not threats of violence or incitements to violence, if it's not libel or slander, if its not creating a hostile work environment, if its just really really really mean, and maybe even bigoted,
Do people really have a right not to have that said about them?
Is it really helping women, or even all women, to suggest there is some right to stop mean words?
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You know,
I immediately thought about Michelle Malkin when I first read Ms. Walsh's earlier post about Kathy Sierra. Every time I've read Michelle Malkin write about abusive or hateful posts aimed at her, she offers it as irrefutable proof of the depravity and hatefulness of the left. Joan Walsh's post was the complete opposite -- a thoughtful examination of the troubling issue of on-line misogyny, without waving any partisan fingers. Michelle Malkin's comments? Well, they speak for themselves.
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This is what the left needs.
This Malkin thing, Attorneygate, Plamegate, the Iraq war, it's all a symptom of some weird need they have to feel persecuted at all times. They take a bunch of flimsy evidence that could in some way damage their fragile egos and exaggerate it out of control so that it "proves" in some way they are the victim of persecution.
I think the best thing we can do is hope a Freudian psychiatrists convention shares the same hotel with most of the Republican bigwigs in St. Paul during their 08 convention. Maybe they will then get the help they so desperately need.
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nothin' to see here, folks
keep movin'
PS - nicely done, Joan
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I'm with drinkwater
I've seen some pretty vile things about conservatives and right-wingers posted right here on the Salon letters page. I don't see why it's any worse when it's directed at a tech blogger than at Michelle Malkin. Yes, she does court attention and is often provocative. But many of the comments directed at her and Coulter have to do with their bodies or their status as women (or in Malkin's case, her ethnicity) rather than their political views.
And personally, I thought Malkin made a good point on her blog on how to cope with internet threats. She writes:
"Here's a review of my "code of conduct" on how to cope with Internet threats: 1) Report the serious threats to law enforcement. 2) Keep blogging."
That sounds reasonable to me. It doesn't sound like someone playing the victim card either.
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Poor, poor Michelle, Why doesn't anyone like her?
For Malkin to complain AT ALL about the threats she receives is pure hysterical piffle when viewed in the context of the names and telephone numbers of college students SHE published so her deluded syncophantic followers could intimidate them. What was the offense of these college students? Protesting the war in Iraq.
http://www.crooksandliars.com/posts/2006/04/17/malkin-crosses-the-line-santa-cruz/
While Malkin is not "personally responsible" for actions her band of merry followers take, one of them saw fit to send fake anthrax to Keith Olbermann and Nancy Pelosi:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/11/15/does-idolizing-malkin-turn-you-into-a-terrorist/
Malkin apparently doesn't understand irony.
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touché Joan!
To Chris W: That was my immediate reaction also. But Joan managed to capture its essence in far better prose, in her final paragraph. Game, set and match.