If you are about to make a point by comparing something you’re doing to the holocaust or slavery or the oppression of minorities in the post-slavery era, I want you to be sure to do the following …
Take a pause and ask yourself, is what I am about to compare to one of those items listed above really equivocal? Or, could I perhaps be accused of the most offensive sort of hyperbole.
If, after careful pondering you still think your comparison is okay, I want you to stop again. Take a deep breath and then punch yourself in the genitals. Because, it’s not. Not matter how much you think it is, it’s not.
Damned goatfuckers.
Having to wait a year to see something in a society journal is not the same as having to use the colored bathrooms, you useless bags of fuck.
Is there an acceptable way to say “this is something that makes no intrinsic sense, that we have a moral duty to disobey the law on, and that I think will only change through civil disobedience”? Is it even possible to use the term “civil disobedience” without an implicit association to civil rights, and thus inherently trivializing civil rights by comparison?
Yes. One need not ever reference the colored bathrooms to make the same point. Those are clearly different.
Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!
I don’t think it’s okay to restrict our use of analogy like that. Calling someone Hitler or a Nazi, or responding to a request with “Yessa, massa” is out of bounds, because they’re likely not doing something as evil as participating in the murder or enslavement of millions of people. But it’s reasonable to draw inspiration from the civil rights movement of using civil disobedience to achieve a goal. Badger doesn’t say anything that I’m uneasy with until his last sentence, where he directly compares the plight of people who can’t get a free paper to that of people forced to use separate facilities, saying he hopes future generations will be equally puzzled by those two injustices.
So let me venture into deep water here with caution… Is it reasonable to find humor in Seinfeld’s use of “Soup Nazi” while at the same time understanding how people can be offended by it?
Just a thought: is not comparing suboptimal comments in a blog to human-goat sexual intercourse about as far-fetching as comparing freedom of information exchange to freedom of using certain bathrooms?
I’m not saying that “bathrooms” was the best metaphor in this case. But using poor metaphors is not always similar to bestiality, as far as I can tell…
Did the Germans bomb Pearl Harbor???? Have I been mis-reading history all this time?
I think the difference between the satirical “Soup Nazi” and seriously comparing yourself to a civil rights activist is pretty apparent.
Oh, please! You are just jealous because you know that all these Open Access enthusiasts who are committing civil disobedience by violating copyrights and breaching contracts are going to be seen as the Rosa Parkses of the 21st Century.
Arseny, I don’t think “goatfuckers” is a reference to bestiality any more than, say, “sand monkey” is a reference to marine primates. It’s a slur against Muslims.
The OA nutters even have their martyr now with the PDF thief who offer himself…the bit is in their teeth Isis, good luck reining them in.
what about the poor goats??? Does no one care about them???
Potnia, the Quran says that if you rape a goat you have to slaughter it afterwards.
Some imams have advised that it’s better to rape a goat than to masturbate or to sully a woman not your wife, but that’s not actually Quranic.
Theo Van Gogh was assassinated for calling muslims “goatfuckers” (and for many other offenses).
If it’s not your culture, “goatfucker” is just a somewhat funny way of being angry and really disgusted. But for other people it has a specific meaning.
I don’t really care what kind of livestock they’re fucking. I’m jsut as satisfied with chicken fucker.
Chickenfucking is horrifying and people do it (!) but I’m not aware that it’s a slur against any particular group.
… whatever, you don’t need my permission or approval.
LOL. And it’s worse on blogs because this is where people max out their dismissal of context.
On the one hand, it’s the height of a type of self-aggrandizing chicken-fuckery for someone with institutional access to journals to compare themselves to Rosa Parks for putting their own papers up on their university webpage.
On the other hand, if Aaron Swartz were still alive to tell us that prosecutor bullying IS a civil rights issue, I wouldn’t spit in his face. Not only that, but if he were to tell us open access IS about justice, I might not intuitively agree, but I’d at least hear him out.