Ooooooo it makes me mad.

homeOwner

I have noticed on many of the boards people throw around accusations of posters being a bigot or being biggoted. It really irks me as most of the time the word is being used in completely incorrectly.

To those of you who like to throw this word around here are some definitions of a bigot:

from wikipedia:
A bigot is a prejudiced person who is intolerant of any opinions differing from their own.

another definition:
Person extremely intolerant of others and irrespective of reasoning

I am sure there are others.

In summary, someone who expresses an opinion that is different to your own no matter how un-pc that opinion is, is not a bigot. In order for someone to be a bigot they would have to demonstrate how they are being intolerant of your opinion and prejediced against you something that is very hard to do on a discussion board.

Most of the heated discussions are not showing intolerance for the other opinion but merely a difference of opinion coupled with some passionate rhetoric. I rarely see intolerance being displayed and cant think of anywhere I have seen prejudice being demonstrated.

On the other hand calling someone a bigot is an extremely unpleasant thing to do and only proves that you are the bigot as you have resorted to name calling and insulting the person based on their opinions, which to me is a much better demonstration of being intolerant and therefore a bigot.

the_menace

Good post. Good point. May well fall on deaf ears though.

Shut up you bigot

ferdi

Ah 'Team PC' usually hop all over a thread in minutes around these parts, its why i'm using boards.ie less and less these days.

Dr. Dre

ferdi wrote:

Ah 'Team PC' usually hop all over a thread in minutes around these parts, its why i'm using boards.ie less and less these days.

Good call. The standard of posters around here has gone to the dogs in the last few years.

Karl Hungus

ferdi wrote:

Ah 'Team PC' usually hop all over a thread in minutes around these parts, its why i'm using boards.ie less and less these days.

A sad truth indeed, but I do not let that deter me. Most arguements with PC as their basis usually fall apart very quickly.

Gilgamesh

why was your summary of that definition longer the the desciption?
thought summaries are supposed to be shorter?

Sarky

Will I just mention Nazis now and get the whole Godwin thing out of the way?

homeOwner

Gilgamesh wrote:

why was your summary of that definition longer the the desciption?
thought summaries are supposed to be shorter?

yes it was

No idea why I wrote "in summary" it was supposed to be a short sentence and ended up being a rant!

jaggeh

shove PC where only coppers, proctologists and enthusiasts dare go

hullaballoo

I blame jaggeh

Hitchhiker's Guide to...

no one wants racism in the place they hang out, and it is most often on kinda-racist threads that the term bigot is thrown about.

Dustaz

Dr. Dre wrote:

Good call. The standard of posters around here has gone to the dogs in the last few years.

and to think, people were calling other people lunatics a few years ago when this was predicted.


On topic, if you say ANYTHING against knackers on these boards the lefties will jump all over you.

Chong

Look if its anyones fault its gotta be Sarkys.

sinjin_smythe

OOOOooooooo you make me mad !! with your OOOoooooo word

LegacyUser

Ahhhhhhh you are right ... bt good luck with inforcing any rule.
Opinions are difficult to patol, especially on boards.ie

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

Sarky wrote:

Will I just mention Nazis now and get the whole Godwin thing out of the way?

why must you mock us with your genius?

Beer is Life

Sarky wrote:

Will I just mention Nazis now and get the whole Godwin thing out of the way?

Dave!

Yeah I've noticed this alot re: pikies -- people can't say a bad word against them, even though they've earned it!

ok I won't get onto that topic...

projectmayhem

pc problems? what operating system you using?

(what was that about the standard of posters going to hell? )

Hobbes

homeOwner wrote:

Most of the heated discussions are not showing intolerance for the other opinion

There you hit the nail on the head. OPINION. The problem with online discussions is that many a time a person will spout thier opinion as fact and when asked to back it up will then resort to name calling or say "are you calling me a liar" or some crap like that, which at that point they normally get called a bigot.

One good example was the famous "Asylum seekers get free prams they can leave at busstops" thread.

Or the travellers thread. I respect the fact that people may have reverse opinion to myself but any requests to ask how they come to those "facts" is normally met with insults (not everyone on the thread though).

ferdi

Hobbes wrote:

Asylum seekers get free prams they can leave at busstops

they do?!!?

****ing nigerians!!!:mad:

Hobbes

ferdi wrote:

they do?!!?

****ing nigerians!!!:mad:

:rolleyes: I am assuming that was humour.

muckwarrior

Ignorant is another word that is misused a lot.

Setun

Who are these elusive PC folk? Any famous members of the force?

I'm relatively new to boards so I haven't witnessed the gradual popularisation of the flinging around of the word "bigot", but have noticed a common misuse over the few months.

Tha Gopher

I love the way political correctness means that

a- Any incident regarding a bad experience between a boards member and a traveller must be accompanied by a court report indicating that the man in question was found guilty of an offence (even at that, cries of "just because his name is McDonagh and he lives in your local halt doesnt make him a traveller. Racist!")

b- If you see Pakistanis walking around a shopping centre wearing rucksacks, it is an appalling thing for security to search them or ask them to leave

c- Despite the fact the child would be bullied to an early grave, gay men should be allowed to adopt kids

And so forth.....


Re the prams at bustops story, tbh Im not sure if its true or urban legend. My suspicion is raised by the exact same setting of the story. Like, we have all heard the black woman at the bus story......and thats the problem. If all the blacks are abandoning their prams to get a new one tomorrow, why exclusively at bus stops? Why dont they abandon it at the bottom of an escalator? Or steep steps they want to climb? And why is it ALWAYS the Nigerians? Never an Iraqi, Afghan, Bosnian, its always some African in the story. Are asylum seekers from the middle east and the former Yugoslavia more greatful for what they receive? And in the story, why does the woman in question ALWAYS make a point of loudly proclaiming her social worker will buy her another pram? Tbh the government doesnt have the funds to simply buy things for what we are told are ungreatful reffos

They plough all that money into providing travellers wth freebies;)

Probably jealously involved in it, some poor Irish mother sees a black woman with a better pram than her kid has, and, instead of thinking to herself that maybe the Nigerians often have nicer material goods, MP3 Players and mobiles than we do due to the fact they only go out drinking occasionally, immediately assumes that the pram was bought by the government and her jewellery was bought by her crack dealing husband:) I love the Irish, theyll believe any old sh1te, thats why every few weeks some nob on these forums posts an immediate warning of some imminent threat to our security they rceived in.....a chain email. The best example was when a chain email regarding a gang who gave women samples of perfume which would knock them out five mins later (whereby the gang would rob and molest them) even managed to get read out by some dickhead DJ on 2FM:D Take his journalism degree off him and give it to me, at least I can read and can take poorly written error filled emails warning of impending danger with a pinch of salt:)

Hobbes

Tha Gopher wrote:

a- Any incident regarding a bad experience between a boards member and a traveller must be accompanied by a court report....

No not that at all. If however from 1-2 incidents you infer the majority are all criminals then your expected to back it up or declare it as opinion.

What is funny is in the traveller thread a number of people have said the majority are criminals yet when I give them the figures and ask them to give me a percentage they won't. There is a reason for this. "Majority" infers that if you meet a traveller they are probably a criminal, where as a percentage or total infers that the person may or may not be a criminal.

It is intresting to see how wording happens with racial based conversations. Generally its..

1. "I am not racist but"...
2. [intresting ancedote]
3. Using ancedote to infer "All" or "majority".
4. Asking for facts on the "All" or "majority" comments gets ignored or name calling ensues, or pull off topic.
5. If name calling or offtopic is done then OP will never answer on questions on original subject.
6. Wash and repeat with new ancedote.
SubNote: If ancedote refers to forienger then make sure you intermix Forigener/Asylum Seeker/Refugee to mean the same thing.

It is practically a formula you can watch. Have a look at some of the StormFront tourist threads. (documented in the Biki)

b- If you see Pakistanis walking around...

Thats called Racial profiling. It doesn't work.

Also being pakistanis does not mean you should be singled out as a possible terrorist. I guess you are too young to know what it feels like to be Irish in England in the 60-70's.

Btw, most people wouldn't be able point out who a pakistani is.

c- Despite the fact the child would be bullied to an early grave, gay men should be allowed to adopt kids

Children get bullied regardless of the parents. I doubt there is any data yet to prove your point or not.

Re the prams at bustops story, tbh Im not sure if its true or urban legend.

Its a total BS urban legend. The thread on it had a large number of people claiming that yes asylum seekers/refugees got free prams so the woman left her pram at the bus stop so she could get a new one later. TBH I even heard this from Taxi drivers who swore blind it was true.

However the thread pointed out in detail how it was total BS, and which point the majority shut up yet a few even when faced with the facts refused to believe they could be wrong.

immediately assumes that the pram was bought by the government and her jewellery was bought by her crack dealing husband:) I love the Irish, theyll believe any old sh1te,

Which can be applied to travellers as well. Are there travellers who are criminals? Of course. In my opinion I would think statisically the same as the Irish crime rate. Are there rich travellers? Yes I believe this also so stories of them in thier BMWs while true is hardly proof all are rich.

billy the squid

DaveMcG wrote:

Yeah I've noticed this alot re: pikies -- people can't say a bad word against them, even though they've earned it!

ok I won't get onto that topic...

People are free to express their opinions on members of the travelling community or travellers

but to pull someone up for using derogetory terminology is not being over PC. Using such terminology is bigotted. would you use terms such as n1gger, gook, yid, chink? probably not. then why should using the term "pikey" be acceptable to refer to travellers.

that and what hobbes said above.

Tha Gopher

Hobbes wrote:

Thats called Racial profiling. It doesn't work.

Also being pakistanis does not mean you should be singled out as a possible terrorist. I guess you are too young to know what it feels like to be Irish in England in the 60-70's.

Btw, most people wouldn't be able point out who a pakistani is.



Children get bullied regardless of the parents. I doubt there is any data yet to prove your point or not.

Data? Lets just google to see if anyone ever bothered surveying 10 year old boys on their attitude to homosexuality:rolleyes: If you honestly believe that a child raised by two gay men is as likely to pass through the Irish school system without suffering any more than average than, lets say, a kid from a two parent, or single parent family, your living in a dream world. Did you actually ever go to school? In fact, have you ever actually left your house?

re the racial profiling, whilst there are white Europeans prepared to commit suicide bombings in the name of Islam, they are in a tiny minority of those willing to carry it out. I honestly cant believe there are people as dangerously PC as you (and yes, I actually do mean that if you were in office I believe your PC views would be a threat to our national wellbeing)





I cant wait for the "so should black kids or fat kids be kept out of school for being different and therefore prone to bullying" retort from Hobbes.

Hobbes

Tha Gopher wrote:

If you honestly believe that a child raised by two gay men is as likely to pass through the Irish school system without suffering any more than average than, lets say, a kid from a two parent, or single parent family, your living in a dream world.

I am saying Bullying happens. There are a large number of factors of bullying least of which is your parents. I as numerous others in school were bullied at one time or another. Having an English accent in an Irish school in my instance was the target for bullying. .. Funny thing is I was bullied in England for being Irish (so much so that I had to move to an all catholic school).

When I was referring to data to my knowledge there are no such instances of Gay parents adopting children in Ireland so there is no way to determine the extent either way beyond speculation.

re the racial profiling,

Go read up on racial profiling. In all instances it has shown not to work. There are even a number of instances in Irelands history where racial profiling has lead to being imprisioned without evidence.

I am surprised you don't know this tbh.

Sam Vimes

Tha Gopher wrote:

If you honestly believe that a child raised by two gay men is as likely to pass through the Irish school system without suffering any more than average than, lets say, a kid from a two parent, or single parent family, your living in a dream world.

in fairness, kids tease. if they have gay parents, they'll tease that. if they're too tall they'll tease that. if they come from a different town/county/country/world they'll tease that. and if there's absolutely no distinguishing characters in a child, they'll go right ahead and tease that. its just what kids do. its going to happen and restricing who's allowed to have children won't change that.


having said that, i can't excuse calling your child apple, or peaches or fifi trixibelle. shame on bob and gwen

Sam Vimes

Hobbes wrote:

1. "I am not racist but"...
2. [intresting ancedote]
3. Using ancedote to infer "All" or "majority".
4. Asking for facts on the "All" or "majority" comments gets ignored or name calling ensues, or pull off topic.
5. If name calling or offtopic is done then OP will never answer on questions on original subject.
6. Wash and repeat with new ancedote.
SubNote: If ancedote refers to forienger then make sure you intermix Forigener/Asylum Seeker/Refugee to mean the same thing.

just because the government never compiled data on it and there are no statistics available doesn't change the fact that 99% of experiences anyone has had with a traveller are bad. i generally believe the same way you do about racist comments but the travllers are just different, mostly because when you generalise over nigerians, you're talking about millions of people and any sweeping statement will invariably be wrong. but there are only 27,000 travellers in the country and a good experience is pretty much unheard of so i think generalising is acceptable

StupidLikeAFox

Hobbes wrote:

Or the travellers thread. I respect the fact that people may have reverse opinion to myself but any requests to ask how they come to those "facts" is normally met with insults (not everyone on the thread though).

I dont understand how if someone wants to give an opinion people demand to see resources/studies/facts to back up my opinion. Shouldnt my opinion be just that? Fair enough, theyre LANGUAGE suggests their opinion is fact, but its still obviously their opinion.

Hobbes

Commander Vimes wrote:

just because the government never compiled data on it and there are no statistics available doesn't change the fact that 99% of experiences anyone has had with a traveller are bad.

Actually the government and various bodies compile data on such things. But your right a person has bad experience with travellers doesn't change. What can't be said is a persons experiences is reflective of a group of a whole.

i generally believe the same way you do about racist comments but the travllers are just different,

*blink*

You just contridicted yourself.

but there are only 27,000 travellers in the country and a good experience is pretty much unheard of so i think generalising is acceptable

Ahh ok. So at what figure exactly is generalisaing not acceptable? 30,000? 40,000?

Speaking of which there are numerous reports where travellers have said they have been met with open hostilities by settled people for no reason. By your little bit of logic it would mean that the vast majority of Irish people are hostile to others for no reason.

But hey that generalising for you.

Hobbes

ColHol wrote:

I dont understand how if someone wants to give an opinion people demand to see resources/studies/facts to back up my opinion. Shouldnt my opinion be just that? Fair enough, theyre LANGUAGE suggests their opinion is fact, but its still obviously their opinion.

There is nothing wrong with having an opinion. The problem is that on webboards numerous times people will spout opinion as if it means facts, or using an opinion to back up another assertion.

For example: "My dealing with group X has always been bad (opinion), therefore all people in group X are bad people (trying to assert a fact)".

StupidLikeAFox

Hobbes wrote:

The problem is that on webboards numerous times people will spout opinion as if it means facts

But if ya know its just their opinion whats the problem?

Hobbes

ColHol wrote:

But if ya know its just their opinion whats the problem?

As I said the problem is that they use the opinion to try to claim some kind of fact. Thats what I have a problem with.

Lets try another example. Have a read of this (its actually quite interesting read).
http://www.nccri.ie/pdf/incidents-may-oct04.pdf

Now there are way more incidents documented in that then compared to say the traveller thread so if we were to use the same rational as others you could effectly say that the vast majority of Irish people are racist.

Of course that statement is not true but after reading that PDF you could certainly see how some others may start to believe it because you have tied a load of incidents to an exaggeration.

Mr.Applepie

Bunch of Bigots! The lot of ye

zinc

ferdi wrote:

Ah 'Team PC' usually hop all over a thread in minutes around these parts, its why i'm using boards.ie less and less these days.

LOL, Team PC. Its true, its a classic case of the new intolerance which is about not tolerating anything outside of the PC paradigm.

rsynnott

Tha Gopher wrote:

c- Despite the fact the child would be bullied to an early grave, gay men should be allowed to adopt kids

Firstly, gay men ARE allowed adopt kids. Gay COUPLES aren't allowed adopt kids. And if possibility of the child being bullied is a reason to stop adoption, surely fat people, ugly people and so forth should be banned from adopting? In fact, the safest thing would be to sterilise the whole population; no chance of bullying then! Otherwise, kids will bully over anything and everything.

rsynnott

Tha Gopher wrote:

re the racial profiling, whilst there are white Europeans prepared to commit suicide bombings in the name of Islam, they are in a tiny minority of those willing to carry it out. I honestly cant believe there are people as dangerously PC as you (and yes, I actually do mean that if you were in office I believe your PC views would be a threat to our national wellbeing)

On this basis, should Irish people be banned from travelling to to the UK? After all, most terrorist attacks in the UK over the last few decades have been by Irish people!

Giblet

Hi Tha Gopher. Any more personal attacks on Hobbes and you will be banned. K thanks.

Sam Vimes

Hobbes wrote:

*blink*

You just contridicted yourself.

no i didn't

Hobbes wrote:

Ahh ok. So at what figure exactly is generalisaing not acceptable? 30,000? 40,000?

your obsesssion with everyone giving exact figures for things which by definition don't have published exact figures is getting quite annoying. my point is this:

think of ballymun, generally held to be a bad area. i'd estimate that for every bad experience with a ballymun resident, there are 5 or 6 good ones, as it would be in any normal society. however, a good experience with a traveller is an extremely rare thing indeed.
in a large society, say 10 million people, this could be taken to be negligible but in a small enough sample it can be significant, i.e. 10,000 bad in a sample of 10,000,000 can be ignored (0.1%), but 10,000 in a sample of 27,000 is significant (37.03%).
basically, if i have one bad experience with a member of another ethnic group and instantly hate the whole group, then i am a bigot. but if there is a group that has been in ireland interacting the the general population for a very long time and a good experience is virtually unheard of, then maybe they're onto something

whether or not the number of bad experiences with travellers is significantly different to the rest of the population can actually be gauged using a technique called the chi-squared goodness of fit test but of course i'd have to perform a nationwide survey to measure it so i won't

Hobbes wrote:

Speaking of which there are numerous reports where travellers have said they have been met with open hostilities by settled people for no reason. By your little bit of logic it would mean that the vast majority of Irish people are hostile to others for no reason.

i wouldn't say for no reason, i'd say it was because they were travllers. tbh they probably robbed from the people or their relatives the week before and just told the gardai it was for no reason. i realise that's speculation and i have no facts to back it up, someone get the noose

and by my logic it would mean no such thing. as i said above 10,000 irish people doing something can be deemed insignificant, but 10,000 travellers doing it is nearly half the population!

rsynnott

Commander Vimes wrote:

think of ballymun, generally held to be a bad area. i'd estimate that for every bad experience with a ballymun resident, there are 5 or 6 good ones, as it would be in any normal society. however, a good experience with a traveller is an extremely rare thing indeed.

Do you follow Travellers around, handing out little 'rate your experience' cards? Because that would be hilarious.

Commander Vimes wrote:

in a large society, say 10 million people, this could be taken to be negligible but in a small enough sample it can be significant, i.e. 10,000 bad in a sample of 10,000,000 can be ignored (0.1%), but 10,000 in a sample of 27,000 is significant (37.03%).

That's just a number you made up, though, isn't it?

Commander Vimes wrote:

i wouldn't say for no reason, i'd say it was because they were travllers. tbh they probably robbed from the people or their relatives the week before and just told the gardai it was for no reason. i realise that's speculation and i have no facts to back it up, someone get the noose

It couldn't possibly be because some of the settled people involved have the same silly ideas as are so widespread here, no? Of course not.

Commander Vimes wrote:

and by my logic it would mean no such thing. as i said above 10,000 irish people doing something can be deemed insignificant, but 10,000 travellers doing it is nearly half the population!

But those are, again, numbers you made up, yes?

Have you considered a career documenting weapons of mass destruction?

Sam Vimes

rsynnott wrote:

Do you follow Travellers around, handing out little 'rate your experience' cards? Because that would be hilarious.

no, i don't.

rsynnott wrote:

It couldn't possibly be because some of the settled people involved have the same silly ideas as are so widespread here, no? Of course not.

it may well have been. i wasn't atually there

rsynnott wrote:

But those are, again, numbers you made up, yes?

yes, the numbers are estimated to show my point to hobbes. he didn't seem to understand that a large number in a small sample space is more significant that a large number in a large one. 27,000 is the number of travellers in ireland though

Hobbes

Commander Vimes wrote:

your obsesssion with everyone giving exact figures for things which by definition don't have published exact figures is getting quite annoying. my point is this:

As I pointed out eariler is that it is to do with language. You stay away from figures it makes it easier to tar them all with the brush.

As you will notice through the traveller thread people say "Majority", "Vast Majority". So I ask what percentage. Its a reasonable question can only be from 51-99%. Yet anti crowd won't say how many. Simple reason is they don't know.

The only anti comment I have seen where an exact figure was mentioned was when they accused all of them.

i'd estimate that for every bad experience with a ballymun resident, there are 5 or 6 good ones, as it would be in any normal society.

So 14-16% crime rate is what you are implying.

however, a good experience with a traveller is an extremely rare thing indeed.

See notice the lack of how many in this instance. So out of how many have been a good experience?

but 10,000 in a sample of 27,000 is significant (37.03%)

Which apart from that being a made up figure isn't even a majority.

i realise that's speculation and i have no facts to back it up, someone get the noose

I heard you like to dance around in a tutu, but I realise that is speculation and I have no facts to back it up. See how that works?

and by my logic it would mean no such thing. as i said above 10,000 irish people doing something can be deemed insignificant, but 10,000 travellers doing it is nearly half the population!

10,000 is a made up number.

Also if you want to keep talking about travellers I suggest you use traveller thread.

yes, the numbers are estimated to show my point to hobbes. he didn't seem to understand that a large number in a small sample space is more significant that a large number in a large one. 27,000 is the number of travellers in ireland though

I am well aware of this, however 10,000 is a total BS number. Give us the real number (in the right thread).

rsynnott

Commander Vimes wrote:

yes, the numbers are estimated to show my point to hobbes.

I estimate that you have murdered roughly 10,000 people. Thus you should immediately be executed under new legislation which I estimate the Dail has just passed.

Am I doing it right? It looks far more credible than 'made up', certainly!