Use of the term 'teabaggers' to describe Tea Party activists

Scofflaw

The use of the term 'teabaggers' for Tea Party activists is hereby officially discouraged. It's a puerile sexual slur, and if you can't rise above using it, you'll wear out your welcome here quite quickly.

moderately,
Scofflaw

Overheal

Sad that it even had to be decreed.

Seemed like basic common sense and courtesy.

Iwasfrozen

I don't believe this is a correct decision. The media uses this term generously why can't we ?

Manic Moran

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

I don't believe this is a correct decision. The media uses this term generously why can't we ?

Maybe we should use 'reputable' media as a reference?

I just did a search for 'teabagger' on the CNN site. No hits. (Did you mean 'teenager'?). Lots for 'Tea Party Activist' and a few for 'Tea Partier'.

I found one hit for 'Teabagger' on the BBC website: "My sense of the people around me in Lafayette Square (what do we call them? Tea-baggers? Tea-baggists?) " 'Tea Party Activists' came back with ten pages of hits.

NTM

Iwasfrozen

Manic Moran wrote: »

Maybe we should use 'reputable' media as a reference?

I just did a search for 'teabagger' on the CNN site. No hits. (Did you mean 'teenager'?). Lots for 'Tea Party Activist' and a few for 'Tea Partier'.

I found one hit for 'Teabagger' on the BBC website: "My sense of the people around me in Lafayette Square (what do we call them? Tea-baggers? Tea-baggists?) " 'Tea Party Activists' came back with ten pages of hits.

NTM

The word has now been added to Urban Dictionary scroll down to no. 4 and you will see it.

sceptre

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

The word has now been added to Urban Dictionary scroll down to no. 4 and you will see it.

The urban dictionary website, voted on by at least some of the userbase, was a good source for new slang about five years ago before every idiot on the planet started using it as an outlet for idiotic humour. On the same page I see that "tea bag nose fu-ck" has also been added but that's not something we'd like to see used here either. Something having been added on urbandictionary doesn't strengthen any argument and could well diminish it. It's been used as a disparaging slur here, including towards other forum members and hence it's not permitted. I see your point of view; however it's not a satisfactory point of view from the point of view of the administration and requirement for reasonable politeness on this forum.

Overheal

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

The word has now been added to Urban Dictionary scroll down to no. 4 and you will see it.

See Number 3: Purple Monkey Dishwasher

its like wikipedia without any common sense, editorial or citation requisites.

Scofflaw

sceptre wrote: »

The urban dictionary website, voted on by at least some of the userbase, was a good source for new slang about five years ago before every idiot on the planet started using it as an outlet for idiotic humour. On the same page I see that "tea bag nose fu-ck" has also been added but that's not something we'd like to see used here either. Something having been added on urbandictionary doesn't strengthen any argument and could well diminish it. It's been used as a disparaging slur here, including towards other forum members and hence it's not permitted. I see your point of view; however it's not a satisfactory point of view from the point of view of the administration and requirement for reasonable politeness on this forum.

That's the gist of it - there are forum members who are or consider themselves affiliated with the Tea Party movement, and while I deplore their political judgement, they have the right to exercise it without being subjected to puerile and offensive labels.

More generally, the use of epithets doesn't really tell you anything useful about the group of people so labelled - I don't think anyone is arguing that Tea Party activists are particularly known for the activity in question, or that the activity in question tells you anything about their views.

cordially,
Scofflaw

cyberhog

This is typical boards.ie, making a storm in a teacup.

The New Oxford American Dictionary included “teabagger” as one of their Word of the Year finalists.

teabagger - a person who protests President Obama's tax policies and stimulus package, often through local demonstrations known as "Tea Party" protests (in allusion to the Boston Tea Party of 1773

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/unfriend-named-new-oxford-american-dictionarys-2009-word-of-the-year-70201607.html

Overheal

cyberhog wrote: »

This is typical boards.ie, making a storm in a teacup.

The New Oxford American Dictionary included “teabagger” as one of their Word of the Year finalists.

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/unfriend-named-new-oxford-american-dictionarys-2009-word-of-the-year-70201607.html

You might also find the words f@ggot and N!gger in there.

tim_holsters

Agree with this most TPA's are appalling but we shouldn't lower ourselves to their standards.

Exile 1798

Is the term Teatard allowed?

I'll get my coat and leave...:D

SeanW

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

The word has now been added to Urban Dictionary scroll down to no. 4 and you will see it.

Is that the whole story though ...

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

I knew it was a sexual slur. That's why I used it.

... seems to be a little more.

billy the squid

Everyone seems to have forgotten that it was the tea party movement themselves who came up with the term teabaggers.

their initial protest involved protestors sending tea bags to their political representatives.

http://nrd.nationalreview.com/article/?q=Mjk1YmRjNzIxNmUwMTI0ZWYxZWU4OWU2MzFiOWJmNDE=

Sandvich

I'm curious as to whether terms like "Obamao" and whatever nonsense the other side is using will be moderated in the same manner.

The Tea Parties used the name themselves for a while(or at least to describe their activities; Teabag the whitehouse etc.). I think that if a group makes such a poor PR choice they should be held accountable to it.

Overheal

Well its not as if we go around calling the GOP The Gays.

tim_holsters

billy the squid wrote: »

Everyone seems to have forgotten that it was the tea party movement themselves who came up with the term teabaggers.

their initial protest involved protestors sending tea bags to their political representatives.

http://nrd.nationalreview.com/article/?q=Mjk1YmRjNzIxNmUwMTI0ZWYxZWU4OWU2MzFiOWJmNDE=

Another example, as if anymore were needed of how dumb and ignorant they are.

rovert

Why are we indulging the GOP in their homophobic requests?

Iwasfrozen

rovert wrote: »

Why are we indulging the GOP in their homophobic requests?

What? It isn't homphobic in the slightest. I don't even know how you got that.

alastair

It would be pretty childish to mock a fine upstanding body like the tea party with double entendres.

(when they do such a fine job themselves)

rovert

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

What? It isn't homphobic in the slightest. I don't even know how you got that.

It is an "alternative" sex practice in their minds gay.

Overheal

Apparently even The President used the term recently in an interview for Jonathan Alter's (who?) new book.

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/311929/june-07-2010/jonathan-alter

Not cool, Obama. But props to Colbert, the Gulf of America Fund is genius.

"I don't think we can call it the Gulf of Mexico anymore - we broke it; we bought it."

Raoul and the Kings of Spain

Scofflaw wrote: »

The use of the term 'teabaggers' for Tea Party activists is hereby officially discouraged. It's a puerile sexual slur, and if you can't rise above using it, you'll wear out your welcome here quite quickly.

moderately,
Scofflaw

It's only a sexual term to those who see it as such. The tea party folks, true to the personality traits of those they follow, recoil into victim mode at any chance they can get. Bemoaning the phrase "Tea bagger" is just one more example of that type of behavior. While I use the term to describe the people and do find some irony in it, I don't use it as a sexual term, and I'd say most others don't either. Yes, there are those who use it specifically to be inflammatory but that's the exception not the rule.

However frankly, I find it more inflammatory that these group of people could adopt a name that is such an insult (and has nothing to do) to the principles my country was founded on. That's much worse (aside from showing their inability to comprehend 9th grade U.S. History) than any sexual reference one could use.

alastair wrote: »

It would be pretty childish to mock a fine upstanding body like the tea party with double entendres.

(when they do such a fine job themselves)

What can you say? They are as dumb as Iraq.

Sandvich

Oh come on. The Tea Party isn't even a legitimate political movement, it's mostly funded by Rupert Murdoch and the Kochs brothers, hardly grass roots conservatism is it.

There may be legitimate concerns within the tea party, but the movement as a whole is so ludicrous that it deserves a name like "tea bagger".

demonspawn

Manic Moran wrote: »

Maybe we should use 'reputable' media as a reference?

I just did a search for 'teabagger' on the CNN site. No hits. (Did you mean 'teenager'?). Lots for 'Tea Party Activist' and a few for 'Tea Partier'.

I found one hit for 'Teabagger' on the BBC website: "My sense of the people around me in Lafayette Square (what do we call them? Tea-baggers? Tea-baggists?) " 'Tea Party Activists' came back with ten pages of hits.

NTM

Can we call them Tea-baggists?

demonspawn

Sandvich wrote: »

Oh come on. The Tea Party isn't even a legitimate political movement, it's mostly funded by Rupert Murdoch and the Kochs brothers, hardly grass roots conservatism is it.

There may be legitimate concerns within the tea party, but the movement as a whole is so ludicrous that it deserves a name like "tea bagger".

They're right-wing, that's all that matters. :rolleyes: Apparently when you insult unorthodox right-wingers you insult them all.

Edit: Replaced "lunatic" with "unorthodox" to avoid blanket insults. Sorry.

jill_valentine

As has been pointed out, it's not simply a peurile sexual slur that was coined by the Left to describe the Tea Party... ists, or whatever we can call them. It's their word, that they chose, to describe themselves, and many of them continue to use it.

I'm not commenting on the wisdom or otherwise of an official moderator decree against its use, but I think that's a point worth stressing for the record if nothing else. The term was first chosen by the people who identified themselves as such, it was only then that their opposing counterparts picked up on the alternate connotations of the phrase.

I mean, I'd be lying if I said I didn't giggle a little bit every time I saw it, but the point is, it didn't come into use simply as a slur and the term itself isn't necessarily peurile.

The amusement we might derive from it, on the other hand...

demonspawn

That settles it, I'm getting "I'M TEAbagging 4 JESUS" tattooed across my back. Don't anyone dare try to talk me out of it.

Edit: On second thought, I'm not sure if I wanna risk a tattoo artist leaving out the "4" just for a laugh.

Overheal

demonspawn wrote: »

They're right-wing, that's all that matters.

Mmm Yes, that Black and White distinction is just whats needed in political debate...

demonspawn

Overheal wrote: »

Mmm Yes, that Black and White distinction is just whats needed in political debate...

The distinction is clearly there already, so why not discuss it? Right or left, red or blue, liberal or conservative, those are pretty black and white to me. The vast majority of people in politics choose one side or the other, there's no denying that. They agree with whatever their side says even if they know deep inside that it may be wrong.

Overheal

Im not talking about political spectrum issues-to-issue per se, I mean about just blithely labeling everyone who takes a stance on the Right Wing as a nutjob. I dont agree with everyone on either fringe, and plenty of them are perfectly sane. It's just conservative radio that makes them seem out there.

demonspawn

Overheal wrote: »

Im not talking about political spectrum issues-to-issue per se, I mean about just blithely labeling everyone who takes a stance on the Right Wing as a nutjob. I dont agree with everyone on either fringe, and plenty of them are perfectly sane. It's just conservative radio that makes them seem out there.

I never said that everyone who stands to the right is a nut job, it's just the tea party folks and some other far right people. The point I was trying to make is that it's not fair to try and protect a certain group from public mockery (and they really do deserve it) simply because they stand on the same side of the fence.

Edit: I actually had a lot of Republican friends when I lived in the U.S., we just never talked about politics and we got on wonderfully.

Overheal

demonspawn wrote: »

I never said that everyone who stands to the right is a nut job, it's just the tea party folks and some other far right people.

"They're right-wing, that's all that matters. "

The point I was trying to make is that it's not fair to try and protect a certain group from public mockery (and they really do deserve it) simply because they stand on the same side of the fence.

Edit: I actually had a lot of Republican friends when I lived in the U.S., we just never talked about politics and we got on wonderfully.

You wouldn't know it but no other political denomination is Mocked on here either. And the ones who often spout "Typical Liberal Thinking" bla bla bla, are also unwelcome here, imo.

SeanW

Sandvich wrote: »

Oh come on. The Tea Party isn't even a legitimate political movement, it's mostly funded by Rupert Murdoch and the Kochs brothers, hardly grass roots conservatism is it.

And the progressive movement is funded by the likes of George Soros ...

Mjollnir

SeanW wrote: »

And the progressive movement is funded by the likes of George Soros ...

What progressive movement?

themrhubarbs

Do you know the history of the term 'Tea Party'?

It was named after the 'Boston Tea Party'.

The Boston Tea Party was a direct action by colonists in Boston, a town in the British colony of Massachusetts, against the British government. On December 16, 1773, after officials in Boston refused to return three shiploads of taxed tea to Britain, a group of colonists boarded the ships and destroyed the tea by throwing it into Boston Harbor. The incident remains an iconic event of American history, and other political protests often refer to it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Tea_Party

An anti-British movement. And Boston has a high proportion of Irish Americans. A local sporting team there is called the Boston Celtics. And it has a leprechaun with a shillelagh as its' mascot.

Scofflaw

themrhubarbs wrote: »

Do you know the history of the term 'Tea Party'?

It was named after the 'Boston Tea Party'.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Tea_Party

An anti-British movement. And Boston has a high proportion of Irish Americans. A local sporting team there is called the Boston Celtics. And it has a leprechaun with a shillelagh as its' mascot.

It's also fair to point out that the issue that sparked it was a lowering of the tax, which cut into the profits being made by American tea smugglers - including those involved in the "protest". It wasn't an act of revolution (and was studiously ignored by revolutionary literature for the next half-century) but an act of selfishness dressed up as revolutionary by people whose profits were under threat.

In that sense, just calling themselves the "Tea Party" is quite sufficiently ironic.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Sandvich

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

Are you honestly contesting that Christine O'Donnell and her ilk are not in fact nut jobs?

Either nuts or idiots, take your pic. Too many contraditions and nonsensical statements for it to be any other way.

Respecting opinions that inherently don't respect logic or other people is generally a bad idea.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Sandvich

The problem is that it's ridiculous to clamp down on mindless jeering of people but not mindless people. You can say nobody has a right to say an opinion is mindless, but you could say that of these terms too, you can't prove beyond a doubt they're not appropriate.

It's a pet peeve of mine because there are a lot of people who can be plenty "civil" but nonetheless wholly destructive towards rational debate. You can't crack down on unfair generalisations unless you're also going to do so within people's political statements. For example defending conservatives against comments setting them up as bigots but being completely receptive of viewpoints based entirely on generalisations of a minority is wrong, but this is the way many forums work.

msteiner

I am a 'Tea Partier' and I can tell you that:

1. I'm not a racist.
2. I do not support Iraq or Afghanistan.
3. I am not a nutjob.
4. I am extremely socially progressive.
5. I am a hardcore libertarian and originalist with the constitution.

My main question for all those folks is, what's extreme, $14 trillion of debt or a balanced budget? I call $14 trilliion of debt extreme.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Overheal

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

This.

Teabaggers, Pinkos, Bigots, Nutjobs, are examples of words that bring down the tone of this forum and make it not a nice place to post in. Until eventually all thats left is "Ha Ha, see? Nutjobs! /thread" rather than meaningful discussion of issues. 'Oh that Christine McDonnel girl? Was young and naive in the 90s? On the Bill Maher show? Well by golly that makes her an unqualified loooon!' - without actually giving regard to her campaign of 2010.

kaiser sauze

I really don't see the problem with using an expression that they coined for themselves.

Overheal

kaiser sauze wrote: »

I really don't see the problem with using an expression that they coined for themselves.

the problem is motive and intent. The usefulness of such phrases here is only to create mockery and bring the level of discussion down to that of children.

kaiser sauze

Overheal wrote: »

the problem is motive and intent. The usefulness of such phrases here is only to create mockery and bring the level of discussion down to that of children.

OK, can we get a moratorium on 'commie'?

'Pinko liberal'?

'Nazi socialist'?

I just don't see why one term is being concentrated on, now that one is outlawed, ANY similar style phrases that either side HAVE to be banned also.

FatherTed

msteiner wrote: »

I am a 'Tea Partier' and I can tell you that:

1. I'm not a racist.
2. I do not support Iraq or Afghanistan.
3. I am not a nutjob.
4. I am extremely socially progressive.
5. I am a hardcore libertarian and originalist with the constitution.

My main question for all those folks is, what's extreme, $14 trillion of debt or a balanced budget? I call $14 trilliion of debt extreme.

If we're not allowed to use phrases such as teabagger then we shouldn't be able to use extreme either.

Scofflaw

kaiser sauze wrote: »

OK, can we get a moratorium on 'commie'?

'Pinko liberal'?

'Nazi socialist'?

I just don't see why one term is being concentrated on, now that one is outlawed, ANY similar style phrases that either side HAVE to be banned also.

Depending on cicumstances, one can of course collect an infraction for the use of such terms. However, as is implied in your post, there's a lot of different terms available with which to label one's opponents, which makes it difficult to police their use in any except a general way.

There are certain terms, though, that take on a life of their own, and become particularly identifiable pests - "teabagger" is one, "beards" for union officials is another, and "scum/bag" is the most recent and obvious. The reason for focusing on them in particular is not merely the question of offence, but rather the way in which they come to be substituted as epithets for any attempt to approach one's opponents rationally, and to make the job of wading through partisan posts even more tedious than it already is.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Matt Holck

in the spirit of

No taxation without Representation

I move we practice open disclosure of government activity

I find it offensive that this group deserves political recognition

CrystalLettuce

Why is there a thread like this targeted at the left for using silly terms against a particular group, but none of the baiting tactics of the right are addressed?

Bias.