Tarring Someone as a Bigot FAILED!

Forums: Politics, Uk, Freedom Of Speech, Gordon Brown
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OMG, is this the first time ever that the go to insult of the alleged enlightened age has backfired?

Quote:

After ending the conversation with Duffy, Brown got into his car and was driven away, but he was still wearing a radio microphone that allowed broadcasters to hear his comments to an aide.

"That was a disaster," Brown said about the encounter with Duffy. "Should never have put me with that woman -- whose idea was that?"

He added, "She was just a sort of bigoted woman."

Presented with a tape of the overheard conversation shortly afterwards on a radio show, Brown held his head in his hands. The image was carried in many British newspapers Thursday.

The headline accompanying the picture on the cover of The Sun tabloid read, "Brown Toast."

Brown then turned around and drove to Duffy's home in Rochdale, saying he was "mortified" by what had happened. He said he gave her his "sincere apologies" and said it was a result of a misunderstanding

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/04/29/uk.election.brown.bigot.apology/index.html?section=cnn_latest

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Type: Discussion • Score: 5 • Views: 3,118 • Replies: 21

[+6] - engineer - 04/29/2010I think it is actually the opposite. It is not politically correct to call a bigot a bigot (unless it is on the Internet where everyone is anonymous). Someone at a party or in a barber shop could...

@hawkeye10,

Exactly why was it everyone didnt nod and say..ah, yes a bigot..that explains that!

1 Reply

@Ionus,

Quote:

Exactly why was it everyone didnt nod and say..ah, yes a bigot..that explains that!

note sure I get your point....the functional definition of "Bigot" is someone who does not believe what they are told to believe by the ones who think that are as wise as God. This slur always goes unchallenged....until now.

I think that we are fed-up with this rhetorical coercion, that we have finally turned the corner on tolerating this intellectually and morally bankrupt power play.

Do you agree?

2 Replies

@hawkeye10,

Yes, I was saying it has worked everytime...till now. You call someone a bigot and everyone says Ah ! No further discussion needed with THAT person. The Schardonnay Shhsippers need a ralying cry, like nigger or jew, so they use bigot despite it being more apt to call them bigots.

0 Replies

@hawkeye10,

I don't know if you really get the context -- as Andrew Sullivan put it (paraphrasing), it's like if Obama's "clinging to guns and religion" gaffe* was uttered by candidate George Bush about his OWN constituency a week before the election.

It's a context thing, who Brown is and who his people are, not just the fact that he said it, that's getting so much attention.

*Which by the way was a gaffe so not really sure why you think this is new

1 Reply

@sozobe,

Ya, I get it...it confirms what many already thought about Brown. I still think that it is a positive sign that we might be getting off of the name calling game.

2 Replies

@hawkeye10,

Hawkeye,

It seems rather strange to hear you, of all people, championing political correctness.

1 Reply

@ebrown p,

Quote:

It seems rather strange to hear you, of all people, championing political correctness.

you must be confused...calling someone a bigot is EXTREMELTY politically correct. I am arguing for doing the opposite.

0 Replies

@hawkeye10,

I think it is actually the opposite. It is not politically correct to call a bigot a bigot (unless it is on the Internet where everyone is anonymous). Someone at a party or in a barber shop could go on a bigoted rant and no one would do anything more than turn their head in embarrassment. The big fear in labor's camp is that since Brown called it in private (after having tolerated her publicly) they are going to lose the bigot vote.

It is much more PC to be non-confrontational.

1 Reply

@engineer,

you are a million miles away from the truth. This is better

Quote:

Elections are based on an illusion that political leaders like and respect every single voter they meet. Voters are allowed to harangue leaders, but never the other way around. In private, no doubt leaders across the world despair of voters that they meet, but they never do so in public. In being recorded unaware by a microphone Brown has smashed the illusion into pieces. The spell is broken. When he meets voters in the future they will wonder what he is really thinking.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postpartisan/2010/04/gordon_browns_campaign_disaste.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

1 Reply

@hawkeye10,

Exactly! It is NOT POLITICALLY CORRECT for a politician to call it the way he sees it! That is exactly what your quote says! Nor is it politically correct for a private citizen to call another citizen a bigot in public.

1 Reply

@engineer,

Quote:

Exactly! It is NOT POLITICALLY CORRECT for a politician to call it the way he sees it!

True

Quote:

Nor is it politically correct for a private citizen to call another citizen a bigot in public.

False, in my experience.

1 Reply

@hawkeye10,

Honest question here... has this happened to you or have you seen it? I've seen people make comments that were extremely bigoted in company where I know everyone was offended and everyone including myself just turned away embarrassed. Maybe it is where I live, but I just can't imagine one adult calling another down in public. If it was just the two of them, yes, but in public, no.

1 Reply

@engineer,

Ya, I see it all the time. I do not however see it between people who have an important relationship to protect, these people almost always either refuse to be honest or else purposefully avoid talking about anything that gets close to the race question. Which brings up another failure in moderns, the refusal to make a stand and back up a stand when they potentially have something to lose by doing so.

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@hawkeye10,

CNN wrote:

Brown then turned around and drove to Duffy's home in Rochdale, saying he was "mortified" by what had happened. He said he gave her his "sincere apologies" and said it was a result of a misunderstanding

That's the part of the story I don't understand. Brown apologized again again. He apologized on the air several times, and then he drove home to Ms Duffy's home, talked with her for an hour, and apologized in person, profusely.

Now, if it's a problem that politicians say one thing on-camera and the opposite off-camera, what is a public apology worth? Why not just ownthe gaffe? "Yeah, I called this woman is a bigot, and I meant it. But I had to be nice to her on camera because that's how politics works. Congratulations for catching me with my pants down! Can we move on now?" I think it's more likely than not that Britain would have answered: "Yes we can!"

3 Replies

@Thomas,

Quote:

Yeah, I called this woman is a bigot, and I meant it. But I had to be nice to her on camera because that's how politics works. Congratulations for catching me with my pants down! Can we move on now?" I think it's more likely than not that Britain would have answered: "Yes we can

It goes back to the civic article of faith that leaders of democracies are not allowed to directly insult individual citizens. Brown apologized immediately because in our modern culture apology for every offense, real or imagined, is expected. We even routinely apologize now for stuff than we had nothing to do with, for what the dead did. The masses want to see the apology, they have been conditioned to expect it, and if you attempt to deny them all hell will break loose. It does not matter at all if you are right or not.

0 Replies

@Thomas,

he should have done this. no-one would have seen it coming and I agree with your assessment of Britain's reaction. maybe you should be a politician's PR guy.

as a side note, the definition of politics if we brake it into it's constituent parts means "many (poly-) blood sucking parasites (ticks)".

0 Replies

I haven't read the posts. I simply don't get why this was all so horrible, that he called a person a bigot.

Dumb perhaps, re politics. But not really horrible.

0 Replies

@hawkeye10,

hawkeye10 wrote:

Quote:
Exactly why was it everyone didnt nod and say..ah, yes a bigot..that explains that!

note sure I get your point....the functional definition of "Bigot" is someone who does not believe
what they are told to believe by the ones who think that are as wise as God.
This slur always goes unchallenged....until now.

I think that we are fed-up with this rhetorical coercion, that we have finally turned the corner
on tolerating this intellectually and morally bankrupt power play.

Do you agree?

Hawkeye, u r a SOCIALIST!
U r not supposed to go around saying anything that is TRUE!!!

David

0 Replies

@Thomas,

Quote:

Why not just ownthe gaffe?

That would be my first instinct. Why not indeed ?

1 Reply

Tarring Someone as a Bigot FAILED!

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