Faggot??

I am troubled by all the people entering rehab for uttering the "F" word-- no, not the word you are thinking of but "faggot". I do not condone the use of the word, but I also believe people have the right to be oafs and use the term. Now the "F" word has become the new "N" word. Soon we may be able to converse by just using the letters of the alphabet.

What is troubling about this whole trend is many of the crackers are really trying to do the right thing and use the politically correct term. Noticed I used "crackers", it's OK-- I am one. I watched a great commentary about Black, or is it African American, or is it Black comedy. The show gave some great insight into some of the motivations of many of the comedians. The most compelling story was that of Richard Pryor, who was a successful comedian at a very young age. However, after a sabbatical he came back with a completely new act that used sexually explicit language, drug usage terminology, and yes, the word nigger.

Pryor was a genius. He crossed over racial lines with his cutting edge humor. He would in the same bit make fun of how white people would talk and walk when they encountered "niggers". For those offended by the "N" word I will only use it in quotation marks when it was used by Pryor or the other comedians.

To me, Pryor's greatest contribution to comedy and society is he made us laugh, at ourselves and each other. What Pryor realized, is by saying "nigger" is he removed any connotations or power the word once held. Think of that, essentially, one man changed centuries of thought and culture by being funny as hell and saying "nigger".

I hope one can see the similarities between the "N" word and the Faggot situation. The latest "scandal" is Ann Coulter's use of the word while speaking about John Edwards. Now, it is no mystery that Coulter is polarizing, but it was used in the context of a joke--besides John is kind of pretty and Coulter could argue that she was comparing Edwards as a straw man since that is one of the meanings of faggot. Admittedly, it may not have been in the best taste, but so goes the sparring of politics.

What is more demeaning and bias is the pure lack of the press and other Pro-homosexual lobbying groups to completely ignore the multi-cultural connotations of the word "Faggot". In Great Britain they have something called a Large Faggot worm--in my view that is much more demeaning than one's sexual orientation. In Great Britain the word "bloody" is frowned upon--why? There is also a pork meatball by the name faggot, although that may be more descriptive of Newt Gingrich than Edwards. Also the Brits have the term wanker--what the hell is that? In the South the term bugger is used as, "that was one tough bugger", but in many cultures the terms bugger and buggery are extremely frowned upon.

A derivative of faggot is fag and it has its' own meanings around the world. Some examples are, cigarettes, the Guatemalan Air Force, a German Ball Bearing company, a terrorist group in the Canary Islands and the evil Film Actors Guild depicted in Team America: World Police.

My point? Everybody just get over it. One of our most sacred rights as Americans is to be arseholes, (what is an arse in the US), and say ignorant and sometimes insulting things. The beautiful thing about this is the offended have the same right. Not to mention that if this hyper-sensitivity was expanded worldwide we would need another UN just to negotiate between countries to avoid nuclear annihilation and international chaos, e.g. US 'we have the rights to demean homosexuals with the term fag'; Germany' no we have the trade mark on our ball bearing company, Americaner sheistkopfs'. Then famed furniture maker Silas Kopf would file a complaint against the Germans using kopf as a pejorative. As one can see, it would quickly spiral out of control.

My Grandpa, a Swiss immigrant, who I'm sure received some pejorative slurs in his time, like many Swiss had Calvinistic leaning. For those that don't know much about Calvinism, it was essentially a Protestant movement against the Catholic church. So Grandpa would ask, "Who Poped?", anytime somebody broke wind. My point is only our family would understand the connotation of Grandpa's colloquialism. Grandpa compared the Vicar of Jesus Christ, Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church, Bishop of Rome, Prince of the Apostles, Servant of the Servants of God, and pretty much the Grand Poobah of most of the Christian world to flatulence incarnate.

While I don't think Grandpa was a hater. However, those groups that do hate could easily use his tactic to change the idiom of said groups that they hate and continue on with their occult language of hate. Hitler did prove that language could create movements and hate, but conceptually it was thoughts and ideas that were right for the time that created his movement. Do we really think, that in any sane world that 30 days of rehab would replace a philosophical lifetime of hate or discrimination?

Our American birthright and destiny is the right to speak like this. It's not the most perfect society, but it is the best (sorry I can't cite the famous person that said this, but Winston Churchill might be a good bet). No race, creed or "group" should be immune from the pejorative terms, but it is hoped that respect and dignity would be given to all. The beauty part of this system is the demeaned have the same right to demean the demeanors--maybe it would be easier if we should just try to get along. For those are demeaned by any hate group, they should use Richard Pryor's example and simply disempower the pejoratives. Pryor did not accomplish this by showing every occasion of some idiot spewing bad language and manners on the talking head shows and all the cable news networks. Witness the "growth'" of the KKK and the Black Panthers; withering ghosts of the past.

Now that my rant is over I want to apologize to any members of the KKK, Black Panthers, Adolf Hitler, Grandpa, the Vicar of Christ, Catholics, Calvinists, Silas Kopf, any German ball bearing company, the conceptual UN needed to handle the hyper-critical word-nazis, the Guatemalan Air Force, any terrorist group in the Canary Islands, buggers, wankers, any person resembling a straw man or British meat ball, Richard Pryor, niggers, faggots, crackers, fags, and large gelatinous British worms and hope all is forgiven. I will now be entering the Fidelis Angelus Grupo rehab center in Palm Springs and will be unavailable for the next 30 days.