What percentage of the population do you think understands what non-pejorative means?
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
I;ll pull a number out of my butt and say, 12% (without having to consult a dictionary).
about as many as could tell you in which state Washington DC resides….
What specific aspect of the comment section are you referring?
The section where the posters are looking for ponies under their beds.
nalbar
That seems pejorative on your part.
Doesn’t seem to be a serious question and a bit obtuse. You for instance are not in that percentage of the population you smugly question. You state that your use of anti-corporatists is non-perjorative and then go on to say how politically unsophisticated they are in not doing a deep reading of the DLC and its pro-corporate policy. How juvenile they were to take Obama at his words of hope and change. Only an anti-corporatist would place ideology over pragmatism. I think that qualifies as depreciatory.
Face it Booman–you were as “had” as the rest of us progressives, you’re just too cool to admit it. Spare us the sophomoric paeans to a President that in one year demonstrated he’s like all the rest–but worse–because he told us he wasn’t. Fool me once…
What percentage of the population do you think has fatal reading comprehension problems?
Fatal reading comprehension problems? Like those who light up near the gas pump when the sign says “No smoking”?
yeah. Figuratively, of course.
More or less. And that’s literally, as in medical literacy rates indicate 30% are health illiterate or have only basic literacy, meaning navigating prescription labels, etc.
Goes up to 81% in the elderly, “81% of patients age 60 and older at a public hospital could not read or understand basic materials such as prescription labels.”
From 2000. Probably worse, now.
I’m guessing that means you don’t know what non- perjorative means
or the difference between deprecatory (which I could probably accept) and depreciatory (which I would definitely not).
An iota?
Aren’t we the semantical serial killer? The is no real difference between deprecatory and depreciatory as it pertains to your statement. The real question is this a political blog or a seminar on language? We’ll just have to wait for 2010 and 2012.
One means mildly critical and one means totally dismissive. But I don’t want to murder you.
What’s your purpose for asking these questions?
fifteen percent
How did I know your link would lead to that thread on DKos? Definitions over there depend totally on the percentages of subgroups (“bots” v “haters” – please note my uses of quotation marks – I no longer have a so-called dog in that fight) who show up via twitter or chance, to post. Glacing through the names in the thread, I could have predicted non-perjorative would be interpreted as perjorative. Asi es.
MUCH more importantly, I just realized that you are a father-to-be. Best wishes.
Oh geez louise… Is Dkos sending people over here now? I have that site blocked for a reason so I can’t look at the link.
Wouldn’t the more appropriate question be, since discussing “anti-corporatists”, what you mean by “anti-corporatists”? Or for that matter, “corporatists”?
Since Mussolini and other fascists threw around “corporatism” as their political philosophy, and since Mussolini’s corporatism was antithetical to liberalism, no one who claims to be a liberal could also be a corporatist. At least according to the meaning of those words back in the 1940s.
But maybe you mean something else.
Then again, if you are getting snarky about a comment thread at Kos that extends well over 700 comments, then expecting nothing but “non-perjorative” responses is unrealistic.
I think Boo here is posturing. Not sure what the point is, though. The fact the people who consider themselves liberal are not happy with many of Obama’s decisions is not irrational. It shouldn’t be unexpected.
And since when is politics ever “non-pejorative”?
Poor Booman. They beat you up at Kos. You spoke the truth though. I agreed with the diary. I really don’t remember hearing about a “public option” until this year, but I have health insurance and do not want to change right now. It is expensive, but I am older and it covers the ailments I have well.
I thought it was great that he was going to go for health care so I read the plan and thought, ok. Frankly it may not have been worth it. I don’t see how he recovers. I did not support healthcare so he could bring down corporate insurance companies. That never entered my mind. Unemployment is high enough!
BTW, non-pejorative, probably 20% on a good day.
I have been a flaming liberal all my life. The banks irritate me. They are too big to nationalize the way they are & as O said they would need special rules to wind them down. They said it could not be done thru FDIC. The casino part bothers me the most. Something needs to be done, but the more I learn–the worse it looks. As usual the House and Senate cannot agree on how to regulate credit default swaps, derivatives, etc. O wants them on an exchange, traded openly. I don’t know. Nothing will be good enough for progressives I fear. Just like health care. Another 9 month hissy fit…ugh! NOESSSSS
Well, there was a lot of abuse in the comments but the thing was on the rec list for most of the day. It spurred quite a bit of debate, which is all I wanted.
Abuse in the comments on dKos. Amazing Col. Renault.
That is not the issue, given how diverse those 200,000 folks are. And how many are trying to game the elaborate system of HRs and banning and whatever it is when Meteor Blades finally shows you the door.
The question for you is:
Did anyone have a clue of what you were discussing? Anybody you know from past diaries or from Netroots Nation?
How many people who didn’t have a clue nonetheless responded politely?
Did you get noticed at all? Oh, right you made the rec list.
And is this really a serious question, or a rhetorical one?
After stepping back from some of the specific arguments, this was my conclusion about the whole thing as well. There are times I think the level of push-back is related to how insecurely people are holding on to their arguments – you touched a raw nerve.
But ultimately, one of the things I learned from all of that is that when people emotionally espouse their anti-corporatist views, it can help to ask them how it is they want to accomplish their goals…specifically. Granted, some people have thought that through. But many just want to be angry about it and haven’t taken it much further than that. I think the reason people responded as strongly as they did to that diary is that you were asking them to do just that.
with 900+ comments on the rec list just before BooMan’s post.
Well, if it makes everyone feel better it was announced in one of the threads over on FDL (I think by Hamsher herself!) that Hamsher would be taking on you, Booman, you know, “idiot boy for not seeing the forest through the trees like Hamsher does”. She didn’t like what you had to say in this post and will now rally the troops over there. rolling eyes
Does she have a cut off point? My fear is she’ll start dating the powerful right wing Evangelicals to prove she’s still the Master of Her Domain. cringe
You Rock, Kay.
How will becoming the Ultimate Champion of the Blogworld help anybody achieve anything? I see more “problem solving” behavior among children.
It seems like most of the angriest comment-ers don’t read anything in the post, there doesn’t seem to be much response to what is in the original post at all. They just start spewing their clever sayings and twisting their logic like contortionists.
I appreciate you attempting to speak in a non-pejorative way, their isn’t much of that going around these days. I admit, I get down in the dirt with them too but at some point progressives have to have a civil conversation about common goals and strategies to achieve them. It appears that the FDL gang will have none of that, they are on a roll, baby. And I say the rest of us progressives give them the extra little push they need to go over the cliff. Buh bye….
What percentage of the population do you think understands what non-pejorative means?
Using only those who would be considered in the progressives population, I think the answer is unfortunately less than those who understand how legislation happens in Congress. 🙂