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Culture War Roundup for the week of June 24, 2024

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It was a project by some charity or other claiming that "hate crimes" (or victimization, or incidents, or whatever they measure) jump by 60% during pride month.

Probably on its face true, because vandalism is considered in the same category of "hate crime" as assault, and during pride month the amount of publicly displayed gay stuff increases by vastly more than 60%. If the modal hate crime is something like "FAG" graffiti on a pro-Gay poster or tearing down a pride flag, the number of pro-gay posters and pride flags has to increase by 500% or better during Pride. So really, the hate criminals are restraining themselves more during pride month. It's the same way that AIPAC and the ADL have long played with the numbers to make Jews the primary victim of hate crimes, because swastika graffiti anywhere within five miles of a Synagogue is counted as a hate crime in their numbers.

Anecdotally, as Pride is becoming something you get taught about in middle school, the backlash is inevitable among the youth as a basic form of teen rebellion. Kids are always going to find whatever their 7th grade health teacher teaches them lame. I remember in health class they showed us a Lifetime movie about Date Rape called She Cried No. As a gang of virgins in the Boy Scouts, we spent multiple camping trips making up alternate titles when the scoutmasters weren't looking. "She cried maybe later" "She cried not you" "she cried and then kept crying." And it wasn't like we were pro-rape, just that health class was lame and we were going to make fun of it.

I've had the argument with many well-meaning progressive friends who tell me they are teaching their kids that classic profanity is no big deal, but slurs are the really bad words. I tell them that is the opposite of how to teach their kids not to use slurs: every kid turns twelve or thirteen and wants to use the no-no words, from Romeo's buddies in Verona swearing by Christ's Wounds to kids buying Eminem CDs in 2001. If you tell them that Nigger and Faggot are the only really bad words, those are the only words they can use to get the thrill of using profanity for the first time. The old Reddit joke about Dr. Kikey McNiggerFaggot will hit all the harder for them. Unless your kid is some Ned Flanders-ass dork, they're gonna cuss. You better teach them cuss words that are no big deal, or they'll use the ones that are. #ReadAnotherBook and all, but liberalism has fallen a long way from 1997 when Fictional Liberal Hero Dumbledore confidently intoned that "fear of a [word] increases fear of the thing itself;" and you knew the really good guys because they weren't afraid to use the no-no words, they said what they meant and meant what they said. Now the left-wingers would be in support of not using the "V-word" because it "re-traumatizes" the victims and their families.

#ReadAnotherBook and all, but liberalism has fallen a long way from 1997 when Fictional Liberal Hero Dumbledore confidently intoned that "fear of a [word] increases fear of the thing itself;" and you knew the really good guys because they weren't afraid to use the no-no words, they said what they meant and meant what they said. Now the left-wingers would be in support of not using the "V-word" because it "re-traumatizes" the victims and their families.

I'd never considered this take on 'You Know Who' before, and I find it utterly fascinating, especially in light of how Rowling backtracked in Book 7 and made Voldemort a literal Taboo where saying the name would summon a small army of 'Snatchers' to attack you and imprison you.

(For the life of me, I have no idea what Rowling was thinking with this plot point. It seems obvious that the Taboo was intentionally foreshadowed in earlier books -- Voldemort is identified as He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, after all -- but it's more a little brain-bending to realize that Rowling wrote Dumbledore as absolutely insistent that Harry should always always used Voldemort's name and that there is never any reason to fear a name and that other wizards are funny and weird at their fear of even hearing Voldemort's name. My pet theory is that this was part of 'Dumbledore wants to set Harry and Voldemort on a collision course so the prophecy could be fulfilled ASAP', like the Philosopher's Stone obstacle course in Book 1, but that just opens a whole new set of questions.)

And it wasn't like we were pro-rape, just that health class was lame and we were going to make fun of it.

This is a GOAT out of context quote.