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Onion Story Gets Blown Out of Proportion
A 3-year-old Onion video titled "Martial Law Plans Revealed?" has swept across the internet recently, and taken the gullible along with it. The video has some preaching from the highest mountain top about the evils of a government turning fascist, and an equal number explaining until red in the face what The Onion is.
is here.
First against the wall when the revolution comes
Did you not see the Onion-Span in the bottom right corner?
What do you think, sirs?
So what do we say about the idiots that saw the faked Shirley Sharrod video up on breitbart.com and rushed to denounce her and the NAACP as racist, when in fact the original video shows the exact opposite? And by idiots, I mean both the smug race baiting liars that put this up, the Obama administration that pressured for her resignation, and the NAACP itself for falling for a breitbart/Faux news lie in the first place and denouncing her. Brietbart is the guy who destroyed ACORN with false accusations and edited video, it's what he does, and yet, the idiots in the Obama administration and the NAACP fell for it. They walked right into his trap. See, if it never came out that the video was faked, it's a win if the administration and the NAACP do not react. But since they did react, why, simply reveal the video was fake and denounce them as idiots for falling for your trap.
People will believe anything. If we had to appoint guardians for every nut-job that believed a patently obvious lie, there wouldn't be enough non-nut-job guardians to go around.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
To be fair, online gullibility and hysteria does tend towards a right wing bent.
One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, just for this month alone. The left is not immune to the chain-email urban legend phenomenon (e.g. talk of the draft a few years back) but it is the right, especially the religious right, that excels at propogating misinformation.
Hahaha! That's a good one! "Executive experience"! She ran a backwater Alaskan town into the ground, crippling it with millions of dollars of debt, then stepped down before completing her first term as Governor amid accusations of abuse of power stemming from 'troopergate' and the bribes, excuse me, I mean "Free Home Improvements" she accepted while in office. I wouldn't trust her to run my convenience store, much less my government.
Really? This poll was all over the news two months ago, everyone was commenting on it. Google 'poll of right wing beliefs' if you need a citation, this isn't wikipedia and I'm not your research assistant.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
It's derived from the same place we get the word nigger.
The two words are not derived from the same place.
Definition and history of "niggardly". Possibly Scandinavian origin, 14th century.
Definition and history of "nigger". French and Spanish origin, 17th century.
It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law. --Hofstadter's Law
And why would black people have a problem with the word niggardly? It's derived from the same place we get the word nigger.
Wow, you're over-sensitive and ignorant. The words are not etymologically related. Two seconds of research could have told you that. Niggardly comes from the same root words as "niggling details", Niggle comes from the Old Norse word "Nigla" which means, "To fuss about small matters."
However, the more inflamatory term comes from the Latin "niger," meaning "black".Although it is more likely to come from the Americanization of the Spanish version of "negro", namely negero.
Not only do they not come from the same source, they don't even come from the same root language.
Do Italians get to declare a racist epithet when someone yells out "Swap" because it's close to the sound of "wop"? I'm of German descent, can I complain when someone talks about their "route" because it's close to "kraut"?
Words mean things, and even the head of the NAACP said that people who take "niggardly" as a racial slur need to be given a dictionary.
Life, the Universe, and Everything... in my image.
And why would black people have a problem with the word niggardly? It's derived from the same place we get the word nigger.
False.
Niggardly: From the Norse word nigla - "to fuss about small matters"
Nigger: From the latin Niger - "Black" through Spanish, Portuguese, or French.
They are false cognates of each other, words that sound the same but have different meanings and origins. It's entirely possible that given how common your misinformed view is that there are people who say 'niggardly' in a racist way, but from a purely linguistically and historical view there is nothing racist about the word. Ignoring that fact and calling everyone who uses the word racist is dishonest at best.
And why would black people have a problem with the word niggardly? It's derived from the same place we get the word nigger.
Wrong. This is the problem. Just because words might sound similar, doesn't mean they come from the same place.
Nigger's earliest appearance in English was in the 16th century, coming from the Spanish word Negro as a pejorative for blacks.
Niggardly comes from Niggard, which first appears in the 14th century and is likely to come from a Swedish word, which just means "stingy".
For fuck's sake, they used Communists as an excuse to form the Axis.
Oh, and this little anecdotal piece of history should give you a clue just HOW Nazis treated Communists.
And if you are particularly dense about believing in YOUR lies instead of proven truth...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_concentration_camps#Camps_before_the_war
The first camp in Germany, Dachau was opened in March 1933,[5] The press statement given at the opening stated:
"On Wednesday the first concentration camp is to be opened in Dachau with an accommodation for 5000 persons.
'All Communists and--where necessary--Reichsbanner and Social Democratic functionaries who endanger state security are to be concentrated here, as in the long run it is not possible to keep individual functionaries in the state prisons without overburdening these prisons, and on the other hand these people cannot be released because attempts have shown that they persist in their efforts to agitate and organise as soon as they are released.'[5]
But yeah, sure...
Nazis were cooperating with Communists AND putting them into concentration camps at the same time.
Shit.. those must have been some awkward meetings.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens