Alec Baldwin's silver daddy hair = perfection — Page 4

I remember. I'm trying to rekindle that mystery.

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There is never justification for racial, homophobic, or anti-semitic slurs.

So if anybody is justifiably provoked ... say a kid at school or a mom in a store or a person at work ... we can say that they're "nuts but not evil" if they call someone a "little faggot" or a "God damned n*gger" or a "c*ck sucking queer," just as long as they were angry with a good reason first when they said it?

They're not evil, they're just nuts.

That's just our nephew Bobby or our Aunt Carol or our Cousin Roger acting up again. Anger issues.

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Kids at school who say "ni**er" or "f*g" are not "evil." They have been taught that those words are acceptable and they have to be re-taught that they ere not.

But they are not "evil."

Neither is Alec Baldwin "evil."

"Evil" is a word that should be reserved for acts that are "evil." Otherwise, you render evil banal.

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I think you're getting snagged on semantics here. I don't think Harvey or I mean evil as in a serial killer but evil as in malice.

And at what age or stage does it go from something you were taught to something you do out of anger or malice?

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I STAND CORRECTED!

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To those of you who are making excuses for Alec... what if Paula Dean, Sean Hannity or John voightt said the same thing the same amount of times. Would you tie yourself into pretzel to make excuses for them too? There's your answer. bought

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By the way (threadjack!), my question above isn't rhetorical. I'm not even sure I have my own answer for it.

I believe we're all taught to hate and fear (as Hammerstein said), but at some point ... and I'm not sure when ... we should all be held accountable for the choices we make, even in the heat of the moment. When are the excuses of age, cuteness, location, education, etc., used up? When are you held accountable for yelling derogatory slurs in a confrontation? When is it easily dismissed and quickly forgotten even if it's not acceptable?

/threadjack.

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Preach!

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"She also thought you were Bruce Villanch."

I once heard he was Michael Musto.

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And now?

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Here's the thing about moments of heightened emotion -- people still only employ language that makes sense to them, what they believe, regardless if it's a part of their weltanschauung or personality that they have trained themselves to clean up on a daily basis.

If I get into a screaming match with a coworker, in a moment of extreme anger, I will not call him a "lemon-coated banana toothpick." Because that doesn't make sense in the context of me and him and the two of us in an argument.

If I get into a screaming match with a black man, in a moment of extreme anger, I will not call him a "n*." Because I'm not racist.

To me, black people are not n*s, and my coworkers are not lemon-coated banana toothpicks.

So, I have a hard time with this idea that words which "slip out" in emotional moments somehow weren't really "meant." If anything, those moments seem truer, like the stupid sh!t people say when they've had too much to drink.

I've never once accidentally called someone "spic" or "fag" or "retard" or "chink." Because I hate those words, and they're not to be applied to people. (Excepting satire, I guess, or dramatic writing; they do have value in what they can teach us.)

I'd much rather Baldwin just acknowledge what he said, apologize, and we can all move on, hoping that something was learned. This backpedaling and pandering and lying wrapped up in the guise of "I've always loved gay people" makes things way, way worse.

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