Bigot: One who is strongly partial to one's own group, religion, race, or politics and is intolerant of those who differ.Do you not think that describes many here? Is it necessarily a bad thing to be thus? Perhaps it's the connotation of "bigot" that needs to be changed, if being called one is so upsetting to such a partisan and intolerant (another word that's not necessarily bad) crowd.
--The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000.
Allow me to share with you my perspective--you know from our conversations that I was a liberal leftist for years before my awakening. It was very typical and common for lls (liberal leftists, so I don't have to keep spelling it out) to resort to name calling such as "bigot", "racist" when the debate got hot, even when the topic at hand was not at all race-related! It was a way to shut your opponent down by forcing him to back away from the subject and explain why he was not a "racist".
Name calling (bigot, racist) is just not an effective debate technique, even if you think it fits your opponent(s), and you're not just using it as a way to shut them down . Surely there are better, more intellectually honest ways to make one's point? Name calling is also an emotional, irrational response--I understand this is a hot button subject, but we must try to keep the debate as civil as possible. We've all been guilty of going for the jugular, (moi aussi!) but it does lessen the quality of our arguments.
"Bigot" and "racist", to me, are code words for "I don't have anything better to offer". Again, my background has given me a particular aversion to using such labels even in a heated discussion.
I've seen people banned for overusage of these terms, so there must be some agreement on this topic at the higher echelons of FR.
Carry on...
(hops off soapbox)
Sometimes words mean things (well, they're always supposed to...) and sometimes they mean what the dynamic of popular culture at large has redefined them to mean.
You can cite the dictionary definition of 'bigot' if you want to, but it comes nowhere near conveying the loaded meaning that the dynamic of public discourse has weighted it with.
A similarly comparable example might be the word 'bitch'. We all know well enough what a dictionary might offer, so I will bore nobody with particulars. But do you really think that will accurately reflect the meaning intended by a twenty-something African American girl seated with five girlfriends at a table in a bar, who says with a half-crocked smile, "Yo! I'm just hangin', chillin' wit' my bitches..."?
I don't think so, and I do not think "Squishy Knickers" was being so high-minded either.
A.A.C.