"There's two things I can't stand: racism, and the Japanese"
Kellamity
joined 2 years ago
Where do many of these students come from, who are they, how do they get into Harvard, or even our country - and why is there so much HATE?
The Harvard Corporation is run by strongly left-leaning Obama political appointee Penny Pritzker, a Democrat Operative, who is catastrophic
What a completely normal and professional letter
It is how you use it, even if you don't mean to.
If you use 'gay' as an insult, that doesn't become OK if you only say it to straight people. It's still some massive drive by homophobia.
The reason to stop using this as an insult isn't to protect the people you're insulting, it's to protect a third group which has a dark history with the word
But language changes and evolves, and words get imbued with additional meanings over time through a bunch of complicated factors and contexts.
Just because 'idiot' and 'retard' were used similarly once, doesn't mean they're the same now
We don't need to fully understand the process in which the word has changed to know that lots of people find it particularly insulting, degrading and oppressive, and to decide to stop using it because of this
I think that's a very narrow view of religion though, albeit one that is true of a lot and I agree is toxic. Ironically since you're a UK person, it's a type of religion I associate with the US and the American right (though I also know through friends growing up that it can be fairly common in some Muslim and Hindi groups)
I think a lot of times religion is used as a kind of cultural link: 'this is why we have these traditions, this is a moral we have that we can explain with this story' etc. And with that context I think it can be fine, even helpful to raise someone within a religious tradition
I guess I broadly agree with you mostly, but I would say that religion can be coherent with critical thinking and open-mindedness: it's cultural as much as its about fundamental belief
(and when it is about fundamental belief then yeah it's often awful)
That is a very specific usage: 'The Government' as a proposer of law, Parliament as approvers. Outside of a PPE course it isn't how the term is used and I think you know this.
In day to day use the government (small g) can be talked about as comprising anyone involved in governance, from the PM down to local councillors, depending on context
Calling people out on this based on a technicality is like correcting people when they say 'speed' instead of 'velocity', and it's super irrelevant in a thread about MPs acting in a political capacity
You seem to be confused. The phrase 'government official' refers to anyone acting on behalf of the government, including backbenchers. This could even include unelected aides, spokespeople or some civil servants.
You're thinking of the cabinet. You do not have to be in the cabinet to be a 'government official'.
As a fellow brit, these Americans correcting you are right.
I'm no expert but Wikipedia says 15m is wounding range? I'm just wondering cos I don't know if you can throw a grenade more than 50m