Jack, you're certainly one smart guy, being able to read obvious intentions in cyberspace. And Jim even posed a QUESTION as to whether it would offend anyone. All you know for sure, Jack, is that it offended you.
Well, here's a little quotation on the subject of words and mutual understanding. Same source as my previous one (Voltaire), only this one is straight from "The New Dictionary of French Quotations". (I was unable to find the one referred to at the end of Jake's Google search.)
"Volumes would be necessary, not only to begin to clarify things, but to begin to reach agreement. It would be necessary to know what clear idea one attaches to each word one utters. But even that isn't enough: it would be necessary to know what idea each word evokes in the mind of the opposing party."
That's why, IMO, the whole "hate speech/hate crime" thing is so silly. A black man assaults a white, or vice versa. Did it have anything to do with race hatred? How about just the wrong person in the wrong place at the wrong time? How does anyone know . . . unless there is hard evidence that the speech or crime in question was motivated by hatred? Well, as for me, I did not hear Jim say that he hates all Democrats. But you may ASS-U-ME that to be true, if you wish. As for me, I shall heed the words of Voltaire, and not assume that the "clear" meaning of Jim's tag line in my mind is the same as it is in Jim's mind.
And as for inadvertent assistance to any cause . . . Jack, you should have heard the NPR "Talk of the Nation" program a few years back, when the topic was the now-accessible files of the Soviet KGB and that agency's influence over the American Communist Party. Several old academics called in and protested, "Well, I WAS a Communist--but I was no Soviet agent!" Nope, just a dupe. And it's equally possible to be a dupe of the terroists--as in perhaps by donating money to an innocent-sounding Muslim charity which turns out to have somewhat nefarious connections. Oh, but we haven't heard of any of those . . . have we???
But I certainly hate it that Jim's suggested tag line has stifled debate here!
