Meanderthal: Modern Profanity

I used to use "communist" as a swear word. Generally it was preceded by the amplifier "fucking".

It started back when I was in the USN. It was the holiday season and the USS Mitscher, DDG-35 was pulled off of a scheduled long port visit in Palma Majorca (as nice of a port of call as there is on the Med.) and sent to the middle of the Med because of an atypical gathering of Soviet Navy ships which we were to closely observe(read: spy on). I was on duty in the SupRad(if I have to explain it you will not understand it any better than you do now) and a one of the "I" branchers observed aloud "If it wasn't for the "fucking communists", we could be sitting in port enjoying ourselves". It stuck.

From then on, everything bad in our lives was communist. Girlfriend dump you or even just make unreasonable demands? Fucking communist bitch. Car have a mechanical malfunction? Fucking communist piece of shit. What, you want me to work extra instead of going to the bar? You rotten communist SOB.

Most everyone who was in the compartment at the time the statement was made picked up the habit to some degree. I was probably the worst with it. I was bad enough with it that years later when I got out of the Navy, I took the habit home with me. I moved back in with Mom and my baby sister. I tried to eliminate the expletives when around them but the habit of calling every negative thing or experience "communist" stayed. I would have never even noticed how much I said it, hell, I would have sworn that I didn't say it that much except that eventually, my baby sister picked up the habit. She was 10 or so when I got out of the Navy and I did a lot of the taking her to school and picking her up and taking her to extracurricular activities and hanging out with her in general. So yea, I said it enough that someone who had never been on a warship or even thought about traveling to the Mediterranean, someone with no reason for even a gross understanding of the difference in their governmental system and ours, was calling bad stuff "communist".

I did know a little about that system. I have known pleasant folks who lived under that system as well as folks whose general presence I enjoyed that argued that the communist system was superior. Basically I knew good people that were communist and I certainly knew assholes that were capitalists. I still do. Intellectually, I knew that my habit was dishonest and unfair. I also knew that cigarettes were bad for you and that saving money was a smart thing to do. Why yes, I did smoke and spend. Thank you for asking.

I don't know if it was hearing my baby sister use the term that way or if it was something else but my usage of the term decreased. It still slips out from time to time but with no conscious effort on my part it has largely been replaced.

I didn't notice my usage of the new term until it was already well ensconced. I was watching a movie one day and the bad guy in the movie performed a particularly heinous act and I said aloud, (I was alone at the time) "fucking republicans".

Yes, "republican" has replaced "communist" when I envision the source of evil. Republican is what causes computer malfunctions. The flu virus or most anything that sends you to the crapper ten times in a day is republican. Having a day where everything you attempt goes horribly awry? Oh, you're having a republican kind of day.

Like communists, I have friends who are republican (although I try to think of them as conservatives because that doesn't quite carry the negative connotations in my mind). Some of them truly seem to be salt-of-the-earth kind of people. And sure, there are democrats that it pains me to be in the same room with. Intellectually, I know that every republican can't possibly be the physical expression of the Satan of Judeo/Christian lore. Some of them I even know their parents so they aren't really demon spawn. Intellectually, I know that. Empirically, I have seen and experienced acts of kindness that they have performed. But if all I know of someone, if what I first know of them, is that they are republican, then they are the swear word republican. They are the source of evil and pain. They are uncaring, hedonistic, amoral entities who will do anything for personal or political gain. They have neither nation nor religion nor creed except as it suits the purposes of the acquisition of wealth and/or power. Viscerally, that is how I feel. Until I can move them into the conservative column, that is who they are.

I'm pretty sure my attitude isn't a healthy one. Effective and useful political discourse is unlikely when one party is sure the other is evil incarnate.

Intellectually, I know that.

CAFKIA