this post was submitted on 25 Nov 2025
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I still have such dissonance about this. I want to say "Look at this idiot" and point out something unintelligent that an objectively evil person does. But because intelligence is an inherited trait, we can only use negative language when referring to a person for evil that they do by choice? Or something? So, evil people bumbling can only be mocked for the evil intent and not for their inability to be evil with skill and intelligence?
I dunno. Trump is a numpty and if that offends the numps or whatever group that term was originally a slur for then I apologize.
edit: to be clear, the r word seems objectively shitty to use and I don't. I just have yet to find an objective litmus test for where the line is between that and "silly" cuz I swear there's always someone there to explain the etymology of "silly" and how it's origins were shitty in some way
The ableism is coming from inside the house - it's not a bad thing to be intellectually disabled. The problem with Trump is not that he's stupid, it's that he's a selfish, careless, thoughtless, cruel, ignorant asshole.
Using words like "stupid" as an insult implies that all people lacking in intellect or wisdom are also bad people.
Right. This is what I was talking about. I (and I suspect others) oftentimes want to name call a person and not only point out their evil but also point out their incompetence and inability. Both of which usually have some intelligence component.
It seems reasonable to berate an evil person when they can't even be evil competently.
But we can't (or shouldn't) because it indirectly (or directly) makes fun of people who are perfectly good people who are unintelligent.
Again. I get it. Probably just showing my bias and yet another fuckin thing to unlearn.
I'm guessing it's not just cognitive abilities either? "Tripped over his own dick" is offense to folks with motor control problems. Etc etc.
Therefore the only thing you can make fun of is a person's evilness. Not their incompetence (because all incompetence is presumed to be from natural causes that aren't their fault)
You absolutely can ridicule someone's lack of competence, for sure, because competence isn't an inherent trait. Intelligence and competence aren't really causally linked. Sure, someone with an intellectual disability might not be the world's greatest chess player, for example, but for most people with an intellectual disability, with more than an average amount of practice, they can beat an average player.
I think "tripped over his own dick" is fine, that doesn't suggest to me "he's bad because he has mobility issues", it's more like carelessness.
Remember as well that you don't need to be perfect, nobody is acting or expecting that. All we can all do is try our best and if we hurt people, take accountability and apologise to them. No one always gets it right and it's okay to get it wrong, so long as you're not being stubborn and refusing to change because you don't care about the feelings of others, people will be fine with it!