Tomorrow, it's for Sarah Maria.

[Inverted Things]

The mocking of that picture wasn't so much for her crying but the general weirdness/creepiness of it. Like how the rest of the family looks, how they are dressed, and the fact that she's obviously dressed the same way as the doll she's holding.

Ah, ok, I understand. Real men make fun of little girls for their dresses and dolls. Winning argument.

You're goddamn right real men make fun of little girls regarding their dresses and dolls.  See, there's this company called American Girl.  Really sick stuff... they've built an entire store devoted to pampering their admittedly high class dolls.  You buy a doll, then you can buy matching dresses, then you can get your doll's hair styled in the store.  Or the doll's nails done.  Or other things.

Like I say, sick stuff.  Kind of makes my blood boil a bit.  Why do I care?  Well... My mother is an avid connoisseur of their products.  Ditto for my aunt and 10-year-old cousin.  Do you think I miss a chance to make fun of any of them for their pampering of a plastic doll?  Of course not.  The 10-year-old certainly gets her share.

Further, to my dismay, my four-year-old is also a fan of the franchise.  Do I give her a pass because of her age?  Hell no!  She gets the worst comments of the bunch, and every last one of them is thoroughly deserved.

Yes, Phil, real men do make fun of little girls and their dolls.  Sorry you had to find out this way.

[Adam Griffin]

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

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"Dehumanizing"

"Tens of millions"

Which part of that is hyperbolic?

[CaDan]

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All of it.

[SPQR]

What's the big deal??
It's a funny picture,that's it...

[ZuWo]

The picture looks somewhat bizarre, but making fun of it is over the top. Attack Santorum on the ground of his views if you like, but don't create or rejoice in images that say "You helped to make Rick Santorum's family cry". That's disgusting.

[Keystone Phil]

What's the big deal??
It's a funny picture,that's it...

How about maliciously posting it over and over and laughing at a little girl?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

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All of it.

I think you're lowballing the number of queer people in the country, and I know you're lowballing how damaging, intentionally or not, comments like Santorum's in the past have been to them individually and as a group.

[memphis]

The extent of the devastating defeat that Santorum experienced was known since the first results started coming in.

Surely these children must have been very upset well before being taken out onto the stage into the public eye.  Knowing this, Santorum and his wife should have left the kids backstage and gone out to face the public themselves, just the two of them, not exposing their upset children to public scrutiny.

But then you couldn't have a Sarah Maria thread. Which is what Santorum needs. Politicians sacrifice their family to appease voters every day. Santorum is hardly alone.  But yeah, "vote for candidate x because he has a little girl" is a walking argument against democracy.

[stegosaurus]

Perhaps I am just a man of simple tastes, but I don't see anything humorous about a picture of a sullen, disappointed family.

[Keystone Phil]

The extent of the devastating defeat that Santorum experienced was known since the first results started coming in.

Surely these children must have been very upset well before being taken out onto the stage into the public eye.  Knowing this, Santorum and his wife should have left the kids backstage and gone out to face the public themselves, just the two of them, not exposing their upset children to public scrutiny.

But then you couldn't have a Sarah Maria thread. Which is what Santorum needs. Politicians sacrifice their family to appease voters every day. Santorum is hardly alone.  But yeah, "vote for candidate x because he has a little girl" is a walking argument against democracy.

No one made that argument here.

[Averroës Nix]

Santorum carts his kids around like political props. They don't just appear with him on-stage; they've been in campaign ads, they feature prominently in his literature and speeches. Santorum has made his family one of the key selling points of his campaigns, highlighting them at every opportunity.

So it's dishonest to pretend that this is really a case in which people are making fun a child. They aren't. They're making fun of the image that Santorum has created out of his family. They're making fun of what his wife and children symbolize.

Also, though I think it's besides the point in this case, this discussion has so far not acknowledged that offensiveness doesn't preclude hilarity.

[TheGlobalizer]

Santorum carts his kids around like political props. They don't just appear with him on-stage; they've been in campaign ads, they feature prominently in his literature and speeches. Santorum has made his family one of the key selling points of his campaigns, highlighting them at every opportunity.

So it's dishonest to pretend that this is really a case in which people are making fun a child. They aren't. They're making fun of the image that Santorum has created out of his family. They're making fun of what his wife and children symbolize.

Also, though I think it's besides the point in this case, this discussion has so far not acknowledged that offensiveness doesn't preclude hilarity.

[Keystone Phil]

So it's dishonest to pretend that this is really a case in which people are making fun a child. They aren't. They're making fun of the image that Santorum has created out of his family. They're making fun of what his wife and children symbolize.

LOL

Yeah, I have to admit: the patheticness of these excuses, the rationalizing is pretty funny. People are laughing at the "symbol" of his family. Yes. Sure. Definitely. I'm sure you typed that with a straight face.

[Landslide Lyndon]

Stop whining Phil. You've become worse than Palin.

[Holmes]

sh**t happens on the internet. Stop obsessing over a little girl.

[Keystone Phil]

This thread only confirms the classlessness and cowardice of far too many people. That's ok though. What goes around, comes around.

[TheGlobalizer]

sh**t happens on the internet. Stop obsessing over a little girl.

[CaDan]

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Wrong. The very own numbers the homosexual activists used when forced to be truthful in court don't support "tens of millions."

Again, you haven't a leg to stand on.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

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Wrong. The very own numbers the homosexual activists used when forced to be truthful in court don't support "tens of millions."

Again, you haven't a leg to stand on.

Even, say, three to five per cent of the population for anything other than a hundred per cent heteronormative straight, which is a conservative estimate (conservative estimates of these things are the ones that you generally want to use in court but they're not always the most accurate, which is what makes them categorizable as 'conservative'), gives us ten to sixteen or seventeen million. That might not be 'tens of millions' by your definition but it's obviously over ten million, so it comes down to whether or not real numbers between 1 and 2 count as admitting of inflectional affixes to indicate a plural.

Of course, this is irrelevant to the wider problem, which is: Why exactly is it so important to you and people like you to leap to the defense of those* who build careers off of dehumanizing and attacking the existences of any people, tens of millions or otherwise?

The very own evidence anti-LGBT activists use when forced to be truthful in courts don't support state discrimination on the basis of gender, so I'm not sure I'm the one lacking a leg to stand on here.

*even though I understand probably better than most on the left, or in the center for that matter, where Rick Santorum is coming from, I very strongly do NOT agree with him.

[TJ in Oregon]

Why exactly is it so important to you and people like you to leap to the defense of those who build careers off of dehumanizing and attacking the existences of any people, tens of millions or otherwise?

I'm sorry but this sentence applies waaaayyyy more to the left and abortion than it does to the right and gay marriage. Dehumanization? Attack the existence? The left literally argues that fetuses are not people. Tens of millions? Anyone checked some statistics on that recently?

[/comment from the peanut galley]

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Why exactly is it so important to you and people like you to leap to the defense of those who build careers off of dehumanizing and attacking the existences of any people, tens of millions or otherwise?

I'm sorry but this sentence applies waaaayyyy more to the left and abortion than it does to the right and gay marriage. Dehumanization? Attack the existence? The left literally argues that fetuses are not people. Tens of millions? Anyone checked some statistics on that recently?

[/comment from the peanut galley]

Oh, I agree, some of the pro-legal-abortion rhetoric is appalling. Even to some other pro-legal-abortion people, actually. I'm using 'existence' in a somewhat philosophical (Levinasian) sense, though (I was just reading an essay on the life of Yoshiya Nobuko, a lesbian Japanese author in the first half of the twentieth century who's interesting to me in part because of her strong but fraught and complicated relationship with her cradle Christianity throughout her life), so it was this sort of thing that my mind was on in using that phrase.

[Fuzzybigfoot]

Phil, don't you have something better to do with your time than get into nasty arguements like this?  Dispite our political differences, you seem like a pretty capable guy.  Don't you chair the Republican orginization for your county or something?  Post some interesting election numbers/maps of it or something, since this is an election forum after all.  You're better than this. 

[Lincoln Republican]

This thread only confirms the classlessness and cowardice of far too many people. That's ok though. What goes around, comes around.

Phil

Get off your high horse.
Step away from your podium of self righteousness.
Drop your feigned holier than thou attitude.
Stop judging.

Nobody in their right mind picks on children.  Certainly not me, never have, never will, and I do not believe most members of this forum would either.

If anyone does, they should be taken to task.

And above all

STOP TROLLING!

I believe your intent is simply to evoke reactions from others.  Very annoying.

[TheGlobalizer]

Yeah, I have to say, this is a rather contemptible thread, with a ridiculously cloying title.  It gives me that same need-to-vomit feeling that I get when a Hallmark Family Movie commercial comes on the TV.