The Diversity Of The Word...

Ladies and gentlemen, the lamest fucking kid on the planet:

A 17-year-old student from South Pasadena High School in California took Vice President Joe Biden to task Friday for his use of an un-choice word this week whispered into the ear of President Barack Obama.

"This is a huge deal," McKay Hatch told reporters. "Many kids and adults all over the world look up to Vice President Biden as a role model. He needs to be a good role model for kids and use clean and appropriate language."

Hatch was referring to Biden's "This is a big f............ deal" sotto-voce remark Tuesday to his boss during the signing of the health care bill that was picked up by microphones and amplified around the world.

Hatch called on Biden to apologize, then packed a "No Cussing Club" T-shirt, wrist bands and penalty jar into a box and carried it to the local post office, cameras documenting his every move and utterance. His goal: "to remind him to use good language."

Hatch said he was not opposed to Biden exercising his First Amendment rights. "He has the freedom of speech to say what he wants, but he can't choose the consequences of what he says," the student said. "We need as a country to get back to the basic values and come together and treat people with civility."

Look, I'm not saying that you're lame if you don't curse or use the word "fuck" on a regular basis but if you're seventeen years old and you spend a significant amount of time writing letters to public officials about curse words I'm sorry but you're fucking lame. Obviously Biden wouldn't have said what he did if he had known that it was going to be picked up by an open microphone but since he did my response to this kid is the same one I have concerning tobacco, alcohol, drugs, gambling and sex: That's only for grown ups! Discussion over.

The fact that this kid is trying to tell one adult that he can't say the word "fuck" to another adult without being civil is as tone deaf as every right-wing talking head and pundit I've heard complaining lately about the supposed double standard for behaviour between Republicans and Democrats over the juxtaposing quotes at the top of this post. Words in and of themselves are not uncivil, it's the context within which they're used that can make them so. Saying that something is "a big fucking deal" and telling someone to "go fuck themselves" are two very different usages of a versatile word and the word "fuck" is extremely versatile:


It's usage can be benign or nefarious, playful or hateful, instructive or stupid, but the real stupidity happens when supposedly intelligent people can't recognize these distinctions because they've relegated such a diverse word to the catch-all category of "bad". That's how five-year-olds view the world. One would hope that by seventeen Hatch would have the ability to see things in finer shades of grey. So don't be surprised if you hear this kid's name sometime down the road as part of a campaign to censor what you and other adults can watch on television. It's all part and parcel of the same world view that consenting adults must be saved from all of the things that other adults don't like or agree with for our own good, and it's fucking lame.