482
Kash Patel ordered FBI agents to respond to X posts calling him a ‘retard’
(www.telegraph.co.uk)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 12 Sep 2026
482 points (99.2% liked)
politics
31142 readers
2299 users here now
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles. Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to US politics and contain quality and original content. Social Media adjacent hosts like Substack are allowed, but ONLY if they tie back to a company/subsidiary. No personal or friend group blogs and no self-promotion. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and re-hosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing other users of being bots or paid actors.
- No memes, trolling, misinformation, or low-effort posts/comments (including reposts). If you see posts like this that anger you, do not engage. Report, block, and live a happier life than they do. Any slap-fight is subject to comment removals. Fights full of rule violations will result in temporary bans to cool off.
- No manipulating votes via bots or alt accounts; this will result in permanent bans. Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in an account ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be permanently banned.
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules and use critical thinking when reading, posting, and commenting. Users that repeatedly have comments or posts removed, weaponize reports, or violate the code of conduct, will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users. The reason(s) behind moderator action(s) are publicly available through the Modlog.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
Just because others use ableist slurs, it doesn't mean you have to.
Counterpoint: I'll use whatever accurate term I want to describe this googly eyed fascist dipshit cuck I want in real life and this type of finger wagging is detrimental in the long run. I don't love the word but if you've ever called someone lame or an idiot, you've also used ableist slurs. Don't be an asshole in general but this isn't as big a deal to most people in the meatspace and it's mostly fine.
These cunts literally want to disassemble what remains of our democracy and put certain groups in camps, its fine if somebody calls them something that actually hurts their feelings. Because calling them Nazis certainly doesn't.
Cuck is a slur, you're banned.
The problem is you're not hurting the ones you want to, and you are hurting people - real poeple - who do not deserve it. It's like bombing a wedding or school when you want to bomb the terrorists.
And do we need to discuss how language works? "Colored" used to be the preferred term for people who are Black - the NAACP still has the term in their name from that time. But try calling someone that. In the same way, many of the people who are "retarted" still have the medical diagnosis of "mental retardation". It doesn't make the word any less offensive in the same way that calling someone of colour "Colored" is. That's just how language works. The words you mentioned have passed into common usage.
So at the VERY BEST, your argument is "I should be able to use offensive and hurtful words because they might become non-offensive in the future" while causing actural, real harm now, and not even accomplishing the goal you want to accomplish anyway.
As far as how to rescue our country, here are some brief thoughts:
The best way, but one of the hardest, is to try and break through the relentless fascist propaganda and change the minds of those who do actually understand progressive ideas - when it affects them personally. Countless times we hear of them suddenly realizing that abortion is a right when THEIR family needs one, that social safety nets are important when THEIR family needs them. It's difficult to break through, but this would be the best way if we could.
The second best way is to do the same for all those who have bought into the "both sides" and "politics doesn't matter" and don't vote, and get them to vote blue. Even with the current state of the Democratic party with its large establishment contingent that are beholden to the oligarchs like the Republicans all are, we'd see SOME progress with a Democratic super-majority
Encouraging progressive politics. It seems that the DSA is currently becoming a center of power and interest with this idea - enough people are becoming comfortable with the idea of democratic socialism (as opposed to Socialism) that there's some progress possible here, so we should support that - because the time for progressive politics is the primaries and before that - in the general, it is time for "vote blue no matter who" because the progressive battle might've already been lost, but red vs blue is still worth fighting.
The least lovely way for change is by enough people having enough and standing up and taking back our government. This requires MUCH risk. People WILL die almost certainly, and it might not work. But what you NEED for that is enough people out on the streets shutting everything down that action must happen - and you need a plan - and you need people ready to go take over. And to get there, you need massive protests. And to get massive protesets, you need sustained and growing protests. And to get there, you need organization and you need people getting other people to get out and protest, and for that you need people convincing others that it's something worth our time to do, and to convince others that we CAN make a change and get progressive politics/laws in place. So ti's a big process. Oh, and most likely, you need some sort of spark for the fire - once everyone is out on the streets, ideally something happens that causes people to lose their shit and stand up and take over.
So there's all these things we need to be working on, and none of them involve using ableist slurs that don't help.